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Guru Meditation Group: Members Posts: 55 Joined: May 2003 Posted: May 15 2003, 17:14 Tracing a link to one of the newest Oldfield interviews posted here, I encountered this words from Oldfield at the very beggining: "Music in general has been recycled. The 13 notes in the musical scale, all the different combinations, have been done years ago. I think music’s just come to an end, you can’t do anything new" I also remember Jean Michel Jarre not so long ago stating how "everything has already been done in electronic music". So this seems to be a common impression between musicians. Do you think this is true? And does that mean we should all give up and do something else instead of listening to music and posting here, not to say trying to make or remix music? Yeah, these words sound bad, but the latest output of all the world musicians seem to be a good argument that they are true... I almost feel that Oldfield is right. Do you? Greetings Back to top

Holger Group: Members Posts: 1506 Joined: Feb. 2003 Posted: May 15 2003, 18:04 A quote from Bill Dobbins' book 'A creative approach to Jazz piano harmony': Quote As far as modern science has been able to determine, all of the matter which exists in the universe today has existed since the very beginning of the universe. It only changes form. I must confess that I have never seen anything in my own life which has not existed before in some other form, whether a plant as a seed combined with the nurturing of the earth, or a product of technology as raw materials combined with human imagination and organized labor. If all the matter of the universe simply changes form in a seemingly endless series of transformations, how can music be any different. The most creative musicians don't even think about inventing music which has never existed before, as if that were possible. They simply find fresh ways of expressing the same music which, in one form or another, has existed since the dawn of human civilization. Those who confuse a particular form of music with music itself are like those who confuse mere physical beauty with beauty of the spirit or mere physical pleasure with a true sense of well-being. Back to top

Tati The Sentinel Group: Members Posts: 3360 Joined: Feb. 2002 Posted: May 15 2003, 18:08 I personally think that it´s just Mike Oldfield being very OldfieldArrogant regarding to music. Regarding also to new music,I doubt it that he doesn´t listen to other people´s music.Sounds like kinda of self-marketing. -------------- "But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014 "I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011 Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: May 15 2003, 18:55 How would Mike know there's no great music being produced if he never listens to it? I find these comments by him staggeringly ignorant, his output in recent years hasn't exactly set the world on creative fire, maybe he should actualy listen to what other people are producing instead of making daft statements. I would agree there's a lot of stale music out there being produced by bands and people who should really know better (including Mike, who let us not forget is about to re-cycle himself yet again) but there's also some great music being produced by exciting new young talent. So what Mike's really saying is because you can't produce anything new everyone should just give up writing music? BOLLOCKS Interesting quote (above) sums things up perfectly I would say. Thank you Holger for sharing it. Back to top

MusicallyInspired Group: Musicians Posts: 1445 Joined: June 2001 Posted: May 15 2003, 19:55 Hmmmm....does anyone remember sometime back Mike saying something like "I'd like to see someone come out with something new and completely different.....make something new out of nothing". I guess because he didn't see that, he now thinks that music has ended. Think of it. No one 100 years ago ever dreamed of the amount of 'styles' (I say styles only because that's they way it's looked on today. I don't believe in musical styles ) that we have today. I think there's still more that we now can't even imagine (except the people who will create it). Mike Oldfield was looking for that, but I think he's lost hope. Music has definitley not come to an end. Not everything has been done. Somehow I doubt if it ever will be. I look at music as a never-ending entity. Perhaps the same chords or even the same scale or even the same exact lead notes have been done before. But what hasn't is the way they're played, the order they're played in, and the drive and motivation behind the composition. The emotion. As long as your not playing somebody else's stuff, it's brand new. This is nonetheless a good interesting topic, though. -------------- BrandonBlume.com "The beauty in life is in the embracing of the variety of things. If all the world was blue there would be no colour blue." Back to top

raven4x4x Group: Members Posts: 1535 Joined: Jan. 2002 Posted: May 16 2003, 04:57 I don't see how music can ever die. As long as someone has a new lyric to write, or someone picks up a guitar and plays a few notes, music can't die, in the way that a living thing dies. Even though I don't listen to the charts much these days, there still is good music being made. Even if you don't care for it, it will still be music. Music 50, or even 10 years ago was completely different to what we have now. Music has changed, is changing and will change, but it will not die. -------------- Thank-you for helping us help you help us all. Back to top

BOOsTER Group: Musicians Posts: 1024 Joined: Jan. 2003 Posted: May 16 2003, 09:38 MUSIC WON'T DIE EVER ...at least if I am here...hmm maybe my music is not great but well it definitely is music. MUSIC WILL NOT DIE!!!!!!!! NEVER EVER!!!!!!! -------------- http://www.djbooster.net Back to top

Holger Group: Members Posts: 1506 Joined: Feb. 2003 Posted: May 16 2003, 10:29 Es wird immer weitergeh'n - Musik als Träger von Ideen (Kraftwerk) Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: May 16 2003, 14:18 There's an old saying, there's nothing new under the sun... Really, everything that we do has been done before...in literature, for example, it's been said that there are actually only 36 possible plots for a story (I've in fact heard people quote far lower numbers than that - around 5...I have no idea of the true figure, finding the answer would take a lot of research which I'm not prepared to do...), and that everything is derived from one of those. There's some truth in that, and I think it's also true to say that whatever combination of notes a composer hits on at any particular time, it'll probably have been done before somewhere else (though again, that's something that could take masses of research to prove or disprove)...of course, the difference comes from how these note combinations are integrated with other note combinations, the way melodies are combined with chord sequences and other melodies to form a full piece...finding new combinations can still go on. Mike only says half the truth when he speaks of the 13 note scale (for a start, it's only 12!). It's far from the only scale used for music making, as anyone who's come across quarter tones in music like that from the middle east will tell you. I think it's a problem that a lot of creative people probably face at some point in time - that of feeling that everything's been done before. In the end, it often comes down to a choice of "Am I only going to create things if they're completely new, and therefore stop everything until I hit on that magic formula, or am I going to just carry on regardless, make things that I enjoy, and perhaps even bring an original slant to that which seemed old and tired?". It seems to be this decision which has been occupying Mike's mind for a while...it's his decision, but it's not inconceivable that people like those posting here are going to be able to steer it one way or the other. So if your fingers are falling upon the the words "I think Mike should give up making music", make sure that's really what you want, as it might just happen... Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 16 2003, 21:49 Maybe someday someone will create something new out of nothing, so we'll just have to be patient. Maybe someone has already made something new, but he/she is underground so we won't hear it... Maybe someday someone who is quite famous in the music we'll create something out of nothing from who we won't except it (i'm not calling names but you know whom I'm speaking of)... Maybe someone is breaking his head right now to make something original out of nothing. This of course is a great effort but time-consuming and questionably will ever lead to something. Maybe nothing will happen... -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

timshen Group: Members Posts: 684 Joined: Mar. 2001 Posted: May 17 2003, 00:22 When Mike says that music has died I tyhink he's really meaning that the 'inspiration' for making music has died. Truly 'there is nothing new under the sun' (a quote from Ecclesiastes in the Bible BTW) - but all old things can be 'renewed' by inpiration. TB73 is full of ideas that had been done before 1973 in various shapes and sizes, but the whole was a totally fresh 'inspiration' so that the music seemed to be something new. Being made in the image of a creative God who makes something from nothing, we need to find God's image once more, particularly in music - we need God's inspiration. -------------- Expect Great Things. Attempt Great Things. Back to top

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