This video has earned me a fair amount of personal invective, and life is too short to be spent with those who just want to fight, so from this point onward I'll only respond to comments that contain some new argument and that are expressed in a civilized way. But clarifications of my thoughts can be found in my replies to those comments I've engaged with so far. Thank you for your understanding and for your interest!

@coreydolan3239

2 жыл бұрын

You won’t have any form of censure from me, I thoroughly enjoyed your video.

@Pamela-dv7gb

8 ай бұрын

You are right and i can’t understand why people say classic is boring , for me liszt les prelude or dies irae form verdi is 10 time more epic than any rap or k pop music

@VivekPatel-ze6jy

7 ай бұрын

​@@Pamela-dv7gbspeaking as a violinist, I just find solo piano works boring. In many ways, it's not about harmonic complexity but rather timbre and tone. In the same way, most people are never going to enjoy the grainy 50s recordings of classical music on Spotify. Imo recorded classical music is only a shadow of what it can be, whereas pop is the inverse - better suited to recordings than live performance.

@jakubziak7441

16 күн бұрын

Can I ask if you have a suggestion of what could possibly a young composer who's aesthetic aim is rather social, do? Or what's the answer to this struggle? My solution so far was to not try to distance myself too much from all the known music, but rather gain from it as much as I could and then produce something, which would be, like child, produced with genes of many predecessors, in other words, inspires by the greats, but not copycat necessarily. I also value other aspects of music more, than for example harmony, on which is put I think maybe highest level of importance. What do you think Mister? What is the way one should lead his art?

I strongly agree with your view. The more modern the music, the less complex, and the more "catchy" it becomes. I also really love your opinion on modern classical music. In order to be complex, it starts drifting away from music and more towards random noise.

@BenedictBeckeld

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! In modern academic music the syntactical arrangements are often very refined and well thought out, but they still tend to be unlistenable.

@Proud_Troll

Жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld Well said.

@AndrejaAndric

5 ай бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld What does "unlistenable" mean, other than "I don't like it"?

@BenedictBeckeld

5 ай бұрын

@@AndrejaAndric It means that almost no one likes it, and that's not a coincidence. It's subjective, but not arbitrary, two things that many confuse.

@AndrejaAndric

5 ай бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld I am not sure about that. But assuming that it is true, then are you saying that this music is less good because less people like it? This seems to go contrary to what you are saying in the video, that music is better the more "syntactically complex" it is, regardless of how many people like it. Most people seem to like simpler music, and if that is the mark of good music, as you seem to say now, again that is contrary to what you are saying in the video. Please explain! 🙂

One day we had a talent show in our school i had my piano and my classical guitar and my violin i played 3 instruments with some of the finiest calssica pieces such as ,caprice 24, la campanella, spanish romance, and after i finished the whole classroom was like "ok goo" and after that a 9 year old boy came a sang some justin bieber "song" and everyone were dieng for him like litrally people screaming...i am so dissepointed people dont hate classical music there to laxy to undrestand it...and music came from something that we listen and touches our soul with beautiful sounds and storys and colors and tone to ots just something on the background thay gets ignored im a teen and im 14 and thats my story yeh...

@segmentsAndCurves

3 жыл бұрын

How do you capable of playing Caprice 24 and La Campanella ON THE VIOLIN AND PIANO?

@GCMusician

3 жыл бұрын

I love Spanish romance on guitar, it's one of the best out of the classical repertoire for guitar imo. I'm 16 and feel the same way as you, people underappreciate classical music so much, it's discomforting to exist in a society this way. Do you have any favourite pieces/composers? I play piano and guitar and I love some composers such as scriabin and Francisco tarrega.

@segmentsAndCurves

3 жыл бұрын

@@GCMusician Godowsky has some great piece! Passacaglia, Java suite,...

@Person-dq3dk

2 жыл бұрын

@David Hasselhoff right dude was a nerd💀🤣

@amanekaze

2 жыл бұрын

I wish I had your talents, that able to play all of the instruments-

I agree with your argue (that syntactical structures of music are static), but we can't define music only with this element (syntactical structure). We need analyse music based on their other basic elements: (rhythm, melody, harmony, form, texture, dynamics, timbre... ). And going on this way, we will always have possibilities to inovate in music. Although rhythm, melody, harmony and even the dynamics could be consider like mathematical signs, texture, timbre, form and arregments are not. For example, the innovation and vanguardism proposed by Charles Mingus to the Free Jazz is unique, but is not on the sintax perspective; but on form perspective. That's why I can say that Charles Mingus is a genius just like Beethoven is. Your point of "academic music" and a counterintuitively music I think that could be revogue. I say this thinking in Psychoacoustics, space and time. Ok, Dodecaphonism, and Schoenberg's music is a try to create new tonal sequences, but it's a music that is very weird to us and could be a good example for an "academic music". However, when we take a look on psychoacoustics, space and time you can see that our ear can learn diferent ways to hear the sound. So a music that today is considered counterintuitively, could be in future consider a masterpiece. Debussy's music is an example to this case, and who knows, on a remote future, Dodecaphonism music starts sound more musically. I know you are comparing tha Classical Music with Modern Music only on a syntatical level, but I judge this a wrong way to think music. Music is much more than only musical syntax! Anyhow, thanks for this video. It's good too see discussions like this here on KZread. So again, thank you!

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks very much for that. I agree with pretty much everything you say, and indeed as you recognize I focus only on syntax in the video. I'd maybe specify also that we may be using the term "music" somewhat differently. In this video I assume a rather conventional definition, because of the precise aspect I wish to discuss, namely syntax, but another possibility - and one to which I adhere in other contexts - is that, at the risk of my sounding like a bit of a hippie, almost everything is music. I sort of subscribe to the Greek notion of "the music of the spheres" (and of nature), for example, and I hear music everywhere in every moment. Syntax indeed is not everything, but when we do undertake comparative syntactical analyses, the outcome is clear, and it is my surmise that syntax is the greatest reason, though of course not the only, why some music proves immortal, while other does not. Thank you again for your thoughts!

@Cats_Bread

4 жыл бұрын

Well sayin

@abyssssbmusic1370

3 жыл бұрын

How are syntactic structures static?

I would not like to be stuck in a world the apotheosis of which musically was bracketed by the years 1600-1900.Anyone who is stuck in this bracket should do some learning:read "The poetics of music"by Stravinsky and read "the technique of my musical language" by O. Messiaen is about freedom of expression;how could artists accept the notion that they should not invent new ways of expression going forward in time forever? What a boring world that would be!

I wish the whole world watched this

@metal8820

3 жыл бұрын

No, not the whole world, all the rappers out there. You can’t even understand them so how in the world are we supposed to know what the lyrics are.

@samspianos

3 жыл бұрын

@@metal8820 same as opera!

@segmentsAndCurves

3 жыл бұрын

@@samspianos Opera is for intellectuals, music without lyric could speak for anybody... if they even listen. *crying silently in the corner*

@samspianos

3 жыл бұрын

@@segmentsAndCurves Most of the opera repertoire (18th,19 C) is the same level as todays soap opera for TV; not intellectual at all! Just for relief of ennui

@segmentsAndCurves

3 жыл бұрын

@@samspianos I mean "intellectual" as in "understand 6 languages".

"Pie is so much superior to cake because every cake has the worst crust I've ever tasted, it is always slimy and not flaky, and the fillings are always flour. Alas, over the years, pie devolved into cake because people don't know how to make pie in 2021, they only make cake because it's easy."

Iagree 100% with this video. I listen mostly to modern music at about 80-90%, but I don't take it seriously. I see it as "fun" music. All modern musical styles, from jazz to clasic rock to metal to alt rock to Hip Hop to Blues and Pop, are just mindless fun music. There is *nothing* in modern music that can compare to Beethoven's 5yh piano concerto, or to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, or to the 9th Symphony or to Mozart's sonatas. Modern music is just fun and simple to understand.

@keatonschober5384

2 жыл бұрын

Jazz is most certainly not simple

@petercoderch589

2 жыл бұрын

@@keatonschober5384 Compared to the 9th Symphony, even the most intricate works of Davis Coltrane are like child's play.

I wonder if its because in baroque-romantic eras we kind of peaked with the skills of complexity in melody so after that we went more into deep harmony. Maybe composers over time got bored with the sound of the fast-paced-hard-to-play patterns? I took an intro course of ethnomusicology and it dipped into some brain science and talked about our neurons proccessing musical patterns and triggering varying amounts of dopamine based on what we hear. Im thinking that general use of harmony attracted the audiences ear more and more over time which is why all someone needs to be famous these days is a good chord progression with a simple but catchy melody. I can see in maybe 100 years or more (or maybe less) melodic complexity rising again. Theres always a wave of evolution mixed with the attention span of the world's listeners. Also theres that 'taste budd effect'. Kind of like a kid loving cheetos but hating olives that then evolves into a 50 year old loving hummus with minced olives and garlic. Then his last few years of life he may just want his favorite cheeseburger. Life is indeed interesting. Hope what I said is not too confusing. I tend to have the vocabulary of a 13 year old which tends to limit my ability to thouroughly describe certain topics haha. Anyways, Nice video doctor!

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Well if the skill in complexity peaked, the question is why that happened, and boredom seems to me a somewhat far-fetched answer. That there is something like dopamine involved in our reception of music sounds perfectly plausible to me, and one factor doesn't necessarily exclude another. But it seems to me that your explanation would only explain the development of popular music, since this is more based on audience response and popularity, but not why "classical" or "art" music (I don't like the term, but you know what I mean) developed the way it did, which was either away from syntactical complexity or toward unlistenableness while retaining syntactical complexity.

Fascinating. Again.

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks, again!

@brianoneil6659

5 жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld loved this! Smart and entertaining at once.

i prefer classical over mordern

I remembered commenting on this video months ago and hearing from you that you do like some modern music iirc including as I think you put it, “Scandinavian death metal”, besides some other more recent music genres, though I may be misremembering exactly. But, in case this may be relevant and a good recommendation for yourself, I’d like to recommend an album that came out a bit over a week ago by Mors Principium Est which is a melodic death metal band from Scandinavia with arguably other influences including neo-classical, and black metal I personally think. The album’s title is just Seven, as it’s their seventh full-length iirc, and while I liked their previous album a fair bit I find Seven is more consistent, engaging, and interesting, besides also remarkably having higher high-points than their previous album had, and having more of them to boot, which is in my opinion both surprising, but also commendable of them. I’m unsure if they’ll really be your cup of tea, but just thought I’d put the recommendation out there in case you might get something positive from it. And I do get Seven’s neo-classical integration could be seen as a bit heavy-handed in using older classical tropes/cliches and such, but I think if that manages not to bother you, and you can appreciate their interpretation on this mixing of style, that there’s potential you could really like it. Also, not sure which metal bands you may have been referring to by “Scandinavian death metal” though if I had to guess I’d guess maybe bands like Entombed, Dismember, early Amorphis, and At the Gates? Though I suppose it may be bands who are more experimental and atypical with what they do, so in that case, I’d like to recommend a mainland European band called Maladie, and specifically their recent album The Grand Aversion, though I think all their albums are really good, especially their 2nd called Still, but I’d first recommend The Grand Aversion, and I think you may like it as I recall you mention liking some jazz music iirc, and that’s one style besides a variety of others they mix with their kinda technical and very experimental/avant-garde black/death metal style.

