Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

[Wicky]

art exists at the fringe of madness

 

[Multicore]

Why is 'structured noise' (which it isn't) necessarily 'pretty bad'?

Noise is great. I love it. For years in the late 90s and 00s I identified as a noise artist.

https://soundcloud.com/thefsb%2Frrrrrrr
K K Null and Pan Sonic were huge influences on me. And on my radio show I featured a lot of noise.

 

[Multicore]

Ok so let’s step back and realize Im not talking about the whole work, but what was posted here by the OP. Overall his style does have that flavor

Again, I don't know what "that flavor" means. I don't know what you're referring to. Similarly I didn't what this means when you said "when this was quite en-vogue." I was seeking clarification of that when I asked, "When what exactly was quite en-vogue?"

 

[Mnyb]

You've never come to admire music over time that at first made little impression?

Let’s try I friend of mine presented this to me about 34 years ago....

It’s better than I remembered , sounds a bit like a film score , at the time we rofl at it

I’m trying to find a concert for cello and icebreaker ( yes the ship , breaking ice ) it was very weird ? Some music to the background of motors and crackling ice ?

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Just noise? Noise is important in a lot of music, especially modern popular music. It's also a genre of music, one I know because I specialized in it for a while. Des Canyons aux Étoiles not remotely like noise. It's rather obviously Messaien with all his famous harmony, melody and rhythm. It maybe makes sense to level such accusations of impregnable randomness against, say, Ferneyhough, but Messaien? I don't see it.

What, at root, is the argument here? That if few people like listening to such-and-such while others either aren't interested or dislike it then we should agree that the people who do like it are wrong? Or that they are listening to something that isn't music? Or what?

In case you missed it I was engaged in a bit of “sacred“ cow tipping with my initial comment and the referenced sculpture. I mentioned this a few posts ago.

Even though I dont like his overall style, in its broader context it does sort of work. It has more contemporary elements I don’t like. However, out of context as in the initial video here it’s pretty bad. Bit ironic how these originally renegade composers become orthodoxy after a while, and criticism on some aspects of the style are viewed as a faux pas. As I said, the piece here sounds just like noise with no real musical qualities and the OP is right. Where similar style such as shown in this one excerpt is exclusively employed by some composers it’s darn near unlistenable. However, it’s a bit of a false dichotomy to say that any comments on this must encompass the entirety of his works to begin with. In the broader context, I don’t have such profound disagreements, just parts of his style I don’t like. I think that got lost in translation with the subsequent replies and tangents.

 

[Wicky]

Let’s try I friend of mine presented this to me about 34 years ago....

It’s better than I remembered , sounds a bit like a film score , at the time we rofl at it

I’m trying to find a concert for cello and icebreaker ( yes the ship , breaking ice ) it was very weird ? Some music to the background of motors and crackling ice ?

Rothko requires no accompaniment yet I enjoyed this, thank you.

 

[Multicore]

Rothko requires no accompaniment yet I enjoyed this, thank you.

Feldman's Rothko Chapel is lovely.

 

[theREALdotnet]

There are actually common patterns seen across many cultures when it comes to how music is structured as there are neurological underpinnings for this, much like we have octaves that reflect how we hear frequency. Obviously there is substantial and broad subjectivity, but once it has no pattern or structure it doesn’t sound like music to most people outside of any context. Even machinery can sound musical due to its repeating patterns. Here it’s hard to find any sort of structure to even judge it as such.

You’re not wrong about that.

 

[Daverz]

Let’s try I friend of mine presented this to me about 34 years ago....

Morty Feldman! Now we're talkin'! Love his shorter works like this one.

It’s better than I remembered , sounds a bit like a film score , at the time we rofl at it

I’m trying to find a concert for cello and icebreaker ( yes the ship , breaking ice ) it was very weird ? Some music to the background of motors and crackling ice ?

Rautavaara wrote a very effective piece with recordings of arctic sea birds.

I've never heard of something for cello and icebreaker, but it does sound like something a modern Baltic composer might write.

 

[Axo1989]

You’re not wrong about that.

