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New music and meerkats

More thoughts about hearing new music, this time from Nathan

Botts, a terrific trumpet

player who took my Juilliard course on the future of classical music two years

ago. Posted of course with his permission:

I’ve never understood why "new

music" is placed within the same taxonomic grouping as "classical

music."  Perhaps they’re of the same family, but certainly not the

same genus and heaven forbid the same species.  Just because

a whale, meerkat, antelope, and dairy cow are hairy and

breastfeed their young, does that make them all very similar?. 

Forgive the biology, but I think it applies.  While evolutionally these animals

share a similar genetic ancestry, at this point in time their obvious differences

are far greater than their similarities.  So with music we can go to great

efforts to compare the breastfeeding of Boulez to that of Mozart, or the hair of

Schoenburg to that of Haydn, but in the end we’re still

trying to compare the bohemith leviathan to a squeaky

prairie rat! (I don’t mean these animal designations to in any way reflect

on the music of any of these composers… it’s just for poeticism and humor). 

Who goes out into nature and sees a herd of cows and thinks about their similarities

to human beings?  Who goes to the zoo and sees the meerkats

and thinks about their similarities to the antelope down the way?  I certainly

don’t.  I chuckle when the cows go "moooooo",

and I laugh at the squeaky little meerkats.

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So it is with a concert.  Who needs

to go to a concert and listen to Boulez and think about all of its wonderful similarities

to Bach?  For those of us whose craft it is to know these things certainly,

but how much does an audience really need to know to enjoy the piece?  As

a listener I could often care less.  I savor the iciness and clarity. 

I revel in the complicated simultaneity.  But more than anything I relish the

inventive and uncommon sounds.  The cow goes "mooooo"

and I laugh, the meerkat squeaks I and chuckle.

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As one who performs a large sampling

of music, from a wide variety of places in the world and an even wider variety of

periods in history, I’ve never understood the purpose our the taxonomic grouping of

"classical" music, except as it applies to the music of composers contemporary

with Haydn and Mozart.  But Birtwhistle

on the record shelf next to Beethoven?  Cage next

to Chopin?  This is all "classical music"?  Give me a

$%#$& break!!  In masterclasses I’ve taken to

explaining this away as a corporate record store conspiracy — the

class=SpellE>liitle old lady who’s buying her record of Tony

class=SpellE>Bennet doesn’t want to have to stand next to that "scary"

looking young man with looking through the selection of Boulez — so they segregate

everybody into differerent rooms (and search engines…

arghh!).

For my own part I’ve had some success

going a different route… slightly broader and less discriminatory.  With

a bit of laughter, some simple explanation, and a very unassuming air, it’s been

my experience that I can perform almost anything for anyone willing to listen, no

matter how wild OR relatively conservative it may be.  So what’s in the simple

explanation?  Usually a very brief bit of history… just as an author or would

do in setting a scene, a bit of benign humor, and then only in the most aurally

difficult cases do I bother to "explain the music."  I would reiterate

that I do this no matter how wild OR relatively conservative the piece may be…

yes, even Beethoven gets the brief explanation.  I find that with good programming

and common sense, the flow of a recital can continue uninterrupted.  And

most importantly, the more recently composed pieces on the program aren’t immediately

set up for failure by a sudden condescending explanation.

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So like a trip to the zoo, you get some

giraffe, some water buffalo, some songbirds, a snake or two, and the ever popular

monkeys.  Musically, that might mean some Duke Ellington, some Bach, some

class=SpellE>Corelli, some Haydn, some Carter, some Hoagy

Carmichael and even something I may have created (is there a place at the zoo for

an animal with the head of a fish and the body of goat?)

(See also my recent “

href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2006/08/hearing_new_music.html">

class=GramE>Hearing New Music” post, and the

href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2006/08/hearing_new_music.html#comments">comments on it.)

Comments

  1. John Graham says:

    Very interesting comments about contemporary music! It is unfortunate that many modern composers are considered “classic,” but if one were to merely assign the term to the 18th century style, that is a whole different thing. However, it also occurs that non-tonal listeners see their composers as greats, and tonal composers as has-beens, regardless of the fact both are writing for contemporary audiences. The elitism associated with so-called “intellectual” music has everything to do with some folks hedging their own interests, despite the very, very small audiences that music appeals to. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just pathetic beasts at the mercy of our emotions, listening to “classical” items we can understand and appreciate. Where money and popular appeal are concerned, there persists far more interest in music which is accessible to the listener. For the elite, the only “great composers” this day and age are the ones writing non-sensical junk requiring all manner of explanation to the average listener. As we used to say in New Orleans jazz circles, “that music ain’t sayin’ nuthin.”

  2. I agree blue ray is the dogs!!! am waiting for the blue ray player to drop in price before I make a purchase in 2010!!!Planet Earth was my first, and still favorite non-action BD. Particularly when coupled with the BBC version’s audio track and David Attenborough at the mic. The visual of the flock of birds flying across the wetland in what looks like a crane shot that pulls back to 5,000 feet and keeps the birds clearly delineated is just one of a phenomenal number of “How’d They Do That?”, jaw-dropping scenes.

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