The 25 Questions

I found The 25 Questions on Herr Vogler's Facebook page and thought it would be fodder for an interesting discussion. I haven't read the questions yet. This is a type-as-I-go blog post.

Actually, something tells me I'm already tired of the discussion and it hasn't even begun yet. I've just had that many "discussions" in my time, that even the very idea of discussing is exhausting anymore: music, politics, religion... pretty much anything involving depth or perspective. Come to think of it, everything has been talked to death. I've heard it all and I'm sick of people starting a conversation just to flex their debate muscles.

Regardless, here are the questions and my responses (I did not edit the typing and spelling errors from the original article):


1. Should a modern composer be judged against only the very best works of the past?

Yes and No. "Yes," if you have the singular goal of creating new masterpieces for the ages, because that mentality would cause you to toss out anything less than groundbreaking anyway. But also "No," if you aren't that elitist about the issue and think that music can serve more than just one narrow, self-centered end. Obviously there were countless, perfectly fine works of each generation that did their jobs but were casualties of the selective nature of posterity (survival of the fittest). So, before I can answer this question, I have to pose another few questions: "Why is the future so damned important? And what do you mean by 'judged'?"

2. Can there be truly objective criteria for judging a work of art?

Not being a robot, I am unqualified to give a definitive answer, but... NO.

3. If a composer can write one or two or more great works of music why cannot all of his or her works be great?

This is the stupidest fucking question I've ever read. Whoever came up with it must not engage in any creative ventures of any kind. Did your toddler ask it? "Why can't Albert Pujols hit a home run every time he swings his bat?" How can the adult brain even approach answering such a question? I'm just going to skip it. Next question.

4. Why does the contemporary musical establishment remain so conservative when all other fields of the arts embrace new ideas?

It doesn't. Where did you go to school?

5. Should a composer, if confronted with a choice, write for the musicians who will play a piece or write for the audience who will hear it?

Ideally, the goal is to do both. But unless your piece is supposed to be just an etude for study, then obviously the audience wins out. You don't want the musicians to be bored to tears, but that's a necessary evil that musicians tend to accept: you can't enjoy playing them all. And not every piece is going to make them look particularly skilled, either. If given the choice, but for some reason can't accomplish both, then your answer lies in the function of the piece: if the performer commissioned it, make them happy; otherwise, make something that's worth listening to. Obviously. I'm getting the impression that this list of questions is for striking up a discussion in a seminar full of sophomore comp majors.

6. When is an audience big enough to satisfy a composer or a musician? 100? 1000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? 100,000,000?

That depends on the individual composer's personal ambition, greed, and ego. Some might say it is the quality of the audience members rather than their quantity. Or perhaps James Bond has it right: the world is not enough? I really don't know. This question is something of a Rorschach test, is it not? Personally, at this point in my life/career, I'd be happy with 1.

7. Is the symphony orchestra still relevant or is it just a museum?

Still and always relevant. It will never be and can never be replaced or replicated.

8. Is micro-tonality a viable compositional tool or a burned out modernist concept?

Anything is a viable tool if you can use it properly instead of using it just for the sake of using it.

9. In an orchestra of 80 to 100 musicians does the use of improvisation make any sense?

A lot of these questions depend on your definition of a key word. "Sense" as in...? This question needs to be clearer. I can think of countless instances in which a large orchestra employs aleatory elements, but maybe you meant something different by "improvisation." Again, depends on what you mean. My thesis was an orchestra piece that had lots of room for improvisation, and I certainly think it "made sense." And here's why improvisation makes "sense" in an orchestra piece: because notation is a means to an end, and the composer is the architect of sound. If the sound mass you are going for cannot be achieved by non-improvisational means, such as the texture created by chaotically-played "boxed" pitches (each individual player plays those pitches in any order and in their own rhythms), then that makes infinitely more sense than trying to write out 20 different violin parts polyrhythmically. Remember: music notation is prescriptive, not descriptive.

