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PostClassic

Kyle Gann on music after the fact

Misreading

December 20, 2015 by Kyle Gann

Please don’t read this unless you read me regularly. I had gotten my blog readership down to about 150, 200 hits a day, and the commenters are almost all regulars, and I’m comfortable with that, because I can’t explain my entire philosophy of life in every post. But for some inscrutable reason my recent anecdote about a student composer concert took off like wildfire, and was read by thousands of people. I always noticed, as a critic, that people have an amazing capacity to convince themselves, when they read something, that it says what they expect it to say rather than what it actually says. I could get bawled out for positive reviews and thanked for negative ones, and was frequently challenged to defend opinions I didn’t hold and had never uttered. It’s the strangest feeling. On top of that, one says things in a blog, inevitably, that, taken out of context by people who don’t follow your monthly monologue, are easily misconstrued.

And so after a concert of pieces that were mostly pretty similar in style, some colleagues made a big deal about how diverse the music was, and I reflected that their frame of reference for new music must be vastly narrower than mine, for them to think that. A friend suggested that the music was influenced by Hollywood; that hadn’t occurred to me, and I thought it interesting enough to report as an anecdote. So it subsequently whirls around the internet that I hate film music and consider it a terrible influence. In reality, I barely think about film music. Maybe ten percent of what I hear I like, ten percent I don’t, and the rest I don’t notice. I would certainly never generalize about it as a genre. You can look through my six books, my 3500-plus articles, and my 1500-plus blog posts, and you will not find a single general disparagement of film music, or Hollywood, nor any strong opinion expressed about it. When students say, “That sounds like film music,” I don’t even know what they mean. How does one “sound like film music”? But a friend of mine said the word “Hollywood” and I reported it, and suddenly I am the great hater of film music, and look down my nose at all young composers who imitate it. Imagine how much slush from your own subconscious you would have to pour into someone else’s 116-word blog post to decide that Kyle Gann is contemptuous of film music and its cheapening influence – after Kyle Gann has published more than four million words without ever expressing a general opinion on the subject. I have to think that all those people secretly consider film music a guilty pleasure, and so they’re constantly on the lookout for intellectuals who despise film music so they can complain about them. In short, I must have inadvertently touched a nerve.

Likewise, people crap all over me for complaining that postminimalist music is neglected, because the word is used, when used at all, in a very loose sense. I use it only in a very strict sense, and since I’ve written the major articles about it, I’ve decided that I know what I’m talking about. When I write for readerships outside this blog I make sure I define the term and the repertoire I intend for it specifically, but I can’t go through all that every time I use the word. Those who read me regularly know what I’m referring to. Also, I have lamented that musicologists neglect new music because they’re all doing gender studies – leading some to make fun of me as an old fogey who’s threatened by gender issues, when in fact I had been cheerleading for gender studies from the moment they started appearing. What I typically object to is everyone doing the same thing.

I did express an opinion that musical ideology, which is generally frowned upon these days, has a close association with musical diversity, which is considered an unalloyed blessing. I was praising diversity, which I thought would be uncontroversial, and lamenting its absence, while trying to rehabilitate ideology, which I consider not as horrible a thing as people today think. It may be an odd opinion – I’ve never run across it in anyone else’s writings – and so, being unexpected and not the kind of thing people say, no one picked up on it. People expect music professors to disdain film music and complain about their students, and I had written some sentences which, hastily read and without knowledge of my general principles, could be easily twisted into that caricature for a satisfying “Gotcha!” moment. And quite a few people did so, in comments here and elsewhere on the internet.

The human race is filled with individuals who simmer with resentment toward certain injustices they see in the world, and their sense of outrage is easily triggered by a sentence or two that appears to imply, or at least not to contradict, some nefarious opinion they’re on the lookout against. I’m not claiming that I’m an exception, but I do avoid commenting on other people’s web sites except to be supportive. Those who don’t know what I’m about are welcome to my books, but I would rather they ignore my blog.

UPDATE 12.23.15: I recalled today that I used to teach suspensions in Theory 1 with Randy Edelman’s film score for Gettysburg, in my own transcription, so I’m on record as not trying to shield them from the genre. I always liked giving the impression that music theory was something you might be able to make money with.</i>

 

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Comments

  1. Ian Stewart says

    December 20, 2015 at 6:02 pm

    I offer you my unconditional support Kyle. I do not agree with everything you say but if I agree with 85% that is fine, it means I agree with you – otherwise I am not thinking for myself. However I have had similar experiences.
    I am particularly interested in poetry and on a blog I defended a young poet who had won a prize against the criticism of being “crap”. I did suggest however that I was taken aback by his explicit portrayals of gay male sex, the same as I was by young female poets who portray explicitly heterosexual sex and drug taking. I was immediately accused of homophobia.
    Again on a blog I said that the lyrics of current rap bypassed me. I mentioned that American poetry was, in my opinion, the best in the English language at the moment yet rap was the worst. This was purely analytical – on poetic terms – of the words, nothing about racial politics or race. My comments were deleted quickly.
    I mentioned to a friend I had a reunion with my Royal Naval school friends – immediately I was told “so you like killing people'”.

