A conversation at a music lesson in 2010
"-because modern song lyrics suck, have you noticed that? It's always the same set of fifty or sixty words and tired phrases. Cat Stevens once wrote a song called 'I love my dog as much as I love you', and sure, it's not exactly romantic, but you can appreciate the honesty. In the fifties they just wrote songs about anything -" because the world was going to end anyway, I remember - or was that the seventies? The savour's gone out of life, the musical era's entered its decline. The same fifty words repeated over and over until they become irrelevant. So what comes next?
"What would happen," says one student, "If you took twelve instruments and got each one to play one of the twelve tones, and then mixed it around? The horn playing F# switches to B, and the flute that was playing B switches to F#?"
"You don't want that," the teachers says. "Not for more than a moment. It'd just create a big wall of sound."
"It'd hit you in the face," says another student.
"Yes, I can see that," says the first without offence. "The idea seemed much cooler before I actually thought about it."
"Ideas often do," the teacher says, amused. "But if you did that..."
"You've just ruined everything," he agrees. "You've made a lawnmower." So that's not where the next era will come from, but then it's always hard to see such things. Though romantic was a logical follow-up to classical, Beethoven wouldn't have imagined it.
"What would happen," says one student, "If you took twelve instruments and got each one to play one of the twelve tones, and then mixed it around? The horn playing F# switches to B, and the flute that was playing B switches to F#?"
"You don't want that," the teachers says. "Not for more than a moment. It'd just create a big wall of sound."
"It'd hit you in the face," says another student.
"Yes, I can see that," says the first without offence. "The idea seemed much cooler before I actually thought about it."
"Ideas often do," the teacher says, amused. "But if you did that..."
"You've just ruined everything," he agrees. "You've made a lawnmower." So that's not where the next era will come from, but then it's always hard to see such things. Though romantic was a logical follow-up to classical, Beethoven wouldn't have imagined it.