10. What is the dichotomy between dissonance and. tonality and where should the line be drawn?

*sigh*

11. Can the music that sooths the savage beast be savage?

It can. Perhaps I am a savage beast, and perhaps I exorcise that savagery by bathing in the dark, furious music of Hans Zimmer's period war film scores. Sometimes it soothes me, sometimes it only further exacerbates my emotional state. Can violent video games be relaxing? They are, almost by definition (it's leisure, after all). Perhaps you are giving too much credence to the aphorism, "music soothes the savage beast." I don't know who came up with that saying, but it's not like it's the Word of God. I've noticed lately how people tend to quote any old saying like it's a truism when it's not. Not necessarily, anyway. People tend to automatically accept these cutesy expressions as natural law when they shouldn't. It's starting to get on my nerves, really. So, in fairness, you could just as easily ask: "Does music really even sooth the savage beast in the first place?"

12. Should a composer speak with the voice of his or her own time?

If they want. Nobody really cares. You can make a career out of writing music of a bygone era. "Should" connotes a self-inflated sense of purpose and social significance. You should just write what you want to hear.

13. If there’s already so much good music to listen to what’s the point of more composers writing more music?

What are you, a fucking idiot? If there's already so much good reading material, what's the point of you writing this article? Next question.

14. If Bach were alive today would he be writing in the baroque style?

That's a question loaded with technicalities. What are you really trying to ask? If he were alive, and had been alive all this time, would his style have adapted to the times? Of course, because he composed for the patronage system, which changed. (If we had had hundreds of years of new Bach pieces with every year, this would be a badass world). If he were all of the sudden alive today would he be writing in the Baroque style? Obviously, because you just resurrected him without preparing him for contemporary practices. If he were alive today, would he be writing in a more recent style because he discovered he liked it more than the Baroque style? I don't know! This is a bad, bad question. So far, I'm really disappointed in you, NY Times. Terrible opinion page so far.

15. Must all modern composers reject the past, a la John Cage or Milton Babbitt’s “Who Cares If You Listen?”

Again... where did you study music? Because you sound like you're coming from some alternate universe, the only place where such things could occur. Who is saying we should all reject the past? No, I think some composers should reject the past and some should follow it. And they should damn well never impose their ideology on everyone else! BGSU was atrocious about that. BGSU was a perfect example of how not to run a composition program. But only a fool would "reject" the past, because everything and everyone (composers) that got us to this point (the present day) needs to be acknowledged and understood, just not necessarily revered. Because if you take something off the table just because you think it's worthless or useless, you've essentially reduced your library of material, your arsenal of devices. It's like how people say how profanity is the sign of a limited vocabulary, when ironically they are actually limiting their own vocabulary by refusing to use foul language. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it... but you might want to understand it and keep it handy. All of this being said, from a functional standpoint you could just as easily retitle that Babbitt article as: "Who Cares If You Compose?"

16. Is the symphony an antiquated idea or is it, like the novel in literature, still a viable long form of music?

You already asked that question! This is a padded list! See question #7.

17. Can harmony be non-linear?

Are you smoking weed? I suppose it can be non-linear, but when you take away the progression by removing it from linear context, you drastically reduce the perception of harmony by distilling it down to simply one chord.

18. Was Cage’s “4:33” a good piece of music?

Was... John Cage's... 4'33"... a good piece of music...?

19. Artists are expected to accept criticism, should critics be expected to accept it as well?

Hell yes. More so. If you can dish it out but can't take it, then you should only give positive reviews.

20. Sometimes I’m tempted to talk about the role that corporate culture plays in the sale and distribution of illegal drugs throughout the United States and the world, and that the opium crop in Afghanistan has increased by 86 percent since the American occupation, and the fact that there are 126,000 civilian contractors in Iraq, but what does this have to do with music?

I guess that depends on how you answered #12, wiseguy. But okay, I'll bite. What does this have to do with music, you ask? I'm reminded of the line at the end of Kingdom of Heaven:
"What is Jerusalem worth?"
"Nothing... Everything!"

