Today, it seems like everything new is just electronic music or fusion styles of older stuff. BUT what would it sound like if s completely new style emerged. Do you think it will happen? I've heard people say that music genre is dead and a new style will never emerge because we've done everything there is to do but that is ridiculous. Think about it, there is nothing different about today as there was in the 40's except all the music styles and genres. I'll never believe everything has been done, that's just impossible. I had new idea for a music style which isactual music based off ambient nature sounds and may'be even city scapes. I've found that playing with sounds in the background trying to mimic some of the feels of what you hear that isn't music can make something quite unusual sounding. In addition, the style would also include reverse played instruments and a few sound effects as actual instruments. Normally the music would be written in "free-time" meaning that there would be no time signature. Instead there would be a new rhythmic device to keep time but the idea is a free flowing style that mimics nature and other ambient backgrounds. Basically my question was "what if you could take something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ExXFoGeOQ and make actual music from it with actual instruments" What's your idea for a new style?

That sort of music already exists. Look up R.Murray Schafer and his book "The Tuning of the World". In fact one of our undergrad assignments was a 10 minute soundscape (I *think* that guy coined the term but don't quote me on it). Obviously loads of people have taken it to different angles (though not necessarily further).

To be honest, I don't believe that everything has been done, but I think the evolution of music is a more organic process than having clear cut lines between what is fusion and what is innovative. In terms of living composers, I personally think one of the most innovative has been Tan Dun. Making instruments out of paper/water/etc is nothing new, but incorporating them into large scale instrumental works is interesting. Also Dai Fujikura using electric guitar with classical instruments in "Abandoned Time".

I think there are endless possibilities when it comes to merging fresh sounds together. When we look back over music history, we see the wider picture and notice the drastic changes and are taught about periods and genres. However when you are living through it, change is a very slow process.

In response to your "what would your new style be"... composers have already begun to challenge the idea of the score e.g. 4'33'', graphic scores, written instructions, I even played an orchestral work at uni that was written as a table. I think that kind of thing will go even further and in x amount of years we won't have a standard linear piece of notation any longer.

Really? My idea was using the soundscapes as a sort of percussive background like most songs would have drums. Like I listened to an Ocean soundscape on youtube and played my guitar riff with the rhythm of the ocean waves I heard it was nice and I'm not sure if that is the same thing. This would even have clean electric guitar and piano in it. What do you think of the idea of polyharmony as in having multiple harmonies at the same time in a sort of poly-chord vamp? May'be that's been done before but it's very interesting. The table scores seem confusing to me, it makes since to have a different form of notation especially if we started making more and more complicated music. Btw, my style has singing and lyrics in it it's not just instrumental. But I'd wondered for a while why couldn't we have music written in the rhythm of nature sounds itself or other a-rhythmic sounds?

But I'd wondered for a while why couldn't we have music written in the rhythm of nature sounds itself or other a-rhythmic sounds?

Here's an interesting example. :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGovCafPQAE

Really? My idea was using the soundscapes as a sort of percussive background like most songs would have drums. Like I listened to an Ocean soundscape on youtube and played my guitar riff with the rhythm of the ocean waves I heard it was nice and I'm not sure if that is the same thing. This would even have clean electric guitar and piano in it...my style has singing and lyrics in it it's not just instrumental.

Yeah it's been done. Example I heard an amazing recording (at uni, don't remember who made it) of someone in a train station in Paris. They recorded the background (wind, footsteps, conversation, trains, announcements etc) and improvised on top of it with instruments. Most of it was barely recognisable as individual instruments, it merged so well with the soundscape. I thought it was genius. In terms of nature soundscapes with lyrics and instrumental over the top, you can get CDs full of the stuff from most new age stores. It's not "new", but you could definitely get money from it if you wanted to go down that route.



What do you think of the idea of polyharmony as in having multiple harmonies at the same time in a sort of poly-chord vamp? May'be that's been done before but it's very interesting.

Polyharmony is definitely very interesting and worth exploring, but composers have been experimenting with it for years. You get a lot of bitonality in impressionism for example. In Messiaen, sometimes you get all 12 notes in one chord, but spaced in such a way that it doesn't sound like a simple cluster. There are literally loads of 20th century piano pieces where one hand plays white keys and the other plays black keys. I personally think that you can never exhaust the possibilities of harmony because there's infinite combinations, especially if you count microtones.


