Different "Types"/"Purposes" Of Music

[JSngry]

http://www.newworldrecords.org/liner_notes/80444.pdf

I found these liner notes on line, and the opening paragraphs seemed to me to be worthy of consideration, perhaps discussion here. It's written in terms of "classical" music, but I think it pertains across the board...and I would posit that the purpose of "cuisine" music is not just to impart flavor, but rather to deliver nutrition with an identity-relevant flavor. Of course, then I guess you can ask what music, what human, really, can ever be devoid of "identity"...is that even possible?

anyway...

A perverse notion occurred to me following an involved discussion of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time--to wit: that music is a superior means of inquiry into the nature of time and being than is philosophy, and that Gustav Mahler--to cite one instance--knew more about Time and Being than Heidegger did. Philosophy is not the sole purpose of music, I must hasten to add; there is a whole subspecies of music, from Scarlatti to Duke Ellington, which might be characterized as "cuisine," just as another subspecies--I'll mention no names--could be characterized as "propaganda," religious or otherwise. But there is also a music which seeks the taproots of Being--the opening measures of the slow movement of the opus 127 Beethoven quartet, the beginning measures of the Mahler Ninth--just as there is a music which attempts to tell us of time itself--Edgard Varese's Deserts is a prime example. The music on this disk belongs to this tradition.

If the purpose of "cuisine" music is to impart flavor, and the purpose of "propaganda" music to persuade, then the purpose of a "philosophic" music is to create an auditory model of time and space. The factors any twentieth century composer must face in order to do this are many; just as the medieval view of the firmament as a huge dome with the throne of God at its apex is impossible after Einstein, so the harmonic certainties of Bach (or Schubert) are impossible after the second Viennese school. Time, moreover--stretched to the maximum by Wagner, condensed to a minimum by Webern--has also proven a more elastic medium than was thought at the beginning of this century.

For Robert Hall Lewis, who studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Hans Erich Apostel in Vienna, but who was born in 1926 in Portland, Oregon, and entered the field of conducting after mastering the trumpet and the piano, another challenge much have been how to reconcile the many compositional tactics of a relentlessly innovative period into a unique personal idiom. But, as Lewis himself writes:

"there is no problem on my part of reconciliation of a French stylistic attitude with Viennese serial methods, since I am not a serial composer, nor have I ever been aside from a few theoretical exercises…To study in Paris and Vienna is a fine experience which raises one’s standards in all respects. This does not imply that an adoption of national tendencies will result."

 

[Big Beat Steve]

Nobody willing to discuss this yet? Amazing ...

My 2c (though I must admit quite a bit of what that author writes is beyond me and my easy comprehension FWIW) im MY (somewhat more down to earth , no-frills) terms:

There is music for the brain and
there is music for the guts
and there is a time for everything
and the two do complement each other
(and yes - there are overlaps and the borders sometimes are blurred)
 

To explain (on a strictly personal level that anybody else can agree or disagree with as much as they like - "that's only me" ) for my main styles of music:

Modern jazz tends to be for the brain (though I sometimes wonder, for example, if the West Coast jazz I sometimes listen to on a sunny afternoon out in the garden relaxing in my deck chair and sipping some cold drink is only for the brain )

R&B/blues, early jazz, (real) rock'n'roll and hillbilly tend to be for the guts

Swing can be both, depending on the artist and recording (but with an overall tendency towards the guts)

 

Again ... just me, just my 2c

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jazzbo]

Years ago this would have fascinated me. 

Today I couldn't even get through the liner notes.

Music is communication. That's it for me. It's a LOT for me, but it's communication from one mind/heart to others.

[JSngry]

The main thing that interested me about this is that we sometimes hear about "music as art" as if it's some abstract, high-falutin' self-gratifying wasteful foo-foo indulgence. I think that as a generalization that's just nonsense, although lord knows it can certainly happen, and not just in "art" music.

But the notion of music being available as tool, perhaps a superior tool, for a creation of, a meditation on - and yes, a communication about -  "an auditory model of time and space", well, that becomes less about a pursuit of vanity and more about a basic human instinct, probably a hardwired one at that. So of course as our perceptions of time and space change, of course do our musics change. This is every bit as true in popular music (see all the redefining of time and space in hip-hop, fundamental changes!). Same thing with "cuisine" music too, tastes change as perceptions change.

And really - all post AACM music is based on overt assumptions about the natures of time and space, as overt about it as it's evolutionary ancestors were implied - the biggest of all Big Bangs of the African Diaspora was the introduction of and collisions with new notions of time and space, not just in music, but in every aspect of life, for All Concerned.

But it's also cool that you can hear old musics form anywhere in the world and still get to that - auditory models of time and space being formed, created, and communicated. "Old" music in terms of age, perhaps, but really, at root, the same thing as "new" musics. And just as easily corrupted or stillborn by notions of control, imposition, as the man said, "propaganda" music, then, now, forever. Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life (the best Cannonball solo ever).

Anyway, I found the whole notion of those introductory sentences to be one of those out-of-left-field things that was one of those "wow, yeah!" moments, some pretty obscure essay about an even more obscure composer, this guy is basically thinking out loud to himself, and he hits on something that has possibly/probably universal implications.

Thank you, liner notes. Glad you're still working this particular room!

