Non-Reunion Talk: Some current ideas/theories of mine.

[Dunderhead]

Ok, reunion talk sure is fun, but the whole time I'm still listening and thinking about the old stuff more than I am the new. I had a couple of things I wanted to talk about and discuss, so I thought I'd just throw them into a single thread. I hope everyone can find something entertaining or edifying here, and most of all I'd like to hear the opinions of the many other knowledgeable people here regarding these topics. I'm sure that they will differ at times severely from my own views, but I look forward to learning more from my many friends here whom I regard so highly.

Anyway, I wanted to get back to the Pet Sounds/SMiLE period for a little bit in the midst of all this talk of about a new single and upcoming album. Specifically I wanted to talk about Brian's "innovations" as a musician, his philosophy of production, his approach to lyrical interpretation, and the development of the Good Vibrations single. A cluster of topics, whose mutual influence upon one another warrants this sort of multifaceted approach.

I was digging through some old threads and enjoying a few illuminating conversations about Brian's most complex song or his most interesting chord change. There seems to be something of a split in those old threads over whether Brian was truly as innovative as some say. To begin with I'd like to speak a little to that, in order to set the stage for some of the other ideas I've been toying with. Some here seem to advocate a school in-which Brian was especially singular in his compositions on a technical level. Others seem to believe that he was not so original with respect to the innovations seen in the earlier decades of the 20th century, i.e. those of Jazz.

In my mind Brian was innovative in ways that go beyond the scope of that argument. There is a reason that The Beach Boys are so often designated as "America's Band", it isn't simply a hollow recognition of their enduring commercial success. Brian Wilson's musical landscape extends over such a great region of sound, a half-century of musical innovation and development in America. I'd contend that it's his integration that makes him so innovative, he is a true cartographer of the musical world, charting a region and bringing it into focus he showed how all the manifold features worked together and influenced one another. Flowing rivers of doo-wop stream down from the high peaks of jazz and fertilize green valleys of song. Not only did George Gershwin find his way into Brian's music, Haven Gillespie, Nelson Riddle, Burt Bacharach, Frank Sinatra, and Berry Gordy did as well. The music of Brian Wilson is an homage to the diverse styles and talents which drove American music in the 20th century, and it was Chuck Berry and Rock 'n Roll that provided the key which allowed them all to be blended together so seamlessly. To me this is why we call The Beach Boys "America's Band", they are the crucible in which all of our beloved sonic traditions are fused. That is the spirit essence of innovation.
There remains, though, a great deal more we can say regarding what Brian was up to in 1966...

Production is a very secretive, somewhat arcane art. Film and photography, music composition and literary writing have all received a fair amount of theory. That is, masters of those arts have expounded upon their various techniques and established a more self-reflexive notion as to the principle underpinnings of their respective genres. In contrast record production is a shadowy and phantasmal practice. The producer is all too often a faceless, nameless entity outside of our imaginations. What constitutes good or bad production? No one seems to know. For all of the blockbuster recording acts we're familiar with, how many producers do we really know much about? Phil Spector remains perhaps the only major celebrity producer, the only recording artist truly recognized in his own right. He is joined by a meager cadre of others, all lesser known, Bruce Botnick, Gary Usher, Lee Hazlewood, George Martin, Joe Meek, and in more recent decades artists like Brian Eno or Steve Albini usually make up the narrow ranks of recognized recording artists. I believe it is Brian Wilson however that stands as the true Recording Artist Par Excellence. This appears to be his major and most significant contribution to posterity.

What do I mean by that? Brian approached his work in a particular way which merits greater appreciation I think. Firstly, when it comes to rock music, we regard the drum kit, the electric guitar, and the electric bass as the real bread and butter of things. Those are the pillars of the genre, and they have continuously dominated our imaginations. We tend to view the additional elements, the production, and the instrumentation as secondary. A great song is a great song regardless of anything else I am told. To most The Beatles would still be The Beatles with or without George Martin. Brian Wilson stands above the rest here as one of the few (if not the only) to transcend the constraints of this framework. He composed, not for rock ensemble, but for a fully realized modern orchestra. For others the rock band comes first, and then the spices of production and orchestra are added for sweetening. But not for Brian Wilson.

