Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
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Thursday, February 24, 2005
meaning vs. obscurity
Not to prolong this thread, but...
With all due respect to WH Auden, he's wrong. Or maybe that is true for poetry, but certainly it should not be true for music. As Steve Reich once indicated to me in the 80's, one would have to be a very strange composer not to want to have people listen to his or her music. I've written my share of complex music; there's nothing wrong with complexity, nor is "melodic" music automatically great---far from it.
It gets back to the issue of "meaning." Unless composers write music that expresses something, and is not written for other composers at an intellectual level, their music is doomed to be relegated to obscurity. Period. Messiaen recognized this, I think. The second of his Quartes Etudes de Rythme (Mode de valeurs et d'intensitis) essentially serializes every element: pitch, attack, duration. It's a great piece, one that I've loved since I was a teenager. But I've always found it interesting that AFAIK, Messiaen never did anything like this again. The piece works because the music is well-suited for this approach, and is relatively short. I think Messiaen realized that to do such a controlled approach again and again would likely produce rigid music devoid of any meaning or emotion (which is not the case for Mode de valeurs). One problem I have with "academic" composers like Boulez and Babbitt is that they did not realize this limitation; they started serializing everything as if serialization for its own sake was a great thing. It's not.
Again, just an opinion, but I'm serious in that if composers merely write for each other (which might imply some level of trying to impress others in the same profession), they will be missing out on producing music that is more than a footnote in a musicology journal. Just as there is a difference between data and information, there is a big difference between writing notes and composing music. My 3-year-old son plays notes. Music implies arranging notes to express something, just as my son can splash paint on a piece of paper but not approach the artistry of Jackson Pollock.
There's also the other extreme-writing to please the audience. That doesn't work, and is no better than writing just for the appreciation of other composers. Composers should write for themselves---if it's genuine, and expresses something, then listeners will at least have respect for it. When composers write for the audience and not themselves, once the fad is over what's left? There is a good analogy from business: if you ignore profit margins and try to do right by the customer, the profit margins will take care of themselves and the business will succeed (at least that was Dell's approach). Similarly, if you write music for yourself and are honest in that pursuit, ultimately people will listen, and other composers will at least have some regard for your music beyond just analyzing the notes to death.
posted by David Toub
12:53 PM
writing for each other
I can't resist at this point mentioning the following quote from W. H. Auden:
The ideal audience the poet imagines consists of the beautiful who go to bed with him, the powerful who invite him dinner and tell him secrets of state, and his fellow poets. The poet's audience consists of myopic school teachers, pimply young men who eat in cafeterias, and his fellow poets. So a poet writes for his fellow poets.
(I couldn't find it where I thought it was, so I kind of got if off the web, so it may not be completely accurate, but it's close enough.)
posted by Rodney Lister
12:22 PM
American Music and American Politics
A central thread of this discussion of Politics and Music seems to be focused on the generation that came of age in the 1950s, so I appreciate Cary's attempt to bring things up to date. I’d like to throw in a statistic that relates to generations coming of age today and in the near future: Agenda Inc. of San Francisco reports that 40% of the songs that made Billboard Top 20 in 2004 included mentions of at least one specific brand name, and 50% name at least one form of weaponry.
Gives W a lot to be proud of, doesn’t it?
posted by Lawrence Dillon
11:25 AM
Music and the Market
Just so we're clear, I don't think all academics are bad, nor do I think all pop stars are good.
But music is, more often than not, written for a market, either cultural or commercial. (These are not mutually exclusive, by the way). And this generates a great deal of questionable art, both on the university stage as well as on pop radio. That’s okay too. Though we are not always successful, perhaps the nobility is in the attempt.
Composers in the academy usually write for each other. This provides entry into their particular market segment, and we all hope to find acceptance there. Fast travel and communications, as well as the leveling effects of the market, have resulted in some composers in California that sound just like some composers in New York. Occasionally, the original voice pops up, but it's unpredictable just when, how, and where this occurs. If we hear about a trend or a composer, it's often because, beyond the musical craft itself, marketing forces align to make something happen.
Britney Spears, for example, is an entertainer, and a marketing construct of remarkable proportions. (I mean commercially, not physically....) Her appeal is carefully researched, segmented, and targeted with as much craft and knowledge as can be brought to bear--though the discipline is different, and less musically than economically driven. What she sings, what she wears, how she walks, are carefully crafted, and reactions and sales are carefully charted in search of (please pardon the expression) a great bottom line.
And though Britney may lack the depth of Igor, in terms of her popular market and commercial power, she's wildly successful in terms of how our society rewards its most prized citizens: $$$.
It's dangerous to make judgments about what people actually think, but I doubt Ms. Spears thinks deeply about her art--her marketers to do that. I wonder if art music composers consider "depth and meaning" too. The American trend seems to be a quest for new sounds, new methods, and a show of facility in developing and exploring musical material that might result in big prizes--and that's all wonderful. We need these explorations and acknowledgements. But to paraphrase Corigliano, if composers speak in secret languages and join secret clubs, then we shouldn't be surprised if no one understands or cares if we exist.
For many "outsider" artists, their target is only themselves, so they are less invested in what an outside market can do for them. This may result in some of the most interesting work, if we ever actually hear of it. But if it has merit or at least interest, such work might then be co-opted by the mainstream. Minimalism, atonality, impressionism all started on the edges as a reaction to something.
Okay, gotta go finish a commission and write a grant, or I don't get paid.
I'll try to infuse them with some meaning along the way.
Meaning is hot right now.
posted by Cary Boyce
11:12 AM
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