Are modern composers afraid of writing a real melody?
This evening on the way home from a dinner, my wife and I were listening to the radio, and we heard a live performance of the Corigliano Violin Concerto (The Red Violin) played by Joshua Bell. The orchestra was great, Bell was really fantastic, and the piece was very effective as far as orchestration, technique, drama, and (from what I could tell from one hearing) structure.
However, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that for at least a half century, classical composers (with rare exceptions) who are "modern" have been scared to death to write an honest-to-goodness melody. It's as if the minute something starts to sound like a real melody, they are honor bound to destroy it. A lot of these pieces sound like they were created by a superior brain but no heart. And it doesn't have to be a "romantic" melody, but at least something that is more than a series of notes used to construct an exercise in counterpoint and sonata form. Maybe The Red Violin Concerto can interest and fascinate an audience, but can it really MOVE an audience?
Anybody out there agree, or am I just old-fashioned? And if I'm right, what does that mean about violinists' repertoire? Is a singing instrument like the violin forever limited to the traditional literature because the newer pieces simply aren't melodic?
Replies (38)
And then people wonder why Classical music is
"dying". I don't think it is dying but there is a compelling argument to say that we're constantly looking to the past because the ordinary person isn't intersted in music as a science.
I'll be slightly controversial here and say that it's the schools fault. The problem is that today's prominent composers are writing in this non-melodic style, so when music departments look for composition lecturers, they only have these people to turn to. That in turn produces composers that write in that style. For example, the current composition lecturer at my uni is actually a sound artist rather than a composer.
Problem two - because schools don't have composers that write in a melodic style, composers that do write in a melodic style are either forced to write in the style that their lecturer teaches in (so that they can get a degree) or not do a composition degree. The problem here is that many publishing houses won't even accept scores from people without an undergraduate degree, with preference given to compositional degree holders (preferably with a post graduate degree). Therefore the only composers whos music you actually get to hear are those who had to adapt their style to be the non-melodic stuff that their lecturers taught. Those that actually aim for a melody are not able to get a look in either way, even if their music be very well written and have a beautiful melody.
Some options for composers: Keep writing, and publish your music yourself. Programs such as lilypond will engrave your music into a PDF file, which makes it easy to post your music to a website. Then all you need to do is to get people to listen and read your works. If someone has written a piece for violin, and make the score available on the web, they should come onto this website and say "Hey, nice piece here for violin, come listen, let me know if you play it" etc. It's getting that foot in the door to being well known, and then people might start to listen and realise that people don't want noise, they want a melody that they can remember.
Also, there is this "trend" of accepting these modern music. A friend of mine used to work in Boosey & Hawkes and he told me they used to attend the premier of works by composers under Boosey & Hawkes, like Unsuk Chin Violin Concerto etc. He said afterward, nearly everyone didn't have a clue what they were listening to, but they all clap their hands and discuss with each other about the work. However, there are these people, musicians and non-musicians, who admire these styles of writing.
I work in a music shop and occasionally there are customers asking for scores by Maxwell-Davies, Birtwistle, Rorem, Torke etc. and we always say we don't stock them, and then these customers are puzzled why we don't stock any. What's the point of stocking them if they only get sold once every few years?
Perhaps, this is like when Beethoven poured out his No.3 and part of the musical world was shocked by his style. Just like nowaday, a transition from the old to new style, but the shock is a lot deeper in degree.
Sander,
You pose an interesting question.
I do believe that like in any other art form, artists look to expand their means of expression, pallette of colors, shapes & forms etc.
Just as Eiffel Tower was shocking to all of Paris in 1889 as was the music and art of the imppressionists, with time they did become the hallmark of the French Culture.
Did they become such because they are shocking....no, I think they've become that because they were brilliant and bold new ideas that offered and shed new light in their respective idioms.
Personally, I find that John Corigliano's expressive means are very deep and moving. The theme from the Red Violin, however simple it is, he was able to mold it from a few notes and turn it into a profound and emotional statement.
