Friday, March 11, 2005
organic connections
When I was a doctoral student, I had a seminar in composition in which the class was divided into essentially two camps: the constructivists vs. the representationalists, for lack of better terms. That year may have been unique in its equal and acute division, each side passionately defensive, each zealously dismissive of the other. Each side thought the other was misguided, at best.
It was fascinating. This followed a year that was extremely supportive and remarkably tolerant, and I don't know what tipped everyone into such a competitive stance. Perhaps the job market changed.
But I often wonder about music's power to conjure such dogmatic reactions over sounds that appear then evaporate. When misdirected or coopted, this passion we feel can be propagandized, as in the excellent illustration that Rodney posted. It can result in terms like "Entartete Musik." It can be racialized, genderized, elevated, dismissed, and otherwise problematized.
Perhaps it's the nature of the human endeavor....
Anyway, are any of you working on interdisciplinary projects? Film? Dance? Politics? I'd be curious to know what the issues are.
posted by Cary Boyce
10:09 AM
Thursday, March 10, 2005
deep, organic connection with the people
My first thought is that I'm really glad we won the cold war, so we could all take up the cause of socilist realism (or, these days, as Michael Finnissy says, Capitalist Realism--same thing, basically). I was looking for an appropriate quote. It's not quite right, but the best one I found was:
Indeed, even though it is outwardly concealed, a fierce struggle is taking place between two directions in Soviet music. One represent the healthy, progressive aspects in Soviet music, based on the recognition of the immense role of the classical heritage and, in particular, on the traditions of the Russian musical school, on the combination of high idealism and substance in music, its truthfulness and realism, and on the deep, organic connection with the people and their legacy of music and folk song, combined with high professional mastery. The other direction produces formalism alien to Soviet art. Under the banner of illusory innovation, it conveys a rejection of the classical heritage, of national character in music, and of service to the people in order to cater to the purely individualistic experiences of a small clique of aesthetes.--A. Zhdanov at the 1948 All-union Congress of Soviet Composers.
That's not all that far from the kind of statements one hears nowadays.
The thing I find irritating about a strand of this conversation is its willingness to ascribe motives to people, and its display of a certain self-congratulation: everything would be fine if you guys and girls who are just writing academic exercises for each other (which, since it doesn't mean anything to me must not mean anything to you either) and aren't trying to write music with substance or tunes that linger in the memory or rhythms that carry people away would get over it and just write the good music with the good, healthy, accessible concerns like I'm writing.
In fact we're all trying to do the best we can with the amount of talent and ability that we have, and we're all writing music which means something to us (if for no other reason than that we're doing it--and anybody to whom it doesn't mean something is sure pursuing a strangely perverse kind of self-torture), and we can only judge for ourselves what is meaningful or substantial or memorable or whatever, and beating up on each other, however good it may feel, doesn't do anybody any good. The reasons that millions and millions of people aren't flocking to hear new music are many and complicated and, I think, mostly don't really have all that much to do with what any of it sounds like. The very least we can do for each other is to assume that we're all operating under the best of motives, or at least trying to do. And, with all due respect to Alex Ross, whose writing I admire and respect, what the hell is a knotty, twelve-tonish figure?
posted by Rodney Lister
10:07 AM
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
"Music's Elemental Powers"
Just discovered that Alex Ross, as usual, has already said what I was trying to say below but much better (also, as usual). The Atlanta Sympony is doing Osvaldo Golijov's one-act opera Ainadamar next year and I searched through Alex's archives to see what he had said about it when it premiered at Tanglewood. This seemed especially on point: His (Golijov's) works arouse extraordinary enthusiasm in audiences, because they revive music’s elemental powers: they have rhythms that rock the body into motion and melodies that linger in the mind. Golijov lacks the intellectual caution that leads composers to confine a quasi-tonal melody within knotty, twelve-tone-ish figures. Instead, he lets his melodies wing their way into the open air. Which is another way of saying I gave it a 95, Dick. The beat was good and it was good to dance to.
posted by Jerry Bowles
10:07 PM
On Rhythm
In a comment below, Jerry writes of rhythm being hardwired into our brains: “we all respond to rhythms in some strange primitive way that is basically emotional.”
I’ve often wondered about the sound-world we experience in the months before birth, a sound-world dominated by our own internal pulsations, which must create fascinating patterns with our mothers’ heartbeats. A four-month fetus heart-rate can be three times as fast as its mother’s.
