Anti-Climatic Music

[ProHypster]

What do you think? Music without a climax.... Just keeps going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going.... Like a train

New experimental music questions if climax and melody actually need to be part of music.

Once upon a time a famous composer said it can't. Nowadays some composers say too big of a climax can be a stuck melody in your head you don't want to have.

Here is some anti-climatic music:

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This is a musical climax to compare:

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Which one do you find more interesting? More sensual?

 

[Collective Foal]

The climactic piece of course. A climax is meant to give the listener a feeling of strong emotion, whether it be of happiness, anger, sadness, triumph, etc. Anticlimactic, constant, droning music has no texture and only works as movie background music. That first piano piece might have worked as a background piece for a dramatic sequence, but a major improvement to that would be a huge brass blast to emphasize, kind of like Hans Zimmerman's piece in inception. It's a little repetitive, but that's the point. To conclude, non-climax is okay, but it should at least have power behind it to begin with.

 

[ProHypster]

The climactic piece of course. A climax is meant to give the listener a feeling of strong emotion, whether it be of happiness, anger, sadness, triumph, etc. Anticlimactic, constant, droning music has no texture and only works as movie background music. That first piano piece might have worked as a background piece for a dramatic sequence, but a major improvement to that would be a huge brass blast to emphasize, kind of like Hans Zimmerman's piece in inception. It's a little repetitive, but that's the point. To conclude, non-climax is okay, but it should at least have power behind it to begin with.

I tend to disagree, I believe there is something much deeper in anti-climatic music that is hidden art and the mind has to carefully listen and analyze it and hence it takes a bit of work to appreciate it, and also I've noticed, in my own experience even if the first time it sounds crap, every time I listen to the track it only got better for me and never worse. Around 50 % of my tracks are anti-climatic, the other 50 % being a mix with usually a small climax, built around and disturbed heavily or complex enough not to be remembered.

Also, anti-climatic doesn't always mean droning, it could progress or transition forever.

While I think climatic pieces are pretty much straight forward open feeling melodies which tend to give a really strong message out right away however like a Hitler's cry they at first effective as hell, tend to get annoying after a while. Now I do enjoy climatic pieces, but mostly it's when the track is 90 % anti-climatic and has a small unmemorable climax. The more unmemorable the better I think. And then there is always the crap of both styles of course...

Also I think the brass piece would completely kill it, however if you would like to I could put a melodic brass pieece on top of that and you will see....

 

[WonSul]

No climax is just so dull. Like that piano piece you just posted. It's annoying, not enjoyable.

I personally prefer music that manages to find the perfect balance between drawing out a melody and finally reaching a climax without throwing it into your face. I know first hand how difficult it is to play music like that, let alone write it. The best way to describe it is maintaining the tension. It stays from beginning to end and is what creates depth and layering in music, imo.

Some examples that are pretty good at maintaining the tension:

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[ProHypster]

Well the piano piece by Steve Reich was a pioneer work, not exactly the "best" or anything but for a mssage of the brain it's pretty good I would say

.

And to write a climax is pretty easy for me, you just go with your feelings, I can demonstrate if you want... It is harder for me to write music against my feelings or neutral to feeligns, something new. Think about it, every note in the piano has a feeeling either happy or sad to it naturally.

Here I uploaded a self made climax just now, in the Hans Zimmer style (Injection Piano Melody was the model), now all that's left is work around the melody a bit, add strings with the same melody and background and tada! Forgive me if Made some minor hramonic mistakes, I did this in 5 minutes.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/D4X70tAV/Hans_Zimmer_Climax_Ripoff.html

 

[Ian]

It's nice, too, and I'm sure there is emotion behind it.

Very experimental, but I prefer a piece like this:

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[Vapymid]

big of a climax can be a stuck melody in your head you don't want to have.

I think there is a distinct difference between a melody getting stuck in your head and the issue of musical climax. For example, that "Piano Phase" piece is really stuck in my head now - tabadabtab-tabadabadab, tabadabtab-tabadabadab, tabadabtab-tabadabadab, ad nauseam...

