Trends, styles, genres today

Talentuoso wrote:

Any names or links to listen to something?

Ashley Fure http://www.ashleyfure.net/

Luis Codera Puzo http://www.coderapuzo.com

Marcin Stańczyk http://marcinstanczyk.com/

Lucas Fagin

Ann Cleare http://annclearecomposer.com/

@Thallo

In the end, you didn't just broaden the scope; I don't know if you looked into the piece I pointed out to you

http://www.pianoconc...ale-non-verbale

In my opinion, however, it is relevant; personally speaking, I never use a set voice in my pieces

Marcin Stańczyk didn't impress me much; in the end, if you think about it, with less hassle they have a greater yield, like these

Regarding the other suggested composers, I haven't been able to hear anything; I browsed their sites for a bit and didn't find anything listenable. Actually, lately I've been having problems with my PC and I wouldn't want it to be a browser issue that isn't opening some links.

Out of curiosity, RedScharlach, are you able to hear audio on their sites (apart from Stańczyk)?

Open content (youtube)

Eagle wrote:

Marcin Stańczyk did not impress me much

I know, I'm a senseless brute, I got bored... if it hadn't been for the Tetris I was playing in the meantime....

Anyway, the thematic anxiety is cute; at least he could have included a woman... his first re-presentation isn't even prepared and looks like the result of a copy-paste from a PC ...

In general, it seems strange to me that pieces like this represent a trend, also because they are probably works that fall into the niche of the Venice Biennale

Well, perhaps in the future niches and consequent Lobbies will become increasingly evident; the academic world takes refuge in Venice, others in Hollywood, others in "Harlem"... and so on.

The word refuge is not accidental; nowadays everyone knows everything about everyone and it is good to ally with one's own kind... so as not to succumb to the weight of criticism which is no longer properly academic

Eagle wrote:

in the end, if you think about it, with less hassle they have a greater yield, like these

...

Out of curiosity, RedScharlach, on their sites (apart from Stańczyk) are you able to hear audio?

... mah, I don't know if there is less hassle in Kodo - Drummers ... It seems to me that there is an enormous amount of precision work behind it, even for them.

PS yes, on all the sites there is an audio section...

Shark wrote:

In general, it seems strange to me that pieces like this represent a trend, also because they are probably works that fall into the niche of the Venice Biennale

Well, you know, Thallo had asked for information on trends "in the contemporary music world", and I spoke about what I knew best... if it had been a discussion about hip hop instead, I would have abstained, as my expertise in that field is unfortunately very limited.

Interesting discussion, let's just say that beyond hip hop one could talk about many things, too many perhaps as Micamahler says.

In general, I think that contemporary means current and not cultured, and in any case, even within this narrow scope, it seems to me to understand that a neo-romantic phase has begun. Careful, Neo and not "Post" ...

... what do you think?

Who are you referring to?

micamahler wrote:

Who are you referring to?

As neo-romantics, without going too far ... Lorenzini himself

AbateFaria wrote:

Interesting discourse, let's say that beyond hip hop one could talk about many things, too many perhaps as Micamahler says.

Fortunately, it seems the world is made of the Biennale and Pop, instead there are so many other fields where one can express oneself and more than one person would like to work in places like Disney, where there are composers and arrangers who are incredibly talented.

You only need to think about Jazz and we are outside of any academic context but it is a major trend...there you go.

Then, speaking of musicology, in reality there is the whole part related to the world of Music Videos and how a video has become an integral part of the music...see Lady Gaga.

RedScharlach wrote:

Well, you know, Thallo had asked for information about trends "in the world of contemporary music"

...and indeed, that "Music" + "Contemporary" I am talking about yields many results... incidentally, Hollywood (or Disney) would fall under computer music

@Shark and @AbateFaria

As I was saying, the interplay between Tradition and Avant-garde is beautifully alive; someone mentioned Lorenzini... one could say that just as Bettinelli and Donatoni went at it in Milan once upon a time, now it's Solbiati and Lorenzini.

Besides, these are the same discussions one has read about for a lifetime: was Zarlino or Monteverdi right? Bach or Handel? Mozart or Beethoven? I don't know, Grieg or Liszt? Strauss or Schoenberg? Messiaen or Boulez? Nono or Britten? Etc.

... they have all remained to tell us about their music

Academic contemporaneity is a reality, film music is a reality, Jazz is a reality, what else was mentioned...? ....

Tudo current, contemporary (which I don't like as a term paired with music) and modern (very apt in my opinion as a term), but for the purposes of the topic, it matters how much interests Thallo, who, as Xenakis noted, was indeed a bit generic at the beginning by not providing a precise scope, but then turned out to be... he is interested in the academic world; after all, he is trying to do a doctorate and isn't presenting a curriculum to go work with Hans Zimmer. I am certain he would find other topics, always modern and contemporary paired with music, but others...

completely wrong, Frank :-) even though en passant, I mentioned operatic pop, which is pop. If I were to find "non-academic" repertoires in which my questions could be fruitfully applied, I would be very happy to study them, or to mention them. Alas, I am forced to set some boundaries, and the sooner I understand which boundaries to set, the better. Imagine that my first idea was precisely to analyze the influences of pop ON contemporary opera.

Besides this, I am only responding to RedScharlach regarding Sciarrino: the problem, for me, is the setting, the sung voice characterized by that particular "artificial" timbre, by that particular system of registers, by the sound projection and a whole series of other characteristics. Sciarrino develops an extremely interesting style, but he does not call into question the foundations of lyrical setting, as any death metal singer might do. And the thing is even stranger considering that the singing style developed by Sciarrino does not need particularly beautiful, particularly rich, particularly large voices...

thallo wrote:

Think that my first idea was precisely to analyze the influences of pop ON contemporary opera.

