So long, and thanks for all the noise: 2010 and the end of musical history

http://www.sound-scotland.co.uk/site/2010/diary/10_23@1400_transcript.htm

Link first. Read it. It's good.

TL;DR:

So to be clear: what I'm talking about is the end of what some call the 'master narrative' – with all the patriarchy that suggests – of music history, the idea that each generation of composers steps on the shoulders of its gigantic predecessors, processing in seamless consequential order to a panacea of musical paradise and betterment. And that's not a new idea either: I remember reading Anthony Hopkins's Understanding Music when I was about 12 and reading how the single stream of western music had become a delta of many currents and rivulets in the twentieth century. And after decades of new musicology and new history, we all realise, if we didn't know it already, that all of those grand teleological ideas of how music progressed from Palestrina to Bach to Beethoven to Brahms to Bruckner to Schoenberg to the Beatles – something like that anyway – are all bunk. What I'm not saying, so it's there for the record, is that music is over in 2010. Just the opposite, even if it'll take a few minutes to get to how that could be true.

and

Ok. By this analysis, the institutions are unsupportive, the ideologies that composers are labouring under often counter-productive, the music unappreciated and unknown by the vast majority of the listening public, and you can't make your living at it. The prognosis isn't good. And yet – as I said a while ago: music is still goingon, even if the historical models – and the composers who are labouring under those historical models – are becoming more and more redundant.

Basically, if you want to keep the single-history view, we learned the musical lessons of Minimalism, but not the economic -- that they, unlike the "contemporary" music of the 20s and 30s who waited until traditional forms of music communication were set up for them, created their own network of musicians. For real, this guy made a lot of sense. Maybe someone with music history knowledge can bash him better...

Many things in this article ring true for me regarding the institutions that the author scathingly and relentlessly condemns for their attempts to promote "new" music while ignoring practically anything occurring beyond the realm of 20th Century Classicism. It highlights, for me, some of the principle reasons I changed direction midstream following my Masters work. I had in mind to pursue my PHD, but after experiencing the dissociative rhetoric first-hand, I decided that for my interests, I could not reasonably rely on the most "prestigious" institutions of music to support my own artistic interests. I would, instead, be relegated to the ranks of the post-modern composer struggling to make a name for myself as a composer while simultaneously disregarding almost every syntactical element of music I connected with artistically - for the sole sake of being "new" or "innovative". 

All the while, there were others around me doing very interesting things, things that were largely interesting only to me, who knew what these things were and how to process them. 20th Century Classicism is very clearly a closed circle, where it takes a significant amount of patience and investment of accumulated knowledge to sometimes "get it" in a way where I could appreciate what it was I might have heard. Even then, my peers were quite combatively defensive when challenged, much in the same way this article happens to enunciate much better than I ever could. Still, there was an occasion where I was asked to sit on a panel to discuss the importance of considering the audience when composing a work. I was in the minority, where my opinions on the matter were met with predictably harsh criticism and, for lack of a better word, rhetorical nonsense.

I'll say this much... I'm better for my experiences because I understand these opposing views more and more as I communicate with others. I'd like to think myself quite open to the expression of others regardless of my personal tastes. That, I feel, was the biggest hurdle to overcome during my work at the Masters level. I understand it becomes only more challenging at the Doctoral level at the institutions mentioned in the article, because the expectation appears to be that to earn a Doctorate at these places (which appear to bode incredibly well in applying for a position at a University), the personal taste of the composer must include an affection for the works of 20th Century artists. Naturally, if that affection exists, we will see redundancy, forms of expression that connect in fewer ways to the pedagogy of the tradition. 

This is very much akin to Heidegger's Memorial Address, specifically the dichotomy of calculative and contemplative thinking. In the former, thinking of a calculative nature is momentary, it happens for as long as it is necessary to achieve a result. In the latter, contemplative thinking must endure unceasingly, as it is thought concerned with the questioning of the result brought about through calculation (or that's my impression of Heidegger as best as I can express it). It seems the more I'm expected at the institutional level to produce works removed from pre-1900 repertoire, the more I'm expected to produce a calculative product upon which the institution can then "promote", as to say, "Here now comes the next great music of the world, and OUR INSTITUTION prepared this young artist." 

It is all quite calculative in my view, and music that is expected to endure under such conditions cannot, as it is only meant to exist within the moment, to be admired for what it is - NEW - and then it immediately becomes old while some other composer is then expected to create something entirely different from it. I can appreciate the need to be "free" to express yourself, but I hope that those who seek that freedom do so for the sake of contemplative discovery, not calculative. If all a composer does is creates something new for the sake of being original, for the sake of being "unique" and "different" from everyone else, without so much as a thought for the tremendous historical as well as contemporary cultural phenomena in which to draw upon and connect with others, then I have no reason to view their work as anything more than calculative, which reduces to something contrived and uninspired, something dissociated from the world around them, and generally something I will listen to once, openly and honestly critique in my mind, but ultimately forget about. And it is no condemnation of the individual (composer) or the expression they are attempting... I simply have no interest in reinforcing the paradigm of "Serious" or "Art" music any longer, a work that possibly only serves to calculatively establish a composer's "new-ness." 

