The avantgarde's relation to popular music
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Topic: The avantgarde's relation to popular music
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Subject: The avantgarde's relation to popular music
Date Posted: April 05 2015 at 08:26
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Note to admins: I'm not sure this thread necessarily belongs in this particular forum, so if you feel it does not then feel free to move it. Maybe "Prog Blogs" would be an easier fit, but I'm far from sure myself. The metal fanzine Black Ivory Tower, which has recently branched out into industrial/neofolk too, now published an article titled http://blackivorytower.com/2015/04/04/the-importance-of-the-underground/" rel="nofollow - The Importance of the Underground which discusses the relationship of underground or countercultural music scenes to the culture at large. It starts out with an analysis of how in the world of classical/orchestral music, most of the basic theoretical grammar/language of Western music traditions was formulated and laid down by the avantgarde/elite music circles before being popularized and filtered down into more accessible forms of music. Looks like it has been that way for centuries up to and including the 20th century avantgarde classical as embodied by Schönberg, Stockhausen and friends. A central point in the essay is then that at some point in the 20th century, the "hard core" of countercultural music scenes that aren't strictly part of "high culture" then either take that place or become an integral link in the chain of disseminating avant-garde music ideas into the cultural sphere at large. I don't really consider it a coincidence that, perhaps because that's one music scene where it's the most transparent how new ideas flow downstream from the underground into the mainstream. I'm posting this here for the reason that the essay actually uses avant-prog in general, Henry Cow and the Rock In Opposition movement in particular, as examples. This ties into the many "effort-posting" threads I have made concerning artists who are more influential than popular, as well as on how some music maintains intergenerational appeal and which does not. How much has not just the RIO movement, but more appropriately people like Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa done to disseminate the innovations of innovators in modern classical and free jazz into audiences who aren't otherwise familiar with them or might not have heard of people like Igor Stravinsky and Ornette Coleman to begin with? This becomes even more "meta" if you consider how Beefheart and Zappa might be entering that "more influential than popular" zone, I think Beefheart himself isn't quite as popular as his disciple Tom Waits for instance. Then there's his (and by extension Coleman, Stravinsky, Varese etc)'s influences on post-punk bands like The Fall or Public Image Limited and noise rockers like The Boredoms by osmosis... where there's also another cultural generation gap. To make the whole thing even more confusing, there is again those groups' influences on the sorta-mainstream through much contemporary indie rock. This ends up with a sort of "infinite regress" of music influences that very few people have the time and resources to keep track of on an in-depth level of familiarity. I mean, I like quite a bit of the avant-prog mentioned in this paragraph but it's unlikely I'll ever have more than an entry-level knowledge of those parts of jazz and classical I mentioned. Maybe it'll be possible under the condition of a certain active initiative to learn, but that might be easier said than done. Which brings us to the central thesis of that article: Its author makes the argument that for a wider music culture to advance, and for that matter any kind of cultural sphere as it also uses examples from the world of literature in T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, it needs some kind of avantgarde or underground that works from an in-depth awareness of their artform's history to advance the medium or genre's evolution further with no concern for whether or not it will appeal to a wider audience than an esoteric niche. Their impact upon the culture at large, even if it comes to reshape it, will then by necessity be through cultural osmosis. Everything genuinely original in more wider accessible, more popular culture will have to be downstream from the countercultural scenes' elite circles. This makes my namedrop of Zappa as an example interesting, perhaps as a basis for a potential counter-argument, since his entire mission statement or motivating artistic ethos was to bridge the gap between "high" and "low culture" if not eroding the border between the two. Did all of that make sense? I'm not sure how much I agree or disagree with the argument made in the essay, but it does add an interesting new perspective on many of the debates we've had on this forum. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Replies:
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: April 05 2015 at 09:11
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^ I doubt that either the Fall or PIL (read Smith and Lydon) have ever heard Ornette Coleman or Varese yet you seem to state by some unwitting 'cultural osmosis', they are a discernible influence on both? Reductio ad absurdum: are the Rubettes and Showaddywaddy an unacknowledged influence on Ornette Coleman? Please define 'cultural osmosis' lest we start to believe you some sort of aesthetic anorak ------------- 
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 05 2015 at 09:19
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I refer to how The Fall and PIL might have absorbed and continued some of the innovations those classical and jazz musicians introduced without ever having heard or being familiar with them, because they absorbed them second-hand through Can, Cpt. Beefheart, Faust etc. Basically, they continue lineages without being aware of them. My point is exactly that according to that article's theory, Lydon and Smith can be influenced by Coleman and Varese without ever having listened to either. Granted, what most of its target audience will conclude is more likely metal songwriters being influenced by older classical music secondhand or thirdhand through say Deep Purple or Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: April 05 2015 at 10:05
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OK, but 'cultural osmosis' re Post Punk is but a flimsy type of analogy to (cough) 'passive smoking'. Let's see, here's 3rd generation blow ya dig?: Zappa dug Varese, Faust dug Zappa, Mark E Smith (maybe) dug Faust ergo, the grumpiest man in Rock is influenced by Varese....It's not a massive step thereafter to stating that birdsong and motherese were pivotal ingredients in both the Rubettes and Henry Threadgill... (You'd be a shoo-in for a job at the Wire) -------------
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Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: April 06 2015 at 02:21
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Ravel composed a blues.
