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Discuss?

Who’s afraid of the avant-garde? Prospect Magazine

Thoughts? Concerns? Outrages? As always I love to read responses.

The problem is that differentiation leads to stratification. And I'd also argue that modern visual art is less respected than their masters. It's just that as you get closer to the present, less inherently Western concepts are in the music. This leads to a cultural disconnect that audiences have issue with.

On the other hand, there are plenty of modern-art fans, so I wouldn't be so concerned.

Man, can't they stop using Rothko as a model example of "modern/contemporary/avant-guarde/whatever art"? It makes me sad. :(

Yet it could benefit all concerned if some experimental music, like much of Stockhausen’s oeuvre and the ambient noises of John Cage’s silent 4’33”, were viewed as “sound art,” a term coined by composer Dan Lander and anticipated by the futurist Luigi Russolo’s 1913 manifesto “The Art of Noises.” That way, one is not led to expect from these compositions what we expect of actual music. For if music is not acknowledged as a mental process, sound is all that remains.

"Avant-garde" is a term I'm more inclined now to apply as a cultural construct. Within the 20th-Century vernacular, it makes sense to challenge the audience. Many who attend a concert of 'Avant-garde' music are educated composers, theorists, musicologists, or have in some way not only been exposed to the style of music but also understand what to listen for within the style. Others not so familiar with the style who enjoy it seem, at least to me, to enjoy the absence of Gestalt principles in these works.

But to call it anything other than music is certainly offensive to anyone who can cognitively form 'music' within their minds when they hear it. The author, by his very structure of defining 'music' as 'acknowledged' within a mental process, has completely alienated a large segment of audience members that listen to "Avant-garde" works who do indeed acknowledge these sounds as a mental process, even if not on a cognitive or memorable level.

Nope. Not buying it.

To say that said "Gestalt principles" are missing in avant-garde music is quite nonsense too. Oh, sure, there are some very few pieces of the serialist composers where this may apply, but people often fail to see that Boulez' "Structures" or Stockhausen's "Kreuzspiel" are in no way representative of "avant-garde music" as a whole. This sort of serialism was something a couple composers did for like three to five years in the 1950s, but still it's always used as an example of "modern music". Most "modern music" I know (even by Boulez, Stockhausen, etc.) has very easily audible structures, as long as you don't fool yourself by thinking music consists of rhythmical values and pitch classes alone (which shines a bit through in this article). Gestures, dynamical processes, changing densities and timbres, statistic masses, etc. all play very important roles in a lot of 20th century music, are very easily audible (and often much easier to be grasped by non-musicians than precise pitch and rhythm constellations) and often, such elements relate to each other in similarly simple ways as a Beethoven motif and its developments - just on a different level.

Another error seems to be that the author thinks it's necessary to "deduce the organisational structure analytically" in order to "make sense" of a piece. I assure you that most random people on the street won't "deduce the organisational structure" of a Haydn string quartet by listening to it - yet they still may get a feeling of coherence and structure, without being able to pinpoint where it comes from. The same applies to Le Marteau sans Maitre etc. Yes, I don't hear the structural decisions behind the composition by listening to it. But that doesn't mean I'm just hearing random notes. I hear gestures, ornaments, colours that remind me of Debussy, and the vague idea of certain harmonical principles behind the piece, without being able to tell exactly -what- they are. The idea that it's necessary to completely understand the construction of something in order to get something out of it seems just ridiculous to me - yet sadly, it is an often repeated notion about post-tonal music, calling it cerebreal and unintelligible.

Man, can't they stop using Rothko as a model example of "modern/contemporary/avant-guarde/whatever art"? It makes me sad. :(

But you understand why Rothko IS utilized the way it is in this article, right?

I mean, to me and you, of course Rothko is overexposed. However, think of it for some bando kid or something. Hahaha. Even though, I don't think bandos are the target audience of the article. Haha.

I hear gestures, ornaments, colours that remind me of Debussy, and the vague idea of certain harmonical principles behind the piece, without being able to tell exactly -what- they are. The idea that it's necessary to completely understand the construction of something in order to get something out of it seems just ridiculous to me - yet sadly, it is an often repeated notion about post-tonal music, calling it cerebreal and unintelligible.

Yes, I find it very sad when people talk about being unable to "understand" modern music - as if "understanding" it were 1) possible in an objective sense and 2) the main purpose of the art work. People imagine it is being too cerebral, but in the process often block themselves off from truly enjoying it.

To say that said "Gestalt principles" are missing in avant-garde music is quite nonsense too.

