Dubstep con orquesta, guiños a Queen, baladas y joyas del pop en el sexto álbum del trío británcio
Por Claudio Kleiman
lunes, 12 de noviembre de 2012
The 2nd Law: La evolución constante de Muse
Por Claudio Kleiman
Lady Gaga juega al fútbol en favela Brasilera
La cantante estadounidense Lady Gaga jugó al fútbol y cantó con niños de una favela de Río de Janeiro, ciudad donde este viernes ofrece un concierto.
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La cantante estaba vestida con una bata estilo japonés estampada, usaba una peluca rosa y largas uñas postizas naranjas, según mostraron medios locales.
En la favela jugó fútbol descalza, cantó su tema "Born this way" con decenas de niños y conoció el proyecto social Criança Esperança (Niño Esperanza) que desarrolla en la zona la televisión Globo en asociación con la Unesco.
Antes la cantante saludó a sus seguidores desde el balcón de su hotel vestida únicamente con una camiseta de la selección brasileña y colgó un letrero en el que declaraba su amor por Río de Janeiro.
Gaga cantará este viernes en Río y dos días después repetirá su presentación en Sao Paulo en la segunda y última fecha de su gira por Brasil.
Adele producer Paul Epworth to work with Paul McCartney
Producer is reported to be working on the former Beatle's new solo album.
According to The Sun, the super-producer, who has worked with Adele, Plan B, Florence & The Machine and Bloc Party, is said to have received a call from Macca asking him to work on the follow-up to his 15th studio solo album 'Kisses On The Bottom'.
The project already has some big names attached, including Mark Ronson and Kings Of Leon producer Ethan Johns, who recently told NME that he too had started working on McCartney's album.
The former Beatle released 'Kisses On The Bottom' only eight months ago but has already completed a series of recording sessions with Ronson and Johns towards a follow-up that sounds like "classic Paul", Johns said. "This is very different to the last album. We’ve done two sessions already and the third is in a few weeks. It's sounding great. He's still one of the most extraordinary recording talents. There’s a song on the record called 'Hosanna' which is absolutely heartbreaking – just Paul and an acoustic guitar. It’s gorgeous."
He added: "I know he’s also been in the studio with Mark Ronson, which I imagine is going to be quite current-sounding."
Johns’ debut solo album 'If Not Now Then When?' is scheduled for release in February 2013, with Ryan Adams and Laura Marling set to guest.
Read a full interview with Ethan Johns in this week's NME, on newsstands now or available digitally.
The project already has some big names attached, including Mark Ronson and Kings Of Leon producer Ethan Johns, who recently told NME that he too had started working on McCartney's album. The former Beatle released 'Kisses On The Bottom' only eight months ago but has already completed a series of recording sessions with Ronson and Johns towards a follow-up that sounds like "classic Paul", Johns said. "This is very different to the last album. We’ve done two sessions already and the third is in a few weeks. It's sounding great. He's still one of the most extraordinary recording talents. There’s a song on the record called 'Hosanna' which is absolutely heartbreaking – just Paul and an acoustic guitar. It’s gorgeous."
He added: "I know he’s also been in the studio with Mark Ronson, which I imagine is going to be quite current-sounding."
Johns’ debut solo album 'If Not Now Then When?' is scheduled for release in February 2013, with Ryan Adams and Laura Marling set to guest.
Read a full interview with Ethan Johns in this week's NME, on newsstands now or available digitally.
Ex-Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan: 'I could have made a fortune from 'Simpsons' beer'
Rocker could have licensed his name for 'Duff Beer' tie-in – but decided against it…
Photo: PA
Ex-Guns N' Roses bassist-turned-financial advisor Duff McKagan has admitted he regrets not officially licensing his name – because he has missed out on a fortune in royalties from The Simpsons.
Speaking to the Independent, the rocker revealed that an official from Fox TV contacted him in the 80s to tell him that one of the station's new shows had named their fictional beer 'Duff' in honour of his former fondness for booze.
He said: "I knew nothing about branding yourself then or the royalties off it. I just thought cool, they wanna use my name and boom, The Simpsons was born. Yeah, if I had a nickel for every time… but it's fine."
In September of this year, McKagan revealed that he used to suffer from depression. The Velvet Revolver rocker admitted that he had "sunk into a thick, black state of being" after the terrorist attacks which took place in America on September 11, 2001, but said he had since overcome his problems.
McKagan was part of the classic line-up of Guns N' Roses who were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April of this year. However, their achievement was slightly overshadowed by protracted speculation over whether lead singer Axl Rose would attend the ceremony. He eventually declined to participate in the celebrations – although Adrian Bayford, the man who won £148 million in a EuroMillions lottery draw last month, pledged that he would spend a part of his new fortune on reuniting the band.
http://www.nme.com/news/guns-n-roses/67140
Speaking to the Independent, the rocker revealed that an official from Fox TV contacted him in the 80s to tell him that one of the station's new shows had named their fictional beer 'Duff' in honour of his former fondness for booze.
