Simplicity vs. Complexity and the Importance of Form
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- čas přidán 3. 02. 2023
- Link to book composition lessons:
calendly.com/musicauniversalis
I initially wrote the script for this video a few months back, but left it on the back burner. Seeing as the script kind of came out in a stream of consciousness fashion, I wasn't sure how it would be received. Perhaps it's not as fleshed out as some of my other videos, but maybe an argument or thought here or there in the video has an effect on someone.
A special thanks as always to musopen.org and imslp.org for offering free public domain sheet music and recordings online.
If you notice a weird cut in the video around the 5 min mark, it's because I had to unfortunately remove a scene from a BBC documentary with Roger Scruton. The video was going to be blocked worldwide for including 10 seconds from the documentary "Why Beauty Matters". To be honest this is the first time since starting this channel that I have experienced such aggressive behavior regarding copyright. It's almost as if BBC doesn't want you to see anything having to do with that documentary. I guess it's fine to argue that "the value of art is subjective" until you argue that it should be beautiful.
The greatest musical complexity is not in the music itself, rather in the thought process behind it. A simple Beethoven motif could be developed in a million ways, yet Beethoven chooses a path which makes all others seem inferior. His development of an idea sounds immediately like it was the only true option, the perfect piece in what grows into the perfect puzzle. The immense skill in making this right choice time and time again, the trail and error of a lifetime imbedded in each work gives an inherent complexity. Even if the final music is simple, the genius of choosing the perfect option gives a sincere complexity which distinguishes all great composers.
A key point! Although there exist a myriad possibilities for development of a simple theme, geniuses choosing the one that seems somehow to be the best among all of them. I express The same idea slightly differently (or at least I believe it's the same general idea). When listening to a piece of music by Bach, for example, there will be a note or harmonic movement that comes as a surprise, the music takes a direction that you couldn't anticipate, and yet once you hear it it seems like the only right path that music should take, as if each note is a natural and necessary outcome of the previous notes. Surprise combined with a sense of necessity. And any event, fascinating topic.
@@nboisen Yes, as the right amount of surprise is a necessity for beauty, of course too much of surprise, an inflation of surprise, counteracts beauty as it dissolves form.
I think there is definitely more than one right choice, we just hear it as a whole, so if a passage was changed or developed differently it would seem off because of our memories association with the complete piece. If we heard it that way first time around then we may perceive that as the most right sounding.
this is a pretty aggrandizing view of beethoven lol, i feel like most of the textural choices he makes are pretty standard- i'd hardly say his pieces are perfect.
That's beautifully articulated. It's the phenomenal decision making at every part of the composional process that makes Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and so many other composers great.
Finally CZcams recommendations led me to a channel that gives valuable and vital advice for composers. As a bonus, it also indirectly shows who we have to thank, to a certain extent, for the fact that the genre of Classical Music is in crisis and that permanent and dedicated listeners/fans of this genre can be put in the red book.
Thank you for your work!
"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art"
-Frédéric Chopin
Great video, thank you very much for opening this subject! If you don't mind, I will put these Mozart's words here: "These concertos [Nos. 11, 12, and 13] are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which the connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why...."
Whenever you think that the theme is too simple to produce complex material, remember Beethoven pulled off the whole first movement of the 6th symphony based of only and ONLY the first 4 bars of intro, and NOTHING else from outside that.
You guys are awesome, reposting the gist of what you commented on the first upload.
@@MusicaUniversalis you can expect this minimum diplomacy from us. Go on. I just wanted to say, your and my thoughts match really well. Like whenever I think while watching, "He should talk about [this]" you are talking about [this] within a few seconds. Love this channel.
And yeah, your baroque suite will have a great rival soon- a große suite.
Yes, let alone the mileage he got out of the 1st four measures of the 5th Symphony too!
@@ericleiter6179 yess. But yea in the 5th he used material from outside the fate motif. In the pastorale, every single note can be traced back to somewhere in the intro
May I add Rachmaninoff Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor: Pickup.
Glad to see someone finally not falling down at the feet of Collier.
I’m a pedal steel player. The best lines are simple, solid, and intensional. Control and clarity are the final signs of a master musician.
I feel that modern art and artists have become obsessed with technical skill and theory.
Classical music used to also be about entertainment. They're difficult to play, but you can hum the song by yourself because they're so catchy. I can't feel anything for a song that is just a complex mess of notes but never achieves the harmony and pull of a song that careens toward a musical climax that you expect even though you never heard the song before.
Oh my gosh, man! You just described me. I have been hooked by this complexity thing and since then I've only been trying to compose "complex things" but I can never finish 'cause I don't how to develop and it never sounds nice, as I thought it would. Basically, the only thing I'm trying when writing those things to my channel, is if it's going to be perceived as complex. Never a deeper meaning behind it.
That's exactly what I needed to hear, thanks.
Brilliant video. I've had similar thoughts regarding architecture and music for a long time. Now, I must get back to learning Jazz harmony and which notes to avoid!
Thank God I'm not alone in this world! I love your work. Keep it up.
As a self taught musical composer heavily influenced by media showcasing complex theory from not only pop music but classical music (Stravinsky, Bartok and Strauss come to mind), this video essay helped me to realize that much of the music I write relies heavily on harmonies that abstract the source material of my compositions almost dangerously and harmfully. While I strive not to make music that is very simple in it's theory, I think I've been striving for stranger, more 'ambiguous' theory, to quote Leonard Bernstein. Thank you for reminding me of an element of music I have so often overlooked for far too long.
