Postmodern? Can it be true?

A brief history of classical music trends:

After World War II, classical music cultures experienced a series of identity crises. While Schoenberg was writing Style and Idea, John Cage was searching for the sounds, or lack thereof, that lead to 4’33”. Reflecting this polarity, the concepts of modernism, Schoenberg, and postmodernism, Cage, became directly tied to these composers and others like them. In western art music modernity was, and continues to be, associated with serialism, structuralism, and the search for a new universal language; indeed the ultimate realization of the modern musical institution was made by Pierre Boulez in the center he helped create and controlled for about thirty years, the Institute for music/acoustic research and coordination, or IRCAM. Conversely postmodernists employed aleatoric techniques, deconstruction, and more inclusive ideas of what could be called music. While postmodern art music has few permanent homes, it has many camps, notably the Bang on a Can composer collective, comprised of David Lang, Julie Wolfe, and Michael Gordon, and its associated ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

OK, first of all, I know this is just a skimming of the history; I didn't mention George Rochberg, or Tan Dun, or minimalism, or all the nuanced styles that exist. However, I don't feel the need to write a ten paragraph entry about a history that many better writers (Georgina Born, Susan McClary, Rose Subotnik, Richard Taruskin, Jonathan Kramer, Lawrence Kramer, etc.) have covered it in books and articles. Just search these folks on Amazon and you'll find many wonderful and informative hits.

I'm wondering if classical music can really be considered a postmodern culture. It's dependence the audience seems less immediate than, for example, Bruce Springsteen who stresses the importance of having a good crowd. In a recent USA Today article, Springsteen elaborated, " On any given night, what allows me to get to that higher ground is the audience. ...I look for an audience that's as serious about the experience as we are, which, after all these years, continues to be pretty serious" (as quoted in Gardener, 2008). I can't say I've ever felt that way, either as a performer or audience member, at a new music concert. I've definately wanted a bigger audience, or a more attentive audience, but I have never been playing and drawn on the audience for energy. Classical audiences do not physically particpate in the performance ritual until after the music has ended. Also, many ensembles and composers emphasize ideas of discovery and innovation. They also employ systems of patronage for financial support and social organization (Kingsbury, 1988). What part of these scientific, non-commercial, composer centered, hiarchically organized social groups can be considered postmodern?

I'm not trying to say that anybody who's called Cage or the like postmodern is wrong. Rather I would point out that as a broad culture, new music seems like a sort of high modernism. I blogged here about Bang on a Can's program notes and how they emphasized social disconnect. Doesn't the emphasis on social abstraction negate postmodernism's characteristic mixture of high and low? Of course these two binaries, modernism and postmodernism, have there own flaws, and forcing into either one category or the other is problematic. The fact remains, however, that new music cultures often display, to varying extents, modernist characteristics.

budget the blog and whatnot

Things I've learned about blogging from blogging:

1. Spread it out - Keep people coming back for more by publishing posts over time. Posting 4 times in 4 days may may feel good, but it's hard to maintain that pace. Allow a day or two between posts most of the time.



2. Critique with Care - Before pointing out somebody's goofy typo, make sure I would feel comfy receiving such a comment from them. Alternative: Critique anonymously, or professionally.


3. Pictures are friends - While my mom (shown here, hi mom!) may enjoy reading the 5 paragraphs on feminist theory, others might not. Pictures can help make a dull post more interesting, and a good post great.


4. Form up the fonts - Post in one font, serially.
Few will appreciate a weird font change mid post.

5. Link, please - Adding links enhances connectivity with other blogs, makes for interesting posts, and can help make readers understand what the heck I'm talking about. Links are fun. Many people like them. Link. Caution: too many links may just be silly.


6. Keep it fun - My opinions rarely change live. Snappiness brings folks back. When I want to get intense, I'll post chapters of the thesis.


