"Those who achieve such heights are capable of playing the most complex, technically difficult music on equally complex instruments that take decades to master"
Complexity just isn't of value in software and I don't know if it is in music. One of my favourite pieces is Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, and that's extremely simple (ISTM. IANAMusician. YMMV. etc).
The only value to music is a purely subjective one, how do assess merit in such a situation.
I'd wager that you like a lot of very complex and difficult music without realising it. Bach was, in his day, a highly experimental composer who pushed the limits of music technology (e.g. The Well-Tempered Clavier) and is still regarded as one of the most sophisticated composers of all time. The Goldberg Variations involve some immensely difficult passages; the Chaccone from his Partitia in D Minor would have most violinists quaking in their boots.
Technical skill isn't a virtue in itself, but it's essential if your job is literally playing whatever is put in front of you, no questions asked.
Which is neither here, nor there. Nobody said that music has to be complex to be good. But a good classical musician should be able to play the complex pieces too.
So, that's like saying every painting should be simple like Mondrian or Rothko or Lichtenstein. Well, we also have great masters who did much more complex, nuanced, and difficult to execute paintings...
Artist expressing themselves can do it with simple pieces like some of Bach's and tons of others, or with very difficult pieces, and a classical musician to have a career should be able to play a lot of that repertoire...
You don't get to be a concern pianist or violinist if you only play the simple pieces...
If my personal anecdote counts for anything, it means that complexity is orthogonal to the 'good' in music.
If so, it is here and there.
> You don't get to be a concern pianist or violinist if you only play the simple pieces...
I haven't heard analysed enough classical music, not do I have the ability to, to determine if there is any value in complex music other than coincidental. If you are a musician I'd appreciate your view.
I can't deny the amazing skill in the singing, but is this complex? I love it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tDm_uH0O30
If you'd like to nominate some complex (in your view) music you like I'd be very interested indeed.
I once wrote a few bars (as a contemporary music exercise for a course I was doing) that used all 12 tones in a non repeating manner and it had all the requisite parts: motif, development and resolution, and for the task at hand and my musical ability, it was rather 'pretty'. My teacher loved it.
I'm a musician (though not professional), but isn't the question moot?
There already exist thousands of exquisite complex music pieces, from classical, to jazz, to rock, latin, etc -- pieces so powerful they can bring people to tears.
We we saytThat they're not needed because they're complex? That they're not really good because they're complex? Or that their complex/difficult to play nature, as emerged from the composers, is "coincidental" (and they should/could e.g. have made them be much slower, have simple chords, and simpler melodies)?
>If you'd like to nominate some complex (in your view) music you like I'd be very interested indeed.
This is a very beautiful piece (picked a random video of it) and not simple play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6cbCWzHXkg
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PukuQPUKfyU
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvMM3jIkDGk
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KaYzgofHjc
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOKn33-q4Ao
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXAhNul1z0I
Heck, this is quite complex from a totally different genre, it takes tons of practice and years to master the flow and speed required:
"pieces so powerful they can bring people to tears."
... do really not need to be complex. There are very simple folk songs, chants, gospels, or mantras, which can invoke very strong emotions as well.
Even simple drumming can introduce a trance state and people dancing till extase (without drugs).
Our ancestors did not had a full orchester at hand, yet they still enjoyed music and as far as I know it was part of every culture. And I suspect they feeled it even more intense, than the ordinary person consuming some playlists on spotify or youtube today.
... do really not need to be complex.
Sure, but that [that it needs to be complex] was never asserted here though.
The thread started from a comment made by tempguy9999 saying that they are bothered by the article saying: [the classical musicians] "who achieve such heights are capable of playing the most complex, technically difficult music on equally complex instruments that take decades to master".
And he added "Complexity just isn't of value in software and I don't know if it is in music".