Listen to "Pet Sounds". There is an economy and unity of instrumentation that few albums possess. The rock ensemble disappears on that album almost completely. I'd argue that even on an album like "Sgt. Peppers" the traditional rock ensemble is still the center of everything. On "Pet Sounds" that isn't the case, there is a sparing and unconventional use of the drum kit. Brian isn't afraid to have the drums drop out of the mix for extended periods of time. Bells, and timpani seem to be just as important in the arrangement. Rock has evolved to be more about an active and collaborative relationship between the drummer and the guitarists, but looking back on "Pet Sounds" everything is very different...

Though this may be a sticking point for some, I would venture that the biggest failing of "classical" music in the modern era has been the stunted development of the orchestra. That is not to say that modern classical music has "failed", or hasn't occasionally seen such developments, only that it has fallen by the wayside somewhat due to an inadequate flexibility. The piano did not always exist, and it took a good deal of time for the instrument to find its' place among the others of the orchestra. Likewise instruments have occasionally been replaced or made obsolete by better designs. Composers in prior centuries were much more adaptable to these changes in technology, it required a measure of hard work and vision for the piano to see integration into the musical fabric. A century before Brian Wilson it was Brahms who strove to realize the potential of the piano within the symphonic architecture of the concerto. Attempts to realize the artistic potential of other, more modern instruments, has been largely mixed. Concertos for Vox Organ, or Moog, or Mellotron haven't entered into the repertoire. Amplified and electric instruments have mostly confounded classical composers (not entirely without exception), and we have not really seen the orchestra acclimate itself to modern potentialities.  For Brian Wilson though, he managed to come tantalizingly close. He threw away the drummer and put the trap kit into the percussion section. The bass went away, along with the electric guitar into sections of players who were utilized economically in the pursuit of overall musical ideas.

When we so often talk about "chamber pop" or "baroque pop", this is the secret we are intuitively grasping at. "Pet Sounds" is a brief glimpse of the future of music, where the aspirations and sense of artistic beauty present in classical music is brought into the realm of keyboards and electric guitars. It really is a classical approach to instrumentation that we see at work in Brian's music throughout 1966. It is all so far away from the rock group, it is an orchestra, plain and simple. Chamber music for a modern era.

Furthermore, besides this exceptional understanding of orchestration, Brian had a profound, and very impressive notion of sound recording. "Wall of Sound" is yet another term we brandish a little too liberally. What is the "Wall of Sound"? There hasn't been a very explicit delineation of what that term really means:

""Pet Sounds" is generally considered an interpretation of the Phil Spector recording style, utilizing instruments in combination. Say, pianos with guitars, to form a unique instrument. In other words when you combine them electronically well enough, you're not going to have a guitar or a piano, you're going to have a "piano-guitar", a new instrument. If you use two pianos and two guitars, it's going to be more profound....
You see, in the '40s and '50s, arrangements were considered...it was all a definite sound, there weren't combinations of sound. With the advent of Phil Spector we find sound combinations, which scientifically speaking is a brilliant aspect of sound production...
On "Pet Sounds" we utilized what we called the Phil Spector technique, which in the 20th century is quite a scienftic advancement in music and sound."

With this Brian quote in mind I have been listening to a lot of songs by The Beach Boys recently, and have only just started to realize how magnificent this technique in actuality is. On ear phones try and listen to the original version of "Good Vibrations" done during "Pet Sounds". Listen closely in the right channel to the chorus. What do you hear? What instrument is that exactly? It's quite something when you really take a step back and look at it in the light of Brian's comments. We see multiple instruments become indistinguishable, all gathered together like water drops in a cloud. It truly is a unique instrument. It seems this is why Brian took to synthesizers during the 1970s, as they gave him a simple way to achieve some of the effect directly. But this idea, this technique derived from Phil Spector really has an astonishing impact. It is honest to goodness "recording art", instruments that exist only on tape.

