bad music

[bloke]

They lost me at tuned bass drums (whereby the tuning of them has nothing to do with any of the keys in which any of the pieces of music are pitched) and working their butts off to perfectly execute shapes that I could randomly draw on a piece of paper.
Finally - if they hadn’t lost me before, they lost me at dragging cheesy props out on to the football field.

[jtm]

Here’s something with Schickele that’s not the usual PDQ Bach or more straight stuff: an arranger duel for obscure instruments with Bill McLaughlin. The segment starts just after 1 hour, 11 minutes in. https://www.prairiehome.org/shows/57843.html

Schickele’s piece starts at about 1:22:40 and includes some fine serpent playing.

I was hoping this was newer than the past ten years, but alas, 2000 was more than 10 years ago.

[Nworbekim]

my bands always tried to entertain... the bulk of our budget came from fans and friends, so we figured that if they liked what we were doing, they'd be more generous with their support. that's not to say we only played JUNK, we challenged our students technically and musically with selections that were enjoyable for the audience.

MARCHING ARTS... i chuckled when i heard that the first time. i spent the majority of my life in bands and never did i feel very artistic on the field. i can see what they're aiming for, but still...

i won't go any further, there's that ever-on-going argument about the pros/cons of marching bands in schools.

referring to one of the original submissions to this discussion... i am RELIEVED to see that i'm NOT the ONLY one not so much THRILLED with modern music. i think the description RANDOM NOISES is pretty fitting.

[Mary Ann]

Just did a park concert last night, and there was quite a bit of blah-blah. Part of it is to give the brass a rest, which is appreciated because theses are pretty intense concerts. And the conductor, who is turning 85 next month, is beloved by all including the band. He tells extremely funny stupid jokes and talks a bit, but not a lot, about the music.
He has started having other conductors do a piece or two, and they blather quite a bit more than he does, with quite a bit less effect. Hopefully they will figure it out. We don't play "noise," just music that people sitting on their blankets and in their beach chairs enjoy. Not an educated group, just one that likes band concerts. They are very well attended.

One of the "guest conductors" for a snippet of a piece was the conductor's granddaughter, who is probably about 18 months at this point. Her daddy held the baton with her and she looked quite happy up there. It's definitely a family affair and a family feel.

[tokuno]

There can be valid reasons for these introductions. Some audiences are genuinely interested in knowing the background of compositions, maybe in an academic or pay setting. Many conductors or ensemble members are quite accomplished and worthy of the listen. Others just think they are. Additionally, some players (smaller ensemble) need a chop break. I have trouble understanding a chop break in an hour set, that's another thing entirely.

At community band concerts, it's to buy our Keystone Cops percussionists time to play instrumental musical chairs & tune the timpani.

For me, it all boils down to knowing the audience and playing to it. Our BQ plays often to assisted living facilities where the average member is "regular folk" who is not especially musically inclined or educated. They are either a "captive audience" or maybe want to escape their current situation for an hour or so and feel alive, not sit there falling asleep or heading off to the bathroom. As "regular folk," they also like to hear what they know from the radio. Program self-indulgent charts (slow, pretty, really old, obscure, classical, etc) add a bit of narration to in an attempt to "educate" the audience, and many look like they long for the grave. We've all been there.

100% agree. Our university conductor adored Alban Berg, Arnold Schonberg, and that ilk, which was fine, because the playbill was posted, and the audience attended of their own informed volition.

Two of my 4 are still in high school, and I've had years of watching the gotta-be-there parents wiggle and squirm through atonal, non-melodic, but "important" music.

I have a 1974 LP of my brother's high school international festival-winning performance in Austria. Lots of polite clapping until a spontaneous swell of exclamations and wild applause after Bugler's Holiday & joyful recognition and then clap-along for Radetzky March.

"In concert, pleasure is the audience's rightful dividend, but the professional musician is involved in a higher quest."
- David McGill, Sound in Motion

[bort2.0]

I played with one band a while back, which consistently played a few "bad" pieces each cycle.

The worst was some composition contest winner (we got to vote, I voted for anything but this piece), which I just couldn't stand. Besides (as I call it) "being a real toe-tapper" , the tuba part was a disaster of really low notes and fast rhythms. At best, it sounded like video game music.

But then, the same group would play some nice classics/fun stuff like Holst, Persichetti, Grainger, Mannin Veen... Even a band arrangement of the Slavonic Dances was pretty cool. Some nice older marches, too.

But sure as hell, there was always a couple of weird pieces. I guess that was the price for the good stuff.

