Miscellaneous thoughts on the Canon(s)

Of recent postings:

---[William Annis graced us with some interesting commentary, especially in
light of pop subversion. I must, however, take exception with the following:

> My point is that a lot of western art music forms started out
>as a dance or popular form, and was then subverted by art musicians
>using these forms as a vehicle for their musical expression. How many
>people taking piano lessons dutifully plugging away at pieces from
>Anna Magdelena's Notebook know they're playing dances these days?
>Many of these forms outlive the dance or folk genre they started from,
>and take on a life of their own, often becoming quite abstracted from
>the originals. I leave rants about corporeality and musical
>abstraction to the Partch fans.

Interested Partch correspondents rarely rant. Partch frequently drew on
popular forms, excluded musical abstraction from his work to a very large
degree, and never hoped that his 'forms' would be aped by future writers.
The only canons he was concerned with were the ones he constructed himself
- Harmonic Canons. He also, like many here, preferred some composers over
others, even in musics he wasn't particularly interested in, as opposed to
a blanket condemnation.

---[Dante Rosati wrote, earlier:
>To write a "symphony" today, and take Beethoven or Sibelius as your
>model, and want to have it performed by the Philharmonic Society of
>Boredomthroughstagnationsville, is to be a wannabe - a wannabe "classical"
>composer. History will have no qualms about assigning this kind of stuff
>to the dustbin.

From an ad in the New Yorker:
"On the eve of the 21st century, a piece that is symphonic in structure
surely doesn't have to be written for a 19th century orchestra to qualify
as a symphony."
-- Joe Jackson, on his newly released album "Symphony No. 1"

He's stolen the form, not the medium, so is Joe cool, or does he go to the
dustbin? YMMV...

---[Carl Lumma wrote:
>It is obvious that score entry programs can do everything that paper can,
>so you're way off base here.

Um, Carl, I've looked at every notation program of a high-end nature, save
for Sibelius. I still have things, many things, that I can put on paper
that I can't notate properly (or in a reasonable amount of time) with these
programs. And could we talk about computers saving time in these matters?
The answer: not always, and/or not hardly - take your pick.

I work in the studios on a regular basis with people preparing parts with
these programs; I have to *perform* off of these parts. Literally 50% of
the time I wish someone had used their head (and a copyist) and done parts
by hand - it is not fun to have a good take ruined by bad parts (which can
happen with hand-copied parts as well; the problem is, EvErYoNe thinks they
can prepare parts with their computer!).

When the tools are polished and bullet-proof, fine. Don't just *assume*
they are at that point today...

---[And lastly, I'd like to publicly thank whatever supernatural forces
steered Mr. Daniel Wolf into/onto this list, years ago. Dan, when you come
out to play, you certainly have great things to say! On the strength of
your knowledge and musicality, I'm excited to find out about Hans Rott --
any suggestions? (if too OT, write me off-list...)

Gosh, it had been so long since a non-numeric thread got this much posting
- excellent!!

Cheers,
Jon

`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
Jonathan M. Szanto : Corporeal Meadows - Harry Partch, online.
jszanto@adnc.com : http://www.corporeal.com/
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`

>From: "Jonathan M. Szanto" <jszanto@adnc.com>
>
>Of recent postings:
>
>---[William Annis graced us with some interesting commentary, especially in
>light of pop subversion. I must, however, take exception with the following:

I must remember my smileys!

> >the originals. I leave rants about corporeality and musical
> >abstraction to the Partch fans.
>
>Interested Partch correspondents rarely rant. Partch frequently drew on
>popular forms, excluded musical abstraction from his work to a very large
>degree, and never hoped that his 'forms' would be aped by future writers.
>The only canons he was concerned with were the ones he constructed himself
>- Harmonic Canons. He also, like many here, preferred some composers over
>others, even in musics he wasn't particularly interested in, as opposed to
>a blanket condemnation.

Well, my little line at the end of that paragraph is based on
my first, naive pass through the chapter in "Genesis of a Music" where
he talks about corporeal music -- and what isn't -- and the memory of
at least one person justifying his own musical tastes by reference to
some spectrum of corporeality. Now, I need to read that chapter again
some day, but I have deep suspicions about anyone who complains about
the excessive abstraction of plainchant. My own feeling is that the
best musical system has some balance between abstraction and
corporeality. I'm hoping Partch would agree with me in principle
about this, but that's not the feeling I got from my first pass
through Genesis. On the other hand, when you're trying to make a
point, a manifesto on its own may come off supporting a much stronger
version of the argument than the author intended.

Of course, this justification is unnecessary, since that final
line was intened as a friendly joke. :) I've not seen anyone here
endorse what I take to be Partch's strongest statements regarding
corporeality.

--
wm

[Jon Szanto]
>>It is obvious that score entry programs can do everything that paper can,
>>so you're way off base here.
>
>Um, Carl, I've looked at every notation program of a high-end nature, save
>for Sibelius. I still have things, many things, that I can put on paper
>that I can't notate properly (or in a reasonable amount of time) with these
>programs. And could we talk about computers saving time in these matters?
>The answer: not always, and/or not hardly - take your pick.

What do you want to do? I confess I've never done percussion parts with
them, but other than that... Saving time? It's just like the difference
between word processing and writing. If you're going to edit, it's much
faster. If you're just going to put it in and print, it depends on your
typing skills.

-Carl