21. Can the orchestra be replaced by increasingly sophisticated computer-sampling programs and recording techniques, at least as far as recordings are concerned?

No. I said that earlier. Trust me on this one. A warm body in the chair can't be replaced. A trained ear will always, always tell the difference. Just like you can never truly fool the eye with visual effects.

22. When a visual artist can sell a one-of-a-kind work for hundreds of thousands of dollars and anyone on the internet can have a composer’s work for nothing, how is a composer going to survive?
And does it matter?

Does what matter? Does surviving matter?! Or does the disparity matter? You could just thoughtlessly slap "And does it matter?" to the end of any one of these stupid questions and it would be just as fitting. Anyway, there are many reasons why fine art can be so expensive, none of which really apply to the world of music. For one thing, an oil painting is unique by definition. The process of creating the physical copy necessitate it being one-of-a-kind, and if you're buying a print then you're a schmuck. What gets me is how a hack like Thomas Kinkade has set up an assembly line of copyists to churn out variations on his work--and still get thousands of dollars for a print of one, not even an original unoriginal painting! In that regard, he is a commercial genius, and his operation does compare to the downloading of copied mp3s. But I digress. With an oil painting, you are partly paying for the uniqueness of the commission: something only you can truly own, whereas music recordings are digital and can be "owned" by everyone. Now, if you were to own your own orchestra and tell them to play a certain piece on a whim (thereby having the authentic experience as you would by gazing upon an original work of art), that would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we're really reaching by trying to compare the two, aren't we? The sound of a live orchestra and the appearance of original paint rather than a print... yeah, anyway. Also, with a painting you are paying for the fame of the painter, not just the quality of the art on its own merits. Some artists can charge as much as they do simply because fame begets fame, and people pay specifically for that. Fact. Also, you can't pirate a work of art and share copies for free. Composers get screwed by that. I could go on about this question, but I am tired of it. These are two separate worlds and need not be compared. Basically, just don't go into music composition hoping to get rich.

23. Should composers try to reflect in their music the truth of their natures and the visions of their dreams whether or not this music appeals to a wide audience?

Depends on how much they want a mass appeal. There's an audience for every piece, so let the music find its audience on its own. If you build it, they will come. Some of the best advice I ever got was: "Write the kind of music you like to listen to." Whether the piece is an experiment, serving a function, being purely face-value entertainment, accompanying a visual, or expressing a humanistic element in an attempt to enrich the lives of the audience by giving them something to relate their own "visions of their dreams" to (a catharsis that I believe is the ultimate success music can aspire to achieve), you should still make it your own.

24. Why are advances in science and technology not paralleled by advances in music theory and compositional technique?

Why would they be?

25. Post-Post Minimalism? Since Minimalism and Post-Minimalism we’ve seen a short-lived Neo-Romanticism, mainly based on misguided attempts to return to a 19th century tonality, then an improv scene which had little or nothing to do with composition, then a hodge-podge of styles: a little old “new music,” a little “60’s sound colorism”, then an eclectic pomo stew of jazz, rock and classical, then a little retro-chic Renaissance … even tonal 12-tonalism. And now in Germany some “conceptual” re-readings of Wagner. What have I left out? Where’s the music?

Oh, Grandpa. You're so crazy.

Well, I don't know where to start, because every single phrase here is bogged down by judgment calls I would have to challenge ("misguided attempts," "little or nothing to do with composition," "eclectic pomo stew," "retro-chic," etc.) before even getting to your question. And then I get to your question and realize that there is no substance to it: "What have I left out?" So... Question #25 is asking for a list of genres? No, I think you were being rhetorical with that, in which case you haven't really started a debate, just stated a rant. Mainly, I suspect you are just trying to sound informed by dazzling us with your mastery of esoteric labels, hoping we'll overlook how fucking vapid and pedantic the rest of this "article" was. Well, I'm neither impressed nor fooled by it.


Well, Brad, I did it. Fuck this article.