Why Is New Music Dying?

Sorry, busy weekend. So busy I had to leave myself lots of little notes not to forget things once the weekdays came back around, which I did very quickly, and yours was: reply yo crumbs. In my defense the y and t are right next to each other, and also it was funny so I didn't fix it. Anyway, I'll try to keep it short(er?).

The definition provided easily (without any stretching!) encompasses all poetry spoken aloud, and all political oratory, and probably most speech.

I don't think wanting parameters narrower than "all sound with any intent behind it" is a matter of wanting "comfort." We get a lot out of taxonomy. Some of the benefits are identical to the benefits of language itself: communication. The degree to which any definition is expansive, it necessarily becomes less communicative.

It really just sounds like you want people to be thoughtful, which I can safely say is pretty much all I want from discussions and disagreements most of the time, too.

I mean, I recall some dispute about even that.



Oh, I didn't mean that. When I said "certain forms of transgression are interesting only because they defy convention" I didn't mean "they suck because all they're doing is defying convention" (that that's a thing, for sure). I mean that the convention creates the possibility for creative and valuable transgression, too. The example I've used elsewhere (and I swear I was not thinking of this when I wrote the bit just before this one) is that Michael Jackson says "Bad" when he kinda means good, and it's interesting only because we know it's the opposite of what he means. Films do this all the time, of course: Cabin in the Woods is a better film existing in a world full of cliché slasher films than it would be otherwise because we get more surprise and delight out of it because it first feints at being one of them. And so on.

So I wasn't making the argument that some things lazily defy convention just to defy it, since we've already sort of discussed that. I was making the argument that convention is good even for the good kind of transgressive art, because it gives that art boundaries to bump up against in the first place.

I think this understates things. I think we discover real things about art and what "works" in different mediums over time.

I'm thinking of Adaptation. I'm thinking of Kaufman daydreaming of a movie about flowers where nothing happens and then chastising his fictional self through McKee righteously telling him that the mere act of telling a story presupposes that it is not just a random slice of existence. I'm thinking of Chekov's gun and the Rule of Three and foreshadowing and all sorts of other things that are obviously just good storytelling, which are obvious to us now only because people have spent a couple millennia telling stories and noticing which ones seem to speak to people on the deepest levels. I think those are hard fought conclusions that still leave us an almost infinite playground of creativity without wondering if, say, a movie has to have any visual component at all, lest we be boxed in.

Sure, conventions can be bad or stifling, the same way good advice might not apply in any and all scenarios or (this part in particular) be misunderstood or clumsily applied by a less thoughtful person. Exceptions matter (if only for humility, the second most valuable virtue, and an inseparable component of the first), but continuing to think of them as exceptions is important.

I think this was a much bigger problem, but we're a few generations into the whole "the weird loner is invariably the protagonist" thing, so I'm thinking it's swung pretty far in the other direction.

Anyway, I would mostly just urge a distinction between "this is why this definition is limiting" and "wow, people can be kinda thoughtless about anything!" I think the latter is the real issue, and I don't think it gets fixed by advocating for more expansive definitions of art. I think that just pushes thoughtlessness, Whack-a-Mole-style, up in some other place.

Not really. My "fear" is just that we dilute the meaning of words and make communication worse, and I'm pretty sure being able to communicate well is invariably a part of any good artistic discourse/criticism. I see this happening with words all over the place, so it transcends this particular issue.

Quick little addendum/plug: I wrote an essay that touches on a lot of this about seven years ago (almost exactly) called Boyhood, Bears, and Roger Bannister. There's some related stuff in there that ask whether the beauty in a work can exist outside of it, which I think speaks to what you're saying about any work that simply asks us to reconsider what music is.

It also ended up touching on the whole language/MJ thing:

Right after this is the Orson Welles The Third Man cuckoo clock quote. Frankly I've been cribbing from my own essay this entire discussion, so I figured I might as well finally credit the source.

lol.