All of that said, I hope it is clear I do not judge the music... in fact, I quite enjoy hearing something I've never heard before. I hold a great deal against the institutional structure of higher music education in regard to how much of a closed circle many of these institutions have created, and it's a shame that the rhetoric has been of such consequence to many who have whole-heartedly sought to pursue their interests in music to the highest level possible, only to find the few and finite options for continuing in their pursuit following higher education to be securing tenure or delivering pizzas while composing out of a family member's basement. It's so very depressing to think how far the political "bureaucracy" of institutional higher education in music at these places may have, for many, completely altered their creative ambitions, perhaps to the point of no return, and a life free of regret is impractical when those ambitions are nothing more than an abysmal reminder of what could have been but never was. 

Long rant, but I'm done now.

This is the most depressing article I've ever read in my entire life :(

......

An article about drowning kittens would have been more uplifting :sadtears:

I actually like Babbitt's article. He was getting to something really simple really. Beyond people "understanding" the music or not, what he says is that composers need a space where the public doesn't matter. Otherwise, who would ever want to experiment? We all need our labs and back then they didn't have Sibelius that played back stuff like we have now. But there's something even more important, that artistic freedom implies that you will -never- be part of the mainstream, no matter what you're doing.

The examples with American minimalism are a little ridiculous too in the article, as minimalism as much as I love it as well is obviously going to appeal to a lot of people purely because they don't have to get used to how it sounds. It can't be held as an example, they didn't have to expose people to enough music so their ears would open. Instead, half the job was already done by virtue of the musical language.

In the end, doing whatever you want carries the risk that people may not like it.

Shocking, I know. But artistic freedom is an awesome thing to have.

But this pissed me off in the end more than anything.

The question is simple: is it enough to write music that ultimately will probably only ever be accessed by a tiny minority of new music nerds, as opposed to even attempting to communicate with a wider public, and having a genuine chance of changing people's minds or influencing their approach to the world?

YES.

YES IT IS.

I'll be the first to say that I have a TERRIBLE relationship with German high-academic bullshit people and their little circlejerk pieces where they copy X or Y because that's what you should be doing and if you're not you're not modern enough (shame on you.) However, I'll also say it right away, I will defend the right for these people to write whatever they want. Not only that, I will actively ENCOURAGE them to keep writing whatever they want to write, even if it's scraggy written only because they were told to write it due to group pressure. At least they're writing music!

I felt the pressure that my writing wasn't "modern" enough many times and think it's absolutely disgusting, but I don't make loving compromises. It's all about the actual music in the end, gently caress everyone's opinions.

It's all about the music in the end and whoever forgets this is an idiot.

If the article is geared towards some kind of activism, then drop the music subtext. That's why the question above pisses me off. What is he trying to say then? People have to compromise because he says they need to? Isn't this THE SAME loving THING he's saying is so horrible about the new-complexity? About academia? What's the difference in the end, 20 "accessible by wider audience" pieces or 20 "unaccessible to anyone but music nerds," it's still too much music to be performed. No matter how great your style copy is, Beethoven beat you to it and you'll NEVER win that fight. No matter how great your new-complexity piece is, the "masters" will always win. You're fucked.

This is what the article should have said rather than skirting around the issue.

I'm not really sure this article is as relevant as it is being played as. For example, he took 1 concert and decided to base his entire approach on that. I've been to a few concerts dedicated to contemporary music recently (the latest just a month ago..) and the concert hall's were bustling with young and old alike. Granted, this was at University of Illinois in Champaign - not the London Sinfonietta (nor anywhere close to what I would assume the hall there would seat.) Point is though, there is an audience out there for contemporary music - one just has to put themselves in the 'best' location to access that audience. There also comes into play other factors that could account for the lack of audience at that one concert. I think the other that the article states straight out - which is another thing I take issue with - is that people don't go to contemporary music concerts to have 'fun'. As an audience member, I go to have fun - to hear things I otherwise wouldn't hear. Almost all the concerts I've been too, with the exception of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras presentation of Elgar's Dream of Geritol (?), the audiences all sought to have fun. On that one concert, however, the audience left as the Elgar started playing... had I know how horrible the piece was... I probably would've left to.

I actually like Babbitt's article. He was getting to something really simple really. Beyond people "understanding" the music or not, what he says is that composers need a space where the public doesn't matter. Otherwise, who would ever want to experiment? We all need our labs and back then they didn't have Sibelius that played back stuff like we have now. But there's something even more important, that artistic freedom implies that you will -never- be part of the mainstream, no matter what you're doing.

