Kate Bush's Musical Style (was Re: Does Kate Bush read news? )

[hui@joplin.mpr.ca (Michael Hui)]

>Yes, we can stop this whole thing, if you'll just answer me one
>question.  What exactly do you mean when you say substantial?
>You've been throwing that word around a lot (as in "more substantial
>than Kate Bush").  Once I know precisely how you're applying that
>word, your argument might sound a little less... ummm, inaccessible.-- 
>_______________________________________________________________________________
>Susan L. Cecelia Harwood                       amadeus@walt.cc.utexas.edu *<:-)
>The University of Texas @Austin          "...suspended in gaffa..." --Kate Bush
>_______________________________________________________________________________

Flame --> off. This shall be a _dialogue_, not an argument.

My current definition of substantial is two-fold:

1) the music achieves a new effect, be it harmonic, rhythmic, structural,
   or tonal (i.e. prepared piano sort of stuff). The "level of substantiality"
   is rather subjective, and I rate it heavily on my emotional response rather
   than comparing the sound against what the composer states he/she was trying
   to achieve. Of course, if I used the latter criteria, I might as well be
   working for Lucas Films recording sound effects for Star Wars: The Last
   Battle. That would be fun, but I won't digress now ...

2) the music achieves new heights in its own genre. This manifests itself in
   terms of simply good craftsmanship, like Mozart vs his contemporaries;
   the degree of emotional involvement required of the listener, like Chopin vs
   Lizst; whether by combining features of several genres the music brings
   increased satisfaction not found in prior work in each genre.

(No, I did not dig up my text books for the above ... personal opinions
 are much more fun compared to text book definitions when it comes to music.)

I did listen to Kate Bush's _The Dreaming_ album completely, intently, again,
and concluded that it is indeed a masterpiece. In other words, substantial.

I then listened to several hours of music composed by winners of several
Canada-wide young composer competitions, and compared that to The Dreaming.

I found that Kate has managed to make this, for lack of a better word,
_abstract_ album still full of emotion, whereby the young composers' pieces
were certainly much more abstract, but lacked any emotion.

By emotion, I mean the following: Kate's work is very structured, the young
composers' much less so, hence the latter was like a too-long paragraph that
contained good prose, but needed a break here and there and some ideas regrouped
to make it more easily understood; Kate's work was quite atonal, but of course
the young composers' beat Kate in this game. Atonality within a framework
of familiar tonality comes across a lot more emotional than the other way
around. It's like Debussy's music seeming more emotional than Stravinsky's
music. The structure of the music could also be a major factor here when
comparing how emotional Debussy's and Stravinsky's music is.

(The exception here is, dare I say, the Firebird Suite, which I do find
 extremely emotional, on a par with Beethoven's ninth symphony performed
 in East Berlin on Christmas night.)

So, why do the young composers write in that way, and not write in a way
similar to Kate Bush? After all, Kate has shown the world that many of the
musical devices currently in fashion could be incorporated into a "pop" song.

Let me attempt an explanation: academic composers are after an effect, and
Kate Bush is searching for a feeling, a state of being ... an emotional
state of being. So is Jane Siberry, whose music manages to paint a mental
image so vivid (you do have to pay attention to the lyrics for this to work),
that she once described her album The Walking as scenic landscape in sound.

Yes, you can catch me right there comparing the sound of the music to
what the composer is trying to achieve, rather than forming my own
independent conclusion ...

Before I go on any longer, perhaps others can correct / dispute / enlighten
some of my points of view.

Michael Hui  604-985-6506  604-985-4214   hui@joplin.mpr.ca