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ChristopherSchlegel

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  1. This is just from memory; I can check it later when I get home & put my hands on the book. Gail Wynand is contemplating his crusade to defend/sell Roark to his Banner readers. We "hear him thinking to himself" something along the lines of "He wondered if the exaltation one feels comes not from what one contemplates but from the upward tilt of the head (or upward glance)".
  2. Conventional wisdom says Mozart was a "genius" & perhaps one of the "greatest composers of melody". His operas are in some respects the most well known works in the genre. There is a great deal of evidence that this conventional wisdom is mistaken & on some points just plain wrong. I defy any average listener (a non-musician) to hum a Mozart melody from memory. Chances are you will get "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" perhaps a bit of the intro to "A Little Night Music" serenade for strings but little else. Then ask this average listener to hum a Beethoven or Tchaikovski melody. You might get Beethoven's theme from Sym 5, "Fur Elise", "Ode to Joy", "Minuet in G"; you might get a number of Tchaikovski's themes from "The Nutcracker", "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty", etc. Alternately, even if our listener doesn't know the name of the composer, I would be willing to bet they know more "melodies" by Beethoven or Tchaikovski than by Mozart. There is a great deal of pointless bather & endless, rambling lines/parts/sections that don't add up to much in Mozart's music. Much of his work is whimsically, capriciously structured. I know from Music History that he wrote some things very quickly just to turn a buck. Now...Having, blasted him ... I do greatly enjoy some of his works. Later symphonies (35-41) have great parts. Later piano concertos also. In his opera's though I really have to limit it to some of his arias written for female parts. Now, some of those are sublime. But within the context of writing an aria, essentially a complete miniature composition (a "song" or "tune" if you will) he really knocked out some gems. Congrats. You said in one brief sentence what it took me 4 paragraphs to say. This site has an...ummm....interesting (?) perspective on that issue: http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/mozart...MagicFlute.html My estimation, is that like most Mozart operas, it has a couple of nice arias, a decent overture, & a whole lot of pointless stuff in between. You are welcome. This might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operetta
  3. As far as Classic Grand Opera, I love some of the overtures & specific arias. I also enjoy some of the recitatives & "dialogue" singing to a limited degree. I do NOT enjoy much else about it & I especially loathe most of what passes for subject matter. Favorites would be selected arias of Verdi & Mozart; overtures of Beethoven & Wagner. Wagner was especially good at summarizing his "leimotifs" (character thematic materials) in overture form & terrible at letting them go on & on in the context of the action of the opera. Wagner was the King of the Deceptive Cadence. Just soon as you think the line is over...he resolves to a relative minor &/or modulates to yet another key to start the whole thing over again. I mentioned this & my general distaste for large doses of Wagner to a "Wagnerite" once in a musical conversation. His reply was, "In order to truly appreciate Wagner you must completely divorce your mind from reality". That would probably help. Beethoven only wrote one opera "Fidelio". Which is interesting for a few reasons. It's one of the only Classical Grand Operas that has outright spoken dialogue in the context of the piece. He wrote several different overtures for the heroine "Leonore" all of them great (of course!). The story line is a great struggle for freedom. Unfortunately, it gets very bogged down in places & ulitmately when the hero is set free it feels like it has taken too long without much real effort being put in. Fortunately, all the music is great! Tchaikovsky also brought his wonderful melodic sense & dramatic orchestration to writing four operas. "Eugene Onegin" & "The Queen of Spades" have some great moments. The fundamental problem with Grand Opera is that it's not in English! You should listen in different ways, several times, to get an overall sense of what is going on. But, this is dependent upon your initial desire to go back & listen more than once based on something that interested you or "caught your ear". There's so much existent opera available & only so much time. One listen through to any opera is often enough to know whether or not repeated listening will be of value to you. Several things to keep in mind: 1. Listen to the music! This includes the vocal parts, but not necessarily for the lyric content. Unfortunately, much opera like Mozart's is painfully stupid & boring if you know what they are saying. The music is the thing! 2. Do try to listen all the way through, don't just get a "highlights CD". Many times what a manufacturer will put on a CD as "the best tunes" from an opera will leave out some more unknown gems. After you listen through once, you will know which "tunes" you like & can revisit when you desire. 3. Finally, remember that opera was originally intended to be experienced as a performance on a stage. To this end you might consider renting/buying some DVDs/vids of operas to experience them (somewhat) in their proper setting. I wouldn't suggest going to see an opera live until you know it's one you enjoy (in part or as a whole). Happy listening!
