orphicmusic.com Blog

I think we now have enough distance between ourselves and the 1990’s to “look back” at the concept of “Alternative” music.  According to the Wikipedia, the term came into existence in the mid-1980’s to describe the first generation of post-punk genres.  By the time I became aware of the “Alternative” label, it basically applied to all non-rap popular music.  For a brief time, the uniquitous “Pop/Rock” signs in record stores were replaced “Alternative” signs.  I’m amused now, as I was then, that everything was alternative.  What was it an alternative to?  I don’t remember anyone having a very good answer for that.  Over time, the term fell out of of use, and we’re all back to calling anything mainstream “Pop/Rock.”  It may be an overgeneralization, but at least its not a paradox.

A couple of years ago, I heard of the “Duetche Alternative Charts.”  I love these things for a number of reasons.  First, they have nothing to do with “Alternative” as we Americans used to know it.  Furthermore, and again in contrast to our legacy, the bands on these charts are of a distinctly different style than mainstream music.  Finally, a lot of bands on these charts are Synthpop and/or Industrial.  In 2005, Green Day and Coldplay did make it onto the Top 100 singles chart (there are a few other well-known names, but these are the only representatives of “Mainstream” music by American standards).  But, they were beat out VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk, Iris, and many others.  Depeche Mode’s “Precious” was number one.

It seems likely to me that the whole music chart system (admittedly invented as a marketing tool) homegenizes what people listen to.  If an album or single gets to the top of the charts, people listen to it more, and more people listen to it.  The charts ostensibly only reflect trends, but given the existence of Top 40 stations and radio countdowns, they clearly influence what continues to be played as well.  If Billboard, which currently summarizes the trends of the entire U.S. in its charts, were to divide the nation into many regions, I wonder if different and varied trends might emerge.  For now, I’ll have to be content with what Europe has to offer.

I decided to have a shot at writing something Minimalist myself. Now, I don’t feel that I could ever listen primarily to Minimalist music, or that many people could do so and be happy. I have, at times, thought it was incredibly boring. That said, I decided to commit myself to it and disregard my own criticical feelings for an evening.

Like most musical movements, genres and styles, Minimalism cannot be defined in black and white terms. The understanding of the concept from which I worked is this: The Western music tradition is an epic of cluttering up good, simple music ideas with a lot of extraneous ornamentation. So, I attempted to write a piece of music that embodies what I’ve been working on as Longing for Orpheus, stripped bare of ornamentation. There are no counter-melodies. There aren’t really any melodies. The whole point of “Orpheus, Briefly” is to move from a static a7 to an interplay between that chord and an Fmaj7.

To reflect the World Music influence of Longing for Orpheus, I included a quiet 1-bar hand drum pattern in the background, with accents every 4th bar. It never changes.

Longing for Orpheus makes heavy use of reverb, so there is reverb on the synthesizer line of “Orphic, Briefly.” What I did not anticipate is that the changes in the level of reverb that I programmed in over the course of the song are the most interesting part of the song. Until the very end, the changes are subtle, and you never would have heard them in a more complex soundscape. I think this kind of thing is what the creators of Minimalism found so intriguing about extreme simplicity, and I can understand why.

I have sung in high school choirs and musicals. I have sung in college choirs, small and large. I have sung in the chorus of a number of community operettas. Now, I’m singing in a community choir.

I have never sung in a choir where everyone arrived on time. I have never sung in a choir that sat quietly and attentively after the director’s cut-off.

Directors must be meant to suffer.

One of the more recent movements in the Classical music world is Minimalism. You can find a thorough introduction to the concept here, but my understanding of the basic idea is this:

The Western musical tradition is nothing more than the evolution of meaningless ornamentation – the best way to express musical ideas is a few at a time, and you should take the time to appreciate them.

I haven’t really listened to much of this music, but The Photographer is a fine example. Its composer is Philip Glass, probably the most well-known composer in this style. If you’ve seen The Illusionist, Secret Window, The Hours, or The Truman Show, you’ve heard his music (though these are mostly in Post-Minimalist or other styles).

What I find really interesting is that Trance music works on the same principle, though it hasn’t been as thoroughly defined or debated. There have been many recent offshoots of Trance that are more song-oriented (which kind of parallels the evolution of Post-Minimalism from Minimalism), but the original Trance that came into its own during the early-mid 90’s relied on the extended repetition of a few musical lines, which slowly evolved over the course of the song. Ishkur’s guide has plenty of examples.

While we typically treat music as divisible into distinct genres, there are always musicians working to bridge stylistic gaps, combining disparate musical styles in search of a fresh sound. Following are a few of the more…amusing…recent genre-fusions. You can make your own decisions about their quality.

Celtic Punk

If you’re into punk, you probably already know about Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys. If it was just one group, it could be viewed as a strange experiment, but there are two successful groups, which gives this credibility as an actual genre.

Dance Opera

A lot of New Age/Nu Ambient music incorporates classical elements – that’s established practice. Operatica, however, takes things a few steps further, mashing actual opera arias (and other classical vocal fare) into straight-ahead electronica. If you’ve seen The Fifth Element, you’ve already been exposed.

Lounged (yes, that’s a verb)

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine perform Lounge-style covers of songs that just weren’t intended to be covered that way, including Papa Roach’s Last Resort, Coldplay’s Yellow, Madonna’s Material Girl, the Beastie Boys’ Brass Monkey, Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus, and that all-time classic, Ice-Ice Baby.

I don’t think people understand just how varied music is. Most people listen primarily to one or a few genres of music, and may have some appreciation of the depth of these, but I doubt it’s possible for a single person to really keep up with ALL modern music. While that is simply the way of things, I think people should be more aware of just how wide and deep the world of music is.

A number of years ago, my mother mentioned to a co-worker that she listened to Classical music. He responsed along these lines: “Oh, a friend of mine really likes Yanni!”. Oh, how I wish I had been there. In case you didn’t know, Yanni’s a New Age artist. He’s performed with an orchestra, but so have The Eagles. That doesn’t qualify Yanni, or The Eagles, for a place in the Classical rack at the record shop.

I think Classical is more widely misunderstood than any popular music genre – people who don’t listen to Classical seem to think that it IS a genre. There’s no more truth to that than the notion that “Pop/Rock” is a genre. Just as Justin Timberlake, Dido, and Pantera get lumped together for the sake of the music store’s efficiency, so do Handel, Orff, and Brahms. The music in the Classical section represents the “greatest hits” of roughly 500 years, and the length of songs, instruments used, and stylistic differences are just as great there as in the popular music of the past 60 years.

Particularly abrasive to me, personally, is the notion that all electronic music is “Techno.” Trance, Chillout, Synthpop, Drums’n'Bass, Industrial, it’s all “Techno” to some people. Well, not to me. Not to all the other fans of electronic music. And, especially, not to Ishkur, who maintains a website dedicated to educating the masses on the fine point of this discussion. Be warned, it’s easy to waste a LOT of time there.

I’m confident that if you take the time to look into the worlds of Jazz, Country, Hip-Hop, or any other type of music, you’ll find that there are many subgenres, that bands are constantly coming and going, and that new sounds are constantly evolving. You don’t have to like them, but please recognize that they’re there.