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. People will try to tell you that X or Y is wrong but i disagree - just do what interests you. Of course, getting caught up in the obnoxious theories can be distracting, but if those things excite you then it's worth pursuing.
@@mm-dn6oestop pushing your beliefs onto musical fact
@@Whatismusic123 what?
@@mm-dn6oe your perception of music is entirely religious in nature.
@@Whatismusic123 lol okay.
This is one of the best things i've heard on the topic. It is easy to find beauty in simple things than to find it in complex mazes. The moment you need to explain the whole rationale behind a piece of art and why it should be considered art, thats the moment where that thing belongs to the realm of philosophy and not art itself.
You speak for many of us who feel the same way, but are not always able to really describe it !!
For a long time i were very obsessed with orchestral complexity, everytime i learned more and more about the different instruments, sections and families. But when i finally sat down and tried to compose an idea, just my mind turn in blank.
The storytelling, structure and related stuff is so important to support ideas. I know is too obvious for some but when you're starting, just thunk that music needs more and more. And when finally knows close enough, you forget what to say...
This point is universal. It a much needed lesson in most disciplines. Great job.
As much as I agree on the value of old forms and starting from simplicity and moving to complexity, I think that the Clifton Cathedral is a really really beautiful piece of architecture, and a good example of something thoroughly away from tradition and achieving a striking and meditative space. It definitely maintains a great sense of order, simplicity, and frankness that you're misrepresenting a bit.
I think every single work of art shown in this video is interesting, I don't see why we have to tear others down just because it doesn't fit our worldview.
@@mm-dn6oe you said everything.
@@kzeriar25 ?
I would say as musician we might be attracted by more technical stuffs or complexity during our learning process. Its also exciting and a way to improve our own music.
But its true that at the end a good melody will always win over complexity.
The best if when you can use your technical level and a bit of complexity to help you achieve a great melody!
Very well said. great example with the Cathedrals. I watched a 24-part video lecture series on Cathedrals on Wondrium. As you mentioned here, the basic idea is very simple - to be in the shape of a Cross. But when we study each one, each has its own uniqueness. Great art is simple and complex - at once.
Thanks for the video essay. Insightful.
THANK YOU! ❤ - Amazing video!
I completely agree with you with whatyou say about complexity and some artists like Jacob collier, having said that you could find a bad artist in any genre to use as an example. In contrast to Jacob Collier if you listen to a bands like King Gizzard/Radiohead/Black Midi you will see how they use micro-tonality, odd time signatures, modes and many more complex techniques with great success. So while I think it's true that over complicated works of art can fall flat, I also think that building a work of art around a complex idea can yield original and amazing art as well, in the hands of a good artist.
And I think it to be pretty strait-forward to say that being good at complex ideas of music theory doesn't make you a good artist and in reverse to that a great artist could be very bad at music theory and still make great art.
This is actually what made me most interested in quite specifically film music and video game music, and then trying to unravel the romantic inspiration for a lot of those Golden age film composers.
Which was a massive departure from my younger self, I was always most interested in the most technical death metal and found the simplicity of black metal to be quite boring. Then over the course of a decade I gradually reached a point where I had almost no interest in anything that wasn't unapologetically trying to create an emotion, trying to create a connection, time to create an idea. The best film music is an absolute slave to the picture it serves, telling part of the story Open but nobody is talking. As a result I have completely shut myself off from the world of virtuosity and focus primarily on symphonies, ballets, and operas. I earlier compositions were always restricted to very few parts, and while I thought maybe this was simply a sign that I wasn't a mature composer because I couldn't handle more, and eventually wrapped back around to the idea of saying what needs to be said in the most efficient way possible to reserve as many colors as I can. Likewise it's come to the point where I look at music as two components and the Masters are simply perfect at balancing the two, and that is patterns and contrast. Too much contrast and not enough patterns would be the collage composer as mentioned, there's nothing really to hook onto and nothing is effectively communicated. The opposite would be too many patterns and not enough contrast, this results in beating an idea to death and boring the listener.... This would be your generic pond five or electronic music composers. Although this isn't always a detriment, some folk music is extremely repetitive, but the best use of this is simply to create a vibe that you don't have to pay attention to, so you can focus your attention on other things. It is also not music because of the lack change.
In fact the older I get, despite not thinking my ideas come off that way they get simpler in how I think about them which is just odd. I've learned so many complex systems of Harmony only to reduce harmony to the idea that it simply adds context to Melody, and where once I thought people who scuffed traditional theory in favor of calling random notes jazz likewise I will often time pick harmonic choices simply based on how they make that melodic note feel
How long did it take you to realize that ? And how old were you ?
@@TheTeeProd I started getting into theory around 17/18 and I'm 35 now. Doesn't seem like long on paper but it's longer than most marriages and my unhealthy obsession with learning has caused me to notice the bigger picture. If you're looking at why set theory works, neo ramannien works, and tritone subs work up close they will seem unrelated, yet all have their own "quarantined" successes. If you zoom out for almost any of these techniques it almost always boils down to balancing an expectation(pattern) with new information(contrast). Good orchestration? Patterns and contrast. Structure? Again patterns and contrast. Prechorus chorus is great, but on that last chorus elongating the prechorus before a sudden rest going into the last chorus - why does this work? Simple, it's subverting the established expectation before paying it off. What makes a good prechorus ? Contrast to the chorus... Otherwise it would sound like 2 choruses.
It's the common thread in most good art, and something I can see in nearly every level of a good composition, be it motivic development, arrangement, texture, harmony.
