# Where is music today?



## JohnG (Dec 15, 2014)

At the suggestion of another v.i. member, I started a book called, The Danger of Music by Richard Taruskin.

I was struck by this passage in a now-old essay near the beginning, deploring the state of "art music" as being ruined by esoteric music, on the one hand, and a nearly uneducated public (as far as actual playing or singing music):

"In the West, a century-long tradition of reckless, socially irresponsible and self-absorbed avant-garde behavior, supported by the dogma that art is the concern of artists only and coupled with an ever-increasing passivity on the part of an audience that is deprived by its education and by the growth of the recording industry of participatory skills in music, has led to the extreme apathy that threatens the continued existence of art music in our culture. And yet anyone who questions the dogma of autonomy, harmful though it has become, is immediately and unthinkingly branded an enemy of art."

I think he's right.

(essay is called "Et in Arcadia Ego," p. 5)


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Dec 15, 2014)

Pop is short for popular. So popular music is meant to be appreciated by masses of people.

Art is art. It is meant to be appreciated by people who resonate to what the artist is trying to achieve. The artist reaps the rewards if large numbers of people do and does not if they don't.

There are number of "avant garde" composers who I love every bit as much as the more widely accepted late Romantics.: e.g. I would rather listen to Berio or Varese than Bruckner or Shostakovich.


----------



## Stephen Rees (Dec 15, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> Bruckner or Shostakovich



You picked two of my favourite composers there


----------



## AC986 (Dec 15, 2014)

I rediscovered Ramases!!

After so many years too. 8)


----------



## thebob (Dec 15, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> So popular music is meant to be appreciated by masses of people.
> 
> Art is art. *It is meant to be appreciated by people who resonate to what the artist is trying to achieve.*



and where is the difference between the two then ?


----------



## Living Fossil (Dec 15, 2014)

Stephen Rees @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Dec 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Bruckner or Shostakovich
> ...



+1


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Dec 15, 2014)

thebob @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Dec 15 said:
> 
> 
> > So popular music is meant to be appreciated by masses of people.
> ...



Obviously Art music does not place as much value in finding a large audience as pop music does.

Berio will never sell as much as Coldplay but he isn't expecting to.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Dec 15, 2014)

Living Fossil @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> Stephen Rees @ Mon Dec 15 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Mon Dec 15 said:
> ...



They both bore the crap out of me.


----------



## rgames (Dec 15, 2014)

Is art music really threatened? Seems like there's plenty of it at the university level. It seldom makes it out into the general public, but that doesn't mean it's not present somewhere else.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there's more art music today than ever before.

Not sure. Thinking out loud...

rgames


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 15, 2014)

What bothers me is how horrible most of the pop music is these days. 

Bob Neuwirth put it this way: the music today is for people who hate music.

Did anyone see Nicky Minaj on Saturday Night Live last week? That's what he's talking about, not Sara Bareilles.


----------



## passenger57 (Dec 15, 2014)

> They both bore the crap out of me.



I agree - this is pretty boring :lol: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx5UaMr9V-Y


----------



## David Story (Dec 15, 2014)

JohnG @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> "...an audience that is deprived by its education and by the growth of the recording industry of participatory skills in music, has led to the extreme apathy..."
> 
> I think he's right.



+1 
Music is a social activity that anyone can do. Every kid sings, but few adults do. They let others do it for them. Before recording everyone sang. Instrument samples are a pro version of the trend.


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 16, 2014)

Risk-taking in music is just not popular or life-sustaining. 
But it's very rewarding, I seem to remember... :cry:


----------



## muk (Dec 16, 2014)

Thank you for the tip, I've ordered the book. Sounds like an interesting, if controversial, read.

