It was hard for me to swallow this too. But I read something about the composer, I listened almost all of his works and I read some of his articles. And now I love him. Maybe he is from Sirius, as he stated. Sirius is on his tomb also. If it is true we are those who have to work with ourselves to change our way of perception. Ears and mind are unappropriate to listen music. Try some heart and spine.
This is kind of subtly brilliant, if you decide to search for some connections. Man's inventions, his machines, the noises they produce... the noise of a violin is traditionally elegant, the noise of a helicopter: not so. When you attempt to parallel them in a similar fashion... you get an interesting idea about what "music"' is and how man attempts to create and characterize it in relation to sound. I feel like Duchamp would compose a piece like this, if he dabbled in music... Vive Dada!
Certainly, this kind of music is the most ungodly pile of shit ever conceived of by the human mind. For anyone to think this is beautiful, that person would have to be as deluded as is humanly possible.
I honestly don't get it, for I think this is exciting, tensing and dramatic. For those who don't like it I believe it is a matter of taste and bad ear. If you actually "listen" to this piece, you will find patterns and chords developing from the notes. And don't even mention the rhythm! It's thrilling!
And before everything, this is astoundingly organic! It is as if I can almost touch the propeller!
Deluded? No way, I just enjoy and recognize good music.
@masterd000, well, I would be glad that you enjoy it but for one reason: this type of music harms living things. It's been proven in experiment after experiment. Sadly, I must warm you to listen at your own risk.
@Interessant11 Not all music has to sound nice. Some of it is supposed to make you feel like this did. Music is an art form, and all art should evoke something.
Ok, this is a very honest question seeking knowledge. Can someone please explain to me why this or any of Stockhausen's compositions is considered to be a work of genius or worth noting. I'm serious! And don't paraphrase wikipedia or glorify some artsy fartsy notions, give me your personal experiences while listening to his works, and what strikes your aesthetics in whatever way. Hoping for a response, thanks!
@tapaddtiiiii I find Stockhausen's work to be stimulating to my imagination. I don't listen for a song but i listen for the sake of listening, to encounter an audio experience. The experience does not have to be pleasant. What I find so engaging is how the sounds affect my thoughts.
@dereckvon How does it stimulate your imagination exactly? What is the affect? How does the affect come in the first place, by the music, by what correlation?
@dereckvon Honestly, I don't wish to get involved in a long discussion here. I get this kind of art. It's not for everyone. I would imagine there are academic papers written that would be able to explain the various ways such art/music/soundwork can be appreciated. Maybe it's just not your cup of tea.
@tapaddtiiiii Personally, I just like the concept of 4 players in 4 helicopters. The music is almost irrelevant although there is something about the whirring blades and the voices and the strings that's great. There's a tension, a slight feeling of apprehension that's thrilling. Only Stockhausen could come up with something like this.
@Steve7508 So it's not the music that caught your fancy, but the way it was conceived as an idea for a musical venture? The feeling of apprehension, sure, but it can also be brought by the 'modernistic' elements of atonality composers like Prokofiev experimented with. How does THIS compare with that?!
I honestly don't mean to sound dense, I just want insight
@Steve7508 So it's not the music that caught your fancy, but the way it was conceived as an idea for a musical venture? The feeling of apprehension, sure, but it can also be brought by the 'modernistic' elements of atonality composers like Prokofiev experimented with. How does THIS compare with that?!
I honestly don't mean to sound dense, I just want insight
This work has missed the most crucial point : the performers should jump out of the helicopters wile playing. The resulting doppler effect and deadly fall of the performers would have definetely add the epic and dramatic climax to this work.
Having read some of Stockhausen's own writings about his music, this seems to be a serenade to his "angels" that watch over him and what not. Why else take music to the sky and not have a live audience for it? If he could have four rockets to take to Sirius he would have done that in a heartbeat (although I doubt Arditti Quartet would have gone along for that ride).
As a Stockhausen admirer and practitioner of "experimental" (forgive me for not having a less hackneyed term) music, I cannot say I thought much of this. The music is the weakest part, and sorry to say the comment by Tm0g6762 "Renting four helicopters is an expensive way to be pretentious" is exactly what I thought as I watched. The videography and helicopter piloting were excellent, however. Maybe I'm missing a "bigger picture" but I doubt it.
@jb8256 The bigger picture is that the dissonance and wild glissandi have a certain pathetique quality to them, and seem to express the deepest pathos
Also, I apologize to everyone else that has been forced to read our exchange. We will now move our discussion to private messages. I hope that my new found friend will agree to do this as well as I have found this discussion very intriguing.
@MaestroTJS As for history, we will let history decide. I don't feel like being lumped into the neo-classical-esque style because I think the language is dated. And I don't blame tonal music for anything, in fact we are good buddies. I choose not to use it because I know its limitations. I do talk about evolution because that is what it is. Romantic> avant garde > serialism > midcentury experimental music. There is a clear line from practical to theoretical...
If this is considered a revolution then Viva! But I think that it is unfair in both directions to compare one to the other.
As for my “something new to say”, we both speak English... how would you spell a scream? What about a whimper? The fact is that there are even limitations to written language, why can't the same be true for the musical language? I think the root of the issue is that you can understand the language but don't want to for whatever reason...
Maybe fear, maybe arrogance, either way I am not going to speculate. All I know is that we agree that there are “combinations of notes that sound better than others” although I am willing to dabble with those which are more unpleasant. And that is my overall point, there are things that I can express more thoroughly than you can being bound by the rules of propriety. Does that mean I can't write tonal harmonies? No, I have a little ditty I wrote on my page to prove that...
I don't think that every composer/piece should have its own language. I just think that there are languages that are better suited for certain things. Love totally goes w/ tonal harmonies. Misery goes to experimental music. And as for your next comment on playwrights, it doesn't apply to what we are talking about here but I can answer it with an answer. Have you been to an opera which was sung in a language you couldn't understand? Did you enjoy it?...
@MusicalArchitect " Love totally goes w/ tonal harmonies. Misery goes to experimental music. " - wtf?? it's experimental music if the composer is trying something radical and is not sure whether it will work. Some experiments work, some don't - that's the nature of experiments. None of that has anything to do with how the music makes you feel.
@FugalQuease There's nothing experimental about experimental music, that's just what it's called. The Baroque period is called "barroco" because people viewed it as somehow flawed, like a misshapen pearl. Now we view those works as being without flaws per se but as a logical progression of theory. This would also be the case here. The composers are fully aware of how it's going to sound. There's a big difference between trying something new and doing something new which, again, is the case here.
@MusicalArchitect - Perhaps your last sentence came out a bit muddled - in any case I didn't understand it. To make possibly an equally clumsy distinction: knowing how the piece is going to sound is not the same as knowing what the live experience of it will be. In this case (and btw I don't actually like this piece), it's largely a conceptual piece in which the art is not just in the music, but in the whole process of making it happen - which has many unknowns along the way.
