MOTUnation.com

A rather thought provoking and interesting video I came across via Facebook.

Much of this may also be a reflection on the increasing urbanization of most societies around the world, along with a faster pace of life, as it has disconnected many people from being connected to natural organic ecosystems and cycles of life.

My company has hosted some interesting researchers these past few years, and that has spurred me to continue with my own research, as it is becoming more evident that music originated as humans imitating what they heard in nature.

In nature, each creature finds its own timbral niche, so that it minimizes competition for communication and can more effectively evade predators or transmit information about food supplies.

The end result is that wild settings have rich and diverse timbral fingerprints, along with interesting cycladic patterns of dynamics and ebb and flow of different frequency ranges. Too much human industrial activity and many animals abandon an area, even if they never see or smell the human "threat". Quite simply, they can no longer communicate with each other effectively.

So it seems that pop music may have finally reached the exact opposite point from whence human music-making began, as most music around the world has been rich in timbre and dynamics, regardless of instrumentation or culture.

Does this mean that there is nowhere left to go, but to crawl back slowly to the heart and soul of what made music a special part of the human experience to begin with? One can only hope.

Thanks for posting that, James. Thought provoking, indeed.

Philippe

Leonard Bernstein attempted to explain the "Millennial Whoop" in his lecture series at Harvard many years ago (1973).

Starting at 25:50

Terry

Thanks for posting, James!
Well, talking about risk... This may explain why my best musical experiences, as an audience member, are often with unknown live bands, and in the neighbourhood.

On the decline in diversity: there was a concert at a local park a few days ago. The band does 80s and 90s covers. I made a joke to the person I was with, that every pop song then had 4 chords: Bm, G, D, A, usually in that order and that key. So we counted, and it was true of about 2/3 of the songs they did over two hours.

The one thing that gets passed up on all these breakdowns of why modern music is terrible is that bad music has always existed, there's always been pop stars that were created by record labels and management firms who hire studio musicians to write hits for them.

The Prince "problem". Prince was able to renegotiate a contract that got him a much higher percentage than pretty much any artist before him after his contract ran out, and even if the record labels were getting 10% of what they were before it was going to be worth it for them to sign him. IMO this changed the game a bit, along with piracy. It became "dangerous" to sign actual musicians who weren't bought and paid for. Timberlake, Perry etc. all those kids are contracted to the nth degree with enough inside dirt on them since they were preteens to sink them if they stray. Do record labels sign rock bands or independent electronic and acoustic acts? I don't see it, they manufacture talent off of shows like Americas Got Talent etc. it's "safer".

The sooner young people who love music completely ditch all this and set up their own environment along the lines of the American Hardcore movement of the early 80's the better. and on that line, to a degree it's also focus, if you like Stoner Metal things are going pretty well actually, with acts like Sleep, Yob etc.

Pop music? it started to die in the 80's and was dead by the 90's IMO. Been a while since some pop act put out something I thought was clever. and it's never been good, it's had moments like the Beatles etc. Here's a random selection of the top 100 from yesteryear if you think otherwise. http://www.billboard.com/archive/charts/1963/hot-100

Now of course if you go to 1966 you're going to get a more solid classic rock hot 100, but that's the thing, it was a small window. Any random year is going to generate mostly throw away pop, not the Beatles and their contemperaries.

I had heard about the two songwriters a few years ago, but don't know if it was from this guy or whether he's quoting the same source. The Millennial Whoop is new to me though, and I hate it. I wonder what minority percentage I belong to if it is so universally loved?

I'm not as prone to dismiss everything since "the good old days", being fully aware of the "American Pie" lyric about "The Day the Music Died" (the plane crash that took out several stars at once).

I love the 80's, but most of what I listened to back then wasn't terribly mainstream. I love non-mainstream 50's and 60's music too, and hate Motown due to lack of variety in that particular label compared to other labels doing R&B at the time. To me, most of the 50's/60's was drivel.

I would argue that the 70's and 80's, and even into the 90's, had the most timbral variety, but one has to ignore the strict confines of "pop", which is a somewhat arbitrary bounding box anyway as rock, folk, traditional and world music and even jazz, have always crossed over anyway (also country).

None of this takes away from the main points about diminishing timbral variety and lessening of dynamic range, and I believe it is a major contributing factor to people listening to less music than they used to, as I think they just aren't connecting because it isn't an organic experience.

Steven Wilson has been bringing new life to older recordings by quite a few of the more musically advanced bands of the past few decades. I feel so involved when I listen to these high dynamic range mixes, and as the Loudness Wars have been winding down and more "old catalogue" material is being treated properly in updated mixes/masters, I have noticed younger people taking note and getting emotionally involved as well as inspired.

