{"id":776,"date":"2009-07-11T08:54:25","date_gmt":"2009-07-11T08:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=776"},"modified":"2023-12-25T12:20:48","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T12:20:48","slug":"belligerent-musical-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/belligerent-musical-ignorance\/","title":{"rendered":"Belligerent musical ignorance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Tom Service<\/a>, I learn of a new blog seeking to define classical music in such a way as to exclude anything the writers do not themselves like<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I wonder, first, what is the point.\u00a0 Why can’t people be happy with their own preferences, their own choices, and leave other people to be happy also with their respective preferences and choices?\u00a0 What deep sense of anxiety or profound inferiority leads people so often to try to force others to make the same aesthetic choices as themselves, or, if unable to force that, to disparage the choices of others?\u00a0 There has to be something profoundly wrong with a person’s aesthetic philosophy or with their psyche if\u00a0they undertake rule-mongering in order to defend their own preferences.
\nSecond, seeking to include only the music they like and to exclude the remainder, the writers of this new blog present an axiomatization for what they refer to as “Art Music”.\u00a0\u00a0 They use the term Art Music<\/em>, but I think Autistic Music<\/em> would be a better fit.\u00a0 Putting aside the cultural assumptions inherent in undertaking axiomatizations (something for another post), let’s examine their proposed axioms (numbered for ease of reference).\u00a0 I first list the\u00a0axioms and then I interpolate my responses.<\/p>\n

To count as Art Music, a work must meet ALL* the following criteria:<\/em>
\n1. It must be written for acoustic instruments and\/or unamplified voices (mechanical and electr(on)ic devices may also be employed for textural effect)<\/em>
\n2. It must be the original work of a single author (texts notwithstanding)<\/em>
\n3. It must be preserved and transmitted as a score, written in orthodox musical notation, alterable only by the composer (unless the composer dies before completion)<\/em>
\n4. It must stand on, or peer over, the shoulders of giants, i.e. acknowledge, build on or work from 1000 years of fundamentally accumulative history from the so-called Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern (see right) eras (or their equivalents in non-Western cultures)<\/em>
\n5. It must be conceived for performance according to the instructions and faithful to the intent of the composer (performers always following the score precisely in as much detail as the composer provides; improvisations and ornamentations permitted where the composer allows or expects)<\/em>
\n6. It must be musically and intellectually complex, coherent and sophisticated, i.e. display and encode, in various permutations, originality, discursiveness, subtlety, intricacy, symbolism, logic, humour etc through the use (in various combinations) of development-over-time (through-composition), advanced harmony, modulation, variation, variance of musical phrase length, counterpoint, polyphony etc. It will therefore:<\/em>
\n6.1 Require a high level of musicianship (concentration, insight, accomplishment) on the part of performers, who must draw on musical education, personal experience and imagination, knowledge of a work’s idiom, and the accumulated body of historical performance practices even for a merely competent performance<\/em>
\n6.2 Require relatively high levels of concentration, understanding and competence from listeners for appreciation and (even basic) comprehension<\/em>
\n6.3 Be susceptible to detailed theoretical analysis<\/em>
\n7. It must aspire to provide the listener with emotional and intellectual enjoyment and satisfaction, by communicating through musical complexity, sophistication and coherence exceptional and\/or transcendent reflections on the human condition<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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In reality this is an anti-modern, anti-jazz, anti-downtown, anti-world music, anti-rock, anti-pop, anti-folk, anti-hip hop\u00a0manifesto.\u00a0\u00a0Most of the music excluded is music by non-white peoples.\u00a0 Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the music which passes these rules is mostly written by dead, white, European\u00a0males, or perhaps the authors really are the racists that these rules would suggest.<\/p>\n

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It is hard to know where to start with such an absurd list, so let us proceed in order.<\/p>\n

1. It must be written for acoustic instruments and\/or unamplified voices (mechanical and electr(on)ic devices may also be employed for textural effect)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First the restriction to written texts (#1, #3) excludes all of improvised music\u00a0\u00a0– that’s music by people like Bach, Buxtehude, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, etc,\u00a0 not to mention jazz, klezmer, gypsy, indian music, gamelan, etc.<\/p>\n