@FugalQuease My last comment was responding to the idea that they are experimenting at all. There's no "try and see how it goes", it's more of a "let me say it another way". But from how you responded, I believe that you understand that already. You make a good point with sound vs experience. I think that a large majority of musicians lose sight of what they're saying and focus on how they are saying it. Music is expression. The meaning > the means. It means nothing if the meaning is lost.
@FugalQuease *PS* I applaud you for standing up for a piece that you don't enjoy. Frankly, I don't find this piece enjoyable either... but I also recognize and will defend its merit. To be honest, I think the musical world is overdue for the establishment of a new musical period, one that's free from Lizstian notions of propriety and conservative techniques. Only then can we be free to say what we truly want to say in the language that is best suited. The academics of tomorrow understand this.
If that is a yes then the answer you gave was wrong. As for the expanded vocab comment, what would you call experimental music if not “expanded vocabulary”? It seems to me that you just don't like our slang and we're ok with that. Some of us might even thrive on it. Again, about my inadequacies, maybe my expanded vocabulary is just bigger than yours. In the real world that would make me that much smarter. Your argument is that it is proper to be simple or closed minded...
*Check out the choral piece on my page, I think you will find that I can create quite adequately in the old language.
**As for your Concerto Grosso, I think it is a beautiful concept to which many would derive much meaning (minus the massacre of course). I don't believe this is the logical conclusion though. I foresee that the choppers land and the musicians depart unscathed. :)
***We would be best buddies if we actually met so I forgive you for insulting me.
...realistic flatulent sound that will be called for in the coda of the third movement. The distribution and consumption of alcoholic beverages will be treated serially: they will replace the sixth and twelfth tones to create a unique hexachord.
In line with indeterminacy principles, the conductor is encouraged to choose two symbolic structures in which to crash the planes in the finale, unbeknownst to anyone on the planes. This will help confer "great art" status on the work and conductor.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce commencement on a work which will take this concept to its logical conclusion. My new Concerto Grosso will be performed on two airplanes. The concertino will fly in a Learjet while the ripieno will fly on a freighter 747; both will be simultaneously conducted from an air traffic control tower. The brass section will be sequestered on the upper deck and are highly encouraged to eat copious amounts of beans before the flight in order to obtain a...
The studio version of this, available on CD in 1995 or so, is quite astonishing.
Magnificent. I only heard it once. It's a pity if people, seeking an extraordinary aural experience, rely upon the above performance, although it is interesting as such.
You're right, this was probably not composed to express an emotion. But it is art in the same way theoretical mathematics is still math. The math being done might not have any real world applications but it explores the furthest reaches of our understanding. 10^200 is a number greater than the number of particles in the universe. It may not have a real world application but it is still a number. Think of this genre of music in this way. Not emotionally viable but still theoretical music.
@MusicalArchitect The point for me isn't whether or not this is art/music. (It is, on some absurd level, though absolutely inferior in every respect to the Great Masters.) The point is why this is the kind of drivel composition students are FORCED to emulate and why it's foisted onto a public that doesn't want it as the best or only way forward in music. I could hand anyone a violin and tell them to make it sound like a helicopter and they could do the same thing. Einnns! Zwei! Dreiii? Vierrrrr!
@MaestroTJS I'm insulted by your last post because I am one of these composers. I think my work is very worthwhile. I may not use classical forms, functional harmonies, or even music notation in some cases but only because I don't want to produce cookie cutter drivel full of other peoples' ideas. The fact is I can express some things in my music that you can't in your rule-bound style. I write the way I do because I have something new to say. Music has evolved, get used to it or get left behind.
@MusicalArchitect What you think is less important than what history will think of you. "Cookie cutter drivel?" Don't blame traditional/tonal music for the fact you aren't creative enough to think of something new within that medium. You talk about evolution, but this music is not an evolution of the past; it is a revolution. It has virtually nothing to do with the past, although they like to pretend it does, maybe to give it some credibility.
As for your "something new to say" line, keep this
@MusicalArchitect ...in mind: one does not have to invent a new language to say something differently. In fact, doing so makes what you say a lot less communicable. The invention of new harmonies is a little over-rated; there is a lot that is going on otherwise that could be innovative. Furthermore, there are actual sonic reasons why certain combinations of notes sound better than others--something apparently lost on the avant garde ear.
You are proposing that every piece or composer have...
@MusicalArchitect ...his/her own language. Okay. Let's assume a playwright did the same thing. Would that be intelligible to anyone except himself and his most devoted followers who decided to learn the language? No. It is tantamount to insanity, actually. I don't need to invent an entirely new language to say something that has never been said before (an expanded vocabulary is good, though). As I said earlier, if you do, maybe that speaks to your own inadequacies in other aspects of the art.
@Dashn1YT. You're right! Listening to one's mother gaggling on one's father's balls is infinitely more pleasurable than listening to this pretentious crap. Thanks for the tip!
New ideas - okay - but calling this music is ... mh, it's no music! You may say "It's no traditional music, it's a new way...blabla", but if this is the music of the future, I go and hang myself: Only noises, I don't know, why they have sheet notes, sometimes, these strange noises are scaring me... music has to be a thing, which goes together: harmonic! maybe this is a new idea - but no music!
i 'wasted' some time reading the comments of the humans arround the world. i found this on page 5:
'think that a quartet for chainsaw, electric chair, shovel and a bounch of cats fucking may sound better. who ever thinks this is music should be in jail geting [sic] raped... and beaten... then raped again'
by futproaste, 2 months ago
the best for me. simple and beautiful. it tells about the intimate feelings of the majority of those who risk their sanity and eyes on this page ...
Granted.. it does meet the criteria for what constitutes music: human-organized sound with aspects of pitch, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. even if it sounds peculiar, I have to admit it is musically interesting...
Quite cool how Stockhausen´s music is still able to polarise, though I don´t know if it was intentionally meant this way. But it´s obvious, regarding to the comments, that this music has its effect. It displays the old thruth that you have to have inside what you want to realize. So the dullheads recognize nothing but garbage, others are able to get more out of it. And this, dear community, is what art means: you have to develop your access to it, this is no chewed pulp for your dull patterns.
It's hard to say what the actual musical experience of this piece is based on a video recording. You would have to actually be there hearing the helicopters and amplified string sound live. I get that the tremolo/glissandi is imitating the sound of the helicopters, but I don't feel that sonic experience from a video.
WOW! I love it :) my a level teacher says the only way forward for music is jazz, but I think this is pretty cool too - absolutely crazy and demented, but aren't we all sometimes?
@DarkZekeX Well I suppose that it is down to a matter of personal preference and I would say that the majority of people who are watching this would not download this piece or would in anyway listen to it again. It is just another example of people who want to be pretentious about their music and in the long run is damaging the modern music industry by giving it a bad name.