Love the cathedral analogy, well played.
Excellent video bro! Thank you.
I'm loving your videos.
This is so relevant! Thank you.
Thank you for this thought-provoking presentation. Here is an excerpt from the writings of Marshall Vian Summers regarding truth and simplicity. "Simplicity allows you to gain access to life and to enjoy its beneficence in every moment. Complexity is a state of self-disassociation which renders you incapable of enjoying life and perceiving your role within it. This is the source of all great poverty... the sense of isolation and destitution that accompanies such a disassociation... If you are considering yourself to be complex, or your problems to be complex, it is because you are viewing yourself and your problems without Knowledge and are thus lost in your evaluations. [Knowledge being foundational to understanding] .... Truth must always bring simplicity for simplicity brings right resolution and right understanding and establishes peace and confidence in those who can receive it." (MVS, Steps to Knowledge)
Thank you!
Great video, although I found it funny that Berg’s piano sonata underscored the discussion of his serialist music.
Thank you… multiplied by a million. So needed. Subbed.
THANK YOU!!! Well said. I was dying for someone to articulate it on CZcams... Loved the Scruton reference... Would've appreciated if you elaborated on the importance of form...
If you want to learn more about form, refer to my “Understanding Form” videos.
Extremely well said my friend, I thank you!
Fantastic video essay. Very much agree. I also think film music shows this, whether that is John Williams who has admitted that he agonises over those short motifs, but will also then use complex harmony, but the motif will hold it all together. Or Hans Zimmer, and other modern media composers that often layer sounds on too, what is often very basic harmony.
A breath of fresh air
Man I am so glad that your video showed up on my recommended feed. I have classical background in violin since I did strings in my school years but watching videos like these help the fire that is in me to keep burning for music. This has greatly enriched my perspective of what simplicity does and what complexity does and how they can function individually and how they both correlate to one another. While I am not into classical music as much as I used to be, I am still in the realm of what I consider to be good music. I have been studying a math rock band by the name of CHON and a lot of their composition and music theory that is prevalent in their works is something to be admired for... can actually be dissected. And I believe your videos will help me understand what it is like to be a composer and the thought processes when constructing music. Genius video and I really hope what I said made sense... lol.
Fantastic video!
Totally agree. P.S You don't have to practice complex things to become a great musician and composer, but you do have to make simple things sound great, and things that appear complex are usually many simple things all joined together in a long sequence just like the links in a chain.
Excellent video. I like to point out how dead simple the main theme of the last movement of Beethoven's 9th is, compared to the extravagant glory of the arrangement of the piece as a whole. That simple statement is the foundation that the whole structure is built upon, and yet that theme is so uncomplex as to be almost childlike.
Wonderful video
Finally, someone agrees with me regarding Jacob. Highly talented but unmoving musically, he's young, maybe the best is yet to come. Enjoyed the video.
This is what I needed to hear a few years ago. I always tried to make things complex for the sake of complexity, but I could never finish pieces in a satisfying way. Often, I barely made any progress on ideas. Then I changed my thought process and started pursuing more basic ideas, which then developed into more complicated ones that I had originally wanted to use.
I used to love composing with modes, but I often did it in a vacuum. Instead of the modes arising as the answer to a question I had, they were treated as the question itself. “How can I use this mode in a piece?” became “If I want to make this piece modal, what mode benefits the overall vision?” I recently wrote a string quartet that employed Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian b6, and Double Harmonic (alongside the normal major and minor). But my thought process behind them was “how do I make this piece alternate between and blend minor and major tonalities to convey sadness and hope?”
A dissonant chord that arises and resolves with normal voiceleading will sound a lot better than one haphazardly thrown into a piece. Understanding this has made my compositions a lot more mature and accessible.
Excellent video. This is how I have always felt. I attended a lecture by Milton Babbitt. I even looked at some of his piano pieces. I first became a concert pianist with Bach, Beethoven and so on. Shostakovitch is nice. I like 'some' of his work and play some. But most 20th Century stuff is overly complex for the sake of being so. Atonality is wonderful if you view tonality as gravity as do I. Lost it for a moment or two but regain it and you'll see the difference. Live in atonality and you're downtown nowhere. Thus Ravel, Stravinsky and HIndemith can all speak to me. But I also love the Beatles. Just simply nice. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is an eternal example of simplicity gone wild! Grand! I still adore it as much as the first time I heard it. AND it "moves". It drives you forward to the next thought. And it builds. So exciting! This is how music should run in my opinion. I also have seen all of your references and I do admire them all. And I seem to fall in line with every opinion that you have! Spectacular! (I'm struggling now too). Thank you for this. I am a skilled musician (Jacob Collier? Cameron Carpenter? Keith Emerson? etc) of 62 years experience. I have written SO MUCH. Bla bla. I can be simple. I LOVE simplicity. I can be complex! I LOVE complexity! This video WILL push me to a better place. Thank you!!
The beauty of the Law is in simplicity. And, since you mentioned Newton, he himself claimed that Truth is to be found in simplicity. He really did!
Your voice is so relaxing to listen to
To be honest, I initially couldn’t stand hearing my own voice played back to me, so I’m glad it doesn’t have that effect on others.
I forgot to mention it in the video. But if you want to get into microtonality, look into Indian and Middle Eastern music where it’s used effectively.
I am curious to listen to some of your pieces
Lol no
You can refer to my compositions playlist on this channel. I will be writing more this year, unfortunately the time period during covid was not particularly motivating for me as a composer (to put it lightly).