 

[A Lark Ascending]

Well, it would be a novel way of reorganising record shops. The 'cuisine' and 'propaganda' sections on the ground floor for the riff-raff; the 'philosophy' sections upstairs for the more refined (complimentary glass of fine wine for every purchaser).  There could be a warning sign on the stairs - 'Time and Being' or 'Time and Space' being communed with above. 

The whole thing reads to me as standard 'invent an abstract theory and then shoehorn the music you like into the ideas that you approve of.' 

One of the most frightening things to happen in 2016 is the attack on 'experts' - what do experts know about the economy? why do I need an expert to carry out my heart by-pass?. But when you see highly educated people coming out with cobblers like this you understand at least one of the reasons for that suspicion.

Sorry - I'm being sarcastic but this sort of thing drives me nuts. Way too much space in liner notes, programmes etc is taken up with it when the space [and time!] could be better used to give the listener (especially the new, uninitiated listener) a bit of specific guidance as to what the composer intended (as far as is known) in the music.

Music can do all sorts of things from giving you a ditty to whistle to having your brain really challenged trying to unknot how all those different lines are working together or how a piece has been carefully organised to provide a sense of balance (or been disrupted, to throw off the balance). It doesn't need artificial theories projected onto it.  

Edited November 30, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks - now I feel a bit better after not having understood much of what this writer may have tried to get at.

[JSngry]

Doesn't seem that complicated to me, not really.

[Big Beat Steve]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Doesn't seem that complicated to me, not really.

Maybe if you'd recap in a NUTSHELL (straightforward, no meandering) what the essence of that statement is, then?

That might help.

And even then I'd probably not see what the final two paragraphs havegot  to do with the preceding statements. Who being influenced by whom (or allowing oneself to be influenced) - or not - has got to do what exactly with the "types" and "purposes" of music at large?

[JSngry]

ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S NUTSHELL = philosophy is usually considered the normal medium for contemplations about space & time, i.e. - "being". Music perhaps offers a superior medium for the same contemplations. The author also notes how music, in this case "classical" music, reflects new realities of space and time as such realities are discovered/uncovered in a more tangible form than does philsophical writings. Also, the various "national" characteristics of compositional methods are rendered less relevant going forth, as the ability to absorb information globally and objectively (at least less geo-specifically) increases.

MY OWN NUTSHELL = The author differentiates between "philosophical", "cuisine", "propaganda", and no doubt other types of music. I myself get his point, but would posit that perhaps he's on to more than he realizes here with this whole "auditory model of time and space thing", that all types of music provide such models. We talk about a band being "tight" or "loose", or "stiff" or "relaxed" or "in a  groove" or any other number of such descriptions, these are all notions based on how the music occupies it's space in its time and how we feel about that. Statements are made all the time, consciously or not, made as well as received.

Really, it's some very basic stuff. You can't avoid time and you can't avoid space. These are things that happen whether you choose to be conscious of them or not. Maybe for some it's more simple, or just more pleasurable, to not engage too consciously, if at all. Different strokes, then. Life goes on, and when's lunch?

 

[Big Beat Steve]

Yes, your own nutshell does make sense. But can you define "types" and "purposes" of music by the time and space the respective category of music "occupies"? Without wanting to go into philosophical contemplations (not my cuppa, really ...), at first sight it seems to me like there must be HUGE overlaps. Can't there be both "cuisine" (gutsy?? ) and "philosophical" (brainy?? ) music that crams its space in time just as full due to different kinds of intenseness (but intenseness in both cases), for example?

I may have missed something there but if it boils down to music being perceived (and probably perceived differently?) in terms of how it occupes its space in (its) time, then I am having a hard time of NOT writing that "somebody is stating the obvious".

 

[JSngry]

Well, in my view, there are massive overlaps, overlaps that are natural, and, yes, obvious. But ours is not as widely held opinion as we'd like to think. Whenever musics turn to a more explicit/conscious/focused/whatever examinations of things like space and time, there are those who perceive it to be some kind of ART or other constructed artifice, when in reality, it's equally possible that it's little more than a natural outgrowth of what has already been going on in any culture. I don't know if "self-consciousness" and "self-awareness" equate to the same thing in the vernacular, but it seems to me that one is applied pejoratively and the other approvingly, and that runs the risk of then becoming a focus on minimalizing the process regardless of the results. I mean, and I'm just speaking for myself, the most "brainy" stuff gets to my "gut", and the most "gutsy" stuff gets to my "brain". It's the in-between stuff that I find myself equivocating, justifying, "consuming" rather than actually "engaging".

As for "types" and "purposes", I think it's useful to remove barriers that exist only because of external or imposed constraints. The notion that a Bartok quartet should be engaged differently than a Little Joe Blue 45 which should then be engaged differently than a Coltrane LP or a Bulgarian wedding band or some Mali tribal music etc etc etc...of course there are differences, but they're all people making music, and at that level, there is at least as much to be viewed as common than as different.

Pretty sure that this won't matter to most people, but it does to me, if only because opening horizons works for me a helluva lot better than does building walls, if those are to be the choices one is offered.

[paul secor]

Sometimes I think about what made me listen to certain music at certain times. Yesterday I listened to some early Lightning Hopkins and followed up with a solo Paul Rutherford CD. I thought about it afterwards and realized that in both cases I wanted to hear some spare music with depth and spacious overtones. That kind of thought is about as far as I go.

Having said that, I don't understand what the liner note writer in the first post was saying at all. That's probably just me. I guess I'm a simple guy.