Re: What do you think is necessary in order to have anexcellentcomposition?

[kkissinger@kevinkissinger.com]

Quoting Daryl Shawn <highhorse@mhorse.com>:

> ...the opinion that art is anything that is created with the /pure
> /intention of evoking an /aesthetic /reaction...

> But I don't entirely agree that the merit of Art is based on
> subjective, isolated emotional reaction. I don't think it fallacious to
> state as a point of fact that Bach was a great composer, Shakespeare a
> great writer, Van Gogh a great painter, Michelangelo a great sculptor,
> all of whom created great works. My own emotional reaction isn't a
> solid basis to argue otherwise. There are criteria other then personal
> emotion to judge art; innovation, craft, and the perception of value
> over a period of time, fr'instance.
>
> Having said that, nobody can tell me what I /should/ like, or what
> /should/ have value to me. I'm not a fan of Mozart, yet to label his
> work as trash isn't for me to say.

This post resonates with many of my feelings about art -- in fact, I
feel the same way about Mozart.  I appreciate it however I am not
thrilled with it.  I find Bach thrilling.  For me to assert that "Bach
is better than Mozart" would be to state my own bias rather than
anything useful about the music.

I tend to approach the creation of music as a "1% inspiration, 99%
perspiration" activity.  However, the hope is that the listeners, upon
hearing the finished work, will be moved in some way without being
aware of the "perspiration" aspect of the work.

Thus, I approached the question "What do you think is necessary in
order to have an excellent composition" as a technical question -- a  
kind of composer-to-composer dialog.

For instance, if I hear someone doing great looping work and I want to
do the same thing, I will likely want to know what kind of equipment
and setup the person is using.  I may want to ask the person how they
manage certain things (say pedal presses or avoiding feedback from
microphones, etc).  I will listen to the music to figure out how it is  
organized.

This is not to deny a spiritual and/or aesthetic goal -- most of us
hope that people will like or love our music.  We hope our music  
reaches people at some level.

My statement in an earlier post: "Be true to yourself" was meant as a 
possible
way to reach listeners and do music that may be regarded as "excellent".

A subjective statement about music such as "that music is great" or  
"that music is garbage" is a statement about the listener's reaction  
to the music.  There have been times where I have played Bach fugues  
and a few people complained.  Their complaint didn't make the fugues  
"bad" -- the complaint had more to do with a gap between what they  
expected and what I played.  Some people simply don't like  
contrapuntal music.

Perhaps I should have played Mozart.  :)

-- Kevin