It really boils down to a question of personal taste. Melody, phrase, structure, all those things combined differ from one century to the next.
The beauty is that we can appreciate the evolution of music. And it is through this journey, that we can relish how harmonic, melodic and structural forms have evolved.
There is much good music written today, check out Aaron jay Kernis as well as Adams...and so many more.
Do remember, that composers reflect the times they live in when they write "their take on reality" just as film makers do in their own genre. :)
I really love modern music and a lot of that stuff that "doesn't have a melody." I have played much of it and composed some myself.
Here's a modern piece with a melody and emotional, musical appeal: Over Thorns to Stars by Stephen Chatman written in 2003. http://www.drstephenchatman.com/Over_Thorns_to_Stars.mp3
Although it doesn't explain it all, I think twentieth century history is partly to blame. Two world wars, major depressions, and the threat of nuclear warfare, combined with constant technological change for better and for worse, certainly do not encourage melody-making. I think in many instances composers are trying to express the discord of modern life. To me, "music without a tune" seems to exemplify the times we live in. Scandalous as this sounds, Ravel's "La Valse" is much more relevant to me than anything Strauss ever wrote.
Once again, does that explain it all? Of course not. But the destruction present in the twentieth century can't have inspired composers to write "tunes."
Emily,
With all due respect, it is quite the contrary.
Misery and troubled times gave way to some of the greatest pieces written.
Beethoven (among many others)was also living through turbulent times as well. Just look back in history, and see what Europe was going through with the Napoleonic wars etc.
Artists yearn for emotional inspiration, and undoubtedly the hardest times of the 20th century produced some of the greatest works of the century. It is very much the same for literature.
And as stated before:
"It really boils down to a question of personal taste. Melody, phrase, structure, all those things combined differ from one century to the next.
The beauty is that we can appreciate the evolution of music. And it is through this journey, that we can relish how harmonic, melodic and structural forms have evolved.
Do remember, that composers reflect the times they live in when they write "their take on reality" just as film makers do in their own genre. :)
"
One of my favorite things about "modern" music is its sheer variety. As in the past, some composers are inclined to melody and some are not. This is not a value judgement. Beethoven wasn't much of a melodist, and Sarasate refused to play the Brahms concerto because of the lack of melody. What is the melody of La Mer?
In a simple answer to your answer, Mr. Marcus,
Yes.
I think there are probably a few too many sweeping statements in this thread so far. It is quite possible that music of the type Sander suggests is missing IS being written, but we just don't get to hear it.
I'd also suggest that those who think the world wars meant pieces without melody were no longer being written haven't listen to Vaughn Williams, etc.
The best analogy I can draw is that some of this discussion may be of the chicken and egg variety, i.e. cause and effect. Take pop music where there are huge numbers of very talented performers who NEVER get a record released. Instead we have to listen to the absolute no-talent dross performed by someone with grossly enlarged mammary glands or rolled up socks shoved down their pants. Talent, skill, ability often has very little to do with whether music gets performed or not. Marketing does.
But back to the subject in hand. Does Phillip Glass's Violin Concerto have a melody? Maybe not, but I still love it.
Of course, all that could be just my set of sweeping statements. :)
Neil
Neil,
Just to clarify the "sweeping statements" as you put it.........in regards to your statement: "I'd also suggest that those who think the world wars meant pieces without melody were no longer being written haven't listen to Vaughn Williams, etc."
If you are referring to what I have stated, I think you misunderstood the point I made. The point made said nothing of melodic content of the great music that was written in the troubled times of the past and including the 20th century. In fact there is plenty of great melodic content in Beethoven and he lived through troubled times. There is also plenty of melodic content in Prokofieff, Shostakovitch, Elgar and as you stated V. Williams etc.
If you perhaps misunderstood my point the first time around, here it is again: "And as stated before:
It really boils down to a question of personal taste. Melody, phrase, structure, all those things combined differ from one century to the next.
The beauty is that we can appreciate the evolution of music. And it is through this journey, that we can relish how harmonic, melodic and structural forms have evolved.