He said: "I knew nothing about branding yourself then or the royalties off it. I just thought cool, they wanna use my name and boom, The Simpsons was born. Yeah, if I had a nickel for every time… but it's fine."In September of this year, McKagan revealed that he used to suffer from depression. The Velvet Revolver rocker admitted that he had "sunk into a thick, black state of being" after the terrorist attacks which took place in America on September 11, 2001, but said he had since overcome his problems.
McKagan was part of the classic line-up of Guns N' Roses who were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April of this year. However, their achievement was slightly overshadowed by protracted speculation over whether lead singer Axl Rose would attend the ceremony. He eventually declined to participate in the celebrations – although Adrian Bayford, the man who won £148 million in a EuroMillions lottery draw last month, pledged that he would spend a part of his new fortune on reuniting the band.
http://www.nme.com/news/guns-n-roses/67140
Reseña The Killers con su nuevo álbum Battle Born
Album Info
- Release Date: September 17, 2012
- Producer: Stuart Price, Steve Lillywhite, Damian Taylor and Brendan O'Brien
- Label: Mercury
- Fact: The song Miss Atomic Bomb was influenced by the odd anti-nuclear testing parties held in Las Vegas in the Fifties.
7 / 10 “Let’s go out tonight/There’s a mystery underneath the neon light/Before life and the dream collide/’Cos the truth’s gonna come and cut me open wide” – ‘Rising Tide’
Economies collapse. Relationships crumble. Families decay. Girls go wild, boys go soft, fathers go out in the dead of night and never come back. Brand new Vegas malls stand deserted, capitalist paradises buried in the dust. From his solid Mormon family unit ensconced amid the temptations of Las Vegas, it’s an emotionally desolate and godless world that Brandon Flowers sees. After three albums with The Killers and a solo outing, ‘Flamingo’, full of comic-strip stories of murder, sex, cocaine-snuffling uncles and spacemen, comes the fourth record by the Vegas quartet. The truth’s come to cut Brandon wide open. To make him finally decide: are we human, or are we danger?
Yes, The Killers have emerged from their four-year exile with big issues on their minds and a big noise to make about them. ‘Battle Born’ – like Springsteen’s ‘Darkness On The Edge Of Town’ – is a record full of stirring tales of lost teenagers, broken families, crushed dreams, shattered hearts and breadline living. The first single ‘Runaways’ follows a couple from their first flush of romance to the day the fucked-up new dad flees the scene. Blustering ballads ‘The Way It Was’ and ‘Here With Me’ tell of a desert drive taken to think over the first cracks in an affair, and the crushing nostalgia pangs once it’s over. ‘Deadlines And Commitments’ is inspired – in a Herculean feat of irony – by a chat with tax-avoiding economy-buggerer Jimmy Carr.
Bleak themes indeed, but hey, this is The Killers, right? So for all the Lou Reed collaborations, they’re hardly going to make their own ‘Berlin’. Instead, they naturally inject a sense of youthful hope and heroism: their tragic protagonists face their fates with the nobility of French revolutionaries mounting the guillotine, and their stories are interspersed with inspirational chest-beaters about manning up in the face of hard times (‘Flesh And Bone’, ‘Matter Of Time’, the title track). And they are all couched in the rousing ballast of the Big Music.
But where ‘Battle Born’ will split opinion is that it’s the Big Music of 1986. The band that made the Duran Duran synth-sizzle the coolest sound on the planet with ‘Somebody Told Me’ are trying the same with the lush AOR throb-rock of Peter Gabriel, U2 and Kate Bush. ‘Flesh And Bone’ recalls the ’80s work of Daniel Lanois, one of the album’s numerous producers, and the mullet sparkle of the St Elmo’s Fire and Dirty Dancing themes. Then there’s Springsteen, of course. ‘Be Still’ feels like a remake of ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’, while ‘From Here On Out’ relives ‘Glory Days’. It’s a natural progression from the synth-pop of 2008’s ‘Day & Age’ through Brandon’s desert-diva solo album, and marks the point where The Killers discard ‘indie’ pretence and go for the arena-rock jugular.
That said, the core Killers thrill still dashes through ‘Runaways’, the title track, and ‘Matter Of Time’. And ‘Miss Atomic Bomb’ is the ‘Mr Brightside’ prequel that lays the bitterness of Brandon’s biggest hit to rest, tracing the rise and fall of a romance with a cheating, fag-stealing harlot, the “dagger buried deep in my back”. But even when they’re shunning the alternative, The Killers can’t help but be in step. Mark Stoermer’s loping bass over the tale of Brandon taking a broken waitress under his wing turns ‘Heart Of A Girl’ into their own ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, building towards a huge gospel finale. Meanwhile, ‘Deadlines And Commitments’ echoes Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tango In The Night’ album, the coolest sound in New York right now.
