Devolution of Music Part 3: Real Innovation is Difficult and Complex

Part of the reason that the whole human race is devolving is because, when it comes right down to it, real advancement and innovation is difficult, time-consuming, tedious or simply too complex. As such, it is usually avoided in favor of easier, simpler, less mentally strenuous endeavors.

This is Part 3 of the Devolution of music Series. If you haven't read Part 1 or 2, then you can start at the beginning by clicking the link here! Or backtrack to Part 2 here!

Why does it have to be difficult? Music is only as complex as you want it to be. Some take the view that playing an instrument is just background noise for the vocals, anyway, that the message/poetry of the words is what's important. Play a beat, drone on in one key and sing or talk over-top of this sound....and done. Others seem to think there's really no reason or need to advance musically when the truth is that what we already have is...well...pretty good. Sure, you might have to go back twenty years for something truly unique and powerful to listen to, but that's what libraries, internet, vinyl/tapes and computers are all for: to store all the music of history so you can listen whenever you want. But what if that twenty years of cheap, bad music turns into fifty years of bad music or perhaps into a hundred years...will you suddenly admit we're devolving and go pick up your guitar and write a masterpiece? Probably not.

     You see, despite all the many changes in taste, styles and fashion associated with music, it's our opinion (@VeryUsMumblings) that there have only been two real mental/academic advances in music in the last hundred years or so. One of those advances is the use of odd time signatures. The other is improvisation.

Odd Time
   Those funny little fractions at the left side of a bar of sheet music are indicators of the time-structure of that piece of music.  The top number is the number of beats per bar and the bottom is the denomination of those beats (4/4 would mean the 4 beats are each quarter notes). And not much has changed with those for hundreds of years.. Basically, rock, reggae, disco, funk and just about anything that you can listen to on the radio is in basic 4/4 time. And to be realistic, the vast majority of all of the music in recorded history is written in 4/4 time, too.
   Sure, there's such thing as a waltz (3/4) or a jig(6/4) or even a polka (2/4), but in the vast scheme of things, most are even numbered timings and 4/4 is king. All the rest are much less used and often shunned.
   But somewhere around the middle of the 20th century, musicians started using odd time signatures in their music. Discordant notes aside, it didn't catch on so fast that it has displaced your king 4/4, but the toes are placed firmly in the door. Now, I don't know how to express the effect changing the timing has on the music itself. It's unmistakably odd, yet, if done properly, can sometimes make a song seem greater or more important simply because the riffs and melodies can't be broken down into groups of four. It's a bit like adding a dimension to music that many people wouldn't normally consider.
   Perhaps people like things to be resolved, rounded up, evened-out, and odd-timed music just goes against their instincts. Perhaps they just don't like the fraction and have trouble moving along with the music, so they can't feel the rhythm the way they can when they clap their hands on the 2 and the 4. But I've found that odd-timed music just doesn't suit some people. They just don't like it and never will. Is it devolution? perhaps. Or perhaps they just don't want to try it because it's too weird and complex to them. But there are many excellent and beautiful examples of odd-time music, and most of them aren't more than 2 generations old.

    The simplest and most often used odd-time signature is 3/4. Yes, it's technically the same time signature as a waltz, but if you can count to three, then you can hear why Jimi Hendrix's Manic Depression stood apart from other heavy rock songs of his day. Unfortunately, Jimi's version is under the most strict copyright enforcement ever (gigantic police offers suffering from andropause and nicotine withdrawal) on the internet, so here we've posted an excellent version by a Japanese rock group named Char

   When you start talking about odd time signatures, you have to start talking about a guy named Dave Brubeck. The Dave Brubeck Quartet released a jazz album in 1959 called simply "Time Out" which was, from beginning to end a very successful experiment in changing the basic timing of a jazz arrangement. Sometimes the timings would change in the middle of a song and then back again.
Dave Brubeck passed away just this past December (Dec 5,2012) and the legacy he and his quartet leaves us is inextricably linked to one particular song named 'Take Five' which, of course, is written in 5/4 time.

  

Sure, it was the jazz musicians that really started experimenting with odd timings, but then came Progressive Rock:

'Back in N.Y.C.' by Genesis is, for the most part written in 7/8 and I've posted a live performance by a group called 'District 97' for two reasons. One is that Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 and since his departure, they rarely perform this song live. The other reason is that this group  actually do a really great job on this very difficult song, and to see such top-notch live performance of this tune with high-quality sound is a real treat. Part of the reason this song is so difficult is because parts of the song have a different timing structure(Yet, again!). The first part of the chorus counts as 7+7+3, which, of course equals: 17/4 time and the second part counts out as 7+7+3+7+7+4, which means Dammit, I'm f***ing lost ! (actually 35/8)

   Sometimes screwing with time-signatures almost seems like screwing with the reality continuum. Things start to sound weird and difficult to follow. Everything seems normal and fine for what you perceive to be one or two bars and then BAM, you realize you're in a Bizarro-world, one long bar of 65/8.