Taruskin's basic assumption here is that elitist behavior on part of the artists and deteriorating musical education can lead to the disappearance of art music in our culture.
While this may be true I don't think that it will, nor that it is happening now. It is true that in the 19th century playing an instrument was more important and more widely spread than it is today. And that's certainly regrettable. But I have my doubts whether the musical education is really less important and of lesser quality than it was. After all there are still many concert goers (more would always be better, but still) who have at least a basic understanding of art music.
What happened though is that many of them don't listen to the contemporary art music, but historical art music. That's something completely new in history as far as I know. Here I think Taruskin's observation is partly right: in my opinion this is partly due to the avant garde behavior of some artists. (Eventhough excentric/arrogant artists are somewhat of a topos even in much earlier periods). Modern art music has become more and more complex, and is based on individual rules/schematics which would have to be examined and studied to be understood. Not something that the larger part of concert goers does.
I think that minimalist music is a direct reaction to that. It goes to the opposite extreme. So there's a corrective already, the pendulum is swingin to the other side. And that's where I think Taruskin's hypothesis is wrong. The trend towards more complex/esoteric/avant garde contemporary art music does not lead to the extinction of art music in our culture. Rather it leads to new opposing trends.
What isn't clear to me only from that quote is what he refers to with "autonomy". What is the autonomy of art music, and what else would be his proposition? I guess the book will clear this up for me once it arrived.


----------



## fritzmartinbass (Dec 16, 2014)

Stephen Rees @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Dec 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Bruckner or Shostakovich
> ...



Mine too! Berry and Varese :mrgreen:


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 16, 2014)

What I find puzzling is that I used to have the same discussions, citing the same composers, the same tendencies (complexity vs minimalism) as a student 25 years ago! Has nothing truly changed since then? New directions anyone?


----------



## fritzmartinbass (Dec 16, 2014)

Berio :oops:


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 16, 2014)

I wonder if any members could share the names of a few under-40 composers who are forging fresh paths in contemporary music? Just curious.


----------



## AC986 (Dec 16, 2014)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> I wonder if any members could share the names of a few under-40 composers who are forging fresh paths in contemporary music? Just curious.



As opposed to dead you mean?


----------



## fritzmartinbass (Dec 16, 2014)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> I wonder if any members could share the names of a few under-40 composers who are forging fresh paths in contemporary music? Just curious.



There are a few in here: http://music.unt.edu/comp/alumni


----------



## chibear (Dec 16, 2014)

Aside from personal preferences and biases, the state of Art in general is pretty much a reflection of the society that produces it. Kind of like the canary in the coal mine these days.


----------



## JohnG (Dec 16, 2014)

chibear @ 16th December 2014 said:


> Aside from personal preferences and biases, the state of Art in general is pretty much a reflection of the society that produces it. Kind of like the canary in he coal mine these days.



hmmm

Although you are 100% neutral and I may be mistaken, I sense a pejorative sheen. 

Are you condemning today's society? Do you think the society that produced Beethoven or Bach was so much better?


----------



## Zardoz (Dec 16, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Dec 15 said:


> Pop is short for popular. So popular music is meant to be appreciated by masses of people.
> 
> Art is art. It is meant to be appreciated by people who resonate to what the artist is trying to achieve. The artist reaps the rewards if large numbers of people do and does not if they don't.
> 
> There are number of "avant garde" composers who I love every bit as much as the more widely accepted late Romantics.: e.g. I would rather listen to Berio or Varese than Bruckner or Shostakovich.



I too enjoy avant garde music, but some of it has so abandoned the interests of the audience, any audience, that it ceases to be relevant. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mahler, Ravel, Copland - all of these composers managed to create great art that could also serve the function of being legitimately enjoyed and understood by someone other than themselves. 

There's a fine line between challenging and pretentious. I think it is possible to so distance your art from your audience that they begin to think you're just laughing at them, and that is largely what has happened to modern art and music in the 20th and 21st centuries. Because of this, most people now view classical music as something that only a few elite academics can appreciate and understand and that's a real shame.


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 16, 2014)

I would rather talk about individual voices than the state of Art.


----------



## Greg (Dec 16, 2014)

chibear @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> Aside from personal preferences and biases, the state of Art in general is pretty much a reflection of the society that produces it. Kind of like the canary in the coal mine these days.