------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 06 2015 at 02:52
Well, I'm not that convinced of that myself but it's what the article's point relies on as a central premise. Sorry I didn't make that clear enough. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
ExittheLemming wrote:Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: April 06 2015 at 02:54
Apologies for presuming you supported the article's premise -------------
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 06 2015 at 05:28
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For the record, I think a better analogy would be that everyone writing crime novels today is indirectly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whether or not they've actually read either. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: April 06 2015 at 05:57
A bit simplistic for my tastes. I'm not sure that someone in the South Pole, that has never seen or heard a TV or read a book, so to speak, could possibly have anything to do, or have read Poe or Doyle. This was the case in many of the arts in other countries, before the advent of the explorers that overcame them and tried to change their culture. All of Latin America lost a part of its culture to that, but to say that an Indian tribe in the Amazon that can not read by our standards can not create stories on their own ... that could rival any writer in our culture ... is a bit strange. Like the American Indian, their culture was to a degree an oral exercise, and not a written one. There is some literature, written afterwards, that delineates many stories in different shades and shapes, and in fact, you can find a film or two trying to work on these legends, which are much older than the literature you describe. In fact, it is much more likely that they gathered some ideas from the news of their ancestors in these "new lands", although a connection to the artistic and musical connections would be far more difficult to establish. It is well known that the European invaders obliterated all their art and customs as much as possible, to "save" them from their evil ways. That's not to say that many missionaries were not doing a good thing, but a culture that is being "improved" by outside influences, will eventually fall to the stronger influence sooner or later. And the European had "fire sticks" that the Indians did not. If, by the title you mention, think that "avant-garde" relates directly to popular music, my thoughts tend to "avant-garde" almost always being a strong rejection of popular music and its (present) commercialization. The bigger concern, today, is that even that which is considered "avant-garde" has to come up in its time and place. I believe that most of these in the 20th century were all reactions to the environment and the things that were taking place. Even Picasso, said that you had to wake people up ... and this was continued through the Surrealists and all the way through the 60's arts, music and literature, all of which had a strong social context, and some of it did, and some did not, get the commercial and political atonement that it might have been looking for, but the minute you say this is "avant-garde" and that isn't, you end up isolating some theater, film and literature and the arts, that was just as explosive and different, that influenced the likes of Faust and Henry Cow a lot more than otherwise. Not as in copy, but in style being similar ... but saying that what Henry Cow did on three or four albums was not already a part of many European traditions, I would think is a bit strange and weird. While not the same, much of it had started way earlier and at times is even considered to have grown from even the likes of Weill and Brecht. The early synthesizer folks, up until Beaver and Krause, for example, were trying to see if that instrument could create sound spheres that were "recognizable" to our ears, and eventually the likes of Carlos, Tomita and others ended up making it even more accessible to our ears. It was quite "avant-garde" in those days until Carlos came about, and what it did to Bach was "cute" and "fun", which is more of a popular attitude towards music, than the classical attitudes ever were towards that same music. And it is conceivable (though not likely) that a strange futuristic film would help make sense of it for us! Popular music is rarely "innovative", to my tastes, but I was brought up on classical first and only started hearing popular/commercial music after my 15th year ... and this the more important barrier to change and break, than where it comes from. One can only hope that "popular music" can rise just past the top ten ideals, so it can also be considered better music and given some respect, as opposed to it being considered a dumb down version of what is considered proper and better music. How much of that "popular music" relates to the "avant-garde" is, in my book a reaction in many arts ... not always visible, although I am becoming more and more afraid that it will likely be harder to happen these days, as the cynicism and appreciation for different things is taking a very bad toll in the media that wants you to suck up to the "normal" ... of which PA is also a representative! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 06 2015 at 06:45
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Yeah, one of the article's points is that the ideal of the avantgarde always works from a historical consciousness. So even when they're reacting against a tradition, they're continuing its lineage perhaps just by taking it in another direction by still using it as a starting point. I'm reminded of what William Bennett from the electronic industrial project Whitehouse said about his inspiration from Throbbing Gristle, he didn't imitate them but instead did with the style what TG didn't. It's the idea of the "artistic genius" as formulated by Immanuel Kant and others, who always "writes a new set of rules" for their respective art form but expanding on what other masters did before them and pointing to new directions other artists can continue. Maybe not even as a straight continuation, but more as counter-reaction. Then again, that is easier said than done. I guess it depends on how much you buy that kind of "big picture" mythmaking as a perspective on art and culture. Which does run into major methodological problems, but it can also be difficult to construct a coherent overview to interpret on the background of without also drawing that type of narrative structure in broader strokes than the historical record might actually support to begin with.
