A little while ago I was talking for to [ah, typos] a former student of mine, a composer with a sincere commitment to modernism. Readers here know that that isn’t my own favorite musical style of the past 50 years, but I respect it, like some of the music, and also think that it’s due for another look. I’d like to see a retrospective on it in a contemporary art museum, because I think a museum audience is one place to look for people who’ll actually like modernist music.
So this is my point here. Modernist music needs to find its ecological niche, the place where it’s nourished by people who like it, and who get nourished by it in return.
My student and I talked about aspects of this. I brought up my frequent point about the standard classical audience being forced to listen to modernist works, which they hate. My student, very reasonably, said that he felt forced to listen to postmodern (as I think he put it) pieces that he doesn’t like. The catch, though, is that this happens (or so I’d assume) in a context where most of the audience likes the pieces. Or, in other words, in an ecosystem that suits them. When modernist pieces are played for a mainstream orchestra audience, there’s no ecosystem in sight. Unless it’s a curious one, that’s poisonous to most of the beings that live in it.
So then my student said something else reasonable. Where else could modernist composers get orchestra pieces played? The orchestra, my student pointed out, is a wonderful canvas for a musician (or words to that effect; I’m sure he put it better). Why should modernist composers not be able to use it?
I sympathize. As a composer, how could I not?
But the problem here is that my student — like many people in classical music; I don’t mean to single this out — looks at all this as a somewhat abstract proposition. Here are some worthy composers, serious artists. Here’s something they’d like to do. They ought to be able to do it.
In theory — or in the world populated by our ideals — they ought to be. But in the end there has to be some kind of ecosystem that supports the music. Or, to put this in the most basic way, that pays for the music. I’m not being crass. If an orchestra is going to rehearse and play a piece — and above all a complex and difficult piece, as so many modernist scores are — someone has to pay the musicians. Someone has to decide that the performance is important enough to get whatever part of the orchestra’s budget it might take to pay for all those rehearsals.
So now we can sketch in some details of the ecosystem that’s needed. Somewhere there has to be money. Funders would help — funders who want to support modernist music. But somewhere, the audience plays a role. If they hate the piece, will they be angry? Will they be less likely to buy tickets to future concerts? Will donors be repelled? What sort of relationship can the orchestra build with its community, if it plays music that defies the community’s taste?
Note that the answers to these questions do not have to amount to, “Don’t play the music.” But you have to answer the questions. You have to know what the ecological consequences — so to speak — of the performance will be. You have to know where the money will come from. You have to know how your audience will react. You have to decide if you just want to tough it out with the audience (too bad if they don’t like it), make an approach to the audience (hey, everyone, we know you don’t like music like this, but here’s why we’re playing it), or — the alternative that, in my experience, is by far the least explored — find the audience who’ll like the music. (Least explored for the performance of large modernist orchestral works, I mean.)
Ecosystem. The classical music world, I think, sometimes forgets that it needs one. Instead, we substitute a kind of entitlement. “This is our art. It has to exist.” When funding is plentiful, it might be safe to think that way. But today?
Added later: What I’m saying here isn’t simply about funding, management, or the cultural position of classical music in our wider world. It’s a human thing. If you’ve written a modernist piece — or any piece; or if you run an orchestra — don’t you want to look out at your audience and see people you care about, people whose thoughts and feelings and needs and loves and hates are a central part of everything you do?
And if not, why do you want to work — and, maybe, live — in such cold artistic isolation?
Your addition hit it dead center: music is written, but it’s also listened to. It’s not about the composer saying what they want to say and who cares if anyone listens. (Wasn’t that the title of that article that lit a fire a few decades back: Who Cares If You Listen?)
That’s … sort of hostile in a way. It sets the composer up in opposition to the audience.
It’s hard to pin it down, really. There’s time when people do have to say unpopular things, and you can’t crush your individual voice to make other people happy. People often tend to enjoy watching others say things of great value to themselves; I’ve been arguing for that sort of thing in music and stating that it matters to watch and listen to someone playing or singing something of importance to that very person. That’s the whole draw of the singer-songwriter.
