Music appreciation

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Termyn8or -> Music appreciation (6/22/2008 6:19:40 AM)
There are new and old versions of many songs, and of course when it comes to classical even more. I am learning music slow but sure, as such I have many questions and though I don't expect many answers, who knows what I might get. I have seen old and new versions of movies, and for some reason I tend to like the old version better. Perhaps I have a nostalgia bone in me that causes that. Like I see they made a remake of the movie "Gone In Sixty Seconds". I have no desire to see it, I saw the original. The stunt driver almost died making the original, and I don't know about the new one, but in the old one the car thieves got away with it. Anyway here I have two of the same piece of music, both well done, both good, but vastly different. Is music written to be interpreted ? It seems to be. The old version is here : http://members.aol.com/JURB6005/ac7.mp3 That is the old version. Listen to it first. It is about two minutes long. Now the new version : http://members.aol.com/JURB6005/eb7.mp3 The original is listed as being Al Cariota, no doubt the name of the conductor. The second is listed as being by Elmer Bernstein. Same piece of music, but done very differently. I think Bernstein took alot of liberties when arrainging that piece. Is that how it works ? You write a piece of music and they can embellish it ? Doesn't the composer have a certain sound in his mind, which really can't be put to paper ? I'm sure just about everyone has heard the song "We Don't Get Fooled Again", and one time I saw it performed unplugged. Nothing but the lead singer and an acoustic guitar. I thought it was great but I haven't been able to get it. I like a hell of alot of music, but I like 'natural' music the best. Maybe I'm a square, but I don't care. Before I die I want to try every musical instrument I can get my hands on. I am majorly into electronics and am thoroughly unimpressed by the multitude of sounds electronics can produce. They can take a recording of you dropping a hammer onto a metal bucket and tune it so you can use it as a voice on the keyboard. I could have such a keyboard but instead I opted for a good quality electronic piano with weighted keys which sounds really good. I know it is electronic, but I also know that reproducing a piano, something existing, is harder than coming up with a new sound. Back to the point. Anyone around who likes classical music, ac7 is the old version and eb7 is the new version. Which do you prefer ? The purity, coherence to the 'script' of the old one, or the embellishment in the new one ? There are new and old versions of ZZ Top - Lagrange which are hard to tell apart. There are also old and new versions of Gary Wright - Dream Weaver and Kenny Rogers - The Gambler. In each case I prefer the old version. What say you ? Comments. T

pinkieplum -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 8:30:46 AM)
i am a musical idijit, Termy. i hardly ever remember the names of songs and stuff. There was a time in my life when i was really into classical and had favorite composers and even favorite pieces...but i've forgotten most it. All still remember is i liked Dvorak and Cohen very much. The sound on my pc isn't working so i can't play the pieces You posted. Sorry. As a rule i never like a movie as well as i liked the book, and the re-make of the movie seems terrible to me. Maybe it's nostaligia; maybe it's just that the first time was the best. pinkieplum

NeedingMore220 -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 8:42:34 AM)
Unfortunately, I can't open the second piece. Where is this from - what movie or tv show? It's driving me nuts now to place it! Bernstein was a prolific composter for tv and movies - it could be that he took the original music and adapted it to fit whatever he was writing for. Hard to say without hearing it, though.

Wildfleurs -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 9:19:20 AM)
FR ~ Its funny I was just talking with my owner about this last night. Personally my preference is for the original composition (i didn't listen to your examples, I'm just speaking in broad terms) - however as he pointed out (which I knew but had forgotten), a lot of classical music (especially Romantic era classical music) is based off of pre-existing folk music - a perfect example being Dvorak. While I was a musician, I sucked rocks at composing anything but basically these days most people that write music should or do know about basic chordal progressions and scales (most basic really being I-V-I that if I remember was in a lot of Bach's music) and thats really the basis for writing music. A lot of times composers will take themes from a piece of music and switch around how the melody is presented, but how they do it I suspect really varies on the composer I'm speaking in really broad generalities from what I remember from taking way to many music theory and composition classes. C~