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Axiom #1 also requires that mechanical and electronic instruments only be used for textural effects.\u00a0 There goes the organ repertoire!\u00a0 Baroque organs were perhaps the most sophisticated mechanical devices in the pre-modern era,\u00a0and the large ones required at least two human operators\u00a0 – one person to play the\u00a0keyboards and one or more to pump the bellows.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0And every modern trumpet, cornet, French Horn, tenor horn, euphonium and tuba uses a mechanical device called a valve, while Bb\/F trombones use a switch to change from tenor to bass. So all the brass repertoire since about 1800 disappears too.\u00a0\u00a0 And, indeed, keyboard instruments like the harpsichord and the piano use mechanical devices to transfer action executed by the performer to actions executed by the instrument.\u00a0Even the sound and the means of performance of string instruments have been changed with new technologies, such as new materials for bows and the invention of shoulder-rests.\u00a0 A violin shoulder rest, for instance, means the left-arm of the violinist is no longer required to maintain the violin in position under the player’s chin.\u00a0 That in turn means the performer’s left hand can zip up and down the finger board with far greater rapidity and flexibility.\u00a0\u00a0 The 19th and 20th century violin repertoire would be mostly unplayable without shoulder rests.<\/p>\n

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The irony in using a web-page to argue for acoustic instruments seems to have escaped these authors.\u00a0 I honestly don’t understand the mentality of people who favour so-called acoustic instruments.\u00a0 The instrument with the cleanest interface between human action and sound output is undoubtedly the theremin, where the performer touches nothing, and merely (after long practice!) waves his or her hands in the air.\u00a0\u00a0 Technologically, this instrument is\u00a0as\u00a0unsophisticated as\u00a0stone-age fire in comparison to the sophistication involved in the design, construction and maintenance of a modern piano or, for that matter,\u00a0a baroque organ.\u00a0 So an intellectually-coherent\u00a0set of\u00a0musical axioms could hardly include the piano while excluding the theremin – unless there is something immoral about using electricity to\u00a0aid sound production.<\/p>\n

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But in that case (as I have long argued contra <\/em>to the authentic performance movement), why perform in air-conditioned halls lit by electric light?\u00a0\u00a0 If you limit yourself to acoustic instruments, then surely intellectual consistency would require performance in halls or rooms without any other modern convenience.\u00a0\u00a0 The actual sound – as produced by the musician, and as perceived by the listener\u00a0 – will be influenced by the ambient temperatures in the performance venue.\u00a0 If you think this comment is a trivial one, then you have never played a brass instrument in a cold hall or outside on a winter’s day.<\/p>\n

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2. It must be the original work of a single author (texts notwithstanding)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Axiom #2 requires that the work\u00a0 be single-authored.\u00a0 What of Bach’s reworking then of Vivaldi’s music?\u00a0What of Gounod’s “Ave Maria”, a melody famously set to a prelude by Bach?\u00a0 I rather like that setting, as indeed I expect the authors of these axioms would.\u00a0 Axiom #2 also excludes most of jazz, world music, rock, etc.<\/p>\n

3. It must be preserved and transmitted as a score, written in orthodox musical notation, alterable only by the composer (unless the composer dies before completion)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The restriction to orthodox notation (#3) excludes some of the greatest music of the last 50 years, which is perhaps the authors’\u00a0intention.\u00a0 But what of figured bass notation?\u00a0 Is this traditional?\u00a0 It was once, but has not been so much used these last 150 years.\u00a0 Since its use\u00a0implies an improvisational stance to music, perhaps its loss is also
\nintentional (as per #1).<\/p>\n

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But anyway, what is so special about orthodox notation?\u00a0 Elsewhere on the site, the authors say they aim “to repudiate cultural relativism in music”.\u00a0\u00a0 But what is more culturally-relative than musical notation?\u00a0 The standard notation we use in the west today is culturally and historically-specific. It is by no means the only notation. It is not even necessarily the best notation – it fails, for example, to adequately represent divisions of the octave into other than 12 pitch-classes; it does not deal well with unequal temperament or with dynamic pitches or with polyrhythms or allow precise gradations of dynamics; it ignores timbre; it mostly overlooks sound production (ask Morty Feldman about that!) and it is harder to learn than some other notations (eg, popular guitar chords symbols), etc.\u00a0\u00a0 Like any system of representation of human knowledge it has strengths and it has weaknesses.\u00a0 But these authors proclaim “Art Music is in many ways objectively superior<\/em> to Pop ‘Music’ “<\/a> and yet insist on using a culturally-specific notation with known weaknesses.<\/p>\n

4. It must stand on, or peer over, the shoulders of giants, i.e. acknowledge, build on or work from 1000 years of fundamentally accumulative history from the so-called Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern (see right) eras (or their equivalents in non-Western cultures)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well all music (and indeed all art) does this, even when it ignores the giants.\u00a0 This axiom reveals the ignorance of the authors, since even their hated pop musicians\u00a0“build on or work from”<\/em> the music of their predecessors.\u00a0\u00a0 And here suddenly here we have an allowance for non-Western music.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of these musics were excluded by Axioms 1 (which requires music to be “written”) and 2, so including them here would seem to be just some weak attempt to prove the authors are not racists after all.\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing in the other axioms would lead one to think that the authors really like or understand, for example, Javanese gamelan or Shona mbira music, or perhaps even know what they are.<\/p>\n

