Charles Ives

Charlie in his old age.

Charles Ives is the first composer you think of when you hear polytonality, because he doesn't make sure the synth and the vocals are in the SAME KEY. You'd think your mac speakers were f***ed up or something. He is notorious for redating and redacting his work.

He composed his first compositions at the age of three, but this was before his dad would play the piano and make him sing in a different key and he messed around on his church organ, so they were pretty simple. When he was old, he was looking through his old compositions and found these, and he was really embarassed by them, so he redated them to the mid-19th century and changed the name to Stephen Foster.

Notable compositions

Omega Lambda Chi

Ives was confused, and not just about why his Classics professor had assigned him to compose a march to commemorate the Battle of Thermopylae. You see, Ives actually had no clue about how to write music that normal people would listen to. The only thing he could think of was to find some sheet music so he could at least know what it looked like.

Ives walked out of the music store with an eclectic collection of sheet music. He tried to not go exclusively for marches, as he thought they would give him too many "ideas". Nevertheless, he had purchased a few marches.

Ives's Classics professor was pleased with Ives's work. Sure, he took the trio up a fifth, but that was probably just a beginner mistake. He would just give Ives a B and hope he learns the lesson. But then he discovered that it was plagiarized, so he didn't count the assignment for him, told him that the next time it happened he would be expelled from the class, and gave him an extra really long question on the final.

Variations on "America"

Ives also invented black MIDI. This was actually before Conlon Nancarrow did.

Ives came up with the idea for Variations on America when he was playing the organ at a church service. In the middle of an unusually conventional hymn, he got an odd sense that in 100 years, some Mormon organist would start playing hymns in unexpected keys. Suddenly, Ives began playing in four different keys AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!! just so he could say that he did it first.

When everyone else had gone home, Ives gave "God Save the Queen" the Ives treatment. And then he decided to sell it, as a joke.