PA Songwriters'/Composers' Association

^ Ne pas probleme.

On the topic of innovation:

Edited by Polymorphia - January 16 2015 at 21:32

Dayvenkirq wrote: Luna wrote: Isn't being original relative? If you were to go back to the 19th century and play Beatles songs, you'd shake up the music scene for centuries to come. Doing that today: not so much. We are living in 2010's, so forget about the past or how people in 19th century would be blown away by The Beatles' songs. Nowadays it's hard to come up with anything that wasn't tried before. Except it isn't. We simply limit ourselves to genres and styles then realize that many things have been done before. Music has existed for thousands of years and people have never had a problem making original-sounding things. I seriously doubt that this is a 2010's issue. Luna wrote: Likewise, boundaries are also relative. What boundaries are we pushing here? Making unique sounding music? Doesn't matter. As long as you are doing something that wasn't tried before, ... doesn't matter. Don't have a response to this. Luna wrote: ... if you're an established experimental artist, perhaps having balls would be releasing something conventional and poppy. What is so ballsy about moving on to mainstream? That's playing safe, not being ballsy. Except it's not. An audience is significant in this example. Such a dramatic change would certainly upset the image of the artist and how they're seen. Even excluding the audience, it's ballsy to flip your style upside-down. Luna wrote: Having balls means several different things, depending on where you are as an artist. If you're a well known pop star, for example, having balls would be releasing some sort of non-conventional, experimental album. However, if you're an established experimental artist, perhaps having balls would be releasing something conventional and poppy. However, without this context, ... . ... which context? The context of the artist being well-established in the experimental genre. Luna wrote: Writing intelligent lyrics I would also say is relative since intelligence is relative. Not everyone in the audience has the same capacity for artistic or literary appreciation. This isn't about the audience's intelligence. This is about the intelligence of the artist. What is so relative there?

Luna wrote: Isn't being original relative? If you were to go back to the 19th century and play Beatles songs, you'd shake up the music scene for centuries to come. Doing that today: not so much.

We are living in 2010's, so forget about the past or how people in 19th century would be blown away by The Beatles' songs. Nowadays it's hard to come up with anything that wasn't tried before.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - January 16 2015 at 19:51

Another head to the rescue:

From the listener's perspective:
There is respecting music and there is enjoying music. Some people call music good because they enjoy it, others call music good because they respect it, and yet others call it good because they both enjoy and respect it. Enjoyment can sometimes come from respect and respect from enjoyment. Some respect complexity over simplicity under the idea of "intelligence" where some respect simplicity over complexity under the idea of "universality." We sometimes respect influence over innovation or vice versa. We may not find anything special or innovative about hailed groups, but still feel we have to respect them because of their influence, OR we may feel that the recognition needs to go to uninfluential groups who were special in innovative, not that the two things can't or don't correspond. Certain people have a problem with artists sounding derivative, others don't. A lot of bands are often regarded as objectively respectable, but there is no such thing from a listeners standpoint. We will respect different artists for different reasons. There is no completely objective method of evaluation as listeners.

From the artist standpoint:
All of this said, art is not subjective, but rather relative. Music is like a math but with problems far too complex for us to solve on brain-power alone. All of Aretha Franklin's crescendos and her vibrato and her accent etc. are physical phenomena that, at least to human ear, can happen again and could theoretically be planned, but when she sang a song right it wasn't because all of those physical phenomena were consciously rendered, although some of them may have been; it was because it felt right, whether it was a little out of tune or offbeat or perfectly in tune. Trying to consciously render those stylistic frills will only become right by chance and not by design. The objectively right way to make art is to express yourself as accurately as possible. When you write about a topic lyrically, you are writing not only about your emotions, but how your mind processes those emotions, the events that caused them, the opinions that came from them, the thoughts you had as a result, etc. in order to recreate an exact piece of yourself in someone else. You are trying to capture a piece of yourself as accurately as possible even if that entails telling a story about someone else with more vivid experiences to represent the emotion present. Sometimes a person's emotions are static and they feel the need to create something that heavily represents that mood. Sometimes a person's emotions are dynamic, and they feel the need to cycle through more than one mood in a shorter amount of time. Sometimes a person isn't intensely emotional and feels the need to create something less intense, and sometimes a person is intensely emotional and feels the need to create something more intense. The way to write music isn't subjective, but relative to you. If you feel you don't want to write lyrics that I generally respect, you will never write those kinds of lyrics the right way except by chance. You have to write the way you feel you should. You may need to gain more experience writing to develop a sense of where you should go, but once you have that sense, it's best to follow it. This doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for criticism. Sometimes criticism and discussion can help you see more clearly where you want the music/lyrics to go, but if the critique doesn't seem to aid you where you want to go, you don't have to follow it.