------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 07 2015 at 00:01
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 07 2015 at 09:18
Well, there's a reply that is the diametric opposite of (making) sense. Art Rock is NOT Art Music. Art Music is a distinctly separate musicological classification from Popular Music and Traditional/Folk Music. A genre of Popular Music that fails to be popular does not automatically become Art Music just as a piece of Classical Music that becomes popular does not automatically become Popular Music. Art Rock is genre of Popular Music, and so is Jazz and Progressive Rock and Pop Music. [Some esoteric forms of Jazz are sometimes called Art Music but this is not universally agreed by all academic musicologist, most regard Jazz as a genre of Popular Music regardless of how technically structured (or unstructured) it is]. Also, Art Rock is not Progressive Rock however synonymous and interchangeable *some* people think those two terms are. In the great Venn diagram of Popular Music there is Prog Rock that is not Art Rock; Art Rock that is not Prog Rock and Rock Music that intersects both. Stating that Art Rock and Progressive Rock are in some way Art Music is a gross misconception and somewhat rather pretentious [adjective: attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed]. Using the literal meaning (huh? "real meaning") of words like "Progressive" and "Art" used in noun-phrases that name Popular Music genres is as ridiculous (and nonsensical) as claiming that Baroque Pop is form of Baroque Music of the same canon of music as composed by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi - all it displays is a low degree of musical knowledge and understanding. If we remove the "Classical" from Classical Art Music compositions that reference folk tunes such as those by Ligeti (Violin Concerto) or Bartok (Three Rondos) what remains are not Folk tunes, they are just melodic motifs [ref: Music Theory, Motif - 'the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity'] that were influenced by (in these examples, Hungarian) Folk Music By the same argument: remove the "Rock" from Art Rock and the remainder is not Art Music - for example remove the Rock from Won't Get Fooled Again or Baba O'Riley and you are left with a repeating arpeggiated chord sequence - to the uninformed this sounds the same as minimalist serialism but it is not. There is no comparison between this simple arpeggio chord sequence and the continuously evolving layered note structures of In C or A Rainbow In Curved Air. So while Townshend was influenced by Riley, he didn't actually create a piece of music that can be compared to Minimalist Art Music. Also, while Riley incorporated avant garde into his Art Music compositions, they are not wholly Avant Garde so any influence of his music on later Progressive Rock musicians (such as The Who or Curved Air) is not a direct connection between Art/Progressive Rock and Avant Garde or to Art Music in general. Similarly, the avant garde feel of Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets or Crimson's Moonchild remains firmly rooted in Experimental Rock Music however much they were influenced by the Avant Garde (or not), again, remove the "Rock" and the remainder is not Experimental Art Music. Experimental and Avant Garde are terminologies that span all musicological classifications in much the same way as "Red Car" describes a colour of automobile that spans all forms of vehicle design. A red sports car is not the same "genre" of vehicle as a red saloon car. No one would (or should) consider Progressive Trance to be a form of Progressive Rock just because they have the word "Progressive" in their name. Therefore Avant Garde Progressive Rock (or Avant Prog as we call it here) is not Avant Garde Art Music, it is Rock Music that incorporates some Avant Garde-like elements. The same can be said of other Rock Music that incorporates Avant Garde-like elements such as The Fall and PIL. Remove the Rock from any of those and what remains is not Avant Garde Art Music by any definition. This is how and why John Lydon and Mark E Smith can create Rock Music that, as Iain said, can carry the avant garde sobriquet without knowing anything of the earlier Avant Garde Art Music movements. Sorry none of that addresses, or even concerns the OP question and its related premise. I have my own thoughts on the subject that I have been attempting to jell into some cohesive form for public consumption, but at present it is merely a mental list of tenuous opinion and thought. Distractions such as Svetonio's post are not helping but I deemed it necessary to clear my mind of his nonsensical assertions first. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 08 2015 at 04:16
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I'm curious to read your own thoughts on the subject, Dean. Probably won't have time to read or process them until the weekend, though, it will be interesting to see how much the article's thesis really holds up under examination: I. e. that innovations in popular music flow downstream from the avantgarde "art music" world through the medium of music scenes that aren't really part of the latter, but more subcultural in nature. Once again I'm reminded of Frank Zappa's claim that The Beatles ripped off most of their experimental elements on later albums from his work, which he in turn had from more academic work, but Zappa being Zappa I'm not sure if he was being 100% serious. Also, previous threads on this subject I recall bringing up the conclusion that reconciling "art music" into popular styles like rock is harder than it looks and it's limited how much advanced compositional structure can be integrated into those forms. The few classically trained musicians I've heard voice an opinion on the subject almost uniformly find Beefheart/Zappa/Rock-In-Opposition type "avant-rock" and the Zeuhl movement more successful at integrating classical, jazz etc. into rock music than the most popular British symphonic progressive rock scenes, for what it's worth, finding stuff like Genesis and Yes at heart pop/rock in substance and structure with classical technical flourishes. Which is why I guess the article I linked to specifically uses Henry Cow as an example, notice that the author refers to him pursuing a degree in musicology several times. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: April 08 2015 at 08:36
I'd probably agree with this, as the RIO/Avant crowd never seemed to concern themselves with doing 'adaptations' of classical art music c/f ELP, The Nice, Tomita, Wendy nee Walter Carlos, Ekseption, Collegium Musicum etc. Perhaps their disavowal of the cliched structures of Pop/Rock and a contrary, niche fan-base, meant they never felt any need to be taken 'seriously' by a mainstream audience (who ignored them regardless so that's maybe a moot point....). Something like Close to the Edge has always struck me as a pop/rock medley albeit segued with very posh glue (from Wakeman) That's not to say I don't enjoy it, but even I can discern it's tantamount to 'just' a very long Pop/Rock song brilliantly arranged into discrete sections. -------------
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Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: April 10 2015 at 08:36
I think an even better analogy would be asking Sherlock Holmes to describe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 10 2015 at 12:06
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I had intended to ignore this, but ah phucquit, I've got writers block on my post for the OP, so what the hell...
