|
harmonyharmony
|
 |
« Reply #210 on: 13:12:55, 03-07-2008 » |
|
A lot of the kids at the gigs then thought woodstock was a dog or something.
 |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
|
|
|
burning dog
|
|
« Reply #211 on: 13:16:33, 03-07-2008 » |
|
A lot of the kids at the gigs then thought woodstock was a dog or something.
Thanks HH, knew it was a something other than a American pop festival and a town in Oxfordshre couldn't remember exactly what! |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Sydney Grew
Guest
|
|
« Reply #212 on: 13:27:47, 03-07-2008 » |
|
All judgements of value ultimately rest upon subjective criteria . . . Eh? If it "rests upon the subjective" how can it be "ultimate"? Is this not to set oneself up as an absurd deity? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Ian_Lawson
Posts: 59
|
|
« Reply #213 on: 13:28:19, 03-07-2008 » |
|
Yes, but there's far more to the cuisines I mention above than simply nutritional value, which could be obtained simply from a certain number of basic ingredients cooked quite simply. And is it not possible that listening to music (of all types, by no means necessarily or primarily classical) might at best open up people's minds to different sensibilities, different cultures, different modes of communication, different aesthetics, different varieties of emotional experience, and mightn't that be something good in itself (which is in no sense to imply that music necessarily does this, though it can, I believe)?
But no matter how cuisiney the meal might be it’s still got to fuel you till the next one. Surely the main reason why Macs are considered low-value is because of their low nutritional value not because of their taste . I don't think your food analogy works because you are not likely to be comparing like to like. All those things that music might do are certainly the sort of things that might lead an individual to value a particular piece. Is that what you mean - I’m not sure what you’re getting at? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Ian_Lawson
Posts: 59
|
|
« Reply #214 on: 14:08:54, 03-07-2008 » |
|
The crucial difference between ‘classical’ and ‘pop’ which explains this is, that essentially pop music is individuals appealing to other individuals there are no central authorities trying to ‘lead taste’- there are simply too many players and conflicting/competing interests. I really can't believe that, any more than with, say the fashion industry. There are major record companies with huge resources and power definitely trying to 'lead taste' through millions spent on advertising, publicity, etc., and the stakes are much higher in terms of the potential profits to be gained. And they also divert large amounts of their resources in trying to get the radio stations to play their artists' music, to get articles about them in the press and magazines, and so on and so forth. Not all of them are equally successful, of course, and there are competing interests all aiming to dominate taste, but I can't accept that these mechanisms of advanced capitalist musical production really guarantee such a level of diversity. Perhaps it comes down to what we mean by ‘leading taste’ If we take a ‘textbook’ hypothetical ‘commercial’ music producer (i.e a business whose sole purpose is to make the largest profit.) Then it follows that such a business will not be in the slightest bit concerned about the nature of the music carried within their products. They would happily replace Madonna with Richard Barrett if they thought they could sell more discs. On the other hand when radio 3 (used to) talk about leading taste it was from the perspective of ‘knowing’ what people ought to like and promoting such product regardless. While ‘diversity’ cannot be guaranteed, it seems to me self evident that their is more diversity to be found in four corners of the marketplace (to which we all have access to) than in the mind of whoever happens to be controlling output from any of the state funded institutions. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Philidor
|
|
« Reply #215 on: 14:09:45, 03-07-2008 » |
|
Hope this hasn't been said already, but an obvious difference between the two worlds is accessibility. Almost anyone can buy a guitar, learn a few chords, write a song - about their cat, their lost love, their hatred of the state, whatever - and sing it in their bedroom or perform it with friends in the garage. It's less easy to write or perform a string quartet. John Peel was good on this: emphasising the constant flow of new talent entering the pop realm, giving it openings and encouragement, creating a 'buzz' around people just getting on and doing it - in other words, giving people confidence. The best classical music teachers do the same.
Because of these differences there's more scope for snobs to operate in the classical music field: each barrier can be guarded jealously and only the 'right sort' let through. One of the great achievement of the Venezuelan system is to attack those barriers, send the snobs off with fleas in their ears, to act like classical music John Peels, with extraordinary results.
In their small way, forums have a John Peel type role. Some classical music forums are hotbeds of snobbery. Others are welcoming, like this one. The managers of forums have a choice on which line they want to follow.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ruby2
|
|
« Reply #216 on: 14:15:24, 03-07-2008 » |
|
Yes, but there's far more to the cuisines I mention above than simply nutritional value, which could be obtained simply from a certain number of basic ingredients cooked quite simply. And is it not possible that listening to music (of all types, by no means necessarily or primarily classical) might at best open up people's minds to different sensibilities, different cultures, different modes of communication, different aesthetics, different varieties of emotional experience, and mightn't that be something good in itself (which is in no sense to imply that music necessarily does this, though it can, I believe)?