Absolutely true! However some artists flip that reflection and cast it upon the viewer


----------



## chibear (Dec 16, 2014)

JohnG @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> chibear @ 16th December 2014 said:
> 
> 
> > Aside from personal preferences and biases, the state of Art in general is pretty much a reflection of the society that produces it. Kind of like the canary in he coal mine these days.
> ...



'Condemning, is kind of a harsh word. I carry the evolutions and revolutions of values and attitudes I have observed in the past 60 years and project them forward for another 50 and don't see any possibility of sustainablilty, either societal or biological for that matter. 

In the days of Bach and Beethoven there was very little possibility of human-caused global issues because they simply didn't have the tools to do that. Now a decision made in a boardroom can destroy an entire ecosystem before anyone notices. So very hard to make comparisons, for me.

I know that doesn't answer your question effectively. Try this: in those times societies were reaching. Now they are conquering.


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 16, 2014)

The use of A.I. in the future will completely revolutionize composing and playing (robots) as we know it.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Dec 16, 2014)

Zardoz @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> I think it is possible to so distance your art from your audience that they begin to think you're just laughing at them, and that is largely what has happened to modern art and music in the 20th and 21st centuries. Because of this, most people now view classical music as something that only a few elite academics can appreciate and understand and that's a real shame.



But it is the artist's perfect right, as long as he/she is willing to live with that.


----------



## Zardoz (Dec 16, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> Zardoz @ Tue Dec 16 said:
> 
> 
> > I think it is possible to so distance your art from your audience that they begin to think you're just laughing at them, and that is largely what has happened to modern art and music in the 20th and 21st centuries. Because of this, most people now view classical music as something that only a few elite academics can appreciate and understand and that's a real shame.
> ...



Yes of course anyone is free to do any audacious or inane thing and call it art. That does not make it so.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Dec 16, 2014)

Zardoz @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Tue Dec 16 said:
> 
> 
> > Zardoz @ Tue Dec 16 said:
> ...



Trying to decide what is art and what is not is a tricky thing. One things for sure: how popular it is with the masses is not a way to evaluate it.


----------



## AlexandreSafi (Dec 16, 2014)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> I would rather talk about individual voices than the state of Art.



Absolutely agree! I think the interesting and most valuable thing to do for an artist to encourage art is not so much "think in Art large", but rather forget about it for a while and have a curious look at a particular specific artist, especially the great ones and ask what makes him, "him", it gives something more concrete & practical to look up to or to dissect, to learn from and then create from...

That being said, personally, i think the big tragic decline is not so much in sophistication & formal-erudite training in music , but actually *the great timeless art of Pop itself crossing all genres of music as the big decline...
*
On this basis, I do think that "internalizing & including" the art & craft of "*Pop*" in every genres of music is more important than anything else at this point in modern society. I assume that's how you get avant-garde today, as all times, you still have to remain humble, simple, compassionate & accessible enough in your core ideas to make an audience hooked and shape perceptions... I think any composer who genuinely wants to contribute through writing music should have what i've seen called on another forum "*the ears of the common man*", the big Trio -- Bach, Beethoven, Mozart (and a good deal of talented others afterwards) certainly did:

--> This again, at least to me, now means:


-Valuing effective smart simplicity above anything else /
-Treating music as a form of emotional storytelling with an arc to it/ 
-Healthy composer's attitude of skepticism, striving to write something people won't want to turn off anysecond (Soundcloud or Youtube) /
-Skills of a symphonic nature to make structured pieces / 
-Melody skills through lots and lots of internalizing & memorizing them, so that the brain itself, through patience and persistence, finds the pattern when composing new melodies in new contexts... / 
-A good intuitive sense of harmony and tonal music with possibly a good sense of when dissonance can have as much an emotional resonance given a context... / 
-Embracing technology & Cultvating a new sound palette...


