---In [email protected], <[email protected]> wrote:
"Neal" Young plays very serious music - It is an interesting distinction that some people make, between serious, and 'not serious' music. Someone recently told me that electronic and/or sampled music, is not real music. On the one hand, I can see that musicians like Neil Young, do not try to master the classical works, or play music with a lot of tradition behind it. On the other, I've been a fan of his sound, since, "After the Gold Rush". He has inspired me in a lot of ways - far more than any classical music. Music is said to be the most abstract of the arts. I find it amusing that someone who diligently copies Mozart, for example, is hailed as a prodigy, yet someone doing the same thing with a Rembrandt, is labeled a forger. This is an interesting point you make about "forgery". Those who "read" music by performing it are masters of either an instrument or their voice (another instrument) if they do it well. But, no, they did not conceive of or write the work they are performing. A composer who writes opera can not necessarily sing the parts he writes but he or she understands music and how notes and instruments work together en masse to create a certain sound and effect. So in one sense these composers are engineers, are technicians on one level. On quite another level they are artists who have been able to access a part of their brain or consciousness that is able to reproduce something extraordinary on the level of sound because they understand how physical instruments work together (including the voice) and they know who to transcribe it into notes so it can be "read". If someone reads a book aloud (audio books) written by another, by the original author, the orator, the reader is in a different category from the "reader" who either plays or sings the musical work of another. It is harder to make music (read music) than to read a book aloud, obviously. But the connection to the two activities is what I am bringing up here. Electronic vs "regular" music is sort of like, to me, the same discussion that could be made about digital vs traditional photography. With electronic music one could make the argument that a composer of this type of music doesn't necessarily require the same depth of knowledge or training of an instrument than the "traditional" musician does. Similarly, the person who has one chance to compose, light and develop an exceptional photo vs of the photographer who has access to 1000's of electronic photo images and can then go back to their "darkroom" (a computer) and manipulate any of these images in thousands of ways could be viewed simply as someone who either got lucky or who has the law of averages on their side. I would say that all of these photographers (traditional and digital) and all of these musicians are technicians to some degree but that the validity of their work is made evident by the end result. There needs to be an intention, a certain ability through the manipulation of the media to accomplish this intention, this vision, and then there will ultimately be some result. If the result is powerful or revealing or moving or exceptional in some way then the "technician" has proven themselves successful IMO. ---In [email protected], <authfriend@...> wrote: Yeah, not quite the same thing. I'm talking about serious music and highly trained singers. Justin Timberlake, for one, sings in a much higher voice than his regular voice. Same for Neal Young I believe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSVHoHyErBQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSVHoHyErBQ ---In [email protected], <authfriend@...> wrote: I'm not a big fan of countertenors myself; the voices always sound a little strained to me. But this dude is special, not just the voice but the musicality. The ear is more important than any musical knowledge (for the listener, at any rate). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmyLkjxKCNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmyLkjxKCNo Phew! And this is not generally my kind of "thing" but it certainly evokes all sorts of primal, albeit refined primal, sensations. His voice and those instruments and the light and the setting and the crystal hanging from the ceiling. All of these things transported me to a long-ago time. Thank you for that. I am an ignoramus when it comes to knowing about music but my ear seems to make up for what I lack in theoretical musical knowledge.