But at the same time, rhetorical-you can’t express yourself and expect anyone to want to sit there and pay to hear you when they get the feeling that you’re doing it out of a sense of entitlement. “The composer has to be true to their inner voice” can and often should become “I am compelled to say what I feel I must say. I hope you all get something out of it, because I’ve got to say it whether you approve or not.”
But that can turn into “I get to say what I want and screw anyone who doesn’t like it.” It’s All About Me. Art’s about meeting people partway. That’s the whole point of it. Ideally, the artist makes what they are saying so compelling that the audience wants to get up out of their seats, fill in the gaps in the work with parts of themselves, and participate in the final act of creation to bring the piece into its whole existence through witnessing it.
That’s fantastic — that means that every single audience member who hears a piece of music, looks at a painting, enjoys a dance, or whatever is experiencing a different work of art. The best works of art only go about 80% of the way to the audience. The audience has to fill in the other 20% with what comes from within themselves — and we all perform that last act of creation differently.
I guess I’d wonder (and this goes for ALL forms of communication) WHY are rhetorical-you sharing yourself, then? To connect with the people out there? To overwhelm them? To force them to admit that you’re right? To turn them into little mini-yous? Are rh-you prepared to connect meaningfully with people and yet still accept that they will continue to be themselves after they’re done listening? Not unchanged, but changed versions of themselves.
Does the composer realize that they are not making other people feel and see what they are feeling and seeing, but inviting the audience to complete the piece by listening to it? And do they accept that that means that the piece will no longer be what it was in their own heads? It’s hard to do that if you’re functioning from a position of entitlement — “I have the right to write this piece (and make you listen to it)!” Releasing a work of art into the world doesn’t mean making the audience see and hear what you hear; it’s not about taking control over them. It’s about relinquishing control over your work. Once it gets into someone else’s neurons, it’s not yours anymore.
That was a lot of babble …
This brings to mind Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances where, it might be said, he tried to create just such an ecosystem for modernist music. The results were mixed, and often the works were not played in their original scoring – hence a wonderful and strange of library of works like Bruckner 7 for chamber ensemble! But the idea behind founding this group was to gather together those fans of modernist music and create private performances away from the general public who may not be so accepting. Has anything like this been tried since? A performance organization based on membership fees?
Oh, jeez, Richard, I can’t leave this one alone. You do know, of course, that for the Society for Private Musical Performances concerts they posted a sign at the door: “Kritikern ist der Eintritt verboten!” (No critics allowed!) And evidently it was enforced. Now, who wants to talk about the good old days? Heh, just kidding…. 🙂
Greg-
Sorry, my ignorance is showing. What is “modernist”, what is “alt-classical”, and, maybe a couple of examples of composers in each niche genre.
Greg,
I’m a little confused by what you mean by “alt:classical” and “Modernist. I think of my self as an “alt:classical” composer who uses modernist techniques along with minimalist grooves, hints of rock power chords, diatonicism et al.(in the same piece). The whole world is my “musical oyster”, and a lot of folks are writing like this too.
An interesting tidbit:
When Debussy was beginning to compose his unique opera, ‘Pelleas et Melisande’, in 1894, he wrote the following in a letter to Ernest Chausson:
“Music really ought to have been a hermetical science, enshrined in texts so difficult and laborious so as to discourage the herd of people who treat it as casually as they do a handkerchief !…”
Amazing to read this now since ‘Pelleas et Melisande’ is today one of the most beloved and gorgeous works in the whole repertoire.
When composers start labeling their music it makes me wonder if they are for some reason taking up a cause rather than trying to find their own style. It can take years, and much work to develop the skills necessary to compose a first rate piece and then make further progress. Their are no short cuts. Just look at history. Picking a style (Modernism ,ect.) and trying to conform to that style, especially one that is a novelty at best, just limits the composer. If there is no thought to the audience who has to sit and listen to this music, the person may be in the wrong business to begin with. There are enough composers who are historically important but who’s music will only be a foot notes. As far as having a competent orchestra perform your piece, good luck! Just ask Schubert.
Wouldn’t the common-sense route be to cultivate an audience for the idiom via solo and chamber pieces?