Do remember, that composers reflect the times they live in when they write "their take on reality" just as film makers do in their own genre. :)"
I also like P. Glass string quartets, especially #2 and #5 which we (the odeonquartet) play.
Let us not forget that music world is just as political as anything else. There are only few modern composers that get performed by big orchestras and it is almost impossible for a relative unknown to be heard.
Contemporary beatiful melodies do indeed exist! Thanks to people like Kremer and the Kronos we do get to hear some good stuff. For example, if you don't have this CD already, check out "the Caravan" by Kronos Quartet.
Lucia
Today's genius does NOT choose music for a career...Ives was able to do both but was not a popular composer during his time...Greed prevails.
I agree with your premise, but there is some contemporary music that is melodic. I'll contribute an example, and invite others reading this thread to also give examples of contemporary melodic "classical" music. An example is "Cafe Music" by Paul Schoenfield (composed in 1986), for piano trio. There's an excellent recording by the Eroica Trio, and I'd define the work as melodic in the sense of having tunes that actually can be hummed and stay on in your mind, playing away. (or maybe someone wants to switch this subject to a separate thread)
And on the other side, the good old days were not necessarily filled with melody, either. With contemporary compositions we lack the filter of time. Try a random work by Dittersdorf, for instance, or other forgotten "masters", forgotten for what usually turn out to be good reasons (lack of melody is one of them). So while composing styles do seem to have turned away from melody, things are probably not quite as bad as they seem. That said, give me Bach and Waller and Porter and . . .
Mozart.
Imagine yourself as a composer. If you are creating pop music, what are the odds of coming up with a great, original melody? Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney struck gold 30 or more years ago, but how many times have they in the years since--have they lost their talent? They're still trying as hard as ever.
If you are creating "art" music with melody your options are 1) revisiting a previous melodic style with a fresh, new twist or 2) creating a new style based on melody.
Neither course sounds easy to me.
Gennady,
I was actually agreeing with you. The statement I referred to about melodic pieces not being written because of the two world wars, etc was made by Emily Liz. :)
However, to be fair to Ms Liz, she didn't make a sweeping statement as such.
Now if someone will pass me the broom, I'll sweep my mess up.
Neil
Yeah, maybe they're trying to do something new having figured that everything else has been done under the sun
But I think you're genralising
Most modern composers should be capable of writing a good melody. When you study elementary harmony you are taught to look at melodies in a vertical fashon. When you study counterpoint you are taught to look at two different lines vertically AND linerally at the same time. And of course part of melody is a person's invention outside of all of this.
As musicians who are living at a time when the romantic era has recently given way to the modern, our ears are trained to romantic era music. Probably an earlier composer would find even romantic music at least somewhat dissonant and strange. Our perception of melody and harmony is subjective. Go listen to some Gagaku (if you can find some). It's Japanese court music that's very ancient, but despite its age, the melodies make no sense to our western ears.
Anyway, it seems to me that modern composers are trying to excape from the rigid tonal structure. It sounds...nasty to me a lot of the time, but they're trying to figure out a new way of understanding music. It's like a laboratory, not every experiment will create a fantastic result, but every one brings knowledge ^_^
Thank you all for your responses so far. I know this is one of those overgeneralized questions, but I think it's an important one. And I usually find on this website so many well-considered and articulate ideas with differing points of view, that it is refreshing, stimulating, and (for me) keeps my mind open to looking at things in different ways.
I don't know whether it's that composers can't write a melody, and certainly in every era the creative ones are often pushing the envelope. Certainly, Beethoven sounded almost dissonant to many of his contemporaries. And there is, of course, a different concept of melody in each generation and each society.
But you can almost hear in the writing of so much modern music that just as a melody gets started, they have to stop it in mid-song and modulate to something else. Is this really being creative? Or is it just the stereotyped conventions of writing music in the modern era, of making sure you AVOID a "traditional" melody? In other words, are they actually avoiding their creative muse rather than following it?
I think this even happens in more popular music. I've never been able to get very thrilled by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Anyway, thanks again. Keep it up.