Side note -- I can't understand why every band concert doesn't include at least one good classic march. Ever been to a band concert without a march? It's WEIRD

[bloke]

Beatnik poetry is understandable, and one doesn’t really need to be educated to understand it. The same goes with difficult-to-listen-to music. If it really doesn’t require education or a genius to hear the structure of it and the devices used in it, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult to sit through. Unlike most all idiotic beatnik poetry, a significant amount of ~mediocre~ difficult music has been rubberstamped as “historically significant”.
Just to be clear, my ears, eyebrows, the corners of my mouth, and my brain all perk up when someone plays (and plays well) a really good organ piece by Messiaen… i’ve never been educated regarding his works, but I can tell what’s going on with them without some egghead taking me through them and explaining them to me…and I like them, because they are good.

[Paulver]

Bloke!!........... You really hit on a great topic for discussion with this topic. Maybe we can start a movement to have composers write better and more likeable/listenable music.

I have always said that an audience wants to softly hum or tap their toes at a concert. When I was a church organist, I loved to "make the little old lady in the back pew" cry. "Hopefully, as a result of very competent console playing of a great rendition of some hymn or other emotional piece."

It's nice to see that others are of the same mind as I, and want to hear more "musically appealing" music. My daughter is a junior french horn performance major at Eastman, and some of the concerts are real work to sit through and listen to. I've never heard any of the groups do a bad job on a concert, but I've heard countless (in my opinion) bad pieces being played. They can talk up a storm about a bad piece of music all they want. But..... even after you put lipstick on a pig.............. it's still a pig!!

My daughter has come to "warning me" about certain pieces that are going to be played by the groups she's in. She'll say..... "You're not gonna like this one Dad!!!" Sometimes, after the concert she'll ask.......... "What did you think about the............ "insert some indiscriminate composer's name here?)" Depending on what kind of mood I'm in, I'll either struggle to find something nice to say about it, or I'll simply tell her what I really think. I mostly try to say something nice and encouraging. It's much easier when I like what they've performed.

[Rick Denney]

A lot of band music these days is designed to test a band in competition, not to be truly musical. “Let’s see if we can make the tuba (or whatever) section screw up so that it’s easy to distinguish the winner.” It’s one reason I’ve never been much interested in British brass bands—lots of technique but in pursuit of what? Trophies? Bah! Not worth what it would take to learn treble clef.

For me, music is too important to be about sport. Music as sport is why school band programs struggle for support, too. The argument that music is educational like language, math, science, and history gets undermined when the band director justifies himself with contest results.

I like transcriptions because at least the music started out in the hands of a great composer.

Rick “for whom the tuba is about sound, not notes” Denney

[bloke]

After the tuned bass drums, the weird curved shapes, the silly props, and the little percussion ensemble sections sounding like what standup comics sound like when they put their mouth on the microphone (attempting to imitate a marching band), the most anticlimactic point of all is the awarding of the trophies.

…but Rick brought up another cultural disaster: graded “band pieces”

bloke “Hey… We just played Mahler II… It’s a Grade 6, you know.”

[Jperry1466]

For me, music is too important to be about sport. Music as sport is why school band programs struggle for support, too. The argument that music is educational like language, math, science, and history gets undermined when the band director justifies himself with contest results.

Amen! I've been preaching this for many many years. Way back when, Texas bands went to UIL contest, it was about an evaluation against a standard (yes, ratings), but it was designed to show bands and directors where they should improve to get a more musical product. Heck, when we came back with a 1st Division, we pronounced ourselves the best in the state - along with all the other best in the states. When contests, notably marching, went to a state level competition with winners and losers, I said they were trying to make band into a sport, and it was not. The lust for trophies extends all the way down into tiny bands in tiny towns, and I tell these young directors that they need to entertain the people who pay the taxes. I point out the cost of instruments, uniforms, equipment, music, transportation, etc. and remind them that they can be replaced by a Jumbotron which will be a lot less expensive to maintain over the long haul.

And don't let me get started on paying for very weird and expensive drill charting (not to mention "choreography") and "commissioned" music that is too weird for human consumption. Thanks for this thread. Good to know that most of us are of the same mind.

[Rick Denney]

For us, marching band was about entertaining game attendees. Different music and different show every week, drill designed by the students, etc.

The piece we took to “contest” in my senior year was a transcription of Carmina Burana. Concerts for parents played different music. Reading was still part of UIL.

The piece I played in solo contest was Air and Bourree.

And that was the hard stuff on the Texas UIL list in those days. But neither piece was written or arranged as a “contest” piece—both intended to bring great music to band musicians. New stuff is technically more difficult but musically vacuous. I doubt that kids these days will remember what their contest piece was 46 years later, or if they do, will have a couple of good recordings of it by great orchestras because the experience of performing it made it a favorite for them.