All this is Brian's true innovation, as I have been suggesting throughout this post. He exerted himself over the totality of music. He brought the classical ambition towards arrangement into the innovative realm of jazz (he certainly was following in Gershwin's footsteps here, make no mistake), and put the modern electronic instruments to work in the orchestra. And above it all, unified everything in the recording studio and amplified all his talents stupendously with the application of Spector's technique. He has a wide ranging vision that is unequipped in pop music, fitting together all the jig saw pieces like no one else has been able to. Arrangement, instrumentation, composition, and production combined in a single mind. It's incredibly progressive, far more so than even we Beach Boy fans tend to realize. It not only remains the future of music in my estimation, it has also become the lodestar of pop music. For all the talk of Brian's "production race", it seems he won it without even realizing it.


Saying all that, I'd also like to speak a little about the collapse of SMiLE. I mentioned in another thread that I thought Brian had a special talent for the interpretation of lyrics, much in the same way the great art song composers of the 19th century did. The example of Cabinessence is common enough, with its' harmonies duplicating the sound of a locomotive being what I'm referring to. Brian always seemed to rely on other writers to give him lyrics, with few exceptions. I believe this was just his nature, from a psychological stand point. He has often been described as someone who was very eager to please. His difficult relationship with his father is well documented and frequently given over to these underlying concerns of Brian for acceptance and approval. It was his mother I believe he pointed out his over-willingness to say 'yes' in order to please, and speculation abounds about Brian's own insecurity with regards to the acceptance of SMiLE. For these reasons I believe it was only natural to him to interpret the emotions of others more easily than he was able to interpret those feelings which belonged to himself. His desperate need to satisfy those around him made it understandable that he would feel more comfortable with lyrics written by other people. It gave him something to focus on outside of himself, emotions which he could use to create music, emotions he felt more able to work through when they were already written down.

The ambiguity and esoteric nature of Van Dyke Parks' lyrics on "SMiLE" I believe were one of the things which came to frustrate Brian the most, and precipitated the collapse of the project. How do you interpret lyrics which can't be interpreted? "Do You Like Worms?" for one must have been challenging. Brian seems to have been favoring an exotic mood for the song, but I could imagine he was unhappy with the setting as the lyrics don't really put any special weight upon Hawaii or exoticism. His settings likely proved unsatisfactory as, in terms of production and instrumentation, he was unable to get a handle on what it was the lyrics really demanded. Complicating matters, Mike Love's own doubts likely suffered Brian a loss of focus on the core concepts. I imagine this has a lot to do with Van Dyke's lasting resentment, that Brian constantly needed the lyrics recapitulated in order to lay down the tracks.

This too explains the dwindling orchestration we see through the "SMiLE" sessions. Basic arrangements likely seemed more appealing to Brian as he lost control and didn't require any sophisticated musical interpretation of the lyrical content of the songs.



All that is simply meant as food for thought. I hope this topic will garner some good discussion and hope some others out there will take the time to read all this and share their own opinions. I'm looking forward to some lively discussion if anyone else here is up to it. Feel free to post here about The Wall of Sound, Brian's production techniques, your opinions on his musical contributions etc. Hopefully we'll be able to get a good thread going here.

[UK_Surf]

Saying all that, I'd also like to speak a little about the collapse of SMiLE. I mentioned in another thread that I thought Brian had a special talent for the interpretation of lyrics, much in the same way the great art song composers of the 19th century did. The example of Cabinessence is common enough, with its' harmonies duplicating the sound of a locomotive being what I'm referring to. Brian always seemed to rely on other writers to give him lyrics, with few exceptions. I believe this was just his nature, from a psychological stand point. He has often been described as someone who was very eager to please. His difficult relationship with his father is well documented and frequently given over to these underlying concerns of Brian for acceptance and approval. It was his mother I believe he pointed out his over-willingness to say 'yes' in order to please, and speculation abounds about Brian's own insecurity with regards to the acceptance of SMiLE. For these reasons I believe it was only natural to him to interpret the emotions of others more easily than he was able to interpret those feelings which belonged to himself. His desperate need to satisfy those around him made it understandable that he would feel more comfortable with lyrics written by other people. It gave him something to focus on outside of himself, emotions which he could use to create music, emotions he felt more able to work through when they were already written down.

