{"id":26969,"date":"2023-05-23T13:22:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T11:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nmz.de\/badblog\/?p=26969"},"modified":"2023-05-31T14:09:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T12:09:57","slug":"is-new-music-too-simple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nmz.de\/badblog\/2023\/05\/23\/is-new-music-too-simple\/","title":{"rendered":"Is New Music Too Simple?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is new music too simple?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This may seem like a strange question, because we mostly associate New Music with an increased level of complexity and information density, whereas we consider a typical tonal harmonic\/melodic progression without advanced playing techniques or special compositional concepts as rather \u201csimple\u201d from the perspective of advanced art music.<\/p>\n

One could argue for a long time about whether \u201csimple\u201d or \u201ccomplex\u201d are also quality features. In an academic context or in competition with an „avant-garde“ self definition, complexity is more likely to impress, even if it doesn’t have to be the decisive quality feature, of course.<\/p>\n

In a typical „art music“ composition, are really all levels as complex as the composers think? Or is their effect often much simpler than we\u00a0 hope?<\/p>\n

For this one has to grasp the concept that the „understanding“ of music runs on several levels, of which the sound level is only one. The music is not only perceived as sound, but also how it corresponds to a certain situation and, if necessary, fulfills certain expectations (or not).<\/p>\n

Visitors to a club would quickly become uneasy if the music didn’t meet the requirement of being „danceable“. But they are quite used to the fact that the „danceability“ is occasionally interrupted by the DJ for dramaturgical reasons with more ambient-like passages. The visitors of the club „read“ this situation, they understand the simple grammar used from „danceable“ and „not danceable“ and the different musical styles that lead to one state or another, for example a „bass drop“. A good DJane can play with these expectations and communicate with the audience, this is also expected. A DJ without empathy, who doesn’t care about the atmosphere in the hall, will fail in the long run.<\/p>\n

All types of music are \u201cread\u201d in a similar way, with previous musical experience and the influence of the cultural environment playing a major role. Contemporary music has long completely underestimated this cultural imprint and has always assumed that „normal listeners“ have a lack of tolerance or education towards „unfamiliar sounds“. But that is a fatal fallacy.<\/p>\n

There is nothing universal or overridingly „true“ about the grammatical „reading rules“ of Western culture, as evidenced by the completely different musical concepts of other cultures on this planet (eg the music of Central African pygmies, who have a very different concept of time). But unfortunately these „reading rules“ of the so-called „tonal“ music are very dominant and have spread worldwide – partly due to forced colonization. This imprint cannot be changed overnight. But just as language is changing, the \u201ctraditional hearing\u201d of today is no longer what it was 100 years ago. So there is a development in that too.<\/p>\n

However, the majority of listeners in our country will have been shaped in one way or another by tonal \u201creading rules\u201d, so they will intuitively try to decode music they have just heard according to these rules.<\/p>\n

Are these reading rules basically \u201csimple\u201d? In fact not. What we today rather awkwardly call „tonal“ music is the result of centuries of development and has gone through the most diverse concepts of aesthetics and polyphony. A typical criterion of this music (the „reading rule“ so to speak) is the relationship between „tension“ and „resolution“ that results from the concepts of „dissonance“ and „consonance“.<\/p>\n

It’s actually not that trivial. Namely, the listener shaped by \u201ctonal music\u201d subconsciously understands that certain chords mostly resolve in a certain way (dominant seventh to tonic for example), understands the concept of \u201cneutral\u201d chords that can resolve into anything (diminished chords) , understands the idea of \u200b\u200ba melodic suspension, understands an astonishingly rich variety of „dissonances“ and „consonances“ (both equally important for the effect of this music), knows several scales and modes at once and also grasps the idea of \u200b\u200ba „modulation“ as well as more complex ones like independent voice leading or rhythmic anticipation.<\/p>\n

I could continue this list endlessly – the rules of this language are actually infinitely complex, just as language is complex. But just as we never learn rules when learning language as children, we also learn the rules of this music intuitively. We understand the language of our culture, even if we never learn music notation or music theory. Just as an illiterate person can still speak their own language, even if they can neither read nor write it.<\/p>\n

I repeat: the attributes of „tonal“ music are by no means „more correct“ or „better“ than other musical concepts. But they prevail in the cultural space with which we communicate, whether we like it or not.<\/p>\n

If you ask laypeople about the effect of modern music, the terms \u201ctoo weird\u201d or \u201ctoo dissonant\u201d usually come up. In reality, however, the right words are missing here. Because most new music is neither \u201cdissonant\u201d nor \u201cweird\u201d. „Dissonant“ can only exist if there is a theoretical concept of „consonance“, but this does not exist, for example, in 12-tone music or the serial music that follows from it. Tones and sounds are ordered, but the resulting hierarchies are completely abstract and consciously avoid concepts of „tension“ and „dissolution“ just as they consciously avoid traditional harmonic concepts. Laypeople are usually surprised when I try to explain to them that I don’t perceive a piece they reject ia as „dissonant“ since „dissonance“ as a concept does not exist in it.<\/p>\n

A piece like Boulez’s „Structures“ knows no dissonance – it is a long sequence of musical gestures that are as unique and unrepeatable as possible, in which no hierarchy plays a role except the aesthetic idea that it should sound as „nothing before“ and should not have any associations with „conventional“ music.<\/p>\n