Is there anybody around we could truly call a musical genius?

If the film Amadeus is any indication, clearly Mozart was above any foolish acts of any sort whatsoever.

 

Great movie and IIRC won best picture, nonetheless it was virtually all fiction. Nice soundtrack too. Too bad Saul you know who made a kings ransom on the effort.

 

I was kind of joking. All I was really saying is that I'm sure Mozart and a slew of other composers were just as capable of wacky, infantile behavior as any modern day pop star. You seem to know a lot more than me on the subject, so please correct me if I'm wrong. It just seems to me that genius doesn't always inherently equate to rational or responsible behavior, so saying Prince can't be a genius because he changed his name to a symbol (which is what I was responding to) doesn't really mean anything. To quote (or possibly paraphrase since I'm not looking it up) James Joyce, "A genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery..." As far as I'm concerned, this is Joyce himself acknowledging in jest that your average genius can be quite foolish.

 

Monk, I agree. Another, Erik Satie.

 

Yes, anyone can edit Wikipedia. But to interpret that fact as "Any given Wikipedia article is likely to be full of errors" is grossly unfair. Errors can appear in the dark corners. But the article on a figure as important as Mozart is more likely to be accurate. Every article of any importance has many people who monitor it, and if something is added without references, it will be reverted pretty much instantly. Also, the article on Mozart is "Semi-Protected" at the moment, which means that non-registered users cannot add anything.

Mozart didn't write Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Now, the Wikipedia article on the melody is nowhere near as through and well-vetted as the article on Mozart himself, but it cites Robin Golding's liner notes for Daniel Barenboim's Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas on EMI and their Köchel catalogue numbers, 265 through 300e. As a liner note isn't ideal as a reference (because few people own that particular CD set), when I encounter something like this, I find a better reference, preferably in a book that is searchable. I used Google Books to find references to the French folk song and added it. Bach's son JCF Bach used the melody before Mozart did.

I want to get a t-shirt that says "You don't get to complain about Wikipedia." If you can fix, you're pretty much obligated to fix it.

 

I don't see how this has anything to do with Prince's musical abilities.

 

If anything, I'd say that highly creative genius types are even more given to eccentric behavior than ordinary people. They seem to operate on a different level that's sometimes baffling to the rest of us.

 

True that:

 

This might be an "at arms length" example, but what about:

 

Any name to that face?

 

Yes, Sir George Martin CBE.

 

Ah, ok. Thanks.

 

This should help clear things up:

Genius
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Genus. For other uses, see Genius (disambiguation).
A genius is a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of an unprecedented leap of insight. This may refer to a particular aspect of an individual, or the individual in his or her entirety; to a scholar in many subjects(e.g. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz or Leonardo da Vinci[1]), or a scholar in a single subject (e.g., Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin). There is no scientifically precise definition of genius, and the question of whether the notion itself has any real meaning has long been a subject of debate.

 

Clear as mud: But yaghags, and arrhquinonthiance, it's the muddest thich that was ever heard dump since Eggsmather got smothered in the plap of the pfan.

 

Albert Einstein was a ladies' man
While he was working on his universal plan
He was making out like Charlie Sheen
He was a genius

On the other hand:

 

Und

Understood.

to counter with a Forest Gump reference regarding Mr Squiggly symbol absurd lawsuit man; "Stupid is as stupid does"

 

Other than John Lennon, are their any musicians to call themselves a genius?

 

Kanye West - who is probably right about himself!

 

In that case I'd love to hear your thoughts on Van Gogh...

 

One of them Idiot geniuses—hills are full of 'em. Squiggly Clan that one.

 

Close:

 

Of all the modern dudes it can only be Frank Zappa!
All one has to do is look at some of his scores.
I don't think MacCartney could even attempt to write something as complex
as Ruth is Sleeping (off of Yellow Shark...or ANYTHING off Yellow Shark)

Zappa was possibly the first "post-modern" composer of the 20th century.
He assimilated soo much and took what Stravinsky did with polyrhythm
and what Varese did with "vertical, pitch oriented writing" and
went so far beyond those guys.
Listen to Moe and Herbs Vacation or Sinister Footwear....brilliant!

Also, check out the trumpet passages in Farther Oblivion....
Try playing that! AND it's so melodic!

 

Not the CS&N guy again?

 

And didn't he write The Black Page forTerry Bozzio?
Bozzio states that composition was historic at the time because no-one had written
for drums of that complexity before. (You will have to check out the reference yourselves)

What about Frank's white paper on his proposal for a new kind of music delivery system through the phone lines? This was in 1983!!!!!

His pioneering work with the synclavier and the sheer complexity of his
Orchestral writing take him to a level no other pop/rock guy is in.



His whole concept of "conceptual continuity" borders on genius.


He invented Xenochrony. (Look it up)

The whole concept

 

Oh and one last thing, haters, in interviews he was the brightest sanest drugfree
voice of reason we had.