What music do you consider simplistic?
I'm asking because you've differentiated between "simplistic" and "simple" in the past.
dinhibited55
A good question that requires an answer longer than I can be bothered to write here. But I'll give you something. Simple music and simplistic music sound similar. Both are clear and direct in their expression. The primary difference is that simple music is formally interesting on some level, whereas simplistic music gets mired in repetition with only superficial variation. In short, simple music takes you on a musical journey (where the writing itself is what is evolving) whereas simplistic music goes nowhere (once again, musically speaking), or ventures only into the mundane. Usually, this music is created by unskilled composers who don't yet have the tools at their disposal to write more complex music. In general, when a composer chooses to write simple music, it is simple. When it is simply the RESULT of whatever effort he puts into it, it is simplistic.
If we start with Pachelbel's Canon being an example of simplistic music, we can take a work which is equally simple on the surface and which promotes the same gentle character as the Canon, then hopefully demonstrate why it is not simplistic despite sounding simple. Then you can, by direct comparison, hear the difference. So here it is - a song by Rachmaninoff which is not simplistic but which sounds clear and simple.
For our purposes, let's start by focusing on just the melody. Pachelbel's melody is consistently presented in four bar phrases with completely predictable pacing, and there is also a high degree of rhythmic and motivic repetition in the piece. The 'variations' of the motive do nothing with the bass and are primarily accomplished by simply adding more notes to the melodic figuration or its accompaniment. Rachmaninoff, by contrast, presents a melody which is not governed by the bar line. In fact, it is challenging to keep track of where the down beat is when listening to it. It comes to rest at points, but nowhere does it sound like it just finishes and starts over again with exactly the same motive. The phrase lengths are also varied, not just in a structural sense, but with respect to the length of the individual vocal phrases. You can hear it easily - sometimes the voice sings many notes before a pause, sometimes just a few, and the length of these fragments is varied. Structurally, it is not locked into four bar phrases. The first major phrase (starting when the voice enters and ending at 22 seconds or so) is three bars long. The second is two bars long. And the melody comes to rest at different points in the bar.
So why does this matter? Because by avoiding normal musical phrasing and predicatable cadences, Rachmaninoff has created a melody which does not sound like it's ever completely over until the piece ends. We're conditioned, whether we realize it or not, to expect phrases to be four bars long, and for melodies to carry through to a cadence. When that happens, the phrase sounds complete. When it doesn't happen, the phrase doesn't sound complete, and so it allows the music to keep 'moving.' That is very much more satisfying to me than a simple melody that rigidly affixes itself to predicatable, four bar phrasing and keeps repeating the same melody over and over. It's like hearing a piece end twenty times.
Want another example from popular music? Check this melody out. It starts off nice and simple. The first phrase is a predicatable antecedent and consequent pattern, four bars long, with the first three beats being up-beats (making the first long note you hear the downbeat). But the second phrase, though starting normally, pulls us listeners right off our comfortable, predictable rhythmic pattern. This starts at the 18 second mark, where the phrase sounds like it starts too early. This shifts our perception of the downbeat from beat 1 to beat 3. If you listen to just that part, pretending that the word "vision" is the downbeat, it sounds like perfectly normal four-bar phrase... until you get to "within the sound of silence," which will give the impression of being too short. Why? Because the downbeat was shifted, and so the phrase ends earlier than expected. And I'm sure you can hear that, once again, the result is that the second phrase keeps moving forward, unlike the first phrase which has very clear resting points that correspond to our natural four-bar listening bias. That's good melody writing.
Now how about repetition? Repetition is inherent to Western music and vital to formal integrity. Without some repetition, it's difficult to appreciate music. But too much repetition leads to bland music (think rap without the lyrics). Pachelbel is incredibly repetitious. From the harmony right up to the melodic fragments that are heard over and over again, it is repetitious. This is a poor way of handling repetition. Rachmaninoff, by comparison, presents repetition in a much more subtle way. He repeats certain short rhythmic patterns with different melodic notes. And he repeats pitch patterns, but adjusts where the pitches land metrically. In other words - when something is repeated, it is almost always altered in a way which fundamentally changes our interpretation of it.
Then there's harmony. Obviously Pachelbel doesn't go anywhere in his piece. Rachmaninoff does. You can make the argument that Pachelbel came from an earlier time, but it's not like modulation was an alien concept to the Baroque composers. And even if you don't go anywhere harmonically, you can still compensate for THAT lack of interest by promoting interest in other ways. A great example would be the fourth movement of Brahms's fourth symphony, which is written as a passacaglia - another of those repetitive Baroque variation forms. The first theme statement that ends at the 19 second mark is used to build the entire movement, just like the Canon presents its only thematic material in the first few moments. But listen to all the things Brahms does with that simple little tune. That's why the movement is not simplistic. In fact... it doesn't even end up sounding simple at all, despite the simple musical device that is being employed.
Anyways, I'm sick of writing for now, so I'll just leave you with this thought - simple music is that which presents itself with the utmost clarity, but which is not simple at all when you look under the surface at what is happening with the music (i.e. not predicatble and mundane - toying with our natural listening biases). Simplistic music is the opposite - music which has very little happening under the surface, or which IS mundane. And it need not even sound all that simplistic. Lots of the guitar solos that people wet themselves over on this site are remarkably simplistic writing. They sound fantastically difficult and complex, but they simply aren't when you study them. As to your initial question - I find the vast majority of popular music to be simplistic. Rap, rock, disco, metal... you name it. They're all steeped in repetition of motives in a non-developmental fashion, and they cling to safe musical conventions, preferring to experiment with timbre but not with structure. So you get a lot of neat, novel sounds in these genres, but very little music which is satisfying to study, or which fills you with awe of the composer's ability to conceive of and successfully carry out a complex idea with great skill.
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