7. Time well spent - Proofread, spell check and edit, even after posting. People appreciate a good post.

So much music

Currently, my favorite writer is Georgina Born, a scholar with wide interests and who moves among ethno/musicology, sociology, and anthropology. Her first book, Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde employs ethnography to study a major institute of cultural power. Greg Sandow remarked below how Born demonstrates that "IRCAM isn't pure at all." His remark concerns the alleged absence of social forces in the mission and music of IRCAM's composers. I admire Born not only for the exceptional quality of her work, but for the interdisciplinary nature of it, which employs mixtures of Pierre Bourdieu's theories of cultural capital, a Foucaultian criticism of institutionalized authority, and ethnography to illustrate the negotiations of power. That's exactly the kind of work I want to do.

Together with David Hesmondalgh, Georgina Born edited Western Music and Its Others, a wide collection of essays. Topics range from Stephen Felds troubling discussion of the exploitation of Mbuti pygmy music to Peter Franklin's depiction of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Adorno's conflicting use "modernist," and Claudia Gorbman study of Indian music. One of my favorite passages comes from the introduction in which Born calls for the an fluid analysis of both the individual and the group:

Rather than conceiving of individual subjectivities as fully self-transparent and coherent,then, and in contrast to the apparent “unities” of collective experience, we should adopt the insights of poststructuralism and psychoanalysis and develop an awareness of the multiple musical identifications or subject positions to which individuals are susceptible as producers and consumers. This conception allows an understanding of the complexities of mobile, conflict-ing, and changing musical identifications (pg. 33).

Rock on! She's basically saying that, even though people participate in the same event, the ways in which they percieve and explain it are numerous and complex. I can't say that I've explored psychoanalysis that much (there's only so much one can do for a thesis), but I really dig poststructuralism. I'm not trying to boil stuff down; I'm trying to engage complex communities and draw on experiences in order to understand some of the ways in which people create new music.

If that sounds complicated, it's because I don't want to reduce things. There is no single truth to explain how new music works or why people care about it. The issues are numerous and complex. No answers here. Instead we've got a lot of turtles all the way down, but what beautiful turtles they are!

Incidentally, I found a published criticism of Born's IRCAM ethnography by Richard Hermann. I'm not sure he really understands what postmodern historians like Michel Foucault did, or even what an ethnography is, but it got published in Music Theory Online.

On Greg Sandow's "Classical and Pop Reviews (2)'

The following paragraphs are a response to Greg Sandow's latest post about classical and pop critics and the first response posted. UPDATE: Here's Greg Sandow's respone to my comment.

John, I'm grateful for your comment, which in no way is too long. I'd link your gentle rebuke to me with what Peter Linnett said in his comment. I strayed toward classical music orthodoxy, in an attempt to make my points more palatable to the classically orthodox. When I wrote that line about social context not being the most important thing, I was trying to reassure people who see no value at all in what I say, and maybe I just shouldn't bother about that. I can see why you'd think I was turning my back on all the terrific work you so helpfully cite. In fact, it's vitally important to give classical music a social context, because it's been so brutally ripped from its social meaning in an attempt to establish some objective, timeless value. Susan McClary's Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form is a powerful critique of this. As, with real incendiary force, is the Georgina Born book you mention, which is one of my favorites. She completely upends Boulez, who's been given almost worship-worthy authority, as if he offered some kind of purity beyond all everyday concerns. Born shows that IRCAM isn't pure at all. To put it mildly.

What a scary thing a blog is. I can thrash around in public, trying to work out exactly how to make my points. Thanks again to everyone who helps me!

It seems to me that classical music cultures maintain a generally suspicious attitude towards emotional responses. While publicity for an artist, concert, CD or other performative event may emphasize sentimental qualities, people often emphasize the "realness" or authenticity of a performance through objective and formal language. (I use formal here to mean both the use of structuralism and "dressing up.") The idea that classical music presents a "deeper" meaning than other aesthetic experiences is an important belief in classical communities, one that both validates the efforts of the artist(s) and that reinforce the universalist and/or timeless narrative so frequently promoted by institutions.