    I followed that thread carefully. I am interested in what young composers are doing (as I am all composers) and cannot understand why it attracted such criticism. In fact it made me want to listen to these composers as there seems to be a new trend. You express your views strongly which is good; it’s your website, your personality – which is why I read it. If I wanted political correctness I would read someone else.

  2. Alfredo Votta says

    December 20, 2015 at 9:18 pm

    I am sorry this has happened – again. I’m only worried that such kind of thing might make you stop writing (I guess it won’t, ever), and I suppose many other great people, from whom it would be great to read, do not write because of that and other annoying things.

    KG replies: Thanks, Alfredo, and I’m enjoying your music. I confess I’m rather fascinated about why certain posts suddenly go viral. I have to think it’s because one falls into a certain recognizable stereotype: in this case, the music professor who complains about his students liking film music, which gives hundreds of young composers the chance to revenge themselves on some professor who tried to suppress them. But I am an expert on classical music and classical music only, and I take great pride in never uttering a decided opinion on a topic outside my areas of expertise, which is why I am very rarely wrong. So there is no chance of my being caught taking up some side on the film music question. They pursue me in vain.

  3. Stefan Hetzel says

    December 21, 2015 at 7:06 am

    @Kyle Gann: This post is a charming way to say “Shut up if you don’t know what I’m talking about!” I especially like this phrase: “I’ve decided that I know what I’m talking about.”

    All the best,

    Stefan Hetzel

  4. Anonymous Coward says

    December 21, 2015 at 7:30 am

    Regular Reader here. Read the books and the blog. Still waiting for another stream of 24 posts on the problems of notating microtonal music…

    I wonder what the reaction would have been from new readers if there was not a picture of you on the blog page? Is it possible that someone reading that one post and looking at your picture (in which you do not appear to be a newly-minted PhD bushy-brown-beard assistant professor), hears Clint Eastwood yelling, “Hey, you kids, get offa my lawn.” I am not one to decry racism, sexism, or any of the other isms Merriam Webster tells me are the word of the year, but I have to wonder if you are not the victim of a bit of ageism.

    They see an older white man and make assumptions. Possible?

    Hard to convince them that you were the guy saying “f**k this sh*t” back when they were still in diapers. In fact, saying “when you were in diapers” will only make it worse. Even going with “My son has a Black Metal band” won’t help.

    Maybe you should remove the picture and change your About Me from the bit about about Harry Partch to something like “I am Kyle Motherpluckin’ Gann and I was a musical meme for two decades before Facebook was stealing your Instagram photos to sell your friends a Craft Beer recipe app. I am the microtrigger your mother warned you about. I was kicked off of Vine for posting more than 1000 6-second videos of nothing but silence. And I have the outtake raw masters of the $2M Wu-Tang record you will never hear, so shut up and stand back when I drop the mike.”

    Then again, maybe not.

    You could just play out this part for all it’s worth and give them a story they can tell their own kids some day. And then Gann said, “You will have to work within your own limitations. You are going to get to a wall. What will you do when you get to that wall?” And I stared into his eyes and said, “When I get to that wall, I will go straight through it until I get to Hollywood.”

    Perhaps? Meh.

    Of course, maybe your critics are no younger than you are. Maybe they just think that the best music being written today is being written for Hollywood movies by former members of Oingo Boingo, Nine Inch Nails, and the drummer from the Police which, taken together, is actually… well, quite… well, diverse. Maybe they just didn’t appreciate the term “Hollywood” being used to describe film music. It was read as a pejorative. “Hollywood” is associated with a kind of pre-fab trite sycophantic shallowness, so they read it as an insult because it was?

    Perhaps.

    Long time reader. But like the others, I don’t come here for the answers. I more interested in what you have to say about the questions.

    KG replies: Thanks for the essay. I got a good laugh out of it. Maybe it’s ageism. But when I first started this blog in 2003, pre-photo, the very fact that I was blogging seemed to make people assume I was just another grad student pulling opinions out of his arse. This is better than that.