If you’ve the stomach to set aside your indie sensibilities and endure the occasional terrifying flashback to ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’, ‘Battle Born’ holds some majestic moments. We shouldn’t let the Big League own The Killers just yet.
Mark Beaumont
Economies collapse. Relationships crumble. Families decay. Girls go wild, boys go soft, fathers go out in the dead of night and never come back. Brand new Vegas malls stand deserted, capitalist paradises buried in the dust. From his solid Mormon family unit ensconced amid the temptations of Las Vegas, it’s an emotionally desolate and godless world that Brandon Flowers sees. After three albums with The Killers and a solo outing, ‘Flamingo’, full of comic-strip stories of murder, sex, cocaine-snuffling uncles and spacemen, comes the fourth record by the Vegas quartet. The truth’s come to cut Brandon wide open. To make him finally decide: are we human, or are we danger?
Yes, The Killers have emerged from their four-year exile with big issues on their minds and a big noise to make about them. ‘Battle Born’ – like Springsteen’s ‘Darkness On The Edge Of Town’ – is a record full of stirring tales of lost teenagers, broken families, crushed dreams, shattered hearts and breadline living. The first single ‘Runaways’ follows a couple from their first flush of romance to the day the fucked-up new dad flees the scene. Blustering ballads ‘The Way It Was’ and ‘Here With Me’ tell of a desert drive taken to think over the first cracks in an affair, and the crushing nostalgia pangs once it’s over. ‘Deadlines And Commitments’ is inspired – in a Herculean feat of irony – by a chat with tax-avoiding economy-buggerer Jimmy Carr.
Bleak themes indeed, but hey, this is The Killers, right? So for all the Lou Reed collaborations, they’re hardly going to make their own ‘Berlin’. Instead, they naturally inject a sense of youthful hope and heroism: their tragic protagonists face their fates with the nobility of French revolutionaries mounting the guillotine, and their stories are interspersed with inspirational chest-beaters about manning up in the face of hard times (‘Flesh And Bone’, ‘Matter Of Time’, the title track). And they are all couched in the rousing ballast of the Big Music.
But where ‘Battle Born’ will split opinion is that it’s the Big Music of 1986. The band that made the Duran Duran synth-sizzle the coolest sound on the planet with ‘Somebody Told Me’ are trying the same with the lush AOR throb-rock of Peter Gabriel, U2 and Kate Bush. ‘Flesh And Bone’ recalls the ’80s work of Daniel Lanois, one of the album’s numerous producers, and the mullet sparkle of the St Elmo’s Fire and Dirty Dancing themes. Then there’s Springsteen, of course. ‘Be Still’ feels like a remake of ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’, while ‘From Here On Out’ relives ‘Glory Days’. It’s a natural progression from the synth-pop of 2008’s ‘Day & Age’ through Brandon’s desert-diva solo album, and marks the point where The Killers discard ‘indie’ pretence and go for the arena-rock jugular.
That said, the core Killers thrill still dashes through ‘Runaways’, the title track, and ‘Matter Of Time’. And ‘Miss Atomic Bomb’ is the ‘Mr Brightside’ prequel that lays the bitterness of Brandon’s biggest hit to rest, tracing the rise and fall of a romance with a cheating, fag-stealing harlot, the “dagger buried deep in my back”. But even when they’re shunning the alternative, The Killers can’t help but be in step. Mark Stoermer’s loping bass over the tale of Brandon taking a broken waitress under his wing turns ‘Heart Of A Girl’ into their own ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, building towards a huge gospel finale. Meanwhile, ‘Deadlines And Commitments’ echoes Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tango In The Night’ album, the coolest sound in New York right now.
If you’ve the stomach to set aside your indie sensibilities and endure the occasional terrifying flashback to ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’, ‘Battle Born’ holds some majestic moments. We shouldn’t let the Big League own The Killers just yet.
Mark Beaumont
lunes, 29 de octubre de 2012
"Decline of Complexity in Modern Music
By Richard Marszalek
El artículo escrito por un aficionado claramente, tiene unas opiniones muy acertadas acerca de la complejidad de la música contemporánea, ignoren su pobre y equivocada ortografía . Luego de leerlo tendrán unas ideas más estructuradas acerca de este complicado debate acerca de las consideraciones por tomar acerca de la música que nos inunda hoy en día.
Earlier classical music, specifically that of the Romantic period, is more complex than modern music because of the intricacy of sound and purpose. We define 'earlier classical' as pre-20th century classical music and beginning around the late 17th century. Modern � which includes rock, hip-hip, rap, and modern classical music � is post-19th century music. Modern music, as a result of the music industry, tends to have fewer types of chords, has less and simpler harmony and chord progressions, and is lacking purpose. Modern (post-19th century) classical music does occasionally use more in quantity and, in an acoustic sense, more complicated chords, but these chords are a construction of the composers' tendencies to exclude purpose in their arrangements of sounds. Consequently, pieces lose their attractiveness and may seem to listeners to be arranged randomly.