Cordially, Sandy
In my opinion, the lack of modern melodic music isn't caused by people being unable to write it but rather because many composers feel the pressure to write something (radically?) different from that of Hadyn, Mozart, Beethoven, Shubert, Brahms (etc.). I think some portions of society &/or music critics are expecting or demanding something novel of composers in order to be recognized.
This "Search for Somthing New" is hopefully only in the midst of an evolution that will eventually develop into something meaningful to me. Although there are probably exceptions, most modern music seems to be more Sound Effects to me than music (the way I understand it). A minute or two might be interesting but to listen to an entire piece (or worse yet, evening) of it bores and frustrates me.
I think it all depends on who you include under the term "composer."
It often seems as if the whole idea of a "composer" with respect to "classical" music (more precisely acoustic orchestral music) has been over-run by the "avant-garde" or whatever the self-aware self-conscious fashionably outrageous crowd calls themselves these days.
I say that for me it all starts with the atonal business, the serialists etc in the '20s. very difficutl to listen to some of it. But some remarkable gems in there too, especially if you allow your brain to shift a bit. But you have to be in the mood.
There certainly is a lot of melodic composition going on with smaller groups of string players, some young, some not. Are they composers? Where do you draw the line between composer and performing artist? Sometimes it seems that the marxist division of labor has been far to successful in the orchestral world. A kid with a guitar doesn't make these distinctions, he just gets on with making music.:-) (Which is I thing the spirit of musical creativity--getting on with making music).
And speaking of marxism, interesting to think about musical scores. Shostakovitch reminds me of movie music...but if you look at where movie music came from, how it was shaped, it was Shostakovitch among others, who are in fact the foundations of that music. (BTW the marx part is merely to relate to S"s place of birth [SSR] not his political leanings).
Hi folks - 2 things here
1) I don't think Corigliano theme for The Red Violin is original. If you bought the Hubay Scenes 2 CD set from Hyperion by Hagai Shaham, you'd here in one of them the sequence that Corigliano uses in The Red Violin [which are the notes (D, E, F, C, B (all natural notes - no sharps or flats))].
Carlos has this CD - please re-listen and confirm this, Carlos. I will re-listen as well & revert.
2) Nigel Hess - The soundtrack composer for the Ladies in Lavender (Joshua Bell also played for this) - is also very melodious. The soundtrack opener was beautiful and I helped a wedding couple choose this for their garden wedding last Sept. It worked gloriously.
A couple of years back, I went to the Sydney opera house for the SSO "Shock of the New" series.
So, we get bach toccata/fugue, Beethoven 9, couple of other things. And look, I wasn't a contemporary of Bach or Beethooven, but I had tingles and tears listening to their stuff, and I just love these pieces. I don't need to have lived in thier times for their music to evoke the tragedy or hope that they were reflecting. Each piece was so different in its mood, in the way it was structured, in the form.
And then there came the modern composers. this was an endless drone of idiocy, involving yet another random clang of yet another obscure percussive instrument. A very carefully placed drone on the strings. the players are all so, so, up themselves their ears are poking out their bottoms. Very serious stuff this, getting just the right twitch on a wooden block. And it just seemed to go on interminably so that it was almost laughable. And it didn't matter who the compose was, the stuff was so repetitive and characterless that it sounded as if it had all been penned by the same person. and that person was probably and accountant with a brand new set of saucepans.
Whatever it is that these guys are experiencing that they feel moved to compose for, its nothing to do with the life that I'm leading.
But, just by the by, on the From the Top program, you can listen to a kid composer who has completed a couple of symphonies, very traditional in style. i think he's about 12 or something. And its really good. Lets hope he never gets taught by a great modern composer.
My husband took composition as his focus in his Bachelor of Music degree, and sadly enough, he was DISCOURAGED from writing the (mostly) tonal, melodic music he loved to write. Much like academic work in all fields, composing in a government grant/university context is driven by novelty--after all, they paid money for innovation, and they expect you to produce (with all the artspeak babble to go in the program notes). Really good modern music does exist; there's just not enough of it being publicized. But in my quest to find interesting and unusual pieces to play in my university recitals, I found a lot of really lovely late 20th century music. You just have to devote yourself to the hunt--and be prepared to wade through a lot of things you'll reject.