Not necessarily, you can freely express yourself artistically and be part of the mainstream, especially if you're the one establishing the trend or contributing something innovative to what is already going on. I don't think we should be constructing a dichotomy here in addressing this... I almost think it's unavoidable to discuss this without forming this dichotomy, but I think you would agree in reviewing your statement that just because it's mainstream doesn't mean artistic freedom is absent.

And in his article, Babbitt seems more concerned about the exploration of sound in ways that weren't mainstream for the sake of pursuing the limits (or, rather, exploring sound in its infinite space) of the medium. Sure, as an exercise, there's nothing wrong with seeking new forms of expression. If the exercise offers something practical, something worth expressing as an artist, then all the better. But when we get to this...

In the end, doing whatever you want carries the risk that people may not like it.

Shocking, I know. But artistic freedom is an awesome thing to have.

... it's hardly the only way to create, however, and like many other methods, results of the exercise don't guarantee the conviction of the expression. In short, Babbitt seems to argue the exploration guarantees expression of an artistic idea, an idea that isn't mainstream, and that if it is not supported, this exploration will not occur, the expression will not result, and the music tradition will fail to grow and evolve. I simply disagree with those who interpret Babbitt's article as some "gospel" that composers should take to be a "hitchhiker's guide" to artistic freedom. It isn't.

The examples with American minimalism are a little ridiculous too in the article, as minimalism as much as I love it as well is obviously going to appeal to a lot of people purely because they don't have to get used to how it sounds. It can't be held as an example, they didn't have to expose people to enough music so their ears would open. Instead, half the job was already done by virtue of the musical language.

Agreed. I think these predictions of what will be important later are over the top, and that goes for pretty much every prediction I've heard regarding what "style" or "epoch" will be viewed as "most significant."

I'll be the first to say that I have a TERRIBLE relationship with German high-academic bullshit people and their little circlejerk pieces where they copy X or Y because that's what you should be doing and if you're not you're not modern enough (shame on you.) However, I'll also say it right away, I will defend the right for these people to write whatever they want. Not only that, I will actively ENCOURAGE them to keep writing whatever they want to write, even if it's scraggy written only because they were told to write it due to group pressure. At least they're writing music!

I felt the pressure that my writing wasn't "modern" enough many times and think it's absolutely disgusting, but I don't make loving compromises. It's all about the actual music in the end, gently caress everyone's opinions.

It's all about the music in the end and whoever forgets this is an idiot.

A-F'n-MEN!

If the article is geared towards some kind of activism, then drop the music subtext. That's why the question above pisses me off. What is he trying to say then? People have to compromise because he says they need to? Isn't this THE SAME loving THING he's saying is so horrible about the new-complexity? About academia? What's the difference in the end, 20 "accessible by wider audience" pieces or 20 "unaccessible to anyone but music nerds," it's still too much music to be performed. No matter how great your style copy is, Beethoven beat you to it and you'll NEVER win that fight. No matter how great your new-complexity piece is, the "masters" will always win. You're fucked.

This is what the article should have said rather than skirting around the issue.

That's not what the article is saying though, at least not how I interpret it.

The problem of "beating the masters" is institutional as well, but it has much more to do with the "business" of the contemporary classical music community, which struggles in its own right to secure funds through ticket sales and must cater to the "generous donors" who come to the concert to hear Beethoven. But this is the volatility of artistic freedom, which can have all the best intentions to deliver an incredible music experience to a consumption-driven market that expects instant gratification - that ends up having to struggle to understand a new work - and instead prefers something "established" within the tradition of classical music.

So, yeah, there are a lot of factors, I think, that have a significant impact on the world of music right now. I don't think it's a choice of trying to copy Beethoven or having artistic freedom... we can't even arrive at a point where we could address this adequately until we bring everything ELSE into focus. Just saying... I think there's much more to it.

I almost think it's unavoidable to discuss this without forming this dichotomy, but I think you would agree in reviewing your statement that just because it's mainstream doesn't mean artistic freedom is absent.

What I wrote there was stupid. I MEANT that having artistic freedom puts you at risk of falling out of whatever is considered mainstream, but also out of whatever academic cliques and the like.

As an audience member, I go to have fun - to hear things I otherwise wouldn't hear. Almost all the concerts I've been too, with the exception of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras presentation of Elgar's Dream of Geritol (?), the audiences all sought to have fun. On that one concert, however, the audience left as the Elgar started playing... had I know how horrible the piece was... I probably would've left to.

Wha? But The Dream of Gerontius is a choral classic.

Wha? But The Dream of Gerontius is a choral classic.

That's the WORK! Everyone that came to the concert though was there to see Colin Currie! He premiered some percussion concerto... was fascinating watching him....

That's the WORK! Everyone that came to the concert though was there to see Colin Currie! He premiered some percussion concerto... was fascinating watching him....

How would you know? Did you take a census?

How would you know? Did you take a census?

Didn't have to. I was in the audience. He played the first half the concert and the Elgar was the second half. Given the fact there were two works on the first half - both of which he played on, I think it's safe to say that is who they were there to see.