@BenedictBeckeld

3 жыл бұрын

Hi, and thank you very much for these recommendations! I will definitely take a listen to Seven from Mors Principium Est, as well as Maladie, neither of which I had heard of before. I'm not a great connoisseur of death metal, but I know I like a lot of it. The bands I've enjoyed most so far are Amon Amarth, Kalmah, and Children of Bodom, and indeed I have some At the Gates in my playlist as well. Perhaps I'll be able to add these new ones to it soon.

@dissonantprotean5495

3 ай бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeldyou should listen to some more complex tech death stuff like Necrophagist or Animals as Leaders

This isn't the kind of ideas I thought I would find in someone who thinks classical music is better than current music. Complexity doesn't matter in music or any other art expression, what actually matters is the thrill it makes you feel (this goes for the other arts too) but ofc also the fact that it is well crafted like a Tchaikovsky symphony.

I disagree that there’s a limit to classical music, There is no limit to creativity, it’s infinite. It can be as complex as before and even more, it’s no different than other art forms.

I've read a fair few comments in response to this video and while I'm uncertain how original my upcoming comment will be, I will admit I'm trying to say something that's looking at things from a new perspective. Before I get into my main argument, I would say that I agree in most contexts that music compositionally is finite. That's unless you count something like the idea of a computer generating what could be vaguely described as music procedurally for such a long time that that "composition" would be unique and continue to become a new never before heard musical composition due to time passing and more data of the music being generated. Basically taking in the context of what's now being added to the music plus all of the music which has come before. I mean that wouldn't mean much to anyone practically, given no one would listen to a year long song and even remember half of it, but my point is music being repeated and stretched over time can make something that's in some manner original. As repetition of already stated musical ideas can convey new information via it being repeated. Though I do admit maybe I just missed you addressing this as I've only watched the video once and I don't understand a fair deal of academic jargon, so mentioning this may be not worthwhile. I also am not very knowledgeable of math nor physics, so my idea of music being mathematical yet also being able to have an unending sequence may be physically impossible, I honestly don't know, lol. Though for all intents and purposes and thinking practically about what kinds of differences need to be present in music for it to commonly be perceived as new or unique, then yes I would say that we've exhausted a lot of music's commonly and widely enjoyable ideas. I do personally still think there's room in some contexts for modern musicians to create commonly enjoyable music which isn't a true rehash of previously stated ideas, though the commonly enjoyable stuff is borrowing or at least restating ideas more and more from the past, though sometimes in enough different context as to be reasonably original in my opinion. Now the main idea you said which I want to touch on is how you suggest that what is enjoyable to most is even a lot more limited than the syntactical possibilities in music. I agree to an extent, like I don't think anyone will ever like all possible music, but I guess my argument or proposition is people if they truly value music should try to expand their taste to see how green the grass may be on other sides. I also want to mention one reason why some music which is consonant/pleasurable and widely enjoyed is partially due to familiarity, given that the older a piece of music is the more more people have had time to familiarize themselves with it puts classical in a pretty unique position, that and music is often passed down from generation to generation in one way or another even despite youths' attempts at rebellion. So, classical music has a unique base to stand itself upon in terms of familiarity. Though of course a lot of enjoyed music today isn't classical, but similarly it's often some of the music people were exposed to earlier in their life so they ended up building a bond with it, as it's said most people develop their music taste up until their 30's and then it's a steep decline in developing taste afterwards, and even by the late teenage years most people have figured out most of their taste in music. I guess I would just like to challenge people to be more open and adventurous if they feel like recent music is stale or what have you of a similar disposition. Because the mere-exposure effect is a thing, which suggests repeatedly exposing yourself to unfamiliar music can increase your enjoyment of it. Some people call it "brainwashing" but it can just as much be due to what we would consider familiarizing and understanding the language of the new music so that you begin to understand what's being said by each new idea that once upon a time may have seemed foreign and esoteric to you. I've kinda been thinking off the top of my head and rambling for the last while, so sorry my thoughts aren't as cohesive as I originally intended them to be. But in summary, I think the lack of new complex yet enjoyable music is a perception issue and more due to people's behaviours and approach to music, basically sticking to their "meat and potatoes" and simple "comfort foods" rather than exploring the wide range of musical cuisine which is out there and which taste can be developed for.

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your extensive comment. It's true that you could have a very extended piece of music, which in that sense would be something new, but in that case the piece would have to recycle older material, if it were to be listenable at all. I agree that, as you say, "there's room in some contexts for modern musicians to create commonly enjoyable music which isn't a true rehash of previously stated ideas, though the commonly enjoyable stuff is borrowing or at least restating ideas more and more from the past, though sometimes in enough different context as to be reasonably original". I'm just saying that (and why) the historical tendency is away from this, and that there is continuously less of it, not that it is absolutely impossible. Certainly I also think that expanding one's taste is a good idea. I am mainly a classical music man, but I also enjoy, for example, Chinese Erhu music, American jazz, and Scandinavian death metal. I think I understand your point about familiarity. One certainly sees people smiling and humming along when they suddenly hear some old piece of classical music with which they are familiar. But I think it's important to emphasize that those pieces are familiar to them precisely because they have proven to be of an immortal quality, so this dynamic works in both directions. Familiarity by itself I don't think would do the trick. Simply by being in public spaces where music is played I have had to listen to, for example, Rihanna's "Work" more times than I care to remember, and therefore am very familiar with it, but can still say that I truly hate it just as much as I did the first time I heard it. But the idea of being musically and artistically adventurous is one I share with you, yes. Thanks again for the discussion!

underrated video enjoyed it very much

Great video, I have a question: I listen almost exclusively to bel canto opera these days (Mozart, Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini etc). Given its tie to language, is it possible that this branch of classical music could be improved if the language were to improve? In other words, could a musically identical Mozart aria be improved by 'better' language?

@BenedictBeckeld

Ай бұрын

An interesting question, but I don't quite see how such an improvement could occur. The music will still be the music, unless you mean that the sound of the language itself contributes to (or detracts from) the musicality of the performance. Perhaps that's what certain Italians had in mind when they resisted the idea of opera being sung in German. I'd say that that's fairly subjective. My tastes in opera are quite diverse, but I certainly listen to a lot of bel canto as well, and the language is not something that bothers me either way. As Callas wrote, she builds her characters from the music, not the words. But perhaps you mean something else by "better language".

Interesting; I haven't considered this issue from the perspective of syntax. // My favorite composer is Haydn. He always brings a smile, or a little lift, to my day. Fortunately for me he wrote a huge number of works so I always have something new to learn. And I like revisiting much of his music such as the quartets and symphonies. I think part of the appeal of Haydn is that in some ways he presents a very simple and accessible musical landscape; for example his melodies are very singable. But then Haydn takes this simple material and does absolutely amazing things with it such as variations, counterpoint, new harmonies, rhythmic surprises, and so forth. So in terms of your video there is both simplicity and complexity in the same work; the simplicity is a kind of invitation to the listener, and the complexity is like an extended and complex conversation with people you trust. // There is a lot of modern music I enjoy, but from my perspective it doesn't approach Haydn's balance of simplicity and complexity. // Thanks for your observation.

I absolutely agree.

I’d argue that rhythm is more important than pitch and the reason for that is because you can’t have pitch without duration. With this in mind the classical era is by far the least complex music because it’s rhythmic syntax is small. Much of West African music on the other hand would be the most complex. Because of this it’s syntactic structures have influenced everyone around the world from east Asia to Latin America.

@PeaceNinja007

Жыл бұрын

FInally someone who makes sense lol Classical music seems to be more complex in the melodic department, jazz seems to be more complex in the chords and somewhat in the melodic department, and African music (which influenced some pop but a lot of latin american music, as you've said) is the most complex in the rythmic department. I believe each one has its own purpose. Classical seems to be used more to express emotions which can be very dramatic at times for the most part using mostly melody . Jazz seems to express usually upbeat emotions using melody combined with a rhythmic feel using unorthodox chord progressions (non-diatonic) Pop and Latin rhythms is usually the most simple in terms of melody and chords. It's the most diatonic of all but uses rhythmic beats that can get quite complex .. especially African and Latin beats that are literally meant to be catchy and dancy lol Personally me I like music that inclines more towards simple diatonic melodies and chords. What can I say, i'm a simple guy lol However, I've developed this love for a very particular Afro beat music originating from the French Caribbean islands called Zouk. It's is super catchy .. can't help but tap my foot to the beat and always puts me in a good mood lol Listen to it everyday on my way to work. I'm probably the only idiot who blasts this music in my car in the US though lol I'll see if i can post a link to an example of one.

@PeaceNinja007

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/aqBls5eSaNi9ksY.html

@plekkchand

10 ай бұрын

This is nearly meaningless. One hardly knows where to begin. Why do you say that because there is no A without B that B is more "important" than A? More important for what? On what grounds do you say that the elaborately architechtonic structure of a Haydn symphonic movement is "small"? What is small syntax? The polyrhythms of African and Balinese music are complicated, yes. And rhythmic complexity is quite easily invented, any 9 year old can do it with a little guidance. And what does complexity have to do with artistic merit? Chopin said that the ultimate compositional goal was simplicity.

@ChristianBurrola

10 ай бұрын

@@plekkchanda small amount of syntax can lead to a worlds abound of ambiguity which can cause problems for both the listener and the performer. There is what Chopin said and then there is what he did. Chopin may have claimed to love simplicity but he pushed the boundaries of harmony far beyond the composers he claimed to admire. The best evidence that rhythm is more important than pitch is that playing with bad pitch and good rhythm is always more desirable than playing with good pitch and bad rhythm. If you fail to see that, you are in the minority.

What do you think has transpired that lead to a syntactical decline in music? I noticed that the obscure line graph you displayed had shown a decline right around the 1860s which seems kind of strange to me for some reason.....

Thank you very much for such a lovely talk 🙏🏼

Great video, Glenn Miller comes to mind too me 😊

This is exactly what I was looking for Dr. Thank you.

Hello, is the mathematical complexity the criteria of greatness in music ? I find that odd. In rock there are genres that strive to be as complex as possible (math rock, prog metal..) but does that automatically place them above the rest? These genres are usually regarded as “soulless” or “too mechanical”, compared to other less technical genres that succeed touch the soul

@Mechaman365

2 жыл бұрын

yes man, that's all music is about, hey yaall put yar dicks on the table lets see which piece of music goes faster and has more notes in it!, there's your winner. the only thing dying is professor Beckeld's interest in even listening to new music. there is a huge amount of music being made by people who overcame the boundaries of western music theory through new timbres, sounds, structures and sound editing techniques the old white geniuses had never even though possible. electronic music started 60 years ago yet all the Rock movement missed the memo, of course professor Beckeld missed it too. sad.

Such a great mind!

I believe as music was commercialized to be condensed into 2-3 minutes and “sold” over the radio and record labels the past 70 years, it lost a lot of the artistic frameworks used when music was actually composed by a singular entity. One genre of music cannot be “better” than another kind of music per se, but western classical music up until the 1950s (and some even to today) was treated as a display of an artist’s testament of life, their human experiences that crafted each phrase and melody. When music was a way of conveying emotion without outright telling the audience by words, it held a lot more significance to the listener to interpret it as they were listening. Just like reading a poem or novel, it takes time to really understand what the artist/composer was portraying in that moment in time. That’s why I believe western classical music will stand the test of time, just like great novels have, because it involved connecting humans through emotions by rhythms and melodies that anyone can relate to. It was also more complex, and with greater complexity and musical competency, there was only so much room for composers who would succeed (not that there is a need for artists to succeed at all). The musical scene was very much less saturated than today. There is also an immortality to classical that supersedes most modern commercialized music. Humans in 200 years will still remember Beethoven and his Symphonies but may not remember the Beatles or Whitney Houston. All music is great, but not all music will last for many generations as classical will and has.

