Listen To What You Listen To

I was recently at a recital of a friend of mine, Mark Hunsburger. Though the kid has made tons of little tiny changes in his major, I think it's in Music Composition with a Percussion Concentration. During his recital he played a number of different pieces, including very straight-forward classical pieces, a variety of jazz pieces and a very interesting atonal piece that seemed to contain both classical and jazz elements.

Hearing these pieces got me thinking about what goes in to "good" music. I'm not talking about how to write music that will top the charts. What I'm talking about is music that is engaging, intriguing, and, in a sense, musically intellectual. For the most part, this excludes what is on the radio. As many of you know, I have little-to-no interest in pop hits and rock ballads (Obviously, this is an over-generalization of the radio, but a necessary one, as this typifies the radio as it is known today.).

What, then, has Mark's recital caused so much thought on? As with almost anything in life, you get out something similar to what you've put in. The fact that most people feel giddy when the fourth chord of a pop progression resolves and is followed by the first chord says a lot about what they've subjected themselves to - the safe, pleasing sounds of the over-generalized radio hits.

As I listened to Mark's recital, I was overcome with this seemingly elementary realization. Though I've known this seemingly forever, Mark's selections brought this to light. What I feel my writing is missing is the influence from these largely defining periods in musical history. By no means do I plan to learn classical guitar (though it'd be useful ...just not my thing), nor do I plan on becoming any world-renowned jazz guitarist.

What is there to gain, then?

• Classical music is centered around rules and, occasionally, rule breaking. While I may find such rules to be restraining and annoying, some semblance of a rule set is important to hold with you. These may not be as musically defined as avoiding parallel fifths or tritones, but to have your own guidelines to keep you from straying from your goal is important. When you're just playing in your room, it's easy to get distracted from your goals, but if you fall into a writing style so disjunct and unintuitive as to be following every distraction, you will run into serious problems. An unconscious set of rules will help you to be able to write with purpose and direction.
• Additionally, classical music has a strong emphasis on fluid motion. This is not to say that everything ought to flow into the most obvious and direct manner. Instead, this is to say that a composition should not be limited by a verse/chorus format. Classically based music is where you see the idea of a "movement" as a larger entity that flows without the monotony of much repetition. I believe that musically, this is much more interesting than even most things that I find myself writing.
• A lot of what we get from jazz is the connection between the performer and the music. The idea of improvisation is so heavily jazz influenced in this way. Basically, improv is the musicians response to what he is hearing - helping to bring unparalleled unity between music and musician. By this point I am not saying that all music ought to be improvisational. Rather, it is so much better to play and become one with the music than merely playing pitch-for-pitch a piece with no emotion. Music is art and art is, very much, emotion.
• From jazz we also see a lot of deviations from the original key of the piece. This adds so much depth and character to music if done right. Sure, the masses want to hear pure resolution and tonal monotony, but that's not really what music should be about. As an art form, it should be about the art.

Beyond just classical and jazz there are tons of other genres that have a lot to offer - moreso than radio stereotypes. For my personal music endeavors, I'm thinking stuff like gypsy jazz, traditional world-folk music, flamenco, and a host of others. These may not necessarily benefit whatever you're writing, but studying these less culturally-corrupt genres will inspire less watered down, musically droning music. And really, if you're any kind of musician, you don't want to be writing music that sucks...

With that, I give you all a homework assignment. Look up Charles Ives' music, specifically Varied Air. I've been listening to that album while writing it and it is genius.

-Alex