  4. Every Army (or military) band I've ever seen was either very good or outright excellent. What is the size of the band & instrumentation involved? Like Sousa & such? & all the military branches theme songs?! Good stuff! I once talked to an Army conductor (10 years ago) after a performance. I was impressed with the band's ability to perform classical pieces without strings. He was very open & friendly about it. Upon my asking he even pulled out the conductor's score & showed me the techniques used for scoring brass instruments to successfully mimic string sections. I was really impressed & learned some good stuff that I still keep in mind when writing for brass. I asked, "So who wrote these arrangements?". He smiled & replied, "Well, I did." Don't remember his name but it was an excellent meeting/conversation; he was clearly a man that loved his job.
  5. Good call! Sure, try 'em all. I would love to hear anything you are willing to share. Nifty. Where are you going? What are you doing?
  6. The three easiest places to work with are: http://www.myspace.com http://www.garageband.com http://www.musicianmp3.com All them offer a free basic service for hosting your mp3s & info about you as an artist. Not sure what happened to your previous myspace account; why not just sign up again? Hope this helps; best of success with your music.
  7. Thanks for listening & commenting (favorably at that!). I appreciate it. Also, since you are a musician, I encourage you to create all you can. If you are willing & able, please do post links to them. I would love to hear it.
  8. I have placed recordings of some of the tunes I did for my junior & senior recitals on my website. This first page is music by other composers. I arranged the Beethoven pieces, the Rossini & the jazz pieces. The others are standard solo classical guitar pieces. Recital Pieces Page 1 A word of warning: the last 2 on the page of Beethoven & Rossini are "rock instrumentation arrangements" (i.e. guitar, bass, drums) & are definitely NOT for everyone. If you like that sort of thing, then download & crank it up! This second page is original music. I wrote both of these sonatas in standard classical form. The first one (A Major) is the more advanced of the two meant to showcase my skills. The second (C Major) is a "simple, beginner" sonata written for the purpose of creating a piece that I am working on getting published as a study piece for guitar students. Both are "first-draft" demos I created while writing, so the quality isn't exactly perfect. I intend to re-record them sometime in the near future. Recital Pieces Page 2 Happy Listening! Christopher
  9. The old version of my work is gone. Thanks again to everyone that listened. I sincerely appreciate it.
  10. Thanks again to everyone that responded (on this thread & privately) concerning my music. I intended to take the current symphony down, but I am still getting hits on it from other places. So, for now, it stays. I am currently in the process of re-rendering all of my orchestral works using Gerritan Personal Orchestra. It is an amazing program! I recently completed re-doing a whole work in this manner. It still needs some work & touching up. But I think even in it's present "demo/working stage" form I'm ready to unleash it on the world! It's an older work of mine, Symphony #4 in F Major. Anyone interested in hearing it can contact me in this thread, by PM, or e-mail. I will respond privately with a link to the web address where the music lives. Thanks & happy listening- Christopher Schlegel
  11. Thanks for the link & the tunes! What inst. are you playing? The 1st tune is kind of a "70's straight-ahead-no-swing-thing". I like the descending flat-3, two, flat-2 (as a tritone sub for 5!) progression that ends the main theme. The 2nd tune starts with some nice swinging piano. I'm guessing the title references the trombone parts. Interesting breaks before & in the solos. The last, "Misty", is a beautiful tune. Difficult melody to negotiate in places. "Look at me...I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree". Ah, that's good stuff... Sounds like it! Thanks again for sharing. The one important thing that has been missing from this thread is some actual music. I have some solo guitar jazz arrangements here: Recital Tunes The "jazz tunes" are my arrangements of "Over the Rainbow" & Gershwin's "Sweet & Lowdown". Basically pretending I'm Joe Pass.