I'm Confused. Because I REALLY Really Love Count Basie & Duke Ellington. I Feel That they kept the Bar High and are Pillars of The Great American Jazz Musicians. I Believe that if the Great Composers of yesterday where looking down and listening to The Great Jazz Musicians they would be thrilled with delight. I believe you feel the same because you mentioned that you like Louis Armstrong. Great Video By The Way !

As a composer, I have found that the range of expressive techniques that will connect with an audience is surprisingly narrow. Outside that range, I tend to lose them. Thanks for the video!❤

Thank you for your learned video. Agreed fully. As examples there is no match to Camille Saint saens 2nd movement of the violin to present times. Similarly nocturnes by Chopin nor Bach cello suite etc. These were perfect unlike the present day stuff. The classic stuff were venerated. Present day stuff like instant noodles.

Laughed out loud at 7:19! Says it all!

@BenedictBeckeld

6 жыл бұрын

That was my express purpose!

I really hope this also includes VGMs

I read somewhere that atonal works get the prizes in music competitions. If you write in a tonal or traditional style it gets dismissed. Why? I think the real issue is, that you have people in these higher positions in academia who have no talent and embrace intellectual relativism rather than artistic standards. As a result they are out of touch with the public they serve. But it doesn't stop there. I also blame pop radio, other media outlets and a failed education system that focuses more on mass production rather than quality or honest intellectual debate. Can you sell something of value and still make a profit. Absolutely, but these radio consultants, academic bigwigs and ad execs need to be more in tune with their customers.

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Indeed I have witnessed within academia such things as you mention. I didn't delve into this aspect of the issue in the video, but I think you're right to raise it, thank you. It certainly adds an additional relevant layer to the current situation. How relativism plays itself out concretely across artistic disciplines is an interesting subject.

Modern art music is not aesthetically unpleasant because it ran out of syntactical options. It's a completely different language. The academic world decided to abandon a centuries-old tradition because it was the fashionable thing to do in the post-war period. Tonal harmony and traditional compositional approaches have A LOT more to give. If you look at the evolution of Western music you will see that it was always evolving and changing. But it cannot evolve if people abandon it. People who make "pop" music are usually very lazy and never get proper training, relying on automated tools for making chord progressions... Music will be great again when musicians get proper instruction in our great tradition and purposely decide to create beauty that mirrors the human will, courage, and suffering in its full glory and mistery.

@mikeboon6160

4 жыл бұрын

Actually, pop music writers usually have extensive training in classical as well as jazz music. Simpler doesn't mean inferior.

@evillano

4 жыл бұрын

Mike Boon No they don’t. Maybe they did 20 years ago but the newer generations of producers are KZread trained and rely on automated melody and harmony creation tools for the most part.

@mikeboon6160

4 жыл бұрын

@@evillano This doesn't mean that they lack training. Most college music programs including those that teach composition have a classic music prerequisite. Not to mention that classical music is reinforced during undergrad training.

@Irohen

4 жыл бұрын

Listen to some prog. There are great modern bands that are just as good as classical composers at doing what you described, and in some cases, even better imo.

@culturalconfederacy782

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikeboon6160 Absolutely correct. I think what the issue is, is that everything has been condensed down to a three minute song and radio format. Understandably stations need to sell advertising and obtain as many listeners as possible. Just seems like we've hit a creative wall, where it must be rock, hip hop or country. Why couldn't there be an awesome piece of classical music, let's say six to ten minutes long that makes it into Top 40. I really dig lesser known composers from the late Classical and Romantic era. Just as I love Steely Dan, Jazz, Jaromiqui and Elton John. But I can't do Bartok or Schostakovich.

Is no accident music is terrible today, original thought is required to create complex music, and complexity is frowned upon today. Their is still wonderful, thought provoking music out there that is still in good taste, it's just so obscure it's hard to find. Tool, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and others still have the power to emotionally move people

Well, it depends on the music tradition. Actually, during the Classical Era, Western Music underwent a heavy decline of the melodic lines, because the melodic lines had to become more simple to allow for polyphony. On the other hand, the melodic lines for Middle Eastern and Indian Classical Music are constantly evolving, and becoming more complex by the day, with new melodic lines being composed, and new microtonal adjustments being used. Whereas Western Classical Music has only two modes, the Major and the Minor, and limits itself to 12-EDO, Middle Eastern Music has thousands of Makam, with hundreds in used on a regular basis, same for Indian Ragas, but the mathematical combinations are probably in the millions. We are just reaching the tip of the iceberg in terms of Microtonal, Modal Music; nowadays, the heavy focus is on heterophony, ornaments, drone notes etc. Western Music, if it would return back to the Renaissance Era and start experimenting with the Modes, as well as with Microtonality (Pythagorean, Just Intonation etc.), it could get out of this standstill, and reach new heights. Ben Johnston was a good example for such a development, it is sad few people developed his work even further.

As somebody who is in love with baroque-romantic era music and is an aspiring composer hearing that the objectively best music has already been composed is partially depressing but also motivating to prove it wrong ahahah

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

I would absolutely LOVE to be proven wrong.

@fiachragalvin2416

4 жыл бұрын

I feel like John Williams stands as a great example that modern orchestral composition can be equally as unique and beautiful as those from the 1800s and People like Jacob Collier prove that innovation and new musical ideas can still be aesthetically pleasing. I have faith!

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

Indeed I don't think it's impossible, only that the *trend* is pretty sharply downward. Good luck to you!

(I'll preface this by saying I am a violinist and pianist who plays and does enjoy classical music and I profusely apologize if I ever manage to sound rude in this comment, it was not my intent) I think you have a point in a purely academic sense, but there are a lot of things I disagree with. I think that music is changing (quite frankly) for the better. Maybe not in pop music, but there are musicians out there that I appreciate equally as much if not far more than the "greats" that were decided to be great by the aristocratic upper class in order to seem better than everyone by liking the "right kind of music." I actually just watched a video by a youtuber named 12 Tone called "Beethoven sucks at music" and please, don't be put off by the title, he makes some genuinely interesting points and explains things far better than I could, so I highly encourage you to watch it.

@BenedictBeckeld

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your comment, and no need to apologize: You were very polite, and so it's a pleasure to reply to you. (I'm a violinist, too, incidentally.) I did watch the video you mentioned, and it seems to me that it is more a critique of some of Beethoven's purported fans than of Beethoven himself. And although I find this critique to be accurate in some respects, the very same critique can be leveled at many today who praise modern classical music. I cannot tell you how many concerts of modern classical music I've attended around the world where the audience members tried to one-up each other in who could seem most modern, refined, and avant-guard by appreciating the music, whereas when one really quizzed them ruthlessly about it, one would find that most of them actually couldn't stand it, and would rather listen to Beethoven any day of the week. There are of course those who genuinely like it, but it's a small minority. And it's not all the same, of course: I have liked some modern classical music, too, but much of it is simply too academic, in my view, as I mention in the video, and I think that's generally reflected in audience reactions. Perhaps you're referring to modern music that is neither pop nor modern classical, and I'd never deny that there has been innovation - I like some modern material, too. I'm just making a point about syntax, but too many people seem to think that I believe that it's somehow "illegitimate" to enjoy modern music, which is not at all what I was trying to say. (If I were to enter into more detail, I'd add that parts of the Beethoven Sucks-video are fairly tendentious and contain some questionable statements, like the suggestion that people didn't listen to what was to them old music - that was true of Bach for a good while, who was ignored for a long time after his death, yes, but not so true in general; Bach himself greatly enjoyed Palestrina, for example, who had lived over a hundred years earlier, and it was not unreasonable for a composer to hope that his work might survive him. Toward the end when the video gets into the whole white men-business the analysis becomes rather abstruse; I don't know any sane person who would suggest that the fact that we have a lot of white men in the canon means women and non-whites can't compose great music. There are some old stooges, I suppose, who might think so, but most of us don't take that seriously, and so I think there's a fair amount of straw-manning in the video. I'm not outraged in the slightest that Lamar received a Pulitzer.)

I mean all we can do is see what gets produced. You might be wrong...

I really love violin a lot

I will have top listen to this a few times to understand what you mean by syntax. However as one other commentator wrote, music is more than syntax and syntax simply becomes a convention whether one wishes to adhere to or not. Also you mention music is mathematical, well Xenakis revealed how rudimentary the mathematics fo classical music of 18th and 19th was in many cases - basically rising to the level of elementary calculus. Xenakis went beyond that, and therefore the music he created may have exceeded listeners ' comprehension since the conventions developed were so foreign to what was adhered too in the past. Here is how I define music: Music produced by humans (and a good deal of animals) is, in my opinion, a set of sonic conventions communicated in a variety of means to align ourselves with or gain membership to a group of people we wish to belong to. Music is simply an elaborate ritual of social bonding and insidiously powerful tool to enforce a social hierarchy. And it often ends up oppressing people --- except those who give up trying to adopt a sonic convention or enforcing a convention of their own upon others and, instead, freely accept or create those that suit them for their own personal reward. I will get to your lecture but I ask if you have read the theoretical work of Schencker, some of David Lewin's theoretical works, explore some of the literature on serial and twelve tone composition. it might have reconsider your comparison which on the surface seems strange as i think you are comparing "apples" with "artichokes".

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks very much for your comment. As I said to the commentator you mention who wrote that music is more than syntax, this is indeed uncontroversial, and I am not making the claim to describe all facets of music (far from it!). This video is about syntax, and in that regard, I think it perfectly clear that the development is as I describe. My comment about music as mathematical is not meant too literally. I mean it simply as a useful contrast between music and other art forms: the mathematical and the logical are static, whereas e.g. building materials are not. (But if we are to stick with the dimension of mathematics, I wouldn't deny that there are some more "advanced" pieces today, especially within the arena of modern "classical" music; on the contrary I acknowledge it in the video. My remark about "academic" music was meant as my answer to that particular issue.) That "music" is more than a sequence of notes arranged on paper is also uncontroversial. This I discussed briefly in the same reply to the other commentator. Indeed music plays an extremely important social role, as you say, and not only a good one, a thought which goes back to the good old Greeks. But none of this was the topic of the video. But to answer your question, I have only a cursory familiarity with David Lewin's theoretical works. If there is a particular title that you think is especially important in the context we're discussing, do mention it to me. I always seek to increase my knowledge and would be very happy to read it. Thanks again!

@chrissahar2014

5 жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld Well I do have one but it is tough unless you have a good mathematical background - "Generalized Musical Intervals and transforms". David Lewin wrote articles that are less daunting mathematically - one in particular is David Lewin: "Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception."

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks! I'll start with the article, which I just pulled up on JSTOR, and take it from there.

@carlosfdz7807

5 жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld Also, I don't understand why you wouldn't define music's objective as purely as to make people happy, a form of entertainment, just like art. If complexity is the criteria to judge the value of art, then a car (only if built for that purpose instead of a practical transportation one) would have more artistic value than David by Michael-Angelo, since its much more complex given all its elements (i.e., radiator, pistons, brake pads, etc.). In terms of music, I can imagine a piece that is very complicated and its not pleasurable to listen to. If this was the case, then you wouldn't even need to listen to music only read the music sheet to judge the complexity in the notes, and hence the value of it. I submit that art appreciation does not work that way. Complexity will give a good reason to prefer Wagner over Kanye West, but I don't think that it will justify preferences within classical music, since not always the most complex pieces are the most enjoyable, even to music "experts".

