Article:
Resuscitating Art Music (NARAS Journal),
John Steinmetz
Some scattered notes referring to John Steinmetz's Resuscitating Art Music
... 'the ability to pay attention has become endangered. As a result, art forms
that require the audienceis attention are endangered, too....'
Having been away from the music scene for about ten years I
feel like someone who, after serving a sentence in prison,
comes out and doesn't recognise the world.
With one of the first bands I used to play with (in Italy
in 1969) we were mixing Zappian rock with Indian, Arabic
and African melodies, contemporary a-tonalities and sharp
free jazz, plus live acting, machinery noise and film
projections. People coming to our gigs would think we were
mad and yet they would listen and discuss.
The concerts of jazz and rock musicians were crowded with
enthusiastic and attentive audiences, often unaware that
the same musicians were, more often than not, ignored in
their own countries. The same people would be found in the
audience of contemporary and electronic music, only
'straight' classical had a specific and limited audience.
'World music' was hardly available in recorded form and
often it came only as tapes recorded 'in the field' by
travellers. There were various radio stations broadcasting
non commercial and unusual music (they probably all went
bust for the lack of advertising!). Despite the insularity
and relative backwardness of Italy at the time, music was
socially very important and young people were living it,
using it, participating in it in a way that I canit see
today, not even in the presumedly more advanced England
where I am living.
The first impression is that all that is left of that
social sense of music is the fact that it serves as a means
for aggregation and stress release.
Typically that generation used to sit and listen to the
music as a ritual, not as a background, as a subject worth
of exploration and deeply linked to a more general
theoretical discussion. Is it the lack of time that makes
it so difficult now? Is it a general shallowness that
overtook content in music, reflecting the change in
society? Is it that the mass will never be allowed to
develop a critical and refined sense of music, just as in
the centuries past a certain kind of music (and art as a
whole) was only for the rich and nobles? Are these
bourgeois reactionary thoughts?
Zappa, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf Generator, Soft Machine,
Henry Cow, Feminist Improvising Group, Flying Lizard,
Matching Mole, Tuxedo Moon, Faust, King Crimson, Can, Devo,
DNA to mention but a few (and wildly assorted) that first
come to mind, were all recognisable from the first few
phrases. Today I struggle to distinguish between most of
the young bands and, when I feel that what I am hearing is
boring, recycled and monotonous, I am seized by the doubt
that I am aging and not able to feel the sense of the
present anymore.
When, in the late 70s, music started to reduce its
structure to Tum-Cha TumTum-Cha I got really worried, when
it shrunk further and only Uhmpf Uhmpf Uhmpf Uhmpf were
left I gave up. Music hooliganism is what it feels to me, a
blind obtuse attempt to drown the noise, speed and
shallowness of the society we live in with louder, faster
and shallower sounds. The noise surrounding us and the need
to overpower it with even louder noise - mind: I like the
sound of noise when it has an inner architecture - The
compulsory fast pace we have to keep up with also means no
time to spend in listening, understanding, paying attention
and drawing personal conclusions.
What was developing (particularly in the 70's) into an
interesting merge of different styles, open to influences
of all kinds, was slowly drowned by a uniform rhythm that
didn't leave space to variation and composition. Was that
because of the need to seamlessy mix tracks in clubs? Was
it a commercial choice? Is it that the industry thought it
dangerous to stimulate the young brains? Is it that music
shifted from the state of art and social statement to pure
commercial product? Can it be considered simply as a tool
for trance in the new version of tribal ritual gatherings?
I have often been told that the full power of techno,
hip-hop, rave music et al can only be grasped and
appreciated under the effect of drugs, this sounds rather
absurd as, in my old fashioned conception, if anything
music itself is a powerful drug that can instigate fancyful
flights of imagination; it would be sad if drugs were used
as a means to make up for lack of content.
What also bugs me, as a person before than as a musician,
is knowing that for the vast majority of the world
population it is still (perhaps even more than it was)
impossible to be concerned with anything more than
surviving for another day; surviving from starvation,
illness or the neighbours hand. Can we afford to be
concerned with the state of art music in the face of this
reality?
The lack of background to enable comprehension is certainly
a major problem but who is to say that some more complex
understanding is necessary? How can one think to impose
this concept on someone who canit be bothered? How can the
seed of curiosity be planted if it doesn't happen at school
and in the environment where children live?
The role of technological development in the music's change
has been dramatic. The power made available by the new
tools is enormous and, theoretically, should have enabled
more variety and richness. In reality the impression is
that the result has been quite the opposite. If 20 years
ago one would have recognised the musician, often now only
the tools are recognisable. Again, it may be my
unfamiliarity with today's popular (in its literary sense)
music, but I am really struggling to listen to everything
with an unbiased ear and, inevitably, only find interesting
music in areas that are only for a minority, an Elite that
is not too dissimilar to the royal and bourgeois restricted
audiences of a century ago. The present reality is a
'racist' (in its widest sense) condition that reserves art
in general to a mostly middle class white audience.
This is not to say that there is no interesting music being
produced today, the contamination between rock and jazz,
classical, contemporary and world folklore resulted in
beautiful and compelling works: Kronos Quartet, Bill
Frisell, John Zorn, Don Byron, Hilliard/Garbarek, Material
are the first few examples that spring to mind. The traces
of composers like Reich and Cage as well as those of the
German electronic pioneers can be detected in some of the
music in the clubs too. This makes me think that maybe
minds are opening up again, after the flattening of the
80s, and more people are beginning to cross borders in
exploratory sonic research which can only lead to positive
results. The fact is that it is really hard to discover
these works, it is almost impossible to hear these artists
broadcasted on the radio for instance; they are not part of
daily reality, they represent again the music of an
intellectual minority and this is sad, it feels like a
total failure of what was seemingly achievable 20 years
ago. Or maybe this is just a naive and idealistic opinion.
Music doesn't need to be cerebral and abstruse to be good
but, at the same time, it can't be reduced to a primary
beat. Primitive in a purist sense is good, what isn't good
is primitivism as a recession phase of our capacity for
articulation. If language is what distinguishes our species
the impoverishment of language, be it verbal, musical or
any other form of expression, is something to be worried
about.
Is this whole discussion an irrelevant concern or are there
many who share it and are doing something about it? What is
a musician, composer, producer meant to do if they want not
only to survive with their music and share it with
likeminded people but also diffuse it and make it reach
wider audiences? Is this a sort of 'colonialist' intent,
wanting to go and impose my/our taste to what we consider
the savages and convert them? Is this a snobbish attitude?
I hope (and believe) not.
I would really like to hear other points of view on these
subjects. While I am undergoing an 'intensive care' to
fill my ten-year gap in music (and music technology)
developments any exchange of opinion with people involved
in music creation would be very welcome.
Roberto Battista (liquid Light interactive multimedia and electronic
publishing, UK) roberto@liquidlight.co.uk
-- Roberto Battista
posted 11/10/96