I also wasn't bothered by the slow response. I get there are real lives to live and this is all pretty secondary. Just because I write essay length responses, doesn't mean I think they require some kind of reply. Or that they even need to be read. I'm usually not even aware I've written so much until I've finished. Just like I'm sure when I'm done with this I will be 'way to go crumbs, finally kept something concise'. And then I'll scroll back to see what I wrote. And scroll. And scroll. And scroll. And then sigh.




Yes, they would likely qualify, as both poetry and political oratory are fairly adjacent to how music works (you can throw comedy in there as well). There has been more than a few instances of voice without accompaniement--simply speaking lyrics--that have already been fairly accepted underneath the umbrella of music. And I'm fine with this. Poetry is basically about the musicality of language. Even if you want to consider them as fundamentally different, they are inseparable, probably more similar than dissimilar



And while political oratory doesn't completely fit as music, it uses deliberate pauses, the notion of ratcheting up emotion through volume and speed, employs timbre, rhythm, cadence (and a bunch of other things even musical purists will use to define what music is). So, it's not that radical a leap in thought to consider it.



But all this said, you are overlooking a fundamental requirement in my definition-- these elements of sound and silence need to be presented to us 'as music'. A technicality, you might say, but it is the submitting it as such that makes us consider it as such. If I was sitting in a music class, and a teacher wanted us to listen to a speech by Adolf Hitler or Martin Luther King (two men who know how the power of the voice can affect us, and I think, use it musically), and have us contemplate how they build emotion through their use speech in the context of a composition, I wouldn't bat an eye.



Now unlike the 'rap isn't music' hyperbole, I can accept that some people are going to turn their back when it comes to thinking of any of his as music. If sitting in a John Cage imposed silence is not music to you, I think there are at least arguments here. But, regardless of how valid some of these dissenters may be, there is still musical value in thinking about music outside of the realm of what is considered music. Contemplating such abstractions as this are healthy for the art form. Even if they don't take hold with everyone. And so I guess what we are really 'arguing' here, is the simply the worth of considering these things as music. Of the discussion that comes from it. And my argument is that some people definitely should consider it as such (me being one of them)




In short, yes, I imagine this is mostly what I'm saying. And I'm for any way of forcing thoughtfullness on people, whether they want it or not.




I agree having some absolutists out there fortifying definitional boundaries from any kind of kooked-out penetration are definitely necessary. There has to be push back, even though this rigidness can also be a nuisance and a discouragement for different art to break through. It's is the delicious paradox of art.



Ultimately, creating art should not be easy. Struggle of some kind is almost always necessary. And so if all these walls just fell over with a single breath from a half-assed, non-commital artist, then even I would have to start worrying about the foundations here.




I essentially agree with all of this. But since what the vast majority of audiences want (and probably for good reason) is their story telling to be increasingly impactful emotionally, coherent and purposeful, this makes it so work that pushes back against these preferences evolves slower. Or in the shadows where they aren't likely to be adopted by more conventional audiences.


I wasn't trying to gloss over the long weeding out process convention has to go through to become...convention. Only that conventions that are more easily digestable or pleasing are easier to establish in the conversation of 'what is art'. And weirdos like me are left fumbling with their rules in a dark cave somewhere, unlikely to ever actually become a part of all that pleasant banter I can hear coming from the adult table.






I'm sure its better. And there can also be some amount of pleasure in being left out and feeling misunderstood (especially when you are younger). But there is still lasting stigma to feeling you are on the outside of the world looking in, especially when the art you turn to in order to feel seen, just further reinforces that sense of isolation when others continually shake their head in dismay at what you are watching or listening to.








I think there is value in clear communication. But I think there can also be a danger in things being too well defined, in that it can put thought on auto pilot. Make us get much too comfortable with how we see or think about things. Personally, I like to think of my ideas and beliefs and values as always being under siege. Always being challenged. And not even just externally, by the 'enemy' out there. But internally, where I do my best to never let any philosophy I adopt completely settle. In fact, I've been using art very specifally for this purpose most of my life. Art, when we allow it to confront us on all fronts, to confuse or anger or annoy us, is the great un-settler. So I like to give it a lot of room for my ideas about it to constantly mutate. Let's see what it does. Encourage it to sprout the occassionally unneccessary appendage (you never know, it may come in handy one day). Let it spout off a few political rants, just for fun. Let it even point at that chair over there, and consider its inherent musicality. Because, why not?

