Music/Comparative Treatise
Music-A Comparative Treatise
2/14/96
I was listening to the radio tonight, to a classical music station, one which was playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #4. As I listened, I noted with some amusement that even the best classical composers are guilty of a fault which I usually only hear attributed to rock artists, namely that of seemingly endless repetition. The composition reminded me much of Bach who, while earning my respect as an artist, I usually recognize thru his constant repeating of a theme thruout every piece of his that I have had the mixed blessing of hearing. Beethoven, however, I prefer much in the same sense that I prefer Jimi Hendrix and the Jefferson Airplane over most of the rock medium at large by a sizeable margin. Then, it hit me.
While Bach repeated lines, Beethoven was swinging them like broadswords. Bach would toss frisbees, each circular and regular, in large numbers, their spinning forms creating a floral patchwork of varied regularity and pastel colors against a backdrop of quiet grass. Beethoven was at war, swinging his axes in ways to defeat prediction rather than inviting it as Bach did. Even more: He was the architect with a giant brush, designing a castle, even wielding a larger-than- life trowel to assemble giant stones of granite into a form yet to be imagined by humanity.
In point of fact, I often found myself humming along with Bach pieces I had never heard, confirming to myself their predictability. With Beethoven, while there is still repetition of a sort, it is no longer the line which is repeated. Sometimes, when I try to hum along with his works, I find myself suddenly harmonizing with a line, or singing in counterpoint to it, or using one of several themes while he has surprised me by shifting to another. I find myself sparring with him to follow, yet each time he defeats my efforts to anticipate him, he has circled me and carried me further than I dared believe I could go alone.
Much like Jimi Hendrix. It was long after I defined the parallel that I recognized the modern echo in style to whom it applied. I recalled the grand finale to Beethoven’s 9th symphony, unarguably one of the best pieces of classical music ever composed, and noted striking similarities between it and Hendrix’s Voodoo Child (Slight Return), as well as with several other Hendrix pieces. In both, there is a stormlike battle going on in the air about our ears, with the many voices/voicings coming and going, always recogniseable but never predictable, constantly drawing the ear, the mind and the spirit on and on thru an ascending spiral toward an unknown goal. One would think at first glance that Messr’s Bach and Beethoven would be leading us toward heaven while Jimi has a more ominous destination in mind. Yet, let us not be too quick to categorize either side by affiliation alone. Compare Beethoven’s 9th with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkries, the latter certainly evoking pictures of some of the more colorful pagan spirits. And while anything portraying Voodoo certainly gravitates toward a pagan mode, supported by visions of “Chopping down mountains with the edge of my hand”, if we look further into Hendrix’s work, we might be surprised to see lines like “Angel came down from heaven yesterday…” Certainly, it must be argued that there is a powerful presense of both Heaven and Hell on both sides of the coin.
For the moment, let us set aside religion and look to some basics. Music is an art. Art is self-expression, and music is self-expression thru sound. In a broad definition, anything which communicates thru sound is music; for those of us who subscribe to one or another set of disciplines or criterion, there may be other limits imposed.
To express a thought, one needs a volcabulary. In music, our alphabet is our scale, our grammar is our knowledge and/or use of rudimentary musical theory (In the formal sense). Just as in any other language, the larger the available volcabulary to the artist, the more depth they will be able to express thru their art.
The state of hostility between affectionados of the various modes of music today is truly regrettable. While a complete sharing of technique between the various genres of music would be futile, one should not ignore the great accomplishments by those trailblazers not afraid to jump fences. Take, for example, rock bands such as the Beatles, the Who and certain solo efforts by Paul Kantner and Grace Slick. Using training and knowledge from the classical school, they incorporated harmonic techniques, instrumentation, arrangement, structure and dynamics all usually found in symphonic works to produce what was, for each of them, some of their greatest works. In the other direction, I have a personal fondness for Leonard Bernstein who, having learned enough about the rock and jazz media, was able to produce works of the caliber of West Side Story. In both rock and classical music, the artist is well-advised to seek out new and fresh approaches and techniques. Clearly, what could be fresher than that found by jumping one’s own fences?
Nevertheless, borrowed technique is only a piece of the puzzle. Parallels in structure may, indeed, be little more than coincidence, or the luck of the draw. And what I had tapped into earlier went far beyond anything implied by the presence of a written note on a page.
It is often said, when a listener hears something particularly moving, that there is something “Magic” happening with the music. What is that Magic about? And for our purposes, what is Magic, anyway?
A proper technical definition of Magic as used here might look like this: Magic is the calculated use of symbolic action on the physical level, sometimes in a context of ritual, with the intended purpose of creating effects on some level not obviously connected with the causing actions. The important part of this is the idea of having a cause, an effect and the lack of an easily defineable connection between the two. In a more simplistic sense, Magic is little more than making use of what is already available in nature; what separates it from normal events or actions is simply the perception of abnormality on the part of the uninitiated.
Jimi Hendrix spawned numerous imitations, one of the most noteworthy being a pitiful effort called Blue Cheer. Blue cheer had the same guitar/bass/drums setup, the same affection for the big amps, but the band went nowhere. The spark was missing, and without the spark, there can be no fire.
Yet, there were others more successful. There were quite a few one-hit wonders and a substantial number of good bands that just never made it commercially. The spark was there.
Classical music has some parallels. While the serious classical fan enjoys a sizeable percentage of the medium, more interesting are those few pieces that have achieved a full penetration of the general public. Who hasn’t, at some point, enjoyed a July 4th celebration featuring the 1812 Overture? Anyone who was fortunate enough to watch a certain performance of couples’ Olympic figure skating several years ago will know exactly which performance I mean if I merely mention Ravel’s Bolero. Numerous other classical melodies have achieved a high degree of familiarity with the public, even if the public cannot identify the melodies; good examples are Beethoven’s 5th and 9th Symphonies, the William Tell Overture, the Peer Gynt Suite and Carmen, not to mention a few thousand others.
Each genre has its own character, its own strengths. Rock is the Saturn Rocket to Classical’s Grand Canyon. Both, most importantly, also have that all- important magic, although the language used on each side is quite different at times.
To filter down the question to its essentials uses the same process as deducing its answer: we must eliminate the differences to expose the common thread. Much the same as in the true meditative process, we must learn to not see the obvious in order to discover what is hidden beneath the surface.
The strength of a powerful lyric is not in its words, but in its meaning given a preordained method of delivery. While either Beethoven’s 9th or Hendrix’s Voodoo Child could be whistled, neither would retain their power without the presence of at least a fair representation of their intended instrumentation. Context is equally important; soliloquies from either Antony or Hamlet lose their impact if the speaker mumbles his lines alone, seated upon a commode. Impact, after all, defines the meeting of two objects. In the case of Music, one of them must be in possession of a mind and a set of ears.
Another parallel comes to mind with the enjoyment of various combat sports. In all venues from Karate, Kickboxing and pro Boxing, to Wrestling, no demonstration of skill has the emotional impact of a grudge match with a title on the line. While the moves are entertaining, it is the context within which the event takes place that produces the powerful emotional response.
In Ballet and Opera, it is plot that sets the context within which conflicts can be expressed. Beyond that, atmospheres can be set up involving numerous smaller circles of activity which build up the larger, main circle where the central stresses come to their climax.
The key is the human mind itself, the target of all creativity. Success in expression is not measured in decibels, or in speed, or delicacy, or grace, or beauty, but rather in the ability of the expression to move the mind of the person in an intended direction and create effects far beyond that implied by the cursory examination of the work involved.
Copyright © 1996
Anthony D’Andrea
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