Something I notice when listening to stuff like this that I haven't heard for a good while, it can sound so much better on a nice system/setup: better reproduction of timbres and dynamics, better control for room aberrations, etc. I recall recommending Aphex's Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments to someone a while back, and they said it was dry/lifeless. Not what I hear, obviously (I find it's warm/rich even a bit funny/sentimental). I wondered will they simply never like that stuff, or will they appreciate really hearing it sometime. Both possibilities, of course. I think our gear and our ear/brain both improve.

 

[Axo1989]

Noise is great. I love it. For years in the late 90s and 00s I identified as a noise artist.

https://soundcloud.com/thefsb%2Frrrrrrr
K K Null and Pan Sonic were huge influences on me. And on my radio show I featured a lot of noise.

Yep, enjoyed that.

 

[MAB]

You’re not wrong about that.

I'm thinking Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine:

And Time:

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Yes and even more spectacular in the multichannel re-release. I much prefer it to the Chailly/Decca SACD or the Lintu/Ondine because of its spaciousness.

As one of his earlier works I do kind of like it even if I don't entirely agree with his style overall. Actually wouldn't mind picking a good copy of it up hearing it all the way through again.

For more general context below is its counterpart from Des canyons aux étoiles which the short excerpt was taken, commissioned in 1971. Remember having to listen to it many years ago as part of courses on music history and theory. Definitely not my cup of tea...

 

[Multicore]

Something I notice when listening to stuff like this that I haven't heard for a good while, it can sound so much better on a nice system/setup: better reproduction of timbres and dynamics, better control for room aberrations, etc. I recall recommending Aphex's Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments to someone a while back, and they said it was dry/lifeless. Not what I hear, obviously (I find it's warm/rich even a bit funny/sentimental). I wondered will they simply never like that stuff, or will they appreciate really hearing it sometime. Both possibilities, of course. I think our gear and our ear/brain both improve.

That Bjork song has some of the joyous youthful fun so evident in her singing with The Sugarcubes. The Sugarcubes guitarist was quite a noisy antic expressionist. That chaotic fun style is so well represented to this day by Melt Banana.

I've great respect for Richard James. Even when we was churning out mile after mile of electronic stuff the music always had a very clear personal voice, something about the melody, I think, and that voice came forwards so dramatically in the computer controlled acoustic stuff. The prepared piano-sounding things on Drukqs were lovely -- Cage meets Satie but so clearly also Aphex Twin. My guitar piece Zahn used the melody from .1993841 on Analogge Bubblebath 3.

 

[Cote Dazur]

don’t want to put anyone down, I’m just very curious, as I don’t understand it and want to learn how and why other people listen to this kind of music.

Very legitimate question, you may want to change the title of your thread to something more like what you are really asking.
No one who understand and appreciate Messiaen music will feel like you are “putting anyone down”. Merely that you are not there yet. Music is vastly more interesting and rich than just a mere way to have your feet tapping.
I hope many will take the time to learn and appreciate more sofisticated musical form accessible to us on our super musical hi fi system.

Recommended Recordings​

Organ Music (La Nativité du Seigneur, etc.)​

"La Nativité" and "Apparition de l'Eglise Éternelle"/Calliope CAL9928Louis Thiry (organ)

"Diphyque" and "Les Corps Glorieaux"/Unicorn-Kanchana DKPCD9004Jennifer Bate (organ)

Quatuor pour la fin du temps​

"Quartet for the End of Time"/EMI CDC7474632Deinzer (violin), Gawrilov (clarinet), Palm (cello), A. Kontarsky (piano)

"Quartet for the End of Time"/RCA Gold SealKavafian (violin), Stolzman (clarinet), Sherry (cello), Serkin (piano)

Turangalîla-Symphony​

Symphony "Turanglila"/CBS M2K42271Paul Crossley (piano), Murail (ondes martenot), Esa-Pekka Salonen/BBC Symphony Orchestra