I predict that, two or three hundred years from now, the "classical orchestral music" people are listening to will come from movies and musicals--just like it came from opera and other popular entertainments in the 1700s.
Of course, just my two cents!
It's worth more than 2 cents.
Well, I'd say it's worth more than two loonies :-)
The Red Violin was not written for purely artistic reasons to begin with. I feel you're asking why a sculture doesn't look like brilliantly done interior design.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians defined melody as
" pitched sounds arranged in musical time in accordance with given cultural conventions and constraints."
The actual article is rather long but never depart from this definition. I cannot see how modern composers' melodies are not real because they all fit that definition.
If you meant that their melodies are not constructed with chord tones of chord progressions constructed based on common practice theory, it is perhaps because many modern composers are working within a different paradigm.
If you meant that these melodies are not easily singable, it may just be that you lack training in singing/conceptualizing certian "awkward" intervals. Once you famaliarize yourself with these intervals perhaps you'll find the Berg violin concerto just as sweet, moving, and beautiful as Mendelsohn. Also note that modern composers write opera and art songs that are being performed all the time. It's definitely within the capacity of human vocal chord.
If you meant accessible, as in, anyone on the street would like it, buy yourself a CD from the "Pop music" section in the store. I'm sure there are plenty to choose from. The art music was not written to please the whole world, so don't blame it for not doing something it did not intend to do.
I apologize if you are offended. It takes some work to see the beauty in those music you described as unreal. Almost everybody today spend the first half or more of their music education listening and playing tonal music. They turn on the TV and unless it's playing Stanley Kubrick's "The Shinning", they hear tonal music(even car commercials). They take a music history class and listen to one representative work from every 30 years of the past 300 years, and 90% of what they listen to and identify as music is tonal. Tonal music is so deeply ingrained that atonal music may seem more obsurd and shocking then they really are.
I also want to argue that modern composers write in the style that they do, not because they are blindly copying what their teachers do, but because it is a style that has not been exhausted yet. A composer could master Bach's counterpoint and Mozart's symmetry, but where's the artistic value in doing something that has already been done? A machine could do just as well. And further more, most of us would agree that Bach (or Mozart, or Beethoven...)has achieved something great in that style. Perhaps their works, being the greatest among comtemporaries, are so great it's pretty much impossible to exceed them. Why produce epigones when one can devote one's energy to explore possibilities in a new style?
One may argue that composers can still write in the old styles for entertaining purposes (it's more fun to play... etc.) and actually, they do. But those works probably won't win an award become famous and got played by everyone.
The Red Violin--the soundtrack and its many versions-- was not Corigliano's only work. Listen to his Symphonies, sonatas, and opera "Ghost of Versaile" and you may see that the Red Violin is not very representative of his style.
Going back to the melody definition. Today's society and culture is obviously very different from Vienna in 1780. If a composer living here and now writes a piece that sounds just like Mozart, can we say that his melody is not real, because it deviates from his social conventions?
-What stays behind when all of us here are gone is not necessarily what we prefered as entertainments, but what's most representative of the progress we made in art. Beethoven's 9th is inarguably one of the greatest works in the history of music, but nobody was going to a Beethoven concert after dinner with a hot date.
Dear Jing: Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful analysis.
Basically I agree with you - The concept of melody can change and what is new and unfamiliar today may be genuinely "melodic" and achieve more widespread appreciation in the future or by the artistic elite you appear to be describing. Fine. There is a considerable history to show that.
When I was a kid and first heard the Bartok quartets (and that was only a decade after Bartok's death), they were bewildering and gave me (and a lot of other people) a headache. But after a while their musical lines became indeed as melodic to me as Beethoven's Ninth. And Bartok was just what you say - an experimenter who while respecting the past was doing something new and certainly different in the concept of melody and everything else.