Wouldn’t the common-sense route be to cultivate an audience for the idiom via solo and chamber pieces?
Wouldn’t the common-sense route be to cultivate an audience for the idiom via solo and chamber pieces?
I can attest to the number of composers out there who don’t think about the audience at all…
I really, really think academia is poisonous; I know too many composers writing things to impress other composers, their professors and their colleagues…rather than For their own ears/themselves (forget about the audience), and often those things that are ‘impressive’ are elements that have nothing to do with actual sounding music…or at least, completely inaudible, even to someone with well-trained ears.
With that said, I think there are lots of good to great modernist-y works that CAN work on a concert with more standard repertoire…it just needs to be contextualized in the right way, marketed in the right way, target the right audience etc. But…I really can’t think of a single ensemble/orchestra (including new music groups) that are going about this the right way. Or even trying to do it the right way.
As much as I hate the “people just need to be educated” line of reasoning, here I think it has some weight. I’ve long wanted to like modernist music, I’ve given it a lot of uninformed listens, and I’ve tried to get informed too.
But it still just sounds like a lot of wankery. I know that the likelihood of that being true is vanishingly small, but every time I try to listen, I hear noise, and every time I try to read some explanation, it always turns into “here’s this abstract structure that seems to have nothing to do with sound whatsoever. Isn’t it clever? Also, the twelfth root of two is a magic number.” The only emotive writing I found amounted to “Modern life is so irredeemably unpleasant that the only proper response is irredeemably unpleasant music.”
I’m not saying this to insult the music. I know that isn’t the whole story. I’m saying this to express my frustration at how hard it is to find the whole story. Why did these people write this music? An inverted rhythmic row is functionally inaudible, what should I be listening for?
I think if that were more immediately apparent, the ecosystem would form itself.
Dear Greg,
This is an interesting question. I like your intuition that the new, alt-classical, composers and performers might find new and interesting ways to interact with modernism, to revitalize it. I suspect that if the transformation of the classical audience you would like to see (toward the alt-classical) ever occurs, the number of people in the audience who “hate modernism” so vehemently that they feel “forced to listen”, or reject it outright, would be much smaller than currently is the case. What you call alt-classical seems to me to be permeated with modernism of a certain kind, and its audience very open-minded and curious. Such an audience probably would end up rejecting modernism in its most “academically correct” and hermetically sealed forms. But is that such a bad thing?
Jay
An interesting discussion to be sure. But at the risk of going a bit off-topic, what is being discussed here is music written for performance, and the ecosystem necessary to sustain that method of realization. Now I bet there are real statistics for this, but I’m guessing millions more people are listening to music on their iPods every day than are attending performances. How might this affect the eco-situation?
One dynamic worth considering is that those writing new music today have a very small chance to have a piece performed in the traditional way in a traditional venue. But anyone can post MP3 realizations and have their art be heard – if not performed – and appreciated. I believe this will affect the way new musicians write new music. The tools for realization are not yet perfect enough to credibly mimick a live performance – indeed they may never be. But a realization that does not portray itself as a live performance, and yet a realization that nevertheless achieves the artist’s intent – is readily attainable.
If the current ecosystem cannot sustain new music, then new music may adapt itself to a more hospitable environment.
Part of an absolutely tremendous interview with Eddie Van Halen from 1979:
“U.K. opened for us last year for a few shows. And I never heard of the band U.K. Here we are in an arena, I’m sitting here tuning up, and all of a sudden [in a reverent voice], “Is that Bill Bruford? Whoa!” All of a sudden I got the chills. I was freakin’ out. All of a sudden Allan Holdsworth walks in. I’m going, “My God! These guys are opening for us?” These guys are better…they’ve been through it. And they played before us, and they bombed. People hated ’em, but I’m standing there with tears in my eyes, just getting off, trippin’. It was so good.
“But they’re artists – “I’m playing my art, and I don’t care if you like it or not” – that type of thing, which I think is a real bad attitude. Music is for people. It’s not for yourself. Or if it is, sit in your room and play it. But if you’re gonna play it for people, you better play something that they’re gonna want to hear instead of walking up there and pretending you’re so good and beyond your audience. That’s what they were doing, playing all this off-beat stuff, which to an average person sounds like mistakes. Even though because I’m a musician, I get off on it and like it and understand what they’re doing. But they bombed, and I couldn’t believe it.”