But that's not the point he makes. I think one of the main points is to make understanbel why "Stockhausen and Penderecki, whose works are now as old as

I originally wasn't going to post anything, but oh well. I usually do a check list of things that articles SHOULD NOT do, so I don't have to go actually reading the whole thing.

So let's starto:

1) Weasel words?

Many musicologists accept a definition of music as “organised sound.”

Yes. Who are these many musicologists? Out of the dozens I know I haven't met a single one that thinks that or anything close to it since that definition begs too many questions which are loopholes (who defines organization? for example.)

2) Is the article making assertions that can't be supported in any way shape or form and moving on as if they were the truth? Tied to point 4, but this is more of an ignorance thing.

The serial method ensures that no note is used more often than any other within a piece of music, so that the piece cannot become anchored to any particular musical key, as it always was (to a greater or lesser degree) in the tonal tradition to that date.

Yes. Again, what kind of definition is that for serialism? It can as well be the entire total opposite as far as technique is concerned since you can have rows repeat and permutations of rows that use the same material (rhythm, tones, whatever.) Note he talks about it as if it was a bad thing, yet the composers he said were accepted (Ravel, Stravinsky) are VERY VERY VERY ambiguous in their type of tonality, specially when it comes to "keys."

But there are TONS of instances of this, like:

The composer’s job is to manipulate the expectations that these principles produce—enough to avoid predictability and create a lively musical surface, but not so much as to lose coherence.

Which is frankly a joke.

3) Is the article misrepresenting positions, specially ones opposed to to the author's opinion?

The American composer Milton Babbitt’s 1958 essay “Who Cares if You Listen?” responded to the wider world’s hostility towards this new music by arguing that serious composers should simply withdraw from the concert hall, while offering no explanation for the public’s antipathy to “difficult” music beyond a belief that they were too ill-informed to understand it.

Yes. Of course those in the know, know that the article's name isn't from Babbitt himself and what he argues for is quite well substantiated. A better summary would be that he thought a lot of contemporary (in the late 50s) music required more effort invested into it in order to appreciate, something which the vast majority of the concert-going public was not going to do (and still doesn't do.) The way that quote is phrased it seems as if Babbitt is calling the public ignorant, but the fact is he isn't; he puts the blame entirely on the music itself if anything for having gone in a direction that requires getting used to.

And of course, "modern" for this article is serial music from the 50s (though I guess Berio was mentioned in passing.) That's in no way a good summary of the 20th century, much less of all the different thousands of individual styles and pieces made. After all comparing even Boulez or Stockhausen's pieces through different periods of their lives should be enough to show that generalizing the way the article is doing is a doomed endeavor.

4) Passing personal opinion as fact?

This is not to say that atonality in general, and serialism in particular, is doomed to sound aimless and incomprehensible.

Yes. Assuming for a second that a definition of "atonality" exists that we can all agree on, the opinion on how it sounds is purely his own... and there's of course the fact that within those two categories alone there's music so VASTLY different that it renders that generalization absurd and his comment idiotic.

5) Is it funny for the wrong reasons?

Music, like any art, must be constantly rejuvenated by experiment. But “experimental” music surely only qualifies as such if it includes the possibility of failure.

Hell yeah. That had me laughing a good bit specially. Oh so it "surely" must only qualify as such if it can "fail?" I don't see how experiments MUST be able to fail for them to be experiments, as this only depends on the purpose of the experiment. If the purpose is just to see what happens, how can it ever "fail?" Maybe if the concert hall exploded and you couldn't literally carry it out, but this has nothing to do with music.

I also think the conclusion is hilarious:

That way, one is not led to expect from these compositions what we expect of actual music. For if music is not acknowledged as a mental process, sound is all that remains.

Yeah because the definition of music is really set in stone, eh? I like the "actual music," bit there. I thought that was going to show up earlier. As for changing labels on things, that surely helps a lot eh? Why not call everything written after 1899 "Hamburger." That'll sure help the appreciation of it as art, right?

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Conclusion:

I LOL'd some, but otherwise it's just another ignorant guy talking about "that weird sounding music." Seen it a thousand times before, so has anyone else who is on the receiving end of these type of poorly made opinion pieces.

And no, I don't see any good points brought up in the article, though there are some slightly correct things in it. Think of it like this:

Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy: If you put a spoonful of wine in

a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful

of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get sewage.

It takes only a single substantial error for me to lose my patience with someone trying to talk about such a complex topic. Imagine if the entire article is full of'em? I can as well say that there was never any wine to begin with, ha!