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

@@carlosfdz7807 Yes, here also we agree, and the point you just made about "a piece that is very complicated and it's not pleasurable to listen to" is similar to what I just said in response to your other comment, so yes, we agree. In the video I didn't make any attempt to "define music's objective", and I think that this is quite a different question. If I had tried to do so, I probably would have come up with something fairly similar to what you say here. I have written elsewhere, in my book "Art and Aesthetics", that the definition or question of what "art" is, is ultimately a pointless one; the question worth asking is only what it does for a particular observer, and that is something that every observer must ask him-/herself. But this leads into larger questions of aesthetics, away from the topic of this particular video. Thank you for your comments!

can someone explain what ''syntax'' means and what ''syntactical''decline implies

@latrotoxin8143

Жыл бұрын

He's talking about combinations of arrangements and the decline of their complexity.

I'm personally a fan of classical music, chiefly mozart. One thing, that many boomers got wrong is to say, that newer music is not even music and only the pieces back then are real music. God damn it, listen what you enjoy, just give the classical music a fair chance, maybe you'll like it, but also for every classical music enjoyer, just give the new stuff a fair chance too. If you'll don't like it, you can say that you gave it a chance, but you prefer your style. Seriously, why does it have to be so complex, that only people, who like a specific form of art are smarter or have a good taste of music?

@dennis4462

3 жыл бұрын

BTW. Good video

@folksurvival

2 жыл бұрын

Because some forms of art are objectively bad and stupid.

hey, i see that at the end of this video you made an association between immature people and a particular artist. I want to ask is there any relationship between maturity level and musical taste? thank you.

@linkskywalker5417

4 ай бұрын

If that's the case, do children have poor to no music taste?

as a classical pianist who also shares your view on classical music having more complex structure and harmonic foundation, I would like to ask you what would your thoughts on neo-classicism be, for example, Prokofiev, who is a neoclassicist... does that still not alter the fact that probably the most syntactically complex compositions have already been composed? Or how would you respond to this question? Thank you for the video, very instructive and interesting arguments!

@BenedictBeckeld

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your kind words. I'd respond that neoclassicism is itself quite old and therefore not to be placed under the rubric of "modern music" in the context of this video. But I do think it can be said, secondarily, that indeed some (certainly not all) of neoclassicism is already starting to move in an "academic" direction due to mild degrees of syntactical exhaustion.

I agrre with many aspects....however making assertions that great music can NEVER come again has caught him in the age old trap of....I know everything that humans will think in the future!! The fact we have a brain and can ony compare the different musical styles with each other places limitations on thoughts and opinions. You would need an overwhelming consensus to make such a statement. The BEST is always based on individual opinion and even if 99 out of 100 agreed with a proposition does not make it true or so. We are dealing with concepts and ideas attached to emotions and preferences. The BEST is totally subjection. No person knows what best is. Classic case of the mind catching themselves out! cheers

@markwilson9935

3 жыл бұрын

@@emanuel_soundtrack Ontological....mmmm big word....but like all words....meaningless.....words areabout usage not meaning

@markwilson9935

3 жыл бұрын

@@emanuel_soundtrack Awesome !!

People tend to merge quality with taste. Classsical has always been my favorite genre, but Ray Bryant's Lonesome Traveler is my favorite jazz album. Likewise I enjoy Jamiriquois, The Crusaders and Blood, Swest and Tears. Maybe a few Beatlex tunes. But there's a huge difference betwen writing a rock ballad and striking a piano with a hammer. Obviously striking a piano with a hammer isn't music. The real issue, however is the loweing of artistic standards. But I equate it to laziness. Whether it be rock, jazz, classical, etc., we should strive to create the best art possible. Doesn't mean you can't cut loose once in a while. Quality over quantity.

i highly recomend anyone to listen or admire Brahms piano concert n.1 played by Arthur Rubistein, its made me cry

What is the purpose of music? My brother is a philosophy student and once argued that if music doesnt make you dance it is not useful to him. I argued against him at the time but nevertheless. One needs to ask is it any wonder why classical music is not more popular and thus less influential on modern music given the stuffiness and snobbery associated with this world? In Africa music always had a purpose, a practical purpose. It was used literally to communicate very specific things that were not abstract. It was also used of course for celebrations and to accompany dance. In fact all original music had this purpose. Music never had an intellectual purpose. "Classical Music as we know it is simply folk music made by poor rural people, repackaged for the enjoyment of the Bourgeoisie". At least that's how I had it explained to me. Honestly though this seems to happen to many genres. Jazz is perhaps the greatest example I can think of. It was originally a music that Afro Americans danced to. It was the dance music of the day. It was then repackaged for the Elites to the extreme so that today if you observe a Jazz audience with no sound you might think the audience were listening to a TED talk. Now when this "shallow" music of today is being used for a very specific purpose: FUN. The elites are here to tell us how far we've fallen. Some nerve.....

@Johnnywanton

Ай бұрын

Good comment. Although I would say classical music can give me things (emotionally speaking) that very little other genres can give me so I wouldn't say it's per definition intellectual music. My own problem with alot of today's pop music is that I just don't like the way it sounds. Too polished and "in your face". But that's more of a taste issue and has nothing to do with the simplicity of the music.

I’m in my early teens (surprising, huh?) and I love classical music so much! I completely agree with this video.

@Bevsworld04

3 жыл бұрын

Not really surprising, but thats good

@angrypotato1347

3 жыл бұрын

@@Bevsworld04 yeah, I guess you're right for the most part. But I go to a pretty small school and no one else in my school listens to classical music and it really sucks that I can't share one of the things I love the most in my live with anyone. So, I guess why I said that is because I'm not used to anyone like me.

@albertmozart6086

3 жыл бұрын

@@angrypotato1347 Hey. I went to a small school. I went through the same thing. It gets better.

@angrypotato1347

3 жыл бұрын

Albert & Mozart Oh, I’m glad to hear that. Thanks, mate. Hopefully, it does.

@albertmozart6086

3 жыл бұрын

@@angrypotato1347 Are you an aussie?

I may have not been paying attention but, i do not know why you think music peaked back then. can anyone explain. In my humble opinion, i believe that music back then was very simple and basic (i have not listened a lot of classical music btw). I think today, some music has improved a lot in its harmonic complexity and structure. All though harmonies and rhythms will not really change, there is more than that to making a good song to listen to. All in all there is just more to pick from in terms of genres and music in general. English is not my first language.

@sak_1017

3 жыл бұрын

Ok so . You are quite right . Music back then is simple but it depends on the era when it is composed Classical music is divided into eras . Baroque ( 1600-1750 ? ) , classical ( 1750-1820? ) , romantic (1798-1837? ) ( all of these dates are estimation ) Ok so back to the point . Maybe you are only listening to baroque era composers or you dont listen to classical music at all and is assuming that all music back then was very basic and simple. Give a try listening to Paganini ( famous classical composer ) he frequently uses different playing techniques ( ricochets , spicatto , left hand pizzicatos and harmonics ) in his compositions . Edit : nel cor piu non mi sento by paganini - kzread.info/dash/bejne/gaSs2aqmj8TFgNI.html Caprice 5 - kzread.info/dash/bejne/lKSlxbitdLyyqtI.html Ahhh one of my favorites . God save the queen - kzread.info/dash/bejne/dJN-w5WQkdvJZbg.html ( considered as one of the hardest piece )

@zest6443

3 жыл бұрын

@@sak_1017will do, thanks for being so nice about it.

@phoneminlwin5160

9 ай бұрын

You are saying the opposite

Thanks for this wonderful presentation. I agree with most of your opinions and views comparing Classical to Modern styles of music. I do believe it's difficult to dismiss some of the grand works produced in the 20th century like Carmina Burana or Rhapsody in Blue. There never will be another Mozart or Beethoven is a bold statement. We have experienced virtuoso talents in the modern age. And can you honestly dismiss a composer like John Williams? I can follow you train of thought making a general observation of Classical vs Modern, which I define modern as Blues based music that evolved into Rock, Country, R&B and what most consider Pop. But to discount modern musicianship on the performer level is difficult. I think that is a different subject. I would like to hear Mozart's opinion on our modern music. Whenever the discussion of musical taste comes up in conversation I always refer to his quote " Music should never offend the ear, rather charm it". I think that's good enough for me for discerning between types and styles of music. Thanks for the conversation Dr. Beckeld.

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

And thank you to you for commenting! So indeed as you say I think we're mostly in agreement. It's not so much that I "dismiss" John Williams or any of the others - I listen to their music as well, with varying degrees of enjoyment - only that I observe that they tend to be syntactically simpler than earlier work, of which in fact the rather repetitive Carmina Burana is a good example, in my opinion (though I do have a soft spot for Rhapsody in Blue!). Musicianship on the performer level, which you mention, is a different story, and one I don't discuss in the video, and something I don't discount. But indeed you say yourself that it's a different subject, and I agree. The Mozart quote you mention I think is very pertinent: in order to keep up syntactic complexity, music has come to offend the ear more and more (which is the brief reference I make to "academic" music). Thanks again!

@Cats_Bread

4 жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld so what's your opinion about jazz tho? And some musicians like Jacob collier?

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

@@Cats_Bread I'm not a huge jazz fan, but I like some of it, and have gone to a few jazz concerts over the years. One in particular a few years ago with Jimmy Heath I absolutely loved. I'm not very familiar with Jacob Collier.

The truth is, even bagpipes are better than modern music.

