Are Classics being written today interesting subject for music lovers

[Leo Salu]

[sxpoet]

to me classical music and operas i will always associate with large orchestras, other types of music like pop, jazz, rock etc.. i associate with small bands. i don’t know where military marching music fits in.

lots of films today still use orchestras that create their own music, like the harry potter films, so in that sense classical music is still being written just for a cinema audience.

bottom line – people writing and playing music are just entertainers, and to make a living out of it, you have to go where the market is, just like a company producing goods if there’s no market for the goods its producing it goes under.

So i guess a lot of profitable music entertainers could be playing music they don’t particularly like but are forced to play because thats what the audience wants to hear.

The new kids on the block want their own music and dress styles, and wouldn’t be seen associating with their parents music and dress styles. Thats the circle of life.

I’ve seen the same thing in companies, an old boss gets replaced with a new younger boss with no experience. Every dog has his day…

[Leo Salu]

James well said covers the topic perfectly and quite accurately , on a different note i always find it amazing that the composers of any type music must be incredibly intelligent, especially writing scores for a large orchestra with multiple instruments all playing in a different key. Our own Johnny fits that description the way he prepares his music for us to play. I have no idea how this is done. Quite impressive.

[sxpoet]

If you get the opportunity to play in an orchestra it’s an interesting experience.

Where i live there’s an orchestra near me, and one day a year they invite the public to bring along their own instrument and play in their orchestra. I did it twice, and they sent me a questionnaire asking what instrument i played, and what exam grade i was playing at.

They divided the sax players into two groups one group playing melody (advanced players) and the other group playing harmony (that was my group). They sent me the music sheets several months in advance for me to practice at home expecting me to turn up on the day knowing how to play the sheets.

I found the sheets quite difficult, three reasons: 1st i discovered i only played bit parts dotted across the sheet, so i had to rely on counting bars for example i sometimes had to counts 8 bars before i played the sax. 2nd there was no music to practice along to (not even on the internet), so i couldn’t rely on listening where to come in on the sax. 3rd there was a lot of 32nd notes and at my level of playing i just couldn’t get up to speed, fingers just wouldn’t cut it.

A lot of people say no matter how hard the sheet is, you can still learn it bar by bar.
I have to disagree, there are some music sheets out there, where you still have to be above a certain standard, and no way around it you have spend hours practicing scales, and know how to move those fingers very fast.

Anyway i turned up on the day and like a true orchestra, i had sit in the correct place. All the sax players around me were music degree standard, music teachers etc.. i mentioned to the person next to me that i couldn’t play certain bars fast enough – he said no problem just don’t play any difficult parts, as there are enough sax players around to make up the sound (he experienced that in the past).

We spent the morning playing various sheets, then in the afternoon we performed to the general public. it was a good experience.

What was fascinating, was the conductors ability to single out any a group of instruments that wasn’t playing perfectly. In some cases i lost count of where to play and had to rely on hearing when the sax player next me started playing.

The other interesting thing, all the sax’s sounded exactly the same, myself included, so you wouldn’t be able to say thats so and so playing, i recognise him by his sound.

It appears when you play solo on the sax, then your individual sound of playing identifies who you are as you’re not tuning in with the other sax sounds around you.

[sxpoet]

another thing that surprised me with orchestra and big bands, was the amount of people who played another instrument – ex if you were a sax player, and the band didn’t need a sax player for a specific performance, then you weren’t earning money, whereas if they required a clarinet player then you could still earn money. So to keep earning it paid to be able to play several instruments if you played for a living.

I noticed this when i went to see an orchestra play, i was surprised when i saw one player that played on the drums, in several other songs, he was playing different instruments.

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