No it doesn't, and it wasn't intended to, I just felt it necessary to put that perspective into the discussion.


No, I'm the one who cited such methods to show how absurd I thought the whole idea of using how "critical" music is as a funding criterion. Not that I don't think that criticality has any relevance. It certainly has a great deal to me as a musician. But I think there's a great deal of valuable music which couldn't be described as "critical" either in intent or in the perception of most people who hear it.

Since we're told that there isn't enough money for everything, decisions are going to be made which filter out one or other constituency from consideration. Basing those decisions on some pseudo-objective criterion like criticality, or for that matter on "people personally known to the panel members", which I've seen going on with my own eyes, is a kind of censorship. I would prefer to see a way of doing things (given that one accepts the legitimacy of the entire system, which I don't) which stays as far as possible from censorship.

Another thought - I think it was Victor Shlovsky or one of the other Russian Formalist critics who tried to define literature, as opposed to other uses of language, in terms of exhibiting the quality of ostranei or 'defamiliarisation' (will  one of the Russian speakers here correct me if I've spelt the term wrongly). Literature was that which, in various ways, moves beyond the familiar and already-known. That's not a dissimilar concept to what I think of as the 'critical', and it's still got a lot going for it.

Any other useful tips while you're about it? Who's your hairdresser?

I'm not sure that's right. Almost every well-known artist?

It is true that if we're talking about notated composition, the writing of scores and their interpretation by performers depend on a kind of education and a kind of tradition which isn't so often met with in the visual arts in recent decades. This may create a conservative kind of norm among people who are involved in this kind of music, hence the whole idea (Lachenmann et al.) of creating music which tries explicitly to question this norm.

However, as I seem to have to keep saying, contemporary music doesn't just consist of contemporary "classical" music. I don't know of a single improving musician who I know to embrace (or who I would expect to embrace) a conservative view of society - as I implied before, this musical practice has in itself a tendency to repel that way of looking at things. From this standpoint one might look at the music of someone like Lachenmann and say well, it sounds attractive but as for all that other paraphernalia we went through it decades ago and came out the other side.

That depends on whether I want a critical haircut or a mere entertaining tidy-up.

I’ve had good results with Vidal Sassoon  But unfortunately they are not subsidised so I can only go when privately sponsored. 

The fact that art is on the whole much less expensive to produce (as is true of most art forms not involving performers or other division of labour (as with architecture, say)) may be a bigger factor?

There's usually an assumption that 'popular' culture (like other 'successful' enterprise) is somehow free of subsidy, but it really isn't, even if the subsidy is just in the form of tax breaks. Most obviously here in the UK, the film industry hoovers up millions to make dreadful films in the hope that the investment will be recouped in the tourist industry. In any case, subsidy is commonly used in our society to keep alive industries that could much more profitably be exported (eg farming), mainly just to keep people in jobs. The main mechanism for allocating this is thru connections (as suggested earlier by Ian) - the powerful farming lobby gets it, the weaker mining lobby doesn't.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that our society doesn't have a problem with subsidy, nor really do the people in it, and so despite the fact that debates like this throw up all kinds of interesting issues, maybe it would be better to point out the wider flaws and corruption in the way resources are allocated. Trying to argue one's case in this way just confirms/validates the wider system.

I take your point, matticus, though I do believe subsidy may be more precarious than we realise. And on the other hand, I do believe we should have subsidy on European levels (whilst that itself is coming under attack, even with cuts it would be likely to be better than that which exists in the UK) - the fact that a major increase in this respect seems inconceivable in Britain at present seems to me a reason why the case for subsidy should be made all the more strongly. And a shift in subsidising priorities in favour primarily of the 'moderately commercial' almost seems to negate the whole purpose of subsidy in the first place.