Philosophy Now Forum

Conde Lucanor wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Conde Lucanor wrote:For me, the greatest movie music composer ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME2jrxXnucY

I think it depends of the context. If you love spaghetti, you's love this, but many would find it over-the-top.

Is there anything that does not depend on the context? And is there anything in musical appreciation that is not subjective?

Obviously all appreciation has to be subjective. But some music can stand alone, and have no specific context by which it is appreciated.
Music specifically designed to accompany a film can fail on it's own.
A great piece of music can transcend all the contexts which have been thrust upon it. For example despite the connections between Wagner & Beethoven with Nietzsche & Hitler, their music can emerge untainted. Morricone will always be associated with the purpose of the themes.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Conde Lucanor wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
I think it depends of the context. If you love spaghetti, you's love this, but many would find it over-the-top.

Is there anything that does not depend on the context? And is there anything in musical appreciation that is not subjective?

Obviously all appreciation has to be subjective. But some music can stand alone, and have no specific context by which it is appreciated.

Yes if by context you mean only non-musical context and if we are talking about the autonomy of artistic forms, which does not mean there's no context, just that the art work is liberated from it. But except from the rare exceptions of modern art, most music has been born as accompaniment to something else, often another artistic form.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Music specifically designed to accompany a film can fail on it's own.

It can fail, but that is was designed to accompany the film is not what would make it fail on its own.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:A great piece of music can transcend all the contexts which have been thrust upon it. For example despite the connections between Wagner & Beethoven with Nietzsche & Hitler, their music can emerge untainted.

Sure, I agree. It shows the autonomy of artistic forms.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Morricone will always be associated with the purpose of the themes.

With that I tend to disagree, since I feel like his music can stand on his own. And even when associated to the films, the power of that association comes not only from his mastery in evoking the spirit of the film or an scene, but from creating that language that people will recognize later as naturally associated to those scenes. Before the spaghetti westerns, music from American westerns didn't sound anything like that. Actually stereotypical and dull.

Taylor tells the inspiration of the tune:

James Taylor - Steamroller Blues (1970 Live on BBC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCHY6bTMiR8

James Taylor
My Traveling Star – Live

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3lfe6h

(His wife is the pretty lady in the choir)

Rule of 3s

James Taylor

The Water Is Wide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJp2ymL08xg

Marty Balin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ0V5zQ ... HhLDPZSKz8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uQKQNXFl4c

On Saturday Night Live, 1976.

http://dai.ly/xm1cob

Club Foot - Kasabian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5iMgG-WJI

Wonderful soprano sax and plucking of strings, along with a percussion solo and others, but what’s that alien noise in the middle, when he sings alien?

STING - Englishman In New York
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPCLDAxDm-s

Mi Negrita Me Espera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWwXKkkxUHI

I'm running here
Every focus is splintered
Every attempt he can afford
Rendered pointless and it's streaming down
Senses together they move cleaner than transit will allow
And sometimes I want to move cleaner than transit will allow to be

Electricity
Electricity
Electricity
Electricity

Now in between
Leaving and arriving
I can try to digest this sequence of events
Again I draw it out
And again I get delayed reaction
I get splinters
I watch the people and their cars
It's slow motion
They're beautiful like breaking glass
Not yet broken
My motion is silver on the point
Of a moment, splinter, moment
My vision, the colour of

Electricity
Electricity
Electricity
Electricity

Moment, splinter, moment
Splinter into colour
And let me be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWw_G_K9Di4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNUedapF-bo

Howe always played this in a unique way adjusting the tune to his mood, and paying with the expectations of the audience, all of whom knew the studio version note by note.
Every version was a treasure.

Walker wrote:Wonderful soprano sax and plucking of strings, along with a percussion solo and others, but what’s that alien noise in the middle, when he sings alien?

STING - Englishman In New York
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPCLDAxDm-s

Yes, Sting made some superior pop music.

By "alien sound" do you mean the small gongs at the start and end of the 80s style drums after the soprano solo? The cymbal family can be surprising, eg. this incredible symphonic gong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sj8DvH0l-g

Another less spectacular example. Roger Waters created really effective cymbal effects in Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets (their Pompeii version is transcendent IMO).

How do they sound so amazing? Look at what physically happens to a struck cymbal in slow motion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpoanOlb3-w

Walker wrote:Wonderful soprano sax and plucking of strings, along with a percussion solo and others, but what’s that alien noise in the middle, when he sings alien?

STING - Englishman In New York
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPCLDAxDm-s

If you are referring to that instrument that's doing that little bouncy counter beat during the alien chorus, it kind of sounds like a hammer dulcimer. Or more likely than not, just some kind of odd chord played on one of a zillion piano patches available on a synthesizer.

I love Sting's music, especially his "Ten Summoner's Tales" album (if he would have just left off that goofy spaghetti western tune, it would have been perfection.

That album and K. D. Lang's "Engenue" album are two of my all time favorites.

seeds wrote:

Walker wrote:Wonderful soprano sax and plucking of strings, along with a percussion solo and others, but what’s that alien noise in the middle, when he sings alien?

STING - Englishman In New York
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPCLDAxDm-s

If you are referring to that instrument that's doing that little bouncy counter beat during the alien chorus, it kind of sounds like a hammer dulcimer. Or more likely than not, just some kind of odd chord played on one of a zillion piano patches available on a synthesizer.

I love Sting's music, especially his "Ten Summoner's Tales" album (if he would have just left off that goofy spaghetti western tune, it would have been perfection.

That album and K. D. Lang's "Engenue" album are two of my all time favorites.

He's some kind of gifted and sponsored some great collaborations.

*

Pluck it.

Maya Belsitzman & Matan Ephrat - They Can’t Take That Away From Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw5ZfkqE45g