On the other hand, a composition like this - even though it has many climaxes (try starting from 19:00 if you can't listen to the whole thing - it's not for casual consumption), it will take you listening to it many times before anything will stick, if at all.

Regards

tabadabtab-tabadabadab

tabadabtab-tabadabadab

tabadabtab-tabadabadab

 

[ProHypster]

@Vapimyd That's because they use a technique called supressing the climax. In this technique you create very long breaks for the main melody/melodies to get forgotten. However naturally if that's how music progressed in the 21st century, being completely centered on a climax and trying to make it memorable (Swing, Tango, Blues) Early, then starting to make the climax less memorable with intro and outro (Beatles Rock, Early Jazz, Early House, Early Trance), then making long pieces of breaks to make the climax even less memorable (Progressive Rock, Later Jazz) then this means the next step would be to completely try to remove the clmax or integrate it into the song.

I enjoy tracks which supress the climax too, though I mainly listen to tracks from EDM not Rock.

EDIT: Also in general I consider Anti-Climatic tracks those which try to break from the structure revolving around a climax not neccesarily those without a climax at all.

 

[WonSul]

Well the piano piece by Steve Reich was a pioneer work, not exactly the "best" or anything but for a mssage of the brain it's pretty good I would say

.
And to write a climax is pretty easy for me, you just go with your feelings, I can demonstrate if you want... It is harder for me to write music against my feelings or neutral to feeligns, something new. Think about it, every note in the piano has a feeeling either happy or sad to it naturally.

Here I uploaded a self made climax just now, in the Hans Zimmer style (Injection Piano Melody was the model), now all that's left is work around the melody a bit, add strings with the same melody and background and tada! Forgive me if Made some minor hramonic mistakes, I did this in 5 minutes.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/D4X70tAV/Hans_Zimmer_Climax_Ripoff.html

I'm still waiting for the climax. I get it that you made it in 5 minutes but this piece to me sounds more like a no-climax example than the other way around. It doesn't build at all it just repeats a melody again and again without really going anywhere. And in part it's actually the way you? performed it. The musician is the key in the end to rising action and a climax in any piece of music. You played it quite monotone.

I think climax's become annoying when you've listened to the same over dramatized piece a million times because everyone shoves it onto a music video, trailer, montage, etc

Lux Aeterna (Requiem for a Dream) by Clint Mansell and/or Escape - by Craig Armstrong

This is how you build a fucking Climax. Listen to the entire 4th movement if you have the time. I'll just post the last few minutes of it.

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With this theme, one could simply walk into Mordor.

 

[Vapymid]

then this means the next step would be to completely try to remove the climax

I don't think you can extrapolate like that. Removing climax completely will make music emotionally flat and uninvolving.

Regards

 

[ProHypster]

EMJBsoniimE

With this theme, one could simply walk into Mordor.

I already listened to Shostakovich and this theme before, I understand, but this is in actuallity quite anti-climatic. It always progresses into something and doesn't stop at a particular main melody that repeats. The Climax is at the very end and only plays for about 30 seconds compared to the half an hour of the theme. To evaluate, there is no single melody in this, which I could play to you that you will instantly recognize this symphony hence the proof that there was never a significantly memorable climax, the buildup was more important.

A more Climaticly-oriented symphony would be Shostakovich's famous Waltz, Beethoven's 9th....

@Vapimyd First of all, I'm strongly against the idea that music has to be emotionaly happy or sad. Second of all, if you follow this idea then you should understand that Anti-Climatic Music has emotion behind it, just not happy or sad, depending on harmony it makes you think, remember, forget, hypnotizes or even makes you feel very indiscribably weird but good.

Thirdly, and most importantly, music is art. Art adresses human senses, all art can adress the sense of love and hence this sense becomes overused and people are forgetting about the sense of hearing. Instead of hearing they become possesed to find songs which are for the heart and musicians start making songs for the heart instead of the ear yet music is the only artform that can satisfy the ear, this in my opinion undermines music's qualities by forgettign to use the elements that satisfy the ear and concentrating on the elements that satisfy the heart..