Music is syntactic and therefore limited, but literature is also governed by a grammatical syntax. Both literature and music are limited by sequencing constraints, yet we can be sure that the subjective interpretation, the intended meaning, and emotive responses of any form of art are all limitless. You may say that the amount of possible tones is fewer than the amount of morphemes which are possible than in language, but you are not comparing commensurable categories; there are a limited amount of “phonemes” human beings may articulate; however, there is an practically infinite amount of possible arrangement of phonemes, just as there is an infinite amount of tonal sequences (e.g. dissident harmonies, chromatic scales, etc.). None of that, yet, accounts for your premise which states that music is more mathematically limited than other art forms. I argue you insufficiently supported that claim; it would be equally valid to say painters are limited by the amount of colors which humans can perceive, or that architects are limited to the number of designs with structural integrity. The truth is that humans will always subject themselves to the art which produces the most pleasing emotional response, and there is there is no necessary condition that complex music will produce the most pleasant emotive response - the fact is that many people find beauty in simplicity and predictability, and yet there is still enough demand for jazz music, for example, that one can make a living as a trained musician - this is an issue of the Pareto distribution, not of any intrinsic limitation of music. One needs to only search for the underground musicians who are creating elaborate and creative music today. Still, humans prefer efficiency; so, we would expect to see the syntax we employ also tending toward reduction: we will prefer to use mathematical formulas which are simple yet encapsulating (e.g. pi, E=MC2), and we will reduce linguistic syntax through epenthesis, contractions (aren’t), etc. Indeed, a simple song may even be superior to a complex song by virtue of its simplicity: consider how a brief but succinct proverb or phrase has a greater phenomenological impact than a weighty paragraph, or how something like consonant-cluster-reduction lends to a natural flow of language. Likewise, a “hook” must be relatively simple in order to be “catchy”. Alternatively, no one wants to listen to a musician flexing their technicality by writing a convoluted note-salad. We must be careful when we take a particular genre/scene of modern music (top 40 billboard hits) to characterize the whole of modern music - this is the fallacy of composition. One must only look at technical death metal or progressive rock to observe complex and unprecedented syntactic arrangements involving metric modulations, odd time signatures, polyrhythms, etc., (e.g. Animals as leaders www. reddit. com/r/musictheory/comments/3c8h5o/discussing_rhythm_meter_and_tonal_structure_in/). These kinds of bands combine completely idiosyncratic syntax with what you called the “loudness” of rock - which is not necessarily an artist’s “disguise” for his/her lack of ability - but which instead imbues (enchants) music with visceral, empowering energy. Sure, there are classical pieces which conjure a visceral presence, but tone evolved with Drop D electric guitars, which rely on a certain decibel level, gain, treble, etc. for their attack - this makes metal music a unique agent of aggressive catharsis in combination with its superior percussive arrangements not found within classical music. Remember, the “beat” makes people want to move (i.e. dance - the physical, ambiguously-interpretative, and dynamic expression of music's subjective response), while classical music lacks the same percussive presence. Listening to rock is like watching a horror movie, while listening to Classical music is like watching the English Patient; either horror or drama could be masterpieces, as much as they could be either “saw VII” or “Gigli”. Plainly, the central premise that musical syntax is somehow more exhaustible than the syntax in poetry, literature, or other arts, is false. We are talking about note-sequence, not tones - a musical artist may work with a finite set of notes, but he can arrange those notes in an infinitesimal number of ways. Speaking of poetry, poets use meters and rhyming schemes, relying on interplay of semantics, phonology, and morphology to create art, but its beat/foot/rhyme constraints mean that poets face pressure to conform to parameterized syntax just like musicians. Yet, both poets and musicians break conventions all the time. Yet by virtue of itself, syntactic uniqueness contributes little to the quality of art - this depends largely on the internal logic (context, cohesion etc), the surrounding spaciotemporal context, accents, embellishment, and of course how those factors contribute to its emotive impact. What’s more, musical complexity is not confined to syntax. For example, Endtroducing by DJ Shadow was comprised entirely of isolated samples, yet it does not feel jarring or abstract, instead exhibiting a clear overall vision and internal consistency, similar to a mosaic painting. Just earlier today, the guys from a local metal-punk crossover with whom I’m friends showed me the metronome template for their new song: there were 20 separate tempo changes and 8 separate odd time signatures. Yet it still felt “catchy” - while its featured lyrics cannot be considered anything other than poetry. Even poets will accompany their spoken-word performances with music, while the quality of music may not suffer from being purely instrumental .Then, music supersedes poetry at least in its aesthetic appeal; the underlying meaning is still conveyed in instrumental music, as the underlying message remains in a poem no matter the surface structure of the words. The whole argument that music will inevitably decline while other arts will not, really collapses just by considering that most modern mainstream art such as literature, film, poetry, paintings, etc. is just as vacuous and syntactically simple as most modern mainstream music. Unless you’re prepared to say the drivel in modern cinema is because “we’ve literally ran out of ideas for movies”, and turn a blind eye to independent film, then we’re either forced to say the apparent receding goalpost of MUSICAL standards isn’t really a diachronic phenomenon; rather, it appears synchronic. As in, you’re primarily making a distinction between pop culture, which comes from the masses, vs. high culture, which comes from the elite few. the decadence of high culture has always been a reality, as has been the simplicity of popular culture. . PS Is Justic Bieber grabbing his crotch any more emotionally immature (or shameless/shallow) than Salvador Dali ringing bells while walking down the street simply to draw attention to himself?

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much for such a long and thoughtful comment. Since you cover a lot of territory here, there’s actually much that I agree with, and so I’ll confine my reply only to those points where we diverge and that at the same time are germane to my argument. Indeed there is a limited number of possible language phonemes, but the signifieds of those phonemes are essentially limitless; that’s the difference in this particular context between them and tones. You’re right about the different emotive responses, but that’s a point I explicitly concede in the video and which is not part of the argument (indeed the most common protest against my argument is to run the gamut of personal emotions and preferences, as you do - more than half of your whole comment boils down to that - which is why I explicitly mention the issue in the video; that the simple can have greater emotive impact than the complex goes without saying - again, it is not part of the argument; so too it goes without saying that there are other qualities apart from syntax by which to evaluate a creative work, but those qualities are not what I discuss in my argument). Indeed it’s also true that there’s an infinite number of tonal sequences, but that’s where they perforce become academic, as I explain (“a musician flexing their technicality by writing a convoluted note-salad”, as you put it). There are only so many colors we can perceive, but an unlimited number of phenomena to be portrayed. The point is that by being concrete, it extends further (counterintuitively) than the abstract. I am aware indeed of the unusual syntactic structures of certain newer music genres (it’s nice that you mention death metal, for instance, because I happen to be quite a fan, in spite of my greater penchant for classical music), and by no means do I reject the notion that innovation is possible now. I’m simply saying that the overall development of music in this regard is in a particular direction, because it is. Your point beginning with “Unless you’re prepared to say the drivel in modern cinema is because ‘we’ve literally ran out of ideas for movies’, and turn a blind eye to independent film” I don’t quite understand, since it seems to me to be arguing more for my position than against it: I don’t turn a blind eye to independent film, and indeed I don’t consider independent film to have suffered any particular decline, as indeed it’s not subject to the limitations of music. Since you ask specifically: No, I don’t think it’s more emotionally immature. I’ve always considered Dalí perfectly ridiculous, which is entirely beside the point. We disagree, but again, I really appreciate thoughtful exchange; thank you.

6:58

@henklass

3 жыл бұрын

Oh noes! Bach on a concert grand! That should have been a harpsichord, of course.

I completely agree

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

@carlosfdz7807

5 жыл бұрын

I agree, but does more complexity actually (and always) translates into better? There are more complex and less complex pieces within classical music. Does that mean that a complex piece by Bach is objectively better than a simple piece by Bach?

There's still good music out there it just ain't played in the radio or promoted

What do you mean by "syntactical level" when talking about rock groups/louis armstrong/philip glass vs beethoven? Also "aesthetically pleasing" is subjective. Why was music of ancient Greece less "syntactically complex"? How is beethoven syntactically complex? Can you give examples of modern music you would consider to be syntactically complex but not aesthetically pleasing? Music can be made built on other pieces of music and invoke abstract meaning in that way (meaning that didn't exist before that other piece and its cultural associations existed(just like how new words can exist or change meaning?), and there's obviously plenty of original kinds of music that haven't been made yet. For example you could make a music structured around having a kind of a single timbre and the interaction of a single tone interacting with each of the partials, where the resolutions in the piece are not based on tonal centers but on sensory consonance/dissonance with the different partials (maybe someone has done this already though?)

@abyssssbmusic1370

3 жыл бұрын

You say there would be no tone in the future that doesn't currently exist. I don't know if you mean timbre or if you mean intervals/frequencies relative to a root. If you mean timbre, you're wrong because there's people continually making new timbres every day. If you mean frequencies relative to a root, there's plenty that classical composers didn't use. Also even if the material used in music never changed i don't see how that would "make another beethoven impossible"?

@abyssssbmusic1370

3 жыл бұрын

also, something else you forgot is that language itself (which you say will always have new material?) has pitch and rhythm content when spoken and therefore can be music, yet apparently the new meanings(including the meaning of the pitch and rhythm content) that language has apparently dont mean anything to this conversation when its used as music?

@abyssssbmusic1370

3 жыл бұрын

But really though the video is ridiculous and doesn't support any claims that it makes yet concludes (implicitly) that classical music is better than modern music by some standard that doesn't actually matter (and might not be true)

Aren't you just reiterating the arguments made by Adorno some 80 years ago? Arguments about "syntactical decline" in music aren't exactly new, in fact, they have since been augmented and nuanced since the 1940s, when Adorno wrote his "essays on popular music."

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

Thank you for commenting. I never claimed that everything in the video has never been said before. No philosopher can involve himself in a subject without drawing from the past (and if he does, he’s no doubt overestimating himself). If the idea of syntactical differences in music went back to one single person, I would have credited him, but indeed many people, and not just Adorno, have observed that modern music tends to be syntactically simpler compared to classical music (many people have observed it because it is, precisely, so obvious). My goal in this video was to explain an idea in a way that would make sense to everyone, and to add a few of my own thoughts to it as well, such as the metaphysical impossibility of Beethoven, the malleable nature of non-musical art forms, the separating out of architecture, and so forth.

Yup. Classical better. ☺😊

Care to explain why you think the rise of a new Beethoven is impossible?

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

Well, much of the video tries to explain that, but the crux of that particular matter begins at 2:41 and goes for a little over a minute.

@dustyboy8632

4 жыл бұрын

​@@BenedictBeckeld I don't agree with the argument that in order for music to continue to be syntactically complex, it couldn't be aesthetically pleasing. A lot of people, not the majority, still find classical music to be aesthetically pleasing. Besides, some artists like Bach and Van Gogh (he's not a musician I know but you get the point) were underappreciated during their lifetime and only exalted posthumously.

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

Indeed we disagree, though I would point out that I'm not talking about iron laws here, only tendencies. So I would agree with you that it's not impossible for modern classical music to be syntactically complex and aesthetically pleasing at the same time (I could mention several pieces as examples), but I do believe that there is a strong tendency in the direction I have described, and for the reasons I have described, and that the market of modern classical music is quite saturated with nearly unlistenable work.

I get what you're saying, but why should musical syntax be the metric by which we judge song? You could choose anything, it is simply your personal taste that led you to syntax. Why not choose lyrics, for example? The lyrics of greats from Bob Dylan to Nas to John Lennon are, in my mind, better than most of the lyrics in classical music. In the end, it all comes down to preferences that vary from person to person, and to pretend that one genre is inherently superior to another is untenable

Absolutely spot on. The music of today will never stand up in history:/

@BenedictBeckeld

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you (and agreed)!

@danieldeiparine1616

5 жыл бұрын

yeah :(

@carlosfdz7807

5 жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld I agree, but does more complexity actually (and always) translates into better? There are more complex and less complex pieces within classical music. Does that mean that a complex piece by Bach is objectively better than a simple piece by Bach?

@BenedictBeckeld

5 жыл бұрын

@@carlosfdz7807 No, indeed it does not mean that. The "better" in the video title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek; overall I do certainly think that classical music is better than modern music and that syntax is one of the reasons for it, but I agree with you entirely that syntactical complexity in and of itself does not mean that something is "objectively better" (if it did, then modern "classical-academic" music would often be the best of all, but so much of it is simply not very pleasant to listen to).

@bmml_

4 жыл бұрын

It is good for kids like us Our parents dont have to judge us about our dreams and what we hear

I'm a little confused on your argument. Are you saying that 1) musical complexity peaked in the past (i.e. Beethoven) and that modern music is not as complex, and that this makes past music superior, merely because it has more notes that are played in different patterns; and/or 2) that it is impossible for new musicians to create music with *new* complexities equal in value to the past complexities because the past musicians have fully exchausted the possible arrangements of notes? If you are arguing at least for 1), as I tried to restate it, why would the emotional value of music NOT take absolute precedence over the music's technical complexity? Isn't the emotion we get from music the entire point of listening to it? If you are arguing 2), do you really think that all possible expressions of note-patterns have been exhausted? Or most? If so, when in time do you think we about hit that exhaustion point? Cheers!

