Scott Henderson Discussion

[rw852]

Hi Scott

Whats your opinion on Negative Harmony ? have you ever applied that to your own composition or , is it just hype ?

cheers
Ricky

[Scott Henderson]

It's a load of bullshit which means absolutely nothing - it's in the same category as Schoenberg and his twelve tone rows, a way for untalented musicians to come up with music because they have no ears or imagination of their own.

I'm not putting down Jacob Collier because he's a great musician, but a recent review compared him to Bach. WTF?? Collier is an arranger/ improvisor, and I've yet to hear him compose one note of music. Whoever wrote that review is a fucking idiot.

[Kevin Thomas]

I think this answer is a little half-hearted. Scott, could you please be more direct?

[dizzy]

To add to the discussion:
I have a guitar student who was curious about "negative harmony". We watched that video of Jacob Collier explaining it. It took us about a half hour of replaying sections of the video until we realized that he was talking about voice leading. He muddied the water so it appeared deep.

Some of the voice leading concepts were interesting to me because I had not thought of them but the same concepts could be learned much more clearly out of a book on voice leading. Scott probably learned the same stuff studying composition right Scott?
The cool thing was that my student realized that he was interested in learning about voice leading and I recommended a book on voice leading.

[Scott Henderson]

I didn't make it through the video, but if he was talking about voice leading, I'll take dizzy's word for it. If anyone's an expert on the subject it's Jacob Collier - he's an incredible arranger. A friend just told me that he does have some original music - I haven't heard it so I can't comment, but I highly doubt it's on the same level as Bach, so I'll stick to my opinion of the idiot reviewer who apparently doesn't know the difference between composing and arranging.

[dizzy]

One other thing about that video is that Jacob Collier and the guy asking questions are both annoying as fuck. If someone hasn't seen the video yet they should make sure they are in a good mood or they'll feel like punching the screen.

[James]

Negative Harmony sounds as dumb as the term 'atonality'. No such thing! Even Schoenberg hated that word used to describe his music!

I love Schoenberg & the 2nd Viennese School a great deal, especially Webern who implemented the theories & technique best. Just ear/mind altering, expressive and profound stuff. Listening to a lot of classical music affects how you hear other music I have found! But yea .. ultimately divorced from all the dogma .. the 12-tone technique, is just a technique and it all depends on who's using it. It's not all there is.

And trying to put Jacob on Bach's level is just totally & completely ignorant.

[Scott Henderson]

My wife has a doctorate in classical performance and is a fan of Schoenberg, so I'd be eating at Panda Express tonight if she read my comment above. You're right, it's just a technique and might be useful in a talented composer's hands. I had to study a lot of the techniques and rules used in classical music in college, and though it was interesting, I'm glad I don't have to pay attention to them now. I think it's more organic to just write what you hear.

[James]

Schoenberg had huge ears and was a bonafide genius .. and you may like some stuff in his free period Scott, before he tried to codify things with all the 12-tone dogma of his late period. Seems your early studies seemed to have turned you off completely from enjoying some classical stuff as a listener. During Arnie's free period he was just going for it, no 12-tone method in place yet. Check out his Chamber Symphony No. 1 op.9, things really take root there. Or the 3rd Orchestral Piece "Farben/Summer by the lake/Chord-Colors" from op. 16. It's hard not to at least appreciate those.

[Scott Henderson]

My studies of classical music made me a huge fan - as a listener. Some early classical music is great to listen to, but has too many restrictions to write in that style today. We always had writing assignments in school - for example to write in the style of Beethoven - it was challenging, but nothing I wrote sounded like me. The more modern classical composers threw away the rules and that music appeals to me more in a harmonic way. I'm open minded - I'll check out those Schoenberg pieces - I'm sure the wife has recordings of them.

[James]

Check out Webern's Symphony op.21 too, it's very un-Symphony like at only 9 minutes in length .. your wife probably has that one too. It's one of the most profound pieces of harmonic writing ever set to paper. Great piece.