To help make my point about various levels of complexity, music will be compared to writing. In its essence, music is composed of sounds arranged in a certain way, like words in an essay. If the sounds are not arranged in a recognizable pattern, they have no meaning. Likewise, words unarranged, also have no meaning. Pattern is not exclusive to the melody, but pertains to all the notes as well; the patterns in music are expressed by the blending of sounds, called harmony, and scales, also known as keys. Harmony has a specific structure, in the same way a sentence does. And like any language, music is composed of sentences; and, if these sentences do not lead or connect to each other by a change in harmony (chord progression), the composition loses its meaning, or sense of purpose. The Baroque period, especially Bach, truly expanded harmony and chord progressions (change in harmony) to nearly its maximum extent. As expected, music should have at least one set of "sections" � an introduction, a climax, and a conclusion � which gives a piece as a whole a deeper sense of meaning � sentence, paragraph, chapter, story. These "sections" are a trademark of the Romantic period and can be easily recognized by their dramatic changes in harmony and volume, or dynamics. They are the rudiments of program music, telling of a story, that make Romantic music so emotional. In conclusion, purpose ("purposeful complexity") is formed from harmony, chord progression, and scales. The deeper pupose also includes "sections", all of which are arranged in a way that make them seem connected in a meaningful and obvious way. The elements, together, will be considered a piece's "acoustic complexity" and the connections holding all these elements together can be considered to be music theory that is necessary to create "purposeful complexity".
The Romantic period, which extended through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was the peak of musical evolution and the last period of earlier classical music (pre-20th century). It was a time when new, talented composers reached outside the boundaries set by the Classical and the Baroque periods. They had a strong reverence for Bach and his conventions, which greatly influenced the structure of their pieces. His rules for harmony and chord progressions (harmonic changes) along with traditional styles � fugue, sonata, concerto, etc.; formats (musical notation); and melodic formation were present. However, thanks to the new instruments implemented in the symphony orchestras and the expanded keyboard, both introduced by Beethoven, many more possibilities were offered to explore. As a result, the new composers added "sections" characteristic of program music that gave pieces "deeper purpose," which is linked to their music being known as emotional. For example, Crocker writes about Wagner, an "epitome of the Romantic period":
For the greatest effect, Wagner gave each harmony the richest spacing, position, and orchestration he could, sustained the chord as long as he dared, and then moved to a second chord whose relationship to the first would be as exciting as possible. His purpose was to produce feeling � not vague, indefinable feeling, but a prickle on the back of the neck. (459)
Audiences, who could afford the luxury of attending a performance, would marvel at the famous master musicians and composers of the time.
The modern classical music that followed the Romantic period slowly started to, in my opinion, degenerate in "purposeful complexity", deviating from traditional harmony, chord progressions, styles, and purpose. This can be seen in the many strange and dissonant sounds and harmonies of impressionist composers. The impressionists � whose trademark composers were arguably Debussy and Ravel, - "concentrated their efforts on making radical new sounds, while content to attach these sounds to relatively traditional shapes [shapes being similar to chords]"(Crocker 483). Instead, "These composers have also found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to create new shapes, with purely traditional sounds." (Crocker 483) The "radical new sounds" are mainly comprised of dissonance, which give the impressionist period its nickname: "Dissonant Period". The objective of this period is "less concerned with inner expression... more with qualities of sound and style" (Crocker 484), meaning that the deeper sense of purpose included with program music is lost. Another aspect of impressionist music is that the harmony changes less frequently. Thus, complexity in terms of both sound and purpose has decreased.
Later examples of modern classical music were the works of late modern composers and especially contemporary composers. Theodor W. Adorno best summarizes the change in music around the 1920s as "... a condition of chaotic fermentation, that is, the end of which could be foreseen and which would restore order from disorder" (29). The most important composer to mention is the notorious Arnold Schoenberg. Considered an expressionist, he is the founder of atonality (no particular scale) and the twelve-tone technique. His music would also use a lot of dissonance but "...without reference to traditional functions..." (Crocker 514). Again, purpose in such music is almost completely lost. Strange sounds and a peculiar style not only individualize the music but make the piece considered very acoustically complex in such a way patterns are very difficult to recognize, truly making it "chaotic", lacking almost any sense of meaning and purpose. Some recent composers, however, still stay with the strict classical, Western past and try to create new pieces that replicate the former styles, called neoclassicism (Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky). The quality of sound and style is very subjective, but without much of a purpose, what more is it than a "randomization" of notes?