5. It must be conceived for performance according to the instructions and faithful to the intent of the composer (performers always following the score precisely in as much detail as the composer provides; improvisations and ornamentations permitted where the composer allows or expects).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh dear.\u00a0 Here and in Axiom #3 we have the romantic fallacy that performing musicians are mere slaves to the will of the god-composer.\u00a0 Have none of the authors ever listened to Chopin’s music?\u00a0 Almost every performer of Chopin’s solo piano music\u00a0— INCLUDING CHOPIN HIMSELF – plays with rubato, an elongation and compression of time, like a natural breathing, rather than\u00a0a rigid adherence to a beat.\u00a0 None of this breathing is marked on the score, but is always and everywhere decided by the performer, as\u00a0if on-the-fly.<\/p>\n

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But the performer is only part of the story.\u00a0 A musical work also requires an audience.\u00a0 It is the complete trio – composer, performers, audience – who interpret a piece of work, not any one of the three.\u00a0 Go read the books of Mark Evan Bonds to see how crucial the audience is for understanding the meaning of a musical work, and understanding how it should be read and performed.\u00a0 The ignorance the authors reveal here of western music history – ie, the history of the very music the authors claim to be promoting\u00a0 – is simply stunning.<\/p>\n

6. It must be musically and intellectually complex, coherent and sophisticated, i.e. display and encode, in various permutations, originality, discursiveness, subtlety, intricacy, symbolism, logic, humour etc through the use (in various combinations) of development-over-time (through-composition), advanced harmony, modulation, variation, variance of musical phrase length, counterpoint, polyphony etc. It will therefore:<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, all music is “musically and intellectually complex, coherent and sophisticated”.\u00a0 Because the authors first require “advanced harmony”, I suspect the intent here is to exclude minimalist, downtown\u00a0and rock music.\u00a0\u00a0 If the authors think that any of these musics is\u00a0not complex and sophisticated, they are simply not listening.\u00a0\u00a0 (It is something truly strange to ponder why so many trained uptown musicians can hear downtown or pop or non-western music without actually listening to it; I guess the answer is in their training<\/em>.)\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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The complexities in these musics often lie in places elsewhere than in music in the main thread of western classical music — for example, in the interplay of multiple, intersecting rhythms rather than in harmonies.\u00a0 But\u00a0complexities there certainly are.\u00a0 If you limit yourself to music which is only harmonically complex, for example, you’d also have to forget the pre- and early-Baroque, along with 20th century composers like Shostakovich, Orff, Satie, or the Ravel of Bolero<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0 Of course, you’d get all the Wagner you could possibly want, although that\u00a0trade would not satisfy me at all.<\/p>\n

6.1 Require a high level of musicianship (concentration, insight, accomplishment) on the part of performers, who must draw on musical education, personal experience and imagination, knowledge of a work’s idiom, and the accumulated body of historical performance practices even for a merely competent performance<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See comment to #6.<\/p>\n

6.2 Require relatively high levels of concentration, understanding and competence from listeners for appreciation and (even basic) comprehension<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See comment to #6.<\/p>\n

6.3 Be susceptible to detailed theoretical analysis<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See comment to #6.\u00a0 Anyone who thinks that popular music, for example, is not susceptible to detailed theoretical analysis, is simply ignorant.<\/p>\n

7. It must aspire to provide the listener with emotional and intellectual enjoyment and satisfaction, by communicating through musical complexity, sophistication and coherence exceptional and\/or transcendent reflections on the human condition<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See comment to #6.<\/p>\n

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The contemptible views expressed on the site are very similar to those I’ve heard expressed before by uptown composers such as Harrison Birtwistle.\u00a0\u00a0 Is this website the uptown response to downtown and popular music?\u00a0 Shoot-out at\u00a0 autistic musical gulch<\/a>, perhaps?\u00a0\u00a0 It is hard to imagine that people with such views still exist, let alone that they have heard of the web.\u00a0 But that is enough dragon-slaying for now. I will sure have to more to say in a future post.<\/p>\n

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Update (2018-03-25):<\/strong>\u00a0The site was musoc.org, but it now seems to have disappeared.<\/p>\n

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References:<\/em>
\nMark Evan Bonds [2006]: Music as Thought:\u00a0 Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven<\/em>. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Tom Service, I learn of a new blog seeking to define classical music in such a way as to exclude anything the writers do not themselves like. I wonder, first, what is the point.\u00a0 Why can’t people be happy with their own preferences, their own choices, and leave other people to be happy also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-music","p1","y2009","m07","d11","h08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11884,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions\/11884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}