That’s the most predominant sound we know from the first moment we experience sound, and for quite some time thereafter -- what must feel like eternity -- until birth. Would that hard-wire a powerful predilection?
posted by Lawrence Dillon
9:50 PM
Meaning
Well, whatever meaning is, I don't think anybody intends to write pieces that don't have it. I'm not sure that anybody intends to write music that won't evoke some sort of reaction from those who hear it. The trick, of course, is to manage to succeed at doing that.
posted by Rodney Lister
10:41 AM
Intentional Fallacy
Aren't we overreaching by assuming that "meaning" is something a composer, or any artist, can build into a work rather than what the listener or viewer gets out of it? I would argue that what most modern music lacks is not meaning but an emotional payback to the listener. The most successful (commercially and artistically) modern composers--John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Arvo Part--succeed not because their work "means" something but because it stirs the emotions of listeners. Never underestimate the power of a good hook.
posted by Jerry Bowles
10:08 AM
Monday, March 07, 2005
Sugar and Spice and All That's Nice
It seems to me that this question of the importance of context to meaning is largely a nature/nurture issue. Undeniably, certain musical sounds and gestures evoke certain emotions -- the art of film-score is based heavily on the knowledge of these tropes and the ability to deploy them. William Kimmel's "The Phrygian Inflection and the Appearances of Death in Music" catalogues many instances throughout western musical history of a particular descending half-step gesture signifying death. So, to take Kimmel's example, are we biologically programmed to associate the Phrygian Inflection with Death, or have we been culturally indoctrinated? Surely we have some biological dispositions, but I would suggest that the safe route is to assume that any given association is socialized until we have solid evidence to the contrary. Larry Summers, at Harvard, is not the first, nor will he be the last, to jump to the conclusion that nature dictates the scientific abilities of women as compared to men when scientists have determined that culture is the overriding factor. Let us be similarly cautious in our discussion.
The kinds of presentational context that Cary brings up are important as well. I agree completely with his observation that presentation is manipulated in order to exercise control over the product, and with his implication that as long as presentation is inevitable, we might as well use it to the best advantage we can.
posted by Galen H. Brown
10:22 PM
meaning
I seem to recall not long ago people decrying music without meaning.
posted by Rodney Lister
5:48 PM
Meaning and Context
Both Judith and Galen bring up an interesting point: context.
A spirited discussion the other night with another composer, a conductor, and a theorist/librettist, along with recent posts, indicates deep concerns with this issue.
Music has an affekt, whether intended or not. This can change radically, depending on the place, time, perspective, or background of an audience. Ensembles such as Kronos, eighth blackbird, and my own "band" are experimenting with the usual classical protocol (enter, bow, play, applause, bow, exit). This might include staging, lighting, drama, sound immersion that all take the place, the space, and the audience into account. Perhaps this is to gain greater control and impact over the final "product."
Delivery becomes as important as the music product to produce not just sound from us to them, but a memorable experience for all concerned. Actors and orators know that the rhetoric and delivery is as important at the content, and can change the meaning of words drastically, so why not in art and music as well?
So perhaps the meaning is in the context and the cultural baggage we bring to a piece. Contextual thoughts anyone?
posted by Cary Boyce
12:23 PM
Form over Function
The MacLeish quote offeredy by Judith helps me to fuse together two seperate thoughts I've had percolating for a while now. I'll try to present them as a single coherent thought.
In both music and literature, it seems to me that we make three seperate aesthetic judgements at the same time: the surface of the work (in literature the beauty of the prose; in music the beauty of the melody, harmony, texture, etc); the underlying structure of the work (in literature the structure of the plot; in music the "form"); and the Meaning.
The vast majority of literature has all three. I would argue that the vast majority of music doesn't "mean" anything, and that the works that do only convey any meaning through the context in which the music is presented -- but we are obsessed with using the language of "meaning" in evaluating great musical works. (Think, for example, of the bogus but widely accepted suggestion that the opening motif of Beethoven 5 is "fate knocking at the door.")
So where's the literature that has no meaning or structure? Some of James Joyce sounds like it has no meaning or plot, but actually the point of his style is to have meaning but bury it. And why can't composers and critics get comfortable with the idea that music need not have meaning?
Or, to be fair, am I full of it? Couldn't we argue that the meaning is literature is also always contingent on context, so it's unreasonable to use the argument I've used? Or that literature has no meaning either? What the heck do we mean by "meaning" anyway?
posted by Galen H. Brown
12:00 PM
Music is...
Archibald MacLeish wrote "A poem need not mean / Just be."
Ditto Music.
posted by Judith Lang Zaimont
10:34 AM
|
