Mozart has time-traveled to your living room. He asks you about today's music.

i envy people who can play piano.....

brb gonna go write a song that goes G7-Cadd9-Dsus-D-Em-C#m-B7-Amaj9-G7-C7add9-Dmaj7dim in the span of 15 seconds, and then try to sell it to Geir

Not going to buy it. If you do those chord changes in 15 seconds, you end up with awful and tuneless be-bop. However, it you use 4-5 minutes to do them, it may be genius. New keys need to settle before you change them.

what is the most atonal music you will tolerate?

Not going to buy it. If you do those chord changes in 15 seconds, you end up with awful and tuneless be-bop

The link Dominique posted upthread actually had those chords and was very melodious. And not bebop.

it was longer than 15 seconds

looking forward to the thread "ILX attempts to write an album Geir would like"

lol Dom you are a prince among men

piece is actually very pretty and meditative to my ears

The idea that Genesis would even remotely stand up to Mozart in terms of complexity is ludicrous.

There's no objective measure of complexity but I don't think this is necessarily true. (I'm also not saying that more complex = better, though I like both Genesis and Mozart.)

the idea that 'complexity' is a universal good in geir's alice in wonderland musical cosmology is rather undermined by his distaste for any classical music he hasn't discovered while i) waiting on hold ii) sitting in a provincial 4* hotel lobby

Right, I'm not defending Geir's musical ideologies, just questioning that particular statement. Even Adorno noted, when trashing Tin Pan Alley-era pop in favour of the classics, that:

..., the difference between the spheres cannot be adequately expressed in terms of complexity and simplicity. All works of the earlier Viennese classicism are, without exception, rhythmically simpler than stock arrangements of jazz. Melodically, the wide intervals of a good many hits such as "Deep Purple" or "Sunrise Serenade" are more difficult to follow per se than most melodies of, for example, Haydn, which consist mainly of circumscriptions of tonic triads and second steps. Harmonically, the supply of chords of the so-called classics is invariably more limited than that of any current Tin Pan Alley composer who draws from Debussy, Ravel, and even later sources.

While he obviously wasn't talking about Genesis, similar principles apply (perhaps more so). If you were claiming that Mozart's compositions are more subtly and tightly crafted, you'd be on safer ground, although I don't think Genesis was that bad tbh.

Adorno was a bit far off, though, because he existed in a universe where anything but 12 note music was worthless in his eyes.

As for the point, Genesis and Mozart are both complex in their own way, but Genesis adds a few other dimensions (beat, performance, timbre) that were practically nonexistant in Mozart's time for obviously technologic reasons. I am pretty sure had that technology existed at the time, Mozart would have used it, and then he'd sound better in the ears of today's listeners.

adorno adored beethoven, you are nuts

this thread = Geir Hongro's Populism for Snobs

Genesis adds a few other dimensions (beat, performance, timbre) that were practically nonexistant in Mozart's time

Confused by what you mean by performance... you mean like old Petey Gabriel dressed up like a pillock? Cos they do that too in opera.

geir, does that paragraph from adorno mention 12-tone at all?

does it make claims about which kind of music is proper or correct or even good?

no, it doesn't. he's making simple factual statements about musical qualities, speaking strictly about "complexity", comparing tin-pan alley jazz/pop and the high classical era of mozart & haydn. first, rhythm: jazz is more complex than classical music. second, melody: a lot of jazz is more complex melodically than haydn, for example. third, harmony: after dubussy & ravel (and by implication wagner & romanticism) even tin pan alley pop had a much more complex range of chords to borrow from.

and no, he's not saying tin-pan alley is therefore better than Viennese classicism. it just is what it is: more complex.

(i know this is pointless)

Geir makes Cap'n Save-the Truth of us all.

Genesis adds a few other dimensions (beat, performance, timbre)

"beat" -- oh, you mean rhythm??

you see the difference between rhythm and beat is one's more jungly

Evidently it took "Hooked on Classics" to elevate Mozart to the level of Genesis in Geir's world.

