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I didn't study classical, but I was watching some YouTube channel by someone with graduate degree in classical. He offhand mentioned that many of the "compositi

I didn't study classical, but I was watching some YouTube channel by someone with graduate degree in classical. He offhand mentioned that many of the "compositions" of guys like Chopin were actually improvisations that were later transcribed. I've heard similar tales of Bach, especially his ability to improvise complex fugues on the spot as a sort of party trick. I just mean to say, I don't think there is a clear divide between a classical mentality for composition and a modern mentality. It is just we study classical hundreds of years after the fact and that academization of the music has lent a particular view to it. If we study metal in a hundred years the same way we study classical (or jazz) it may seem just as rigid.

Slow_Hand 2y ago
I’m not sure how useful that framing is because improvisation is effectively composition in real time. By writing down an impromptu or something that was played on the spot it becomes composition when it’s crystallized in this way. Chopin predates audio recording, so it’s not as if someone recorded his performance and then transcribed it like people do today with jazz solos. I’m assuming that Chopin was the one to transcribe and publish after he had a good idea because few would have the recall to do so accurately. Sometimes compositions are generated spontaneously by the composer (one pass) and sometimes they require extensive labor and refinement. It’s not to say that classical music doesn’t also include improvisation, and I agree that there’s not a clear divide between classical mentality and modern sensibilties. Although today, the composition (if not scored) ends up taking it’s final form as an audio recording. More and more the composition exists untranscribed in the DAW session.
- zoogeny 2y ago
  What I'm getting at is that the literate quality of the music as a defining principle (or differentiator) is lessened if the actual practice was improvisation that preceded it being written down. If a composer improvised the music first and wrote it down second, then it is hard to claim that his writing it down was a significant differentiator in it's composition. This is compared to modern music that is improvised, developed than recorded (and often not written down). The argument against my point would be, but the people learning the music (i.e. studying it) later started with the written music and went from there. And that is a differentiator for their own development as composers. That would be compared to modern musicians studying modern pop music where they start with a recording and go from there. My point is that the differentiation is in the contemporary study of music and less in the method of composition.
zozbot234 2y ago
You're right that improvisation was historically very relevant in classical music and that this tradition was mostly lost starting somewhere in the mid-to-late 19th century as the view on how pieces should be performed became a lot more rigid. It still survives in places, such as among organists, and there are many attempts to revive it. But the fact that it is a matter of academic scholarship and study is not that closely related: there are lots of period-contemporary treatises and 'method' books that discuss exactly how pieces should be improvised and/or performed, often in great detail and depth. You can't possibly have that unless people are very much familiar with the practice of writing their music down on paper. That's what 'literate' means basically, it really is as simple as that. It's also something that other music traditions tend to not focus on to anything near the same extent.
- zoogeny 2y ago
  I don't see much difference in that compared to now. I mean, do a search on Jazz composition/improvisation and you are bound to find numerous descriptions of the Barry Harris approach (among others). There is a large existing cannon of methods for jazz improvisation that informs all students of the form. The same is true, just less formal in pop song writing. If you watch enough producer videos for pop and commercial (ads, tv, movies) you will find there is a set of methods for those genres. As I explained in another response, I see the literate nature of classical music as related more to the transmission of knowledge from master to novice and much less in the process of composition. In the past, music was written down for study. Today music is recorded and studied directly. I have no doubt this has consequences on the student, but I don't think it has as much consequence on the process of composition itself.
  - zozbot234 2y ago
    I'm not sure how "a set of methods" talked about by producers of commercial music can possibly be conflated with a continued tradition of ongoing scholarship and study that dates back some 500 years or more. Obviously anyone who creates music has some idea in her mind of how she does this, but it makes a rather massive difference whether actual in-depth scholarship is involved or not. It's very hard to do real study and scholarship without writing music down at some point, and being able to listen to a recorded track is not really the same thing. The Barry Harris approach to jazz BTW is very much informed by what we know about the way classical improvisation worked, so even though it's transmitted by video there is in fact a link to the scholarly tradition. (The style is of course different, so these aren't quite the same thing! But not that far either.)

Slow_Hand 2y ago

I’m not sure how useful that framing is because improvisation is effectively composition in real time. By writing down an impromptu or something that was played on the spot it becomes composition when it’s crystallized in this way. Chopin predates audio recording, so it’s not as if someone recorded his performance and then transcribed it like people do today with jazz solos. I’m assuming that Chopin was the one to transcribe and publish after he had a good idea because few would have the recall to do so accurately. Sometimes compositions are generated spontaneously by the composer (one pass) and sometimes they require extensive labor and refinement. It’s not to say that classical music doesn’t also include improvisation, and I agree that there’s not a clear divide between classical mentality and modern sensibilties. Although today, the composition (if not scored) ends up taking it’s final form as an audio recording. More and more the composition exists untranscribed in the DAW session.

zoogeny 2y ago
What I'm getting at is that the literate quality of the music as a defining principle (or differentiator) is lessened if the actual practice was improvisation that preceded it being written down. If a composer improvised the music first and wrote it down second, then it is hard to claim that his writing it down was a significant differentiator in it's composition. This is compared to modern music that is improvised, developed than recorded (and often not written down). The argument against my point would be, but the people learning the music (i.e. studying it) later started with the written music and went from there. And that is a differentiator for their own development as composers. That would be compared to modern musicians studying modern pop music where they start with a recording and go from there. My point is that the differentiation is in the contemporary study of music and less in the method of composition.

zozbot234 2y ago

You're right that improvisation was historically very relevant in classical music and that this tradition was mostly lost starting somewhere in the mid-to-late 19th century as the view on how pieces should be performed became a lot more rigid. It still survives in places, such as among organists, and there are many attempts to revive it. But the fact that it is a matter of academic scholarship and study is not that closely related: there are lots of period-contemporary treatises and 'method' books that discuss exactly how pieces should be improvised and/or performed, often in great detail and depth. You can't possibly have that unless people are very much familiar with the practice of writing their music down on paper. That's what 'literate' means basically, it really is as simple as that. It's also something that other music traditions tend to not focus on to anything near the same extent.

zoogeny 2y ago
I don't see much difference in that compared to now. I mean, do a search on Jazz composition/improvisation and you are bound to find numerous descriptions of the Barry Harris approach (among others). There is a large existing cannon of methods for jazz improvisation that informs all students of the form. The same is true, just less formal in pop song writing. If you watch enough producer videos for pop and commercial (ads, tv, movies) you will find there is a set of methods for those genres. As I explained in another response, I see the literate nature of classical music as related more to the transmission of knowledge from master to novice and much less in the process of composition. In the past, music was written down for study. Today music is recorded and studied directly. I have no doubt this has consequences on the student, but I don't think it has as much consequence on the process of composition itself.
- zozbot234 2y ago
  I'm not sure how "a set of methods" talked about by producers of commercial music can possibly be conflated with a continued tradition of ongoing scholarship and study that dates back some 500 years or more. Obviously anyone who creates music has some idea in her mind of how she does this, but it makes a rather massive difference whether actual in-depth scholarship is involved or not. It's very hard to do real study and scholarship without writing music down at some point, and being able to listen to a recorded track is not really the same thing. The Barry Harris approach to jazz BTW is very much informed by what we know about the way classical improvisation worked, so even though it's transmitted by video there is in fact a link to the scholarly tradition. (The style is of course different, so these aren't quite the same thing! But not that far either.)