These issues are all over the place not just in the classical world … rock just doesn’t have the luxury of sitting in its bedroom and playing for itself since it’s not grant-funded. Like Neal Schon said in another good interview, when Journey’s label told them to get a hit, get a singer, or get the hell off the label after putting out three albums in a row that were full of four guys impressing themselves but went nowhere in terms of sales: “I was gonna have to get a job selling ladies’ shoes or something.”
Pop and rock’s dependency on money can lead them to dumb themselves down and comes with a raft of its own dangers, but being insulated from those concerns can lead to being insulated from the whole reason music exists: to communicate.
I think Paul’s idea is pointing in the direction that needs to be pursued, even if MP3s aren’t the ideal endpoint.
Post them online. There’s got to be a general social network of sorts built around modernist composers in schools nowdays; it seems like a specialist thing, so everyone probably knows the right professor to talk about or four or five students in various colleges all over the place. Make a community where people can post even MP3 versions of their stuff done with synth “orchestras.” If it can find fans, it can also find musician-fans who will be eager to help create it.
Normally, you might go for years without running into more than two violists who’d like to play this stuff as compulsively as a fan would. Online social networking sites can allow the one French horn player in all of Salt Lake City who adores this stuff to find like-minded people online and help facilitate collaboration with the bassoon dude in Billings, Vermont who also likes it and some kid in Glasgow who just wrote something and put it on his Facebook page.
If you want to use an ecosystem analogy — populations don’t die out linearly. (And they don’t take off linearly, either.) Species don’t go from 100 members to 99 members, to 98 members in a straight line down to zero on their way to extinction.
They die down slowly to the point where suddenly they have a hard time finding one another to reproduce (maybe 1000 members, maybe 250 depending on how thinly spaced they are), then they crash and die out in one generation.
And they take off the same way, too. Once most of you have a good shot of running into another animal of your own kind who’s interested in propagating, you’ll ALL explode suddenly and *bam!* one year later, there’s three times as many of you as there once were.
The problem with this sort of seriously out-there music is that it’s been too hard for makers of it to find one another up until now. Make it easier for other fans of this stuff to find one another (which online social networks do brilliantly), and the problem will solve itself. That WILL be the ecosystem. Just get them together in large numbers and let them talk.
Even fanfiction and slash fandom was like that — for decades it was a specialist thing that no one talked about consisting of a physical mail circle of friends who passed handwritten stories around. They were called APAs. I know TONS of middle-aged-to-elderly people who were in old APAs. Maybe a few hundred people in the entire country knew about these things — and if you wanted to join, you had to know someone who was already in one or you had no chance. Every single person who wanted in had to practically create the stuff from scratch in her own head (most often a “her”) in order to even find out about APAs and mail zines. In order for a new member of the species to arise, they have to reinvent the stuff for themselves, every single time.
Then, the Internet comes onto the scene. Wham!
MILLIONS of people know about fanfiction (and specialist stuff like slash fandom) and write it, and it’s simply an accepted part of modern culture with its own nonprofit advocacy group now (since the technology and visibility also led to that).
Musicianus modernus is a rare bird. It has to find other members of its species using social networking to create more of itself. Performance venues and performance opportunities will come along for the ride. Once you have a healthy population of the species, good luck trying to keep them from performing it.
Janis states: “There’s got to be a general social network of sorts built around modernist composers…” Well, one example is http://improvfriday.ning.com and it is a site where musicians post their newest MP3 files every weekend and discuss each other’s work. We have participants from Europe, UK, NZ and Australia as well as all over the US. There are less than 100 members – and maybe half contribute pieces regularly – but without the Internet such a community could not exist because of the world-wide dispersion of the participants. But as it is we are becoming like 52nd street in the 1950s – a place for like-minded musicians to collaborate, exchange ideas and post realizations of our work.
