Musings on genius old and new, & the song
Did you ever, in the past, hear people speak of someone like Bob Dylan as a genius? It would make me laugh because if you consider the actual amount of music he "composed", when compared to someone like Beethoven, he really composed very little. No matter how good you might think Dylan's records sound – I do like most of them and there should be no doubting his importance in the history of modern "pop/rock" music - all he actually had to do was come up with the guitar chords, the melody of the sung part and the words. OK, sometimes he did play the piano part, but mostly it was just guitar. The words were perhaps the most difficult part.
The rest of all his music, and the music of all other bands or solo singers, was created by all the musicians who would play whatever seemed to "go with" what Dylan, or whoever, was singing and playing. Rare exceptions to this rule were when producers would organise “session musicians” to play for pop singers but even then it might only be the string parts that were written down.
Sure, the Bob Dylans or Stevie Wonders or any of the dozens of other "geniuses" of the modern music world may give some kind of overall direction to the other musicians who play in their bands or on their records. At times they may even tell them exactly what and how to play. But how can that, and the combined length of their recorded music, even begin to compare with the facts that people like Beethoven wrote down every single note for every type of instrument, and the combined length of melodies in all those parts might come to hundreds, even thousands, of hours.
By way of comparison, if you add up the length of the vocal melodies on the records of pop/rock celebrities, what might you have? Hmmm... Each CD about 45 minutes? That would be - if ten albums were recorded over ten years, say, (and not many modern artistes have recording careers that long-lasting) - 450 minutes or a little over 7 hours, of which a good proportion is usually instrumental parts played and invented by the other musicians.
Doesn’t this pale into insignificance compared to the output of a Beethoven. And yet, it is the accepted standard for many a modern “genius”.
Even the sheet music for any modern song contains only the relatively simple transcription for piano, the words and markings for the various, but usually quite limited, guitar chords. Is that transcription done by the "composer"? Not likely. The record company takes care of all that. And since the piano part would be the same for all verses, you can be sure that if the song was written out in full, all the music for the first verse would simply be copied and pasted for all the other verses using computer software. No chance of a Diabelli variation there… Keep it as simple as you can so more very average pianists can play it, leading to more sales.
Jazz music kept the classical faith during those few decades of the big band era when arrangements were done for individual instruments. But smaller groups became the norm, and you only need to look at the jazz music “bible”, the Real Book, with its transcriptions of repertoire standards, and you will learn that it shows only the main melody and the chord notations written above it. It must be said that many of these jazz chords were a great contrast to - and much more complex than - the “dummed down” tonic, dominant and sub-dominant that were the standard fare of rock’n’roll and the later and present pop eras.
If you wanted to play those jazz chords, you really did need to know your stuff. And of course, by the time the Real Book appeared, jazz had become again what it had been in its beginning: mainly an unwritten genre. Just like the giants, Beethoven and Bach - among others of the classical era - you had to be able to work it out as you played it: by improvising. You weren’t supposed to need all the written melodies, and harmony? It was up to the players to figure that out. That took talent, and you might have to do it over hundreds of performances during your career, and if you could not improvise, it could become very boring. So I can understand and accept the label of genius for a Charlie Parker or Louis Armstrong, even if their recorded output did not amount to hundreds of hours.
But the song is still king. This puzzles me. You can understand how the technology of the times created the popularity of the three minute song, firstly on 78rpm records, But even after the advent of the 33rpm “long-playing” record with its “twenty continuous minutes per side” possibility, the short-song format thrived, reinforced by the hit song equivalent of the 78: 7” 45 rpm singles.
You no longer needed that great musicianly skill yourself - or alternatively, live musicians - to hear the music of your choice in your own home, as long as your choice had been recorded. And during the lifetime of the long-playing vinyl record, quite a few progressive pop and jazz groups did experiment with longer group compositions, sometimes filling a whole side with one piece.
However, that was by far the exception rather than the rule and the three minute song has prevailed, with most “albums” still having ten to twelve songs.