I love Pop, it just is undeniably timeless, truthful (not always of course, but when it is, Pop as a root within any music usually has no equal for having an emotional experience). I especially love to cultivate, notice, hunt for the Pop element in Classical, in rock n'roll, jazz, Rite of Spring, Shostakovich Waltz 2, Herrmann, E.T. & Superman JW, Nat K. Cole, Beatles, Bieber, etc...


-I absolutely love what happened just recently with the #1 spot _Itunes _ success in 37 countries of "Hunger Games's Hanging Tree" James Newton Howard & Jennifer Lawrence in a matter of one week i think: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14H8OzTzne4

She's Southern-Pop, He's Pop-Classical, the Harmony's pop, the whole "Attitude"'s Pop, it works, people love it, because it's the people's timeless "language", and i think, always will be!... Their enjoyment of film music & orchestral music, in this context, is all you can ask for in these times... 

-I'd say study Pop, or define it for yourself first, then stay with the Pop within you, and then you do what you need to incorporate it with other genres and techniques within music, whether it is the "late Romantics, African choir music, a rhythm, a sound, harmony, counterpoint or even atonal music (Jaws, Rite of Spring, Psycho)" ... I do think too the fascination should be more for the individual craftsman, the artist, his vision/ambitions, though i do think the artist did need partly the influence of the society itself to be who the one to shed a musical contrast & revolution on top of it... 

-I'm personally a big proponent of celebrating & studying the people who *not only know/knew how to give what the people wants but also what they need* in the time they live in, if that ever means something...

-I think we would less be concerned about a decline of art/serious music, if we didn't have also a decline of "memorability" in recent music, which certainly i find Pop as the root antidote for, and i consider, as possibly many people would agree, a decline in memorable music more important than anything else, i think. Although this does not necessarily mean that the greatest Art or masterpiece is the one that's the most memorable...or maybe in the end after everybody acknowledges one thing as an "inevitable" masterpiece, it does become so simple and obvious to judge it as such that it truly has a memorable timelessness in people's perceptions, i don't know...

So it looks like i have a stupid mathematical deduction in music which is: *Greatest Art=Timelessness=Memorable=Relevance=Pop Quality=ArtPop* (Yes, as in GaGa)

Reverse it, and that's how you make the Greatest Art ever o=< 
You start with what's personal to you, and then you "try" to craft it through the filter of Pop, it's hard work, constantly asking yourself if your own work hopefully sounds "hooky" enough to seep into people's memories... 

This is just my opinion of course, and it probably is simply not a reasonable one...

Right now, to me, thinking like a modern 21th century artist is really about adapting to the times, but also especially about using devices that have always been loved and have always worked throughout history all meanwhile making it what is truly needed now --> *Memorable and engaging experiences...*

I guess my crazy theory is that you need the idea of "Pop" if you want to bring any change or revolution into anything...
I'm so abstract, i know why (philosophy as compensation for serious lack of practical knowledge of reality) and i'm sorry! 

My 2.34 JPY ¢...


----------



## Zardoz (Dec 16, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> Zardoz @ Tue Dec 16 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Tue Dec 16 said:
> ...



We are in complete agreement on this point. Popularity does not make something art or something good. The inverse is also true.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Dec 16, 2014)

True. I think with art music we all feel like the Supreme Court justice said about pornography, and I paraphrase: "I can't define it but I know it when I hear it."


----------



## guitarman1960 (Dec 18, 2014)

Yes,very true that.

I think art music (avant garde) is very much like modern fine art and modern jazz. It's very intellectual, and if you take the trouble to learn the language it speaks you can get a lot out it. But to the casual observer its just pretentious rubbish!

I kind of go through phases of being really really into a certain type of music, a few years ago it was jazz fusion ! Almost to the point where I get so into it, that other styles sound like complete rubbish, but then something else takes over for a while. I think if you get too deep into Jazz you get to the point where anything that doesn't have strange chord progressions starts to sound unbearably twee and simplistic. That's how it effected me for a while anyhow. But Modern Jazz and fusion is certainly where some great stuff is being created that is totally unconcerned with popularity.