The thing is, I find that in posting a new piece each week I am gradually shifting what I write away from what is performable. Its all about how it sounds, not how likely it is to attract a platform for performance – or even if it is playable at all. In fact, the less it sounds like a performance (which obviously isn’t happening) the better – as suits an on-line venue. There are a number of sound artists posting there and mixes made on the spot of other’s posted pieces. Such are the evolutionary forces at work in an on-line, socially-networked new music world.
Sorry, but I don’t believe you can compare what Gluck, Monteverdi and Wagner did to some modern composer taking up an academic experiment such as “Modernism”. Their music was extremely popular and widely performed. They had many contemporaries who were also pioneers that you can now mainly find by looking in musicological textbooks. The difference is a special talent that these men possessed. The serious music community seems to be good at coming up with fancy labels for what is just bad music by average composers.
Paul — that’s neat to know. I don’t want to act like you can solve any problem by throwing the Internet at it 🙂 but it’s a great way to get people together who would normally never find one another. We all have to keep in mind that we’re part of our ecosystem as well and as subject to its rules as any other organism. It’s also no surprise that the stuff will change in reply to a wider audience and shorter feedback timescales. Fan culture did as well, and still is — and will continue to do so.
My own opinion is … that I don’t like that sort of music that is arrogantly unpleasant to listen to. Sorry. :-} You don’t want to get stuck in a rut, but there’s usually a reason why the beaten path is where it is. Go too far off it, and you might find buried treasure, but you might also find poison oak. And if you find buried treasure, there will often be a stampede of interested people behind you that will create a new beaten path in no time.
If after several decades, this stuff still hasn’t found its niche, I tend to think it’s not likely to. But if the people who do like it can get together to enjoy themselves and make stuff they get off on making and listening to, then hell — more power to them. I hope they have a blast.
A note to paul. There are now ways not to mimick, but to surpass many live performances. The composer can now also be the performer for most small or large works. However there is a lot of time and effort needed initially to achieve this. Not the modern way, and there are no short cuts.
Simulating instrumental music with synthesizer mock-ups is not the only strategy available for composers faced with limited performance opportunities. There also is the long-established tradition of electroacoustic music. Why not make pieces in the studio, created from recorded and/or electronically generated sounds? Modernist and other composers have been exploring this for quite a while.
This may be an unwelcome diversion, but as Greg knows, my life these days(as Executive Director of JazzBoston)is pretty much consumed with building the audience for jazz music, and my personal taste, and concern, is for the more adventurous end of that broad spectrum. I’ve often heard Greg say that classical music and jazz are facing the same challenges for survival. So my question to you, Greg, is, to what extent do some of the ideas discussed here apply to the future of jazz — the need for an ecosystem to nourish the contemporary manifestations of the genre and be nourished by them in turn; a sense of entitlement and superiority among some practitioners versus a desire to communicate with an audience of willing listeners; the choice between living in cold artistic isolation, composing for the initiated, and striving to cultivate a receptive audience, even a niche audience? Is there a chance of transforming the jazz audience following some of the same prescriptions offered here?
I’ll understand if you choose to ignore these questions and get on with the classical business at hand.
Note To John. Modern “synthesizers” do not use mock-ups. They use real instruments played by professional musicians and are recorded using 24 or 32 technology.(CD’s use 16 bit technology). In the right hands can sound just as musical as “real” thing. I have also used electronically generated sounds in pieces with very good results and reviews. However I have found this medium to be limited. There is no substitute for modern orchestral instruments. The problem with some contemporary music, aside from being bad to begin with, is also not right for this medium.
Fred & John:
I agree that realizations using digital samples from top musicians are a big improvement over generic midi and can be convincing. I would also say that when I write for performance I am always pleasantly surprised and impressed at how much the performer adds to the piece – the arc of a phrase, slight changes in tempo and dynamic – all the things good players bring to the final product. So I am convinced that electronic realizations – although getting better – will never replace a live performance.
That said, I think new music, since it is infrequently performed, will evolve in another direction – one that takes advantage of the improving electonic realizatons and the vast audience/free delivery system provided by the Internet.