Nothing makes me smile more than watching someone labour an analogy or metaphor to the point of absurdity, just picturing the imaginary victory dance that may have ensued as the author clicked "send" is enough to cause an involuntary chuckle. See, the thing is, and this concept is something that even some of the erudite people of PA do seem to have a big problem with, the thing is: there is nothing wrong with Simon's analogy - it does not matter whether it is correct or not, it is only a figurative illustration of the point he is trying to make. All you have to do is accept the premise at face-value in relation to the thing it is analogous to - that is your sole buy-in to the analogy. The analogy is either a good one (you make the analogous connection) or a bad one (you don't get the connection). If you can think of a million and one exceptions to his analogy it really doesn't matter one iota, breaking his analogy doesn't alter his original point. It's like if I say my car is telephone-box red and you reply that your telephone-boxes are yellow therefore my car must be yellow, the existence of yellow telephone boxes doesn't magically alter the colour of my red car, it remains red in spite of the rainbow of colour variants that telephone-boxes are available in. So... this [oral] crime/detective novel
 ------------- What? |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 10 2015 at 22:44
Well, the fact is that so many of young clasically trained musicians prefer the avantgarde over the Classical music. That's a matter of taste. However, it doesn't mean that the fusion of rock and Classical music in late 60s / early 70s and beyond was less avantgarde per se. And, what actually is the most important thing in whole story, it doesn't failed to generate a new genre of Art music from its rock roots. In fact, it's the same thing what Henry Cow did do but in another genre i.e. avant-rock. Perhaps those trained musicians you mentioned are not big fans of e.g. Mozart, who actually was, let's say, an "art pop star" at his heydays, but his oeuvre is (great) Art Music same as the music by their probably favourite Schoenberg. Henry Cow's catalogue is a stunning fusion of avantgarde and rock that is an instant mix which is unable to be separated or treated separately anymore and, consenquently, converting popular music into Art music. However, it is also the case with the best of English Symphonic rock creations that are a fusion of Classical music and rock and (or) pop-rock. The moments of pop here and there is no harm, on contrary, it's great and similar with the case of great Mozart. I love Henry Cow so much (Concerts is my fav album by HC), but above mentioned avantgarde "purists" perhaps need to hear how Yes sounded while performing Heart of the Sunrise at their first apperance at Montreux Jazz Festival in 2003. Although symphonic, at the time when it was released this song was pretty avant per se and yet still timeless & forever separated from popular (rock) music for everyone, as same as Henry Cow's avantgarde instrumentals. If nothing else, the Yes apperance at reputable jazz festival as Montreux as well is the proof of that. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 06:44
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[Thanks Sventonio, you've helped crystallise the disparate thoughts that have been rattling around my head.] It is not a fact that so many of young classically trained musicians prefer the avant-garde over Classical music, that is supposition and a poor one at that. Also, their taste and preference has nothing to do with the structures and flourishes they find in symphonic progressive rock music. Whether they were "fans" of Mozart or Schoenberg is irrelevant, people who are classically trained can analyse the structure of a piece of music regardless of their personal musical preferences. Being popular is not the same as being Pop, what we now call Classical Music was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries but it was not Popular Music. Some of its composers and performers were afforded what we would now call "star" status but they were not (art) pop stars. Popular Music was practically non-existent before the latter half of the 18th Century. Prior to that there was just Art Music and Traditional Music and it was the development of cheap industrialised printing that could mass-produce printed music that lead to http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/apr/04/when-uk-pop-was-born-the-18th-century" rel="nofollow - the rise of Popular Music . This technological change moved music out of the concert hall and into the taverns, inns, dance-halls and tea-rooms. It also signalled a change in patronage and in audience, because now a composer could earn a living by selling their music rather than being paid to write it. To facilitate this change the music became simpler and shorter, for example a minuet section of a symphony could be published in simplified form so that it could be played as a piece of social dance music typical of the Regency Era (see various Jane Austen novels such as Northanger Abbey). Further more, the change to simplicity was something that was already happening in Art Music around 1750. Art Music at that time was undergoing the major change from Baroque to Classical ... this change was probably the most significant one in musical history - Baroque (at that time used as a form of insult, what we now call Baroque music was not called that in its day) was seen as ornate and over-embellished whereas Classical referred to an imagined early period (namely the classic Greek and Roman eras of 2000 years earlier) and was seen as being simpler, refined, restrained and (thus) far more elegant by comparison. How radically different these two forms of Art Music are is beyond the scope of a simple forum post, for example the "Symphony" underwent a radical change from being a loose generic term (for sonata, concerto and opera) to an established compositional structure in its own right. What we are guilty of when applying the term "Symphonic" to modern rock music is essentially in ignorance of this development of the Symphony as an established compositional structure. Music of the Classical Era was the vanguard (vanguard == 'advanced