  12. It did a decent job providing some historical perspective & insight, as well as covering some of the important artists. BUT, in spite of anything in it's favor, I was very dissatisfied with how little mention Gershwin got. His influence is felt to this day in jazz. In fact, the cycle 5 motion that many jazz tunes have used for the last 80 years is by jazz musicians called "Rhythm Changes" because it's based on the chord changes in the chorus of "I Got Rhythm". Further, there is little or nothing on several musicians that were Titans in jazz. Bill Evans & McCoy Tyner get next to NO time at all mentioned. & yet these guys were crucially influential. Tyner is still around, still swinging, still outplaying cats 50 years younger than him. I know that you can only include so many people. But, where are Art Tatum or Joe Pass? These guys were the pinnacle of jazz musicianship on their instruments (piano & guitar, respectively). Finally, my main contention with Burns' "Jazz" is that it's central "theme" seemed to be a constant rambling on "racial prejudice" & "miserable tragedies" that somehow these arists were able to "transform" into beautiful music. Worse, the documentary never clearly describes what jazz is, how & why it can be differentiated from genres. It doesn't even try. Convincing of what? Fair enough. Except, then you say... Do you mean some jazz music you've heard? Do you mean the manner in which Ken Burns told his version of the "historical story of jazz"? Could you please be a little more specific about the nature of what you see as the enemy? Those are strong words. I would hate it if you missed out on some of the most beautiful, quintessentially American music ever made simply because of a misunderstanding or bad premise. Now that is a good conception of the best of any music, not just jazz. The question here is: Why do you think that is the "rare stuff"? Highly irrational?! What the hell jazz are you listening to? Please be careful of what you "bet" Ayn Rand may or may not have said/thought about anything of which you do not know with certainty. That's the sort of thing you might regret. Also, please, find the time to listen to some good jazz. Such an animal does exist. Very good point. "treasure-trove of joyous, life-affirming compositions"...I like that, nice phrase! & that site does have perfect examples. Thanks. Notice also a Gershwin tune on there! "Nice Work If You Can Get It" ("Lovin' who loves you/ And then taking that vow/It's nice work if you can get it/And you can get it/Won't you tell me how?!")
  13. Who's "we"? I am not a "weak creature". I am a Man: proud, strong, virtuous, heroic, benevolent...Rational. I can't speak for anyone else, but I make art in order to glorify the qualities I mentioned in the previous sentence; not to pander to some pathetic need to escape from a "torturous reality that is crushing me". I hope you also have a good day.
  14. Right on! & don't forget Gershwin, Porter, Berlin.
  15. I have no idea what that means. So, I am going to start over on this one last time. You originally said: In reply, I said: What I meant was...In your statement, I think you are excluding (by the use of "not") "what makes the chords sound as they do" from being a component of voice leading. And then limiting it to "what makes the sequence of particular voicings sound as it does". I am saying that "what makes the chords sound as they do" is a result of "what makes the sequence of particular voicings sound as it does" & that is called voice leading. Finally, voice leading is conceptually regarding how all the voices present in a piece interact. OK. All done. I also love Tatum. I think he was a musical genius. I'm not sure why you would want to play devil's advocate against him, though...? Tatum frequently (& in my estimation, in the case you mention) used techniques similar to that & I think it was just a way of providing another layer of thematic information. As far as I'm concerned, if you've got that level of skill, use it! He was fully capable of beautiful playing without massive pyrotechnics. "What's New" from Pablo Solo Masterpieces 4 comes to mind immediately because I was listening to that disc just yesterday. I could see how even a Tatum fan could find it a bit much at times, though. I don't though! I love it, love it, love it!!! Go, Art, go! A couple of times I've heard academic musicians say incredibly stupid things like, "He overplays", "It's not sophisticated", "It's just not that musical". And then of course they go listen to Liszt (who never overplays! Ha!) or worse some modern atonal crap & think it's musical. A freind of mine actually heard one academian say, "Tatum wasn't harmonically interesting". I'm thinking, "How does one get an academic job in music if one is deaf?" But, hey, I don't care, I love Tatum. I've even done a coupla transcriptions of his performances for solo guitar. Had to leave some stuff out of course (imagine that!) but got the gist of what he did in the arrangement. Alto & tenor...sax? Each post only supports a max of 10 quote functions.
