August 12, 200916 yr My biggest issue with that website was that it treated serialism and total serialism as different things; one "art" and the other postmodern kitsch... Now, of course, they're different to degrees, but that application of a concept to other realms seems right in line with "art" to me...can anyone explain why people hate postmodernism? i'm serious, i think i'm stupid for not getting it. Not even to mention that the person who wrote that website seems to have no clue what "postmodern music" is in the first place and just seems to assign a random number of musical terms to it that apparently the writer just didn't like. And the criteria for determining whether a music is "art music" are probably the most ridiculous part on that website since they are so obviously nothing else than an attempt to justify exactly the music he likes and exclude the other one. It becomes so blatantly clear that in reality it's not about "consumerim" and "intellectually stimulating music" for him - but just "anything else but the stuff I listen to", if you read criterias such as "must be written for unamplified instruments", "must be in orthodox musical notation" etc. And of course, to top the arbitrariness, he even includes "in many cases folk music" as acceptable to him, ignoring the fact that most of this is neither notated (especially not in the way he calls "orthodox"), nor the "original work of a single author", nor "conceived for performance according to the instructions of the composer" (since often there -is- nothing like a composer for this music, nor clear "instructions"), and so on.
August 12, 200916 yr The big problem many people have with postmodern art, is that at first glance, anything goes. Postmodernism also is not at all clearly defined, which makes it even worse. Modernism was about breaking boundaries, taking art to its limits. Postmodernism is art AFTER it's been taken to it's limits. So the big question is "what is there left to do?" The logical answer: everything and anything. On the one hand, it's impossible to call something "not art" after music pieces like for example Cage's 4'33. On the other hand, there is hardly any room, if any, for revolutionary statements like the beforesaid. It's "all been done". Postmodernist art very often flirts with kitsch and commercialism, sometimes ironic, sometimes not so ironic, but still with the pretense of being great art (this is not a rule, there are no rules in postmodernism, but it is often the case). Philip Glass is a good example. To the point where you, the observer, have to be very sensitive to distinguish at all between commercial art (literally produced for commercial purposes) and ironically commercial postmodernist "real" art (which, to make things even worse, often pushes a lot of money). So if you don't "get" it, a frustrated reaction is more than understandable.
August 12, 200916 yr ...it's impossible to call something "not art" after music pieces like for example Cage's 4'33... Oh no you din't
August 12, 200916 yr Author I really don't know if I would call Glass' music postmodern... But then again, there's much confusion about what postmodern is anyway.
August 12, 200916 yr So if you don't "get" it, a frustrated reaction is more than understandable. Not "getting" it has more to do with what I consider a paradox that occurs between Modernism and Postmodernism. Like you said, pushing the limits in Modernism has turned into "anything goes" in Postmodernism... but that seems to only apply when one is already pushing the Modernist limits of their "Postmodern" music. The reality is, "anything and everything" turns out to be "contemporary art" when it's pushing some "non-existent" boundary, but works inspired by pre-Modernist movements (Romantic, Post-Romantic, etc) are often considered out-dated and "less serious," at least the way such categorizations are applied to art music generally. The mantra, "anything and everything goes" only seems to apply to Modern and Postmodern works... not the entire musical spectrum of broadly 1000 years. It's pluralistic and confusing more than anything else. And that's what's so frustrating, at least to me. You can write whatever you want, but to be taken seriously academically, you can only write whatever you want as long as it sounds like "Modern" or "Postmodern" music... anything else falls by the wayside into "non-serious," "commercial," or even "style copy/music in a box" categories that undermine competent composers who choose not to compose "Modern" or "Postmodern" music for whatever the reason. Very "eloquently" stated, Thomas. I completely agree with you, especially your thoughts on commercialism and "art" music. Quite profound!
August 13, 200916 yr It'd be cool if most composers were actually postmodern nowadays. Too bad that's not the case.
August 13, 200916 yr Well, arguably, all composers write postmodern music nowadays... Heh, k. :whistling:
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