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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Making Music > Issues of music and commodification on the cover of Weekly Worker
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Author Topic: Issues of music and commodification on the cover of Weekly Worker  (Read 6326 times)
ahinton
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WWW
« Reply #225 on: 22:19:13, 05-10-2007 »
Quote from: Ian Pace on 19:29:55, 05-10-2007
Quote from: ahinton on 15:09:41, 05-10-2007
some of the WW readership may find themselves largely non-plussed by much of these discussions
Well, perhaps they might be rather less non-plussed than when reading yet another 'Respect is going to the dogs - Nah, nah-ni-nah-nah' or 'Workers' Liberty are a bunch of capitulationist weirdos who can just kiss our ass' articles, as do appear far too often in that periodical.
I'll take your word for all of that - especially since I can do little else, as I have not become the regular reader of that periodical that Richard gleefully suggested I had (with his tongue in all three cheeks, no doubt) a little while ago!

Best,

Alistair
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ahinton
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« Reply #226 on: 22:26:20, 05-10-2007 »
Quote from: Ian Pace on 19:32:30, 05-10-2007
Just to follow up on Richard's point about the implicit equation of modernism with Marxism in some of the Downie articles - that is certainly an extremely problematic assumption, and one that is taken up by Wieland when pointing out that some modernist pledge allegiance to the politics of the right rather than the left. Also, there have been more than a few leftist (or even liberal) thinkers who have attacked high modernism in grounds of social and political disengagement (I'm not saying I agree with them necessarily, just that this is a well-established position).
Good points. I still wonder - and not without a certain degree of suspicion - why it is that some of these people even want to address - let alone attack "high modernism" (whatever that is in reality, although I think we all know what's meant here, so I'm not seeking to make an issue of that per se) on "grounds of social and political disengagement"; well, Ok, maybe "social" up to a point, but "political"? Sorry - just ignore that as the ramblings of a cynically apoliticised (or is it depoliticsed?) composer who probably doesn't know what he's talking about...

Quote from: Ian Pace on 19:32:30, 05-10-2007
This is a wider issue - wondered if anyone thought whether a serious 'Politics of Modernism' thread might be in order? I'd be really interested in what RB, qt, AC, CD, CH, EJ, DC, autoharp, Bryn, t-i-n, George, and various others would have to say about this in the context of a wider conception of modernism than that adhered to by Downie.
Ah, well - the list of initials at least lets me out! (unless I am to be some kind of also-ran in the form of a member of the "others" set) - but yes, there may be some mileage here; I'd have a problem contributing intelligently and helpfully to it (if asked) because of the "politics" side of it, though.

Where's me coat?...

Best,

Alistair
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richard barrett
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« Reply #227 on: 22:55:31, 05-10-2007 »
Quote from: ahinton on 22:26:20, 05-10-2007
why it is that some of these people even want to address - let alone attack "high modernism"
What I was trying to say was that Downie is making "modernism" into in "ism" in the same way as Marxism is one, which I don't think it is - to me, if it denotes anything (and it's a word I never use unless responding to someone else's use of it) it denotes a period in history rather than something which has principles and "adherents". Maybe others here don't see it that way. The thing with periods in history is that they eventually give way to new ones, and the thing with whatever happens to be the present period in history is that there's not really any way of knowing whether that point has been reached yet. Downie presumably sees his activity as an island of modernism in a hostile sea of triviality. I find that an unnecessarily defeatist position. His prescriptive attitude ("no alternative creative action is tenable") robs art of its freedom of action at a time when art is one of the few human activities where that freedom can actually be practised and realised (and I mean both by artists and audiences).
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ahinton
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« Reply #228 on: 23:31:51, 05-10-2007 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 22:55:31, 05-10-2007
Quote from: ahinton on 22:26:20, 05-10-2007
why it is that some of these people even want to address - let alone attack "high modernism"
What I was trying to say was that Downie is making "modernism" into in "ism" in the same way as Marxism is one, which I don't think it is - to me, if it denotes anything (and it's a word I never use unless responding to someone else's use of it) it denotes a period in history rather than something which has principles and "adherents". Maybe others here don't see it that way. The thing with periods in history is that they eventually give way to new ones, and the thing with whatever happens to be the present period in history is that there's not really any way of knowing whether that point has been reached yet. Downie presumably sees his activity as an island of modernism in a hostile sea of triviality. I find that an unnecessarily defeatist position. His prescriptive attitude ("no alternative creative action is tenable") robs art of its freedom of action at a time when art is one of the few human activities where that freedom can actually be practised and realised (and I mean both by artists and audiences).
Ah, "isms"! Bętes noires. Anyway, I cannot disagree with your thoughts here at all (not that I was trying to!)...