Yeah, this is definitely where it gets weird, for me. I see what you're saying, but the circular logic of "it's music because it's presented to us as music" is just something my brain will not allow, even though I know what you mean by it (and recognize you're being more practical than philosophically rigorous).

Anyway, I think your second quote there is dead-on: my capsule version is that you think things which involve sound and are meant to contribute to our understanding of music should be considered music, and I think they're just things that influence music. Part of music culture but not music itself. Big whoop, I can hear literally anyone else saying, which I would sympathize with. It's a pretty academic distinction, which I can live with.

I dig. I'm less on the "force" part, mostly because I don't think that's how thoughtfulness works. I think anyone thoughtful enough to get something out of weird sonic experiments probably didn't need to have the definition expanded to persuade them of its value, anyway, but ah well. I'm sure there are exceptions.

Agreed, like language it needs to simultaneously be able to evolve, but cannot evolve productively or meaningfully without some harder limits. This is the natural impasse of much thoughtful disagreement, I think, where it reaches the point where people on both ends say "I concede X and Y have risks and downsides, I just care more about X than Y so I'd rather err in that direction."

I definitely agree with this. I tend to think that's a feature and not a bug for transgressive art, though. In theory, the more mature and studied and art form is, the more difficult it "should" be to transgress. If it DOESN'T become more difficult to transgress over time, that kind of implies that no evolution or improvement is actually happening in the first place. In other words, we invent the "easy" things first and then scientific breakthroughs become harder, with the same being mostly true for artistic conventions.

Got it. That's fair.

Definitely. I kinda think we've overcorrected in a lot of our fiction. Not to cite Cabin in the Woods again immediately, but I like that it was willing to say "hey, a jock can be smart/not a jerk." A total flip from "the dreamy captain of the football team is great at everything."

It's easy to idolize and even fetishize being misunderstood or a loner or whatever. It's not the kind of thing a given society is ever going to find a perfect sweet spot for: we will probably always be under or over appreciating weirdness. Ideally I'd like weirder kids (and I think almost all of us have felt like one at some point, which is why the whole idea is so misleading) to have enough out there to let them know it's a temporary thing, and not so bad, but not so much that it calcifies into a permanent identity in and of itself. That kinda elegantly mirrors the stuff about art, and how we need to simultaneously step over the boundaries to see where they should go without living beyond them.

Strong agree on all this.

Except for this part, this part is still crazy. When I recount this exchange to people I'll say "he said chairs might be music" and leave out the thoughtful stuff.

Oh, also, you can have the last word here if you like. Unless you say something I have to respond to like "loveseats are literature."

[quote=Yoda;2278958]Yeah, this is definitely where it gets weird, for me. I see what you're saying, but the circular logic of "it's music because it's presented to us as music" is just something my brain will not allow, even though I know what you mean by it (and recognize you're being more practical than philosophically rigorous).[quote]


I think a less extreme, or rigorously conceptual way to look at this would be with strains of punk music where the musicians have literally just picked up their instruments weeks, days, or minutes before ever performing. Initially, there was a lot of push back other whether or not this was music (the argument being 'sure, those are musical instruments, but they don't know how to play them so....not music). Now, before punk became a thing, if we were to walk past a garage where one of these bands was rehearsing, we would recognize what was being played as drums, bass, guitars. But it would be noise. We might think, at best, 'maybe one of these days, these kids will learn to play actual music'. If we were nice we might wish them the best. But what punk did was it brought those kids up on stage, before they had learned how to play shit, which in theory was them pointing at this noise they were making and saying 'no, it's music NOW'. Before it was simply rehearsal. But once it is being defined as music, we have to struggle with what our definition of music is.