What I find most interesting about your post here, is your own cautious approach to the suggest that social issues may have an influence on the impact of classical performances, "I'm not, repeat not, saying [social context] is the most important value..." Your own skepticism, at least as I read it, implies that there really is an implicit, objective, and concrete rationale for classical music. Objectification, for better or for worse, provides one of the most crucial forms of engagement for classical musicians and audiences.

I would also like to point out that objective and structural language provides a way for individuals to negotiate for meaning. For example, when classical musicians disagree about a particular performance and wish to maintain a friendly discourse, a one might defer to a particular aspect of the piece itself, "Well, the performance was great, but I just don't like how that piece restates the main theme so much" thus separating the act of making music from the text used.

In regards to Peter's call for an objective approach, I would like to make three points. First, several exceptional ethnomusicological studies of classical music communities are available, notably Henry Kingsbury's book Music, Talent, and Performance, a Conservatory Cultural System, his article "Sociological Factors in Musicological Poetics," Georgina Born's book Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde, and other works by Subotnik, Burkholder, and Taruskin.

Second, these various works do not claim to be objective and, especially in the case of Kingsbury and Born, in fact attempt to mix subjective experience with objective analysis. Over the past sixty years, the idea that music can or should be represented objectively has been called into question, (See John Blacking's book How Musical is Man? for an approach that mixes ethnography and the question of musical objectification).

Thirdly, the idea that objective analysis can be used to improve classical music's standing comes, in part from within this culture, as evidenced by the scientific approaches of composers (see, for example, Xenakis, Formalized Music), the corresponding language of performing musicians, and, perhaps most crucial, the theoretical content taught to music undergraduates in various institutions. Music theory only takes on its more nuanced and subjective forms in higher level classes and degrees, though theory undergrads may engage such forms sooner than other performance majors. The primary mode of analysis taught to music majors is an objective one, though various schools emphasize other modes of understanding.

Greg, the issues you raise here call into question the belief system taught by many musicians and many institutions. I think that this is a healthy thing, but it can be very difficult to change minds, especially when so many different people who participate in these cultures have many different opinions. I always enjoy your posts, and I look forward to reading more.

Masturbating

I was recently told that people should be totally "masturbatory" allowed to rant freely about whatever they wanted on a blog. (btw spell check corrected my poor spelling of masturbatory.) I definitely don't do that here, although it seems some people do. I have wrestled with the purpose of this blog. What I originally thought of as a thesis test ground has drifted more towards a pseudo-journal. It's nice to have that. The blog has helped motivate me to keep up on the project. It's also been a great place to be corrected; better here than after I finish (is that even a possibility?).

So in a truly self indulgent mode, I present part 2 of Tenets of New Music Communities: Structuralism. Enjoy, and tomatoes are availible for throwing upon request.

Concrete Realm (narrow): Structuralism brings order the innovative realm. In communities where allegedly any combination of sound may be considered music, formalism and structuralism provide a means to judge and criticize music in an "objective" manner. Such objectivity is crucial to the concept of experimental music, as it draws on scientific premises and metaphors. Truly great composers are often said to balance innovation (self) with(in) a comprehensible structure (other), though the extent to which these two concepts are distinguishable remains in constant flux, depending on who you ask. (This evokes, in part, Kingsbury's description of conservatory students and teachers constantly (re)negotiate "what is and is not in accordance with the score".) Just as it creates a cohesive piece of music, structuralism as a larger cultural dialog serves to unite what may be otherwise unrelatable musics and consequently the people who make them.

Musicians may also use structuralism to criticize music in a way that may be less offensive to the compose or, conversely, to say something nice about a piece that they does not actually enjoy and/or respect. This face saving device provides a way to maintain positive relationships with people, and thus contributes to the general well-being of the community.

Tenets of new music comunities

Happy 4th of July! In honor of our nation's b-day I'm posting the initial sketches of important beliefs of new music communities. Please feel to criticize, as always. I've broken up ideas into two categories to demonstrate how two common and important ideas, Genetic and Material. While these binaries demonstrate two important poles, I would stress that they hardly constitute an entirety of beliefs or that all members of new music communities would agree to these ideas. These concepts regularly manifest in the public and private rhetoric of groups and individuals. I'll post the first part, the genetic - concerned with creation of music and the perception of possibilities. The material - centered on the dialectic of structuralism - will come later.