guard' == avant-garde == pioneering) music of its day - it was a "reaction against" the rule-heavy complexity of the then mainstream form of Art Music that we now call Baroque. Mozart was a key figure after-the-event of this "rebellion" against the established norms of Baroque (he was born after the 'advance guard' had instigated the change from Baroque to Classical) ... the "avant-garde reaction" to Baroque had become the mainstream form of Art Music of the Classical era by the time Mozart came to fame. However, as the infamous 'too many notes' quip shows, his compositions were still seen as being a little too baroque (i.e., ornate) by those who had adopted this change in style. They were not criticising his music for being too complex, they were criticising it for being too old fashioned. Mozart however didn't see it that way, he was a composer who wanted the best of both worlds: he revelled in the relaxation of "the rules" that had constricted Baroque era music but wanted to explore some of its virtuosity and complexity. In that respect Mozart was not "avant-garde", nor was he creating a fusion of Baroque and Classical era music, and nor was he tearing up the rule-book of Classical Music composition, he was just continuing the development the already established mainstream Art Music of the Classical era (elegance) without rejecting everything associated with the old-fashioned Baroque era, you could say that [he regarded] creating elegance in composition purely by exercising restraint as akin to throwing the baby out with the bath-water. [Of course, no one would call CPE Bach, Hayden or Salieri 'avant-garde' composers either because the term wasn't used as a descriptive for musicians until the early 20th century, but what they were doing was reacting against the established norms, which is the same thing.] The following Romantic era of Western Art Music by contrast was not a "reaction" or "rebellion" against the then established mainstream Art Music of the Classical era, but a development of it in much the same way as the music of Mozart was, the restrained elegant simplicity of Classical era was allowed to have expression of emotion, and virtuoso solo's were more accepted. So (to drag this post screaming and kicking back to the OP), transitions in musical forms from one style to another can be either a "reaction" against something or they can be a development out of something. One we can rightfully call 'avant-garde' and the other we cannot. 'Avant-garde' is not a style of music. Nor is it some bolt-on filigree ornamentation that can be used to "radicalise" an existing form of music. It is an approach and the music created using such an approach is firmly "of its time and place". So copying the style of a piece of 'avant-garde' music is not being 'avant-garde' any more than creating a piece of music in the style of Classical Era Art Music is a "reaction" against the Art Music of the Baroque Era. Being "of its time and place" is key here. Once the initial 'avant-garde' "reaction" has occurred everything that follows after that is a development out of it (and has the propensity of becoming kitsch as a result). Movements and factions that create 'avant-garde' music such, as Rock In Opposition, are limited to those musicians that initially pioneered the movement - we can continue to call later musicians who copied the resulting style of music RIO if we so wish, but they are not 'avant-garde' in the strictest use of the terminology. The only reference modern 'avant-garde' musicians should make to earlier 'avant-garde' musicians is to acknowledge their existence and not replicate what they achieved. We can only use words like "reaction" when what is being produced is actually a reaction to something and in doing so creates something new. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Symphonic Progressive Rock (and Prog in general) was not an 'avant-garde' reaction to the established norms of Rock Music, nor is it a fusion of Rock and Classical music but a development out of the extant Rock Music. As many have said, it is Rock Music with classical-like embellishment and that is a musicologically accurate assessment. I have seen people comment that such-and-such piece of Progressive Rock is symphonic because it has movements and therefore a symphony-like structure and this is a grossly inaccurate reading (and understanding) of both the piece of music in question and of Art Music Symphonies. ------------- What? |
Posted By: thwok
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 07:26
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Posts like Dean's about the real meaning of "avant-garde" make me extremely jealous. ------------- I am the funkiest man on the planet! |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 08:43
Excellent post certainly.  I suspect I just misunderstand this bit but are you saying that an (extreme) musical transition from one style to another that is sourced from a reaction to or rejection of prevailing values is by definition avant garde? It could be argued that Punk was a reaction against the prevailing status quo of hit parade pop blandness and the bloated pot noodles of Prog but not even Punk's most strenuous supporters would ever claim it was avant garde. I agree that the vast majority of what we (loosely) call 'Symphonic Prog' is something of a misnomer but would you have the same misgivings anout the Symphonic credentials of Karn Evil 9 by ELP?, which for me, treats themes, motivitic content and developmental transitions with the same academic rigour as that exercised by classical composers from any era. -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 09:00
Thank you.
In reacting to what they perceived to be the status quo isn't a wholly accurate reading of the status quo, the status quo was not just Prog, but included Glam Rock, (what we now call) Classic Rock and lots of other established popular music forms that were part of the corporate music business. Also their reaction did not create something new per sey in a musical sense in that it was more a return to basics as exemplified by 1960s the garage rock scene of the USA. Certainly however, the Punk scene itself carried that "shock of the new" that we associate with avant-garde in art and culture.