@BenedictBeckeld

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for commenting, and I'm happy to clarify. I am saying, regarding your point 1), that modern music is less syntactically complex (unless it is what I call "academic", with some exceptions), but at no point do I say that syntax is the only thing that makes music good or bad; and, regarding your point 2), that this is largely the case, yes, but not entirely (see my reference to "exceptions" under point 1)) - it is still possible today, but it is much rarer, due to syntactical exhaustion. As for your secondary points, emotion - much too vague a term - is not the whole point of listening to music, no, though it's certainly a part of it, and no, of course there are still many more patterns possible - an infinite number, really - but within the spectrum that human beings tend to find pleasant to listen to, syntactical exhaustion has already occurred, even if now and then something further manages to be squeezed out. I say in the video when approximately the exhaustion occurred, though of course it was a gradual development.

@jessie6600

Жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld thanks for the response! 🙏🏻

Hello. It's fun to be intellectual about music, so I want to join you. Even though arguing can be frustrating, I want it to just be fun. I first must agree that frequency combinations are probably exhausted, not to get boggled down in minute differences in pitch. But this argument is flawed because the music you're referring to isn't being made with sine waves. The rich harmonics of the instruments are in of themselves subjective beauty. Then there is the argument of virtuosity and artistic expression. The musical notes on the page aren't merely the music we are listening to. In an orchestra for instance, it is the conductor's job to interpret how the music is played. One person may like Bernstein and another may prefer Bychkov. If scale combinations were all that mattered to our ears, music could be near completion with just Bach (that Bach example you used was sublime. Please tell me name of it). Complexity in music goes beyond tonality as well. Precise african and indian drum patterns focused more on timing than frequency can be a very rewarding listen. Though the syntax there is assuredly equally exhausted far before contemporary music. My point being it is outside of classical music. There are more points to be made but I think that is enough for now. I do hope for a reply, if only to enlighten me of that particular Bach opus.

@BenedictBeckeld

Жыл бұрын

Hello, and thank you for commenting. I actually agree with pretty much everything you say here, and as I've pointed out in response to some other comments, musical appreciation is of course not only about syntax; there are many other factors as well. But I do believe that syntactical exhaustion is a sufficient explanation for what I and many others perceive to be a historical decline. The work you're referring to is the famous Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor, to which I can listen for hours on repeat.

Are there limited ways to make a single instrument sound aesthetically pleasing while the part its playing becomes increasingly complex? Maybe. But luckily for us there are almost infinite ways to make boundary-pushing music and enjoyable music with the 1000s of new sounds we have at our disposal today. Good music does not start and end with melodic complexity. Although countless masterpieces were created between 1600-1900, what you're not recognizing is how sonically limited they were. The composers were as creative as they could be with what they had, yes. Their chords and melodies were powerful and iconic, which made up for the fact that all their music used the same few instruments that existed then (keyboard, strings, etc.) But their instrumentation was still fundamentally limited. In the past 120 years we now have at our disposal dozens of new instruments including -Countless new acoustic drum kits and electronic drum sounds including 808 and 909 drums, etc. -Electric Guitars -Bass Guitars -Synthesizers -Turntables -Rhodes -Samplers -DAWs -Steel Drums -Therimins -Koudis -Banjo Ukeleles -Mellotrons And many more. Not to mention all the new genres: Jazz Soul Funk Country Punk Rock Metal Electronic House Trance EDM Experimental Vaporwave Trap Hip hop These genres aren't simply "louder" than classical to set themselves apart. They've taken music in exciting new directions in terms of rhythm, structure, chords, melodies, and sound. Classical composers pushed the limits of what was possible with the few instruments they had. They did a lot with very little, and for that they deserve enormous credit. But in terms of breaking new musical ground, classical was already surpassed with jazz in the 1940s. And jazz has been surpassed several times since. If you're interested, I could share modern music with you that does things musically that no composer achieved from 1600 to 1900. Music is getting better all the time, and I hope I've helped you see that, at least in some way. All the best.

@BenedictBeckeld

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. I actually agree with almost everything you say here; my little talk focuses solely on what I (and others) call musical syntax, which is not at all to deny developments in other areas, such as timbre, instrumentation, etc. There are a few genres of modern music that I greatly enjoy myself.

@carlwagner2049

3 жыл бұрын

@Vinsu Karma I'm confused, since I never spoke on pop music in my comment, but your comment is inaccurate regardless. Plenty of classical was made just to make money, and plenty of pop music is made for the love of artistry. Check out "art pop" "psychedelic pop" "progressive pop" "jazz pop" or "sophisti-pop" if you want to hear pop music with musical depth that pushes boundaries.

This is real people today listen to songs that make no sense I'm ALMOST a teen but I have the best taste in music in my class which is classical music Classical music is better because it has feelings emotions love hatred etc. even though it came from the piano it still make sense because composers use there feeling by the piano by using the correct jose like the Revolutionary Etude Opus 10. No.12 -Chopin he made it strong mad due to Poland vs Russia War he made it with deep emotions and so you see classical music is better it bcoz :NO FLEXING NUDES MONEY AND ETC. LASTLY IT MEANS EVERYTHING WE CAN RELATE THE COMPOSERS.

@tenebrissubterra4596

4 жыл бұрын

Jungle is a genre of music purely made on samples. In the mid 90s in the U.K (1993-1995) a rave scene spread throught England. The youth united over a genre they loved. Now, they loved it becuse it was void of financial gain. The people making this music where just kids in there bedroom, in a run down estate I hackney. Amiga, turntable and tape deck, that's all they had and yet it still encapsulated England with a rush of love and unity.

Brilliant video ! I

I would love an more comprehensive explanation of what you mean by syntax in music with musical examples. My understanding of syntax and music generally leads to the opposite conclusion, one of endless possibility not finite exhaustion. Even if it were so, finite as you say, I find melodic/harmonic and the many combinations of musical development and form so underworked, unexplored, and handled it very naive and narrow ways in the past few hundred years that there would be far more fertile ground left than spent dirt. Evolution will never stop giving way to new species, so to will the molecular and cell forms in music never stop giving way to new forms and relations within a piece to create genuine new works. I dont want to put words in your mouth but my initial presumption from your brief overview of musical syntax is a superficial and impressionistic one, similar to the observations and classifications of animals before Darwin, that is before a dialectical understanding of the species. That is it lacks a deep enough understanding of musical content and form and all of its relations and functions to proclaim its limits. I would be curious your perspective on my works since I very much have fought against tendencies you touch on in modern music while simultaneously fighting against a simple rehashing of the past, maybe even a syntactical revival if you will. Many of my works online are still from my younger years so may have some more or less problems in these regards, but there are a few I could suggest. When my violin sonata is finished and another piece I am working on it will hopefully be another step in the right direction...

What if all your basic premises are wrong ? That music is not mathematical, even though it may be helpful for a composer to know how to count. That the number of tones are in fact unlimited. That beauty in music does not depend on the number of tones or any other extramusical phenomena. And that the question of taste is the most important question to ask. Finn

@BenedictBeckeld

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for commenting. The number of tones certainly is unlimited, yes, but our ability to appreciate them generally is not. Even if we do ask the question of taste, as I do, this will lead us to the further question of why people gravitate away from what in the video I call academic music and toward more traditional classical idioms.

@finnurtorfi

Жыл бұрын

I agree with you that people gravitate from academic music, for the simple reason that they find it boring, which in most cases it certainly is. Our culture does not seem to be interested in serious music. There is no incentive for talented people of ambition. Furthermore music is undemocratic. Very few have the necessary ability to compose truly worthwhile music. The Mozart of our times is probably trading in stocks.

@BenedictBeckeld

Жыл бұрын

I agree to a considerable extent with what you say here, but I think people often find academic music not only boring but distinctly ugly or unpleasant (with some exceptions, of course); "boring" is more what uncultured people might say about traditional classical music. But I certainly agree with your general purport about the state of incentives in our culture, and not only as regards music.

@finnurtorfi

Жыл бұрын

I would like to add, that I think the future of music does not have to be so bleak. There is good hope that the preoccupations of our generation will not last and demand for beautiful music, and the arts in general, will revive. There was not much music in Germany during the Thirty years wars. Out of the ashes came Bach.

@BenedictBeckeld

Жыл бұрын

In the video I've outlined why I think that will never happen, but, of course, I'd love to be wrong!

I don't like his snobbish attitude towards music. I believe that simplicity could be better sometimes.

@tenebrissubterra4596

4 жыл бұрын

Exactly, well said brother.

@zahebmohammed948

3 жыл бұрын

Yea, but simplicity can be achieved by both classical and pop

@Petter_GM

Жыл бұрын

Yes but there's a difference between simplicity and monotinaity. The classical world has loads of very simple music that still is good music. Just look at Bachs c major invention bwv 772 or his c major prelude bwv 846. You might even call Bachs cello suites simple since they only use one line of melody for the most part. That is not the same as the simple music today. Pop music consists of the so-called "four chord progressions", ostinatos, unchangeing beats and other monotonous and overly repetitive musical devices. A lot of the time a song will consist of just a beat and one or two notes repeated over and over again like a hypnotic drone. I find it extremely difficult putting those two styles of music in the same qualitative category

@angelbast3rd133

11 ай бұрын

Something being better doesn't mean something else sucks. One music is basic. One music is advanced. One has zero talent, you can write a pop album even. One has tons of talent, you'll never compose complex arrangements.

@VivekPatel-ze6jy

7 ай бұрын

​@@Petter_GMyou can find examples across modern genres of much more complex chord progressions (and various modes) being used. It's easy to think of pop music as only a few 2010s radio hits, but that's just not the case

I honestly don't get why someone would be proud of only being able to enjoy a single genre. I discovered classical music rather late (about when I turned 16 at July 2018) but I obviously knew about classical music before. Do I listen to pop music? Yes, but that doesn't mean I hate other genres. I listen to classical piano music (especially Valentina Lisitsa and Martha Argerich, they're my favorite pianist

@yahira.7031

3 жыл бұрын

They are simple morons. I discovered classical music at 15, and I love it incredibly hard, from Bach to Rachmaninoff; that doesn't stops me from listening to other "kind" of music such as the pop one itself time to time, even if I'm not a fan.

I would disagree that its impossible to reach such complexity again, even assuming a human could not, we can not predict what a strong artificial intelligence may be able to do even with the same limited supply of tones.

@abyssssbmusic1370

2 жыл бұрын

Why do you think artificial intelligence could do better than a human could?

@DreckbobBratpfanne

2 жыл бұрын

@@abyssssbmusic1370 I mean all music we developed / created came out of our minds. If you assume out brains are the most powerful intelligence possible, then nothing could beat our music too. But it's highly questionable that it is the most powerful and in fact a lot of experts are very certain that AI at some point will become more intelligent than we are, and such an AI should be able to create even more complex music, not necessarily music that sounds nice to us, but more complex surely.

@abyssssbmusic1370

2 жыл бұрын

@@DreckbobBratpfanne what exactly would ai do differently to make music that is more complex? What exactly do you mean by complex(in music)? Because people could use algorithms to generate noise, which in some sense you could consider to be complex?

@DreckbobBratpfanne

2 жыл бұрын

@@abyssssbmusic1370 well this is actually hard to say. A lot of classical music is very complex compared to at least some of more modern stuff. But I doubt it has already reached the limit of what is physically possible. In the end, anything that our brains produced could be outdone by something smarter. How this would look / sound / work is beyond me though. Maybe extremely detailed sub frequencies in the music or something different.

Problem with modern music is that is has become more of a business, aiming for profit rather than message or theme, aiming to please the audience rather than show them some other message. Now music is affected by the times instead of affecting the times put simply....but if this is the case i believe music has hope of getting out of this trough we're in.. we just need a new sound, new instruments, new styles. Im a composer and I believe i can. Lol no one's gonna read this, peace

@Nur-lz1tl

Жыл бұрын

i read it :)

How is music "mathematical" and poetry not?

