John Cage gives an interesting account on sound and just what it is and what it does:
Cage often complained that musicians can't properly hear an individual sound, they only hear its relation to other sounds around it. While I may not agree with this in scientific terms (sound is created by an infinite number of sin tones and its timbre, phase, etc. is determined by their relation to one another), I am forced to question its validity in our current musical world.
These days do we really hear the beauty of individual pieces of music, or do we just hear them in relation to other pieces of its pre-determined genre? Within the realm of popular music does the music even matter? Is music just given value based on what it is related to: sexual scandal, american idol, going green, or club-music?
Music has lost its power of embodied worth. In most instances of a popular song, its end cause or final cause (according to aristotle) is not beautiful noise with the accompanied subjective response, but an ideological hum-drum.
It is hard to realize how wide a gap there is today between the professional musician and the amateur/recreational musician.
With the advent of the Music Industry (especially when it went digital) there came a distinct drop in the number of amateur musicians, Instead of everybody getting together and playing a piece of Bach or Beethoven, we buy a couple of tickets on the unholy Ticketmaster and go see a rock concert, or a classical concert for that matter. In this era, the Music Industry's Professional Musician era (which I think is coming to an end), there was also a drop in the number of recreational musicians.
In the early 20th century and late 19th century proper english families children would learn how to play the piano, this status quo was later replaced by the guitar (a more portable and "folk feeling" instrument).
The guitar is an interesting instrument and I feel it has very liberating potential, this potential came at a gradual trickle with the advent of the electric guitar. The guitar seems to tap into the roots that schoenberg and other atonal composers began, by trying to escape the confines of the 12 tone scale and other musical limitations, by directly manipulating the harmonics of its structure (distortion, phase, etc.). This expressivity was bottled to quickly for its lack of relation to the mass (or as Adorno would say it lacks "plug-ability") and therefore a lack of immediate profit, but we see the expressivity being opened back up again in certain artists, such as Omar Rodriguez-Lopes who once stated he uses the guitar only because his audience and musicians can relate to it, and uses a wide array of effects to "make it sound like anything else besides the thing I hate: the guitar"
But back to the amateur musician. One can see the frustrations caused by the idolization of professional musicians pop up in some interesting ways. One of them being Rock Band, this is a sort of immature example because I think it is the Music Industries prayers answered. It keeps people from playing real instruments and keeps people appeased by "playing" like a professional musician in a digital world where everyone can win. BUT at the same time I think Rock Band is a dog without a leash, and is inspiring a small number of musicians for each that it appeases/sedates. We have also spoken in class a great deal about the number of musicians who aren't "playing the game" of joining a label, selling cd's, etc. This is also a frustration of the pop star/professional musician.
Terry Riley's "In C" is a great example of the power of the recreational musician (how much power this is in comparison to the professional musician is a different subject). The piece, however, went largely unnoticed by mass culture as well as "classical culture" at its release. This piece is a great step towards re-establishing the amateur musician, Terry Riley includes the score and his instructions on the piece giving the listener the full ability to play the piece with a group of fellow musicians:
The days of "conventional" compositions (if such a thing exists) are over. We are bred with the idea that music (like business, driving a car, playing baseball, etc.) has to be done a "certain way."
Composition, I would argue, derives its complexity and meaning (as most art does) through its function or embodiment, a set of constitutive rules (12 tone scale, meter, etc.) may be characteristic in this embodiment, however they do not regulate what is "right." Music can be whatever we choose to make it:
My last post was stupid so I deleted it... here is a better one.
As I was walking around listening to some music I realized I was in the mood to listen to Venetian Snares (great artist, drum and bass, electronic, difficult to classify). As I listened to the blasting melodies and odd time signatures (he makes it a point to only use 7/8 5/4 13/8 9/8 no time signature etc.) I realized that he uses time signatures, drums, electronic loops, orchestral samples, poems, lyrics, in all musical ranges that can be arguably deemed comfortable to all ears (an old reading we read for class claimed that most pop music is derived from drums and vocals) so I had to ask, would it be justifiable to claim that Venetian Snares is Avant Garde? As i crept deeper and deeper into the question, fueled by the schizophrenic melodies and rhythms I eventually came to the question: Is Avant Garde (the classification) a creation of the music or is it a creation of the listener/classifier? In other words, if everyone got up in the morning tomorrow and decided that Lady GaGa Kanye and Adam Lambert was just to strange and foreign for their ears and decided to listen instead to Venetian Snares Lionel Marchetti and John Cage (which was more pleasing to their ears), would the term Avant Garde still apply?
From this argument I am forced to see music in the light of subjectivity, where is the line drawn, when is something Avant Garde when is it Popular? Does it even matter?
Does music have any power?
Being a Romantic I would say that music has vast potential and vast power, but where does that power lie, does its power lie within some sort of Ideological system as it relates to our economic policies? Does it lie within the Listener's intellect and stimulus when reacting to melodies found pleasing invigorating or thought provoking?
John Cage once said music is one of those things that doesn't require any sort of meaning, Sound can just be sounds, it doesn't have to be psychological, sound can be loved just for the sake of being a beautiful sound.
Kant also said that there are 2 things that don't have to mean anything in order to give us immense pleasure, one is sound and the other is laughter.