The ambiguity and esoteric nature of Van Dyke Parks' lyrics on "SMiLE" I believe were one of the things which came to frustrate Brian the most, and precipitated the collapse of the project. How do you interpret lyrics which can't be interpreted? "Do You Like Worms?" for one must have been challenging. Brian seems to have been favoring an exotic mood for the song, but I could imagine he was unhappy with the setting as the lyrics don't really put any special weight upon Hawaii or exoticism. His settings likely proved unsatisfactory as, in terms of production and instrumentation, he was unable to get a handle on what it was the lyrics really demanded. Complicating matters, Mike Love's own doubts likely suffered Brian a loss of focus on the core concepts. I imagine this has a lot to do with Van Dyke's lasting resentment, that Brian constantly needed the lyrics recapitulated in order to lay down the tracks.

This too explains the dwindling orchestration we see through the "SMiLE" sessions. Basic arrangements likely seemed more appealing to Brian as he lost control and didn't require any sophisticated musical interpretation of the lyrical content of the songs.

All that is simply meant as food for thought. I hope this topic will garner some good discussion and hope some others out there will take the time to read all this and share their own opinions. I'm looking forward to some lively discussion if anyone else here is up to it. Feel free to post here about The Wall of Sound, Brian's production techniques, your opinions on his musical contributions etc. Hopefully we'll be able to get a good thread going here.

Interesting thoughts, but BW had no problem with the most advanced lyrics in Smile, if his (fairly detailed) exegesis of SU in the Smile-era Derek Taylor interview included in LLVS is anything to go by. I mean, he takes it line by line, nailing most of the key points, not necessarily nabbing every subtlety, but getting most of it. And it seems really, well, BW-eque, so I wouldn't say its a PR stunt by Taylor. His '67 WH-era solo of the tune also attests to his continued faith in and deep affinity for both the song  and its lyrics I'd wager, especially as he returned to it when he was supposed to be 'cooling out'. Also, he changed some Smile-era lyrics in the SS re-makes, but not in the central tracks like Wonderful & WC.

I'd agree that lyrics caused some problems, but not for BW. Evidence suggests that he very much got it, internalised it, and maintained his faith in them, even if he wasn't compelled to attempt anything that ambitious again.

[Cabinessenceking]

The music world hit a crossroad in 1967. It was going to go in either two directions. The Beatles or The Beach Boys.

These two bands were opposites in the music industry in the sense that the Beatles had a guitar-based sound, The Beach Boys (in reality just Brian) had a vision of creating innovative orchestral sound. This culminated in PS and Smile, however their influence extended over to Sgt Pepper, making that the only Beatles album to blend the two (perhaps causing it to be so wildly loved?). After Brian's dream of what music could be was shattered, the Beatles returned to minimalistic music (and the bandwagon music industry followed them).

I find it quite interesting that the guitar is loved as a central instrument to such an extent and that it continues to dominate the music industry today. Brian had more subtle and unique way of using it.

[UK_Surf]

Hm. That narrative seems too tidy. The impact of the Beatles & BBs get read and over-stated retrospectively and synecdochally too often imo. The rise of San Francisco/country-rock psychedelia/FM-AOR diversified and then dominated the scene, and Dylan has to be included in the mix as well . And orchestral pop, if you want to call it that, never went away - Simon and Garfunkel continued in that vein, as did the Walker Bros. and many British bands. And Pink Floyd doesn't count as an 'innovative orchestral sound'? How about P-Funk, Abba and various disco bands (yep, po-faced serious on that!)? However you rate it, the rise of prog and electronic music also complicate the idea.