  5. Lyle Sanford says

    December 21, 2015 at 10:25 am

    Just quick note to say how much I enjoyed that thread. Your blog has always gotten me to think about things that matter greatly to me in new and fresh ways. Along with not having known about the revisions of the periods of music history and all the many things other things alluded to – the talk of gesture, and trying to parse why people write and listen to the music they do has taken me on a thoroughly enjoyable and fruitful thought journey. Many thanks.

    KG replies: Thanks, Lyle.

  6. Robert Fink says

    December 21, 2015 at 11:50 am

    Well said.

  7. Doug Skinner says

    December 21, 2015 at 9:35 pm

    I continue to be bewildered by the fact that everything that I say or do is twisted by someone into what it’s not, and flung in my face as a reason that I’m worthless. That’s how people are. Some day when you knock at my door to borrow a cup of scotch, I can give you 2000 examples. Meanwhile, remember that it’s not you, it’s them.

    KG replies: Doug, you’re one of the most individual people I’ve ever met, and certainly the most individual person I knew in college. I thought being different from everyone else started to pay off by age 30. Recent experiences are suggesting that it takes at least twice that long, unfortunately.

    • Doug Skinner says

      December 22, 2015 at 8:48 am

      I think individualism was prized more 30 years ago. These are more conservative and conformist times. Nowadays, a maverick is often dismissed as a loser. Well, enjoy the rest of the year, and keep up the good work!

      KG replies: Isn’t a maverick a loser whose music the young people unexpectedly start liking? Yes, the economy is the background to my point, and perhaps I should have spelled it out. When you and I got out of college, the possibility existed to move to NYC, take a part time job, get some NYSCA grants and be as weird as you want. These days, only a few will be allowed to live the life of a composer at all, and the classical music industry makes the stupid mistake of looking for “genius” only in those under 30, and so there’s a tremendous stampede to the middle, aided and abetted by the composition teachers, who are, after all, only trying to serve their students’ best interest. The young composers with individuality and ideas – and I know quite a few – are forced to opt out of the process. Happy holidays, Doug!

  8. John Kennedy says

    December 21, 2015 at 9:36 pm

    Kyle, as you know it seems that fewer and fewer people have the courage to take strong opinions and write about them, but they will gladly jump all over someone who does. You’re great whether your writing is grumpy, analytically precise, or inspiring, and I’ve read enough of your millions of words to know where you’re coming from and laugh if in my opinion you’re off target. Anyone who has read you a lot knows of your generosity.

    Sorry I was late to the original conversation, but I have to ask, did the student composers get consent from the performers to write virtuosic gestures? http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/composers-performers-and-consent/

    KG replies: The performers, all of them incredible pros, were just thrilled.

  9. Richard Friedman says

    December 22, 2015 at 1:14 pm

    It’s all Trump’s fault.

    KG replies: Not yet, surely.

  10. Rodney Lister says

    December 22, 2015 at 5:12 pm

    I read your posting, which somebody had linked to facebook, and it seemed to me to make a lot of sense. I have noticed that a lot of my undergraduate students know more of the music of Howard Shore or Danny Elfman than really anything else, not just Stravinsky or Schoenberg, or Nancarrow or Berger, or Reich or…you name it, but also than Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart. I don’t necessarily want to assign any kind of value to that, but it does seem to be the case, whether for good or bad. Graduate students, though, at least my neck of the woods, seem to know Sciarrino, Lachenmann, and maybe some Ferneyhough, and more of that than Stravinsky or Schoenberg or Nancarrow or Berger or Reich or Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart. For older students it seems to me something that isn’t such a good thing, but still, one way or another, there it is….I just wish they all knew more music….A lot more….it makes me kind of sad….

    KG replies: I had to look up Howard Shore. The kinds of movies he does are ones I won’t see.

  11. Arthur says

    December 23, 2015 at 9:24 am

    Good thing you didn’t off-handedly comment on rock n’ roll, hip-hop or ‘alternative.’.

    KG replies: I’m learning there are certain words and names I just shouldn’t mention. It occurred to me to begin every post with a paragraph on Kaikhosru Sorabji just to scare off the riff-raff.

  12. Mjy says

    December 23, 2015 at 11:43 am

    Regular reader here. I was quite surprised at how quickly the comments on the post in question spiraled out of control. Seems to me that nowadays, an experts commentary is really just a hair trigger excuse for people to try to articulate their own agenda in response. So yeah, it’s not you, it’s them… need any regular readers remind you of the nonsense comments that flood the blog anytime you so much as mention the Beatles?

    KG replies: Don’t mention that name! I’ll refer, if I have to, to the singer who rhymes with Fall Kashartney.

Kyle Gann

Just as Harry Partch called himself a "philosophic music man seduced into carpentry," I'm a composer seduced into musicology... Read More…

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