Wes Crone:

>But.....I am sure many people would agree that there
>are people out there who, for lack of anything musically interesting,
>churn out cerebral by-products with the intent of becoming the "new"
>avante-garde.  This is just a fact of life.  Why did someone invent a 12
>tone system? How ridiculous is that? The very nature of the system defeats
>any true possibility of inspired art.  the creation of a pre-determined
>system of tones seems to me to be the creation of a mind searching for
>something other than what was presently known.  Doesn't seem like "actual"
>music to me...but rather a new "groundbreaking" idea.  Maybe you can find
>some examples of good 12 tone music but at its very roots lies a striving
>for originality over musicality.

For brevity's sake, I will omit a list of my favorite 12-tone music.

Your point, though, seems confused to me.

Throwing off all systems, and inventing new constraints, are opposite
approaches to creativity and originality, IMO.  Cage and Schoenberg, while
both innovators, are radically different in philosophy as well as results.

Schoenberg (and his ilk) wanted to transcend the limitations of
tonality (or the 20th century's version) but did not want to go towards
improvisation, indeterminacy, aeleatory techniques.  Rather he [they]
invented a new set of constraints in which to work.  This is very different
from abandoning every concievable "musical" concept to re-define art,
artists, music, and like that, as the serious avant-garde did later in
the century.

In short, the 12-tone system's "point" is to provide a new set of
parameters and boundries within which a composer can create music without
abandoning structure altogether.  Cage's "point" seems to be something very
different.

Even abstract/minimalist painters usually have to study still life and
figure drawing before they go for blobs of paint and color.  Constraining
your art (any art) within the parameters of a form forces you to be
creative, solve problems, and innovate without complete rejection of the
past.

Anyone can sit at a piano and start banging.  And anyone can throw paint
at a canvas.  Delimiting these "random" activities by (for instance) using
only shades of blue (or whatever) and forcing yourself to work within some
parameter has a focusing effect, it seems to me.

Enough.  Go get "Lulu".  Tell me it's not "actual music".

Respectfully submitted,

Bob K., last day