Bands like The Arcade Fire (not withstanding that their most recent album seemed to lack passion), are proof that each generation will continue to produce people who are inspired to speak from the heart and connect with people via honestly produced music vs. the modern equivalent of "Tin Pan Alley".

Getting back to my earlier point, I am getting closer and closer to this notion that has come out of recent ethnomusicological research and anthropological studies, that music at its heart is a mimic of the sounds and cycles of nature itself. But as humans have altered the environment, industrial sounds can legitimately be part of that as well.

The point is that music connects the most deeply with people, when it reminds them of home, of the love of their mother and of Mother Earth, and thus provides a sense of belonging, of hope, and perhaps of nostalgia.

Having timbral balance and a significant dynamic range, is a big part of that, as it makes it more like a conversation, where each person gets their chance to speak. It's more interesting that way. But I think the personalities involved automatically dictate the approach that will be taken, and the wise labels will resist the temptation to fix it if it ain't baroque.

Here's a link to an article on the topic. It's based on a proposed documentary film:
https://qz.com/1044781/this-music-produ ... -the-same/

**Leigh

A couple statements in the video were a little sloppy-- after a moment they would clarify an initially over-reaching-sounding statement (for example, the claim about timber).

I'm not a fan of modern pop music and have a very short attention span for it. And it is fair to say that it often lacks interesting harmony, rhythm, lyrics, melody, or even dynamics. I also think a person can say they think a song is bad. But I think scientists would stop short of saying music is good or bad. They would say, "We've observed these changes in music over time."

Fortunately, along with all that convenient access to music, we can hear amazing music from all over the world that isn't stupid pop.

I really enjoy just about every kind of music, including modern pop, as long as I am not required to listen to any one style continuously for too long.

Despite the fact I apparently have little taste, my taste buds tire quickly.

Why does this thread's title make me feel like my parents?

I was in charge of the music for my high school reunion last weekend and limited the mix to the period spanning '60-–'72, 1st–12th grade.

We had plenty of genius level .... ok, really stupid ... hits. I made sure that a few like Danny Dewdrop and Gary Glitter made the final cut.

Deems Taylor once wrote that, for every generation, only 3% of the total output was of any quality at all and the rest not worth remembering. Mind you, he was writing about Bach, Beethoven, Mozart et all... Nowadays, I think 3% might be a little high.

Interesting indeed. To me it always comes down to "good" or "bad" music. Modern pop sometimes has some really great songs. They are likely outnumbered by the bad, or average ones though.

There are a couple of things that bother me in the video, such as when he asks, "how did we go from Bob Dylan to Britney Spears, from Led Zeppelin to Lady Gaga, and the Kinks to Katy Perry?" Since when Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and the Kinks are pop music???

Pop music obeys to a formula. For years we've had the Max Martin formula, but that will change too, to another formula. In the 80s there was Stock, Aitken, Waterman, who wrote countless of hits, all sounding the same (and I really mean the same), but it worked. Good for them, and for the artists who made millions too.

Every genre has its formula, rock songs in the 60s have ALL the exact same chord progressions, Metal has a formula, blues, dance, etc. In pop music, the number one rule is to make a song that will make money, lots of it, probably more than any other genre. That's not to say the others don't want to be successful, of course.

The ones who stand out are those who take risks, those who try to change the formula, even slightly. But even among those who who just go by the formula, there are some good things. Sometimes it's a double edged sword too - "experimenting" for the sake of being different, you can end up with something pompously bad.

I tend to think those who despise "modern pop" were never much into "pop music" in the first place.

I am a flute player since 3rd grade, and last summer picked it up again, learning "oldies" from the last 200 years to play for my mom's senior center and such just for fun. The melodies are distinct (about 180 of them in my repertoire now) - one can play them on the flute with no accompaniment and everyone knows exactly what tune I am playing and can hum or sing along.

Nowadays, from the last thirty years or so, the complexity of the melody has become more and more minimal, whereas it may consist primarily of 2 or 3 notes that are merely repeated against a different chord backdrop. (Bm, G, D, A or thereabouts?) I've often wondered how copyright manages to differentiate such melodies! (Maybe it can't, leading to another "safety net" protecting against copyright infringement lawsuits!)

So, I've become a bit prejudiced in my judgement of pop music, considering the question - "Can it be played on a flute?" If not, then what is this thing, really? An arrangement?

Terry

HCMarkus wrote:Why does this thread's title make me feel like my parents?

Just to mention... when I named the topic I was just using the wording if the video's title. I should have used quotes.

P.S.: Get off my lawn!