for the composing asks: 10, 12, 17, and 1 because even at yesterday's graduation ceremony, we could not escape it. i (as you know) don't even really have Opinions about music but i am sworn to forever hate the canon in D in solidarity with my brother, who plays the cello.
10. strangest thing youāve heard a non-musician say about music?so i have no way of proving that this person was Not A Musician, but at one point back in high school i saw someone post in an online forumĀ āremember everyone, music theory is a theory, not a factā a la Creationist ~critiques~ of evolution. that was the entirety of their post, there was no further context or explanation, and they didnāt reappear in the thread during the subsequent confusion. tbh i think itās kind of beautiful
12. favorite music theory pun?there are so many ways i could go here. on the one hand, thereās the uber nerdyĀ āactual examples of musical punsā like the tonic becoming the third of bVI (which iām always a sucker for) or the retroactive transformation ofĀ āLisbonā into a giant anacrusis toĀ āHorkstow Grangeā in Lincolnshire PosyĀ or the way German augmented sixth chords are also dominant chords in another key (BONUS POINTS if thereās tritone substitution going on the possibilities are ENDLESS) or this one piece called EndsongĀ where the last note was a G b/c the piece [ends]on[g] or this one time where i was setting a text that took place on a beach and used repeated Cs to represent the waves of the sea or Satieās response when someone told him he had no sense of form (ie Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear)Ā and also literally all of PDQ Bachās tempo indications, but OTOH thereās the classicĀ āa C, an Eb, and a G walk into a bar, the bar tender saysĀ āhey! we donāt serve minors in here!ā and throws the Eb out, so the C and the G share an open fifth between them ā¦Ā ā esp in its extended version that ends with several sonorities being put under a rest and sentenced to several years of DC without chance of Coda, but like tbh who hasnāt heard that one before and iām getting a little tired of it. so, uh ā¦Ā
in the afterlife, Messiaen decides that heās said everything he wanted to with music, and takes up sculpture instead. rather taken with the genderless nature of the Angels of the Lord, he settles pretty quickly into only working from models who are outside of the Western gender binary. (he doesnāt work directly from the Angels. that would be Presumptuous.) heās an industrious fellow, and is really churning these sculptures out, but soon people notice that, no matter how people pose for him, the statues always wind up in one of three identical poses. that seems a little odd, so finally somebody asks him about it. is this something heās doing on purpose?Ā āoh yesā, Messiaen replies,Ā āitās entirely deliberate. after all, i only work with limited trans positionsā
(ā¦ iāll show myself out)
17. if you had to kill one, which would you choose: shostakovich, tchaikovsky, or prokofiev?plot twist: THEYāRE ALL ALREADY DEAD #MyWorkHereIsDone
uh, more seriously tho: i would probably say Prokofiev. not because of any dislike of his music, but b/c he died on the same day as Joseph Stalin, so he never really got the funeral he deserved. like, what a shitty way to go. all of that totalitarianism and artistic suppression and then not only to you not get to outlive the tyrant, he totally obliterates your funeral notices as well. what a dick. so yeah, iād definitely be down to give Prokofiev another chance at the death thing so he could do it without a genocidal totalitarian stealing his thunder
1. on a scale of 1-10, how deep is your hatred towards canon in d?like, maybe a 3? tbh i think itās a nice piece of music, even if it is a little insubstantial. mostly iām just annoyed by the EZ Listening Classics industry that it stands in for ā i understand what the makers of those albums are going for, but like, the perception that classical music is (and onlyĀ is) bland and relaxing high-class muzak is super frustrating to me and directly at odds with everything i love about this music, and the promulgation of things like 50 Most Relaxing Classical TracksĀ doesnāt do much to push back against that trope, to say the least. tbh i find Brahms and Wagner considerably more annoying to play
