Newent Orchestral Society
72 years of music making, 1940-2012

Bill's Musical Notes, April, 2011    

Weaving A Musical Web

Music is a focal point for my world and I enjoy making connections between the music I hear and its place in the greater scheme of things. Connections are basic to living; no man is an island and so forth. It's when the component parts of a system are connected and working in harmony with oneanother that the best results occur, whether you are talking about a team, a family, an organisation, a machine,  or an orchestra. You could even view the orchestra as a metaphor for any other type of system. Any one part working in isolation affects the whole adversely but if all the individual musicians and the different sections are connected and are communicating with one another, then all is well.  It's a complex feedback system like any other and can be analysed as such.

Connections in music can be considered to be between composer-musician-audience, or between music and its historical context and so on. For me, the most important connection is with my daily life and enjoyment of different types of music. I'm listening at the moment to a new album by rock icons, Radiohead, called, "King of Limbs".   Now what has that got to do with serious classical or contemporary music? And why should you be interested? First, Radiohead, as creators of modern music, are interesting enough and significant enough for Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker, to give them fair coverage in his new book, Listen To This, a sequel to his seminal history of 20th century music, The Rest Is Noise.

Radiohead have a huge following among the rock and indie culture and are known for their collaborations, experimentation and, more recently, film scores (guitarist, Jonny Greenwood has written the sound track for the adaptation of Haruki Murakami's cult novel, "Norwegian Wood" and, yes, there is a Beatles connection). I reckon that far from their music being ephemeral, it will be heard in the distant future, just as we are listening to Mozart and Beethoven today knowing that those classics won't be diminished by time. Think of the excitement that Beethoven stirred in those who were open to his new music, just as there were those who thought it crude and missed the point when it was first heard.  Radiohead and their ilk are  creating the fire and brimstone music of today that has connected with their listeners, which, to use the vernacular, speaks to them.

Of course, they are not everyone's cup of tea, but, like Alex Ross, I'm pointing out Radiohead's connectedness to the power of music and to their ability to compose and communicate it. There will only be a smattering of such musicians remembered in the distant future and my guess is that they belong to this elite.  Unfortunately, I won't be around to discover if I'm right.

One thing is for sure, their music hasn't just appeared out of nowhere. It is clearly connected to the culture it is born out of; it is influenced by prior ones; it uses the same musical ideas that began development hundreds if not thousands of years ago. A biographer would immediately discover a web of musical connections stretched across present space and past time. It's this web that gives the music credence and depth. In isolation it is nothing.

Bill Anderton, April, 2011

You can receive the Newent Orchestra's monthly email newsletter, including these "Musical Notes".
Click HERE to subscribe.

Previous "Musical Notes"
Up Bows, Down Bows, January, 2009
Audiences - Are They Important? February, 2009
How to Practise, March, 2009
Newent and a Very Peculiar Musical Mix, April, 2009
Art of the Loudspeaker, May, 2009
Temperament - Are You Bovvered?, June, 2009
Music And Its Empty Spaces, July, 2009
Musical Madness, August, 2009
The Heath Robinson Style of Composing Music, September, 2009
Mood Music, October, 2009
A World Symphony, November, 2009
New Age Music, December, 2009
Words, Pictures - and Music, January, 2010
Roots of Music, February, 2010
Modes of Making Music, March, 2010
Composers of Today, April, 2010
Heritage Project, May, 2010
Levitator of Stones, June, 2010
In Defense of the Viola, July, 2010
Singing Bowls and Musical Spheres, August, 2010
A Day Out, September, 2010
How To Listen, October, 2010
Some Symphonic Variations, November, 2010
The Very Best Time of Year?, December, 2010
A Little Essay on Baroque Music, January, 2011
Drumming, February, 2011
The Grim Reaper, March, 2011