To Pauline Bilsky – there are tools – again, imperfect tools – that allow the collaboration of live performances over the Internet – http://ninjam.com is one such and it is far from ideal. But it will likely improve as time goes on – or perhaps improvised performaces will adapt to its limitations in order to take advantage of the global possibilities for collaboration.
Note to Paul. Phrasing, slight changes in tempo, dynamics and timbre are all academic and available to the composer for all orchestral instruments. This includes solo instruments ( violin included). The Piano being a percussion instrument is not that difficult a problem. Concert choir is also available. There are other upsides. Although the composer should only compose music that is actually playable, he does not have to be concerned with the ability of the solo performers or the quality of the orchestra. The ballance between orchestra sections and solo instruments can also be completely controlled by the composer. As for sound quality, when using all professional equipment the sound is exceptional. These are only some of the upsides. In essence the composer has a world class orchestra and soloists at his disposal. The downside, this does come with a large initial investment in time to master this.
Greg is right re increased use of virtual sound. In film & TV especially most people don’t think about whether the sound track they are hearing is from a studio band or computer (or both) — & wouldn’t be able to tell even if they listened closely. I’d go a bit further though and note that the spillover into classical is well under way. Here are some notes (… with a heads-up for critics — I agreed also with Greg’s comment re “closed performance societies” above but this is a bit different):
——-
Re virtual performances, here’s a little test. Click on the following link and try your luck (don’t worry, no one will see your results):
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-quiz-fakeorch-frameset.html
Nearly three years ago this test was given to two composers to see if they could nail the “fake.” If anyone had the ear and technology chops to do it, they did. On a first listen, both of them got it wrong. (Similar tests have fooled conductors.) Here is the entire article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117832128175492832.html
But that was three years ago. Just recently, Jay Bacal did the complete Rite of Spring using the virtual instruments in the Vienna Symphonic Library. He and Vienna have kindly made this entire “performance” available on line:
http://vsl.co.at/en/65/71/1590/1242.vsl
There are numerous other examples out there as well, e.g., the Fauxharmonic Orchestra (composers without the big bucks and time it takes to set up their own high end virtual performance studios need to check this site out), but these examples should suffice.
Questions:
If you heard a recording of, say, Beethoven Symphony No. 7 on the radio, and you missed the announcer’s intro, could you tell if what you heard was real or virtual? What if it came packaged as a new release in a jewelcase from a well-known label with a cover that identified a well known conductor and orchestra as performers; could you tell if it was a fake? What if you were a professional critic and were sent this CD for review and you were so impressed with it that you decided to write it up & your review appeared in papers, blogs and reblogs worldwide – and the next day you got an email telling you that it was a virtual performance (not what was identified on the cover and in the notes – no “real” performance in a hall or studio ever happened – you’ve just been had)? You might salvage the situation by writing a follow-up about how the technology had progressed so far that it fooled even you – … but … in the end your reputation depends on your ear and that you are less likely to be fooled than the average concert goer.
My guess is that not only could this happen, some day it will(or has it already & I missed it?)
More on music ecosystems later….
On MIDI/VST…
What MIDI/software cannot do is replicate the intangible gradations between the stock articulations they include, and cannot foresee articulations that aren’t discovered yet. In other words, VST cannot invent sounds like I could with a physical instrument right beside me. I have a guitar VST that in no way accomodates the unlimited invention potential of Hendrix, for example. The most inventive part about MIDI interfaces are EQ, FX and controller channels. In the future, VST will have to objectively model the physical instrument – and rather than use recorded .wav samples, it would actually generate sounds. When you buy a VST, you are also accepting a stock version of a timbre, grossly oversimplifying the variations possible. The last frontier of VST is the endless variation of human voice (esp. in the pop realm, where blantantly new timbres arrive every day).
Go back and read “Who Cares If You Listen”, or more accurately known as “the Composer As Specialist”. You will see that it is written from the recognition of a legitimate problem, and importantly, from a sincere source. Who are you to doubt the motives of scientific, serial, experimental or systems composers who have accepted the reality that laymen cannot understand their work? Who claims that all music should be understood without any preparation or education? If you do, you are placing a cap on many truth-seekers who have done much to expand the concept and possibilities of music.