@@MusicaUniversalis thanks!
Baroque music used it, and it is weird... but I like it
Well said. I will make a response video to this someday soon.
I am completely certain that this is the antithesis towards what was the antithesis of the classical & baroque tradition, and that culture will develop in this direction for a good century from now.
No, it's just another cult leader telling you how to feel. He's no better than schoenberg, or collier, or any other loon in the music space.
beautiful
Hii may I ask what is the name of the piano solo in 5:30 thank you great video
It’s the the initial theme from Bach’s Goldberg Variations
Wonderful video. Liked and sub’d. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve always sought to create beauty and drama in my music. I feel like complexities lend themselves well to drama, as things like polyrhythms, microtones, dissonances etc. tend to be quite jarring to the ear. That’s always been my approach, but I am still you and still a student.
Whatd the choir piece on the intro
It’s the Qui tollis peccata mundi from Bach’s B Minor Mass.
10:30 this isn’t actually a 12 tone piece lol. Okay but seriously, 12 tone and atonal music can be very beautiful. In Schönbergs works where he is a bit more free with his 12 tone system he created beautiful melodies, just check out the piano concerto :) Overall I do agree with most of your points tho, I like modern some modern music but a lot of it just seems so emotionless. I think complexity is very cool in theory and I love learning about it. But I feel like complexity should never be the primary objective of a piece of music or any other type of art.
I am limited with the pieces I can play in the background. The only nice Berg recording I could find that was public domain was the Piano Sonata. I will make a video about atonal/avant-garde composers and pieces I like in the future, so people stop thinking I want classical music to return to the 19th century.
@@MusicaUniversalis from the points you made I didn’t think that, don’t get me wrong. I agree with a lot of the things you said I just felt the need to say there are definitely some very beautiful atonal / highly dissonant pieces. And I said the sonata wasn’t 12 tone more so for the people watching this video than I said it to you. I very much enjoy your content and I know that you didn’t think the Berg sonata is 12 tone. But some people do from what I’ve seen commented underneath other videos (mainly score videos) that show the sonata, so it was more so that people don’t get confused. (Bergs piano sonata is my favorite piano piece btw lol)
The idea of an "over arching structure" for an entire work or, even more, multiple movements only started in the second half of the 18th and cemented itself only in the 19th (in fact it is precisely what led to compositions such as Milton Babbitt's). Music doesn't need an "over arching structure" that is a ridiculous idea. A Monteverdi madrigal has no over arching structure, it simply follows the text, in a way, it is a collage of musical word painting : but it's beautiful. Most musical traditions would laugh at the idea of an "over arching structure". Look no further than the school of "Ars Subtilior" and the example of the motet where all 4 voices read the same part but in a different rhythmic mode : a composition that stems purely from a complex idea, yet the result is beautiful.
The whole point of complexity in Bach's music, for example, is to reach the "transcendental" (that which is too complex to understand but beautiful to the ear).
And what about Liszt's "atonal bagatelle" ? Is that "pure complexity for the sake of it" ?
If all that matters is complexity then you'd just write a book about complex stuff, not make a piece with a clear artistic project.
By trying to dissect elitism in classical and jazz music, i'm afraid you've gone full circle. This video sounds very Schenkerian...
Yes fantastic point! There is no objective reason to treat music with a tried and true form for its overarching structure, as superior to a piece that simply transitions from one section to the next. All that matters is the experience being created, the emotion, and the narrative. Because that’s the thing, a musical narrative does not only exist in the Sonata form or whatever, but will be present in your mind in any piece you find compelling, whether is employs a truly unusual structure or a tried and true one. His take is highly dogmatic, maybe even a little superstitious.
Thank you! I've been trying to explain what's wrong with Collier for years now. You have summarized it perfectly. I can't stand complexity in music for complexity's sake because it's usually superficial. It speaks of some deep set uncertainty of music's own merit as an intellectual endeavor compared to math and science in the people engaging in such behavior. Their aesthetics are technology-based and I mean technology in the broad sense including technique and apparent complexity.
Collier's music (not just his) to me sounds like something an AI algorithm would generate. It lacks the human input.
Great video!! You are clearly more knowledgeable than I am (a 18 year old amateur musician) about music history/composition and I definitely agree with most of the ideas conveyed in the video however I think there may be a part of compositions that are "complex for complexities sake" that directly benefit a composer and indirectly benefit the audience.
I absolutely agree that "postmodern" music such as 12 tone and avant-garde often sound outright terrible, but it seems to me that the composers that greatly find the balance of simplicity/complexity and achieve a innovative beauty often have to delve into this so called "bad" sounding music in order to make those decisions, let me elaborate.
As I mostly play and listen to jazz I am going to use Chick Corea as an example. When we look at some of Corea's most famous compositions such as "Spain" it is seen that a simple harmonic progression is used and very clear/ beautiful melodies are composed upon them. However with their improvisations and usage of extended techniques Corea and his bandmates achieve to turn this somewhat simple piece to something that often might sound quite "out" , complex and beautiful. This approach is seen in his even more modern pieces such as "Matrix" and "Steps". These pieces sound very much modern and might sound disturbing to some but they have an underlying blues structure which provides a certain grounding.
However in the late sixties and later in his career Corea often was involved in projects such as his band Circle which was very avant-garde and often unlistenable in my opinion. This can be seen in different jazz composers such as Herbie, Miles, Wayne Shorter etc. who all delved into the deepnes, and roughness of the avant-garde yet still their greatest works often found the balance of complexity and simplicity.
