New Ideas in music or money is the rub
The state of popular music is that most people get what they are looking for and this works quite well. There are many category's and listeners, many with not much time, get to quickly get samples of what they want. The structure of the songs in most of the listings have the familiar formula of using a "hook". The quicker that you get to it and the stronger it is the better. This makes sense in that a person that gets a limited amounts of hearings of the piece needs to get it "brain-mapped" quickly. Repetition becomes essential. If the hook does not work this can be torture since the hook becomes a worm. One mans worm is another mans hook. (You could reverse this but I didn't need to tell you that)
Wagner was a good man with a hook. Could his material work in the modern setting? Commercials which have an even shorter playing time have on occasion played Classical music in the background. What an cruel concept. The great works have the main "hook" stripped out and played ad nauseum hundreds of times while a car, cigar or pizza gets displayed. Now when you hear the great work its core hook is burned out.
They did that to the Brandenburg concertos. The one in G and the one in D were mercilessly flogged. One good thing is that they couldn't do it to Mahlers 9th. If you started playing the front of that piece the commercial would run out before they could do any damage. Wagners Goetterdammerung was a masterpiece in hook technology. Through a long set of previous parts of the Ring he develops his hooks that have meaning programatically. Thus there is the hook that refers to fate. And a cruel hook as well. So when the story demands it he can combine the two and get "cruel fate".
There is something very great about the long time frame that comprises the Ring. Over the great expanse of Wagner soup a person gets lost in the sea of swirling emotion that rages through the hours. It results in a form of musical inebriation that is quite wonderful. And best of all the hooks have time to perform their magic. Freed from any need to get the job done in 3 minutes they are allowed to slowly develop a ferocity. Could Fafners theme be pulled off in a pop piece?
I have often wondered if the great moment when Hagen with his great minor second super condensed evil music works the cow horns with his murderous intent revealed by the music could ever be pulled off in a pop setting. Of course it could! Not that it would be easy. A large ensemble would be needed. You would like to have 4 great Keyboardists, 3 guitarist, Brass ensemble:saxophones,horns,etc. (Brass is what Wagner was the King at) 8 vocalists, two drummers, two bass players, electric string quartet and a partridge in a pear tree. Of course you would have to write all new music, we wouldn't want to spam Wagners perfect musical creation. And of course this music would be conducted over a very long time frame. And it would get no radio play but perhaps that wouldn't be a bad thing since you can't fit commercials into an eight or fourteen hour piece. Imagine John McLaughlin, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai playing along side the great Ashkenazy, Chick Corea and with resurrection abilities, Oscar Peterson? You could put allstars at every position and write music that has not been attempted yet. That would be a neat thing.
All that is needed is the budget!
Wagner was a good man with a hook. Could his material work in the modern setting? Commercials which have an even shorter playing time have on occasion played Classical music in the background. What an cruel concept. The great works have the main "hook" stripped out and played ad nauseum hundreds of times while a car, cigar or pizza gets displayed. Now when you hear the great work its core hook is burned out.
They did that to the Brandenburg concertos. The one in G and the one in D were mercilessly flogged. One good thing is that they couldn't do it to Mahlers 9th. If you started playing the front of that piece the commercial would run out before they could do any damage. Wagners Goetterdammerung was a masterpiece in hook technology. Through a long set of previous parts of the Ring he develops his hooks that have meaning programatically. Thus there is the hook that refers to fate. And a cruel hook as well. So when the story demands it he can combine the two and get "cruel fate".
There is something very great about the long time frame that comprises the Ring. Over the great expanse of Wagner soup a person gets lost in the sea of swirling emotion that rages through the hours. It results in a form of musical inebriation that is quite wonderful. And best of all the hooks have time to perform their magic. Freed from any need to get the job done in 3 minutes they are allowed to slowly develop a ferocity. Could Fafners theme be pulled off in a pop piece?
I have often wondered if the great moment when Hagen with his great minor second super condensed evil music works the cow horns with his murderous intent revealed by the music could ever be pulled off in a pop setting. Of course it could! Not that it would be easy. A large ensemble would be needed. You would like to have 4 great Keyboardists, 3 guitarist, Brass ensemble:saxophones,horns,etc. (Brass is what Wagner was the King at) 8 vocalists, two drummers, two bass players, electric string quartet and a partridge in a pear tree. Of course you would have to write all new music, we wouldn't want to spam Wagners perfect musical creation. And of course this music would be conducted over a very long time frame. And it would get no radio play but perhaps that wouldn't be a bad thing since you can't fit commercials into an eight or fourteen hour piece. Imagine John McLaughlin, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai playing along side the great Ashkenazy, Chick Corea and with resurrection abilities, Oscar Peterson? You could put allstars at every position and write music that has not been attempted yet. That would be a neat thing.
All that is needed is the budget!
posted by Steve Kusaba | 3:09 AM
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