yurshta

The Rock Album KISS Symphony is an example of a major symphony orchestra backing up KISS and orchestrating KISS songs. Don't get me wrong, I like metal and KISS is great, as KISS playing the music themselves. But the orchestration of their music sounded downright stupid, horrible and just plain weird. It was not good music, it was not effective and the styles did not complement each other. All in all, the hundreds of hours spent on the project were a waste and could have been spent doing something better. At any rate, that kind of crap is NOT Neo-Classical.

Where I disagree with Demaag is his opinion that the older styles like Baroque, Classical, Romantic are caput, finished and there's nothing to say in those genres. My website musicofthegods.com named Neo-Classical Jazz is my attempt to prove that these older genres are not at all dead, but alive, vibrant and eternal. But maybe I'm wrong. Who knows? Music scores for modern films utilize quite a bit of older genres and movies and movie composers aren't going anywhere anytime soon. The Classical is the foundation of all quality Western music [except for that which is of African influence or origin--which is not saying that African music or rhythms are any less vibrant or alive. In fact, it was for the good that Western music got a kick in their lazy butts by the vital and down to earth rhythms of African music] Asian music has yet to make an equally huge impact on the West as the music of Africa, but in time, will surely do so. The big influence has been West influencing the East, and quite a few of the big name virtuosos of cello, piano, violin as well as some serious composers have come out of Japan in the recent years. Japan is really going places music wise, and hope to revisit Japan in the next year or so and connect with some contacts in the gaming world there. Invent something new? Short of stupid modern fads which come and go like the ephemeral phantoms they are, and short of the invention of a totally new class of instruments, I really don't think anything substantially new is going to exist, but rather just reshapings and rehashings of old styles. Perhaps if humankind exists long enough to encounter alien races who have a totally different approach to music (if they even have music) then planet Earth will be graced with something that is really, genuine NEW and nothing like anything that has gone before, but then that's because it is otherworldly.

Modern science is built on the foundation of the old sciences, even the pseudosciences like Astrology and Alchemy, so is modern philosophy which stands on the graves of dead and defunct philosophies. Religion, of course, goes nowhere because it is an aberration of the mind, a mental illness, a con-game for dupes and wastoids. Modern music stands on a foundation that goes back at least to the Middle Ages, but then the popular music of the Middle-Ages which also was a huge influence, this "dirty" music as the church called it has connections probably (but not provably) back to ancient Greece and Rome. I would that I could travel in time and hear the ancient music of Egypt, Greece, Rome and Israel the land of my ancient ancestors, because that would be so alien to our modern music as something from another planet. But we do know that the Greeks invented the scalar modes which are easily remembered by the mnemonic "I Don't Play Like My Aunt Liz" so their music was probably of higher level of advancement than the religious music of the Middle Ages. This is probable, but I can't prove it as next to nothing from the ancient world (musically) survives except lyrics. Many Hebrew words in the Psalms reflect things like chorus, modes, stanza, repeats and the meaning of most of these musical terms are lost forever. Only the lyrics survive, but at least during the time of David and Solomon the music must have been highly advanced as the Bible records large groups of professional musicians who sang this music on lutes, drums, lyres, flutes and other primitive instruments.

What joy to hear the court music or coronation psalms during Solomon's time (and very likely this music had significant influence from the other middle-eastern cultures.) Surviving music of a primitive sort I've heard in Iraq, Syria and Jordan and among the Palestinian muslims is very likely the closest thing I'll ever hear to this ancient type of music. Now that's something new!

But enough said. So long, have a nice weekend.