A GREAT debate! What changed music?

[Yesspaz]

What do you think changed music the most in the 20th Century? My vote was for set drumming. In days before jazz, percussion was split up between many people playing a composer's score. After set drumming, people began to be the whole rhythm sections themselves, thus facilitating improvisation and personality. It paved the way for jazz, rock, etc. Set drumming changed music forever, even before electrification and more prominently than electrification. For instance, there are many, many all acoustic groups out there, but they have a set drummer. Can't do music today without set drums, unless you're an orchestra.

[JR42]

My vote is for Radio; this made an enormous impact on the Worlds cultural development throughout the twentieth century. I think it is very difficult for us now to imagine what it would be like not to have radio, and how much it has changed things!

Radio has contributed massivly to a cross-fertilisation of musical forms and an expolosion of creativity. Not forgetting the access it gives to a world-wide market; resultant revenues have clearly fed musical development (although it could also be argued that the 'big bucks' are now stifling creativity!).

[ivan_2068]

Great thread, I'm new in this forum but old in some others, and never saw a similar thread before.

I can't vote for just one option, because I believe some of the facts mentioned are really important for the change of music as we know it, I'll mention some:

Set drumming: Of course the developement of the drums is basic for the big change, percussion passed to be an important part of the music instead of simply an auxiliar instrument, one man alone can handle the rythm instead of needing many percussionists that very often were not born to play together.

Electrification: Jazz and Rock couldn't develope without electrification, not to talk about Prog' Rock with Mellotron, Hammond, Organs, etc.

The switch from musician as performer of someone else's work, to musician as composer: Basic!!!! the performer can express his own feelings and inspiration, also knows what music is perfect for his style and skills. When playing other composer's music you can't transmit what the composer wanted to tell the audience.

Live Touring: I believe you don't fully understand a band until you are in front of them, people can identify better with their favourite musician when part of the audience. Gabriel Genesis shows told the audience more of the story and songs than a simple album (extrange thing to admit when I heve never seen them alive except on bootlegs).
Concerts are also important to realize the exact valuse of a musician or band, because with today's tecnology you can do magic in a recording srudio, but the audience is a monster of 1000 heads ready to find the smallest mistake and lapidate you or to love you instantly.

Iván

PS: Please excuse me for my poor english, it's only my second language.

I'd go for All of the above plus!

The main thing that has changed music the MOST in the 20th Century (or ANY century come to that) is the Human Desire for experimentation. Examples of this being:

Beethoven writing Symphonies twice the length of the norm; shocking at the time.

The move away from writing purely Tonal music by the likes of Webern, Schoenburg and Berg.

The coming of the minimalist movement and the work of composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and John Adams. The most striking example has to be John Cage's work culminating in the purely silent 4' 33''..........I actually have a CD of a performance of this.

Miles Davis developing the idea of "Fusion" from which came the inspiration for a lot of bands that we have on AM.

And just to get a bit of British interest here the desire to write extended theme works by the likes of The Moody Blues, Yes and Jethro Tull were an important part of the development of Prog.

Yesspaz, your list is extensive and extemely valid but without the Human Spirit.........who knows what we'd be listening to.

Thank God for Human Spirit!

As an afterthought.

The use of narcotics, especially L.S.D. caused a massive change in music. The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Hawkwind wouldn't have written some of their greatest work if it hadn't been for the odd trip or two.

[Yesspaz]

Ah, Narcotics. I believe that that would fall under "Other."

[Yesspaz]

Everyone has to vote!



...please...

[HORDE]

Drug Experimentation..lol The record industries perception of the artist as just a bottom line. I think that has stifled the creativity of an artist. That and way too many prefabricated artists like Britney Spears, Destinys Child, Boys to Men...etc. The idea that a person can create a cookie cutter band that makes millions has definitley hurt the music industry.

Maybe I am out of touch but I really hate alot of the new artists out there. What happened to musicians that can actually play an instrument and singers that can sing and songs that last longer than 3 minutes. Hopefully music will go full circle and get back to bands that have creativity and imagination again.

[Yesspaz]

Hey HORDE, I agree with you about radio being horrible.

Hopefully music will go full circle and get back to bands that have creativity and imagination again.

Well, here's a place for you to start. Check out these bands:

Tarentel, Tortoise, Sixpence None the Richer, Stavesacre, King Black Acid, Turing Machine, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Fontanelle, Billy Mahonie, Don Caballero, and Sigur Ros. All these bands are working today and are worth checking out.

