[Harp-L] Chris M. & Richard H.

[Roscoharp@xxxxxxx]

Hey list,
 
Richard Hunter  writes:
 
"And yet, amazingly enough, if you listen to pop  radio for 1,000 hours
straight, what you hear over and over and over is  people singing
melodies, or just talking over a groove. You hear the human  voice
singing or speaking recognizable words. If you hear 15 minutes  during
those 1,000 hours that are devoted to explorations of tone, shape,  and
rhythm, it was a pretty unusual period in pop radio."
 
Rosco ponts out:
 
My friend Chris M. (as usual, &  knowingly) goes overboard in making his 
points about tone, shape, &  rhythm. Given that, Richard, I would just add that 
listening to 1000 hours of  pop radio might not result in hearing  much good 
music, period, at least in  my opinion. I doubt that Chris is concerned about his 
relationship to pop  radio. I might well be wrong. As a musician who plays 
mostly "pop" these  days (I hope it's good, but ??)I can say that getting truly 
musical, creative  ideas into pop songs is under-appreciated & often not  
noticed.  
 
 
Richard writes further:

"If you doubt the above, take any 50 songs in the genre of  your choice:
rock, country, whatever. The chord changes, tones, and ryhythms  for
those songs are all probably very, very similar -- that's what clues  the
listener to the fact that the song is part of a style that the  listener
likes. What distinguishes the songs from each other? Melody  and
lyrics, mostly, and the sound of the lead singer's voice."
 
Rosco replies:
If "the genre of your choice" is so called world  music, jazz, much of modern 
symphonic music, etc., this point is not valid.  Trying to appeal to 'most of 
the people most of the time' is not necessarily a  good way to make music.  

later, Rosco
_may.be  au.gust_ (http://www.maybeaugust.com/)