But Bartok's music is also inspired and not mechanically constructed. He really does follow his melodic muse and not avoid it. And the mechanical melodic technicians of past eras are by and large forgotten and not listened to.
The question is, are too many composers in fact NOT writing "melodies" according to their genuine musical inspiration, but rather actively avoiding their own internal melodic inspirations because they are not considered avant garde enough or academically acceptable enough or intellectual enough? That is the question. And I believe it is as relevant today as it was in Beethoven's day.
The style - whether it's modern or not or accessable or not or popular or not - doesn't matter; the genuineness of the musical inspiration does.
Just because it is a traditional melody does not mean it is melodic, and just because it is an atonal progression of notes does not mean it is un-melodic.
Some thoughts/articles from another forum. The second post appears to be particularly pertinent.
Neil
All the real melodies that have stayed in your mind and touched your heart were composed all ready. The genius of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern just to name a few, composed in my opinion, the most beautiful melodies ever. This music was beautifully written, it was simple and got to the point. I have always felt, Classical composer's should try a little more for this kind of simplicity when composing.
Tonal music certainly is not exhausted. I refuse to believe that there's nothing more to do with it. Look at Stravinsky, he composed tonal music until he was pretty old (then he switched to 12 tone). Observe how creative and different those are...and yet...they make some sort of sense.
Ok, now lets discuss accessibility. There is a certain element of accessibility that is necessary for music. Art has to express something, whether it's passion, anger, sorrow, or stream of consciousness cacophony...I don't believe in "empty canvas" art (if you don't know, this is where a artist sold a blank canvas for an insane sum of money because it "represented unlimited artistic potential" or such nonsense. Really shows how idiotic our modern art has become.) There is some modern music I've listened to that has totally random seeming melodies and very modern harmonies that effects me just like tonal music does. Really moving stuff. There's other stuff that I frankly don't feel anything from. All it is is a percussionist bowing a tam-tam and some other person striking the bridge of their viola with the metal part of their bow. FOOLISH, I'm sorry, that's not music to me...
So basically, I agree. I think that many nice "melodies"...maybe that's not quiiiitttee the right word, but it works...ARE written today in the modern style, but I still think there's lots of junk being produced too (example: I DO like the Berg violin concerto ^^)
Joseph- I agree with you that not every piece of music written today is valueable. I'd like to clarify my statement of tonal music being exhausted--it was hasty of me to say that. What I tried to say was that a composer could sit down and say, ooh, I am going to write a symphony in sonata form today, following closely common practice theory only, make sure the exposition and the development+recap form some sort of symmetry and balance, and be sure to modulate to a secondary key in the exposition, and resolve that in the recapitualtion. He can do that all he wants, but his symphony regardless of its actual quality will not be considered an equal or better of Mozart's. So as for as Mozart's style goes, it is exhausted. This is not to say that the composer cannot intergrate the strength of these past styles into contemporary elements and concepts, as Stravinsky did (and Britten and Vaughn Williams....ah so many examples to give).
By the way, may I inquire which part of the bow was hitting the strings? I can only think of the screw and the siler winding that are metal.
Sander-
I shall put it this way: suppose you grew up speaking English and English only, and have recently picked up Japanese, which you have heard people speaking and on TV. You move to Japan, go to the store and see that they are selling these 10-gallon cartons of milk and it takes two people to move it to the counter. What would you think, and what language is that thought in?
Since you are not conversing it's probably in English. So your natural response is in English. Does that mean that you're just more comfortable with English because you grew up speaking it, or that English is the natural language of all mankind?
I think it's the same deal with music and writing music. People who spent more time with Bach & Co. will probably think in native musical language when an idea strikes. By the same token, people who spends a lot of time with contemporary music will perhaps also use the language they are famaliar with. Maybe that's why all the composers today write music that way. Maybe some of them grew up thinking in Bach-esque counterpoint but is forced to change their style to a David-Diamond-esque one, but as long as they have spent enough time in it, they could have ideas naturally comes out of their head in that language.