I would play Mozart some Living Rooms, the fine Italian downtempo project. They're actually pretty good.

so when in the last two hundred years was timbre finally discovered

lols @ geir calling dude "a bit far off, though, because he existed in a universe where anything but _____ music was worthless in his eyes."

has german changed much since mozart's time? did mozart know any archaic english?

English hasn't changed that much at all since Mozart's day.

ahoy hoy, herr mozart, would you do without a wireless, a dirigible, or a pennyfarthing wot wot 23 skidoo?
corsets on wealthy dowagers: classic or declasse?

let's have Geir time travel back to Mozart's day and see how he freaks out that he suddenly has no music he likes to listen to

Interesting web discussion of Mozart's language abilities (I've linked to the post that best addresses his grasp of English).

adorno adored beethoven

Because he considered Beethoven to be part of the long lineage of progression which culminated forever Schönberg and 12 tone music.

that isn't true either

that's very interesting! re: mozart practicing English by taunting his pupils in it.

Schonberg inspired the Beach boys

adorno would never have thought of, or wrote in terms of, "progression" or anything being "culminated forever"

can't you just be happy that he didn't like jazz? jeez, give the old guy a break

stupid question: Geir, have you actually read Adorno, and hold an informed opinion about him, or did you just manufacture a strawman based on a paragraph quoted out of context?

the Beach Boys inspired Schonberg.... through TIME TRAVEL

brian wilson has time traveled to schonberg's living room

stupid question: Geir, have you actually read Adorno, and hold an informed opinion about him, or did you just manufacture a strawman based on a paragraph quoted out of context?

lol yeah you kinda answered yr own q here drugs

Wouldn't necessarily require time travel for Brian Wilson to meet Schoenberg; they both lived in southern California throughout the 1940s. Granted, the time travel scenario would lead to more interesting conversations between them...

My answer to any time-travel hypothetical is "The Rockafella Skank."

For Mozart, that, and that "Midnight Blue" ballad, and, I don't know, "You Belong With Me."

what IF Schonberg was the dude with the pop sensibility and Brian Wilson was the master of noise, and he followed the scenario Big HOOS laid out, and Brian Wilson/Schonberg had a Reese's Peanut Butter cups moment and taught each other their opposite styles....

....so then Schonberg DIDN'T ruin music (GeirTM) after all???!!!!!

MAKES YA THINK

I suppose I should go ahead and reveal my ignorance with a realistic answer to the question. But to set some limits, let's say he has to go back in two hours. So...no symphonies, and I'll start a whole half century after Mozart. I added these up and it's just under 120 minutes. The crash course:

Liszt/Hungarian Rhapsody five
Overture to Carmen (only two minutes)
Night on Bald Mountain
Strauss/In Abendrot
Debussy/Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun
Sibelius/The Swan of Tuonela
Williams/The Lark Ascending
Puccini/maybe Si, Mi Chiamano Mimi and
Nessun Dorma for good measure, since these are short
Holst/Jupiter from the Planets
Copland/Fanfare for the Common Man (three minutes)
Louis Armstrong/West End Blues
Ellington/Take the A Train
Rammstein/any song (it's in German!)

Woops, I left out John Adams/the Chairman Dances -it's still under two hours.

B'wana that playlist looks great! I threw together a Spotify playlist just in case he ever does show up:

http://open.spotify.com/user/pmadra/playlist/6QExryVuq3lgmkjZ8Hscr6

That playlist is actually pretty good. Would probably substitute one or two for electronic songs... maybe Pantha du Prince and Aphex Twin.

... or something heavy on percussions.

Although I'd give myself migraine trying to explain him how electronic music works... probably just better to let him figure it out and send him back in time to see how he manages to reproduce it.

Mozart would be horrified by that list. Better play him some nice melodic pop music. He'd like that better. Mozart was a melody guy.

<3

funny how Mozart's view of music seems to be exactly like yours!

guy