But no matter how cuisiney the meal might be it’s still got to fuel you till the next one. Surely the main reason why Macs are considered low-value is because of their low nutritional value not because of their taste . I don't think your food analogy works because you are not likely to be comparing like to like. All those things that music might do are certainly the sort of things that might lead an individual to value a particular piece. Is that what you mean - I’m not sure what you’re getting at? I think there's a lot more to the low perceived value of Big Macs than nutritional value. They aren't to everyone's taste, but also they're quick to make and buy, they're mass produced and they're cheap. It's about instant gratification as a priority over quality, and in that respect I think it works quite well as an analogy between pop and classical (I'm talking about proper cheesy chart stuff now - Stock Aitken and Waterman territory). That's something else they've got in common - cheese.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #217 on: 14:21:05, 03-07-2008 » |
|
Perhaps it comes down to what we mean by ‘leading taste’ If we take a ‘textbook’ hypothetical ‘commercial’ music producer (i.e a business whose sole purpose is to make the largest profit.) Then it follows that such a business will not be in the slightest bit concerned about the nature of the music carried within their products. They would happily replace Madonna with Richard Barrett if they thought they could sell more discs. Yes, but I believe they create demands rather than simply responding to them. There are obvious limits to what can be successfully marketed and sold (so that it's more feasible with Madonna than Barrett, say), but they are creating a taste which didn't exist beforehand. I would call that 'leading taste'. On the other hand when radio 3 (used to) talk about leading taste it was from the perspective of ‘knowing’ what people ought to like and promoting such product regardless. That's the old Reithian ideal (I think Reith himself used to talk about the taste of the 'educated upper middle classes', but later 'left Reithian' ideals may not have been so bound up with class), seeing an educational and instructive role for music as well as simply providing entertainment. For all the huge problems with that approach (paternalism, the possibility that such auspices can simply be exploited for the self-serving interests of a narrow group's tastes which are by no means necessarily any more educational and instructive than others), it still has some value, I believe. While ‘diversity’ cannot be guaranteed, it seems to me self evident that their is more diversity to be found in four corners of the marketplace (to which we all have access to) than in the mind of whoever happens to be controlling output from any of the state funded institutions. Well, if 'diversity' incorporates such things as atonality, aperiodicity, music of unusual time spans, highly introspective music, experimentation beyond the boundaries of what is possible in much of the popular field, then I don't believe the marketplace provides such diverse possibilities as have been enabled (to an extent) through publicly funded institutions. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
Ian_Lawson
Posts: 59
|
|
« Reply #218 on: 14:38:07, 03-07-2008 » |
|
I think there's a lot more to the low perceived value of Big Macs than nutritional value. They aren't to everyone's taste, but also they're quick to make and buy, they're mass produced and they're cheap. It's about instant gratification as a priority over quality, and in that respect I think it works quite well as an analogy between pop and classical (I'm talking about proper cheesy chart stuff now - Stock Aitken and Waterman territory). That's something else they've got in common - cheese. The problem with your argument is that when you get to the ‘instant gratification over quality’ bit, the lack of quality you citing is surely their low nutritional quality. (added salt and sugar for the instant gratification) Oddly enough, I didn’t get any gratification form SAW - instant or otherwise. Although I don’t think what they did was particularly easy to do. (Well I can’t do it.) |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #219 on: 14:39:12, 03-07-2008 » |
|
I think there's a lot more to the low perceived value of Big Macs than nutritional value. They aren't to everyone's taste, but also they're quick to make and buy, they're mass produced and they're cheap. It's about instant gratification as a priority over quality Isn't 'quality' in that sense akin to 'value' with respect to music? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
oliver sudden
|
|
« Reply #220 on: 14:47:10, 03-07-2008 » |
|
Hope this hasn't been said already, but an obvious difference between the two worlds is accessibility. Almost anyone can buy a guitar, learn a few chords, write a song - about their cat, their lost love, their hatred of the state, whatever - and sing it in their bedroom or perform it with friends in the garage. It's less easy to write or perform a string quartet. John Peel was good on this: emphasising the constant flow of new talent entering the pop realm, giving it openings and encouragement, creating a 'buzz' around people just getting on and doing it - in other words, giving people confidence. The best classical music teachers do the same. On the other hand there's a world between putting together a garage band and coming to the attention of the likes of John Peel, no? It's less easy to perform a string quartet but it's not particularly difficult to get hold of an acceptable keyboard and work on a few beginners' classics - there are probably millions of amateur musicians (still, even if fewer than there used to be) who do that for family consumption or even just their own and are in no