The Flute, Not Played with Factory Recommended Techniques
By Zach Smith
I know what you’re thinking, trust me, I know what you think when you hear this kind of music for the first time; it’s the same thing everyone thinks. You think that it’s simple, easy. You think that who ever is playing the flute has never played the flute before, or maybe, if you’re slightly more progressive minded and analytical, then you might think that it is someone who knows how to play, and probably well, and he or she is showcasing the history of how he or she learned how to play that instrument. Is that what you think? Yes? No? It doesn’t matter, neither of those observations are wholly correct.
The problem is that you have to be eased into this music. You have to start with a foundation in the more approachable music of centuries past, classical music that is. Pop, rock and roll and rap don’t figure into this equation at all. Once you get a firm understanding and appreciation of how music works, then you can begin to understand the less approachable stuff, but not all at once. There are degrees of inapproachability, you have to start with some of the less out there stuff before you go further and further out. If you’re going to the moon you need to first go into space. It’s my fault for jumping the gun and showing you this stuff too early. I may have caused damage and now you won’t be able to appreciate this stuff, but I don’t think I have done this. The worst I may have done is set back your inevitable progression into the enjoyment of this type of weird modern contemporary post-tonal musical composition. If you listen to it enough you will be able to force it down and once you’ve done that the rest will come more easily.
I’ll tell you how it happened to me. Just like you I thought negatively of this music at first. It seemed overly simple. Even though I gave it some credit as a good musician showcasing his or her progression of skill like I said earlier, I still looked at it in the same way one would look at a short story consisting solely of blank pages, which is to say: “yes it might be brilliant, yes it might be new and unique and never-done-before and progressive and postmodern and avant-garde and experimental and so on, but in truth it’s nothing, it’s nothing at all.” By the way there are actually musical scores that are completely silent too, but I think it will be a little more time yet before we get to those. I'm sure you agree.
Anyway that’s what I use to think of music like this, I see you’re nodding your head. I guess you agree with my initial impression, that’s good, it means that you may yet follow in my path and reach these higher levels of appreciation. The thing that made a difference for me was when I saw the score. I know the music might superficially sound simple if not amateurish or juvenile, but how do you write that kind of music? Three words: it’s not easy.
If you look at the score for a piece like this or really any of this kind of music, you will find that the scores are extremely complex. These extended techniques, that’s the actual name for the non-factory recommended techniques, the notation for these extended techniques uses a lot of symbols that are usually specific to the individual score, accompanied by a key at the beginning of the score explaining each one of those symbols and how it is to be preformed. It would be one thing to have a kid who never played the flute, recorded making similar noises, but the thing is, this music was all written before hand, and then preformed to some degree of consistency. I say some degree, because the music is actually so complex that the exact sound of a score like this is virtually impossible to reach, ergo each performer will deviate slightly from what the piece is suppose to sound like.
This music is extremely difficult to play. These performers have painstakingly learned to play an instrument, like the flute, properly, and now they have to relearn techniques that they have worked very hard to suppress, on top of that they have to memorize the lengthy key because they can’t constantly refer to it while reading the music. I assure you kids can’t play this kind of music, they may be able to approximate something that sounds, to an untrained ear, similar to this, but they can not play this song, not unless they are some sort of child musical prodigy, and if they were, they would not play music like this because only a small handful of people would be able to recognize their genius, it would be a superficial waste of their talent even though it is not.
This is a symptom of the rapid progression of art, music like this is actually so far ahead of the curve that the collective subconscious of society does not understand it at all, and as a subconscious natural defense, when your brain does not understand something its reaction to it is largely negative. That’s another reason why this doesn’t sound good, but your ear can be trained to understand this type of music, to appreciate it, even to enjoy it, and once that happens you yourself will have progressed above the majority of the human race.
Listen to it again.
- - -
My name is Zach Smith, I live in the Suburban Philadelphia area and I am a graduate of Chestnut Hill College. I have been writing for about seven years. I have recently been published at the Short Humour Site, Six Sentences, and Flashes in the Dark. I also have severe dyslexia, which has hindered me in my creative endeavors, but has also inspired me to work harder to succeed as a writer.