Karn Evil 9 does indeed carry all those traits and I would also point to The Three Fates as bearing some closer similarity to classical music in structure and perhaps even in composition than anything created by Yes or Genesis. However, neither piece is recognisable as a concerto, sonata or symphony in the classical music sense of multi-movement pieces. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 09:11
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It's been my experience that prog rock fans will distort the genre into being Avant Garde in order to place it in a more sophisticated light. This never changes. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 09:52
Which is rather funny if you think about it, considering that at the apex of album sales by the big prog bands in the mid-70s, critics were already labelling them as "dinosaurs". A very limited shelf-life for avant-gardism, obviously. So, rather than avant-garde it was more of a rear action in the baggage train.  ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: WeepingElf
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 11:08
Fair. Progressive rock was not a reaction against anything. It was an attempt to develop rock as it was in the late 60s further. They did not say, "rock as it is now is bullsh*t", they said "rock as it is now can do more than just 3'20" singles". Some - not all - prog bands did that by appropriating means of bourgeois art music, such as the sonata form. In the beginning, however, classical music did not play much of a role. Rock musicians just wanted to try something new, and this resulted in the sort of rock avant-garde movements we now, somewhat inappropriately, call "psychedelic rock" (inappropriate because not all "psychedelic" music was in affirmative reference to "psychedelic" drugs). The outcomes of this experimentation were different in different places - you just can't say that the Grateful Dead "sound like" the Velvet Underground, and Kraftwerk is another game again - but had a lot in common: they expanded the rock song form by means of collective improvisation and repetitive patterns. Many bands never got beyond that, and were criticized - somewhat unjustly - of "noodling on a single chord for half an hour". Progressive rock was the next step: some musicians, especially in the UK but also elsewhere, were not content with those amorphous collective improvisations, and sought for ways to bring structure into their long pieces. An obvious place to look was, of course, "classical" music, which had had structured long forms for centuries. But that was just one possibility, and questions such as "Is Close to the Edge really in sonata form?" are somewhat besides the point. The main long form of progressive rock is what is often called the "multimovement suite" which, however, is not a Baroque suite in any way, though it gets close to what is called a "suite" in 19th-century "program music", and perhaps better called, in classical terms, rhapsody. Of course, the academic avant-garde had moved way beyond that by then, and from their standpoint, progressive rock was just picking up what "real" art music had thrown out as obsolete decades ago. But then, the academic avant-garde has been aloof of the general musical audience from the start, with Schoenberg founding his "Society for Private Musical Performances" as early as 1918. ------------- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf "What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes." |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 11:32
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Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 11:41
| By the way, it should be noted that the avantgarde always easier could be born from "ugly" than from "nice"; more avant "effects" are coming from "chaos" than from an "order" (structure). However, there is not any strictly rule from where avantgarde comes. So many people wrongly equate the avantgarde with ("ugly") abstractions. In fact, prog artists are like nomads, moving in different directions. Some in this wandering remain in the abstract, while others again and again reintroducing emotion in their (Art) music. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 12:13
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What ?!! ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 12:17
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 12:45
This. And I agree Jörg, rhapsody is indeed perhaps a better term for the episodic nature of multi-part (thou' not necessarily multi-movement) long-form Progressive Rock. This also makes the lyrical connection to epic poetry that the term originally derived from. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 13:05
I presumed that too, and I agree with him that this is a misconception. To illustrate this I would cite Art Nouveau - an academically accepted avant-garde art-form from fin de siècle era of art that was neither chaotic nor "ugly" however much of an abstraction some of it may appear to be. In music avant-garde is also often wrongly equated to atonality and dissonance and [is accused of being] devoid of emotion (which is also not true). My failure to follow his line of reasoning occurs in his last two sentences, but since he has resolutely (and petulantly) decided never to respond to one of my posts directly, he will be unable aid my understanding by explaining that to me in a post so expanding on that beyond a "What ?!!" would be superfluous.
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 14:40
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Thanks for finally getting around to crystallizing your thoughts on the subject, Dean and Svetonio. For the record there are several competing definitions of "avantgarde" in art history, but I think the first person to define the term accurately was Walter Benjamin. If I remember correctly, he defined it in opposition to commercialized art or "kitsch", another term I also think either him or Theodor W. Adorno popularized. I'll write down my replies more in detail later this weekend. I think it's relevant that the article I linked to is from a webzine specializing in metal and industrial/neofolk, two genres whose history fit Dean's definition of avant-garde more. A lot of specific "movements" in metal history seem to start as reactions against other scenes, I think the earliest groups also grew out of psychedelic rock, but from the perspective that specific scene had exhausted its possibilities... then there was the NWoBHM reacting against punk turning into new wave and the earlier metal groups turning into stadium rock, the earliest thrash/black/death metal groups reacting against glam/"hair metal" et cetera. I think industrial then was reacting against electronic music being assimilated by pop but I'm not 100% certain as I remember Throbbing Gristle being openly inspired by Giorgio Moroder's production tenure in the disco scene, and neofolk in turn reacting against what industrial started turning into. Can any of the http://blog.queen-of-darkness.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Goth_Type_7__The_Rivet_Head_by_Trellia.jpg" rel="nofollow - rivetheads here fill in? ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: LearsFool
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 15:28