My response to which was, and I quote: "Nobody said that music has to be complex to be good. But a good classical musician should be able to play the complex pieces too" and that: "You don't get to be a concert pianist or violinist if you only play the simple pieces...".
tempguy9999 further that they don't have the ability "to determine if there is any value in complex music other than coincidental. If you are a musician I'd appreciate your view."
To which I replied basically that many pieces (classical and otherwise) are both inherently complex and good, and gave some examples.
This whole thread revolves around its tail, but nobody said music has to be complex to be good.
What was said was, to recap:
A: Hmm, the article saying "you need to play complex difficult music on complex instruments that take decades to master" bothers me.
B: It says so for classical musicians. There are lots of difficult classical pieces, and to be a classical musician you need to be able to play them
A: But do they have to be complex? Or do they have just accidental complexity? Whaddaya think?
B: That's another question, but since you've asked, sure, there are classical (and rock, jazz, etc) pieces, that are difficult to play and highly technical, and are nonetheless masterpieces, and one would be hard pressed to take anything away from them. It's up to the artist how they want to express themselves, and a pieces can be very difficult/technical and equally beautiful.
I can't do them justice right now as it's late but I've had a quick listen, and will have a proper bash at them tomorrow.
But I'm beginning to doubt my original post; it asked if good music related to complex music. But if 'good' is so personal, my question becomes void because it's personal to each. (Edit: that was craply put, but I hope YSWIM)
Hope you liked the buxtehude in return!
Photographic reproductions (like the framed posters in my house) do not reveal the details of his technique. Which supports the point that sometimes, what seems simple is actually complex, and what seems complex is actually simple.
I have some experience with this as a part time jazz bassist. When I get a call, the organizer often doesn't even know how hard the bass part is, or exactly what material they are planning on programming for the gig. There is no coding interview. I have a few seconds to say yes or no. Saying no too many times wipes me off the map, and I get to start building my reputation again from scratch. Saying I don't like a particular kind of material because it's too complex, or whatever, puts me on the "hard to work with" list.
Likewise, the best music is simple in its core. Starting with melody. If I can't remember the tune, perhaps it was too complex. Apparently it's hard to compose simple melodies. They're like mathematical theories: much easier to appreciate than to discover.
And there is a darker side to complexity. Many in the audience will entertain fantasies about becoming great players themselves and occupying the place of the soloist now on stage. To them, complex technical feats are glamorous and worthy of slavish emulation.
Corrolar: software should be just as complex as the problem that it is trying to solve, and if the problem is difficult, the code will be difficult. Finding an optimal code might be more difficult than the problem that is supposed to be solve.
Yes, however, do you think that music should be beautiful? And is beauty easy, or hard, to apprehend? If your answers are 'yes' and 'easy' then I think you'll naturally appreciate simplicity or the emergence of simplicity from a complex background.
But after you acquire a grounding in the basic forms like blues and rhythm changes, then suddenly, more complex music stops sounding random. It makes sense when played with the simpler music as a backdrop.
Then after you’ve listened to that for a while, even more complex music suddenly makes sense. And so it goes for a while.
Then you listen to a simple piece again, but you hear something in the simple piece that you literally didn’t notice at first. The complex music has trained you to notice a certain note or phrasing, and you realize that what you heard wasn’t simple, it too was complex, but it was complex in a subtle way.
Music is not absolute. It is a conversation between performer and audience that changes both.
I suppose that anyone who has heard the theme from The Flintstones has already done that.
I've largely retooled my thinking on a lot of these things. I can see more genius in a pop tune that is highly addictive than in something with complex changes going 100 miles an hour. Rather than wondering why people prefered (being an old guy) The Eagles to Joe Henderson, I've made an effort to appreciate popular music more.
Dunno much about classical music, and you can argue about whether it's anything but a museum piece (and interesting more for live sound in an era of perfectly good recordings), but I've always been surprised how jazz has largely avoided taking on useful rock cliches in building arrangements. I would think that instrumental music would be more popular as a result.