So perhaps the melodic inspirations are not always denied. They may have genuinely come in that style already. Composers also don't just sit down and turn on music-writing like the faucet. Whether working out a symphony from piano scratches, or collecting numerous 4-5 note motifs and work them into one piece, a blend of inspirations and conscious efforts goes into the piece. How do you which part was being denied?
This post is turning out a wealth of opinions and perhaps one has to put them all together to get an idea of the picture.
In an innovative BBC2 radio programme I listened to (it is available in their archives- What Mozart did for us) where they explored him with the help of such unexpected figures as Roger Waters (PINK FLOYD), Andy Partridge (XTC), Aled Jones etc. one of them mentioned the "Patron Effect". He was comparing having to write for a patron, on a comission for a certain event, as in Mozarts time to writing for a record label now. And how much more tyrannical the latter situation was...and he would be glad that someone would pay him 50 pounds to write a piece of about handsome he was, or a 1000 to write compose praising his garden (Ok his words paraphrased) but that there was far less limit on what one could write under such circimstances compared to now, where there are so many people trying to change everything so that it is more marketable (in their opinion).
On another front, I came across some rather beautiful "old-fashioned classical" music from an Indian film of 2005 called "Bose-The Forgotton Hero". The composer is A R Rehman, and the pieces are (for orchestra and wind instruments flute, oboe and clarinet) "Emily 2", "Netaji Theme 1 & 2", "U-Boat" and also "War" although I found the latter to be disturbing along with another piece called "Hitler". And a great reworking of the muslim call to prayer - Zikr.
I know he has written extremely innovative music for Indian films, but these western classical pieces....hey, there's even a melody in them!
You can listen to them on www.raaga.com or www.musicindiaonline.com
Ah, melody. I'd like to throw in a quote from Ernst Toch's book The Shaping Forces in Music: An Inquiry into the Nature of Harmony, Melody, Counterpoint, and Form. I found interesting and revealing that some of his most trenchant comments ("sweeping generalizations"?) on melody were actually in the harmony chapter. For example, from the 1977 Dover edition, p. 5:
"It is not enough to know that in the course of musical progression each tone asserts its membership in the harmony in which it is imbedded as well as in the melodic line of which it is a part. The truth is that the melodic impulse is primary, and always preponderates over the harmonic; that the melodic, or linear, impulse is the force out of which germinates not only harmony but also counterpoint and form."
I only wish he'd grown up in West Africa and gave rhythm its due primal respect. But I'm with him on melody being the dominant dimension in "Western" music. Whatever in the world might be heard and accepted as melody... :-)
I recently read this article in the Wall Street Journal written by Jacob Hale Russell and hope you find it interesting and very supportive of composers embracing melody.
Classical Plays a New Tune
Orchestras are embracing modern works with melody
By JACOB HALE RUSSELL
November 26, 2005; Page P4
After years of trying preconcert hors d'oeuvres and Mostly Mozart festivals to stem declining attendance and attract younger patrons, orchestras around the country are banking on something different: new music that audiences actually enjoy.
From Philadelphia to Sioux Falls, orchestras are embracing a growing breed of contemporary composer that emphasizes the classical tradition of writing to entertain, rather than to explore academic, less accessible theories. While the point is partly to please crowds, these new works are taken seriously. "We have to establish the works that will be around 50 to 75 years from now," says Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington.
LISTEN IN
Selections from works by modern classical composers:
Steve Reich, "You are wherever your thoughts are," Nonesuch
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John Adams, "Shaker Loops: Loops and Verses," Naxos
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George Rochberg, "Symphony No. 2: Declamando," Naxos
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William Bolcom, "Songs of Innocence and Experience: Songs of Experience, Volume One, Part One," Naxos
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Joan Tower, "In Memory," Naxos
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• Interview: Composer Jennifer Higdon
The popularity of this new classical music -- variously called "contemporary classical," "alt-classical" or "music of our time" -- represents the latest stage in a reaction to the 1950s and '60s, when the dominant composers were academics who invented tonal structures that broke with European musical traditions. In 1958 an essay by serialist composer Milton Babbitt was titled "Who Cares if You Listen?" But many of today's composers reject that approach. John Corigliano, a Pulitzer Prize-winner who also scored the 1998 film "The Red Violin," criticizes the notion that art is "intellectually more pungent if we don't understand it." And orchestras increasingly are rewarding the efforts of composers who share Mr. Corigliano's tack.
