I Demur

So, David Cope, a retired professor, composer of 20th Century “modern music” in the “serious composition” vein that musically mirrors Holly Lisle’s prescription for writing literary trash has written a computer program to “create original, modern music” that some musical dullards call “beautiful”.

Yeh, yeh. I’ve heard some of David Cope’s “serious” compositions. Hate ’em. Meaningless UNbeauty, for the most part. His computer program “composes” similar stuff: OK for Muzak, in limited doses perhaps, but what I’ve heard simply goes nowhere. It’s music in a less real sense than the manufactured Top 40 crap that dominates the music industry nowadays, IMO. Here’s a sample:

[audio:emily_howell_1.mp3]

Not ugly, but boring. It goes nowhere, has no sense of direction or teleos, and that’s a killer for me. It has no implicit “why” but just meanders along, like most mind-numbed sheeple nowadays (which, I suppose, makes it fitting “music” for that audience). The only feeling it inspires is an urge to yawn. Glurge. It seems to me that those with a purely intellectual, detached (musically lobotomized by Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries as opposed to musically lobotomized by the recording industry) grasp of “music” would be the ones something like this vapid, sugar free cotton candy would most appeal to: pseudo-intellectuals with pretensions of good taste. (Hmmm, that would also seem to make a good fit for most congresscritter who are “pseudo-smart with delusions of grandeur”… )

“No musical calories! Yipee!”

*feh*

Here’s another:

[audio:Emily_Howell_Track2.mp3]

*gak*

Compare and contrast on your own:

[audio:fanfare%20common%20man.mp3]

Now THAT was from one of the few “serious” 20th Century composers who could write worth a dam*. Even at volume levels seriously lower than performance levels and with just my lil 2+1 computer speakers, that raised the hairs on my arms and neck. Good stuff, Maynard, not the kind of crap that speaks to the David Copes of the world.

*sigh*

Oh, well.

BTW, my musical tastes are not limited to “classical” (or even Classical *heh*) music, although I do believe the David Copes of the world–as well as those who write and “perform,” often just in the vein of singing dogs, it seems, for the recording industry–could learn a thing or four from the Principles of Classicism.

balance
clarity
accessibility
expressiveness
edification

I appreciate any music, written and performed, that puts those principles into practice, consciously or unconsciously. Unfortunately, most stuff nowadays is either seriously lacking in two or three of these areas (or more) or seems bent on actively repudiating them.

And that’s just one area where I take exception to both such things as Cope’s software-“composed” quasi-music and the stuff it emulates, as well as most of the crap excreted from the recording industry nowadays.

Oh, well…