Symphony "Turanglila"/EMI CDS7474632Peter Donohoe (piano), Murail (ondes martenot), Simon Rattle/City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Symphony "Turanglila"/Deutsche Grammophon 431781-2Yvonne Loriod (piano), Jeanne Loriod (ondes martenot), Myung-Whun Chung/Bastille Orchestra

Vingt Regards (piano)​

20 Pieces "Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus"/London 430343-2John Ogdon (piano)

French composer and organist, one of the most influential teachers of this century. Messiaen was organist at the Sainte Trinite cathedral, and composed a large body of organ music. His harmonic idiom is always highly colorful, and rhythmically ingenius. He was able to unify the rhythmic intensity of Igor Stravinsky with the dodecaphonic technique of Arnold Schoenberg, being one of the first instructors to carefully analyze their music and pave the way for such students as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Messiaen was also one of the first composers to apply serial principles to rhythmic organization, though serial techniques are used only as one means among many in his arsenal. He had a predilection for cyclic forms, often using juxtaposed blocks of differing sonority in his larger works. His thematic material is drawn primarily from two sources: Catholic religious themes, and birdsong. To this is added an advanced feeling for modality, building on the work of Charles Tournemire. Messiaen composed in every form of the time, though his concertos and symphonic works are not entitled as such. His music revels in naturalistic evocations and spiritual meditation. Finally, his Quartet for the End of Time, composed in a German prison camp, is one of the signature pieces of the mid-twentieth century

But little by little it opened up to me, and I really began to enjoy what was previously just noise.

Same for me, no one has to evolved or even change, so liking simpler form of music is perfectly legitimate, but part of music enjoyment and building a “better” music system is to allow me explore new horizon and expand my ability to enjoy different and often more complex musical forms. A little like a language, you need a little time to understand and appreciate the message, once you know more than 2 or 3 languages, it get easier and faster to learn more, once you speak a language it becomes difficult to figure why it sounded so foreign before, different language will also affect the way you think, making other culture easier to understand. My life is richer because of music.

 

[ahofer]

I said I dont like this piece as it’s presented.

You’ve gone past that to suggest that it lacks sufficient structure to be more than noise, and you’ve suggested that you possess some objective standard for that structure. Disliking it is fine. Criticizing it “objectively” through your pants is another matter.

As I’ve said upthread, Messiaen has stood the test of some time. Best to presume there’s something to it rather than make up standards to universalize your preference.

 

[Prana Ferox]

It is perfectly OK to listen to music, regardless of the skill in composure or performance, and say "I don't like this." You don't have to keep listening to it over and over like you're trying to learn to love Big Brother. Art appreciation should be fun, for some people listening to this sort of music is fun, for others it's a chore, or worse.

 

[makinao]

I played avant-garde/20th century music in college as part of a new music ensemble. Just like in any other genre of music, some of it was fantastic, and the rest ho-hum. I actually enjoyed playing it more than listening to it. But it expanded my horizons so much so that by the time I started producing pop/rock records, nothing surprised me anymore.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

You’ve gone past that to suggest that it lacks sufficient structure to be more than noise, and you’ve suggested that you possess some objective standard for that structure. Disliking it is fine. Criticizing it “objectively” through your pants is another matter.

As I’ve said upthread, Messiaen has stood the test of some time. Best to presume there’s something to it rather than make up standards to universalize your preference.

I went back and listened to most of the Des canyons aux étoiles and it’s actually worse than I remember. The earlier work Turangalia-Syphony sited does have a few more harmonious passages that, along with hearing it on a high-end system, would make it intriguing enough to listen to. But the later work the original video excerpt came from doesn’t have much going for it. I remember hearing it in class and thinking that section and those similar to it sounds like a piano hitting terrain, others likened it to various cooking utensils going down a flight of stairs. To me, it can be construed as music, but lacks any of the structure or melody one normally associates with it. If I had remembered it in its entirety, it’s unlikely I would have even been this charitable. It’s just too discordant and abstract.

 

[JaMaSt]

various cooking utensils going down a flight of stairs

I think you are confusing Des canyons aux étoiles with Messiaen's 7 Haiku.