[Wirestone]

A not-so-quick point --

Though this may be a sticking point for some, I would venture that the biggest failing of "classical" music in the modern era has been the stunted development of the orchestra. That is not to say that modern classical music has "failed", or hasn't occasionally seen such developments, only that it has fallen by the wayside somewhat due to an inadequate flexibility. ... Composers in prior centuries were much more adaptable to these changes in technology, it required a measure of hard work and vision for the piano to see integration into the musical fabric. ... Amplified and electric instruments have mostly confounded classical composers (not entirely without exception), and we have not really seen the orchestra acclimate itself to modern potentialities.

This is mostly nonsense. Many, if not most, serious modern classical composers 1.) write for smaller groups (big symphony orchestras are too expensive and too dependent on playing the classic repertoire and 2.) use all sorts of electronic instruments. Look at the work of such disparate composers as John Adams (uses synths, electric guitars and taped effects -- and he's about as mainstream as modern composers get) and Pierre Boulez (an icon of the avant garde whose own compositions have frequently used computer and synth technology).

What's more, conductors like Stokowski and Karajan were important figures in the development of recording technology -- the first made some of the first stereo and multi-channel recordings, and the second was vital for the introduction of the compact disc and digital recording (for better or worse).

Classical music was never popular music. There has always been a clash between popular music (or folk music or common people's music or whatever you want to call it) and concert hall music. The advent of recording technology allowed that popular music (which was seldom notated) to be captured for the first time, and that's ultimately why it has taken its current role in popular culture. Classical music seems so important when we look at past eras simply because people were able to preserve it (though notation) in a much more full and expressive form. It's like looking at ancient literature -- the Odyssey and Iliad and a few other epics are super important because people wrote them down. There were many other tales and stories presented orally, but no one preserved them, or the documents that did preserve them didn't survive.

There is a great desire from some fans to say that because they really like the Beach Boys, let's say, or the Beatles, and because the bands use some orchestral instruments or avant garde effects, to say "oh, they must be classical" or a modern varient thereof. As if there's some sort of "sophisticated music party" that only a handful of folks can be invited to.

But both Brian and the Beatles' best work is still popular music, not far from folk traditions, and highly derivative to boot. None of it is as complex or sophisticated as most classical music, which works on a large scale and requires decades for would-be composers to learn and master.

That is not to say it's bad, or aesthetically inferior. I mean, I love the work of Disney comics artist Carl Barks, who is a master visual storyteller in the popular comics medium. But he's not Michelangelo. I mean, he couldn't do that if he wanted to. But he's doing something different, aimed at a different audience, and deeply meaningful and pleasurable on its own terms.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I would agree with Wirestone's assessment, and add to it.  I don't think amplified and electric instruments have confounded classical composers at all.  There are plenty of examples, including Adams and Boulez, of composers who understand that stuff.  And there's only going to be more--look at somebody like Nico Muhly.  But ultimately, there is a limited application for electric and amplified instrumentation in classical music--and that is why plenty of composers simply reject these things.  Some may be persistent and wind up in the standard orchestra after time.  But some, I think, are simply antithetical to the idea of the classical.  It's called classical music for a reason--I'm not sure if anybody could pin down that reason, but it means something.  Is it classical as some kind of medium, between the austere and the decadent?  Is it classical because it's some sort of absolute? 

I would argue that something like a Moog concerto cannot truly be classical.  To me, classical music's boundaries are defined by music that is acoustic.  Acoustic vs. Amplified is, in a lot of ways, what separates Opera (particularly singspiel or French Opera Comique stuff, with dialogue) from "High" Broadway.  That's an oversimplification, but I think it holds.  An orchestra of Moogs, Electric guitars, and V-Drums is not classical music, even if you play a Haydn Symphony.  It's kind of like a language.  If I speak English, but start to borrow a ton of French words when I talk, pretty soon I'm speaking French.

And Brian Wilson speaks the language of Pop.  It's a very high register of it, but it's pop.

