Ron, my principal concern in this instance is the discourtesy displayed towards a new contributor here. I found the mix of direct accusation and intimation of spamming and fakery insulting to both that contributor, Matthew, and indeed the whole of the new music contingency. I do find it ironic that those happy to dish out dismissive and disparaging remarks get particularly upset when the table is tuned on them. As far as I am concerned, Matthew has done what he can to clarify any misconceptions re. his project. I am quite happy to leave it at that, while reserving the right to respond should similar concerted disparagement appear in future discussions here. There is no vendetta on my part. I have indeed very much enjoyed the majority of Baz/Ena's satirical and other contributions both here and elsewhere.

Well, I hope Matthew's examiners know the history of the happenings movement well, and are able to constructively guide him away from repeating past experiments -- though even these may achieve different artistic results simply because our world is different from the world of the early seventies.

I was also distressed to read the dismissive and sometimes vituperative retorts to his initial thread, but those clearly come from an outlook very foreign to my own. It is an outlook which feels threatened, perhaps even on a personal level, by the project in question and its ilk. This is the kind of threat which, despite actually being harmless, can provoke quite strong reactions. That is perhaps part of its point.

I was first put off by Nam June Paik when I first learned about his work -- particularly his performance art consisting of the highly dramatic smashing of a violin. The ethos from which he comes, however, is one of detachment, choosing specific provocations designed to make us question exactly the things we hold dear, because that 'holding dear' implies a reciprocal hold that they have on us, and it is imperative to reject that hold for the cause of greater spiritual freedom. To then say, e.g., 'I'd prefer he plays a Bach chaconne' is entirely beside the point, or rather is the point. What's surely beside the point, though, is the composer's (or artist's, or what have you) degree of expended effort or the implication that he is too lazy to compose. Failing that, should he at least choreograph an elaborate ritual surrounding this violin smashing? That wouldn't be a more effective realization of a concept.

Thirty-five years later (approximately), music is a richer thing than ever: musicians are finding ever new ways to re-hear old repertoire, discover new repertoire, and think seriously about music that has no aspirations of becoming repertoire. NJP did not destroy that. When I think of his effect on me, I find that the provocation he initially provided has made me more receptive to the vividness of the traditional repertoire, its malleability, and my inalienable right to question dogmatic approaches to it. At worst, his work has done nothing for people's understanding of the past. It has NOT caused people to love things less, be less curious, or become cynical, at least not on the whole.

A, I feel your frustration about these conceptual approaches to art, but they do serve the good of music. Nobody 'makes' you listen, let alone participate, nor takes away your right to perform what you love and talk about it freely. If they do, refer them to me for a good upbraiding.

Finally, I have participated in a piece of conceptual art, the mother of all concepts in my opinion, and this might be of interest to MLK: a colleague in Stuttgart, Germany, once coordinated the first globally co-ordinated drink of water: at 1:55 in the morning (California time) my wife and I woke up to quaff one glass each of tap water right on the 2:00 hour, previously having coordinated our watches with an atomic clock in Colorado, then turned off the light again and went back to sleep. In the morning we were informed that several hundred people from Europe, Japan, Australia, and South Africa (I think) had participated. Being a part of that (which sounds like a gimmick) was actually very special and not at all trivial. The whole point of this 'performance' was that it was undocumented, unverifiable, and unable to rely on any other dimension than the spiritual. That is music, situated between the cracks of our facade and resonating us.

And that is the most new-agey thing I have said or will ever say on these boards.

Just to get yer wheels turning, MLK -- the composer (organizer) did NOT ask for a receipt, let alone a video conference feed to observe our actual participation. We just all drank some water. If you want to contact him, his name is Jan Kopp, and he too writes concert music.

I still believe it is more difficult for us to view objectively the music that is being written now, perhaps because of abstruse cultural references which may easily be lost to the future. IMO we only really begin to sift the "good" from the "not so good" several generations after the composers / artists have expired.


Which would probably explain why I enjoy music that suggests to me the sounds of nature...?

Very pithy for this time of the day, Baz, and very wise too, I think!

A great deal of music has been written in the C20th.  You won't find more than a handful of professional musicians here in Moscow who have ever heard a single note of Herbert Howells, or who have even heard his name.

Does this make them professionally incompetent? 

Girls Aloud are quite good actually.

I'm not sure I wouldn't rather listen to them than John Adams.

To a large extent I've always felt that it's how you teach rather than what you teach that matters. I can imagine a very unhelpful educational experience in which a teacher failed to tell a class of pupils anything significant or useful about John Adams, and I can also imagine an excellent music lesson in which all the music examples were by Girls Aloud.

In fact, if I had to give a spontaneous music appreciation class tonight at an hour's notice I think I would give it on James Taylor's Greatest Hits and Neil Young's Harvest, since I've listened to them both recently and would have plenty to say about them, both about technical matters and about matters of expression, as well as the intersection of the two.