And no, I don't see any good points brought up in the article, though there are some slightly correct things in it. Think of it like this:

Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy: If you put a spoonful of wine in

a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful

of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get sewage.

It takes only a single substantial error for me to lose my patience with someone trying to talk about such a complex topic. Imagine if the entire article is full of'em? I can as well say that there was never any wine to begin with, ha!

Yeah, but you're cynical, too. :) j/k

I think he may have somewhat been onto something with the Gestalt principles, but his attitude toward music in general is too obvious for anyone to feel they're hearing a balanced presentation of an idea.

The Gestalt principles only go so far. IF I understand it right (which I likely don't), the gestalt is in part being inherently western... But exoticism brought a lot of non-western ideas into the fold, even though they were intentionally westernized.

Yeah, but you're cynical, too. :) j/k

I think I am at least a little cynical with the whole subject by now, but eh whatever.

I think I am at least a little cynical with the whole subject by now, but eh whatever.

True. I can see why, too, after reading this article.

The comparison of modern art with modern music is an interesting one. Probably the biggest difference is: you can't curate music.

In the pomo ART world you can be a success if one tastemaker/collector (who happens to have a quadrillion dollars) likes your work, and one curator (who happens to curate the Tate) thinks you're a genius.

There was an interesting point made in the comments section:

As anyone who works at Tate Modern can tell you, the average time the average punter spells in front of any canvas that isn’t baldly representational is about the time it takes to read the information card. The public no more gets avant-garde painting than it does avant-garde music. It’s simply that the former is easy to tick off the cultural experience chart – and make that a skinny latte.

Hmm, if the audience has as little appreciation for modern art as for modern music, what makes the difference?

1. Curators, collectors, and other gatekeepers determine the value of art objects.

2. Museums create a captive audience of cultural box-tickers ("If it's hanging on the wall of Tate Modern, it must be art!").

Well let's see.

Are there music museums and exhibitions? No. The closest you can get is a symphony concert, and audiences feel very very comfortable staying away from those in droves if they don't like the music. Actually some composers have attempted to set up a museum-system. Schoenberg had his "Society for Private Musical Performances" which shut out ordinary concert goers and music critics. Milton Babbitt advocated something pretty similar in The Composer as Specialist/Who Cares If You Listen. But these attempts haven't succeeded.

Are there music "art objects"? No. Manuscripts don't become valuable until centuries after the composer dies. Music is sold as a listening experience (concert tickets, LPs and CDs). As such it's sold to a mass of people rather than auctioned to a small group of collectors.

Final point - are there music curators? Hell no! Music in the 20th century was a listener's market. Audiences decided what was good music. Audiences didn't tune out after Stravinsky. They flipped channels to Duke Ellington and John Lennon and so on. When people like John Adams came along they tuned right back in to "classical" music. And in any case, they had never STOPPED listening to the Romantic tradition as it evolved (and changed significantly) through film music.

So I guess that explains why modern art is received differently from modern music.

Are there music museums and exhibitions? No. The closest you can get is a symphony concert, and audiences feel very very comfortable staying away from those in droves if they don't like the music. Actually some composers have attempted to set up a museum-system. Schoenberg had his "Society for Private Musical Performances" which shut out ordinary concert goers and music critics. Milton Babbitt advocated something pretty similar in The Composer as Specialist/Who Cares If You Listen. But these attempts haven't succeeded.

I haven't thought of this before, but I think you're onto something. If the public is treated as an individual instead of a mass of people, it may be entirely possible that they feel they have to think the experience over more rather than react in a flock-like "ugh, ugly me leave" manner. I think that currently with all the technology available it wouldn't be out of the question to actually do a museum, with a time-line of sorts... or maybe instead of having modern music "concerts," it could be done like with paintings and the pieces would be "exposed" in a gallery.

I'm thinking, a lot of people who drone on about this have probably never really thought that modern music is also made by people and they can't really develop any empathy just sitting in the audience and commenting on the music itself. I think that's a big barrier into getting anyone interested in any type of media honestly.

It's the battle of tangibility and consumerism. The public, by and large, 'consumes' what they spend money on... they 'use' it in some way. The closest you get to 'using' music is playing it for people who come to visit your home or during a party when some rich moggle drops $500-$1000 on a jazz band to come in and play songs most guests have already heard.

Long dead have been the days of the Esterhazy's or the Diaghilev's. Sure, there are 'likenesses' to these kinds of people perhaps on Broadway or even in some of the Independent Film genre. There are even well-to-do elderly patrons who will donate considerable funds to full contemporary ensembles... but rarely to lone composers of modernist works alone. I suppose it would be fair to say that visual and music art forms see similar changes in the culture and the patrons willing to drop $2k here, $5k there for art in either medium.