Genetic Realm (broad): Anything is possible, an endless list of materials, concepts, forms, etc may be used to generate art music. This implies a fundamental sense of entitlement, though different people respond differently to this concept. While new music community members express an "anything is possible" rhetoric, the "actual" creation of a truly globally representative range of music is rare. Rather, the emphasis on possibility serves to empower the new music composers, and ultimately new music communities at large through the implied qualifier of creativity and innovation. Extending the concept of innovation, members generally take a negative view of composers who use materials considered exhausted such as Romantically tonal language (e.g. John Adams perhaps). This negative view results from the idea that a particular person's or group's music is unoriginal. (Indeed, describing a particular piece as uninteresting, unoriginal, or generally lacking in ideas constitutes a sever criticism.)

While these ideas could be seen as example of a general sense of superiority, people actively avoid admissions that classical music is inherently better than other kinds of music. Many participants have previously or are currently engaged in other forms of music; the use the terms popular or just "pop" to distinguish between these other musics and the classical art music they perform and/or study. Such a broad categorization only occurs when the comparison to classical music occurs within close proximity; for example one may say, "I listen to a lot of pop and classical music." People almost always recognize that this term represents an very diverse range of music and will elaborate on the differences between, say, rock, progressive rock, and pop-rock. However, the broader distinction manifests in the music of new music communities, much of which avoids "popular music" styles, such as rock band instrumentation combined with (allegedly) simple song and harmonic forms. There are notable exceptions to this though such pieces and their composers may be and often are viewed with degree of skepticism. There are also new music ensembles who use the instrumentation of rock bands, but to widely varying degrees who distinguish themselves from that or similar genres. I am extremely wary of attempting to draw lines between pop-oriented new music groups and classically-oriented pop groups. Thus, though an institutional distinction exists between "art" music and "popular" music, the extent to which individual members of such groups recognize such distinctions vary endlessly.

I should also point out that many member of new music communities will describe how such distinctions do not exist at all - when they clearly do as evidenced by the kind of music taught and not taught at conservatories. This is one of the core tenants of many new music communities. Such a rhetoric serves a universalist narrative that classical music cultures have espoused for the past century and must be viewed with considerable caution as it can imply a culturally blind position. Thus the realm of infinite possibilities emphasized may be said (by participants in new music cultures) to exemplify the lack of distinction between pop and art music. In other words, by claiming that music communities and styles are hard or impossible to define, people provide a way to exploit popular music's perceived popularity without retaining its negative (for classical music cultures) musical qualities.

A new music performance map

In ethnomusicology, we sometimes make maps of our experiences to help articulate concepts. I drew this map of new music communities in performance, and I wanted to open it up to criticism. "Review" may be a more accurate word than "judge". I also think that audience members judge critics, but that's not on the map. The dotted lines represent participant fluidity, that is to say that and audience member may be a composer may be a performer. These roles change from concert to concert, and maybe even piece to piece.

Text + people = Music

Classical Music cultures have a complex relationship with their text and performances. The text, or "the music itself" may exist outside of performance. This concept is best demonstrated by the myriad analyses taught at conservatories. In new music communities, composers and performers converse about music in an unlimited number of ways, but when they gather in didactic groups the primary topic is structure. It seems to me that structure, as a concept, provides a means for engagement with a music that many believe to be socially abstracted. Even when participants do not agree with the concept of social abstraction (see this post for an example), they will use structuralism, or perhaps not speak at all.

Structuralism also provides a way to critique another's music, an extremely sensitive topic, without damaging egos. While composers maintain that writing music is highly personal, they will often default to a structural discourse to objectively describe what may be a very subjective concept. New music communities also negotiate their beliefs in these gatherings (masterclasses, group lessons, etc.), essentially creating music together by speaking of a particular individual or their compositions.