  16. & yet here we are... I did not skip right past it. I directly addressed it. It is true, you can play one chord & there is no voice leading. You can play a vamp with one repeated, unchanged voicing chord & there is no voice leading. In my estimation, however, as soon as you add information in the form of a melody, solo, etc. (or another chord, other than the same exact chord with the same exact voicing) you are introducing voice leading. Apparently, this is an issue we will have to leave alone. It has been obvious for a while now that you simply do not agree with me & probably will not anytime soon. G major chord with a D on the bottom, i.e.: a G major in 2nd inversion. Which then moves down a whole step to form an F major chord in 2nd inversion, except since the D remains on the bottom it really the "top" of a Dmin7. Oh please....? Look, man, it was not my intention to be insulting or condescending. I really did think it was funny, so I put in a little smiley-laugh-face. Anyway, I thought I addressed the essential component of the issue, so I can't see how I've made a "strawman" of what you said. I disagree with you, but if I offended you then I apologize. I never stated/implied that voice leading was "any arbitrary following...". Even if a musician or composer "arbitrarily" assigns a series of chords without concern to the voice leading being created/suggested, it doesn't matter; the voice leading is still there. It's not necessary to have common voices or even the same number of voices from chord to chord (2 voices could merge for a time for example, modern music is filled with parallelisms that have no common tones whatsoever). This seems to be a serious problem in our ongoing discussion: Why do you not accept that voice leading is conceptually regarding how all the voices present in a piece interact? More to the point, I did give you my operational definition of voice leading & you have not done the same. You have only told me you disagree without identifying a contrary viewpoint in essentials. I think we should avoid analogies from here on out. You didn't see how mine was applicable (I think you explicitly stated, "Bad analogy"); & I don't see how yours equates to representing my position on voice leading. If I had to try to justify my position in the context of your analogy, I would say, "Look at all those people standing around. They are each a certain distance from one another, and each facing a specific direction." However, even that fails to completely clarify any point I am trying to make. So, let's abandon the analogies, agreed? But I don't care what anyone with access to upload info to a website thinks. I am talking to you. I am interested in what you think & telling you what I think. If, however, you want to go to outside sources, a couple a Berkelee trained M.M. jazz musicians I converse with regularly about music see this whole thing exactly the way I do. Of course, there are music theory textbooks that do not (as I pointed out eariler) & there are texts that see it the way I do. In a wallet in your back pocket...? Is that a humorous way of stating that you regard my definition as not serious, valid, well thought out? I can assure you it is a well thought out concept in my mind that applies to objects in reality to which I can point. I'm not sure how we got this far in the discussion without doing it, but I think this would be a good place for you formulate a definition. Yes, it is! And using a tritone as a transitional interval is a very common "jazz" way of approaching voice leading. It could be part of a sequence or pattern (or the melody, theme, etc.). From a Schenkerian analysis perspective they could just be foreground notes that are connecting the background notes. Or even if a jazz soloist outlined those entire mentioned scales/modes & left out only the notes that would form a "proper/classical" half-step resolution, that would be a way of implying such a cadence; & a "jazzy" way at that. In any event it IS a way of leading the voices.