By programming more new compositions, the classical-music world is only just coming to grips with a challenge that the visual arts navigated a half-century ago. Art movements like minimalism, abstract expressionism and conceptual art met with early popular resistance, but galleries and collectors used their business savvy to gain converts. And while museums and magazines can expose the public to challenging art bit by bit, it's more difficult for orchestras to force audiences to devote the time and money required to sit through unfamiliar music.
Daniel Kellogg, 29 years old, got what he calls his "big break" with a Philadelphia Orchestra commission commemorating Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday. The 21-minute piece, "Ben," premiered Nov. 18 with snippets of the founding father's favorite drinking songs and employing the glass armonica, a Franklin invention. At the South Dakota Symphony, Sioux Falls audiences this season will hear a concerto by Steven Stucky, this year's Pulitzer winner for composition. And last month saw the premiere of Joan Tower's "Made in America," a 15-minute work that will be played by 65 orchestras, hitting every state by 2007.
Jessica Griffin
Daniel Kellogg faces the audience at the Philadelphia Orchestra premiere of his piece honoring Ben Franklin's birthday.
The influx of new music comes as large orchestras face declining attendance and an elderly base of subscribers. Nationwide symphony attendance fell 13% to 27.7 million in the 2003-04 season from 1999-2000, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League. The median age of orchestra subscribers nationwide is 55 and has been for several decades. By programming new music, orchestras are hoping their seasons will seem more relevant to would-be concertgoers, particularly those from 35 to 45.
To ease audiences into contemporary works, orchestras often program them alongside pieces by the masters. Philadelphia on Friday premiered a percussion concerto by Jennifer Higdon, followed by a Beethoven symphony. During his first season leading the South Dakota Symphony last year, conductor David Delta Gier showcased works by Pulitzer-winning composers of the last decade, which meant local listeners didn't have to take his word for the significance of the pieces.
When Bennett Patrick attended the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra in upstate New York to hear the premiere of "Made in America," he braced himself for the atonality he associates with modern music. "I always think, 'Why do they bury the melody?' " says the 78-year-old retired businessman of Queensbury, N.Y. But Ms. Tower's composition was melodic and even riffed on "America the Beautiful." The piece "wasn't dissonant," Mr. Patrick says. "It was quite enjoyable."
Orchestras report some success by programming new music. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra says the average age of subscribers to its six-year-old MusicNOW series -- devoted to work by living composers -- was five years younger than for its normal subscription series last season.
Despite the increased attention to their work, composers rarely earn enough from commissions and royalties to pay the bills. A coveted 15-minute orchestral commission typically brings the composer about $15,000 to $20,000. Royalties for performances and recordings generally bring in a few hundred dollars a year. As a result, many composers rely on university positions for a steady stream of income. Mr. Kellogg, for example, recently began teaching music composition at the University of Colorado.
"I'm interested in writing music that I want to hear," says the composer, reared on Phish and Jimi Hendrix. "I'm not caught up in complexity for complexity's sake."
How 'bout that! The violin is both a singing instrument and a virtuoso instrument, primarily. You can express virtuosity in any modern idiom, but you can't sing if there isn't something melodic to sing.
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January 28, 2006 at 12:03 PM · IMO, the concept of melodical beauty in music is dead.Modern composers aren't interested on it, or
simply can't write a single fine melody. You can learn how to composed anything, but to composed something beautiful, all your knowledge is useless. You have to have inspiration, and that isn't in the books. In the 40s.,popular composers wrote some of the most beautiful songs ever, Guys like Porter, Gershwin,Mercer,Kern,Rodgers and
many others. What do you get now?.Noise, percution, yells...crap.