Rick “not all band music is drek but the percentages are not good” Denney

[bloke]

I don’t mind some of the beyond-graded-level wind band music which tends to be rhythmical and tonal puzzles.
… but what I’m talking about is music that not many bands are capable of playing.

[Heavy_Metal]

A lot of band music these days is designed to test a band in competition, not to be truly musical. “Let’s see if we can make the tuba (or whatever) section screw up so that it’s easy to distinguish the winner.” It’s one reason I’ve never been much interested in British brass bands—lots of technique but in pursuit of what? Trophies? Bah! Not worth what it would take to learn treble clef.

Wasn't always this way. Gustav Holst's "Moorside March" is one example. It was written for the 1928 British Brass Band contest as part of "A Moorside Suite", consisting of a Scherzo, a Nocturne and the march. I'll admit the march had to grow on me, but it's now one of my favorites of his. The other two movements are also quite enjoyable IMHO. The entire suite was also transcribed for orchestra, but AFAIK not for concert band (yet).

I like transcriptions because at least the music started out in the hands of a great composer.

For those not aware, back in the day, orchestral transcriptions were a mainstay of touring bands' (Sousa, Goldman, Fillmore et al) repertoires. These bands played in a lot of places that didn't have orchestras, and they brought this music to people who might otherwise have never heard it. I would say these transcribers (Henry Fillmore, Eric Leidzen et al) were as important as the original composers, since they made the music accessible to more people.

[York-aholic]

Wasn't always this way. Gustav Holst's "Moorside March" is one example. It was written for the 1928 British Brass Band contest as part of "A Moorside Suite", consisting of a Scherzo, a Nocturne and the march. I'll admit the march had to grow on me, but it's now one of my favorites of his. The other two movements are also quite enjoyable IMHO. The entire suite was also transcribed for orchestra, but AFAIK not for concert band (yet).

I had a look in SmartMusic, and Moorside Suite has been turned out for concert band, published by B & M Brand Productions Ltd.

[Heavy_Metal]

Thanks, @York-aholic !

[bloke]

Yeah…
I’ve even found myself (before quite a few concerts that I’ve played) sticking my nose through a crack in the door at several 15 to 20 minute pre-concert lectures about all the pieces played on a concert, but I’ve never played in a concert where the music director turned to the audience before playing a Dvorak or Brahms symphony and explaining the piece to the audience.
Every orchestra that I play in has programs with a bunch of pages of local advertising, lists of donors, names of people on the board, people who work in the office, the musicians, and program notes. Only the pieces - that most of the musicians themselves aren’t very interested in playing - tend to be the ones that get talked about from the podium.

[Mary Ann]

I wonder how many kids have been wrecked by the emphasis on competition as if it were Little League (which has wrecked sports for a lot of kids, too.) Parents get involved and kids are compared to each other -- it can be really high pressure to achieve, and the music is left behind for the competition. I think our culture is screwed up that way.

[Doc]

What a great idea for a thread. This is something that has always been a pet peeve of mine. For this reply I will call "bad" music that which is self-indulgent and not geared toward the audience, regardless of how well it is executed. Add to this long-winded intro narratives (corny jokes, awkward moments, intimate background) and you will have audience and ensemble members alike sitting there rolling their eyes and waiting for the moment to end.

There can be valid reasons for these introductions. Some audiences are genuinely interested in knowing the background of compositions, maybe in an academic or pay setting. Many conductors or ensemble members are quite accomplished and worthy of the listen. Others just think they are. Additionally, some players (smaller ensemble) need a chop break. I have trouble understanding a chop break in an hour set, that's another thing entirely.

For me, it all boils down to knowing the audience and playing to it. Our BQ plays often to assisted living facilities where the average member is "regular folk" who is not especially musically inclined or educated. They are either a "captive audience" or maybe want to escape their current situation for an hour or so and feel alive, not sit there falling asleep or heading off to the bathroom. As "regular folk," they also like to hear what they know from the radio. Program self-indulgent charts (slow, pretty, really old, obscure, classical, etc) add a bit of narration to in an attempt to "educate" the audience, and many look like they long for the grave. We've all been there.

The older I get, I realize I'm not far from their age and want to make them feel more engaged and happy, even if it means indulging our own tastes less. When we play Sweet Caroline, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, Rock Around The Clock, Crocodile Rock, Michael Jackson, Bee Gees, whatever, they come alive and no long introduction is really needed. We've even had a raucous response to David Rose's "The Stripper" at one place! Bad music is that which is poorly programmed for the audience at hand. Music, that is perhaps best saved for self-gratification at rehearsal or when the proper gig presents itself.