What I'm getting here is that, maybe in order to be able to achieve the balance that you root for (and I definitely agree with) a composer should spend some time in that postmodern area, because although that music may be very out there for most listeners the knowledge and the intuition acquired after dealing with that sort of music as a composer may create a new perspective that I believe enables those composers to achieve what we call innovative, which both has grounding in tradition but also is able to explore new areas. I think just being exposed to extended techniques may not be enough to actually grasp them and that's why I believe delving into that mindset of "complex for complexities sake" may actually benefit the composer. Maybe a complete loss of form and paradigm creates a new outlook that enables these individuals to think so differently when they return to form. Anyways thanks for the great education, you got a new subscriber :)
“My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.
I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.” -Stravinsky
The claim near the end of the video: “simplicity enables infinite options” may be true but I would argue that the infinitude of options can be quite debilitating for a composer to deal with. To me, it is quite “beautiful” to behold a composer’s solutions to limitations.
Any insight on the Arabesque? I've been listening to a few, and there doesn't seem to be much formal definition other than they're "ornamental".
I’ll definitely look into it. There are so many smaller forms tbh, and I myself am not a walking encyclopedia of musical form.
The fact that you picked Berg out as the listenable serialist made me a fan because I was just thinking that he was actually listenable and was wondering why when you brought serialism up. You're vibin with me
I often strive for a middle ground. When people en masse can enjoy and can connect to songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Roundabout", "Mr. Blue Sky", and "Good Vibrations", there must be something to it.
And I often make things easier for myself because it's impossible for me to perform and write Zappaesque music anyway.
Althouth you have some good points, I think you miss the fact that complexity IS a valid goal of its own! The concept of virtuosity has been around for quite a long time and lives to the day on in e.g. complex contemporary music or also Jacob Collier. To narrow music down to the idea of developing simple motifs into more complex ideas is biased because it refers to a specific tradition of 16th-to 19th century music, which was (partly) deliberatetly dismissed by experimental generations in the 20th century, especially after WWII. The idea of "collage music" itself is also not just a flaw (it can be one!) but a musical concept! So it seems your promoting a too traditional and too narrow concept of art: neither beauty nor symmetry nor comprehensibilty are mandatory for modern art, because the deliberaty disregard of those led to aethetic experiences not possible otherwise! You are judging things with standards of beauty that are not universal but have to limited to the time of their origin!
Your advice for younger composers not to seek complexity where it is not mastered yet is good , however reading the comments I feel that this advice may be misunderstood as a excuse for someones not being talented or dedicated enough to master complex composition techniques.
Couldn't agree more.
So true.
You are like a musical atheist.
You don't want purpose or order but you want to be revered by the people around you.
@@angelloperez7273 What have purpose and order to do with admiration as an artist? Can they exist only in contradiction to each other? And where do you see a point that I don't valid purpose or order? As with order, it's simply a matter of complexity and comprehension weather you can see it or not. And purpose? What has that to do with the topic of the discussion? It's just an esoteric buzzword so far....
@@angelloperez7273can complex music not have order or purpose? Please explain.
Whenever i try complex, it just becomes a mess. But i have hardly any theory; I just develop horizontally, and then write one line beginning with a bass line and filling in other voices between. ; I never really use chords.
The sonata Allegro structure is a liberating device, and I am glad i learnt about that.
You're just using it as an excuse to write nonsense.
@@Whatismusic123 Since i write music only for my own journey ey, you are not likely ever to find out, lol.
@@grailgnosticism2342 no, I'm pretty certain I am correct.
@@Whatismusic123 this kind of arrogance and narrow-mindedness will preclude you from ever becoming a truly great composer. Here you're just bullying someone online who you don't even know.
Thank you for this video, and might I add that the timing is impeccable. This concept has been weighing heavily on my mind as a young composer, given the current state of contemporary classical music and what is worthy of being deemed 'contemporary.'
Many of us are frankly fed up. Some here in the comments haven’t gotten the memo yet.
@@MusicaUniversalis ohh what kind of hint is that? will there be books set on fire? 🤡
Disconserting to listen to a very valid criticism of Collier based on an ostensibly extremely limited reading of his process.
excellent video! i think you bring up a lot of points worth discussing in a very cohesive and interesting way, i especially like the link to architecture. however i do have a few viewpoints which may differ from yours which i'd like to share:
it seems to me that your essay dangerously teeters on the edge of calling all atonal music overtly complex and deprived of beauty where that clearly is not the case! beauty is a combination of qualities that pleases the aesthetic senses. to me something that is grotesque or even shocks me can be something beautiful - on the other hand, something that elicits indifference or boredom wouldn't have beauty.
we need to realise that composers have continuously tried to find different ways to express themselves, to not be tied down by traditional forms and harmonies. for beethoven that was expanding the sonata form and the use of groundbreaking harmonic shifts. for schoenberg that was atonality and the twelve tone system. for new complexity composers like finnissy that would be the dense harmonic textures and saturation of sonorities. what's amazing is being able to create something radically different from the past and yet still eliciting certain emotions from a listener!
my main issue with your video would be the constant reference to traditional forms and harmonies as a sort of pedestal without reference to any classical contemporary composers who have indeed achieved "beauty" with simplistic means. (i'd recommend Sciarrino as an excellent example) it almost veers your argument of simplicity against complexity towards an argument of tonal against atonal music which i think are two completely separate arguments. i think that every good composer would've had the ideal of beauty in their mind when composing. complexity for complexity's sake is simply a fool's game.