[Dunderhead]

I would agree with Wirestone's assessment, and add to it.  I don't think amplified and electric instruments have confounded classical composers at all.  There are plenty of examples, including Adams and Boulez, of composers who understand that stuff.  And there's only going to be more--look at somebody like Nico Muhly.  But ultimately, there is a limited application for electric and amplified instrumentation in classical music--and that is why plenty of composers simply reject these things.  Some may be persistent and wind up in the standard orchestra after time.  But some, I think, are simply antithetical to the idea of the classical.  It's called classical music for a reason--I'm not sure if anybody could pin down that reason, but it means something.  Is it classical as some kind of medium, between the austere and the decadent?  Is it classical because it's some sort of absolute? 

I would argue that something like a Moog concerto cannot truly be classical.  To me, classical music's boundaries are defined by music that is acoustic.  Acoustic vs. Amplified is, in a lot of ways, what separates Opera (particularly singspiel or French Opera Comique stuff, with dialogue) from "High" Broadway.  That's an oversimplification, but I think it holds.  An orchestra of Moogs, Electric guitars, and V-Drums is not classical music, even if you play a Haydn Symphony.  It's kind of like a language.  If I speak English, but start to borrow a ton of French words when I talk, pretty soon I'm speaking French.

And Brian Wilson speaks the language of Pop.  It's a very high register of it, but it's pop.

I wouldn't agree with this, but I was hoping you would show up in this thread because I love to hear your thoughts on this type of thing. To start off with, your analogy about English and French proves my point I think. English already contains many French words which were absorbed after the Norman conquest. Though the languages may appear entirely distinct, both are mutable and share certain roots of vocabulary. Can you not translate a phrase from French into English? Isn't it possible to express the effect of classical music just as well as in pop?

I don't think there's anything antithetical to electronic instruments in classical music, as wirestone pointed out above you. The spirit of classical music is difficult to define, but in the analogy it is the "meaning" of the phrase being translated between languages. I do not really agree with any systemic definition of classical music, as using specific instruments or techniques. "Classical" is simply the inner animating force of the greatest art music, the expression of high minded beauty. It is beauty that defines what classical music is, truly beautiful music is classical music I think.

The difference between classical music and modern recorded pop is not the difference between French and English. It is the difference between Moliere and JK Rowling or between Rousseau and Glen Beck. There is a greater difference than the contrast in rules and vocabulary. The former examples possess logic, the unity of necessity, the freedom of intellect, the discipline and fullness of development. The latter examples, not so much. Goethe may be in a different language than Shakespeare but at the end of the day they each are defined by something that transcends language. 

There may be a difference between pop and classical music, but the difference isn't so intractable as you're making it. The difference is in ambition and skill. Folk music is not folk music simply because of some inherent qualities, it is folk because of the people who create it. It takes a genius but you can speak literary poetry in folk poetry. That was what Goethe did. He elevated things.

Electronic instruments do not belong to pop music, classical music is rejecting those instruments at its own risk. They are not antithetical to the mission of classical music, it just takes vision and genius to yoke them to the carriage of artistic beauty. This is what Brian Wilson did, in my mind "Pet Sounds" proves that such a thing is possible. Make no mistake I don't believe he was entirely and completely successful. He never was able to truly mature, and more than any thing the '60s scene probably restricted him a bit too much and kept him from realizing the full potential of what he was doing. Despite that though, I really do think he came fantastically close to the final break through.

Music will really be rejuvenated when someone picks up his torch and takes the next few steps. This is why Switched on Bach appealed to Brian I think, because it seemed to pave the way a little forward from what he had wanted to do. We're still waiting for someone to write a symphony for recording studio I think, for the modern orchestra. I don't know when it will happen, or if it ever will, but it IS possible, and necessary still. 

[monicker]

These umbrella terms are very hard to define, but i think that at its most basic, “pop” and “classical” can be differentiated by form/structure as well as function (dance, prayer, court, concert stage, entertainment, etc.) These are two aspects that often get overlooked in favor of style/genre and types of arranging (instrumentation). Pet Sounds, in both of those areas, undoubtedly constitutes what we accept as pop-music. Every song is in a pop song form, and further, every song is intended for a pop-music audience, for the sort of environment where pop-music thrives. Ultimately, Pet Sounds is comprised of songs. Look at the structure of every track.