Basically, since the end of the Romantic period, music theory has been increasingly neglected, media being the major, if not entire, cause. As much as media has had influence on our clothing, lifestyle, politics, and other things, it has also influenced music. This resulted in a switch of the culture from being driven by highly educated individuals to a mass-consumer society giving birth to new types of popular music that are generalized for the public and kept alive solely by media. Others try to create new sounds � be original � by avoiding music theory completely, and some have idealized notions that the future will expand music theory into something new and better, making early classical music obsolete (modern classical music). Much evidence is presented that implies the complexity of earlier modern music: popularity, dedication, connotations, and scientific studies.
One of the main components of modern music is popular music. Popular music has always been around whether singing folk songs in pubs in the 1600's or blasting 'metal' in a car. Surprisingly, popular music has increased in "acoustic complexity"� thanks to new electronics able to play such music anywhere � and is now, by some people and critics, considered to be an art. At the same time, modern music does not have the exact purpose that folk songs had long ago. Nowadays, it combines accompaniment and pre-recorded performances that would obviously not be available before. Even with its increased complexity, modern popular music is controlled by industry and its institutions of mass production. Pre-twentieth century popular music consisted mainly of some types of folk songs. Attempts to make these folk songs more "artistic" have been accomplished by such composers as Brahms but were afterwards considered to be classical.
The generalization of the audience in today's popular music by the mass-consumer society is the main reason why it lacks the same elements that earlier and modern classical music contain. To understand classical music's various complexities, a person needs to be well educated in its components. Most people do not listen to music to analyze it. Not all of classical music is as complicated as it seems and it still holds popularity in modern society, such as Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It has a simple repeating melody that repeats quite often in slightly different variations. Its purpose and intense emotions of anger are easily sensed, giving it "purposeful complexity". Therefore, some classical music that is relatively complex is still well known.
Despite how old classical music may be perceived, its popularity has actually increased over time. "Classical music is growing in popularity, not shrinking. And in the coming years, we should expect it to grow even more."(www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org) Its complexity influences many people today to practice instruments, sometimes for most of their lives, to simply gain the satisfaction of playing a piece. These instruments are so captivating because they give a musician the ability to interpret the music and change it as desired. In contrast, modern popular music seems to have a short period of popularity lasting about one to two years (e.g. Pink's "Let's Get This Party Started"). Modern music is heavily edited and its instruments are not as multi-faceted as those of the classical genre.
As a result of earlier classical music's complexity, it requires musicians to be very skilled at their instruments. Past musicians would practice from a very early age requiring private education for the use of their instrument. Performing routinely would be necessary to slowly work on relieving stress during concerts and competitions. Later in their lives, children would be sent to secondary schools, or conservatoriums, to further their knowledge in their instrument. The level of difficulty of most popular music today does not require the same skill as classical music and in some cases does not require an instrument at all. Jazz is an exception as some pieces may have purpose and some may not. Jazz is an art residing mainly in improvisation and its complexity is based on the skill of the musician and their interpretation. Jazz, similarly, has private and secondary schools for its musicians.
For a long time, classical music has been considered rich and elegant and has played an important role in modern culture. When dining at a city's most reputable restaurant, would someone expect a rap group or a string quartet playing Mozart? Practically all movies include some form of classical music.
Certain scientific studies suggest listening to classical music may be beneficial. Research such as the "Mozart Effect" by Rauscher and Shaw, suggested that listening to Mozart temporarily increased seeing and manipulating patterns. Another study observes the effect of classical music on the shape of water (the most abundant compound in our body) by Masaro Emoto in his book, "Hidden Messages of Water" (Emoto and Thayne). The study showed that most popular genres of music do not give water any recognizable shape, which Emoto asserts to mean that classical music is far more beneficial to humans. The explanations offered by Emoto, however, are philosophical and opinionated and should not be considered scientific.
Modern music has seen a decline in complexity as a result of commercialism, generalization of audience, and continuing attempts to revolutionize sound. Popular music is written to entertain a more general audience, thus requiring less knowledge and attention in the field � although exception can be found. Modern classical music tries to create some new sound, thus also straying away from any limitations. In the past, classical music was created to simply please the upper-class audience with its harmony and melody intelligently arranged to show an obvious yet beautiful progression. In the sense of purposeful and acoustic complexity, nothing can compare to the classical music of the Romantic composers.
El artículo escrito por un aficionado claramente, tiene unas opiniones muy acertadas acerca de la complejidad de la música contemporánea, ignoren su pobre y equivocada ortografía . Luego de leerlo tendrán unas ideas más estructuradas acerca de este complicado debate acerca de las consideraciones por tomar acerca de la música que nos inunda hoy en día.
Earlier classical music, specifically that of the Romantic period, is more complex than modern music because of the intricacy of sound and purpose. We define 'earlier classical' as pre-20th century classical music and beginning around the late 17th century. Modern � which includes rock, hip-hip, rap, and modern classical music � is post-19th century music. Modern music, as a result of the music industry, tends to have fewer types of chords, has less and simpler harmony and chord progressions, and is lacking purpose. Modern (post-19th century) classical music does occasionally use more in quantity and, in an acoustic sense, more complicated chords, but these chords are a construction of the composers' tendencies to exclude purpose in their arrangements of sounds. Consequently, pieces lose their attractiveness and may seem to listeners to be arranged randomly.