But I'd wondered for a while why couldn't we have music written in the rhythm of nature sounds itself or other a-rhythmic sounds?

I outright disagree with the term "arhythmic". I think rhythm plays a part in our perception of the world. Our perception of time is based on rhythm, both man made (seconds, clocks etc) and inbuilt (circadian). Even Cage's 4'33'' which is the absolute pinnacle of natural sounds as a piece of music has rhythms within each performance.

We can stretch boundaries and experiment and come up with infinite combinations of the various elements of music, but we can't redefine them. Most would name these elements as melody, harmony, rhythm. Melody= pitch classes. You can't reinvent the note C. Any sequence of pitches is a melody of some kind. If you remove pitch then you are left with just rhythm (there are pieces out there like this). Harmony= combinations of pitch classes in different intervals. Again, you can combine them in any way you like and make beautiful sounds, but any combination comes under harmony nonetheless. I've already discussed rhythm.

This is kind of what I was saying when I said the evolution of music is an organic process... everything comes from the same core.

When I say arhythmic I mean without a fixed time signature. That example is basically what I'm talking about but the woman is singing it, that's kind of strange but cool too but I think it'd sound better with instruments. Poly harmony is hard to write though because I'm not sure how to actually make a poly chord without it sounding really muddy. I've done it before. I had a progression in the bass being played as a slower progression of two polychords that was played above it and all that was a single polychord, then it had a second polychord but it didn't sound as good as the first. Polyharmony is difficult to compose and orchestrate well because we're not used to it.

I don't know how much you know about him, but from you're getting at I would suggest looking at Messiaen as a starting point/possible influence.

Very few of his pieces have a fixed time signature, though they do have a pulse. He did very interesting things with rhythm, but so have a lot of other composers in fairness for example Ligeti is a particularly impressive one.

Definitely look at Messiaen for the voicing/orchestration of polychords/polyharmony in general. Perhaps start with something simple (not to play but to deal with as a score) like his Preludes or the less-complex Vingt Regards before you go into his orchestral works. His thing was the notation of birdsong, but if you look at something like the Catalogue d'Oiseaux you get the mimicry of other natural sounds- a particularly good one is La rousserolle effarvatte (though it is very long).

Also I should add that the difference between clear and muddy polyharmony brings with it different colours as well. Muddy polyharmony can work if you want something to sound really gritty like in parts of The Rite of Spring.

Hmm true, it does depend on context. There would need to be a new chord notation to notate it to prevent the chord names being something like:

Dm7 - G - A OVER C9 - F I dunno, I guess you'd have to have names for the different chord forms.

Mmm, there actually is standard notation for polychords. The "A over C9" would be written as A/C9.

It's extremely common in jazz theory. Might wanna check some of that out. You'd be surprised how incredibly in depth players like McCoy Tyner is with his improvisations. Check out this recording:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXnxoI8cliU

EDIT:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvmJHprG_Fg

Okay, so this tune by Tyner actually is composed all of sus4 chords (not a suspended 4th... I know its misleading, but trust me on that ha).

The A section consists of one extended F7sus4... which is realized as F7 /Eb

The B section consists of all (except for the turn around at the end) sus chords, and follows this: Cbsus4 - Dbsus4 ... Absus4 - Cbsus4 - Ebsus4 - Dbsus4 ... repeat ... Db/Ebmin - Ebminor ... repeat x3 - Eb7#9 - C7#9.

Enjoy the solos. But seriously, check out jazz, especially Tyner and John Coltrane to get started.

Oh cool! Sounds nice. Another thing was the idea of having an arrangement where each part didn't have to be in sync rhythmically or harmonically. Meaning that it would sound like multiple simpler songs being played at once but yet has some form of cohesion. Not sure what that's called. I just call it polymusic

Polyphony :)

You should check out Charles Ives. He wrote lots of stuff worth listening to, but check out something like The Fourth of July or Central Park in the Dark. He layers lots of different things on top of each other; ragtime, folk music, popular American songs of the time, marching band music, etc etc. I think I remember being told that The Fourth of July needs two conductors because the texture is so complex.

To some people it sounds like a dissonant mess, but I enjoy his music.