@gavmcguinness8024 My 8th time viewing this footage, have the full work on my top played list on itunes? what makes this pretentious compared to Arnold Schoenberg Edgar Varese or John Cage? I'd say Leonard Bernstein's music is far more pretentious than this and yet I don't see these complaints on his videos and the same when Wagner said that conductors' interpretation should extend to altering the written score , so what make pretense bad? That said, this an extremely weak work for Stockhausen.
think that a quartet for chainsaw,electric chair,shovel and a bounch of cats fucking may sound better.who ever thinks this is music should be in jail geting raped...and beaten...then raped again
@futproaste Just imagine, if you had the (undeserved) reputation of Stockhausen, what you just proposed would be hailed a masterpiece and you would be called a genius. But since you aren't Stockhausen (or some similar pretentious avant-garde dork), your idea sucks.
I just don't understand why he would have them go through the trouble of getting helicopters when he could have just gotten a recording of them and used it as a backing track..
I haven't heard this piece in full, but it amuses me -- the sheer grandiosity of it, and of course, to pull this thing off requires great seriousness, and yet, this is a very silly thing to do with helicopters and musicians. I am moved, however, by Stockhausen's relating the dream he had which inspired the piece. I mean, it is a beautiful dream, and he was indulged to make it happen. I wish I could compose a Libretto of all these youtube comments and put the singers on a high wire.
Plenty of offtopic comments here. Rhinish dialect, 9/11, Hitler's regime.....my God, folks....concentrate on the topic. And the topic is The Helicopter String Quartet. I watched the entire work on DVD plus the arrangements of all show including the technical aspects and believe me it was a HUGE work and it is a "piece of art" itself. Artistic aspects are of course relatively, maybe his music is from another planet and so what? A real artist is not interesed of the number of fans.
A difficult man in all of his lifetime, nevertheless respected by many Germans -though after his remark that he saw the 9/11 attack as a "piece of art" not only many Germans commented that he might have gone bonkers now.....
Also his handling of his "disciples" (one of his former students Holger Czukay formed CAN in late 60s) - partly German electronic musicians who went to visit the rock n roll sphere, cannot be called "easy" or diplomatic + he only made his peace with them in his last years!
As a sound engineer I must state that there is simply no way, unless the musicians had mics clipped to the bodys of their intruments, that; and other vibrations (sound) could be captured by the mics. The energy (change in air pressure) created by the rotors whould be so huge as to flood everyting else. It would be like listening to a harmonica in a tornado.
@MantasSavickis:Ah no no, Stockhausen was born by Rhinish parents near Cologne in 1928+always spoke with a undertone of the sometimes very vulgar but also very heavy Rhinish dialect here. This is no sympathetic reference - even not in Germany - the German media annually have hit lists which of all the German dialects is considered more ugly or more beautiful FOR GERMAMS(+THERE is an astonishing variety !).
Stockhausen also didn´t have lots of humor, un the 70s he threatened to finish.....
@MantasSavickis:Stockhausen also didn´t have lots of humor,in the 70s he threatened to finish a performance of one of his operas at Beethovenhalle in Bonn,because some hipsters on the higher ranks above the stage had started to imitate handclaps he used during the performance.Of course they might have been called ignorants-butHE"solved"this"problem"with a lot less humor than they even had.Part of his lack of humor may of course be explained with traumatic experiences during Hitler´s regime+WW2!
@MantasSavickis:To explain how the Rhinish dialect sounds for Germans who don´t speak any dialect but rather analyze them: It sounds as if a Cockney Londoner tries to speak a very clumsy version of Dutch or Flamish. Many people have complexes when they´d like to get rid of this(or other)dialect(s) for personal or professional reasons because they subconsciously learned its undertones in family or early friends´surroundings+weren´t even aware of it.
Just for the record, I don't like this piece... but I respect it as art. It has set out to express a certain emotion or feeling and it succeeds wonderfully. :)
I felt this did sound very "helicopter-ish" for the want of a better word! No, won't make the easy listening list on your local radio station, but I think its quite imaginative.
I'm not opposed to new ideas but this music seems like it's trying too hard. I get that part of the point of this piece is to take musicians out of their comfort zone in order to provide an element of instability but I personally don't feel a connection with the music. To me, It's like "4'33'": The concept is king; the music is secondary.
@ProgWill91 Expression is why some men compose, for others it is the structure and laws of sound. Now I don't particularly think what I'm about to say applies to Cage but maybe you are spot on. "The concept is king; the music is secondary." The concept is to make you feel uncomfortable, the music facilitates that... I think you understand and appreciate this piece more than you know. He doesn't want you to connect with his piece and you don't. That's the beauty in it.
@MusicalArchitect So there's beauty in not connecting with the piece, huh? By the same token, we should say that conditions like autism or people who have no ability to empathize with others have no problem at all. They are perfectly content in their worlds.
Also, for the (pretentious) people who connect with this piece and love it...did Stockhausen therefore fail with them?
Or can Stockhausen have it both ways--succeeding in not connecting and succeeding in connecting when not wanting to?
@MaestroTJS 1) Yes, music is often used to portray an emotion. Disgust is a valid one just like any other.
2) The beauty is in the cause and effect or portrayal of emotion in music. There is no beauty if you don't have that capacity.
3) Connect is not the right term... respect maybe. Shoenberg himself once said that he didn't care if people enjoyed his music. But people respect it.
4) I would imagine his philosophy is a lot like mine. If you like it, great, If not, it wasn't for you anyway.
@MusicalArchitect Much twentieth century avant-garde music was written so as to avoid any and all connections with emotion; I'm sure you know this. I don't feel disgust when I hear this; I just think it's incredibly juvenile, stupid, and not something one should expect from a "professional" musician. Maybe it's some kind of "feat" to have 4 players miked and in sync when in 4 helicopters but that's technological, not musical. Making something sound like shit is not difficult or complex.
Also: with reference to one or two other YouTube 'Stockhausen' items, I recommend that we make sure they really are by Stockhausen before slagging them off. There is at least one 'impostor' in the listing.
What's so terrible??? The 60s/70s avant garde did far more random things than this. What do you want, folks, wall-to-wall Abba singles for the next millennium or two?
Stockhausen was not God andI I don't think that Sri Aurobindo should be blamed for Stockhausen's dafter opinions, but if you want people to develop anything new you have to accept that it involves taking creative risks.
I agree with what MusicalArchitect said. Anyways, this music isn't unbearable, but it is one of the most intense pieces ever. If you want unbearable (which you don't, you only want light and superficial depictions of a limited range of emotions) listen to pop music. Now THAT'S what I can't tolerate.
I took a whole semester of music appreciation class and this is basically all the teacher played. It's just too fucked up! I can only find it enjoyable when I am really ripped!
Forget the question if this is music or not. The real question is: is it enjoyable? Do you actually enjoy listening to this? Because that really is the ultimate criteria.