    The one strange side-effect of all this time-shifting in music, is that it exposes which member of the band is the least devolved. And, appropriate to my opinion on devolution, it's the one that has long been believed to be the neanderthal of the band that is in fact the most advanced. It's the drummer! Odd-timings and time-changes in the musical narrative place high emphasis on the drummer to keep a clear idea of what position of the song the band is moving through and give structure to whole ensemble. So let's give a listen to Mr. Smartypants Mike Portnoy (Drummer from Dream Theater, though he's left the band since this video was made) and see if he can explain some of the odd-times that he uses. (If you can still understand what he's saying after watching 3 min of this video, you're less devolved than most. If you get too confused, turn it off and try not think about it while operating your car. Remember: it's only arithmetic.) 

Improvisation
So, let's say you're not one try to 'push' at the corners of time. You don't want to 'expand' the alternate dimensions of timing and toy with the basic structure of music. You're not a 'music-nerd' and you think you'd like to try that other mental/academic breakthrough in music....what was that again?  Improvisation?

Yes. Improvisation is, in it's simplest explanation, having no formal pre-written arrangement to play. A basic chord progression and rhythm is usually involved, and there might even be a bridge to the song, sure, but no one is going to tell you exactly what to do with it. You make it up as you go. It's really up to you. So what do you do?
Well, some of us just twiddle away indiscriminately on a guitar, playing whatever set of tricks we know for about a minute and a half, then post it on YouTube, such as this girl has done, calling it improvisation.  (She has speed and skill, but this is not what is meant by improvisation (except by dictionary definition of the word)) Some might want to talk about 'Freestyle' which is improvising rhymes instead of musical notes. Nevertheless, here's the problem with the whole idea of improvisation: I called Improvisation a mental/academic breakthrough in music, and some people seem to think that just isn't the case. Some people think improvising is...easy. 
  Just like any other form of music or art, improvisation has every potential to be done quite badly. And when it's bad, it can be very bad. Every 'open jam session' seems to have one player that just keeps playing one or two riffs, because they're simply incapable of doing anymore than that. Some singers 'improvise' the lyrics to 'I will survive', instead of offering anything of their own. Freestyle rap-battles often degenerate into roast-the-other-guy rhyming contests. And metal-lover guitar-players who really can't improvise are often called 'twiddlers' because their playing is off-key but they try to cover it up by playing faster or using a lot of wah-wah and effects. Worse still, some guitarists simply play one or two high-pitched notes over and over, thinking they're 'soloing'.
  The thing about improvisation is that, although the basic structure of a typical song is not actually required, staying on-key and on-time ...actually is required.

  So let's focus on the really good improvisation and get another explanation. Let's see what a truly great jazz player Oscar Peterson can do with about eight minutes of improvisation. Here's what to watch for: For the first minute or so, there's no backbeat, no tap of the drum, no chord progression. So how is he able to  work without all of that while playing along in a way that sounds as if it's going along a progression just like a normal song. Well...it's in his head! It doesn't exist anywhere else. It certainly isn't on a piece of paper in front of him. He's playing as if there's a back-beat and chord progression when there really isn't one there. When the bass and drums finally kick it at 2min 40sec, it's almost as if the audience can finally, physically hear what Peterson knew was there all along. From there on, the improvisation becomes much more of a collaborative effort, the bass and drums backing up Peterson's improvisation, and the degree of difficulty is increased by not knowing exactly when to ramp up the volume or whether to end on the same note.