  17. A "chord repeated" is not ONE chord. It is more than one. It may be the same chord repeated with some rhythmic pattern over a period of time or measures, but it is more than one. My quoted statement refers to ONE chord by itself. The specific example of "So What" does not even use just the same chord repeated. The vamp consists of moving voices outlining G/D moving to Dmin7. Very simple & containing parallelism but moving nevertheless. If you want to limit it to simply one chord repeated over & again in some rhythmic pattern then fine. But the problem here is that I don't know of any jazz tunes that do not then present a melody and/or solo over this type of vamp. Also, every version I have ever heard of "So What" (including Davis & ones in which I have played live in jazz shows) uses the melody that suggests a V chord by using the notes A & the note E suggesting a ii chord. Also, the phrase is set up to suggests melodic cadence even though this is a "modal" piece. Even if this was not enough, the soloists (in Davis up through to ones I've been involved with) typically outline chord, scales, modes, lines, etc. that suggest harmonic movement over the more static background vamp. By the time the bass player gets swinging, there's all kinds of contrapunctal motion happening between bass, solo/melodic line & vampers. I suppose it would be possible to ask the pianist or guitarist to limit themselves to playing nothing but repeat that one chord over & again. You'd probably get a reply of a raised eyebrow & a "You do know this is a jazz tune, right?" In any event, you'd still have the melody creating a bit of harmonic motion (minimum) or the soloist creating, suggesting all kinds of harmonic motion far beyond that "one chord repeated vamp". This is to the point of explicitly bringing in epistemology & auditory perception. I suppose if you waited a few minutes (or some extremely extended time from a musical perspective) you might not expect a person to mentally connect the two chords. In any event, a chord that follows another will be connected in some manner. I'm not sure how you expect the two to NOT be connected by voice leading. Why not? The example you give would just result in "choppy" or "angular" sounding voice leading as opposed to "smooth" or "chromatic" or "strict classical" voice leading. Jazz typically uses chords of at least 3 if not more voices. I was setting a very specific minimum definition from which to work. As soon as a chord is arpeggiated you are talking about horizontal aspects. This is exactly the aspect I have been attempting to focus on. Much jazz analysis? You have references to prove this? Do you know some percentage of jazz analysis in which this is more true than not? And why "jazz" analysis anyway? Why not just "musical" analysis? A vamp such as that without a melody or solo would indeed be an example. Sounds like extremely boring music. I don't know ANY jazz like that. I'm not sure you could even call it jazz if a piece was like that. The first chord (by definition) will be followed by another chord so it is not isolated. It is important in setting the context, or presenting the first rhythmic event of the context. It is not a chord that exists alone, by itself. Do you have a specific definition of "voice leading"? It depends upon what those notes are in that 16th note run. I can't see how those are mutually exclusive...? The note B is in the D melodic minor scale. The note C is in the G major scale. "Running" those scales over those chords is just one way of achieving the specific voice motion you mention: B-->C inside G7-->CM7 This is getting close to a definition. But how does "what makes the sequence of particular voicings sound as it does" exclude "what makes the chords sound as they do"? A dispute over words or definitions? What tangents interest you? BTW, are you a musician? Have a primary instrument?
  18. This sounds more like Aristotle's Unmoved Mover than a religious god. The unfortunate problem for theists is they very quickly jump from such a vague analogy to a bizarre assortment of very specific irrational claims: favored denominations, being "born again", being "saved by Jesus' grace", an obtusely judgmental "afterlife" that clearly devalues actual, real life, systems of morality that attempt to subvert the volitional nature of Man, etc. But what's the function of "an allegory for existence"? To conceptually clarify or confuse? I can construct an allegorical "infinite stack of turtles" to "represent existence", but, so what? What good is it? To what in reality does it point? The most obvious answer is that Objectivism does not use allegories with defintionless terms as a substitute for actual metaphysical axioms. Wood represents corruptible flesh (the "weakness" of man's physical nature). Fire represents God & specifically his presence or judgment. The burning bush is God present in the form of a physical object that should be destroyed by the fire & yet "miraculously" is not. It is also a very important passage to Jews & Christians because this is where in their sacred text God forms a covenant with "his chosen people" through Moses. So, this is a very heavily, religiously slanted "allegorical metaphor" from the outset. Aside from all that nonsense, there is no such thing as "theological equivalence" to anything in Objectivist metaphysics. That is such a bad formulation it's actual funny. He forgot the first one (& in my estimation the most important): religion is irrational. But I suppose that could be included in the mysticism charge. This is evasion. At some point, every theist has to attempt to appeal to some irrational concept. At some point, every theological system attempt to assert that "something" exists to which they cannot point in reality. Objectivism explicitly states that emotions are not tools of cognition. I suppose you could make this claim if you've never read anything Ayn Rand wrote. You'd still be wrong, of course, but it would only be ignorance. Has this person read Atlas Shrugged, FTNI, PWNI?