To help make my point about various levels of complexity, music will be compared to writing. In its essence, music is composed of sounds arranged in a certain way, like words in an essay. If the sounds are not arranged in a recognizable pattern, they have no meaning. Likewise, words unarranged, also have no meaning. Pattern is not exclusive to the melody, but pertains to all the notes as well; the patterns in music are expressed by the blending of sounds, called harmony, and scales, also known as keys. Harmony has a specific structure, in the same way a sentence does. And like any language, music is composed of sentences; and, if these sentences do not lead or connect to each other by a change in harmony (chord progression), the composition loses its meaning, or sense of purpose. The Baroque period, especially Bach, truly expanded harmony and chord progressions (change in harmony) to nearly its maximum extent. As expected, music should have at least one set of "sections" � an introduction, a climax, and a conclusion � which gives a piece as a whole a deeper sense of meaning � sentence, paragraph, chapter, story. These "sections" are a trademark of the Romantic period and can be easily recognized by their dramatic changes in harmony and volume, or dynamics. They are the rudiments of program music, telling of a story, that make Romantic music so emotional. In conclusion, purpose ("purposeful complexity") is formed from harmony, chord progression, and scales. The deeper pupose also includes "sections", all of which are arranged in a way that make them seem connected in a meaningful and obvious way. The elements, together, will be considered a piece's "acoustic complexity" and the connections holding all these elements together can be considered to be music theory that is necessary to create "purposeful complexity".
The Romantic period, which extended through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was the peak of musical evolution and the last period of earlier classical music (pre-20th century). It was a time when new, talented composers reached outside the boundaries set by the Classical and the Baroque periods. They had a strong reverence for Bach and his conventions, which greatly influenced the structure of their pieces. His rules for harmony and chord progressions (harmonic changes) along with traditional styles � fugue, sonata, concerto, etc.; formats (musical notation); and melodic formation were present. However, thanks to the new instruments implemented in the symphony orchestras and the expanded keyboard, both introduced by Beethoven, many more possibilities were offered to explore. As a result, the new composers added "sections" characteristic of program music that gave pieces "deeper purpose," which is linked to their music being known as emotional. For example, Crocker writes about Wagner, an "epitome of the Romantic period":
For the greatest effect, Wagner gave each harmony the richest spacing, position, and orchestration he could, sustained the chord as long as he dared, and then moved to a second chord whose relationship to the first would be as exciting as possible. His purpose was to produce feeling � not vague, indefinable feeling, but a prickle on the back of the neck. (459)
Audiences, who could afford the luxury of attending a performance, would marvel at the famous master musicians and composers of the time.
The modern classical music that followed the Romantic period slowly started to, in my opinion, degenerate in "purposeful complexity", deviating from traditional harmony, chord progressions, styles, and purpose. This can be seen in the many strange and dissonant sounds and harmonies of impressionist composers. The impressionists � whose trademark composers were arguably Debussy and Ravel, - "concentrated their efforts on making radical new sounds, while content to attach these sounds to relatively traditional shapes [shapes being similar to chords]"(Crocker 483). Instead, "These composers have also found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to create new shapes, with purely traditional sounds." (Crocker 483) The "radical new sounds" are mainly comprised of dissonance, which give the impressionist period its nickname: "Dissonant Period". The objective of this period is "less concerned with inner expression... more with qualities of sound and style" (Crocker 484), meaning that the deeper sense of purpose included with program music is lost. Another aspect of impressionist music is that the harmony changes less frequently. Thus, complexity in terms of both sound and purpose has decreased.
Later examples of modern classical music were the works of late modern composers and especially contemporary composers. Theodor W. Adorno best summarizes the change in music around the 1920s as "... a condition of chaotic fermentation, that is, the end of which could be foreseen and which would restore order from disorder" (29). The most important composer to mention is the notorious Arnold Schoenberg. Considered an expressionist, he is the founder of atonality (no particular scale) and the twelve-tone technique. His music would also use a lot of dissonance but "...without reference to traditional functions..." (Crocker 514). Again, purpose in such music is almost completely lost. Strange sounds and a peculiar style not only individualize the music but make the piece considered very acoustically complex in such a way patterns are very difficult to recognize, truly making it "chaotic", lacking almost any sense of meaning and purpose. Some recent composers, however, still stay with the strict classical, Western past and try to create new pieces that replicate the former styles, called neoclassicism (Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky). The quality of sound and style is very subjective, but without much of a purpose, what more is it than a "randomization" of notes?