@foobarsnow Just as an example, say you write a piece for a murdered spouse... do you want people to enjoy it? Say you are writing a "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima"... should it make you feel warm inside? These things should not be made "enjoyable" and if the music it personifies makes you feel like garbage, then it is art. Think about this, maybe it was his aim to make you not like the piece. Not all emotions are pleasant.
@MusicalArchitect I understand what yu are saying and also all the stuns and experiments artists did during 20th century in order to question what art is at all (Fountain by Duchamp, or Manzoni's "work" for example), but I see it the same way as Debussy did: "There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law." As for dead spouse, Mozart's Lacrimosa is better than this anyday.
wow beeindruckend.. kreativ, mutig, innovativ, dadaistisch.. gefällt mir
MUSICisPOISON 2 weeks ago
It was hard for me to swallow this too. But I read something about the composer, I listened almost all of his works and I read some of his articles. And now I love him. Maybe he is from Sirius, as he stated. Sirius is on his tomb also. If it is true we are those who have to work with ourselves to change our way of perception. Ears and mind are unappropriate to listen music. Try some heart and spine.
DrLux 2 weeks ago
Interesting in concept...unpleasant in reality. It just confuses the senses for me, hardly enjoyable.
(I was linked to it, I didn't search it out myself.)
Maplekitty 2 weeks ago
whow did he convince someone to give him 4 helicopters? thats what i want to know!
SaveTheArchitect 3 weeks ago
This is kind of subtly brilliant, if you decide to search for some connections. Man's inventions, his machines, the noises they produce... the noise of a violin is traditionally elegant, the noise of a helicopter: not so. When you attempt to parallel them in a similar fashion... you get an interesting idea about what "music"' is and how man attempts to create and characterize it in relation to sound. I feel like Duchamp would compose a piece like this, if he dabbled in music... Vive Dada!
Aranman16 1 month ago
Stockhausen should have taken a shit in a coffee can and filmed it. It would have made for better music than this.
WildernessGuardians 1 month ago 2
german string players in blackhawk helicopters... how did i get here?
droidca9 1 month ago 2
10 justin bieber and 10 stockhausen song at the same time
/watch?v=xTiwpr7gcP8
andrewillis21 1 month ago
i rly dont get it....
FanciDreama 1 month ago
I enjoy avantgarde but this, to say the least, is not the best piece avantgarde music can offer. Stockhausen is a great composer anyway.
LesbianStraightGay 1 month ago
Von dieser Musik bekommt man ja Herzrhythmusstörungen!
Doku1648 1 month ago
Just heard this I music class lol bad
ZuyikoXZ 2 months ago
Certainly, this kind of music is the most ungodly pile of shit ever conceived of by the human mind. For anyone to think this is beautiful, that person would have to be as deluded as is humanly possible.
KhagarBalugrak 2 months ago
@KhagarBalugrak I don't think beauty was the intention.
pappataci85 1 month ago
@KhagarBalugrak That is very ignorant.
I honestly don't get it, for I think this is exciting, tensing and dramatic. For those who don't like it I believe it is a matter of taste and bad ear. If you actually "listen" to this piece, you will find patterns and chords developing from the notes. And don't even mention the rhythm! It's thrilling!
And before everything, this is astoundingly organic! It is as if I can almost touch the propeller!
Deluded? No way, I just enjoy and recognize good music.
masterd000 1 month ago
@masterd000, well, I would be glad that you enjoy it but for one reason: this type of music harms living things. It's been proven in experiment after experiment. Sadly, I must warm you to listen at your own risk.
KhagarBalugrak 1 month ago
Anda a lavarte el orto!
With the money that took you could have fed the world for a month.
jonatanjatom 2 months ago
Utter shit.
KhagarBalugrak 2 months ago
I can't help but think that 'ride of the valkyries' would have been more appropriate...
floppytheelephant 2 months ago 10
though I like it, I can't help but pity the pilots
Jimmy795 3 months ago
seems like without the helicopter song would not sounds well... that fucking prop is the most interesting instrument beside this song!!!
it really sounds well to me!!!
quemamaderadegallo 3 months ago
@Interessant11 Not all music has to sound nice. Some of it is supposed to make you feel like this did. Music is an art form, and all art should evoke something.
tziirkq 3 months ago
funny !!!!!!!!!
joshdaddy7762 4 months ago
musical genius
cud3nsta 4 months ago 2
So deep.
fukyous 4 months ago
BRAVO!!! The helicopters!!!
vi0l0ncell0 4 months ago 2
Che figata!
mirrors1 4 months ago
Okay, either I'm a music major who lacks a brain, or this isn't a very interesting work.
TheDavid2222 4 months ago
Ok, this is a very honest question seeking knowledge. Can someone please explain to me why this or any of Stockhausen's compositions is considered to be a work of genius or worth noting. I'm serious! And don't paraphrase wikipedia or glorify some artsy fartsy notions, give me your personal experiences while listening to his works, and what strikes your aesthetics in whatever way. Hoping for a response, thanks!
tapaddtiiiii 4 months ago
@tapaddtiiiii I find Stockhausen's work to be stimulating to my imagination. I don't listen for a song but i listen for the sake of listening, to encounter an audio experience. The experience does not have to be pleasant. What I find so engaging is how the sounds affect my thoughts.
dereckvon 4 months ago
@dereckvon How does it stimulate your imagination exactly? What is the affect? How does the affect come in the first place, by the music, by what correlation?
Thanks!
tapaddtiiiii 4 months ago
@dereckvon Honestly, I don't wish to get involved in a long discussion here. I get this kind of art. It's not for everyone. I would imagine there are academic papers written that would be able to explain the various ways such art/music/soundwork can be appreciated. Maybe it's just not your cup of tea.
dereckvon 4 months ago
@tapaddtiiiii Personally, I just like the concept of 4 players in 4 helicopters. The music is almost irrelevant although there is something about the whirring blades and the voices and the strings that's great. There's a tension, a slight feeling of apprehension that's thrilling. Only Stockhausen could come up with something like this.
Steve7508 4 months ago
@Steve7508 So it's not the music that caught your fancy, but the way it was conceived as an idea for a musical venture? The feeling of apprehension, sure, but it can also be brought by the 'modernistic' elements of atonality composers like Prokofiev experimented with. How does THIS compare with that?!
I honestly don't mean to sound dense, I just want insight
tapaddtiiiii 4 months ago
@Steve7508 So it's not the music that caught your fancy, but the way it was conceived as an idea for a musical venture? The feeling of apprehension, sure, but it can also be brought by the 'modernistic' elements of atonality composers like Prokofiev experimented with. How does THIS compare with that?!