Why is it that in this more modern era of the 700 mg compact disc - and even longer DVD format - the song is still king?
Perhaps people on dance floors only have the stamina for three minutes at a time before sitting down for a drink. Does anyone have any other answers or suggestions as to why this is so?
The rest of all his music, and the music of all other bands or solo singers, was created by all the musicians who would play whatever seemed to "go with" what Dylan, or whoever, was singing and playing. Rare exceptions to this rule were when producers would organise “session musicians” to play for pop singers but even then it might only be the string parts that were written down.
Sure, the Bob Dylans or Stevie Wonders or any of the dozens of other "geniuses" of the modern music world may give some kind of overall direction to the other musicians who play in their bands or on their records. At times they may even tell them exactly what and how to play. But how can that, and the combined length of their recorded music, even begin to compare with the facts that people like Beethoven wrote down every single note for every type of instrument, and the combined length of melodies in all those parts might come to hundreds, even thousands, of hours.
By way of comparison, if you add up the length of the vocal melodies on the records of pop/rock celebrities, what might you have? Hmmm... Each CD about 45 minutes? That would be - if ten albums were recorded over ten years, say, (and not many modern artistes have recording careers that long-lasting) - 450 minutes or a little over 7 hours, of which a good proportion is usually instrumental parts played and invented by the other musicians.
Doesn’t this pale into insignificance compared to the output of a Beethoven. And yet, it is the accepted standard for many a modern “genius”.
Even the sheet music for any modern song contains only the relatively simple transcription for piano, the words and markings for the various, but usually quite limited, guitar chords. Is that transcription done by the "composer"? Not likely. The record company takes care of all that. And since the piano part would be the same for all verses, you can be sure that if the song was written out in full, all the music for the first verse would simply be copied and pasted for all the other verses using computer software. No chance of a Diabelli variation there… Keep it as simple as you can so more very average pianists can play it, leading to more sales.
Jazz music kept the classical faith during those few decades of the big band era when arrangements were done for individual instruments. But smaller groups became the norm, and you only need to look at the jazz music “bible”, the Real Book, with its transcriptions of repertoire standards, and you will learn that it shows only the main melody and the chord notations written above it. It must be said that many of these jazz chords were a great contrast to - and much more complex than - the “dummed down” tonic, dominant and sub-dominant that were the standard fare of rock’n’roll and the later and present pop eras.
If you wanted to play those jazz chords, you really did need to know your stuff. And of course, by the time the Real Book appeared, jazz had become again what it had been in its beginning: mainly an unwritten genre. Just like the giants, Beethoven and Bach - among others of the classical era - you had to be able to work it out as you played it: by improvising. You weren’t supposed to need all the written melodies, and harmony? It was up to the players to figure that out. That took talent, and you might have to do it over hundreds of performances during your career, and if you could not improvise, it could become very boring. So I can understand and accept the label of genius for a Charlie Parker or Louis Armstrong, even if their recorded output did not amount to hundreds of hours.
But the song is still king. This puzzles me. You can understand how the technology of the times created the popularity of the three minute song, firstly on 78rpm records, But even after the advent of the 33rpm “long-playing” record with its “twenty continuous minutes per side” possibility, the short-song format thrived, reinforced by the hit song equivalent of the 78: 7” 45 rpm singles.
You no longer needed that great musicianly skill yourself - or alternatively, live musicians - to hear the music of your choice in your own home, as long as your choice had been recorded. And during the lifetime of the long-playing vinyl record, quite a few progressive pop and jazz groups did experiment with longer group compositions, sometimes filling a whole side with one piece.
However, that was by far the exception rather than the rule and the three minute song has prevailed, with most “albums” still having ten to twelve songs.
Why is it that in this more modern era of the 700 mg compact disc - and even longer DVD format - the song is still king?
Perhaps people on dance floors only have the stamina for three minutes at a time before sitting down for a drink. Does anyone have any other answers or suggestions as to why this is so?
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