This comparison of “classical” to modern music is flawed in several ways. To compare music of different eras one has to take into account the context of how the work is played, in a lifestyle where satisfaction comes about easily, we expect the things we enjoy to become fairly like-able upon our first interaction with it. This is the same with music, we expect everything immediately. This however, does not mean that music has become less good. Although tonal complexity admittedly has diminished, the poetry used in modern music is far superior to the poetry used in “classical” music, much of which is borrowed from the Bible. This use of words is inferior in the modern world as the Bible is less studied than it was in earlier times. Use of newer poetry more relevant to our modern world means we can relate to the music much more, therefore meaning that more people can feel the emotion being conveyed by the piece of art. Art is defined as the use of a skill and imagination to invoke an emotional response in a person. If one person has a similar emotional response or greater emotional response to a piece by Justin Bieber( probably not the best example) to a piece by mozart, so what? Art is not something that can be judged by a single individual, art is what is felt in our hearts rather than our heads (therefore a statistical approach would be better to compare the two art forms than a mathematical one) , yes the mathematical complexity of the music of Bach is unrivaled, his use of counterpoint takes tonal complexity to a new level admittedly, but who cares? Music of different eras should not be compared to the music of today. Your argument is full of confirmation bias, you do not search for innovation in newer music, your definition of innovation is limited by your definition of music itself, rather than taking an artistic approach you take a mathematical approach, you say that innovation can only occur in select areas rather than innovation coming from unexpected places. There is no limit to art, music is definitely a form of art rather than maths, although our early understanding of music is mathematical and logical, so is our understanding of literature and of other art forms, unlike math musicians can break these musical rules to create varying art, music is an art, there are no rules, there are no rules for what you can like. A mathematician prefers the expression 1=1 rather than the expression 1=2, as he is a mathematician, his craft is definitely defined by rules. Music however is defined by the emotional response of a person. Enjoy whatever art you individually enjoy, however, don’t diminish the art others enjoy just because you don’t enjoy it, music is not maths! Sorry I’m a bit drunk whilst writing this lol

@777lucifero

2 жыл бұрын

There's also another issue, people used hours to hear a concert and/or to look at a painting. Today we don't have several hours to stare at one painting, so naturally, the detail of a painting made today will hardly be able to match the complexity of earlier works. Such paintings could be looked at for hours, almost like a ''movie'', where small details would tell a sequence of stories/emotions/etc. Just as there will never be another mozart/bach/etc, there will never be another sistine chapel. And also, setting aside the viewers, the artists do not work the same way today. Hiring someone like michelangelo to paint a chapel of such magnitude? Religion does not play the same role as before, there would not be any ''profit'' in doing that now. The cost would be astronomical, and what would be its purpose? If you have billions to invest today, your top priorities will go into other markets... not into building a second vatican city out of marble with chapels that cost billions.

Why on earth are so many people triggered with an opinion?

Contrasting Bach with Justin Bieber isn't fair. Check out this interview with the drummer of Captain Beefheart's Magic band kzread.info/dash/bejne/gZhkwa6Lfs-rZaQ.html. Also, do you really think modern architecture as good as the Pantheon or Reims Cathedral? I think you showed a clip of Seattle Library. It's a great example of what you can do with concrete, but not comparable with the miracle of the Renaissance. This is not a bad thing. The rising price of labour - the advance of the dispossessed out of abject poverty - made recreating the architecture of the past impossible.

What do you mean "music is mathematical"?

The comparison of classical to modern music is flawed in several ways. To compare the music of different eras, one must understand the context of how the chords are played and listened to, as well as the human psychology behind music. Here is how I define music: Music produced by humans is a set of sonic conventions communicated in a variety of means to align ourselves with or gain membership to a group of people we wish to belong to. Music is simply an elaborate ritual of social bonding and an insidiously powerful tool to enforce a social hierarchy. And it often ends up oppressing people --- except those who give up trying to adopt a sonic convention or enforcing a convention of their own upon others, and instead freely accept or create those that suit them for their reward. In a lifestyle where satisfaction comes about easily, humans expect the things we enjoy to become fairly likable upon our first interaction with them. This fact is the same with music, we expect everything immediately. This, however, does not mean that music has become less definite. Although tonal complexity has diminished, the lyrics used in modern music are far superior to the lyrics used in “classical” music, much of which is borrowed from the Bible. The use of modern lyrics, which are more relevant to our modern world, means that we can relate to the music much more, therefore meaning that more people can feel the emotion being conveyed by the piece of art. Art is defined as the use of skill and imagination to invoke an emotional response in a person. If someone has a similar emotional response or perhaps a greater emotional response to a song by Justin Bieber to a piece by Mozart, so what? Art is not something that can be judged by a single individual. Art is what is felt with our emotions rather than our heads. Yes, the mathematical complexity of the music of Franz Liszt is unrivaled. His use of counterpoint takes tonal complexity to a new level, but who cares? Music of different eras should not be compared to the music of today. The argument presented in the film is full of confirmation bias. Which is defined as, the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. Dr. Benedict Beckeld does not search for innovation in newer music. His definition of innovation is limited by his definition of music itself. Rather than taking an artistic approach, Dr. Beckeld takes a mathematical approach. He states innovation can only occur in select areas rather than innovation coming from unexpected places. I agree with Dr. Beckeld’s argument that syntactical structures of music are static, but we can't define music only with this element (syntactical structure). We need to analyze music based on its other basic elements: rhythm, melody, harmony, form, etc. And going on this way, we will always have possibilities for innovation in music. Although rhythm, melody, harmony, and even the dynamics could be considered like mathematical signs. Texture, timbre, form, and arrangements are not. For example, the innovation and vanguardism proposed by Charles Mingus to the Free Jazz is unique, but is not on the syntax perspective; but on the form perspective. That's why I can say that Charles Mingus is a genius just like Beethoven is. Dr. Beckeld’s point of "academic music" and counterintuitive music should be revoked. I say this thinking in Psychoacoustics, (how humans perceive various sounds) space, and time. When we take a look at psychoacoustics, space, and time we can see that our ears can learn different ways to hear the sound. So, music that today is considered counterintuitive, could be considered a masterpiece in the future. George Fredric Handel’s music is the best example of this case, and who knows, in a remote future, Dodecaphonism music starts to sound more musically. I know Dr. Beckeld is comparing Classical Music and Modern Music only on a syntactical level, (which is defined as a set of rules of a given system that organizes musical events over time) but I judge this as a wrong way to think about music. Music is much more than only musical syntax. Before I get into my main argument, I would say that I agree in most contexts that music compositionally is finite. Taking in the context of what's now being added to music plus all music that has come before this present moment. I mean, no one would listen to a year-long song and even remember half of it, my point is music being repeated and stretched over time can make something that's in some way original. As repetition of already stated musical ideas can convey new information via it being repeated. Though for all intents and purposes and thinking practically about what kinds of differences need to be present in music for it to be perceived as new or unique, then yes, I would say that we've exhausted a lot of music's commonly and widely enjoyable ideas. I do personally still think there's room in some contexts for modern musicians to create commonly enjoyable music which isn't a true rehash of previously stated ideas, though the commonly enjoyable stuff is borrowing or at least restating ideas more and more from the past. Now, my main rebuttal to what Dr. Beckeld said, is how he suggests what is enjoyable to most, is a lot more limited than the syntactical possibilities in music. I agree to an extent. I don't think anyone will ever like all possible music. My argument or proposition is if people truly value music they should try to expand their taste to see how green the grass may be on other sides. I also want to mention one reason why some music that is consonant or pleasurable is widely enjoyed partially due to its familiarity. Given that the older a piece of music is, the more people have had time to familiarize themselves with it, puts classical music is in a pretty unique position. Also, music is often passed down from generation to generation in one way or another. So, classical music has a unique base to stand itself upon in terms of familiarity. Although of course, a lot of enjoyed music today isn't classical, it's often some of the music people were exposed to earlier in their life that they ended up building a bond with. Most people continue to develop their music taste up until their 30's and then it becomes a steep decline in developing taste after that age. Even by the late teenage years, most people have figured out most of their taste in music. I guess I would just like to challenge people to be more open and adventurous if they feel like recent music is stale. The mere-exposure effect suggests repeatedly exposing yourself to unfamiliar music can increase your enjoyment of it. Some people call it brainwashing, but it can be due to what we would consider familiarizing and understanding new music. In summary, I think the lack of new complex, yet enjoyable music is a perception issue, and more due to people's behaviors and approaches to music. People sticking to the music they're familiar with, rather than exploring the wide range of musical genres out there is an issue. Music is more than syntax and syntax simply becomes a convention, whether one wishes to adhere to it or not. In the film, Dr. Beckeld mentions music is mathematical. But, a study conducted by Xenakis revealed how rudimentary the mathematics of classical music of the 18th and 19th century was, in many cases, basically rising to the level of elementary calculus. The music created may have exceeded listeners' comprehension. Since the conventions developed were so foreign to what was adhered to in the past. There is no limit to art. Music is a form of art rather than math, although our early understanding of music is mathematical and logical, so is our understanding of literature and other art forms. Music is an art, there are no rules, there are no rules for what you can like. A mathematician prefers the expression 1=1 rather than the expression 1=2, as he is a mathematician, his craft is defined by rules. Music however is defined by the emotional response of a person. People are free to enjoy whatever art they individually enjoy. However, they should not diminish the art others enjoy just because they don’t enjoy it. Music is not math. Sorry this is so long lol

@BenedictBeckeld

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for your long and civilized comment. You are, however, as many others here, essentially commenting on aspects that are not the object of my video. You say that to compare the music of different eras, there are many different things to keep in mind (how the chords are played, human psychology, etc.; you then enter into social issues of bonding and so on). These things are relevant in many contexts, but not in this video, because I am not comparing music in general, but only one aspect thereof, namely the syntax of successive tones, which is something objective. You acknowledge yourself that "tonal complexity has diminished" (and later that "the mathematical complexity of the music of Franz Liszt is unrivaled" (though in the second to last paragraph you appear to backtrack)), and *this* is the point, as well as the explanation of why that has happened. You contrast it with lyrics, but your statement about lyrics is entirely subjective, and is in any case not in the slightest the subject of this video. About your own acknowledgment that my main point is correct, you ask "who cares?" - well, perhaps you don't, but if you don't care, I'm not sure why you're commenting on a video where this is, precisely, the subject. You bring in a number of other aspects, *which are not the subject of this video*. You also talk about my "definition of music" and my "definition of innovation". At no point do I offer a definition of either of these. I am discussing syntactical arrangements. We philosophers are generally very careful with our words, and if you wish to criticize my remarks - which in and of itself you are welcome to do - then you ought to listen to what I actually say. Indeed in the course of your comment you actually acknowledge the truth of many of my points, but then criticize me for making points that I never made. If you wish to comment on why you still think modern music is worthwhile, by all means do so, but that does not have a bearing on what I say in this video. Your later, "main" point, that people should be more open and adventurous in their musical exploration and taste, is one I entirely agree with, and I live that out in my own life. Cheers and all the best.

@abyssssbmusic1370

2 жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld sir, might you kindly explain how the syntax of successive tones is objective? Thank you

@BenedictBeckeld

2 жыл бұрын

@@abyssssbmusic1370 Not "syntax" by itself, but "syntactical complexity". As a very rudimentary example, the pattern A B C A C A B C A C A B C A C is objectively more complex than the pattern A B A B A B A B A B A B A B A.