    And finally there this. Cream's 'Farewell'  concert in the late 1960s. In this example, there is certainly a basic structure to the song Crossroads. It's a basic blues chord progression that has to be followed in order for the song to work and for the players not to lose their place in the song. Nevertheless the three members of Cream play two different beats during the verses and when three verses are complete, at about 1min 30 sec in ...all three of them begin to improvise simultaneously, as if to abandon that chord progression completely. It seems almost structureless by the time they have to return to that basic rhythm in order to sing the fourth verse. After the 4th verse, they all start improvising again, each of them playing more or less whatever the f**k they want. What chord progression? Where? Gone! They are all three improvising and after a little while it becomes incredibly confusing and you think they've certainly lost their place. And yet the song continues, on-time and on-key, exactly as it should and completes positively and ends almost with a soft touch.
    No, fellow devolving beings, I'm afraid improvisation is hard. Really hard. It's great musicians that make it seem easy. To do it as well as Oscar Peterson, Eric Clapton and their accompanying bass players and drummers, you have to be really good. And that takes ingenuity and effort and passion and time and brains. ('True Freestyle' is similarly difficult, and rappers often get accused of having prepared little rhymes or 'punchlines' ahead of time.) Whether you're writing & playing in an odd time signature, or making it up on spur of the moment, you're choosing the more difficult route. You're innovating, experimenting, risking potential disaster, perhaps the breakdown of the song in the middle of a live performance. Frankly, it's much easier not to try. It's easier to do what other people have already done, or let technology do it for you, and that's what most people are doing.
     And this could be why music is devolving. I mean, this really could be the main reason, couldn't it? It's frightening to think that we might not have the brains to make music anymore, but it could be true. Most people don't seem to think of music or the arts as anything truly important. They think that the arts are simple and easy. Maybe some people even think that it should be easy, preferring not to 'waste' time trying to understand complex pieces. Perhaps the lack of musical education has finally taken its toll, and our new and young musicians simply don't have the knowledge or training to outdo their predecessors. Perhaps the music consumer is also diminished in his or her capacity, unable to differentiate the sublime from the mundane. Simply put; maybe musicians aren't very clever anymore, and maybe the rest of us just don't know any better.

   At this point you might be scratching your head in confusion. Maybe you're surprised at the level of sophistication of some musicians that you thought were just good ol' hard-rockers. Perhaps you want to show me a middle finger and think I'm a being some kind of a music elitist. Maybe you just think I've set the bar too frigging high (We can't all be Mozart fer crying out loud!). But just because all this stuff is difficult doesn't mean that you shouldn't try or that you're not capable. Maybe you already know how to do that. Maybe you don't know until you try....

Next... the Devolution of Music series takes a break with:
Intermission: The 70-year-old Pop Song

The Devolution of Music Part 2: Monkey See, Monkey Do

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? You find
someone who's been there and then you copy him or her!

In this, the second part of the Devolution of Music, we discuss the proliferation of copying. If you haven't yet read Part 1, then you can find it here!

   When the first music was actually recorded (i.e. not written down on paper, but an actual single performance recorded onto a disc) it quickly became apparent that the 'copying' part of music became much easier (a process which is still becoming easier now) and just like the printing press, musical information spreads faster in copy form than in it's original state.
 The content of the first such recording by Edison was a recitation of the simple poem Mary had a little Lamb.