Someone finally pushing back on Jacob Collier. Thank goodness
Beauty > complexity for its own sake
There is no such thing as complex, only simplicity with extra steps. You don’t need to like Jacob collier’s music, but to some it speaks to them like many other composers from varying genres.
Good for you. Simplicity is key. You have elucidated in words my own struggle with Collier. I always wondered what I was missing about his music. It's his lack of coherence of form! Wonderful video.
Here here. I, for one, triumph your bemusements on the complexity and liaison faire like compositioning of Mr. Collier. I concur good sir, I concur. One must not move henceforth into the wild of non-conforming musical formats and stylings.
A great example of a “collage” piece and complexity is “Sound and Smoke” by Viet Cuong. Where the many different musical ideas that come and go do so in order to represent the fluidly of humanities own thoughts and how are existence isn’t static, but constantly in motion and ever changing. However, this doesn’t mean that there are not sources of stability in life, as in Cuong’s work, each movement has persistent themes and motif’s. This constant ideas are the “simplicity” you so feverishly argue for.
But 12-tone serialism music sounds amazing!
12-tone serialism music sounds horrible.
@@taon2004 Wdym how could you not love 12 tone serialism
Hmm. I don't think that the sort of hypercomplex music you describe in the first arc is necessarily 'detrimental' to music in general, although it might suppress the kind of narrative music you like and I agree all forms should be explored in parallel.
Finally someone is saying the truth about composition..!!
The Berg example you picked - the Piano Sonata op. 1 - is not a serial work of his but a late romantic one.
And maybe I'm just weird but I find the first movement of the thoroughly serialist and "atonal" Symphony op. 21 of Webern extremely beautiful and, well, simple.
Thank you. Webern, yes... obviously! The compulsory little unpleasant remark about Schönberg...and there we went again! The way "simplicity" and "complexity" are misunderstood and then pinned against each other... Thirteen minutes for confusing complexity and complicatedness... how complicated this video is! Music is tapestry: "woven-together"-ness (that is what “complexity” means etymologically: it is wise not to forget that). A beautiful Oriental carpet always presents the fully woven carpet: there is not somewhere a single thread dangling from it. (This example to honour a great "together-weaver" among modern composers - Morton Feldman.) The Fugue theme of Bach’s Kunst der Fuge presents "complexity" immediately, right from the start - as a potential, admittedly, but still it is there: that is the because the theme is not that "simple" as one would posit, ideologically. Great art shows that "simplicity" (with a high potential for complexity) equals "complexity" (with a high potential for a "new" simplicity rising from it). That is why genuine lovers of music continue to be awed and enthuses by Gesualdo’s Responsoria, Bach’s Kunst der Fuge, Mozart’s Nozze de Figaro, Beethoven’s last “quintet of quartets”, Berg’s Lulu, Boulez’ Répons. Spirit, soul and body meet in art - but the most beautiful is the body. Musicians playing, and listening us.
Because beauty is subjective, and irrelevant to music, only personally relevant to the delusional listener
For whom it may concern. Beauty is not to be confused with prettiness. Beauty is something deeper and more comprehensive.
Beauty is the sense of seeing something perfect in its own way. It is something that is experienced both externally and internally, as a perfect state, hence why the grotesque and disturbing can be beautiful if done right. But it's difficult to produce and not many achieve it. And therefore not many will pursue it.
I think we should view the main problem as a sort of one-sidedness, in a dialectical sense. Art that is only concerned with beauty is stale and derivative, while art that embodies complexity for its own sake is inaccessible and pretentious. One sacrifices innovation, the other affect, and both are liable to commit the worst sin of all-being boring. The synthesis of simplicity and complexity is the tightrope the creator must walk in order to hold the active appreciation of an audience.
Arca said once in a twitch stream that being pretentious means that you care, that's how i see it. It's not difficult to fall into those boring, nonsensical, elitist stereotypes and many compelling artists do. Also, everyone needs to make a living and there's a market for complex pieces of art (for better or worse).
You speak of the concern for beauty as if its a bullet point and not its own umbrella which concerns many factors of reputable art. Beauty is in fact THE umbrella to hold under. Your statement is therefore paradoxical - if one is truly concerned with beauty, then their art cannot be stale - for the greatest pieces of art are: beautiful.
right on.
I am a big complexity fan, studying historical music, I really admire Étienne Nicolas Méhul and Francisco Correa de Arauxo for their crazy ideas. And I have to admit that complexity should be based on on some simplicity, otherwise it is just nonsense instead of creativity
And I have to mention a fact that trends are always like this no need to worry, Ars subtilior, Seconda Prattica, and the Revolution era were all periods of complexification because music got boring, and in response there were the early Rennaissance and Galant styles who simplified music because it got quite crazy, it is always coming and going in both directions, even tjough the general tendency is towards complexity
And I even thought about it a bit, when it gets very complex, music gets so good that it is almost as it was bad, it gets almost atonal and you have almost no stability and parallel fifths and octaves everywhere, these beginner errors, and it needs a lot of skill to make them sound nice instead of chaoyic or dumb
I guess my thing with the music theory channels is they seem mainly care about the math of the thing rather than the art of the process.
Maybe its do go learning by ear initially, and coming to sheet music later, but I find overly complicated pieces off putting. As I still somewhat learn by sound.
Thank you for making this video. This needed to be said a long time ago.