I honestly don't mean to sound dense, I just want insight
tapaddtiiiii 4 months ago
Music of the future... Maybe my grandsons will love it.
redhotchiliangel 4 months ago 13
@redhotchiliangel might be true this is music of the future great art but we need to open our mind to get there
agasonido 1 month ago
Very reminiscent of Misericordia III for Prepared Heavy Goods Vehicule by Eduardo Stobartti.
fremsley001 4 months ago
This work has missed the most crucial point : the performers should jump out of the helicopters wile playing. The resulting doppler effect and deadly fall of the performers would have definetely add the epic and dramatic climax to this work.
Otherwise this is just lackluster…
DrOhm666 5 months ago 2
Having read some of Stockhausen's own writings about his music, this seems to be a serenade to his "angels" that watch over him and what not. Why else take music to the sky and not have a live audience for it? If he could have four rockets to take to Sirius he would have done that in a heartbeat (although I doubt Arditti Quartet would have gone along for that ride).
BeakismEIU 5 months ago
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mirianrockangel 5 months ago
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mirianrockangel 5 months ago
@Bagas. Yes, cunt-like indeed. But perhaps the more appropriate orifice here is the arse, into which Stocky's head was very deeply inserted.
GwynethSmegma 5 months ago
As a Stockhausen admirer and practitioner of "experimental" (forgive me for not having a less hackneyed term) music, I cannot say I thought much of this. The music is the weakest part, and sorry to say the comment by Tm0g6762 "Renting four helicopters is an expensive way to be pretentious" is exactly what I thought as I watched. The videography and helicopter piloting were excellent, however. Maybe I'm missing a "bigger picture" but I doubt it.
jb8256 5 months ago
Comment removed
Huddiethegreat 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@jb8256 The bigger picture is that the dissonance and wild glissandi have a certain pathetique quality to them, and seem to express the deepest pathos
Huddiethegreat 5 months ago
Also, I apologize to everyone else that has been forced to read our exchange. We will now move our discussion to private messages. I hope that my new found friend will agree to do this as well as I have found this discussion very intriguing.
MusicalArchitect 5 months ago
Cunt-like "music"
Bagas 5 months ago
(And just to be clear, in case there is some knuckle-headed, humourless CIA/FBI douche reading this, no, I am not being serious.)
MaestroTJS 5 months ago
@MaestroTJS As for history, we will let history decide. I don't feel like being lumped into the neo-classical-esque style because I think the language is dated. And I don't blame tonal music for anything, in fact we are good buddies. I choose not to use it because I know its limitations. I do talk about evolution because that is what it is. Romantic> avant garde > serialism > midcentury experimental music. There is a clear line from practical to theoretical...
MusicalArchitect 5 months ago
If this is considered a revolution then Viva! But I think that it is unfair in both directions to compare one to the other.
As for my “something new to say”, we both speak English... how would you spell a scream? What about a whimper? The fact is that there are even limitations to written language, why can't the same be true for the musical language? I think the root of the issue is that you can understand the language but don't want to for whatever reason...
MusicalArchitect 5 months ago
Maybe fear, maybe arrogance, either way I am not going to speculate. All I know is that we agree that there are “combinations of notes that sound better than others” although I am willing to dabble with those which are more unpleasant. And that is my overall point, there are things that I can express more thoroughly than you can being bound by the rules of propriety. Does that mean I can't write tonal harmonies? No, I have a little ditty I wrote on my page to prove that...
MusicalArchitect 5 months ago
Does it mean there's other options? Yes.
I don't think that every composer/piece should have its own language. I just think that there are languages that are better suited for certain things. Love totally goes w/ tonal harmonies. Misery goes to experimental music. And as for your next comment on playwrights, it doesn't apply to what we are talking about here but I can answer it with an answer. Have you been to an opera which was sung in a language you couldn't understand? Did you enjoy it?...
MusicalArchitect 5 months ago
@MusicalArchitect " Love totally goes w/ tonal harmonies. Misery goes to experimental music. " - wtf?? it's experimental music if the composer is trying something radical and is not sure whether it will work. Some experiments work, some don't - that's the nature of experiments. None of that has anything to do with how the music makes you feel.
FugalQuease 4 months ago
@FugalQuease There's nothing experimental about experimental music, that's just what it's called. The Baroque period is called "barroco" because people viewed it as somehow flawed, like a misshapen pearl. Now we view those works as being without flaws per se but as a logical progression of theory. This would also be the case here. The composers are fully aware of how it's going to sound. There's a big difference between trying something new and doing something new which, again, is the case here.
MusicalArchitect 4 months ago
@MusicalArchitect - Perhaps your last sentence came out a bit muddled - in any case I didn't understand it. To make possibly an equally clumsy distinction: knowing how the piece is going to sound is not the same as knowing what the live experience of it will be. In this case (and btw I don't actually like this piece), it's largely a conceptual piece in which the art is not just in the music, but in the whole process of making it happen - which has many unknowns along the way.
FugalQuease 4 months ago
@FugalQuease My last comment was responding to the idea that they are experimenting at all. There's no "try and see how it goes", it's more of a "let me say it another way". But from how you responded, I believe that you understand that already. You make a good point with sound vs experience. I think that a large majority of musicians lose sight of what they're saying and focus on how they are saying it. Music is expression. The meaning > the means. It means nothing if the meaning is lost.
MusicalArchitect 4 months ago
@FugalQuease *PS* I applaud you for standing up for a piece that you don't enjoy. Frankly, I don't find this piece enjoyable either... but I also recognize and will defend its merit. To be honest, I think the musical world is overdue for the establishment of a new musical period, one that's free from Lizstian notions of propriety and conservative techniques. Only then can we be free to say what we truly want to say in the language that is best suited. The academics of tomorrow understand this.
MusicalArchitect 4 months ago
If that is a yes then the answer you gave was wrong. As for the expanded vocab comment, what would you call experimental music if not “expanded vocabulary”? It seems to me that you just don't like our slang and we're ok with that. Some of us might even thrive on it. Again, about my inadequacies, maybe my expanded vocabulary is just bigger than yours. In the real world that would make me that much smarter. Your argument is that it is proper to be simple or closed minded...
MusicalArchitect 5 months ago
I say let there be art.
*Check out the choral piece on my page, I think you will find that I can create quite adequately in the old language.
**As for your Concerto Grosso, I think it is a beautiful concept to which many would derive much meaning (minus the massacre of course). I don't believe this is the logical conclusion though. I foresee that the choppers land and the musicians depart unscathed. :)
***We would be best buddies if we actually met so I forgive you for insulting me.
MusicalArchitect 5 months ago
...realistic flatulent sound that will be called for in the coda of the third movement. The distribution and consumption of alcoholic beverages will be treated serially: they will replace the sixth and twelfth tones to create a unique hexachord.
In line with indeterminacy principles, the conductor is encouraged to choose two symbolic structures in which to crash the planes in the finale, unbeknownst to anyone on the planes. This will help confer "great art" status on the work and conductor.