Best,

Alistair
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #229 on: 11:00:54, 06-10-2007 »
Quote from: ahinton on 22:26:20, 05-10-2007
Quote from: Ian Pace on 19:32:30, 05-10-2007
This is a wider issue - wondered if anyone thought whether a serious 'Politics of Modernism' thread might be in order? I'd be really interested in what RB, qt, AC, CD, CH, EJ, DC, autoharp, Bryn, t-i-n, George, and various others would have to say about this in the context of a wider conception of modernism than that adhered to by Downie.
Ah, well - the list of initials at least lets me out! (unless I am to be some kind of also-ran in the form of a member of the "others" set) - but yes, there may be some mileage here...
Ian has done that before, make a list of initials to prove a point. I'm not sure what the initials do except inadvertently exclude people -- though I am sure that that was not his intent.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #230 on: 00:01:44, 07-10-2007 »
Quote from: Chafing Dish on 11:00:54, 06-10-2007
Quote from: ahinton on 22:26:20, 05-10-2007
Quote from: Ian Pace on 19:32:30, 05-10-2007
This is a wider issue - wondered if anyone thought whether a serious 'Politics of Modernism' thread might be in order? I'd be really interested in what RB, qt, AC, CD, CH, EJ, DC, autoharp, Bryn, t-i-n, George, and various others would have to say about this in the context of a wider conception of modernism than that adhered to by Downie.
Ah, well - the list of initials at least lets me out! (unless I am to be some kind of also-ran in the form of a member of the "others" set) - but yes, there may be some mileage here...
Ian has done that before, make a list of initials to prove a point. I'm not sure what the initials do except inadvertently exclude people -- though I am sure that that was not his intent.
No, it wasn't my intent - the use of initials is simply for brevity's sake, and the list was of the members who off the top of my head I imagined would find the subject of interest. But that's no longer to be.....
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'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'
MT Wessel
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« Reply #231 on: 01:50:49, 07-10-2007 »
Quote from: Ian Pace on 00:01:44, 07-10-2007
.... But that's no longer to be.....
Well of course it certainly isn't. Personally I'm annoyed about the commodefication of the cover of The Daily Wessel  ......  Sad
« Last Edit: 13:22:21, 07-10-2007 by MT Wessel » Logged
lignum crucis arbour scientiae
Ian_Lawson
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Posts: 59
« Reply #232 on: 18:46:28, 07-10-2007 »
Quote from: Ian Pace on 18:13:29, 04-10-2007
Quote from: Ian_Lawson on 13:39:24, 04-10-2007
Quote from: richard barrett on 12:49:59, 04-10-2007
It isn't "wrong", if I may step in here, so much as incomplete, in so far as while "the aim of being popular" (by which I presume you mean "the aim of extracting the maximum profit from listeners", since this is the way music becomes "popular" in our society)

Does it?  I would have thought that the income derives from the popularity not the other way around.
That only follows if you accept the 'marketplace is a form of democracy' argument.

Not at all. For example, the income I have from composing is generated from people who like my music enough to perform/broadcast/buy it. I find it hard to believe that the reason they like it is because I have succeeded in extracting maximum profit from them.
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Ian_Lawson
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« Reply #233 on: 19:03:23, 07-10-2007 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 13:59:15, 04-10-2007
- note once more t_i_n's word "constituted" rather than "intended".

I think you’re splitting hairs. A piece of music does not compose itself. ‘To constitute’ means ‘to bring about’. I think it is reasonable to assume that the bringing about of a piece of music (i.e. the composing of) has a strong element of intention. (I.e. the music sounds the way it was intended to sound) 
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