The objective part about this is that sometimes the listener will feel that part of you communicated through the music, even if it's not what they would normally enjoy or respect. Technically, the objective way to listen to music is to try and recognize what the artist is communicating (the best way is by feeling it ), but, as a listener, you won't always recognize it. Sometimes it comes from experiences you've never had or from environments or ways of thinking you've never encountered. In that sense it still is subjective. But when you do recognize it, you can evaluate how the relative parts interact. The lyrics may have ocean imagery and the music sound like a big wave crashing. The lyrics may be surreal, but the mood of them and various phrases and elements throughout may communicate why that surreality is present (maybe escapism?). Music in the modern civilized world is create for the same reason indigenous tribes create music, for the same reason the ancients created music– the human need to express. We may face different concerns with bombs and the internet and such, but, as artists, we should always keep in mind that we aren't all that different from those that came before us, and those that are faraway.

imo

Music is both a science and an art. In fact most successful classical musicians tend to be good at mathematics as well. And any musical scale is just a set of fractions and ratios related to the root of the scale. Science is the canvas - art is the colour you apply to it.

If any members feel like taking the time to listen to this, I would be curious as to your comments - good or bad. Would be interested to hear how the material, whether you like it or not, translates on the different systems/setups you guys & gals use to listen to your music.http://www.auralscapes.com

Star_Song_Age_Less wrote: ^Agreed wholeheartedly.  Write what you want to write, not what you think other people will find to be intelligent.  Music is an art, not a science.  There's no right or wrong way to go about it.

There is science to merit, isn't there?

^Then don't take that approach. I probably have advocated it strongly in the past (I just like something to chew on for a bit, which doesn't make it any more "intelligent"), but it's really just what I like. Follow your vision where it leads.

Different writers have different approaches. You can write exactly what you feel exactly how you would word it in that moment. There's nothing wrong with that to me. You don't have to try to seem intelligent with your lyrics if you don't want to. Simple lyrics can carry a lot of soul. You can also go a more complex route. There is shame in neither. You can even write by sound or improvise. Most good writers know how this fits into their overall aesthetic, their "voice." You may just prefer something more composed.

I know I prefer to obscure the meaning a little bit, so that you can figure it out still and once you figure it out you can't see it any other way, but I like it to be a challenge to get there. Writing those lyrics is hard and it takes me a long time to achieve anything close to what I want. I like them to be thought provoking, I suppose, and, in the past, I've been exclusive of lyricists that don't work that way, but there's nothing wrong with what they do if it's emotionally effective.

There is a difference between having things open to interpretation in the sense that things in the lyrics have multiple meanings and create multiple associations as to cause the listener/reader to be brought to different but controlled conclusions and having things open to interpretation in the sense that they aren't trying to communicate anything in particular and want the listener to ascribe their own meaning to it. There is also a difference between being open to interpretation and the meaning being a challenge to get to. I take the "challenge" part from modern poets like Donald Justice, John Berryman, and T.S. Eliot. Most of these poets poems have meanings that take a couple readings to grasp (or one read to grasp, but with a few lines that take some thought), but they don't have multiple meanings. Certain symbols may have multiple meanings, but the topic and the perspective are clear.