MaestroTJS 5 months ago
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce commencement on a work which will take this concept to its logical conclusion. My new Concerto Grosso will be performed on two airplanes. The concertino will fly in a Learjet while the ripieno will fly on a freighter 747; both will be simultaneously conducted from an air traffic control tower. The brass section will be sequestered on the upper deck and are highly encouraged to eat copious amounts of beans before the flight in order to obtain a...
MaestroTJS 5 months ago
Oh, to be clever enough to appreciate this airborne cock-in-arsery as music. Clearly us down-to-earth musical illiterates have to raise our game.
fremsley001 5 months ago
The studio version of this, available on CD in 1995 or so, is quite astonishing.
Magnificent. I only heard it once. It's a pity if people, seeking an extraordinary aural experience, rely upon the above performance, although it is interesting as such.
GARNETSODA 6 months ago
WOULDN'T BE BETTER AND CHEAPER TO PLAY IN THE GROUND?
rveiagol 6 months ago
You're right, this was probably not composed to express an emotion. But it is art in the same way theoretical mathematics is still math. The math being done might not have any real world applications but it explores the furthest reaches of our understanding. 10^200 is a number greater than the number of particles in the universe. It may not have a real world application but it is still a number. Think of this genre of music in this way. Not emotionally viable but still theoretical music.
MusicalArchitect 6 months ago
@MusicalArchitect The point for me isn't whether or not this is art/music. (It is, on some absurd level, though absolutely inferior in every respect to the Great Masters.) The point is why this is the kind of drivel composition students are FORCED to emulate and why it's foisted onto a public that doesn't want it as the best or only way forward in music. I could hand anyone a violin and tell them to make it sound like a helicopter and they could do the same thing. Einnns! Zwei! Dreiii? Vierrrrr!
MaestroTJS 6 months ago
Comment removed
MusicalArchitect 6 months ago
@MaestroTJS I'm insulted by your last post because I am one of these composers. I think my work is very worthwhile. I may not use classical forms, functional harmonies, or even music notation in some cases but only because I don't want to produce cookie cutter drivel full of other peoples' ideas. The fact is I can express some things in my music that you can't in your rule-bound style. I write the way I do because I have something new to say. Music has evolved, get used to it or get left behind.
MusicalArchitect 6 months ago
@MusicalArchitect What you think is less important than what history will think of you. "Cookie cutter drivel?" Don't blame traditional/tonal music for the fact you aren't creative enough to think of something new within that medium. You talk about evolution, but this music is not an evolution of the past; it is a revolution. It has virtually nothing to do with the past, although they like to pretend it does, maybe to give it some credibility.
As for your "something new to say" line, keep this
MaestroTJS 5 months ago
@MusicalArchitect ...in mind: one does not have to invent a new language to say something differently. In fact, doing so makes what you say a lot less communicable. The invention of new harmonies is a little over-rated; there is a lot that is going on otherwise that could be innovative. Furthermore, there are actual sonic reasons why certain combinations of notes sound better than others--something apparently lost on the avant garde ear.
You are proposing that every piece or composer have...
MaestroTJS 5 months ago
@MusicalArchitect ...his/her own language. Okay. Let's assume a playwright did the same thing. Would that be intelligible to anyone except himself and his most devoted followers who decided to learn the language? No. It is tantamount to insanity, actually. I don't need to invent an entirely new language to say something that has never been said before (an expanded vocabulary is good, though). As I said earlier, if you do, maybe that speaks to your own inadequacies in other aspects of the art.
MaestroTJS 5 months ago
However terrible this sounds, it still sounds better than metal music,
CuriosityRoads 6 months ago
@Dashn1YT. You're right! Listening to one's mother gaggling on one's father's balls is infinitely more pleasurable than listening to this pretentious crap. Thanks for the tip!
MisterSimnock 6 months ago
This is why classical music is dying these days. Garbage like this.
KhagarBalugrak 6 months ago
I came here watching John Cage´s 4'33. At least they´re actually playing.
HomoYoutubus 6 months ago
Negative comments=Go listen to your mother gaggling on your father's balls
Dashn1YT 7 months ago 16
@Dashn1YT uh ?
Nazgulinet021 7 months ago
@Dashn1YT i'm sure that would sound better than this
irelp11 3 months ago in playlist Musical modernism
@Dashn1YT
That would probably be about as musical.
TentativeTitle1 3 months ago
isso é arte?
jessica70053 7 months ago
@jessica70053 defina arte.
daPvta 6 months ago
co co merdaaaaaaa lixooooooo shit shit assiste apocalyptica q e melhor filho da opulta
gothicmetal2011 7 months ago
This is the most retarded thing I've ever seen.
joncoish 8 months ago
Beckett's Apocalipse Now?
enlatadocwb 8 months ago 2
New ideas - okay - but calling this music is ... mh, it's no music! You may say "It's no traditional music, it's a new way...blabla", but if this is the music of the future, I go and hang myself: Only noises, I don't know, why they have sheet notes, sometimes, these strange noises are scaring me... music has to be a thing, which goes together: harmonic! maybe this is a new idea - but no music!
cocacraesh 8 months ago
@cocacraesh What d'you call music for Percussion instruments then?
StanleyKSCBP 6 months ago
@StanleyKSCBP Effects.
cocacraesh 6 months ago
@cocacraesh I meant percussion instruments on their own
StanleyKSCBP 6 months ago
@StanleyKSCBP Mh... beats?
cocacraesh 6 months ago
@FiddlerAdam well maybe, but rap and pop need to buy autotuners :P I am sure they cost more, metal just requires skill.
ixsetf 8 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
i 'wasted' some time reading the comments of the humans arround the world. i found this on page 5:
'think that a quartet for chainsaw, electric chair, shovel and a bounch of cats fucking may sound better. who ever thinks this is music should be in jail geting [sic] raped... and beaten... then raped again'
by futproaste, 2 months ago
the best for me. simple and beautiful. it tells about the intimate feelings of the majority of those who risk their sanity and eyes on this page ...
lucemedeiros 8 months ago
???
silentjav 8 months ago
It's beautiful
Huddiethegreat 8 months ago
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@HelgeOldieGuy867 HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I cracked up reading your comment. RIGHT ON!
83songsandcounting 8 months ago
@HelgeOldieGuy867 HAHAHAHAHAHAH I cracked up reading your comment. RIGHT ON!
83songsandcounting 8 months ago
Sorry, its five, one for the camera man
Raychow 8 months ago
Can you say Pointlesss. NO it's not that I am too naive to understand it. If you think you understand it you don't.
alexdecosta 8 months ago
@alexdecosta
What could possibly be misunderstood about this piece?
DrTallTimber 8 months ago
THE SUBLIME !!!
NicolaCasetti 9 months ago
this is horrendous
mrsuperasianchild 9 months ago
Granted.. it does meet the criteria for what constitutes music: human-organized sound with aspects of pitch, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. even if it sounds peculiar, I have to admit it is musically interesting...