On another point, I think everyone over 30 has always thought that current Pop Music is complete crap, I think that's called getting old!!! :D 

However, one great thing about the internet and youtube is that it's so easy to dig around and find new stuff and discover new musics, there's always someone somewhere trying something new!

Anyone tried John Paul Jones & Supersilent ??? Now that is some intense stuff!


----------



## eric aron (Dec 23, 2014)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> I wonder if any members could share the names of a few under-40 composers who are forging fresh paths in contemporary music? Just curious.



Guillaume Connesson comes to my mind


----------



## eric aron (Dec 23, 2014)

chibear @ Tue Dec 16 said:


> JohnG @ Tue Dec 16 said:
> 
> 
> > chibear @ 16th December 2014 said:
> ...



we cannot define precisely how was the society in the Beethoven days, but it survived.

now we are on a different level, with a margin of 15-60 years before a general collapse of mankind .. and the music now reflects quite well this chaotic state


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 23, 2014)

Thanks for the suggestion Eric. I just listened to a few pieces by Connesson, and it seems like he's doing a kind of post-modern writing. Not very groundbreaking, IMHO.


----------



## handz (Dec 23, 2014)

In a garbage can with some pieces laying around.


----------



## bbunker (Dec 23, 2014)

I'll give it a shot, Ned:

Ian Dicke (some great Electroacoustic pieces), Chris Cerrone (Invisible Cities is spectacularific,) Nick Norton, John Frantzen, Jason Barabba. I'm sure some of those last few are pushing 40 by now if they haven't thrust firmly past it by now, but they're still young in my book. Gabriel Kahane? He's young, isn't he? Mason Bates gets his name thrown into that crowd, although I'm not really a fan.

Do the Bang on a Canners still count as young?


----------



## williambass5 (Jan 8, 2015)

It seems the argument falls along these lines:

1. Anyone who is creating for the purpose of mass appeal is limiting their potential for the sake of making it appealing to the most people.

I can see there is an argument to be made here. The problem arises when the opposite is held true:

2. Anything with mass appeal must be limited.

While in college I saw much of #2...and still see it today. There was, and perhaps still is, a sense that if people like it, especially on first hearing, you have failed. There was almost a contempt for the audience which has led to a weird standoff in the concert orchestral world for the last 100 years. That seems as limiting as "if it is popular it must be good"...

I read the same concerns expressed by Mahler...

There is so much focus on what is new, and oddly, also much focus on following the trend setters that there is a pretty muddled state of affairs really. As a composition major in college it was the 12-toners and everyone had to sound like that... Here it seems Mr Zimmer sets the stage. 

Its seems the best approach would be to follow one's own voice to whatever direction it takes. 


Just my $.02...


----------



## Vin (Jan 8, 2015)

Ned Bouhalassa @ 16/12/2014 said:


> I wonder if any members could share the names of a few under-40 composers who are forging fresh paths in contemporary music? Just curious.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kYc55bXJFI (Ólafur Arnalds), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTL9FPkUVI (Ben Frost).


----------



## williambass5 (Jan 8, 2015)

Vin @ Thu Jan 08 said:


> Ned Bouhalassa @ 16/12/2014 said:
> 
> 
> > I wonder if any members could share the names of a few under-40 composers who are forging fresh paths in contemporary music? Just curious.




Maybe the question "effective" paths is a better approach? Fresh paths implies something new and I have seen the outcome of novelty as first priority. 

I guess I use the example of the "I have a dream" speech. There was nothing that hadn't been said before, no new syntax, no new method of delivery, not really any new themes. It was, however, still very effective.


Nothing wrong with new and fresh. I guess I just doubt if that should be the main criteria.


----------



## almound (Aug 27, 2015)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> I wonder if any members could share the names of a few under-40 composers who are forging fresh paths in contemporary music? Just curious.


There are fresh paths aplenty already. What is needed is fresh exploration of what has already been opened up, IMHO.


----------

