Directness and Vagueness in Music 

Vagueness has been on my mind lately, as I’ve come to the conclusion that some composers are direct and to the point, and others are vague and veiled.  I’m trying to tell whether it’s done on purpose or if especially vague composers are only capable of presenting vague music and visa versa. 

Size Matters:

I think deep within the composer, there is a desire to favor longer musical ideas over shorter ones.  As if a short piece would comment negatively upon their intellect and their inability to develop a musical thought. I think modern classical music has added the concept of complexity over simplicity to this favoring. 

A nine minute symphony would hardly be a symphony at all, but 90 minutes could be too much of a good thing. 

Brahms, Wagner, and Mahler are all famous for composing titanic pieces of music.  But does the increased length in anyway water down the whole at all?  Is there an ideal value in minutes to aspire to?

At what point does overly long music start making the listener drift off to think about that after concert drink?  I’ve had many professional musicians confess to me they too can even drift. 

Beethoven 9 is a long symphony, but it seems to be exactly the right amount of minutes given its construction and nature. 

Beethoven was able to do this effortlessly.  Even the longish slow moment has tonal and thematic development, varying orchestration, density increases and subtractions, and phrase give and takes. Most importantly, it always seems to move forward in a certain direction, be it though peaks or valleys, but always forward never stagnant, never garnering those extra seconds for the sake of adding length to the work.  Never empty bars. 

Direct vs Vague 

Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky perhaps are the best examples of what I mean by direct composers. They employ their compositional choices (mainly their choices of notes and textures) not only to please the listener long term, but to please the listener in the very moment. Let me use an analogy to explain what I mean. 

In rap you might know a song by your favorite artist that you aren’t that fond of. Yet within this very song you might a find a miniature moment of lyrical brilliance. 

“So where’s all the mad rappers at

It’s like a jungle in this habitat

But all you savage cats

Know that I was strapped with gats

While you were cuddling a Cabbage Patch.” 

Even if you hate rap or this song you gotta admit this phrase is dope.

Or you can just be in awe of the beat and be meh about the lyrics

This beat/setting is very direct, the lyrical content/hook are less so.

Peterson vs Monk 

In jazz you might be especially tired of a given standard, but you know that the Oscar Peterson version is going to have some tasty licks in it to enjoy.  You know that the Bill Evans version will have some perfectly voiced tonal candies to feast on.  

Based on rap, I call this rhyming—it is the major characteristic of direct composers. Regardless of what becomes before or after it, you can enjoy the rhyming while you’re in the moment.  

There of course is long form directness and vagueness, but let’s skip that for now.

Oscar Peterson playing directly vs Thelonius Monk playing more vaguely ( I love both versions, for the record). 

Oscar Peterson vs Monk on Sophisticated lady 

Though both are enjoyable, the Oscar Peterson seems to be way more polished and thought out than the Monk.  It is also less adventurous tonally than Monk’s “right” wrong note approach. Also Peterson clearly plays the piano with better technique than Monk, if that figures into the equation at all for anyone; it kind of does for me. I’d happily listen to either.

Because he could play so well, he can throw in that occasional miracle lick like the one at 1:33—pure bliss in a single moment—very similar to that Dr. Dre rhyme above.  You know the kind of lick that would make someone in the crowd go “ohhheee” involuntarily out of excitement. 

Fragment-smithing vs melody-smithing 

Beethoven was the best fragment-smith of all time.  You could give him the smallest of musical ideas and he could modify it into a perfect musical line. 

Look here at the opening of Piano Sonata 30—the first four notes comprise a motif/fragment that he uses repeatedly in the place of a through composed melody.  

Yet here in the very next sonata, he relies upon a through composed melody for the opening.   These last piano sonatas are utterly perfect—Beethoven understood both fragmentary and melodic style composing. 

How hard is it to compose an Epic Item Level melody?

Being a composer myself, I find it pretty hard to compose something memorable that isn’t try-hard sounding. In fact it’s actually very hard to do convincingly.  If you under compose your melody, you get a vague and forgettable tune (a common level item); if you over compose it, you end up with an overstated, overly sweet melody that sounds completely try-hard (it’s also a common level item).  It is really hard to hit the sweet spot—if you do, you may craft a rare item melody. It is harder still to find a way to craft the melody to sound effortless and unique—if you do, you get an Epic Item level melody. 

By the way, a melody doesn’t even need to be a formal “Star Wars” main title type commitment; it can be a passing phrase, a counter line, a clever chord change, or the like—it can be anything remotely melodic or interesting.

Mahler vs Rachmaninoff

After much consideration, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never enjoy Mahler as much as some people.  His purposeful fragmentary nature distracts me too much from the landscape of the music—things seem too random and jumpy form-wise for me to enjoy. 

By the way, I’m actually jealous of the people who do get him, as I very much desire to and have repeatedly tried to. 

I do however get Rachmaninoff, and the second symphony is my favorite of his three. In a further effort to explain directness vs vagueness, let’s compare their symphonies in E minor to each other.  

Let’s look at these two examples of them both using an exposed violin melody in the first movement after a lull in the energy and several minutes of introductory development. 

Here is the Mahler:

Here is the Rachmaninoff:

If I had to vote for one, I’d have to vote for the Rachmaninoff—he takes that grand orchestration gesture and follows it through to an apex moment—a moment of great climax. A moment that makes the slow opening and spacious development make more sense.

I find Mahler just sort of lets it dissolve into more of the same.  When he had the equal opportunity to get to the top of the mountain, he turns around and heads back.

It’s kind of like a comedian prepping a joke, telling the preamble and suddenly deciding to change the topic without delivering the punchline. 

I actually find it somewhat frustrating. 

Of course Mahler did this all on purpose, probably some rejecting of typical romanticism in the process—it’s just not for me. 

Rachmaninoff is frequently criticized for being too predictable, but is it fair to criticize Mahler here for being too indirect?  I think so—though admittedly, it’s just a matter of taste.  I do wonder if in his mind, he was being direct and it simply sounds indirect for some reason.

Debussy screws everything up

Debussy is the master of manipulating the listener. At his will, he can be vague or direct.  He can even do it in the same piece.   He can hide the same melody you are in currently in awe of eight bars before you even noticed it.   He can go from making 1% sense to 10% and carefully work up to 100% and back down to 20%.  In this way, his music flows in a way very unique to him. It is long form music—a wide aspect ratio musical landscape, pleasing in the moment and in the whole.  

He was certainly aware he was doing this; just listen to his piano pieces—they can be forwardly melodic in nature or nearly invisible, relying only on rhythmic fragments.