AmyKay01 9 months ago
Next I would like to see Lou Reed and company perform Metal Machine Music from a squadron of C-130's.
AmyKay01 9 months ago 2
this are army helicopters, they have to do training flights anyways, so i guess they gave 'em a lift. please stop bitching about the costs of this.
MNCHNtoSTHLM 9 months ago 13
This takes bullshit to new heights.
fremsley001 9 months ago
Well I gotta say it's different, but it's not music, just heavy metal strings xD (Thumbs down)
hiccup112 9 months ago
@hiccup112 what about this is like heavy metal?
ixsetf 8 months ago
Um es mit Shakespeare zu sagen: Viel Lärm um nichts...Dafür könnte man 10 anständige Konzerte finanzieren....
ogonoi 9 months ago
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Ein, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn!
eflaspo 9 months ago
Ein, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn!
eflaspo 9 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Quite cool how Stockhausen´s music is still able to polarise, though I don´t know if it was intentionally meant this way. But it´s obvious, regarding to the comments, that this music has its effect. It displays the old thruth that you have to have inside what you want to realize. So the dullheads recognize nothing but garbage, others are able to get more out of it. And this, dear community, is what art means: you have to develop your access to it, this is no chewed pulp for your dull patterns.
HermannRubartV 9 months ago
Awesome as Music & Movie Both!!!
gustkdeo 10 months ago
THIS IS AWESOME
wagneristhebest 10 months ago
It's hard to say what the actual musical experience of this piece is based on a video recording. You would have to actually be there hearing the helicopters and amplified string sound live. I get that the tremolo/glissandi is imitating the sound of the helicopters, but I don't feel that sonic experience from a video.
matthesplaysforyou 10 months ago
This was awesome.
SkeletonMr 10 months ago
and i thought that Dream Theater was pretentious ._____.
wallytalivan 10 months ago
WOW! I love it :) my a level teacher says the only way forward for music is jazz, but I think this is pretty cool too - absolutely crazy and demented, but aren't we all sometimes?
MuRaKiDa 10 months ago
There is no way you can defend this piece. This is not music.
gavmcguinness8024 10 months ago
@gavmcguinness8024 Sure I can. It is music. Though I'd love to hear any evidence you have to support your claim that it isn't :)
DarkZekeX 10 months ago
@DarkZekeX Well I suppose that it is down to a matter of personal preference and I would say that the majority of people who are watching this would not download this piece or would in anyway listen to it again. It is just another example of people who want to be pretentious about their music and in the long run is damaging the modern music industry by giving it a bad name.
gavmcguinness8024 10 months ago
@gavmcguinness8024 Whence cometh pretentiousness? What makes this music pretentious?
DarkZekeX 10 months ago
@gavmcguinness8024 soooo experimentation and innovation are giving the music industry a bad name?
macklemoreosis 10 months ago
@gavmcguinness8024 My 8th time viewing this footage, have the full work on my top played list on itunes? what makes this pretentious compared to Arnold Schoenberg Edgar Varese or John Cage? I'd say Leonard Bernstein's music is far more pretentious than this and yet I don't see these complaints on his videos and the same when Wagner said that conductors' interpretation should extend to altering the written score , so what make pretense bad? That said, this an extremely weak work for Stockhausen.
cnmaster01 9 months ago
think that a quartet for chainsaw,electric chair,shovel and a bounch of cats fucking may sound better.who ever thinks this is music should be in jail geting raped...and beaten...then raped again
futproaste 10 months ago
@futproaste Hah. People who think differently than you should suffer :) what a charming comment.
DarkZekeX 10 months ago
@futproaste Thank you. I disagree.
Trabbbi 10 months ago
@futproaste Just imagine, if you had the (undeserved) reputation of Stockhausen, what you just proposed would be hailed a masterpiece and you would be called a genius. But since you aren't Stockhausen (or some similar pretentious avant-garde dork), your idea sucks.
That makes total sense, of course....
MaestroTJS 6 months ago
i like his ideas, but this sounds like shit
Bagas 10 months ago
WTF is this?
ElCuartetero47 11 months ago
@ElCuartetero47 This is a musical performance.... I would figure that was obvious, but I must remember there are plenty of idiots online.
DarkZekeX 10 months ago
I think it's really marvellous but worried about the environmental impact of this music...
fbager 11 months ago 2
Kind of an expensive way to prove that it is in fact possible to make ears bleed
BourbanAces 11 months ago
@BourbanAces Only if you have weak virgin ears.
DarkZekeX 10 months ago
what the fuck is this shit, oh my fucking god
tagtheman 11 months ago 2
@tagtheman This is a musical performance.
DarkZekeX 10 months ago
O.o, wtf?
RicardoBatistaPassos 11 months ago
Renting four helicopters is an expensive way to be pretentious
Tm0g762 11 months ago 93
@Tm0g762 Being snide is a cheap way to cover the ballz of ignorance.
malkooth 7 months ago
Master ... Vision ... Sound ... All in One.
KishoAudioVisual 11 months ago
lixo
MerumMinus88 11 months ago
alcatraz electro , the band with 100 synths
antoniotarver 1 year ago
i love it
TheFate23 1 year ago
I just don't understand why he would have them go through the trouble of getting helicopters when he could have just gotten a recording of them and used it as a backing track..
swordmaster373 1 year ago
@swordmaster373
because of the same reason you don't just play a recording of a symphony instead of paying for all the musicians performing live :D
ElHoden 11 months ago
I haven't heard this piece in full, but it amuses me -- the sheer grandiosity of it, and of course, to pull this thing off requires great seriousness, and yet, this is a very silly thing to do with helicopters and musicians. I am moved, however, by Stockhausen's relating the dream he had which inspired the piece. I mean, it is a beautiful dream, and he was indulged to make it happen. I wish I could compose a Libretto of all these youtube comments and put the singers on a high wire.
nobodady1 1 year ago 8
No wonder this dude died the day before he finished another project
MsBlackDeath121110 1 year ago 2
Plenty of offtopic comments here. Rhinish dialect, 9/11, Hitler's regime.....my God, folks....concentrate on the topic. And the topic is The Helicopter String Quartet. I watched the entire work on DVD plus the arrangements of all show including the technical aspects and believe me it was a HUGE work and it is a "piece of art" itself. Artistic aspects are of course relatively, maybe his music is from another planet and so what? A real artist is not interesed of the number of fans.
DrLux 1 year ago
A difficult man in all of his lifetime, nevertheless respected by many Germans -though after his remark that he saw the 9/11 attack as a "piece of art" not only many Germans commented that he might have gone bonkers now.....
Also his handling of his "disciples" (one of his former students Holger Czukay formed CAN in late 60s) - partly German electronic musicians who went to visit the rock n roll sphere, cannot be called "easy" or diplomatic + he only made his peace with them in his last years!