danger of coming to public attention even if they wanted to. To me there doesn't seem all that much point emphasising this 'pop'/'classical' difference when the differences between 'amateur' and 'commercial' are the really serious qualitative ones - especially since there's a big tendency to set up 'classical' as the polar opposite of 'commercial', which I don't think stands up (and which has even worse consequences for music which could be described as 'popular' but not 'commercial', which in such terms might as well not exist or might just be considered as a degenerate form of 'pop'). There's certainly 'popular' commercial pap out there in enormous and inescapable quantity but there's just as much 'classical' music-making which has been turned to commercial ends (much more so than there was when I started consuming classical product  ). |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #221 on: 14:54:17, 03-07-2008 » |
|
To me there doesn't seem all that much point emphasising this 'pop'/'classical' difference when the differences between 'amateur' and 'commercial' are the really serious qualitative ones - especially since there's a big tendency to set up 'classical' as the polar opposite of 'commercial', which I don't think stands up (and which has even worse consequences for music which could be described as 'popular' but not 'commercial', which in such terms might as well not exist or might just be considered as a degenerate form of 'pop'). There's certainly 'popular' commercial pap out there in enormous and inescapable quantity but there's just as much 'classical' music-making which has been turned to commercial ends (much more so than there was when I started consuming classical product ). I wonder if the difference lies here: whilst there's 'commercial classical' and 'uncommercial pop', there are almost no avenues for the latter to gain wider exposure, which is not the case for 'uncommercial classical', because there exist institutions who will promote and organise performances of the latter with some (varying) degree of independence of its commercial potential (because the money required to put it on is to some extent guaranteed via subsidy, rather than depending on successful revenue generated through sales, advertising revenue, private sponsorship, etc.)? However, shows like that of the late John Peel were a subsidised avenue for less 'commercial' popular music to gain some exposure. Shouldn't forget that Radio 1 is just as non-commercial a radio station as Radio 3 (I think). |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 14:55:51, 03-07-2008 by Ian Pace »
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
oliver sudden
|
|
« Reply #222 on: 14:58:58, 03-07-2008 » |
|
there are almost no avenues for the latter to gain wider exposure, which is not the case for 'uncommercial classical', because there exist institutions who will promote and organise performances of the latter with some (varying) degree of independence of its commercial potential (because the money required to put it on is to some extent guaranteed via subsidy, rather than depending on successful revenue generated through sales, advertising revenue, private sponsorship, etc.)?
I don't know about that. I think there are plenty of venues for uncommercial popular music (in the sense of at least reasonably competent but done on an amateur basis) - surely every city has a wide selection of clubs hosting groups of every standard? The biggest subsidy in any kind of music done on a non-commercial basis is that provided by the musicians, I reckon. There's just as much 'pay to play' in classical. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ruby2
|
|
« Reply #223 on: 15:07:16, 03-07-2008 » |
|
I think there's a lot more to the low perceived value of Big Macs than nutritional value. They aren't to everyone's taste, but also they're quick to make and buy, they're mass produced and they're cheap. It's about instant gratification as a priority over quality Isn't 'quality' in that sense akin to 'value' with respect to music? Oh completely - I'm in agreement with you on the value issue - it just doesn't stop someone liking something that has little instrinsic 'value'.  This is why I mentioned SAW, mainly because I perceive it to be low on value. Mind you, that is my personal perception. I doubt either S, A or W's bank managers would agree. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
|
|
|
Ian_Lawson
Posts: 59
|
|
« Reply #224 on: 15:10:59, 03-07-2008 » |
|
Well, if 'diversity' incorporates such things as atonality, aperiodicity, music of unusual time spans, highly introspective music, experimentation beyond the boundaries of what is possible in much of the popular field, then I don't believe the marketplace provides such diverse possibilities as have been enabled (to an extent) through publicly funded institutions.
If the role of funded institutions is to fill gaps left by the market place then in effect the institutions are part of market place and have to respond to the market as the gaps change over time. So it might be true that (for example) atonal music has fared better with institutions rather than individuals but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to replace the market place with funded institutions - it’s pretty easy to see what that would do for diversity. Besides, it only makes practical sense to fund minority, minority tastes. The reason why the marketplace is so important to me is because it is the mechanism by which I can produce what I want and sell it to whoever wants to buy it. It doesn’t matter to me that others are a million times more successful - that doesn’t stop me doing what I want to do. Presumably this is also true for everyone else. Even for composers of ‘highly introspective music’, for example. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
