Are avant-garde music fans too apathetic for the field’s own good? (And here I clearly don’t mean you, Jim Altieri.) Audience passion for this music clearly must exist–you have to work to access it in real life, whether in concert or on recording, and then work some more (generally speaking) to access it intellectually and emotionally once the music is right there in front of you. But in our fandom, we rarely express our passions out loud for the world to see and hear. Is that a mark of high-art class or intellectual apathy?
I bring this up because just the other evening Darcy and I were discussing the challenges of blogging about new music vs. blogging about, say, the presidential campaigns or the hoo-ha that attends the leaking of a new Nas album. Typically in these cases, an incident is reported and every blogger worth his or her salt weighs in with an opinion, thought, or call to action. Blood pressures rise in tandem and cross-blog dialogue ensues.
In our particular musical pastures, this tends to not happen so much. A small gathering might get riled over the abstract issue of complexity in music, but it’s a rare day even in Gotham that we all jump on a bandwagon together. (Anyone ever leaked a Reich album?) I’m not saying it would necessarily do us a great deal of good to emulate the TMZ paparazzi, but it strikes me as a curious MO for people supposedly obsessed with the new that we don’t really fixate on the very latest. Maybe we simply can’t manage it because each and every one of us is doing something so completely cutting edge that there are few common roads to travel. Or maybe it’s that we expend our energy carefully rather than flinging it in what we see all too clearly are worthless pursuits.
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That said, the early music crowd isn’t shy about getting tongues wagging. In an article that on quick read seems like it could only have appeared in the pages of The Onion, England’s Observer reports startling news of vibrato-lacking performances at this year’s Proms:
The chief conductor of one of Germany’s most famous orchestras, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, [Sir Roger] Norrington has a history of provoking a passionate and polarised response among audiences. As a vociferous advocate of the controversial ‘pure tone’ or ‘musical authenticity’ movement, Norrington believes music should be played on period instruments and often at radically different speeds to the way it is usually heard. But musicians and audiences are now concerned that Norrington has taken his crusade too far. Norrington shocked Prom audiences last week by conducting a vibrato-less rendition of Elgar’s Symphony No. 1, a piece written in 1908.
On the topic of Sir Roger, there is this as well…
Celebs vie for conducting slot in new show
In today’s (8/1) Express (U.K.), Liz Frost reports, “A new BBC2 talent show, Maestro, is following eight famous amateurs on an intensive journey to prove beyond any doubt that they have the talent, passion and nerves of steel necessary to conduct at the highest level. Actress Jane Asher, comedian Sue Perkins, broadcaster Peter Snow, and actor and comedian Bradley Walsh join newsreader Katie Derham, actor David Soul, Alex James, the bassist from the band Blur, and hip-hop star Goldie in the task. All are vying for a chance to lead the BBC Concert Orchestra in a recital in front of a crowd of 30,000 at the Proms in the Park.†Contestants are put through a week-long “Baton Camp,†and then have their skills put to the test in front of a panel of judges led by Sir Roger Norrington. Maestro will be broadcast every Tuesday for six weeks starting August 12. “Fresh from Baton Camp, David Soul says: ‘Conducting is not just flapping your arms around. It is a deceptively intricate craft and therein lies the frustration. You don’t learn overnight what it’s taken the best conductors in the world a lifetime to understand.’ â€
You’re not the only one who feels that the new music world could benefit from an occasional feud: http://briansacawa.com/blog/2008/06/24/we-need-more-beef/
The mistake you and Darcy seem to be making is equating blog “dialogue” with passion. The passionate musicians I personally know do not participate on blogs for a variety of reasons – but apathy toward their art is not one of them.
However, I can’t speak for your music’s audiences. But are our audience’s so mysterious? Usually they’re made up of friends and friends of friends…
I go back and forth in my opinions about blogs. What currently confuses me is this need to expose so much of oneself in a public forum. The most profound musical experiences I’ve had in rehearsals and performances are not for public consumption. I feel the constant diary approach to creativity devalues the intimacy one cultivates and draws upon in collaboration. So there’s a lot of stuff “missing” from my own blog (which is really just a roll call for gigs and photos) and my posts here. And that is intentional.
Then again one of my favorite blogs, Shadows of a People is REALLY personal and very emotional in content. Matana just let’s it all out – and you get a powerful combination of family history, opinion, and journal like thoughts on music and life. It’s very raw and a part of her aesthetic – and somehow it appeals to me more than some music critic posting photos of their cat or or dog or what they ate for dinner the night before.
Darcy’s blog I enjoy for its concert coverage which is even handed and always surprising. I read about shows that were completely off my radar – and he gives equal time to rock, jazz, and classical events. I can’t explain it – but I basically like his spirit.
In my more exasperated moments, I’ll tell anyone that the only reason I have a website, a blog, AND a myspace page is promotion. I’m not trying to make “friends” or engage in “cross-blog dialogue.” I just want people to come to my shows and buy my CDs. Sorry.
What am I looking for? I don’t know…
It may just be this medium, Molly. I keep pushing the envelope here and elsewhere but then I retreat from the blogs feeling (as the song goes) “I’ve said too much…” And I think people who feel similarly are (obviously) not blogging :)!
P.S. For photos, links, and news – please visit my blog at the link below!
http://beckermusic.blogspot.com/index.html
I don’t see getting your panties bunched up about vibrato as passion; I see it as idiocy. A vibratoless performance of anything strikes my fancy: what will they do instead of vibrato to bring expression to the performance? Vibrato is but one tool in one’s arsenal of expression. What are you looking for as an indicator of passion?
