Quotation and "Structural Development"

Throwing in this transcription (not my arrangement) I did for an Army chamber performance (see score below). The ensemble was really unorthodox, but (to misquote Rummy) you do the concert with the Army you have, not the Army you want. The piece is about 96% quotations for 6 minutes (some +40 composers and around 50 tunes or quotes). The purpose of the piece was to program a concert finale for educational outreach at public school music programs or use at chamber festivals.

The performance is Noteperformer 3 playback (if I can track down a live recording of our group playing it, you'll hear how our interpretation differs from the cheesy Sibelius/Noteperformer articulations, phrasing, and balance).


I don't know if this furthers your thread, or derails it.

 

Very interesting thread, I'm looking forward to see what other people think about this!

I originally come from Pop\Rock, and there is a lot of lifting in the archives. Of course it depends on how it's handled but this doesn't bother me much. I do think It has to be done carefully anyway. Putting together a bunch of jazz licks doesn't make you Miles Davis.

Didn't music evolve through a similar process though? People building on whatever other people said before them an so on. I guess it's slightly different in this case, because quotes are eventually morphed into something new leaving intact the original core of the idea. Still in popular music you hear a lot of the same thing repeated over and over in various shapes and forms and I think it's this constant repetition that legitimises the quotes. At some point they just stop being quotes and become idioms of that particular genre. That is the essence of music I believe.

Even the whole process of practicing an instrument is done precisely that way. Copying other's work and trying to make it perfect through repetition. Whether it's done on purpose or not, of course this stuff eventually shows up in our writing. It's so ingrained in our brains we couldn't discard it if we wanted to. Not quotes, appropriation.

 

I think the "structure" is determined by the overall montage/collage sense of the piece - which was its intent programmatically. Plus the "cleverness" of layering 2 to 4 themes simultaneously with a handful of key/tempo changes to maintain interest. This plays well for people a broad exposure to classical literature, but there's a handful of pop-symphonic quotes too for the high school musician to appreciate.

I think to the extent that there's any glue holding it together, it is the subtle JS Bach, CPE Bach, and Handel licks running in the background for the accompanying lines (Solfeggietto, Cello Suite in G, etc.). Sometimes those Baroque licks are highlighted, but often they're the base of the cake while the more notable operatic and symphonic themes are the decorative melodies in the soprano voices. Plus, the snippets are between 8-16 bars (at most) of the main themes (other than the Canon in D type layering before the finale).

My biggest challenge creating this was orchestrating for the particular musicians (I knew them personally so could write to their strengths) and making sure the lines were idiomatic for the instruments without too much rehearsal time. Professional technique can overcome a lot of (orchestrational) obstacles, but when it lies well on the instrument it makes all the difference. It was also a challenge to write for 4 brass and 4 winds in this atypical setup with enough rests (finale selection of a 50 minute wind instrument set) to keep the chops. It also helps that the transposition from the original keys (necessary for the contrapuntal layering) maintains the character of the themes. Lastly, choreography in live performance, plus real-life timbre and phrasing, clears up some of the muddiness of the Noteperformer balance.

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Thoughts away from the piece I linked above:
The old timers (JS Bach) had weekly deadlines to crank out music for church services, so they quoted their own (and borrowed) material liberally. There was no fear of copyright issues and it was an honor that your material was getting wider circulation in a new format. Even further back (Catholic Masses of the Renaissance) had TONS of quoted material for the cantus - I had too many classes in music history to let it slip. These well known themes would serve as the harmonic underpinning of entire masses (the L'homme armé theme is one of the most well known). These were "pre-functional" harmonies, but there's no mistaking the treatment of the themes.

Moving closer to present day, Theme & Variations, late-Romantic symphonies, and Wagner-influenced operas are all about quotes. Some quote famous themes from lieder and contemporary pop songs. Mahler's 5th quoted lines from Beethoven's 5th. Wagner quotes his own themes throughout his operatic cycles (the whole point of the leitmotif). Also, check out Brahm's "Variations on a Theme of Paganini." Some of these uses are derivative (like the Theme & Var), and some are direct quotes.

As for what makes it work....if the quoted material is too obscure, then you're telling inside jokes that the audience can't share in. "Hey remember that time at the beach house...with PJ and Squee...?" If the quote is too on the nose, then it is cliche and trite. Somewhere along that continuum is the happy medium. Quotations in jazz (Dexter Gordon & Sonny Rollins come immediately to mind) are like you're sharing the lingua franca/influences/repertoire with the listener. There's more to this, which is the point of the thread, but that's my initial blurb.

/End ramble

 

Yes

I'm not familiar with that text (dated 1960's), but get the idea.

I'm about to head down for the night, but I'll look into this Schenker-style tomorrow.