From my experience, getting a layman to truly value modern composition (or art) is a lot like converting someone to atheism, converting an athiest to religion, converting a Repub to a Dem etc. etc.. It must arise from within the person, out of a sincere desire to re-evaluate or expand their “norms”, plus a serendipitous clarity to change for the right reasons. (I’ve noticed that converting for some peripheral reason is far more likely than a true holistic change)
You have to customize the way you hear for different works. If a person cannot think abstractly enough to modulate between these ways of hearing, they’ll only look for what they already want – normally the overtly sensual, just like they clamor for “meaning” in abstract art. If they don’t find it, they project outward, thinking the art is flawed, rather than questioning their own approach. They don’t realize that music/art is created for millions of reasons and purposes, not just immediate enjoyment. Most, if told to re-wire the way they listen, will balk. I sometimes think education is the answer, but it has to address this aesthetic issue specifically and often. Ultimately I think it’s a quality akin to wisdom, to bend yourself to the art rather than expecting art to bend to you.
Similarly, you can get someone to appreciate a work – and still have it rejected by the juvenile “I don’t like it” – the question of “liking it” is still their foremost concern. Which is more profound: “liking” or “understanding”? Why is it always a question of like/dislike? The need for “understanding” rather than judgement is so apparent in social relations – why not in art?
(by the way, the “Who Cares if You Listen” post above wasn’t directed at Greg, but at certain commentors.)
Well, this seems like common sense, really.
In the pop world, I can go to a Pink Floyd concert, and it’s all, gee, Pink Floyd. Generally jazz ensembles also play in a consistent style (bop, big band revival, whatever) It’s only the classical world that insists that its customers must hear music of radically different styles.
I think modernist music (e.g. atonal) should not be on the program for traditional symphony programs (those subscribers generally don’t like it.) I also think that modern music should generally not be played in the “alt-classical” concerts (assuming you are referring to modern day tonal composers like Jennifer Higdon, Steve Reich, John Adams, etc.), for the same reasons, that the modern atonal music is radically different from both contemporary and pre-modern modes. (but some contemporary does go in and out of atonality (thinking of some works by William Bolcom), so modern music could be on some programs, but certainly wouldn’t be welcome on a mimimalist program featuring Reich, Reilly, and Arvo Part for example.)
And OK, I will be glad to say good riddance to the atonal style. They never could compete in the musical marketplace, since nobody outside academia likes the music anyway (and I wouldn’t be surprised if many academics only pretend to like it.)
To Steve. Very familiar with the Vienna ” Rite of Spring”. Injoyed listening to it. Sounds great, maybe too good , kind of plastic and without soul. Just what many complain about when they hear or speak about orchestral recreations. The trick is to remove the plastic and put in the soul.
On MIDI post: I think the tech of the future should get around many of MIDI/VST’s current problems. I consider many of East West’s and Chris Hein’s products as the first truly sufficient attempts, and that’s within the last 5 years (imagine in 50). By the way, Steve’s kind-of-right about inability to spot the fake using VST symphonic renderings….but with chamber music like string quartet, jazz, or modern music with extended technique, it’s easy to spot the fake. Live-sounding rock, jazz and any vocal music is almost completely out of the question.
If you desire to use VST in any more that a preparatory role, the key (now, at least) is to treat MIDI like an instrument in itself (for example, explore ideas that aren’t physically possible), and use VST instruments that don’t imitate real-world counterparts (synths, sound design). Concentrate on recorded formats rather than performance. This justifies its existence with much more integrity.
On “Who Cares If You Listen?” post:
I think esotericism in composition is underrated – it would have been a mistake for many of these composers (who had mathematics or physics backgrounds, for instance) to truly expect “popular” understanding and acceptance. It was more a (super-optimistic) belief that in the future, people would think in a different way altogether – living on the moon perhaps – before postmodernism revised the notion of “forward progress”. It’s technology that moves forward, but the “majority” of people seem to be cyclical, slow to change, deliberately regressive…or, as I said above, seeing change as a non-issue – as “hearing in a new way” is probably a non-issue for 99%. I’m pretty sure most don’t know that the “non-tonal” category exists – they hear atonal/serial (and even modern tonal) composers as bad tonal composers.