Molly says: Hey, Andrea. Here I’m speaking more of group passion vs individual passion. As a music community, we just don’t seem to rally behind a single or small selection of topics/ideas at any one time. Most bloggers have individual passion up the whazoo (Why else but complete masochism would you commit yourself to such a project? No new music jokes, please.) but we don’t seem to spend a lot of time looking left and right at what the neighboring blogs are up to and responding to the daily headlines (because there aren’t any?) in the same way that other fields use them to harness and energize their communities.
Hi Molly! I think you’re completely right that we are all traveling so many paths that it’s unlikely everyone will jump on a single issue…actually I kind of like the opportunity to read about so many different things in the new music world. I don’t see that as a lack of passion, though; seems like everyone is simply following what floats their own boat. It doesn’t necessarily make for a lack of community.
But then I’ve never really been much of a joiner…and I love a non-vibrato performance. 😉
Molly, excellent questions. I can most definitely relate to this. Rose Subotnik has observed this same tendancy, “If we don’t like what we hear, we are branded as uneducated or vulgar, even if there is no reasonable way of understanding what we hear, indeed, even if it is central to the composer’s aesthetic and moral integrity that we not like what we hear“ (pg. 251, Subotnik, 1991).
I think this tendancy come from a number of factors, including the belief in the power of the musical text, the emphasis on objectivity and the general need to seem thoughtful and not offend others. I know that in my experience, when I don’t get a piece, I tended to hold myself at fault. I would criticize my inability to correctly perceive the work. I also remember one post-concert talk where I told a good friend that I wasn’t really into one of the works and he criticized me in front of our other friends, saying that he expected more from me. I remember feeling ashamed, slightly annoyed at him, and generally bad, but at no point to I challenge the validity of his claim.
These days I have trouble with my own reactions. In general, I trust my initial reaction more than ever, but I try to give a piece of music as much attention as possible. I do tend to go with my gut a lot now, though.
Molly,
First, I have to say that I do agree with Chris’s assertion that blog dialogue may have more to do with the blogger’s day job and current self-esteem level than their passion. But I do find your question intriguing, and I’ve been thinking about it for the last couple of days. Sorry, I know that in the blog world one is supposed to be more immediate… but heck – I’d like to make a small suggestion as to the lack of passionate arguments / discussions.
Two versions of the same postulate:
1) There just ain’t that much new and controversial stuff happening in music.
2) There just ain’t a mainstream within new [avant-garde / experimental] music that can provide a standard against which to rail.
In the “music” world and the attending blogs, most of us are still basically working through new technical and intellectual developments made between the 1400s and the 1970s. Some of us are really interested in note-crunching (see Gann, Wuorinen, Mallonee, et al.), some in silence/stillness parsing (JLA, Niblock, Lafkas), some in genre/history/geography-bending (Perich, Dargel, Mahanthappa, Hron), some in timbre (Bryan Eubanks, the acousmatic crowd, the European spectralists), some in improv (Oliveros, Lewis), u.s.w… Basically, you can be guaranteed that most of the new musical thoughts of the last millennium are still being deeply explored by some of us. Who needs new and controversial ideas anymore, when the present is so overwhelmingly rich and plural? (yes, blog trolls, this is bait.)
I’ve been trying to think of something that would actually be controversial in music, and I have trouble. Maryanne Amacher (and yes, David Byrne) have been playing around with architecture in interesting (maybe even New) ways in recent years, but heck, that just ain’t that controversial. Vibrato? Some art-school doofus claims that contemporary complex music sounds bad? Umm… super boring, because most of us have talked about this shit a lot. A LOT. Kyle is pretty much the only one who seems to have the patience, knowledge, and logorrhea necessary to address these kinds of “controversies.” What next, a freshman-quality argument over “I’m not sure if this really counts as ‘music’…”?
Here’s a slightly related thought:
The main advances in avant-garde sound in recent years have been primarily made by the US government (see uses of music/audio in torture and sieges, sonic non-lethal weapons, automated phone eavesdropping). These topics are diligently picked up by more mainstream political blogs who hem and haw about them appropriately. Let’s start talking about this stuff as musicians, not as conscientious liberals.
So here is a short list of topics that I think we could get some composers and bloggers really riled up over:
– How have ideas and techniques from the avant-garde been appropriated by repressive regimes? Are they interesting artistically?
– Why does the government use Nancy Sinatra to drive people crazy, when Melt Banana or Four Organs would probably be more effective? Should we tell them?
– What kinds of music might we make that would be awesome as music and as a weapon?
– What are the connections between the contemporary noise music scene and the Italian Futurists, and does it bother or excite said noisers that the Futurists were unapologetic fascists?
love,
jim
Molly adds: Hi, Jim! Thanks for this detailed addition. You raise many important points, and yes, please let us not seek controversy by re-debating old issues louder. Well noted. And you’ve solidified my suspicion that we’re all just too distracted by our own awesome area of interest. There is no war here, no injustice we are all needed to fight, so we’re each just doing our own thing.
That said, I’m not looking for anger to link us. Still, I wonder if there is some good that could be done by orchestrating a collective action of some sort among us, sort of a tie that would bind that’s not just a funny blog chain letter. Something we could all feed into and enjoy, like family dinner on Sunday.