Edit: Of note we recently did a HS Festival of the Arts. I arranged "Watermelon Sugar" by Harry Styles, and "good4u" by Olivia Rodrigo Another member did a version of "The Wellerman." We also played Seb Skelly's arrangement of "Leave The Door Open" by Silk Sonic, and Zack Smith's "Spiderman." The kids absolutely loved these and got up dancing and came alive. We got crickets on really well-played versions of "Stardust," "Music of George Gershwin," Dukas' "Fanfare," and many others. Bad music or poorly programmed? The kids were there to enjoy themselves, not for us to try and educate them. We learned a lot that day.

If you are hired to entertain people (that is mostly what we do, no?), then ENTERTAIN them. But the goal should be to entertain THEM, not yourselves. And I agree that how you go about entertaining the audience depends on your audience, and every audience is unique. Sure... If you are playing church gigs, recitals, or other shows where you have specific music for specific purposes, you may not have much leeway regarding your musical selections. But you cannot be the Funky Winkerbean band director - so self-important so as to believe the half-time marching show is the main event. Sadly, many band directors play program/formulaic music on their marching shows because... CONTEST; all the while ignoring that, in the big picture, they are merely the half-time entertainment. Those directors who produce quality marching shows that are contest-worthy and still entertain the home crowd are the ones who "get it." Academic, heady, uppity judges be damned.

[Doc]

While we’re talking about “bad music”, let me vent a bit about tuba solo literature. So much of it just sucks! My best example is “Encounters II” by Kraft. Honestly, does anyone actually ENJOY listening to that thing? To me, just a bunch of random notes written specifically to be difficult so that show offs can prove they can play it. But even when played well, not pleasing to the ear in a musical way. Then there’s the Hindemith Sonata. Back when I was a college student I had my senior recital all planned out. As a music education major I was only required to do a “half recital”, that is I would share it with someone else doing their junior recital. I planned everything with my teacher during my junior year. I wanted things to be challenging but I also had in mind an audience pleasing performance, to show that the tuba could make beautiful music just as well as any other instrument. I programmed “Ricercar” by Gabrielle/arr. R. Winston Morris, “Introduction and Dance” by Barat, and the Vaughan Williams Concerto. But for my senior year my teacher went on sabbatical to work on his doctorate, and temporary professor they hired to take his place threw out my entire program except the Ricercar. He forced me to program the Hindemith in lieu of the Vaughan Williams. I hated working on the thing. It’s easy to make musical sense of the VW, but not so much the Hindemith. If you’ve ever had to perform it you know the piano part is a real bear. My accompanist was a fine player but even he struggled with it. The temporary instructor and I were like oil and water working together. We argued about everything regarding the Hindemith, right down to how to pronounce the composer’s name. I KNEW I was saying it correctly (Hin-deh-mit), but HE thought it should be “Hin-deh-MITH” and would yell at me terribly about it. When my recital finally came up I just wanted to get it over with. My accompanist and I could never get the third movement up to standard so we just played the 1st and 2nd. He made some mistakes but I played my part perfectly competently. But the professor still marked me down on the recital grade. When I asked why, he said it was because I didn’t play the complete concerto. He said NOBODY programs a concerto unless they perform it in its entirety. I’m thinking to myself, but you forced me to do this piece that I didn’t want to perform in the first place. But what really pissed me off is that I wanted please the audience as well as show my competence. And I couldn’t do that because of the material. I ask the question, does anyone actually listen to the Hindemith because they enjoy it? And for that matter we can go beyond Encounters II and the Hindemith Sonata and add dozens if not hundreds of other pieces of tuba solo literature that sounds equally bad. What is a tuba player to do? The truly musical and entertaining tuba solos are so limited, and the bad ones are so numerous!

When I was preparing to pass my sophmore barrier into the performance program, in addition to scales, etc., the solo pieces were going to be Lebedev Concerto in One Movement and the Hartley Unaccompanied. I thought it best if I had a public recital to help get over any nerves I had. I could also record it for critique/improvement. So I planned a recital. My recital had a specific purpose for ME, but I wanted the audience to enjoy it as much as possible. And I wanted to sweat in front of as many people as possible, so I wanted to get two birds with one stone. With the audience in mind (family, friends, non-musicians, local musicians, and school mates), and needing to fill out the recital, I added Beelzebub to the program - I thought that a stereotypical theme and variations ought to be well-received - and I wasn't too sure how far I could get out of my lane with my choices. The sextet I played with performed Voluntary on Old 100th and Pezel Sonata 25. And we had a couple acres of food/snacks afterward. I put out a fun flyer around school, and had a nice crowd. If I had to do it again today, I might do some things differently for the audience.