[HORDE]

Yesspaz I love your signature, "Prog isn't dead, it just smells like jazz."

How true it is.

[Yesspaz]

thanks, it's a rip on Zap's "Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" quote.

[black max]

I'll vote for computers/programming, not because I think it's a definitive "right" answer, but because it's worth mentioning. Yea zillions of people have been able to make music without learning complex instrumentation through the medium of computers; professional musicians have been able to play with different sounds and instruments that they don't know how to play per se through electronics.

Not that this is always a good thing by any means, but then, nothing is.

And speaking of "other," I was listening to some old Hawkwind this morning while driving to work, and tranced out so hard I almost wrecked the car. The drugs those cats took 30 years ago still have an effect....!

[jtmckinley]

Originally Posted by black max

I'll vote for computers/programming, not because I think it's a definitive "right" answer, but because it's worth mentioning. Yea zillions of people have been able to make music without learning complex instrumentation through the medium of computers; professional musicians have been able to play with different sounds and instruments that they don't know how to play per se through electronics.

Not that this is always a good thing by any means, but then, nothing is.

I have to agree with black max, I almost voted for electrification, but when I started thinking about it, it seemed that computers/software (C/S from here on) really has made the most change in music in the 20th (and now 21st) century. I'm including ICs, analog signal processing, DSP, sampling, waveform editing, MIDI, synthesis, looping, instrument/amp/room simulation etc. all under C/S. Electrification allowed people to be heard by bigger audiences, and amplification allowed for some interesting tonal changes like distortion, but the instruments still sounded pretty similar and you still needed somebody to play the parts. It's arguable whether one should include old analog circuits under C/S but I do since after all the very first computers were analog and modern signal processing almost always has some software running somewhere, so I'm seperating simple amplification from the rest and calling that electrification since for many years that was pretty much all there was.

C/S has allowed the creation of music/sounds that simply couldn't be produced previously. In addition C/S allows one to write music that may be unplayable by humans (some of FZ's polyrhythmic music borders on this). C/S has also allowed composers to hear music they wrote without having to hire people to play it. I'm not saying that not hiring musicians is a good thing, but it does let one work things out on one's own before spending a lot of money to pay people to play it, especially in the case of orchestral music (FZ is again a good example of this and it is likely why he started using the synclavier so much). Also as black max mentioned it allows people who can't even play an instrument to make music, sometimes even with interesting results. And then there is all the recording/mixing/mastering stuff that can be done, well you get the idea...

Originally posted by black max
And speaking of "other," I was listening to some old Hawkwind this morning while driving to work, and tranced out so hard I almost wrecked the car. The drugs those cats took 30 years ago still have an effect....!

Too right!!

I was at a Hawkwind gig at Stone(d)henge some years back and I still get flashbacks to when they played 'Levitation' and I found myself dancing naked round the stones.

Not a pretty sight I'm reliably informed.

[gilbertopb]

I vote for "others". I think we have more freedom to try and to do really diferent things without being hidden in the cellar, and not being burned by inquisition.

[jm0313]

I call the present popular music "McDonald's" music. Just keep recording the same safe stuff over& over, force market the personalities to the masses for easy access and VOILA! mega-bucks for the record companies.

[Methem]

(An old thread that might be interesting to some.)

[Rick and Roll]

Originally Posted by Methem

(An old thread that might be interesting to some.)

Thanks for resurrecting some old threads Methem. I really like the other one ("roots"). However, I'm not enamored with this one. The question is too broad, and it assumes you're talking about specific genres.

Music evolves, retreats, always changes yet remains set in certain constants.

It's an impossible question as stated.

[sharcnorris]

Originally Posted by Methem

(An old thread that might be interesting to some.)

doh !!

[VAXman(Admin)]

I voted "other". The transistor as employed in the transistor radio changed they way people heard music. They were cheap and portable. No longer did people have to sit around in the parlor listening to the old radio behemouth in the corner. It also helped to segregate the listening audience. The kids no longer had to listen to what mom and dad programmed on the dial. It also enabled the advent of the portable music device too. Once this happened, the radio stations could tailor their playlists to audience demographics and thus, it enabled audiences to experience a broader and more diversified world of music. Take a look at when the modern music industry exploded on the scene... just about the same time as the transistor radio.

FWIW, the transistor is probably, if not, the most inportant invention of the 20th century too... our lives have been forever altered by it.

[roger]

good thought, Vax.

now if we can only get rid of Spaz's signature....