Timothy Lawler said:
I hear you. I think music with a simple structure can be just as expressive as music with a more complex form. IMO as long as the performer was feeling the music strongly when it was recorded it'll have expressive depth.
On the other hand, there are many music listeners (classical and jazz) who require structural or harmonic complexity to intellectually justify their attention, but I don’t feel that way myself.
Tim
Yeah, I totally agree with you at this one. Feel and emotion is everything in music. I love it and in my opinion that is the heart of the music. It isn't in scales or chord progressions or melodies or.. (quite obvious huh? lol). Its all about feelings and how you can express it with the music.
Well.. to a certain point the complexity of some musical piece may be fascinating just because it is usually more challenging to "grab". I have noticed that usually only people who play instrument/are dealing with music alot have this "phenomena". I think it is quite natural thou.. When you hear and play all those same old progressions and rhythm figures you kinda start to loose interest to them. You need something more "fresh" and exciting! And soon that "new awesome" is again digested, and there we go again..
Ultimately this leads to a very modern type of music. People (usually only musicians) try to get something "fresh" happening time after time. And soon we are in a point where the "normal" people (excuse me for categorizing) hear only some weird chaos and the musicians hear some new fresh and cool ideas. Kinda bizarre isn't it?
I enjoy quite from both worlds. I mean I love music. Any music. As long as it gives respect to the music itself. You can quite fast realize if any musical piece has real emotion and feeling in it or not... On the other hand I also like to achieve more clever, complex and "fresh" sounds/melodies/progressions just for the sake of it!
. But in no means, I don't require this aspect from music I listen.
Anyway someone has said that (eg.) jazz is "music for musicians" and IMO that pretty much nails it!
Thou.. Sometimes I find that I have became somewhat "blind" to the (possible) complexity of my playing. I _think_ that I play normal simple obvious melody/rhythm lines so that people listening them will not find them "weird" or "wrong". I mean I intentionally try to stay out from the deep water just to make it easier for the listener (eg. I'm playing a solo at studio/live where the song really needs only some veeery basic kinda things. Like some evergreens etc). Then afterwards I hear that I played with too "jazzy vibe in it", especially from the "producer" (= often the singer of the band who really doesn't play anything or know so much about music). Actually I feel quite lucky to have experiences like this. It helps me to understand even more what those "consumers" (sorry again..) find easy to listen and grab on to.
Overall the old truth is anyway "less is always more!"
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