  19. I was referring to the qualifier "musical". In your point 1. the characteristics you list belonging to a single note still do not make it have musical meaning. In your point 2. the characteristics you list belonging to a single word still do not make it have literary meaning. Yes, these statements are meaningful in identifying a listeners reaction to the sound (i.e. various characteristics) of a chord being played. But there is no music happening in these examples. Ah! Now we have some music happening. But in the first 2 responses the responder has merely not mentioned voice leading, that doesn't mean it is not happening. The last 2 responses show the responder more conceptually aware of that which makes the chords sound as they do, voice leading, & therefore more able to form a more knowledgable judgment about why they find it aethetically satisfying or not. Thanks for the interesting discussion.
  20. So, you are saying this is my assertion. More specifically I said, because chords are built of individual notes, which I am regarding as voices, chords are the temporary vertical result of voices moving, changing horizontally, throughout a piece. A chord can exist by itself (a simultaneous sounding of more than one note) but it has no musical meaning. & this is yours. But the disagreement appears to be over voice leading & not the definition of "chord". Do you agree that a chord is "a simultaneous sounding of more than one note"? But, it doesn't matter if you start with a chord chart that does not specify voicings. That just means it's "wide open" as to what choices the musicians will use when playing. As soon as the musicians start playing, they are creating specific, concrete, explicit lines that interact in specific, concrete, explicit ways. I do not see how that is possible. Perhaps you could show me an explicit musical instance? I agree, that is called a chord. In this sentence, a great deal hinges on exactly what you mean by "resolutions". It is true in Baroque/Classical music voice leading resolutions were generally meant to be very explicit, formulaic movements. These movements relied on triadic harmonic structures that ultimately pointed to pure major or minor chord. However, beginning (generally) with Romanticism & on to the present it is not necessary to only rely on triadic structures or point only to pure major or minor chords. In jazz it is as if the requirement is NOT to be limited in this manner. Yes, that is how broad voice leading is. If you want to formulate a more narrow conception, what would it be? What conditions, qualifications, essential characteristics would form a line that divides, for example, THIS melody & chords has voice leading & THAT melody & chords does not have voice leading? Again, a great deal hinges here on "resolution". But I don't see how your example provides an essential characteristic of how to distinguish between lines & melodies with & without voice leading. Apparently you can!
  21. I don't know how accurate that statement is because you have not stated your premises or more importantly how & why they might differ from mine. But even if our premises are not so different, why are we disagreeing? All music can be understood to have vertical & horizontal components. My point is that is it inaccurate to refer to music as a series of chords without acknowledging that individually moving voices create these chords & that motion is called voice leading. Also, even the horizontal aspect can be said to have a vertical aspect, namely that from note to note a melody rises & falls vertically. But it is possible to have a piece of music that is only a solo voice playing one note at a time with NO CHORDS at all present. The piece might suggest chords or harmonic movement, but would not explicitly sound chords. If chords happen to be present in a piece it is because there is more than one voice sounding simultaneously. And has only TWO chords on its lead sheet/chord chart with a melody played over them. It's strange that you would bring it up because this piece is a perfect jazz example of what I am talking about. Miles Davis did this piece as a kind of reaction against the be-bop tradition from which Charile Parker typified. Rather than a piece that had a ton of chords, an extended melody & therefore many, many places for temporary resolutions & explicitly placed cadences, jazz subtitutions, etc., Davis created a simple melody played over a vamp that only suggested one chord. Then the piece transposes up a half step & does the same thing. Eventually it cycles back down a half step & repeats while soloists take turns. Because there is so little explicitly charted harmonic information the soloist is charged with 2 important tasks. 1. A great deal of freedom & leeway to interpret the melody. 