branca had a guitar orchestra in the 70s. nice try.
ChannelName
Branca's guitar "orchestra" created an appalling cacophonous din. Of course some tools are willing to pretend that's music.
deathtokoalas
i'd argue his work is mixed - some of it's brilliant, some of it's pointless. but, that's not the point.
ChannelName
I think the term "orchestra" should be reserved for a highly-skilled group of musicians working together, cooperatively, as a team, for example, Sinfonity.
Everything I've heard by Branca is just a bunch of undisciplined guitarists making a simultaneous racket. But it's boring, offensive, and mediocre, so it gets legitimized as art.
deathtokoalas
i don't know where to start with that.
first, it's not a very informed concept of an orchestra, which often includes prominent roles for solo musicians. somebody sitting in orchestra isn't really demonstrating teamwork because they're trained to completely ignore each other and focus on the score. the only kind of communication that occurs is between the players and the conductor, who mostly just keeps time. a traditional orchestra is consequently better thought of more like a machine, with parts that work independently to produce a final product.
second, that clip up there isn't particularly impressive, unless you think there's something of value in working malmsteen solos into centuries old bach cantatas. as wrong as the idea of teamwork is in an orchestral context, you speak of it in the context of music that seems to sacrifice any kind of development in favour of flashy solo work.
third, branca's work is often atonal or rhythmically abstract, but it rarely lacks development or conceptual frameworks. it's ok if you don't like it, but you should try not to be inaccurate about it.
i used branca as an example because he's widely acknowledged as doing it first, but there's no deficit of orchestral guitar work after 1980 to draw on. the claim that this is novel on that level is blatantly outright false and should be retracted.
(pause)
deathtokoalas
actually, i just watched that again and it seems like sinfonity is all about playing existing pieces. no original works. i should back off from the no development claim, because there's nothing creative being done. that's not even art, it's just commodifying classical music...
but, regarding branca, give this a watch:
you don't have to like it, but you can clearly see that the guitarists all have scores in front of them and are being conducted. it's modern music, sure. not everybody likes modern music. but to deny it's orchestral is just idiotic.