Basically, since the end of the Romantic period, music theory has been increasingly neglected, media being the major, if not entire, cause. As much as media has had influence on our clothing, lifestyle, politics, and other things, it has also influenced music. This resulted in a switch of the culture from being driven by highly educated individuals to a mass-consumer society giving birth to new types of popular music that are generalized for the public and kept alive solely by media. Others try to create new sounds � be original � by avoiding music theory completely, and some have idealized notions that the future will expand music theory into something new and better, making early classical music obsolete (modern classical music). Much evidence is presented that implies the complexity of earlier modern music: popularity, dedication, connotations, and scientific studies.
One of the main components of modern music is popular music. Popular music has always been around whether singing folk songs in pubs in the 1600's or blasting 'metal' in a car. Surprisingly, popular music has increased in "acoustic complexity"� thanks to new electronics able to play such music anywhere � and is now, by some people and critics, considered to be an art. At the same time, modern music does not have the exact purpose that folk songs had long ago. Nowadays, it combines accompaniment and pre-recorded performances that would obviously not be available before. Even with its increased complexity, modern popular music is controlled by industry and its institutions of mass production. Pre-twentieth century popular music consisted mainly of some types of folk songs. Attempts to make these folk songs more "artistic" have been accomplished by such composers as Brahms but were afterwards considered to be classical.
The generalization of the audience in today's popular music by the mass-consumer society is the main reason why it lacks the same elements that earlier and modern classical music contain. To understand classical music's various complexities, a person needs to be well educated in its components. Most people do not listen to music to analyze it. Not all of classical music is as complicated as it seems and it still holds popularity in modern society, such as Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It has a simple repeating melody that repeats quite often in slightly different variations. Its purpose and intense emotions of anger are easily sensed, giving it "purposeful complexity". Therefore, some classical music that is relatively complex is still well known.
Despite how old classical music may be perceived, its popularity has actually increased over time. "Classical music is growing in popularity, not shrinking. And in the coming years, we should expect it to grow even more."(www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org) Its complexity influences many people today to practice instruments, sometimes for most of their lives, to simply gain the satisfaction of playing a piece. These instruments are so captivating because they give a musician the ability to interpret the music and change it as desired. In contrast, modern popular music seems to have a short period of popularity lasting about one to two years (e.g. Pink's "Let's Get This Party Started"). Modern music is heavily edited and its instruments are not as multi-faceted as those of the classical genre.
As a result of earlier classical music's complexity, it requires musicians to be very skilled at their instruments. Past musicians would practice from a very early age requiring private education for the use of their instrument. Performing routinely would be necessary to slowly work on relieving stress during concerts and competitions. Later in their lives, children would be sent to secondary schools, or conservatoriums, to further their knowledge in their instrument. The level of difficulty of most popular music today does not require the same skill as classical music and in some cases does not require an instrument at all. Jazz is an exception as some pieces may have purpose and some may not. Jazz is an art residing mainly in improvisation and its complexity is based on the skill of the musician and their interpretation. Jazz, similarly, has private and secondary schools for its musicians.
For a long time, classical music has been considered rich and elegant and has played an important role in modern culture. When dining at a city's most reputable restaurant, would someone expect a rap group or a string quartet playing Mozart? Practically all movies include some form of classical music.
Certain scientific studies suggest listening to classical music may be beneficial. Research such as the "Mozart Effect" by Rauscher and Shaw, suggested that listening to Mozart temporarily increased seeing and manipulating patterns. Another study observes the effect of classical music on the shape of water (the most abundant compound in our body) by Masaro Emoto in his book, "Hidden Messages of Water" (Emoto and Thayne). The study showed that most popular genres of music do not give water any recognizable shape, which Emoto asserts to mean that classical music is far more beneficial to humans. The explanations offered by Emoto, however, are philosophical and opinionated and should not be considered scientific.
Modern music has seen a decline in complexity as a result of commercialism, generalization of audience, and continuing attempts to revolutionize sound. Popular music is written to entertain a more general audience, thus requiring less knowledge and attention in the field � although exception can be found. Modern classical music tries to create some new sound, thus also straying away from any limitations. In the past, classical music was created to simply please the upper-class audience with its harmony and melody intelligently arranged to show an obvious yet beautiful progression. In the sense of purposeful and acoustic complexity, nothing can compare to the classical music of the Romantic composers.
The Beatles, 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'
El siguiente artículo corresponde a la lista de los 500 mejores álbumes de la historia. Sgt. Pepper´s ocupa el primer puesto en la lista, la opimión expuesta aquí está claramente al favor del álbum. Tiene las dos opiniones,pueden elegir.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time. From the title song's regal blasts of brass and fuzz guitar to the orchestral seizure and long, dying piano chord at the end of "A Day in the Life," the 13 tracks on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are the pinnacle of the Beatles' eight years as recording artists. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were never more fearless and unified in their pursuit of magic and transcendence.