"We're still waiting for someone to write a symphony for recording studio I think, for the modern orchestra." How exactly do you define that? Check out these albums (a few off the top of my head) if you haven’t already:

Andre Popp and His Orchestra - Delirium In Hi-Fi (1957)
Attileo Mineo - Man In Space With Sounds (1959)
Russ Garcia - Fantastica (1959)
Ray Martin - Dynamica (1961)
Richard Marino - Out of This World (1961)
Eyvind Kang - Theater of Mineral NADEs (1998)
Various (more recent) albums by John Zorn

All of the aforementioned, with perhaps Zorn being the least to do so, use the studio as an integral part of the process, with production being one and the same as composition and arrangement, and there are plenty of non-acoustic instruments to boot. Certainly, all of these are closer to “classical” or “symphonic” than anything by the Beach Boys.

Also check out Bernard Herrmann’s score to It’s Alive 2 for heavy use of electronic instruments (electric bass, synths) with orchestra. In fact, Bernard Herrmann is an excellent example of this, as is Nino Rota, two composers who, by nature (film scoring), straddle that line between “classical” and pop. While academia frowns on, and ultimately dismisses, film music, in truth, it is much closer to art music (i.e. “classical”) than the most sophisticated of pop records (though it is useful to have a distinction between art and film music). As an aside, i’ve always believed that VDP’s Song Cycle is probably the pop record in all of pop-music history that is closest to not being pop-music.

When you get into actual concert music, while electronic instruments haven’t been incorporated into the orchestra as standard, they certainly haven’t eluded composers of the last 70 years. There are countless examples of both composers and works that employ electronic instruments, tape, computers, etc., though i would say it's still more of a niche. Schnittke is a perfect example of a composer who made plenty of use of "rock" instrumentation within the orchestra. In fact, he's a figure who you'll find was always swinging back and forth between, as he put it, "serious" music and "light" music, sometimes within the same piece of music.

P.S. Why the  F  U  C  K  does writing "POP   MUSIC" trigger the filter to interject a "Do I really wanna get banned?"

[Wirestone]

This thread is one of the reasons this board is perhaps the finest place on the internet. In the middle of all of this reunion talk, we're having this incredibly calm discussion about the distinctions between pop and classical music -- and the people in the discussion all have a certain amount of knowledge about each. It's fabulous.

Sorry. Just had to gush for a second. Anyway, the filter you notice is for the letters pee and em, to stop people in other threads from asking for naughty, naughty things.

[monicker]

In the middle of all of this reunion talk, we're having this incredibly calm discussion about the distinctions between pop and classical music --

Ha, i get the impression that that is in part because--and please correct me if i am wrong here--most of the people in this thread don't care for the reunion or care considerably less about it than most on this board. I'm very happy to see a thread like this manage to pop up during all this hoopla. Honestly--and this is something i can't help think every time i come on here--i can't believe that a Smile box set was released a mere six months ago and conversation about it, on here of all places, is pretty much dead. That's crazy. I would have thought that would have supplied enough conversational material for years. The Beach Boys in 2012, to me, are not even in the same galaxy as the Beach Boys as i know and love them, so i love to see threads like these. 

[Dunderhead]

These umbrella terms are very hard to define, but i think that at its most basic, “pop” and “classical” can be differentiated by form/structure as well as function (dance, prayer, court, concert stage, entertainment, etc.) These are two aspects that often get overlooked in favor of style/genre and types of arranging. Pet Sounds, in both of those areas, undoubtedly constitutes what we accept as pop-music. Every song is in a pop song form, and further, every song is intended for a pop-music audience, for the sort of environment where pop-music thrives. Ultimately, Pet Sounds is comprised of songs. Look at the structure of every track.

And many lied are done in strophic form, does that mean they are less than art?