I think I'm latching onto your idea of the thread and will give it more thought. Those are pretty disparate tunes/genres/periods to put into one piece.
It's like....mustard on ice cream. Mustard on a hot dog...works. Ice cream after hotdog...works. Put them in the same bite and it is kind of a jumble. You can do anything (in cuisine or music), but some things work better. Hard to say if it is cultural tradition, a fact of human biology (taste buds and sensation), or something else. I'll sleep on it.

 

I think "Hooked On Classics" only has structural development in a nostalgic sense. If the listener doesn't know any of the "classics", then they will probably get lost because the tune is constantly changing and the piece as a whole may seem chaotic. But as a listener who recognizes all the tunes, I can engage with the piece as I wait to see what quote will come next and how it will transition/connect to the next tune. It's essentially a string of quotes glued together with a never-changing drum loop (which makes me want to shoot myself after 2 minutes or so), but quotes aren't generally used this way. When Tarantino quotes a scene from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly in Django Unchained, he is 1. paying homage to another piece of art that he admires and 2. putting the quote in a new context, giving it a different meaning, retelling the story, etc. I think that is essentially what makes a quote work or not: its context within the rest of the piece.

 

It's tricky we are talking about examples based entirely on the quote bringing almost nothing new to the table.

In my opinion, sampling in pop can feel very wrong for a couple reasons. First of all, point above. Second, it's how it's done. They're not re-using samples to pay homage to whatever artist, or expand on it with something new. Often times they just brute force take it with no regards where it came from and how it's going to be used next. I think it feels out of place because it literally is. The "quote" it's been decontextualised and given a new home that has nothing to do with the previous. The only thing they tend to share is being both music, that's not nearly enough...

I mentioned Jazz earlier. The collage thing feels less like a mashup because at least all the elements share the same ground rules and they're headed in the same direction. Licks and cliches are not only public domain but they're welcome, just like entire sentences in a language. Once upon a time, break a leg, you can't judge a book by its cover, I feel under the weather, speak of the devil, etc. You can't possibly make an entire speech out of these phrases only, neither can you randomly throw it in there but if used correctly can be powerful story telling tools everybody can instantly connect to.

 

In the strictest Schenkerian sense, there isn't a fundamental line or Urlinie. There are too many disparate elements due to the medley nature of the piece. Four key changes and a handful of relative key changes (mainly to maintain listener interest and move the themes into more idiomatic registers) also frustrate that kind of analysis. Also, the large scale form is more through composed sounding with some background call-backs to earlier supporting motives - so each successive section is only loosely related to the previous sections.

You can certainly reduce large sections of the piece. I could be convinced that I'm wrong on the Schenkerian front, as I spent only 10-15 minutes blazing through it, but I don't see it.

Back to the three crazy charts you mentioned above. See the score below and Soundcloud for playback.


I chopped up some gestures, transposed them to Em, and juxtaposed them to see how they fit together. This can be expanded and developed (diminution, augmentation, whatever), but it was a jumping off point to see how suitable they would be from a dissonance or harmonic standpoint. There's nothing clever here, just 10 minutes with Sibelius, but it works because the gestures are short and the harmony is pretty forgiving. With orchestration the parts would be even more apparent.

If the goal were to somehow evaluate these quotes for an "opening", "main", or "closing" thematic idea - then I just skipped over that. For me, it would come down to preserving the character of the quote (the rhythmic and intervallic nature of the Beethoven fate theme). Something I would consider, can you move the quote around to change the agogic accent or move a consonance to a dissonance in a way that is novel? Lastly, the Bond harmonies are more forgiving of extentions to the 7th/9th/etc., but I don't know if it is as easy with different harmonic expectations.

 

Really interesting thread, thanks for the discussion.

As a possibly irrelevant insight from other genres, what I've noticed happens a lot in the progressive rock world (at least modernly) is that there are both a good deal of derivatives and quotes (i.e. Porcupine Tree's "Time Flies" sounds similar to Pink Floyd's "Dogs", but not the same -- it sounds more idiomatic to the style, as mentioned above, due to Pink Floyd's history in the genre). What tends to give a band a greater sense of originality in this genre is the blending of disparate genres and quotes in a seamless manner, and purposing quotes to the needs of the piece, as opposed to quoting it for quoting's sake.

Derivative
Pink Floyd -- Dogs

PT -- Time Flies

Quote
Abba -- Lay All Your Love On Me

Opeth -- The Moor

They do something similar with a Camel song too. I can't comment too much as far as efficacy within genre, as the aforementioned people are far more knowledgeable on the classical repertoire than I am.

 

Thanks for adding your repertoire to the discussion. Diversity of experience makes this an engaging community.