I'm all for technology and using it to promote music and the musical cause, but this annoys me.
I realize I'm being a bit fuddy duddy. In theory I like the idea of bringing art music out of the concert halls and into (onto?) the world wide web. However, I can't stand the idea of a virtual orchestra. I think my strong aversion to the YouTube orchestra can be traced back to my piano teachers. I'm pretty sure the average age of my piano teachers over the last decade is 76 and I'm very sure none of them knew how to download a track on iTunes. These people shaped my musical education, yo. Come to think of it, this influence could explain why I frequently nod my head at my college students and say things like, "You kids these days."
So, I'm sorry, Tan Dun and Lang Lang. I know you're all hip and cool, but I like my orchestras less virtual and well, frankly, less YouTubey.
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5 comments:
yeah, i'm with you on this. we rarely get to understand our individual contribution to a collective effort in context. ensemble performance provides such an opportunity, because you can, in real time, hear the collective effort. also, you can adjust your contribution in real time.
this is just some egocentric, techno-loving composer's wet dream. a real-time distributed performance would be much more interesting. unfortunately, no one has any good solution to the network lag-time problems.
ALSO, i just noticed that you link to DO THE MATH. i am taking credit for that.
Exactly. An orchestra allows human beings working together in real time to contribute to a whole or sum that is greater than the parts. In short, the point of an orchestra is collaboration and blending of sounds. If you take out this most human of elements (even if individual parts are performed by humans), the whole will most assuredly sound robotic and disconnected.
Glad we agree : )
And, yes, you get all the credit for DO THE MATH. I love the blog and I love The Bad Plus.
Hmmm … surprisingly not with you guys on this one. While it is for sure egocentric, if artists did not think their ideas were important enough to execute, we’d have no art. Sometimes, often even, creators miss the mark but it takes a lot of ego to assume you have an idea that the literal masses will give two shits about, let alone, involve themselves in. So I am ok with a little ego in my art, even if don’t like the art … or the ego. ;)
While I do agree that a real time effort of this sort would be even better, I think these kind of projects do really interesting things for the consensus ideas of production, interpretation, and collaboration in the artistic world. With no conductor present to guide the final outcome of the music, is this the orchestral equivalent to the ol’, “If a tree falls and no one is there to hear it …,” predicament? Plus, will some orchestras or small chamber groups record parts of this together and submit those pieces? Than it is orchestras + orchestras = some kind of super giant orchestra … or something and not individual parts at all. Mostly though, these kinds of projects I think help to flip the bird to “the man” type establishment that mostly controls what art we actually get to see, hear and experience. That’s okay Prestigious Foundation, even if you don’t fund my project it does not mean that no one will never, ever hear X or respond to it and I may not die without ever seeing X to fruition. Also, you can’t blacklist me based on who knows what to make sure I don’t find success. I know that’s not what is happening here … but technology has essentially done that for so many and it is thanks to pedestrian things that have a lot of awful content on them in addition to the great content – Blogger, YouTube, MySpace.
Plus, what a great exercise for the composer - to hear individually all the parts, in several varying interpretations, before making the whole. Symphonies and orchestras all over are trying heard to make classical music relevant to our Clear Channel nation, and I agree Katie this is probs not the way to do it. This seems more for the musician than the audience and it is YouTubey but it could be worse, it could be on MySpace. ;).
Sorry so long, I don’t have a blog.
xo-jro
j-ro, i am 100% in favor of the "democratization" of art through technology... stick it to the man, you can't tell me what's art, etc. however, as my friend says (in reference to the abundance of acapella groups on college campuses), "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should." i just think this particular idea for collective expression is a bad one, mostly because of technical problems for the performers.
to give a closely related and concrete analogy, if alex wanted me to play drums for a song he was recording, he could say, 'Paul, play a rock beat for 136 bars at 88 bpm, and send me the recording.' but a better idea would be for him to record some kind of scratch track on top of a metronome or drum loop. then i play drums to the scratch track and send him the recording. then he re-records his parts while listening to the recording of my drums. if both of us do our parts separately, and he just layers them through some multi-track software, there's a good chance of an incoherent performance.
that's what i would expect to happen with this youtube thing - an incoherent performance.
it would cooler to do this with the same kind of iteration i described above. assume the composer has some website where he keeps an updated version of the collective performance. then each player can download the latest version and play along with it. then the composer can mix in the updated individual performance. that is a good idea.
First, i completely agree that the internet provides an outlet for the little guy. I'm a huge fan of what myspace has done for independent artists. I also love what youtube has done for all kinds of music. We now have instant access via youtube to some of the world's finest musicians and incredible performances FOR FREE. There are amazing historical concerts easily accessible online because of youtube. I use youtube probably weekly when teaching college kids to show excerpts from operas and symphonies, etc. However, this youtube symphony is not a case of the "little guy" sticking it to the man. Tan Dun and Lang Lang are huge classical music celebs. Like Yo Yo Ma, they are talented individuals who have also been successful at marketing themselves commercially. I have to be careful here because i tend to ere on the side of viewing them as sell outs who, for example, forsake serious projects for fluff like this youtube orchestra. And the reason i consider this "fluff" is almost entirely because of problems with execution (described really well by paul above). I think this is a case of using technology for technology's sake. i believe technology should always be used when it enhances but never when it detracts. also, to be fair, i actually do like the part of this project where the participants get to play in carnegie hall under Michael Tilson Thomas. In that way, it is like an open audition that will provide a cool opportunity to people who otherwise wouldn't get the chance. It is just the whole putting it together "virtually" with everyone playing at the same metronome pace that i deeply dislike.
but anyway, despite it's flaws and blatant cheese factor, we are discussing it. that in and of itself is probably a positive...
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