Self-descriptions of Throbbing Gristle's MO in their original "mission" don't strike me as being anti-anything; while they said they weren't in the mind to create "attractive music", they said that they really just wanted to provoke thought and reactions, without apparent regard to fighting any musical trends. COUM Transmissions, the performance art collective the band grew out of, come across as similar in intent to TG, much as they took from Dada. The whole continuum, I'd say, was an intentional Dada-lite. The Giorgio Moroder influence was very much there on 20 Jazz Funk Greats, and as Chris Carter explains it in a Q&A he and Cosey Fanni-Tutti did with FACT Magazine, much as the band wanted to prank easy listening fans, there was an element of introducing something new to them from the false sense of security the cover provided. To, with their mutated combination of disco, exotica, and whatever else into their industrial, provoke the thought: "What can music be?" And so build on rather than react against. Some critics consider the album a major influence on later EDM, so it seems to have ended up a building block. I also happen to not see any of the major neofolk figures as being against the mainline evolution of industrial. David Tibet of Current 93, in fact, merely says he likes working in folk since folk is to him "simplistic", in a good way. They just worked with what they wanted to. And both Chris and Cosey always liked to think of industrial music as being very encompassing, so neofolk to them and Tibet and at least most neofolkers is just the folk side of industrial that is doing its own thing, building and building. Power electronics - at least Whitehouse, anyways - was the definite reaction to mainline industrial's evolution. I'm aware of William Bennett and his compatriots wanting to make the most extreme music ever both to build on standard industrial and remain "pure" compared to the ever weakening mainline. I also like to think that SPK's release of Leichenshrei was a major turning point for Bennett, that he was angered and devastated that the Australians he perhaps thought of as being likeminded followed up the noisefest that was Information Overload Unit with an album of standard industrial, and so dug his heels into the school of industrialised harsh noise he and they pioneered the year before, but that's conjecture on my part. -------------  
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 11 2015 at 15:43
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I remember reading an interview with Wm. Bennett, where he claims that he was trying to do not what TG did but expand on what they didn't do in their music. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 07:31
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It is a thread about art, because it is about more or less conscious ways of doing things. Maybe it's also about "pure art", that is about (more/less conscious) ways that offer no warrant as providing, or helping provide, necessary stuff for a targeted living being to be kept alive or spared some mechanical/intellectual efforts. "Art music" only distinguishes from "music" if it means "pure art music", or "pure music", that is: music that's here only for the musical experience and doesn't (at least partly) aim at providing a necessary income, or music that doesn't (at least partly) serve another purpose like meeting other people. In that regard, some music called "prog" fits to being called "art music". However accurate the historical sum-up on which genre name defines which music style, music genres keep bearing suspicious names, and it is the more crazy that one should call "obsolete" music that fails to qualify for an up-to-date genre...Given that even part of what's called "rock" music doesn't actually rock this doesn't help us being right in trying to define which music actually belongs to/feeds from which genre. "Send" button...Victory dance to follow (NB the victory being more the fact that I defeated the ever threatening worry of sending a stinky post than anything else) ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 08:03
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Ah, no. Art Music is a noun phrase - it means something specific. It does not mean "music as art" since all music is an art therefore all music is art music (note the use of lower-case "a"). All folk music is art but folk music is not Art Music, we can differentiate Folk Music from Popular Music by its origins not its popularity because Folk Music belongs to the canon of music that is called Traditional Music. You will read that Art Music is defined as "erudite" or "serious" music but it does not mean that all serious and erudite music qualifies as Art Music. Art Music is synonymous with Classical Music but not limited to Western Classical Music (which is not the same as Western Art Music of the Classical Era), it also includes "classical" music of other cultures and traditions. None of the words we used to name music genres actually mean what the words mean when used in another (more common) context, for example, Classical Music does not mean music that has classical Greek origin (ie from the days of Plato and Aristotle) even though that is where the name originates. Stating that Progressive Rock is NOT Art Music does not lessen the value of Prog Rock, we can still value it as erudite and serious music even though it remains as Popular Music. If we threw out all these ambiguously confusing names and invented new words that had no linguistic associations it would make life easier, but that's not how language works. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 10:40
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I'm actually somewhat confused whether things like jazz and experimental electronic music (noise, drone etc.) qualifies as "art music" or "popular music". In jazz' case, it seems to have started out as basically a kind of popular music based on call-and-response dancing but developed into something way more highbrow in the 1950s and 1960s. I wager it's a case-by-case situation there. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 11:15
I agree. Art music is basically an inner-directed music. And prog fits that.
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 11:28
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For the record I am kind of embarassed to take this long to learn that "art music/popular music" and avantgarde/mainstream are two different axes. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 11:56
Good to know !! ...And what they call "fusion" ...DuhHhhhh... ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 11:58
As much as you would love that to be true. That is NOT what Art Music is. I also question whether Progressive Rock is "inner-directed" music (which is a pretentious bollocks phrase if I ever heard one). ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 12:02
Some people think that some of it does and some of it doesn't, other's think that none of it does. However, no one thinks that all of it does. I hope that clarifies things a little. Note: Progressive Rock does not have this dichotomy of opinion, it is Popular Music and not Art Music.
------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 12:03
Well done Jean-Marie, I think you have successfully managed to shoot yourself in the foot ------------- What? |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 12:47
But only because I failed to honour your first answer into thanking or nodding. To me your answer makes sense, and I can't deny the existence of phrase nouns, and naming habits. So "Art music" is a phrase noun, but I think it's been worth trying to know what it means as regular words, and how it compares to the "phrase noun" meaning. That's why I welcome Svetonio backing my first comment, though I can't really agree that each and every prog piece would fit to being (non phrase-noun meant) "pure art music" or "inner-directed" (doesn't read pretentious bollocked if it means that it's just music we enjoy fancying alone rather than dancing to it in the midst of a crowd). This as a plaster for my foot... ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 12:55
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 13:50
No, that's not the reason.
