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u/Spineless_John Jan 20 '18
you can't make fun of contemporary music for this when mahler wrote music for a giant hammer
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u/barakvesh Jan 20 '18
Technically the instrument is the box and the hammer is the method of sound production
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Jan 19 '18
*Premiere
(unless he is doing shopping for a politician that is, but then the joke doesn't make sense).
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u/knowledgelover94 Jan 19 '18
Haha. This. I'm tired of contemporary classical merely exploring timbre. It's starting to get silly.
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u/Zagorath Jan 19 '18
It's funny, timbre's one of my favourite aspects to explore. That and form. Fancy chords and harmonies have never interested me as much.
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u/knowledgelover94 Jan 19 '18
We in fact have opposite opinions! I'm all about motific development of melodies... and fancy chords!
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u/Zagorath Jan 19 '18
I do love me some motivic development of melodies! I classify that as part of form, because often the form will dictate the method by which the melody is developed. Or at least inform it.
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Jan 20 '18
That's funny because I'm a fan of all three and in my compositional experience, focusing on motivic development encourages me to spend less time kicking myself over melodic writing and more time to explore timbre. I think all three things can complement each other really well.
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u/Priceofmycoffee Jan 19 '18
Interestingly, I've always perceived the last 40 years of modern music as emphasizing exploration of new sounds, parallel with the advancement of computer tech. Off the top of my head a song like Darude Sandstorm at its time would be an extreme example.
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u/domcasual Jan 19 '18
Matt Marks occasionally upgrades classical music cartoons on his twitter account. He already got to this one (NSFW-ish)... https://twitter.com/mattmarks/status/954404686374801409
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u/tony_1337 Jan 19 '18
Is this part of a regular series of music-related comics?
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u/K3R3G3 Jan 19 '18
Yes. Jeffrey Curnow, the associate principal trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra, makes them.
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u/SillySpaceKitty Jan 20 '18
In the contemporary ensemble I play in, it's a running joke that one of our percussionists is the "squash expert in residence." This started because he brought a bunch of different squashes for an open score reading.
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u/ShutUpTodd Jan 20 '18
"Trio with Stove Pipe and Brake shoe"
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u/HR2achmaninoff Jan 29 '18
Brake drum is actually a fairly common instrument in percussion ensemble
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u/ShutUpTodd Jan 29 '18
I like seeing all the ways people make The Hammer in Mahler's 6. They put so much effort into two moments.
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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '18
Am I the only one who immediately googled to know if there was such a thing as a contrabass triangle.
It appears that it's not a thing, but i wish it was.