Issued in Britain on June 1st, 1967, and a day later in America, Sgt. Pepper is also rock's ultimate declaration of change. For the Beatles, it was a decisive goodbye to matching suits, world tours and assembly-line record-making. "We were fed up with being Beatles," McCartney said decades later, in Many Years From Now, Barry Miles' McCartney biography. "We were not boys, we were men... artists rather than performers.
At the same time, Sgt. Pepper formally ushered in an unforgettable season of hope, upheaval and achievement: the late 1960s and, in particular, 1967's Summer of Love. In its iridescent instrumentation, lyric fantasias and eye-popping packaging, Sgt. Pepper defined the opulent revolutionary optimism of psychedelia and instantly spread the gospel of love, acid, Eastern spirituality and electric guitars around the globe. No other pop record of that era, or since, has had such an immediate, titanic impact. This music documents the world's biggest rock band at the very height of its influence and ambition.
"It was a peak," Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, describing both the album and his collaborative relationship with McCartney. "Paul and I were definitely working together," Lennon said, and Sgt. Pepper is rich with proof: McCartney's burst of hot piano and school-days memoir ("Woke up, fell out of bed...") in Lennon's "A Day in the Life," a reverie on mortality and infinity; Lennon's impish rejoinder to McCartney's chorus in "Getting Better" ("It can't get no worse").
"Sgt. Pepper was our grandest endeavor," Starr said, looking back, in the band's 2000 autobiography, The Beatles Anthology. "The greatest thing about the band was that whoever had the best idea – it didn't matter who – that was the one we'd use." It was Neil Aspinall, the Beatles' longtime assistant, who suggested they reprise the title track, just before the finale of "A Day in the Life," to complete Sgt. Pepper's theatrical conceit: an imaginary concert by a fictional band, played by the Beatles.
The first notes went to tape on December 6th, 1966: two takes of McCartney's music-hall confection "When I'm Sixty-Four." (Lennon's lysergic reflection on his Liverpool childhood, "Strawberry Fields Forever," was started two weeks earlier but issued in February 1967 as a stand-alone single.) But Sgt. Pepper's real birthday is August 29th, 1966, when the Beatles played their last live concert, in San Francisco. Until then, they had made history in the studio between punishing tours. Off the road for good, the Beatles were free to be a band away from the hysteria of Beatlemania.
McCartney went a step further. On a plane to London in November '66, as he returned from a vacation in Kenya, he came up with the idea of an album by the Beatles in disguise, an alter-ego group that he subsequently dubbed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "We'd pretend to be someone else," McCartney explained in Anthology. "It liberated you – you could do anything when you got to the mic or on your guitar, because it wasn't you."
Only two songs on the final LP, both McCartney's, had anything to do with the Pepper characters: the title track and Starr's jaunty vocal showcase, "With a Little Help From My Friends," introduced as a number by Sgt. Pepper's star crooner, Billy Shears. "Every other song could have been on any other album," Lennon insisted later. Yet it is hard to imagine a more perfect setting for the Victorian jollity of Lennon's "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (inspired by an 1843 circus poster) or the sumptuous melancholy of McCartney's "Fixing a Hole," with its blend of antique shadows (a harpsichord played by the Beatles' producer, George Martin) and modern sunshine (double-tracked lead guitar executed with ringing precision by Harrison). The Pepper premise was a license to thrill.
It also underscored the real-life cohesion of the music and the group that made it. Of the 700 hours the Beatles spent making Sgt. Pepper from the end of 1966 until April 1967, the group needed only three days' worth to complete Lennon's lavish daydream "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." "A Day in the Life," the most complex song on the album, was done in just five days. (The oceanic piano chord was three pianos hit simultaneously by 10 hands belonging to Lennon, McCartney, Starr, Martin and Beatles roadie Mal Evans.) No other Beatles appear with Harrison on his sitar-perfumed sermon on materialism and fidelity, "Within You Without You," but the band wisely placed the track at the halfway point of the original vinyl LP, at the beginning of Side Two: a vital meditation break in the middle of the jubilant indulgence.
The Beatles' exploitation of multitracking transformed the very act of studio recording (the orchestral overdubs on "A Day in the Life" marked the debut of eight-track recording in Britain: two four-track machines used in sync). And Sgt. Pepper's visual extravagance officially elevated the album cover to a work of art. Michael Cooper's photo of the Beatles in satin marching-band outfits, in front of a cardboard-cutout audience of historical figures, created by artist Peter Blake, is the most enduring image of the psychedelic era. Sgt. Pepper was also the first rock album to incorporate complete lyrics to the songs in its design.
Yet Sgt. Pepper is the Number One album of the RS 500 not just because of its firsts – it is simply the best of everything the Beatles ever did as musicians, pioneers and pop stars, all in one place. A 1967 British print ad for the album declared, "Remember, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Is the Beatles." As McCartney put it, the album was "just us doing a good show."
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/the-beatles-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band-20120531#ixzz2AimOiaPl
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