2. A great responsibility of the difficult job of providing interesting melodic (linear, horizontal) information in spite of the lack of interesting harmonic background information. Only the individual listener can decide for himself if the soloist has succeeded! Regardless, the piece stresses the importance of the melody, the line, thematic development: all primarily horizontal, linear aspects of music. There are times when the soloists suggest chord motion, cadences, resolutions, etc. even though the band does not explicitly follow suit, rather keeps vamping & otherwise suggesting that one chord. A lot of stuff from this period of Davis works this way. In fact, on the same album as "So What" is "Blue in Green" in which the chord chart explicitly shows polychords (two chords played together, "one on top of another"). I am starting to wonder exactly what is going on here... "The pianist will change voicings"? How? By changing the individual notes that comprise the chord. Whether or not music contains voice leading does not depend upon the player's/composer's motivation (or lack thereof). I am saying, music containing two different voices or more, sounded simultanteously by defintion contains voice leading. It is how one describes the interaction of those two differing voices that are simultaneously occuring. Voice leading is not "a set of rules that historical composers used". I understand this is often the inaccurate quasi-definition some theorists & textbooks use or suggest; they are wrong. So what? (Haha!) I can decide to use a I - IV - V progression before I start writing a piece. But, I can't say that without implying that I will use some combination of lines (voices) that move in a manner that would accomplish outlining this chord progression. And once those voices are moving, how they interact will determine whether or not I have actually achieved the predetermined goal of lines that work with that sequence of chords. But aren't you describing a jazz soloist that is supposed to improvize? If you tell him explicitly what voices to play he's not improvizing, is he? Anyway, regardless of whether or not lines are composed or improvized they still interact with the other voices present in the piece & this interaction is called voice leading. If a phrase is played while a chord is occuring, voices are interacting & there is voice leading. I don't know what "a running commentrary on the changing chords" is. I especially don't know what it is if it a melody but not a moving voice. The improvizer has no choice as to whether or not he voice leads. If he plays a line while other lines are occuring there is voice leading happening. In this context, there is no such thing as lines that create voice leading & lines that don't. You dropped the context of & most important qualifier in my original statement: "But one chord, isolated, by itself, has no musical meaning." (emphasis added) This is analogous to a literary author saying, "Integrity...nice word, huh?" Sure it's a nice word with a nice definition. But it has no artistic (in this context literary) meaning. Now, if the author said, "Howard Roark had integrity." Then proceeded to show this through the thoughts & actions of the character in a story, that has artistic meaning. The word, by itself, has no artistic, literary meaning.
  22. I do not think this is accurate or exclusive enough for a strict defintion. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary gives this: Music: 1 a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b : vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony As an Objectivist seriously concerned with proper defintions, I am not sure this is even exclusive enough. But, in my estimation, the essential component here is "to produce a composition having unity". With this in mind it is possible to say that one may create a piece of music using damn near any "auditory object" provided that object is a pure enough tone to be heard by a human ear & understandable to a human mind as note specific. On a related note, percussion instruments (i.e. snare drums, cymbals, etc.) are not strictly speaking "atonal" or "non-tonal". Classically they are referred to as "having indefinite pitch". As opposed to instruments which have "definite pitch", meaning that tones it produces have a clearly established fundamental pitch & overtone series. Because, however, they are still identifiable though their qualities, I have never personally been satisfied with this classification. I had this to say in a music essay about this topic: "Describe the proper function of percussion instruments. Their proper function is the same as any musical instrument: To provide useful, coherent, integrated melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and thematic information. One point of elaboration: classically, percussion instruments are divided into two categories: ones with specific pitch, and ones with indefinite pitch. I do not regard the second category as a proper conceptual division. By its nature, EVERY sound has a pitch (or several pitches, fundamentals, and/or overtones). Cymbals and snare drums are typically placed in this category. However, I have noticed that melodically and harmonically they can be used and made or tuned to provide a satisfactory as well as an unsatisfactory pitch relative to the context in which they are placed. Therefore, I do not buy the "indefinite pitch" idea. It sounds, to me, like a lazy cop-out. I am pleased that manufacturers produce a variety of different sounding cymbals and snare drums that can be tuned." THAT is the most concise & accurate statement about FZ's solos I have ever heard! Bravo! Rather than an extended list of adjectives (complex, irreverent, witty, off-kilter, rhythmically wacky, funny, fun-loving, ETC.) you have summed up perfectly the emotional reaction I have to hearing FZ blast through "The Black Page", "Black Napkinks", or "Heavy Duty Judy". Did you make that up or hear it, read it somewhere? Can I use that?! Ever since reading this I have been laughing about it. Good stuff.