Think that more than one person wrote it to you between the lines, but the appreciation only arrived for the post that strictly dealt with the academic field

ahaha come on, forget about the likes :-)

the problem with non-academic repertoires is primarily methodological. Within a research project, you must exclude certain fields, otherwise you end up not delving deeply into anything.

My professional opinion is that currently the world of "pop" repertoires is where most vocal experimentation is found. Or rather, it is the field where what used to be vocal experimentation has become shared expressive technique. All the experiments of Berio, Berberian, and Cage have today been swallowed by an ironic aura. Perhaps they were ironic even back then; the point is that the voice with which Berberian sang the Folk Songs was not seen by avant-garde composers as a "credible" voice, but as a distortion, an experiment. Berio provided glosses to folk songs, he didn't write for a folk group, and Berberian was an opera singer, not a folk singer.

This is something I don't understand, and that I will have to understand with time: why did we have to wait for world music (which I conceive as pop) to entrust vocal techniques to specialists? And to give them credibility? The right question, perhaps, is another; it is more general and speaks precisely of irony: how much does vocal technique affect the credibility of a vocal piece? Does a Schubert Lied sung without proper placement seem ridiculous? Does a Schubert Lied sung with a different placement seem ridiculous? Are the connotations of voices more cumbersome than those of instruments? That is to say, I have the impression that today a composer has less fear of using an electric guitar than of using an Alpine choir. Does an Alpine choir mean "folk repertoire" much more than an electric guitar means "rock"? Does vocal cross-over carry more taboos behind it than instrumental cross-over?

All these questions, which concern the relationship between vocal placement, "academic" repertoire, and "pop" repertoires, are quite many, and if I cannot find a logical thread capable of providing strong coherence, I might decide to impose a limit on myself regardless: I will not talk about pop. Alas, research is made of limits

thallo wrote:

A Schubert Lied sung without proper technique seems ridiculous? A Schubert Lied sung with a different technique seems ridiculous?

Schubert's case is interesting: in German-speaking countries, it is far from rare to sing his Lieder as if they were pop songs, without classical technique, arranged with more or less taste, and maybe even with a bit of swing! I would add that - paradoxically - the idea of interpreting the Lied as a "song" seems to me, in its own way, quite "philological."

https://www.youtube....h?v=wAk6Y5Edp4M

Open content (youtube)

RedScharlach wrote:

The case of Schubert is interesting: in German-speaking countries, it is by no means rare to sing his Lieder as if they were pop songs, without classical setting, arranged with more or less taste, and maybe even with a bit of swing! I would add that - paradoxically - the idea of interpreting the Lied as a "song" seems to me, in its own way, quite "philological."

https://www.youtube....h?v=wAk6Y5Edp4M

... what typically happens when a jazz musician gets their hands on Bach and if we think about where the melodies come from... the die is cast

Open content (youtube)

The guitar isn't just rock, it's billions of things; the Alpini choir is always the Alpini choir.

Then, I wouldn't want to say another cliché, but - from my own experience, which is therefore fallible - I believe I know many more crossover academic guitarists than crossover opera singers, meaning those willing to sing with an un-trained voice. Isn't this also an aspect to consider? Perhaps this is, however, a purely practical aspect and therefore must indeed take a back seat.

As far as waiting for specialists is concerned, in my opinion the academic world often has its nose in the air and before accepting something that comes from outside its field...

micamahler wrote:

The guitar isn't just rock, it's billions of things; the Alpini choir is always the Alpini choir.

suspending judgment on the statement itself, the next question is: how is it possible that in 70 years of life the electric guitar has managed to become billions of things, while in 140 years the Alpini choirs have remained Alpini choirs? Dismissing it like that is simplistic, but musical instruments are "used" by composers with more recklessness than voices. And this, in my opinion, constitutes a real taboo.

Then, I wouldn't want to say another cliché, but - from my own experience, which is therefore fallible - I believe I know many more crossover academic guitarists than crossover opera singers, meaning those willing to sing with an unrefined voice. Isn't this also an aspect to consider? Perhaps this is, however, a purely practical aspect and therefore must indeed take a back seat.

the issue here is much more tangled. We should first ask ourselves about crossover. We tend to consider crossover as a pop genre influenced by classical music. It happens, however, that the opposite is also true, namely academic compositions influenced by pop. The spheres of influence are numerous (technological, formal, timbral, performative...), but some situations are more successful than others: there are rock instrumental groups that cover classical pieces (true crossover); there are rock instrumental groups that play genres inspired by classical music (epic metal, for example); there is operatic-pop, namely groups or soloists who sing with a trained voice pieces strongly influenced by both chamber vocal music AND pop (Il Divo); there are, less often, groups or soloists who sing with an untrained voice pieces influenced by chamber vocal music (Sting). Discovering the other side, namely crossover from the classical side, is more difficult. Are there composers who use typically pop-rock musical instruments? And this is where my connotation of the electric guitar comes into play. Today there are many composers who use rock ensembles. Are there composers who write for singers with a light vocal production? Yes, although rarely do these compositions go down in history (none come to mind at this moment). Are there composers who write for singers with vocal productions "different" from Western ones? Many more than the previous ones, but this is often not even considered crossover because it touches on folk and not rock-pop (although folk IS pop). The issue becomes even more particular if we analyze it by sectors: very "avant-garde" composers (I wouldn't know how to define them...) use the kazoo but do not use jazz voices. If voices are truly needed, they are sampled, analyzed, and often spoken voices, not "sung."

All this discussion is very partial, however. I need to talk about it also to understand its weak points.

thallo wrote:

Last year I tried, in the end I even won, but without a scholarship, so I gave up.

... and what had you brought? What I remember is...