Evolution of music by public choice.
- Thread starter trekkiedane
- Start date
Another phenomenon popular in classical music is the "Variations on a theme of" composition, particularly used in mid to later Eras by composers like Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Britten. I really appreciate how these compositions take a simple theme, then derive different melodic variations, building up intricacies, complexities and musical "mutations" along the way. In many cases, these variations themselves have been crafted into a larger piece, such as Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini" or Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra: Variations and Fugue on a theme of Purcell" with a clear opening, middle development, and finale when taken as a whole.
Even Elgar formulated a series of Variations on an original "Enigma" theme - and in yet another example of taking things one step further, modern audiences might recognise part of the theme as the opening to Rob D's "Clubbed To Death" (which also samples the opening to Holst's "Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity" later on).
In the context of this thread, these are merely deliberately artistic reinterpretations of a basic theme, but I can still understand some similarities in the concepts of taking a meme and evolving it into something new (and in the case of Elgar's "Nimrod" or Rachmaninoff's 18th Variation, breaking the cultural mould and becoming a popular work in its own right).
Also, given that these themes were often by earlier composers, does that make these compositions the very first "remixes"?
Even Elgar formulated a series of Variations on an original "Enigma" theme - and in yet another example of taking things one step further, modern audiences might recognise part of the theme as the opening to Rob D's "Clubbed To Death" (which also samples the opening to Holst's "Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity" later on).
In the context of this thread, these are merely deliberately artistic reinterpretations of a basic theme, but I can still understand some similarities in the concepts of taking a meme and evolving it into something new (and in the case of Elgar's "Nimrod" or Rachmaninoff's 18th Variation, breaking the cultural mould and becoming a popular work in its own right).
Also, given that these themes were often by earlier composers, does that make these compositions the very first "remixes"?
^BINGO!
I mean: The evolution of the piece In the OP does sound like those you make yourself when playing around with virtual synths (or whatever they're called; I've only ever played with FruityLoops): a loop that you make small alterations to over and over again
I mean: The evolution of the piece In the OP does sound like those you make yourself when playing around with virtual synths (or whatever they're called; I've only ever played with FruityLoops): a loop that you make small alterations to over and over again
^ In that case, given the examples suggested in this thread - classical variations, introducing novel forms of music, direct sampling of the old to create the new - during the process of this discussion I thought further about the topic, and eventually wonder whether the experiment that kicked off this thread really added anything about musical memetic development that music scholars over the centuries might have always instinctively known all this time. I don't know if this is something that would come naturally to musicians, although I suppose in improvisational music forms such as jazz, this sort of thing is one of the great wonders of music.
While the link between science and music is as old as Pythagoras (and maybe even older) I will admit that the explicit connection between the development of musical themes, motifs and forms (or cultural memes) to theories about genetics and evolution is something rather new to me, and not a connection I would have consciously made by myself.
In any case, I think what the thread has helped do personally is crystallise and strengthen the link between something that touches the human soul such as music, and something that stimulates the intellect as scientific theory - that in itself is quite an interesting way of thinking, and this subject, and the thread in which it is discussed, has certainly enriched and enhanced my own appreciation of both of these fields of popular culture.
It's getting late here. I think I'll leave things with this clip which seems to me to say a great deal on the subject:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCBerqKic2A[/yt]
While the link between science and music is as old as Pythagoras (and maybe even older) I will admit that the explicit connection between the development of musical themes, motifs and forms (or cultural memes) to theories about genetics and evolution is something rather new to me, and not a connection I would have consciously made by myself.
In any case, I think what the thread has helped do personally is crystallise and strengthen the link between something that touches the human soul such as music, and something that stimulates the intellect as scientific theory - that in itself is quite an interesting way of thinking, and this subject, and the thread in which it is discussed, has certainly enriched and enhanced my own appreciation of both of these fields of popular culture.
It's getting late here. I think I'll leave things with this clip which seems to me to say a great deal on the subject:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCBerqKic2A[/yt]
Quite a note to leave on 
Almost forgot: thanks for bringing the baroque into the thread; it's -in my ears- the very same thing they did back then (with quill and parchment) that modern composers are doing with software: endless variations of a rather simple little loop.
And just because your mention of Purcell made me want to put on Dido and Aeneas
Almost forgot: thanks for bringing the baroque into the thread; it's -in my ears- the very same thing they did back then (with quill and parchment) that modern composers are doing with software: endless variations of a rather simple little loop.
And just because your mention of Purcell made me want to put on Dido and Aeneas
Last edited:
^ 
The thread has been quite the journey for me. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Speaking of making connections between science and art, I really need to try and get through Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. It's one of those books I want to read before I die.
The thread has been quite the journey for me. Thanks for sharing it with us. Speaking of making connections between science and art, I really need to try and get through Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. It's one of those books I want to read before I die.
Last edited:
Interestingly, "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve itself is an example of a sample undergoing memetic change and reuse: the backing orchestra track is taken from an orchestral version of "The Last Time" by the Rolling Stones. It also led to the Verve song becoming wholly credited to Jagger & Richards following a court case.
Personally, I prefer the Verve's song.
Too right. That sadly was one of the major factors in their breakup also, they were absolutely gutted that they didn't earn a penny off that song, their biggest hit.
The whole lot went to the Stones. Absurd.