  23. Perhaps we are working from different premises here. I am going to be as specific as possible in defining my terms. Please be patient; I am not trying to be insulting or condescending. From your previous posts I gather you understand music theory quite well. I am stating the obvious from the beginning so my thoughts on this topic are as "transparent" as possible. A melody is a succession of musical notes (pure, properly intonated tones) constructed in such a manner as to be perceivable as a self contained auditory unit. A good melody should have these characteristics & in addition should be goal-directed by implying a harmonic context/framework. In the broadest possible context, a chord is the sounding of two or more different notes simultaneously. A melody is primarily a horizontal component of music; a chord is primarily a vertical component of music. An essential difference is that a melody is a series of notes happening over a period of time in a linear manner, while a chord is an isolated event that happens, then stops when the next chord happens. The problem with using only chords to describe a piece of music is that they are compartmentalized. This is why an extensive, elaborate system of syntax has been developed: in order to explain chord progressions. In other words, it is a way to regard successive chords in a horizontal manner so that, even though they are isolated, discrete events, they are still related to each other. (Side note: In my estimation, some traditional music theory approaches still reduce the understanding of chords & chord progressions to an extreme verticality at the expense of ignoring the horizontal aspect of the music.) All notes present in a chord are regarded individually as a "voice". Voice leading describes the way in which these "voices" interact, creating and embellishing the chord progression as it happens horizontally through time (as the music goes by; more importantly as Man actually experiences music). This is vital because each voice or melodic thread is maintained as an individual, horizontal unit rather than as simply a part of the resultant, vertical event known as a chord. Because chords are built of individual notes, which I am regarding as voices, chords are the temporary vertical result of voices moving, changing horizontally, throughout a piece. But how do the musicians decide which chord comes next? Chords are not primaries. They are dependent upon the individual notes which comprise them. And unless the piece is consists of only one chord sounded & that's the end, then, a minimum of two chords will contain individual voices that necessarily will be heard as moving horizontally. Yes, that is a fact. But again, the tritone itself is only an interval & in this context a vertical, compartmentalized aspect of the music. As soon as one says the tritone resolves one is pointing to individually moving voices & the tritone is replaced by another interval (major or minor third in the simplest authentic cadence case). Two notes that happen simultaneously & are a tritone apart is only a vertical event without horizontal meaning (except for the time they are sounded) until each note (voice) moves to another note & creates a new, different resultant interval (again in this case major or minor third). But individual notes are more primary than chords, & music is experienced horizontally, linearly through time. I maintain the opposite: chords are the temporary, vertical result of interacting voices horizontally moving. I disagree. Chords do NOT move. Chords are vertical, compartmentalized events that occur & stop occuring when the next chord is sounded. Chords are only related to one another by the manner in which their individual notes (voices) interact horizontally. And if the voices do not move there is no goal-directed action. & therefore no obective achieved. Although, I am not sure why you regard the voice that is the melody to be excluded from this context...? I would say it has the greatest auditory prominence, it is the focus of attention, but it should also be integrated with the other voice occuring. The other voices may be regarded as subserviant to this main melody carrying voice. Regardless of when voice leading was discovered, explicitly identified & consciously used in composition or not, it is more primary component of music than chords or chord progressions. I maintain, the horizontal movement of interacting voices is the why it is even possible to say that chord exist in music. I understand that a chord may be regarded as an entity in its own right. But one chord, isolated, by itself, has no musical meaning.
  24. Hello, to you & welcome. Thanks for you input! I really appreciate the info & links. Please don't apologize for the length of your post. It was all quality content.
  25. Thanks for the links & info. I really appreciate it! When I have another question about this I will be sure to ask since you have direct experience in this matter. Thanks again.
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