hizgeorgiapeach -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 10:13:41 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: NeedingMore220 Unfortunately, I can't open the second piece. Where is this from - what movie or tv show? It's driving me nuts now to place it! Bernstein was a prolific composter for tv and movies - it could be that he took the original music and adapted it to fit whatever he was writing for. Hard to say without hearing it, though. Magnificent Seven - themesong/introduction piece. The Cariola version is actually the Adaptation (the first downloadable) - the music was originally composed by Bernstein for the movie, in several parts/movements. The opening movement, which is what people generally recognize, has been conducted since then by several maestros who do their own "take" on things - much like what happens with classical music and opera. Dvorak is one of the best known examples of Classical Composers who used folk themes. There were quite a few - he was simply honest enough to admit it up front. Like Wildfleurs, I did a stint as a musician, though my time was strictly as a vocalist. That didn't mean I wasn't required to take the other courses though. I can't Play to save my life - my piano instructor during college was certain that I was positively hopeless, since my hands are to small to even manage a full octave spread without some serious twisting, and trying to play banjo never really went anywhere since I couldn't seem to develop sufficient calluses. (That probably came from lack of dilligence on my own part!) Come to think of it - the professor who taught Music Theory & Composition considered me "hopeless" as well - I never Did learn how to sightsing, and it takes me time to actually Think about it to read music. I never needed to learn as a kid - I'm strictly a vocalist, and my ear has always been good enough to hear something once or twice and reproduce it. Composing is completely beyond me. While I can Technically do it - the chord progressions and such are known, I've had all the theory, etc - it also requires raw Talent to create NEW music. And it's simply a talent that I was Not gifted with. Doing arrangements of already written pieces is relatively simple - but even knowing How it's done doesn't mean it'll necessarily be Good. (Fleurs - for vocalists the progression tends to run I-III-V-III-I or I-V-VII-III-I for vocalization exercises, depending on just how much of a prick the coach is!)

mefisto69 -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 10:13:50 AM)
Term - i couldn't hear the second link either. But - to your question: yes - arrangers can pretty much take any liberty with the original score. Try to keep in mind the cultural aesthetics of the period where you've drawn your first experience. Take into account the technology available in that day as well. Jazz is the most common genre to recieve new treatments for every version you might hear. And if the composer is not alive and on hand at the recording session, even music with long standing traditions will get a recorded treatment of the conductors personal 'vision' of that music. Yes, i studied classical orchestration as well as jazz arranging becasue i Had to know it all. I also spent years working with Arp, Moog, Buchla and Serge analog synthesis, followed by the Alpha Syntauri and Synclavier. I currently work with a Kyma/Capybara system in my studio for sound design and use 2 digital pianos as controllers. Uh huh - I play late 20th century post avante-garde music in concert but i also enjoy big band and ( shhhh ) broadway musicals.

NeedingMore220 -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 10:17:59 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: hizgeorgiapeach Magnificent Seven - themesong/introduction piece. THANK you!! That was going to bug me all day ...

Alumbrado -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 10:29:33 AM)
So Termy thinks that the original composer, Bernstein 'took a lot of liberties' because his own piece doesn't sound like Cariola's arrangement, and he can't seem to find a song called "We Don't Get Fooled Again"? Imagine that...[;)]