Just about everyone who's ever heard the poem can probably repeat it. It's easy to learn and remember and a great guitar player named Buddy Guy learned the poem and then put the poem together with a whole lot of cool blues music that he likely learned from his upbringing and from recordings and performances of blues artists that came before him. Furthermore, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and numerous other guitar-legends  learned quite a few things from Buddy Guy. They copied him. Perhaps not exactly, but they did.
The truth is that everyone imitates, copies and mimics. It's how we learn things. Someone shows you something and then you repeat it. You might not pick it up the first time, so you try again. If you keep trying and keep trying, then you get better at it. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The real answer is: Practice! And practice is essentially repetition, imitation, mimicking and yes even copying.
  Then, having learned what he or she needs to know, the artist ventures out on their own, like a bird from it's nest....
  Or at least, that's what's supposed to happen. Sometimes it doesn't. Whether it's for the sake of record executives who want to hit sales projections, or for the idea of pleasing the audience that an artist has already attained, or perhaps just to play it safe, sometimes artists don't venture forth. They just keep copying...they copy their peers, their competition, the past, or even themselves.
The problem with all this repetition is that, just like a groove in a vinyl record or a walking path through the park, the wear and tear eventually takes it's toll and you may find yourself stuck in a deepening rut, with less and less chance of getting out of it with each passing day.
 Perhaps it's only those over the age of 40 that see Lady Gaga as an imitation of Madonna. If they were between the age of 10 and 15, they might say Lady Gaga is Lady Gaga and who the heck is Madonna? Maybe the elders have trouble differentiating one song from another because they're just not listening closely or are nostalgic and not learning about new and modern music. Or maybe they really do sound similar or predictable. Certainly the one that the older person thinks is an imitation probably listened to the other that I think is the original. Right? Maybe. And this is why likely repetition-music is usually aimed at a young audience and not their elders. It's because their elders were fooled into thinking old was new about 20 yrs before.
  Sometimes the copy just seems a tamer version. Avril Lavigne, for all her punk attitude and swagger, seems cute and cuddly when compared to her predecessor Pat Benatar, who cut her soprano vocals during the first punk era. Sometimes the copy attempts to a be more extreme version when compared to the original. Marilyn Manson seems to have taken what Alice Cooper did and gone a step further, trying to be 'more Alice than Alice' some might say. I've yet to see a truly worthy imitator of Michael Jackson, but perhaps his dance moves were just too difficult. Most R&B and pop males usually land somewhere between a skinny Barry White without the piano skills, or a Luther Vandross with more jewellery. But nostalgia always paints the predecessor as the innovator. It's always likely that the previous bunch of stars got their ideas from someone even further back, like Janis Joplin or Screaming Jay Hawkins or James Brown.
  Strangely, like I said earlier, the copy usually travels better than the original. Remember; practice is what gets you to Carnegie Hall, so the second person in the line may actually be more prepared than the original. Just like Stevie Ray Vaughan learned from Buddy Guy, it was Buddy Guy who cut the path for rock and blues to crossover one to the other and back, and it was Stevie Ray Vaughan who benefits from seeing and hearing what Buddy Guy did.  Similarly, Lady Gaga is not cutting the path, she's following it, and has the added benefit of having watched Madonna, and others, for years, along with other young Madonna imitators. So Lady Gaga, could, conceivably be much better than Madonna...that is...if she, like the birds, dares to venture from the nest.... to strike her own path.
  The problem is that probably isn't going to happen. At least, the odds are against it. The truth is that copying and repetition is on the rise, while experimentation and art is on the decline. A proven band (i.e. Dad Rock)  like Bon Jovi or AC/DC, for example, don't change their sound much from album to album. And generally speaking, an artist that does changes their sound, doesn't really change their music, they 'update' it, usually by copying someone else that is supposedly 'more current'.
   So what's the problem? Why isn't everyone trying to venture out on their own? Why are we letting music devolve into a bunch of copying monkeys?
   I think there's 3 reasons.
   The first reason is that it's easier to change an artist's image than their music. If some artist isn't sexy enough, you can put him or her in sexier clothes and do a makeover. If they are too sexy, or perhaps rough-looking, you put them in nice-guy clothes like the Beatles. If they are too normal, you dress them up funky. If they're too weird, you take off the pimp hat, but let him keep the suit. Basically, it's easier to change image and so that's what is usually done. It doesn't solve anything but to the 'public' there appears to be some difference, so that distracts from the music which is the same imitative stuff that you've heard before.
   The second reason is that most rock/pop music is based on a basic structure of a three or four chord progression, about three minutes long, with or without a bridge or solo. This basic structure has been used over and over again and again until you really can't stand it anymore. And how do you get over getting sick of it? Well, usually you go back into your record collection and find some song that uses those same three or four chords, but did it in a much different and better way than the more recent copy-version. You look for the original...which, in fact, is probably just another copy.
  The third reason is that both artists and the music industry usually try to appeal to as large an audience as they can. They want to give us, the consuming public, what we like....and what we like, is what we already know we like. It seems bizarre, but the only way you can know if you like music is if you've already heard it before. And having heard it before, the familiar is comforting. Frankly, it's easier to follow that way, too. When you know the singer is going to sing that part you like, you anticipate it. And when you hear that certain drum roll to start the song, you get all excited. Predictability makes for a good concert, too. Bands and musicians of all types know which songs to play right at the beginning and what songs to make the audience wait for. The audience loves knowing that their favourite band started with the one they like, but they like it even better when they save that other one they like for the encore. The unfamiliar stuff, or the ballad, or the too-long-for-radio-song generally goes somewhere in the middle.
   There's also a hidden fourth reason, which ties back into my statement off the top. Practice has proven these three things work. Pop music has been around a very long time now. Over seventy years if you include the pre-rock era. Get an artist with the right image, the catchy three or four chord hit single and then give people what you best estimate is what they want and bang, your artist and his or her record company is successful. Copying and repeating what has come before keeps working, and so there really isn't any reason to stop. And if something really new comes along.... well, you can just copy it!

   There's only one really serious problem to this whole system. Nothing new is coming along! And what's new is not necessarily different or un-copied. Like I suggested, we've cut this path for seventy years, and now we find ourselves in a trench. The basic structure of a pop-song is failing to excite people anymore and no one knows what or who to copy or learn from, because there are fewer and fewer people that have ventured out far enough on their own in music to actually have anything to teach. The pop-song system is breaking down, and yet we just keep copying...and copying....and copying....and copying...

Continued in Part 3: Real Innovation is Difficult....