"We're still waiting for someone to write a symphony for recording studio I think, for the modern orchestra." How exactly do you define that? Check out these albums (a few off the top of my head) if you haven’t already:

Andre Popp and His Orchestra - Delirium In Hi-Fi (1957)
Attileo Mineo - Man In Space With Sounds (1959)
Russ Garcia - Fantastica (1959)
Ray Martin - Dynamica (1961)
Richard Marino - Out of This World (1961)
Eyvind Kang - Theater of Mineral NADEs (1998)
Various (more recent) albums by John Zorn

All of the aforementioned, with perhaps Zorn being the least to do so, use the studio as an integral part of the process, with production being one and the same as composition and arrangement, and plenty of non-acoustic instruments to boot. Certainly, all of these are closer to “classical” or “symphonic” than anything by the Beach Boys.

Firstly I admit in my original post that Brian Wilson is not completely alone, I won't argue that there have been other people to come before and after him. However you raise an important point, just the use of symphonic instruments doesn't make something classical music. I wouldn't say someone like Ray Martin or Esquivel recorded classical music at all, because it simply isn't literary. It lacks artistic ambition. It lacks beauty.


I think it's important to say a little about what I mean with that word, "beauty". In everyday language we use "beauty" to mean simply anything that is excellent. That is the lesser definition of the word and not the way I mean to use it.
"Beauty", to me, is the most high minded and perfect feeling that one can experience. The feeling of beauty may cause you to weep, but not necessarily from sadness. It mingles with joy and laughter, a person who feels beauty may laugh and weep at the same time.
Beauty is a feeling of infinite freedom. Of transitory enlightenment. If you feel beauty you will in that moment feel the total scope of existence, your place in the universe and how all things living and dead relate to one another. Beauty is a feeling of spirit, the feeling in which you recognize the eternal spirit of God within everything, and how some external object (i.e. the beautiful thing), contains that same spirit as yourself and everything else on Earth.
Beauty is a feeling of love, but not a romantic or familiar love, rather the ultimate and profound love of God for everything.

Beauty is exceedingly rare, I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job of describing exactly what I mean. It is ultimately a subjective experience, but one that all humans upon having it will understand as "beauty". To cultivate the sense of beauty is the goal of man I think, and some, say a Dharma Master or a Saint, go farther than the rest of us, and learn to feel this sense of beauty at everything. Art, for us regular folk, is the key to beauty however.

That is what I'm talking about, if that all makes sense to anyone. "Classical Music" is not necessarily beautiful, and neither is pop  music. The best music regardless of genre or style I would term "Classical Music" because it is the most artistic and the most beautiful. More often than not this type of music is found in the repertoire before the 20th Century, which is why we tend to make the distinction as we do.

I'm not so sure how it all works out, but I think art is a scale. The greatest works of art are the ones that induce us to beauty most readily, the lesser works of art will be less likely to do this.

My point in all this is that "pop  music" will become "classical music" when it becomes truly beautiful. A hi-fi big band recording from the 50s isn't classical in this sense, it isn't art. Likewise an excellent work of orchestral music from before 1900 might not really be classical in this way as well. Neither might a fine work of Jazz or modern classical, despite being deft exhibitions of talent. No, "classical music" is a special breed of music that goes beyond "beauty" to Beauty.

How does Brian Wilson fit in on the scale? I wouldn't say that he was a master, or created the truly highest specimens of artistic production. BUT, I do not think anyone has come as close to making pop  music become classical music as Brian Wilson. And he showed that modern methods and instruments could be used to do it.



I hope all that made some modicum of sense, I did my best, and perhaps with some further discussion here we can tease things out more.

[Dunderhead]

This thread is one of the reasons this board is perhaps the finest place on the internet. In the middle of all of this reunion talk, we're having this incredibly calm discussion about the distinctions between pop and classical music -- and the people in the discussion all have a certain amount of knowledge about each. It's fabulous.

Sorry. Just had to gush for a second. Anyway, the filter you notice is for the letters pee and em, to stop people in other threads from asking for naughty, naughty things.

Agreed. Always really glad to see what other people here think about this type of thing. Some great posts from everyone so far. Thanks for the input guys, very interesting comments.