There are no composers in old korean music. The master-players got their pieces from their masters and they handed it over to their students. Every generation changed the music smoothly and added some new parts. They call it "to wove a piece". That means, that on a Sanjo (a solo music form for korean instruments) had been working a lot of people and the roots are reaching back several hundred years. A Sanjo is extraordinarily difficult, but the fingers are moving organically - it's perfectly woven music for the certain instrument and no uncomfortable or even impossible things are in it - if you practice enough.
Many pieces in new music you can practice your whole life and it won't get comfortable - then it is something wrong with that music. For sure not woven music...
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Is a composer not a musician?
Many - almost all - great composers have been also good performers. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev, Bartok - just to mention the very famous ones.
Nowadays you are either a composer or a musician - both together is suspicious: either you are a good composer but not a good performer or vice versa - so the prejudice of many people.
Why are 99% of the pieces played - let's say piano recitals - from composers who had been also pianists? - First of all it's great music, but more and more important is that you can enjoy playing this pieces - it's fun! It's pianistic and the movements of the hands are organic. That means not necessarily that they are easy and simple pieces, no - most of them are extremely difficult - but if your fingers get used to that it starts to be joy.
If a piece is not pianistic, guitaristic, xy-ic, then it will be not played very often and probably never after 100 years. Composers: touch the instruments again!
Nowadays you are either a composer or a musician - both together is suspicious: either you are a good composer but not a good performer or vice versa - so the prejudice of many people.
Why are 99% of the pieces played - let's say piano recitals - from composers who had been also pianists? - First of all it's great music, but more and more important is that you can enjoy playing this pieces - it's fun! It's pianistic and the movements of the hands are organic. That means not necessarily that they are easy and simple pieces, no - most of them are extremely difficult - but if your fingers get used to that it starts to be joy.
If a piece is not pianistic, guitaristic, xy-ic, then it will be not played very often and probably never after 100 years. Composers: touch the instruments again!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Why you can't find fast pieces in new music...
...in middle-european style? The answer is really simple: for fast music you need a recognizable puls - a beat, to say it easier and new music with roots in Darmstadt negates a steady beat. Puls, beat, groove - rhythmic elements are considered as primitive and associated with so-called U-Musik (entertaining music) or folk-music - both lower music in the ears of a classic avant-garde composer. To abandon rhythmic pulsation is like disabling oneself - a big part of the music is not possible without pulsation and thus no fast and delighting music.
Why atonal music sounds all similar...
...in a certain sense?
Composers who wants to avoid tonality or fundamental tones are using since over 100 years the same technique of using all 12 tones - not necessarily with 12-tone technique but trying to reach a chromatic total in their music with several other techniques. The result is that all this pieces are using the same chromatic scale - it's like composing every piece in C-Major...
Composers who wants to avoid tonality or fundamental tones are using since over 100 years the same technique of using all 12 tones - not necessarily with 12-tone technique but trying to reach a chromatic total in their music with several other techniques. The result is that all this pieces are using the same chromatic scale - it's like composing every piece in C-Major...
Friday, January 27, 2012
Smart instruments
The instrument family which really developed well are the western string-instruments. A lot of modernization like the longer strings (out of metal instead of catgut) with more tension or the straight-concav bow increased the volume of the instruments to be able to play e.g. concertos with orchestras. However the most important thing was never touched and will be never touched:
The fretless fingerboard.
This fingerboard makes it so difficult to learn the as instruments and intonation is THE topic for the string players. This difficulty - or lets say weakness (again a stupid instrument?) - is the strength of the violin family: it is possible to play every scale also in every non tempered tuning you could imagine, you can make all kind of glissandos, portamentos, vibratos you like to. The string instruments are the the instruments with the widest range of sound colors. These Instruments are a good example for successful modernization and should be a model fort instrument development.
The fretless fingerboard.
This fingerboard makes it so difficult to learn the as instruments and intonation is THE topic for the string players. This difficulty - or lets say weakness (again a stupid instrument?) - is the strength of the violin family: it is possible to play every scale also in every non tempered tuning you could imagine, you can make all kind of glissandos, portamentos, vibratos you like to. The string instruments are the the instruments with the widest range of sound colors. These Instruments are a good example for successful modernization and should be a model fort instrument development.
...stupid instruments?
I will add some other thoughts to this topic: Some years ago, we had a concert with a piece for Daegǔm, Recorder, Harpsichord and Changgu. The recorder player suddenly said during a rehearsal: I feel a little bit stupid with my recorder, compared to the Daegǔm...Of course a recorder is another "historic" instrument but still much more modernized than Daegǔm. And of course another type of flute. The sound quality of a single tone of a Daegǔm is indeed really astonishing different - so rich - like the beauty of the nature. I thought the same thing as the recorder player and it was funny and honest that she expressed her feelings.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Are non western instruments stupid?
Hello, everybody
I would like to start a new blog about musical thoughts and about making music.
I will write in english or sometimes in korean.
am a Korean-German composer living in Berlin and my space, since I was born, is in-between cultures. My way to music was long and full of detours, but always characterized by the clash of cultures—the question "Where is my homeland?" never got answered. What happened to me during a tour with my ensemble IIIZ+ was this: At the airport in Narita/Tokyo and everywhere in Japan everybody spoke to me in Japanese (I can't speak Japanese); in Taiwan everybody spoke Chinese to me (I can't speak Chinese either). Back home at the airport in Berlin, people spoke in English to me (I am a native German speaker). Not to have a homeland is probably the main source of energy for my music. The last two years I worked on a 80-minutes piece for Korean Orchestra and with a lot of Korean soloists called "Part of Nature". I love Korean music and I loved the work on that piece. I learned many new things - it was like a second study - but among them one thing: I view Korean music differently than many "authentic" Koreans regard their music and instruments. I really like the original, archaic, non-modernized Korean instruments—the sound color is unique and still very close to the voice and the original playing techniques are highly developed. But I felt and heard it also said directly that a lot of Korean musicians feel ashamed about their instruments compared to western instruments. That made me very sad. I would like to discuss that question:
Is a Korean instrument (or any other non-western musician) a primitive and limited instrument compared to the western instruments?
국악 악기들은 원적인, 부족한 악기들인가 - 서양아기들 하고 비교하면?
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