@abyssssbmusic1370

2 жыл бұрын

@@BenedictBeckeld what elements or aspects of or in music are you considering when looking at syntactic complexity? Eg notes relative to a tonic? Chords? Timbre? Are you only considering what notes there are?

@BenedictBeckeld

2 жыл бұрын

@@abyssssbmusic1370 As I say in the video, I'm considering the notes. As for timbre etc., all of that has been answered in response to other questions here.

Music evolution is subjective, there is excellent modern music and horrible classic music, there is horrible modern music and excellent classic music. You just have to find what style suits you the best and never close your mind to discover more, that's what music is about.

@drunkene.flatmajor9892

3 жыл бұрын

Compare the best classic to the best modern and the worst classic to the worst modern and you ll see.

@abyssssbmusic1370

3 жыл бұрын

@@drunkene.flatmajor9892 I just did this and they seem about the same to me

@drunkene.flatmajor9892

3 жыл бұрын

@@abyssssbmusic1370 then i dont know what to tell you, go get checked.

@abyssssbmusic1370

3 жыл бұрын

@@drunkene.flatmajor9892do you want some modern music recommendations? I don't know a lot but I know some good speech based music and some good electronic music, Edit BTW the music on your channel is good

@nilouknot1320

Ай бұрын

@drunkene.flatmajor9892 I think you’re the one who needs to go get checked. You can’t even spell and you want to chat shit about music? Absolute clown

Hey man I don't usually do this but I think your argument here is really poorly constructed. Let me know if I've misunderstood but from what I understand your argument is something like the following: P1 - Music has a finite number of possible outcomes due to its mathematical basis. (Side P - The greatest of these outcomes have already been produced). Implied P - More complex music is better. P2/C1 - One cannot compare (the merit of????) the classical greats to contemporary music due to the objective difference in complexity between them. P3 - 20thC art music is very complex music but can be ruled out due to its reliance on academic frameworks that create aesthetically displeasing music. P4 - Enjoyment of classical music is based on emotional maturity?????? C2 - Music has been in syntactical decline for quite some time - the peak of musical merit was the time period between the baroque to late romantic periods (due to the peak in syntactical complexity that occurred). This entire argument relies most fundamentally on the implied premise that more complex music is better. This statement has not been founded by any evidence leaving the entire argument null. Even assuming I missed something and you had supported this premise, there is a vast amount of non-serial modern classical, jazz, electronic, and even rap/rock music that is arguably more harmonically, rhythmically and texturally complex than a a number of notable classical works. By your framework, these modern pieces would boast at least similar merit to the works of old. Any argument that this modern music is "displeasing aesthetically" at this point would be enitrely to subjectivity. Would love a response.

@nahnahnah1435

7 ай бұрын

also there are quite literally an infinite number of tones able to be utilised in microtonal music.........

@BenedictBeckeld

7 ай бұрын

@@nahnahnah1435 Since you write politely, unlike many others around here, I'm happy to send you a reply. P1 - No, music is infinite. What human beings aesthetically appreciate, however, is much more limited. (Side P - Not necessarily all of them, but certainly most of them, yes.) P2/C1 - No, of course one can compare them (regarding their "merit" or otherwise). I do so myself all the time. The differences in syntactical complexity can be measured, however, yes. P3 - "20th century art music" is too broad a category for what I'm saying, but its tendency, the later we move in that century, is toward aesthetically displeasing music, with room for exceptions. P4 - No, I say this in reference to one particular (and jocular) example, namely Bach vs. Justin Bieber. Having said that, ceteris paribus (which they often aren't), emotional maturity does tend to help in the appreciation of classical music. C2 - Yes. But of course I don't at all structure that conclusion on an argument the way you have portrayed it. It's simply an observation, one that many others have made as well. This still leaves room for exceptions, but the tendency is in the direction I delineate. I never say that more complex music is eo ipso better. But syntactical complexity is one factor to take into account. I say that what is "better" is not measurable, so you're misunderstanding the argument. I am observing, however, that what is measurable - syntactical complexity - has declined. The issues you raise about rhythm, texture, etc. I have addressed ad nauseam in other comments. These issues aren't what I talk about in this video. As for your addition in the second comment: Yes, obviously. See my reply to your P1. Thank you, and all the best!

True but I disagree that architecture doesn't suffer the same fate. Architecture peaked at a similar period for very similar reasons. So did many other art forms.

What about other traditions? For example, Turkish or Indian classical music. The syntax of Indian music -- ragas and talas -- has been around for at least 700 years and doesn't seem to be in decline -- at least according to the Indian people that I know.

He's a professional Elitist! Cheesy philosopher. Just your average snob.

Than Modern Rap

So; a few comments. (1) I think Bach was the highpoint, because in many works he had several tunes playing at the same time. Mozart usually only had one with an Alberti bass in the left hand. Mozart's late works were better, and who knows what he might have achieved had he lived, but part of the problem was that he was composing for money - he needed to be "popular", and hence was the Bieber of his day. Bach lived in an era when he was able to indulge complexity. (2) There was a lot of trite garbage composed in the classical era also. It just hasnt lasted the "test of time", so what we have left of music of that time is on average of higher quality. There is a lot of music composed today that will stand the test. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, for example. (3) Modern architecture is garbage.

bro listen som to modern jazz please!

To put everything into short terms, classical music is the best.

There are places where we experiment with microtones. Technically, we have an infinite amount of tones.

This seems a highly contentious and, somewhat narrow (read western oriented), view of music. Also there are plenty of modern classical composers composing in a more classical/romantic style today. I see no reason why another Beethoven might not emerge.

No Shitty Modern Rubbish- Double Clef FM

I like how jazz isn't even mentioned yet it's by far the most complicated style of music in existence along with progressive rock.

@blackcitroenlove

4 жыл бұрын

Of course it isn't--brown and black people created it. Eurocentrism drips from this man's every word--after all, he's from there and has to be Team Yonega.

@Redneck_Wizard

2 жыл бұрын

Jazz is not more complicated than Classical. Symphony orchestras can have over one hundred musicians on stage all playing together in beautiful harmony and counterpoint. Try getting one hundred jazz musicians to play together at the same time without it sounding like a complete mess.

@mikeboon6160

2 жыл бұрын

@@Redneck_Wizard That's because all of those classical musicians are playing from written music and that music is designed to be played exactly the same way every time. Also, they are either playing the same melody or the same counterpoint. In Jazz, you often have every musician improvising. Sometimes, you can get instrumental interactions that seem to dwarf classical music in terms of complexity.

@Redneck_Wizard

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikeboon6160 Baroque music is meant to be improvised and Baroque groups still do this so that shows what you know.

@mikeboon6160

2 жыл бұрын

@@Redneck_Wizard Well, for drummers, jazz is far more complicated and difficult than classical music. All you do as a drummer in classical music is pitter patter on the snare drum. Jazz requires a level of independence and dexterity that is only matched by prog rock. Seriously, prog rock and prog metal is basically classical music with distortion and modern rhythms. Take the most difficult elements of metal and combine them with the most difficult elements of classical music, and you have a superior art form in progressive rock.

this is just a bunch of hot air, covered up in the concept of syntax. a couple points: - the idea that "music is mathematical" is barely explained, so what does that actually mean? sure, pitches can be represented by frequencies, intervals by ratios, rhythm can be represented in measures. but that's not what music IS. music is our perception of sounds, and while it's physical properties can be represented mathematically, our perception of and emotional reaction to it it can not. - and of course, any work of literature can be encoded into binary and therefore be represented "mathematically". the argument here rests on the idea that mathematical combinations are exhausted more quickly in music than in literature, for which there is no evidence, just the assertion that music is automatically limited because it can be represented mathematically more intuitively than literature. and the idea that mathematical combinations in music have basically been exhausted already also has no evidence for it and the constant evolution of music clearly points to the opposite - the conclusion that music is "universal" because it is mathematical is absolutely wild. any musicologist can tell you that music (and the meaning encoded into it) is deeply tied to cultural context, which is backed up by your own constant acknowledgement that our perception of music is subjective. the word "universal" is just thrown around here without any explanation to make the argument seem sounder than it is - the idea that there will basically be no "new tones" in the future is flat out wrong. the whole history of instruments and orchestration flies right in the face of that argument. for example, the emergence of the electric guitar, the drum set, the synthesizer plus all of sampling and electronic music production in the last century alone has provided us with new tones basically every day. hell, even the ways in which the human voice is used change radically over time and across different cultures, we haven't even exhausted the possibilities of our own body yet. - the assertion that beethoven is obviously more complex than louis armstrong is ludicrous (+ ultimately racist, whether intentional or not) and provided without any reasoning behind it. sure, there is a lot of formal complexity present in beethoven, but there is an incredible depth of rhythmic and folkloric complexity in armstrong that beethoven could only ever have dreamed of. this applies to ancient greek music too, the assumption that beethoven is necessarily more complex is entirely unfounded. as you allude to, the oral tradition of ancient greek music is basically lost and we have no idea what nuances it may have contained. - I can't gloss over the fact that it's an incredible coincidence that the era and style of music you have ascribed superiority to just so happens to be western classical music, in other words music from the culture you belong to and whose supposed superiority has historically been used to justify western/white supremacy (something you also seem to be doing, considering your other work) in short, an incoherent argument built on baseless assumptions in order to confirm preconceived notions of superiority. incredible that this is coming from a studied philosopher

I love classical music! However, I'm skeptical that you've defined syntactical complexity in a rigorous way. I'm also skeptical that there's any kind of mathematical proof for your claim that syntactical structures are being exhausted. These are interesting ideas, but without formal definitions, you're appealing to mathematics without actually having the math to back up your claims.

my sister, who listens to hyperpop said to me "if it weren't for me exposing you (I'm an actual classical musician) to real music (referring to hyperpop) you would sit around your stupid percussion and play Mozart" (that's the only composer she knows, not even Beethoven)

Yeah, thank goodness we have lifetimes of “classical” music. Even if all I had was Mahler, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich, that would still be the life for me. Yet there’s thousands of compositions more!!! (It would be nice if there were “classical” composers of the 21st century to listen to more music, but from what I’ve seen, all of these contemporary composers just make minimalist, no-melody, awful pieces. We don’t need them anyways)

@Shunarjuna

3 жыл бұрын

Try Takashi Yoshimatsu

@wtvhdentertainmentpro6064

2 жыл бұрын

Hello! I am a 21st century classical composer. Feel free to check my music on my yt channel!😎

@MusicByKsyusha

Жыл бұрын

Alma Duetscher is a real life Mozart! You have to listen to her-when she was a very young child, she composted many symphonies and operas. Her music is in the style of the 18th century.

Pro tip for getting the mainstream on board: don't call modern music inferior 💀 And also just increasing music education will get far more people into classical music. It's way more enjoyable if you can play it

The argument in this video seems to be "European classical music from the period 1600 to 1900 is the best possible music by the standards of European classical music from the period 1600 to 1900, and those are the only standards that count because ... well ... because I say so". That is such a subjective and parochial point of view that I can only conclude that this video is either clickbait or hilarious satire.

Though I agree with you on your explanation, I consider that music decline began after 1950s. At the same time, it transformed too. I’m not talking about popular music. If you take New Age music and music written for movies, computer games, and anime, then the level of complexity still exist. And these types of composers are the architects that still exist. Popular music, well, there’s a reason why it’s called as such. I call such music poor people’s music due to its lack of complexity. After all, even Classical Music, as we know it, was only played for the rich. At the height of Classical Music, the rest of folks had music that could be called Tavern Music which was less complex more often than it was complex. But still, your argument stands.