The more art can be 'monetized', the less freedom the artist has to create independently. That will always be a problem in any monetary society that consumes what it buys. We in turn consume that money in paying bills and just surviving. But the more abundant art becomes to the average consumer (and lets face it, it's never been more abundant than today because of electronic media like television, radio, and the internet) the less people will pay for it until art's value depreciates to a dismal amount not even the most prolific artist could survive on.

I have a very negative position on societies built around monetary principles and acquisition models (which is pretty much EVERY society that exists today). I'm a resource economist all the way, I value engineering, automation, and abundance as keys to freeing society from 'laboring' away just to survive. We'd all thrive as artists and as human beings if money was no longer necessary to motivate society.

It's the battle of tangibility and consumerism. The public, by and large, 'consumes' what they spend money on... they 'use' it in some way. The closest you get to 'using' music is playing it for people who come to visit your home or during a party when some rich moggle drops $500-$1000 on a jazz band to come in and play songs most guests have already heard.

Long dead have been the days of the Esterhazy's or the Diaghilev's. Sure, there are 'likenesses' to these kinds of people perhaps on Broadway or even in some of the Independent Film genre. There are even well-to-do elderly patrons who will donate considerable funds to full contemporary ensembles... but rarely to lone composers of modernist works alone. I suppose it would be fair to say that visual and music art forms see similar changes in the culture and the patrons willing to drop $2k here, $5k there for art in either medium.

The more art can be 'monetized', the less freedom the artist has to create independently. That will always be a problem in any monetary society that consumes what it buys. We in turn consume that money in paying bills and just surviving. But the more abundant art becomes to the average consumer (and lets face it, it's never been more abundant than today because of electronic media like television, radio, and the internet) the less people will pay for it until art's value depreciates to a dismal amount not even the most prolific artist could survive on.

I have a very negative position on societies built around monetary principles and acquisition models (which is pretty much EVERY society that exists today). I'm a resource economist all the way, I value engineering, automation, and abundance as keys to freeing society from 'laboring' away just to survive. We'd all thrive as artists and as human beings if money was no longer necessary to motivate society.

i'm begining to like you :blush:

Here again, another composer pining for patronage (Haydn didn't actually have it so great, you know), or a co-op like Schoenberg, or tenure and subsidization and grants like Babbitt - anything, ANYTHING to insulate from the public's opinion.

Why? I'm going to try to make a living doing commercial scoring, and if I can't do that, I'll find some other trade. Because if I can't hack it that must mean my music isn't worth that much.

Here again, another composer pining for patronage (Haydn didn't actually have it so great, you know), or a co-op like Schoenberg, or tenure and subsidization and grants like Babbitt - anything, ANYTHING to insulate from the public's opinion.

Me?

I don't think I'm advocating for a return to the caste system or anything of the sort. I was simply trying to point out the futility of art to cater to any system that attempts to value art as a commodity. Haydn left the Esterhazy's for very similar reasons as those I speak of that have literally seen NO improvement as society has progressed. I consider his late period to be the creative point where I have actually formed considerable interest in his music. I just recently attended a performance of his final symphony. Imagine what he could have done had his final symphony been something from his early period?

Money and acquisition, as models for society, seem to form the barrier for almost any composer's creativity.

What AA said

I totally agree.

Here again, another composer pining for patronage (Haydn didn't actually have it so great, you know), or a co-op like Schoenberg, or tenure and subsidization and grants like Babbitt - anything, ANYTHING to insulate from the public's opinion.

Why? I'm going to try to make a living doing commercial scoring, and if I can't do that, I'll find some other trade. Because if I can't hack it that must mean my music isn't worth that much.

Well you can care for the public if you want, but it doesn't mean others have to. Likewise, whatever meaning public acceptance may have to you is only applicable to you. I KNOW I can't make a living out of composing considering the stuff I write, but it's the stuff I want to write. If I wanted to compose to make a living I wouldn't write 90% of the things I write and certainly I'd have to write a lot of things I don't WANT to write, just to get the moneys.

The "public" opinion in most cases is to me irrelevant since I'm writing only for myself. It doesn't have to be that way for everyone, no, but it is for me.

the futility of art to cater to any system that attempts to value art as a commodity...

Money and acquisition, as models for society, seem to form the barrier for almost any composer's creativity.

I disagree completely and let's leave it at that. :D