Termyn8or -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 12:40:38 PM)
Sorry about that second link, I have also noticed that it won't play in Mediaplayer. I use a different program for music, so I just didn't know. So, Alum, basically yes. First of all I had no idea Bernstein wrote it. It's a movie theme, I don't keep up on such things. And it is the unplugged version of We Don't Get Fooled Again that I can't find. So you are right, but for some reason you decided to be abrasive, but that's cool because I have some rough edges. Anyway, being enlightened so, the topic may be slightly modified. It seems more like whether you prefer the new and improved or the old version. If it was the original composer who took liberties with the piece so be it. But I think alot of that is going around anyway. My focus was on whether a remake is better. So Bernstein took his own piece and rearrainged it, and embellished on it, but most likely so have a few others. Musical composition is fascinating to me. Yngwie Malmstein did a heavy metal rock version of The Barber Of Seville, and ELO's Roll over Beethoven made the charts bigtime. Those are the same notes as in a classical piece that may have been written hundreds of years ago. If anyone wants do discuss it but can't open the second file, I got one word - Irfanview. I would gladly upload a copy of it, not the newest version but it uncannily has the ability to open alot of files nothing else seems to be able to work with. I don't know why the file won't open normally. Irfanview is totally portable, just runs as an executable and requires no installation whatsoever. At least the version I have. I'm sure you can get the latest version at irfanview.com. Anyway, is new and improved always better ? T

mefisto69 -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 2:04:05 PM)
a definite not always. Joe Cocker did a bang up job covering the Beatles. "With a Little Help From My Friends" , and many others.... they're different < arranged for his style as are 'covers' for any other artist.

Evility -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 5:51:32 PM)
What's interesting is to hear a version of a song that is not the author's version first. Two come to mind and they were both written by the same songwriter - John Hiatt. Jeff Healey covered "Angel Eyes". Healey's was the first version I heard and I prefer it over Hiatt's version. Another is "Have A Little Faith In Me" covered by Joe Cocker. I also prefer Cocker's version to Hiatt's. In listen mostly to pop and rock music. There are many times that I like the new version of an old song simply because the newer recording is of much better quality. There are lots of great sixties songs that were recorded on very spartan equipment. I generally prefer the new version to the old simply because the recording is more robust unless they go off on some weird tangent with the arrangement.

slvemike4u -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 6:54:11 PM)
Try" Baba o'Riley" and you will find the song Your referring to as "won't get fooled again"

Termyn8or -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 6:56:08 PM)
No, that's the one people call Teenage Wasteland. T

slvemike4u -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 7:00:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Termyn8or No, that's the one people call Teenage Wasteland. T [/quote) okay iI will take one order of crow with a side of humble pie,my apologies terminator I was mist...mistak....wrong...there I said it

Alumbrado -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 7:46:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: slvemike4u Try" Baba o'Riley" and you will find the song Your referring to as "won't get fooled again" The name of the song is 'Won't Get Fooled Again', ('...we'll be fighting in the streets...') not 'We Don't Get Fooled Again', And Baba O'Riley is the one with the synthesizer sounding intro seguing into 'Out here in the fields'...(it's only teenage wasteland').

slvemike4u -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 7:54:36 PM)
yeah Alumbrado ,I had a momentery brain seizure all is well now(might have been due to all those substances ingested at all those Who concerts many years ago)

Alumbrado -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 7:57:46 PM)
Well, no one ever accused the Who of needlessly using a new riff where a familar one would do...[;)]

slvemike4u -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 8:04:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alumbrado Well, no one ever accused the Who of needlessly using a new riff where a familar one would do...[;)] Or of letting the death of a member stand in the way of a few bucks...[8\|]

Alumbrado -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 8:18:29 PM)
LOL! I seem to recall an interview with Townsend (GP maybe?) after Moon's death where he said they were flooded by so many people wanting to be their new drummer, that they started answering the phone calls 'What? We just managed to get rid of the last one, why would we want another???'

slvemike4u -> RE: Music appreciation (6/22/2008 8:23:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alumbrado LOL! I seem to recall an interview with Townsend (GP maybe?) after Moon's death where he said they were flooded by so many people wanting to be their new drummer, that they started answering the phone calls 'What? We just managed to get rid of the last one, why would we want another???' Replacing Moon ,no matter how improbable,made sense in that they were still a vibrant band making new albums and such.Performing what was it the night or 2 nights after Townsend was found dead in a Vegas hotel room that was just crass...

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