 

[Koockaburra101]

I personally enjoy Steve Reich's music immensely (especially the longer pieces) and I'm really fond of the idea of sound for the sake of sound. Music doesn't have to be overtly emotional to be interesting, I think John Cage says it best in the following interview:


"I don't want a sound to pretend that it's a bucket"

I'm not saying that more emotionally driven or "climatic" music is without merit, but there's definitely something of value in music that doesn't try to be anything more than a sequence of sounds.

And speaking of "going like a train":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYnAQ-lK74A

 

[Collective Foal]

Oh, DAT OBOE! That was an amazingly performed piece right there.

 

[WonSul]

I already listened to Shostakovich and this theme before, I understand, but this is in actuallity quite anti-climatic. It always progresses into something and doesn't stop at a particular main melody that repeats. The Climax is at the very end and only plays for about 30 seconds compared to the half an hour of the theme. To evaluate, there is no single melody in this, which I could play to you that you will instantly recognize this symphony hence the proof that there was never a significantly memorable climax, the buildup was more important.

A more Climaticly-oriented symphony would be Shostakovich's famous Waltz, Beethoven's 9th....

You keep using the word climax and I'm not entirely convinced that you actually know what it means. It's just the most emotional and/or intense part of any phrase. What you seem to be describing is a theme. the repeating melody that makes a piece of music catchy. Like Folk songs. Which are basically just catchy tunes. The piano piece you posted reminded me of a study and now I recalled why, it's just a melody that repeats in a number of variations but doesn't really go anywhere.

The movement isn't just one climax. Heck it starts with a bang. Climax to Climax and again.. I simply wanted to emphasize how it builds up from around 1:25 into the video I posted.

I actually always recognize this symphony from the theme that the Bass Clarinet is playing. The 4th movement has parts that are very similar to different themes from all three previous movements. There's actually about 3-4+ themes that play in more than just one movement in this symphony. And they're really easy to catch if you've heard the symphony before. So to say it has no memorable "climax" is very incorrect. The end in itself is one of the most memorable endings I've ever heard in a symphony. And it's not anti-climatic, it goes from a slow relatively lolling melancholic clarinet solo to quite possibly the largest bang in any of Shostakovich's symphonies. how is that Anti-climatic?

 

[Blue]

Here's an interesting piece; one which descends into cacophony, then returns to harmony. Arguably the climax is near the middle amongst the randomness.

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How's that for a wrench in the works of when one labels the "crescendo" of a piece?

 

[ProHypster]

I already listened to Shostakovich and this theme before, I understand, but this is in actuallity quite anti-climatic. It always progresses into something and doesn't stop at a particular main melody that repeats. The Climax is at the very end and only plays for about 30 seconds compared to the half an hour of the theme. To evaluate, there is no single melody in this, which I could play to you that you will instantly recognize this symphony hence the proof that there was never a significantly memorable climax, the buildup was more important.

A more Climaticly-oriented symphony would be Shostakovich's famous Waltz, Beethoven's 9th....

You keep using the word climax and I'm not entirely convinced that you actually know what it means. It's just the most emotional and/or intense part of any phrase. What you seem to be describing is a theme. the repeating melody that makes a piece of music catchy. Like Folk songs. Which are basically just catchy tunes. The piano piece you posted reminded me of a study and now I recalled why, it's just a melody that repeats in a number of variations but doesn't really go anywhere.

The movement isn't just one climax. Heck it starts with a bang. Climax to Climax and again.. I simply wanted to emphasize how it builds up from around 1:25 into the video I posted.

I actually always recognize this symphony from the theme that the Bass Clarinet is playing. The 4th movement has parts that are very similar to different themes from all three previous movements. There's actually about 3-4+ themes that play in more than just one movement in this symphony. And they're really easy to catch if you've heard the symphony before. So to say it has no memorable "climax" is very incorrect. The end in itself is one of the most memorable endings I've ever heard in a symphony. And it's not anti-climatic, it goes from a slow relatively lolling melancholic clarinet solo to quite possibly the largest bang in any of Shostakovich's symphonies. how is that Anti-climatic?

I said, no single melody that you could play that would make people recognize this song because there is no main melody, the theme thrives from switching melody to a completely different melody to another different melody which makes this a much different piece.