I think you bring up some good points, and I certainly agree that complexity for complexity's sake is a bad thing. However, I don't like that these kind of videos always devolve into "modern music = bad". You seem put the lable of complexity on stuff you don't seem to enjoy, like 12-tone music. I would argue that 12-tone rows are actually an incredibly simple and intuitive idea and system. Use all 12 notes equally, and you can't repeat them until you've used them all. An oversimplification to be sure but it is certainly a hundred times "simpler" than tonality which probably is the single most complex system we have in music. You can't sum up the rules of tonality in one sentence. I'm of course not saying that then you should suddenly like Webern's music because it's "simple". You can of course like or dislike any kind of music you want, but claiming that the reason is that it's just too complex, or whatever, is a moot point.
Microtonality is also a very simple concept. It's just different form what we're used to.
A lot of people always say that "music is supposed to be beautiful" or "beauty for beauty's sake" as someone wrote in the comments here; but who the hell decided that? And what does that even mean? Beauty is 100% subjective, and in any case music can also be scary, or sad, or funky, or anything. If by "beauty" people mean consonance, then some of the best music ever written is not beautiful. If people only wanna listen Haydn every day, then be my guest; but you cannot claim that 20th or 21st century music is bad just because you don't like it. Thousands upon thousands of people enjoy it, and it's not some kind of emperor's new clothes situation. People genuinely love it (myself included). By saying it's "objectively" bad you are dismissing all those people's experience in favour of your own subjective opinion.
Just to make things clear, I am not defending bad composers who try to write as complicated music as possible just for the sake of it, and I really agree with most of what you're saying. I just think you are twisting your own arguments to something that really has little to do with "simplicity vs. complexity".
Yeah, as someone who has experimented both in traditional tonal music and 12 tone music i have to say, 12 tone music has some of the finest examples of creating complexity out of a simple idea. Its so easy to draw from and develop on ideas presented by just a row of notes, and entire works could be derived from permutations of a single group of notes. You could even use the melodic contour of the row as usable material, no need for the dissonance thats usually synonymous with 12 tone music!
Well put, I thought the same
Agree and disagree with the notion that 12 tone music is simple. While in practice, 12 tone rows are very simple and the rules straightfoward, the structures that result from that are way more complex. The main actual difference between tonal and dodecaphonic music is the relationship between the notes, and you can't argue that dodecaphonic isn't more complex, as it is more diverse, has way more possibilities and there are no established centers (even if there are often if not almost always implied """"""""tonal""""""" relationships)... Just tell me what you'd rather memorize or analyze in terms of microstructures... It's insanely more complex... In theory...
Great discussion. I totally agree. There is a reason why Schoenberg's serial atonal music never took off: it's too theoretical, complex, and, at the end of the day, unable to express the myriad of emotions that other of his contemporaries, such as Bartok, could tease out by using simpler folk melodies as building blocks. Using simplicity in complex ways is one of the keys to Beethoven's success, IMHO. I mean, listen to Eroica. Many of the themes are folk music inspired. I can imagine a 19th-century street musician busking this on a Vienna street corner playing the tunes on their button-box, with maybe some lyrics about drinking, love, etc. thrown in.
You cannot expreds emotions in music, Bartok doesn't manage it. Music is not magic, you cannot *infuse* emotion into music. Sure, you can follow an emotional "language" like "major = happy" "minor = sad" but it's a musical language equivalent to caveman speak. Almost all emotions you feel when listening to music, are completely fabricated by your mind, unrelated to the actual music.
There's alot you can imagine when listening to Eroica because you've lunconciously learned to associate a myriad of things with the style of beethoven. What you're doing is called delusion, and your belief that it is *real* is called religion.
Also, Schoenberg *and* Bartok fail, because their "music" is not complex, it is incoherent, and built using pseudo-scientific concepts like atonality and polytonality. Bartok is only seemingly better, due to his "music" being more *musical* than Schoenberg's.
@@Whatismusic123 Who says you cannot express emotions in music? That's silly. Listen to a lonesome Miles Davis and compare it to sedate Bach and to a firey number like *The Rite of Spring*, and get back to me.
@@The.Ghost.of.Tom.Joad. I say it, because unlike you, I actually understand what emotions are, and what music is, and realize the fact that music doesn't have magical properties.
Your emotional response to music is merely a byproduct of your own conciousness, not the music itself, there is nothing being expressed, only you who is religious and delusional.
Maybe instead of me listening to those pieces, you should listen to reason. Your emotions don't appear from any "soul" it's literally just a survival mechanism of the brain.
@@Whatismusic123 So you were just trying to stir controversy for no reason? Being contrary and "intellectual" to no good end?
Summarizing your two posts, you say that 1) music isn't emotional, and 2) but it does evoke emotions. They
I've never, ever maintained that music is magical. Or religious. I maintain it's just notes and rhythm that manage to evoke emotion. The masters study said components and use them to evoke the mood they desire.
Schoenberg is how the thread started. He desired to lift all emotion and make a purely mechanical music. As expected, it generates no emotion. It's an interesting exercise to listen to this when you're an undergrad, but I seldom go back to these experiments in my '50s. Not because they're taxing, but because they bore me.
Incidentally, I feel the same about some of the more atonal Avante-garde jazz. Even my man, John Coletrane, can bore me when he starts bashing things apart and losing the essence of song in his later recordings. But when I was an undergrad and a in my mid-twenties, I thought I was proving my "edginess" by listening to them.
