PixlBit

Heard a bunch of Charles Ives because he was active in the first decade of the 20th century, the decade I'm reading about this month.

I've been interested in Ives ever since I heard something of his on a classical compilation album years ago. He uses a bunch of modern techniques before anyone else like polytonality. I love hearing him write two wholly different melodies over top one another. It creates some great dissonances. 

I noticed in the finale to his Symphony No. 2 there's a startling dissonance. I'm following the movements leading up to it just fine and then this monstrous collection of notes appears that produces a terrible noise. Then the symphony ended. I laughed. I love stuff like that. 

You can also heard lots of snippets of popular melodies of the time. He freely borrows from folk tunes and popular tunes. It's kind of neat to follow and try and identify the melodies, especially when they are played overtop one another. I've heard J.S. Bach and his children often played this game of singing two different songs at the same time. The idea has been around a long time just not put into serious music before. I think it's quite humerous, which is why I like it. 

How may be this relates to video games? Not sure really. I'm thinking in Bioshock Infinite, which is based on 1915 America, there could be some Ives, or at least a lot of popular tunes of the time which he might have used in his works. I may play it again next month when I cover 1910-20 and see.