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If you consider Cage, Stockhausen and Glass part of the western classical music tradition, then I think we should consider composers like Nils Frahm, Ólafur Ar

If you consider Cage, Stockhausen and Glass part of the western classical music tradition, then I think we should consider composers like Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, Richard Skelton and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith part of that continuum. There are people making interesting, innovative music that isn't academic or needlessly avant garde, that I think can appeal to everyone.

gnulinux 3y ago
> needlessly avant garde I'm sorry to say this but there is no such thing as "needlessly avant garde" in Western classical music tradition imho. WCM is about an artist finding his own sound, finding a unique musical language that puts them in the continuum all the way from Bach to him. If your music is not avant garde, it may be great music, but it's not going to be good WCM music. This is just my humble opinion. I almost exclusively listen to contemporary WCM these days, and the way I engage with WCM is different than the way I engage with other genres of music. Put it as film analogy, the goal is not to make the best horror movie, the best drama, the best scifi; the goal is to make the most creative/innovative/novel/personal/weird movie that happens to be horror, that happens to be drama, that happens to be scifi. At least that's how I enjoy WCM. Everybody experiences music differently, which is what makes it one of the most beautiful human phenomena. So in short, the more avant garde the better. Note that Schoenberg's music is already grandpa's grandpa music. We want innovation that goes well well beyond Schoenberg. I would consider 12 tone row music ancient at this point, not even remotely avant garde/experimental.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  I find it really weird when people just run with this misconception that western literate music somehow started with Bach, as if what people were playing before was something different and not really music. One can clearly hear continuity between late Renaissance and early Baroque style (17th c.) and even how the secular music of the later Middle Ages (the sources of which are sadly a bit too obscure, hence why it's not often performed even as 'early' music) was carried over into the early Renaissance. Bach's style was highly individual, blending highly developed structures and forms of earlier Renaissance music with the fully developed tonality of the later Baroque and the earliest elements of 18th c. ("galant, classical") style.
  - gnulinux 3y ago
    It was just a shorthand. Of course everybody knows it didn't start with Bach, duh. He is a very central figure though, and any work you'll put into an artistic tradition will inevitably be compared to the greats of the tradition.
- squidsoup 3y ago
  Most listeners are more interested in music conveying emotion, than novelty. If novelty is all WCM has to offer, it is not surprising that it has a dwindling audience.

gnulinux 3y ago

> needlessly avant garde I'm sorry to say this but there is no such thing as "needlessly avant garde" in Western classical music tradition imho. WCM is about an artist finding his own sound, finding a unique musical language that puts them in the continuum all the way from Bach to him. If your music is not avant garde, it may be great music, but it's not going to be good WCM music. This is just my humble opinion. I almost exclusively listen to contemporary WCM these days, and the way I engage with WCM is different than the way I engage with other genres of music. Put it as film analogy, the goal is not to make the best horror movie, the best drama, the best scifi; the goal is to make the most creative/innovative/novel/personal/weird movie that happens to be horror, that happens to be drama, that happens to be scifi. At least that's how I enjoy WCM. Everybody experiences music differently, which is what makes it one of the most beautiful human phenomena. So in short, the more avant garde the better. Note that Schoenberg's music is already grandpa's grandpa music. We want innovation that goes well well beyond Schoenberg. I would consider 12 tone row music ancient at this point, not even remotely avant garde/experimental.

zozbot234 3y ago
I find it really weird when people just run with this misconception that western literate music somehow started with Bach, as if what people were playing before was something different and not really music. One can clearly hear continuity between late Renaissance and early Baroque style (17th c.) and even how the secular music of the later Middle Ages (the sources of which are sadly a bit too obscure, hence why it's not often performed even as 'early' music) was carried over into the early Renaissance. Bach's style was highly individual, blending highly developed structures and forms of earlier Renaissance music with the fully developed tonality of the later Baroque and the earliest elements of 18th c. ("galant, classical") style.
- gnulinux 3y ago
  It was just a shorthand. Of course everybody knows it didn't start with Bach, duh. He is a very central figure though, and any work you'll put into an artistic tradition will inevitably be compared to the greats of the tradition.
squidsoup 3y ago
Most listeners are more interested in music conveying emotion, than novelty. If novelty is all WCM has to offer, it is not surprising that it has a dwindling audience.