By Zach Smith
I know what you’re thinking, trust me, I know what you think when you hear this kind of music for the first time; it’s the same thing everyone thinks. You think that it’s simple, easy. You think that who ever is playing the flute has never played the flute before, or maybe, if you’re slightly more progressive minded and analytical, then you might think that it is someone who knows how to play, and probably well, and he or she is showcasing the history of how he or she learned how to play that instrument. Is that what you think? Yes? No? It doesn’t matter, neither of those observations are wholly correct.
The problem is that you have to be eased into this music. You have to start with a foundation in the more approachable music of centuries past, classical music that is. Pop, rock and roll and rap don’t figure into this equation at all. Once you get a firm understanding and appreciation of how music works, then you can begin to understand the less approachable stuff, but not all at once. There are degrees of inapproachability, you have to start with some of the less out there stuff before you go further and further out. If you’re going to the moon you need to first go into space. It’s my fault for jumping the gun and showing you this stuff too early. I may have caused damage and now you won’t be able to appreciate this stuff, but I don’t think I have done this. The worst I may have done is set back your inevitable progression into the enjoyment of this type of weird modern contemporary post-tonal musical composition. If you listen to it enough you will be able to force it down and once you’ve done that the rest will come more easily.
I’ll tell you how it happened to me. Just like you I thought negatively of this music at first. It seemed overly simple. Even though I gave it some credit as a good musician showcasing his or her progression of skill like I said earlier, I still looked at it in the same way one would look at a short story consisting solely of blank pages, which is to say: “yes it might be brilliant, yes it might be new and unique and never-done-before and progressive and postmodern and avant-garde and experimental and so on, but in truth it’s nothing, it’s nothing at all.” By the way there are actually musical scores that are completely silent too, but I think it will be a little more time yet before we get to those. I'm sure you agree.
Anyway that’s what I use to think of music like this, I see you’re nodding your head. I guess you agree with my initial impression, that’s good, it means that you may yet follow in my path and reach these higher levels of appreciation. The thing that made a difference for me was when I saw the score. I know the music might superficially sound simple if not amateurish or juvenile, but how do you write that kind of music? Three words: it’s not easy.
If you look at the score for a piece like this or really any of this kind of music, you will find that the scores are extremely complex. These extended techniques, that’s the actual name for the non-factory recommended techniques, the notation for these extended techniques uses a lot of symbols that are usually specific to the individual score, accompanied by a key at the beginning of the score explaining each one of those symbols and how it is to be preformed. It would be one thing to have a kid who never played the flute, recorded making similar noises, but the thing is, this music was all written before hand, and then preformed to some degree of consistency. I say some degree, because the music is actually so complex that the exact sound of a score like this is virtually impossible to reach, ergo each performer will deviate slightly from what the piece is suppose to sound like.
This music is extremely difficult to play. These performers have painstakingly learned to play an instrument, like the flute, properly, and now they have to relearn techniques that they have worked very hard to suppress, on top of that they have to memorize the lengthy key because they can’t constantly refer to it while reading the music. I assure you kids can’t play this kind of music, they may be able to approximate something that sounds, to an untrained ear, similar to this, but they can not play this song, not unless they are some sort of child musical prodigy, and if they were, they would not play music like this because only a small handful of people would be able to recognize their genius, it would be a superficial waste of their talent even though it is not.
This is a symptom of the rapid progression of art, music like this is actually so far ahead of the curve that the collective subconscious of society does not understand it at all, and as a subconscious natural defense, when your brain does not understand something its reaction to it is largely negative. That’s another reason why this doesn’t sound good, but your ear can be trained to understand this type of music, to appreciate it, even to enjoy it, and once that happens you yourself will have progressed above the majority of the human race.
Listen to it again.
- - -
My name is Zach Smith, I live in the Suburban Philadelphia area and I am a graduate of Chestnut Hill College. I have been writing for about seven years. I have recently been published at the Short Humour Site, Six Sentences, and Flashes in the Dark. I also have severe dyslexia, which has hindered me in my creative endeavors, but has also inspired me to work harder to succeed as a writer.
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Good job Zach. Enjoyed reading it again.