MrSKINFLICK 1 year ago
As a sound engineer I must state that there is simply no way, unless the musicians had mics clipped to the bodys of their intruments, that; and other vibrations (sound) could be captured by the mics. The energy (change in air pressure) created by the rotors whould be so huge as to flood everyting else. It would be like listening to a harmonica in a tornado.
nickthelight 1 year ago
@nickthelight Well, clearly it's not faked.
HenvY 1 year ago
This is amazing stuff. Stockhausen was from other planet :)
MantasSavickis 1 year ago
@MantasSavickis:Ah no no, Stockhausen was born by Rhinish parents near Cologne in 1928+always spoke with a undertone of the sometimes very vulgar but also very heavy Rhinish dialect here. This is no sympathetic reference - even not in Germany - the German media annually have hit lists which of all the German dialects is considered more ugly or more beautiful FOR GERMAMS(+THERE is an astonishing variety !).
Stockhausen also didn´t have lots of humor, un the 70s he threatened to finish.....
MrSKINFLICK 1 year ago
@MantasSavickis:Stockhausen also didn´t have lots of humor,in the 70s he threatened to finish a performance of one of his operas at Beethovenhalle in Bonn,because some hipsters on the higher ranks above the stage had started to imitate handclaps he used during the performance.Of course they might have been called ignorants-butHE"solved"this"problem"with a lot less humor than they even had.Part of his lack of humor may of course be explained with traumatic experiences during Hitler´s regime+WW2!
MrSKINFLICK 1 year ago
@MantasSavickis:To explain how the Rhinish dialect sounds for Germans who don´t speak any dialect but rather analyze them: It sounds as if a Cockney Londoner tries to speak a very clumsy version of Dutch or Flamish. Many people have complexes when they´d like to get rid of this(or other)dialect(s) for personal or professional reasons because they subconsciously learned its undertones in family or early friends´surroundings+weren´t even aware of it.
Okay - we have bigger problems in this world !
MrSKINFLICK 1 year ago
Just for the record, I don't like this piece... but I respect it as art. It has set out to express a certain emotion or feeling and it succeeds wonderfully. :)
MusicalArchitect 1 year ago
Noten?? Die Spinnen!
Stockblausen
entengasse 1 year ago
I felt this did sound very "helicopter-ish" for the want of a better word! No, won't make the easy listening list on your local radio station, but I think its quite imaginative.
Andronicus2007 1 year ago
I'm not opposed to new ideas but this music seems like it's trying too hard. I get that part of the point of this piece is to take musicians out of their comfort zone in order to provide an element of instability but I personally don't feel a connection with the music. To me, It's like "4'33'": The concept is king; the music is secondary.
ProgWill91 1 year ago
@ProgWill91 Expression is why some men compose, for others it is the structure and laws of sound. Now I don't particularly think what I'm about to say applies to Cage but maybe you are spot on. "The concept is king; the music is secondary." The concept is to make you feel uncomfortable, the music facilitates that... I think you understand and appreciate this piece more than you know. He doesn't want you to connect with his piece and you don't. That's the beauty in it.
MusicalArchitect 1 year ago
@MusicalArchitect So there's beauty in not connecting with the piece, huh? By the same token, we should say that conditions like autism or people who have no ability to empathize with others have no problem at all. They are perfectly content in their worlds.
Also, for the (pretentious) people who connect with this piece and love it...did Stockhausen therefore fail with them?
Or can Stockhausen have it both ways--succeeding in not connecting and succeeding in connecting when not wanting to?
MaestroTJS 6 months ago
@MaestroTJS 1) Yes, music is often used to portray an emotion. Disgust is a valid one just like any other.
2) The beauty is in the cause and effect or portrayal of emotion in music. There is no beauty if you don't have that capacity.
3) Connect is not the right term... respect maybe. Shoenberg himself once said that he didn't care if people enjoyed his music. But people respect it.
4) I would imagine his philosophy is a lot like mine. If you like it, great, If not, it wasn't for you anyway.
MusicalArchitect 6 months ago
@MusicalArchitect Much twentieth century avant-garde music was written so as to avoid any and all connections with emotion; I'm sure you know this. I don't feel disgust when I hear this; I just think it's incredibly juvenile, stupid, and not something one should expect from a "professional" musician. Maybe it's some kind of "feat" to have 4 players miked and in sync when in 4 helicopters but that's technological, not musical. Making something sound like shit is not difficult or complex.
MaestroTJS 6 months ago
Also: with reference to one or two other YouTube 'Stockhausen' items, I recommend that we make sure they really are by Stockhausen before slagging them off. There is at least one 'impostor' in the listing.
jimarten1 1 year ago
What's so terrible??? The 60s/70s avant garde did far more random things than this. What do you want, folks, wall-to-wall Abba singles for the next millennium or two?
Stockhausen was not God andI I don't think that Sri Aurobindo should be blamed for Stockhausen's dafter opinions, but if you want people to develop anything new you have to accept that it involves taking creative risks.
jimarten1 1 year ago
just pointless and terrible
guypie 1 year ago
This made me laugh.
MonkeyDudeRS 1 year ago
you can write to express emotions, but you still have to admit it sounds like a pile of shit. no glory is writing like an epileptic retard
gsboss 1 year ago
@gsboss Maybe that's what he was going for, "a pile of shit".
MusicalArchitect 1 year ago
I agree with what MusicalArchitect said. Anyways, this music isn't unbearable, but it is one of the most intense pieces ever. If you want unbearable (which you don't, you only want light and superficial depictions of a limited range of emotions) listen to pop music. Now THAT'S what I can't tolerate.
AyumuVanguard 1 year ago
A lot of people say this is painful to listen to and maybe that was the point. :)
MusicalArchitect 1 year ago
I took a whole semester of music appreciation class and this is basically all the teacher played. It's just too fucked up! I can only find it enjoyable when I am really ripped!
gergsllaf 1 year ago
I'm pretty sure I've realized I'll never really get Modernist music. Perhaps that means I do get it.
JFMello1116 1 year ago
Forget the question if this is music or not. The real question is: is it enjoyable? Do you actually enjoy listening to this? Because that really is the ultimate criteria.
foobarsnow 1 year ago
@foobarsnow Just as an example, say you write a piece for a murdered spouse... do you want people to enjoy it? Say you are writing a "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima"... should it make you feel warm inside? These things should not be made "enjoyable" and if the music it personifies makes you feel like garbage, then it is art. Think about this, maybe it was his aim to make you not like the piece. Not all emotions are pleasant.
MusicalArchitect 1 year ago
@MusicalArchitect I understand what yu are saying and also all the stuns and experiments artists did during 20th century in order to question what art is at all (Fountain by Duchamp, or Manzoni's "work" for example), but I see it the same way as Debussy did: "There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law." As for dead spouse, Mozart's Lacrimosa is better than this anyday.