It is anti climatic because the climax plays a minor role in the whole symphony, I already said before anti-climatic pieces are not always without climax but are the ones trying to get away from the notion of surrounding everything on the climax.

Blue: Those are pretty climatic pieces. And it's that guy you had in your avatar haha

Also if I just want something that makes my heart feel good then I just listen to our pop music, play it on harmonica or guitar, nothing beats that for me. I mean I usually listen to this when I'm drunk with friends or something...

It doesn't mean it's bad or anything, climatic music has it's own style and is good for the heart however mostly I look for music for my ear.

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[Vapymid]

You keep using the word climax and I'm not entirely convinced that you actually know what it means. It's just the most emotional and/or intense part of any phrase. What you seem to be describing is a theme. the repeating melody that makes a piece of music catchy.

You preempted me, I was going to say exactly same thing. We are talking a bit cross-purpose with ProHypster here as we ascribe different meaning to the same word...

What ProHypster seems to mean is amelodic or nearly amelodic music. Whether it does or doesn't climax is a separate issue.

I would say, it is a matter of personal taste - I like very wide range of music, depending on my mood and particular circumstances. Even with complex music I normally prefer structured compositions but sometimes amelodic, stochastic pieces also work for me.

Like this or

First of all, I'm strongly against the idea that music has to be emotionaly happy or sad. Second of all, if you follow this idea then you should understand that Anti-Climatic Music has emotion behind it, just not happy or sad, depending on harmony it makes you think, remember, forget, hypnotizes or even makes you feel very indiscribably weird but good.Thirdly, and most importantly, music is art. Art adresses human senses, all art can adress the sense of love and hence this sense becomes overused and people are forgetting about the sense of hearing. Instead of hearing they become possesed to find songs which are for the heart and musicians start making songs for the heart instead of the ear yet music is the only artform that can satisfy the ear, this in my opinion undermines music's qualities by forgettign to use the elements that satisfy the ear and concentrating on the elements that satisfy the heart..

Regarding happy or sad - there is not much we can do about it. We perceive combinations of sounds in binary way, either in major or minor key. But under emotional involvement I (and, as I see, you also) meant the whole range of emotions. Again, when you are talking about music for the heart we are talking about the same thing.

Our difference lies in two points - one, as said above, is the definition of "climax" and two, that you seem to prefer amelodic music, while I just occasionally enjoy it, hence is a matter of taste.

Regards

 

[ProHypster]

No, I am talking Anti-Climatic Music not Amelodic Vapymid, melodic music can be anti-climatic like the third song I posted in the first post. I consider climatic music, music that surrounds and concentrates on a main climax and anti-climatic music, music that tries to get away from the idea that the climax is the most important thing in a track.

Last thing is that you are false about Minor and Major, the music theory around melody has been disproven multiple times already and I personally listened to songs that are neither happy or sad. It mostly depends on timbre.

The best example is a Hi-Hat. Hit it in D, hit it in C it's not going to give you any emotion but it will sound different.

Also, I stated before that initially everyone's taste is the same and develops in a similar path. Only personal, cultural developments, amount of concentration and amount of interest in new genres/tracks and better tracks then available and the availability of music tracks make our taste different.

However this thread is dedicated to anti-climatic music and people's current opinion's on it not for musical taste.

Tell me if this makes you feel sad or happy? I hope it will give you the result like me to feel like thinking instead of traditional happy or weird, it's my track by the way:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/KbomnMLv/The_Argument_Version_2.html

I made the minor and major keys collide to make a new type of chord/feeling. Anyway it's unfinished.

 

[Vapymid]

Interesting, I have not considered cymbals - I don't know if high frequency sounds are perceived as tones (and therefore falling into a tonality or a key) or not. This is not the point though. The point is that while each particular combination of sounds may fall into either a major or a minor key, the overall piece of music may be a mixture of both and the overall emotion is not binary. I don't think you and I differ in that respect. I still think we have different interpretations of the definition of climax, though.

I enjoyed your Argument, which I found using a lot of minor intervals (which is what I like), and in particular the climax at 2:20

Regards