So, if you can get on board this kind of primitive, non-professional expression being music, what seems to be your hang up with considering noise as music is that (I assume) 1) Musical instruments are not being played or 2) Some of the noises they use are not of the artists own creation (ie. if John Cage turns on a television as part of his composition, he neither planned nor created the sounds that come from it). But if we listen to what composers of this type of music are trying to let us see by putting this out there and daring to call it music is that 1) the non-instrument sounds they use can still be composed and arranged, still elicit notes, still have rhythm and percussive abilities, and possess timbre, and 2) feedback and sampling are already existing examples where established musicians embrace the notions of randomness and appropriation.






Yes, I agree this does seem to be our arguments, reduced to their essence.


While I am kinda joking about the 'force' part, I also become really impatient when engaged in any kind of discussion where I don't see any kind of thinking going on from the other party. I have no time for people who just say things to go to bat for their teams, whatever those teams are. I only rarely actually care about the conclusions people reach through their thought. But if there was no thought there in the first place (and it is almost always very clearly evident when this is the case), I will even start getting testy with someone who agrees with me.





There is some truth to this. And I think it is one reason some conceptual art can back itself into a corner, just in simple hope that there is still more room to evolve. If I have any issues that are similar to yours in accepting certain strains of art, it would be a good chunk of what ends up in high end galleries these days. I have little patience for endless attempts at 'purely white' canvases, or any of that ilk. Part of this has to do with the fact that I think 99 percent of this type of work is a con job, encouraged by a gallery culture that has become completely corrupted by the money of empty headed enthusiasts.



I'm of course open to people explaining to me why this art has value (I've listened to some talks in the past, and almost all of them have been anything but illuminating), but as much as I loathe a lot of this work, I understand the reflex to go there. It is arts nature to challenge and pick at the conventions of previous generations. And, yeah, most of these conventions have already been challenged long ago.Leading to some desperate attempts to cover new ground.



To be clear, I'm in the 'chair not music' camp. Obviously, chair does not match my standards, even if someone were to put it on a stage with a microphone in front of it. I only brought it up here as I wanted to make it clear that even though I'm no fan of chair's work, and this chair is likely a complete no-talent fraud, I like keeping my definition of art open enough that one day I might accept ideas of music that are right now completely preposterous to me. Let it be clear when I say, back when I was maybe 16, no one could have possibly had a more narrow definition of what 'music was'. And it has been the joy of striking down all of those arbitrary barricades over the years, and coming to understand the creative process and (dare I say) souls of so many artists that I once would have been hostile to, where art hold so much of its value in my life. It always gets back to empathy.

Contrary to most well versed fans of music (or any other art form), I am vehemently against the notion that we refine our tastes through more and more listening. The idea that the more we learn, the more we exclude, is preoposterous to me. The more we learn, the more our interests should broaden. The less division there should be in delineating the greatness betweeen Swedish pop music and Free jazz and Lee Perry and La Monte Young. To me it's all the same thing. People making sounds in the hopes of saying something to us. All the other divisive shit is just a bunch of noise.

I'm not really interested in the question of whether new music is "dying" in a financial sense, but as far as a creative sense, I feel that acting as though the art of music will never truly decline, while commendable in a way, is also naively optimistic, and not reflective of cold hard reality, based off personal experience. Like, when I look at my favorite genre of music (which is Metal), I can clearly see a period of infancy for it when it was being born during the 70's, then about a decade-long period of peak quality for the genre starting sometime in the 80's, then a drop-off period afterward, much like the physical/mental development of human beings. Not saying that Metal's been on a permanent downward slope since it's golden age (because I don't think it has), I'm just saying that it stands to reason that there tends to be a certain period where genres/artforms are peaking, a point when they've been around long enough and developed enough to where they can peak, but before a certain amount of their creativity has already been spent.That doesn't mean I think that Metal or music in general is straight-up bad on its own these days, I just think it's best to accept that once you're past the peak of something, it's futile to just keep desperately reaching for that peak again, instead of appreciating the artform on its own contemporary terms.