Most audiences don’t realize the aesthetic problems that preceded non-tonal music, and still don’t – hence esotericism. Any non-tonal method was (and is) a legitimate way to solve musical problems – for instance, how to circumvent the redundancy of tonal strategies. And despite most still seeing a dialectic between tonality and serialism, Xenakis (and many others) created entirely new systems for each piece (esotericism anew). So when someone says “good riddance to atonality”, they are really saying “good riddance to new ways of thinking” (yet, I’m irked by composers using another person’s pre-made system, and if ‘redundant’ 12-tone music is what they dislike, I agree).
As a side note – some of the above comments present the the idea that 12-tone or modern music “failed” – a compositional possibility, once exposed, can never die. Also, despite the implication in my comments, you can find sensual/conventional beauty in every kind of musical system, without exception (it just may not be the primary aim, or “your kind” of beauty)
Who funds this music?
It seems apparent to me that it’s mainly academia’s responsibility – because the “modern music” in question acts on ‘non-pop’ processes and assumptions. Of course it can’t “compete in the musical marketplace” – abstract, conceptual and/or scientific ideas aren’t meant for literal/direct consumption, they’re “objects of consideration”. Even music MEANT for literal consumption is having huge problems – see Bob Lefsetz’s blog. At the overly reductive level = funding comes from people who care and have money! Finding your audience and finding your funding are reconciled at this level – finding people who ‘care’. This unfortunately, implies the piecemeal and scattered, rather than a pre-made group all sitting together waiting for you. (also implies plenty of unheard MIDI renderings…)
I actually kind of agree with Greg. To me Schoenberg is one of the Neanderthals of serious music. Let him rest in peace. If music institutions continue to pursue composers that are more interested in pusing the envelope and trying new systems in order to be the next Stavinsky, instead of creating new art that can be injoyed by the people who pay the bills, they may also find themselves in this catagory.As you know there are already signs of it.
In regards to ‘modern’ composers, the “more power to ’em” or “if they choose not to compose music that people who pay the bills like…” sound flippant and dismissive. We can’t have a discussion about modern music and funding and then shrug and use ‘survival of the fittest’ arguments. The “make music people want to hear” argument is entertainment-based and belongs there.
Schoenberg is simply a symbol to use, and 12-tone is also a symbol of misunderstood and publically disliked musical systems. For artists, 50-100 years ago should be considered alongside 500 years ago, alongside today. It’s all musical idea. We debate Socrates today, and Pollack still polarizes us way more than we’d like to think. Just sit by one and hear the crazy stuff people say.
Of course, that’s not the audience modern music wants anyway. Segmentation means we won’t waste marketing dollars on the totally uninitiated, so I’m all for “raising the level of discourse” past the “do modern composers have the right to exist?” question. That IS still the question through, isn’t it? It’s still there, in both abstract and pragmatic arguments. For every agreement that it should exist, there’s a comment right under that shrugs and says “let ’em die”.
We can assume it should, but we’re still fighting the battle that art in general matters – and even that needs constant lobbying it seems.
I’d just like to share one positive experience I had with a performance of avant garde music. Some friends of mine prepared a quartet concert for a luncheon concert at Gensler, an architect firm in Houston; when word got out that I had Embellie, a solo viola piece by Xenakis, in my fingers, my friends asked me to contribute this piece to the concert. After giving an intrduction to who Xenakis was and his dual career as a composer and architect, I was astounded by the enthusiastic response from the audience; they recalled their favorite moments, how it “tickled” them, and a number of people wanted to see the score to the music, asking, “what does that one part where you played behind the bridge look like on the page?” A few months after that, I participated in a “Classical Music Supernova,” where on every street corner, classical music is played for twenty minutes, in hopes of generating buzz for the opening concert of the Chintimini Chamber Music Festival in Corvallis, OR. I was stationed outside a wine bar, and again I played the Xenakis piece as well as selections from the Ligeti Viola Sonata. I was once again pleased to meet people who enjoyed the music, and I was able to hand out brochures for the festival to the curious listeners. So these are just some examples of finding the right ecosystem for the music, as you’ve suggested.