Now I'm honest and say that crap bores me, whether it's Shoenberg or an Avante-garde jass musician. Just give me a tune, a tonal center, some dynamic rhythms, and some thematic development.
@@The.Ghost.of.Tom.Joad. I stated that schoenberg is not "mechanical" nor "intellectual" he's a religious cult leader that wants to prove his belief of atonality to the world, by making entirely random music through a convoluted, nonsensical system of writing notes.
You have never maintained that music or magical or religious. However, your perception of music is that way. You hold something which is entirely belief, but you believe it to be fact. You're no different from a christian man in the 15th century, who "accepts" god's existence, with no recognition that it's just a religion. You "accept" the "fact" you've been told your entire life, the belief that music expresses emotion, or generates emotion.
Music doesn't generate emotion, the listener does, the listener associates emotions to music, in an attempt to understand it, ironically, doing the exact opposite. There's nothing "more" emotional about fx. chopin, compared to schoenberg, or any other composer, if you delude yourself enough, you will "feel" emotions when listening to the "music".
Music does not express anything. Music is music, nothing more, nothing less.
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Jacob says he has “creative infinity syndrome”
???
Constraints stifle creativity and that's why they're good. Unrestrained creativity loses focus, that's why it isn't relatable or useful. Both complexity and simplicity are useful and we shouldn't frame the conversation around them.
You are literally the first person who managed to express my concerns with Collier. I admire his passion with music itself, but personally cannot really enjoy his pieces. All around, a lot of happening, cool tricks etc... His music is like perfect example of musician music, not the listener music.
Anyway, thanks for the great video.
Eroica's first movements 1st subject is an Eb major arpeggio. For 18 minutes, the music develops through a complex web of ideas. But you don't hear complexity. It sounds organic, almost improvised. This is the difference between the masters and the pretenders. The pretenders consider complexity to be objective while the masters consider that sophistication is the vehicle for expression.
i think it's an overstatement to say that collier doesn't serve the pieces he covers, or that there's no sonic value in complexity- and even if his pieces are "a bunch of miniatures next to each other," i think there's genuine listening value in that. you don't have to necessarily understand the complexity of pieces to enjoy them, and i'm not going to make any claims about being able to understand everything he or snarky puppy, etc. do. that being said, sometimes it's fun to become lost in music- sticking to archaic ideas about form and simplicity serve composers well, but not someone who is interested in making more dynamic pieces.
The snake ate itself!!!!
I was literally baffled when I saw that this level of production only had 20.6k subscribers? Is there another way I could support your chanel, perhaps via paypal, or gofundme or something along those lines?
Great video!
Can you tell me what is the background piece starting at around 9:30?
It's the prelude in f-Minor from Bach's WTC 2. Here it is played by and Ensemble. To at least know the piece, should help you find the version :)
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Sorry, i don't know much about music or art in general, but idk but the few pieces you presented as examples of "obviously hideous" complex pieces (like the tango or the cathedral) I find naturally appealing. So you kinda proved the opposite point for me. But I'm not educated enough about it, maybe you need academic lessons to learn to dislike these pieces, idk
Great video, and I also agree with the sentiment of complexly beautiful over beautiful complexity, but disagree with the idea that art must reach a form of unambiguous beauty (both positive and negative depictions).
For example, artistically crafted “non-art” can be equally pleasurable. Art without refinement can be more viscerally related to real life than ideas filtered through a shared cultural underpinning, a shared logic.
I feel like art should be able to explore dead ends, missteps and incorrectness freely, obsessively even! Considerations should always be made toward the foundations of composition, especially with regard to formal plan, but, in addition, a composition shouldn’t be immediately chastised for breaking those conventions into a quivering mess!
Good music possesses 1/f noise characteristics. That means complexity should modulate proportionally to time scale.
Everyone who is interested in music theory and composition should watch this. Also, this should have been said long ago but nobody had the courage. Thank you so much. I really enjoy the format of your videos + your thought are brilliantly articulated and good in nature.
"Also, this should have been said long ago but nobody had the courage."
This has been said and debated a gazillion times in the last 70 years, but the debate is by no means over.
Anyways, a well produced video which main points I agree with.
The fact that a fugue is much easier to write based on a simple subject only makes The Musical Offering more impressive: Bach takes an incredibly unwieldy, awkward and chromatic theme and manages to build complex counterpoint on it anyway. An extraordinary testament to his skill as a contrapuntist.
And even more astounding, the sheer number of musical puzzles he developed with it.
@@MusicaUniversalis And the 6 voice fugue, and the sonata, all based around that 1 singular, chromatic theme. Bach is a true contrapuntal master.
Dang man, excellent video so far, lowkey read my mind, been wanting to comment on this for a while
I generally agree with you. However... ultimately the proof is in the hearing. Sometimes experimentation, based on complex theories driven by negating the past, simply works. I'd compare it to mutation in biology, or a search technique called generate and test. That's how Deep Learning mastered Go and chess, and the results are stunningly beautiful. Of course most mutations don't survive. In art, either because they are boring, ignored, or no one can be bothered spending time searching for a pot of gold that might not be, I'd say is unlikely to be, there. The problem is we live in a Romantic age, where affectation is mistaken for genius.
“It’s always better to write something complexly beautiful than beautifully complex”
An absolutely perfect final line to the video.
Intricacy > Complexity
Complexity may give unique feels but intricacy is much more important, intricacy being the development of the piece.
Finally someone said it. This is something I have been thinking myself over the years during my composition journey. As the great Konnakol master BC Manjunath said: "Complexity is the combination of many simple things put together".