Nope. Art Music is a distinct musicological classification of music. I am being pedantic over this point because people have a nasty habit of misusing and confusing phrases. Since music is an art then prefixing the word "music" with the word "art" in a general, non-musicological classification, non-noun-phrase sense is superfluous and thus meaningless - it becomes a tautology... we would not, for example, call dance that is intended to be watched rather than participated in "art dance". However, the definition that you are using would be an incorrect description of (general, non-musicological classification, non-noun-phrase) art music even when you precede it with "pure". Following your reasoning then any easy listening or contemplative music would qualify as "art music" ... or even New Age Music would fit that description. Yet, as you say, that description would not be applicable to every piece of Prog Music and Svetonio does mean ALL Prog. He gave you a pat on the back because you seemed to be backing-up is premise... However. He really does mean that he thinks Prog Rock is Art Music in the musicological classification sense. He wants it to be considered to be equivalent to Classical Music:
He even stresses the capital "A" to make sure we do not misunderstand his meaning here. 'Inner-directed' is a phrase that is impossible to apply to any piece of music because it is impossible to determine why a piece of music was create or how it will be used by the listener. I call it pretentious bollocks because it is attempting to elevate a form of music into being something it isn't.
------------- What? |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 14:15
Of course that not every prog song is Art music, but the percentage of great prog songs & epics is quite sufficient, so we no need to speculate. Same is with Jazz which is mainly Art music too. And of course that our beloved genre with all of its sub-genres and styles (and all of great prog bands who are the prog sub-genres per se) not belong to popular music, i.e. prog not belong to any of the different styles of music(s) that was created solely to be sold as an entertainment of the masses. As I said earlier at this (great) topic, but also at some other topics, I claim again: the period of "mainstream popularity" of the music that we were accepted in the seventies as the progressive rock as well, actually was just a coincidence that was resulting from concerns of the music industry who didn't want to miss the "new big thing". Or, even better, the progressive rock was, let's say, "permitted" by the music industry to enter in the "big rock'n'roll party" by mistake. One could say that the music industry is not left empty-handed with prog and that's true, but as soon as the music industry was ready, willing & able to repackage the U.S. garage rock and UK pub-rock, as both extremely cheap to produce the albums and singles, into the "new genre" and to sell it as "punk", the music industry was no longer fully supported the progressive rock as a genre of Art music which was / is not for everyone. Since 1976, the music industry wasn't waiting anymore for a "new big thing"; in 1976, the music industry actually has created itself that "new big thing", and that was "punk", a "new" popular music and fashion (any profit from popular music is always much bigger when it's happy married with the fashion and a 'way of life') for the masses arround the globe - lol, do you recognize this guy:  Ex-President of Russia, Mr Dmytry Medvedev as a young man, http://www.tickld.com/x/36-rarely-seen-photos-from-history-16-is-mind-blowing" rel="nofollow - 1986 |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 14:41
Mainly? Hardly.
That is a terrible definition of Popular Music.
Irrelevant. Prog Rock is Rock. It was a development of Rock. Popularity has NOTHING to do with
 ... <roflmao>
[Not] British fascist Nigel Farage as a young man:  (please note: this image is a fake and only posted here for comedic purposes)
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Posted By: twseel
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 16:12
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Why is this discussion now all about the meaning of art music or 'Art Music'? Surely, Dean, you must realise that progressive rock and jazz and other such things could be considered 'art music' by the masses(jayem & Svet) through, among others, their cultural proximity to things more often considered art and indeed more of an artistic and less of a commercial view on creating music. If this definition is then approved by experts and old encyclopaedias shouldn't be relevant to the discussion. ------------- 
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 16:35
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Nope. ------------- What? |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 12 2015 at 16:55
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Thanks for your time. So the reason I suggested for the shooting in foot is wrong ? Let's look at my feet then... ...What a surprise... ! My feet are safe. But it's because I'm sort of a random ghost here...The bullet wouldn't encounter much stuff.
I have no problem with that. I'd vote for "Erudite music" instead of "Art music" (we'd have to precise whether it's symphonic orchestra geared or rock geared, etc ) and the "Art music" tag would disappear forever !! ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 01:21
But not all Prog would qualify as erudite. Why not just call it Prog Rock? Rather than try hammer this square peg into a round hole can someone explain to me WHY it is so important to you that it should fit? ------------- What? |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 02:31
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I'd like that some examples always to be placed next to my assertion; just as an illustration as well. Here are three video clips. All three are folk. First two videos are made in Serbia; well, video clip no. 1 is a popular, "mainstream" folk, well executed technically but entirely in favor of kitsch i.e. popular music created to be sell out for the masses and, consenquently, pretty unlistenable for any prog (Art music) crowd; uploaded to Youtube in December 2014; 13.466.858 views; 1426 comments. The second video is instrumental prog-folk i.e. Art music par excellence, actually created by female fronted band called Hazari that is already in the PA' Prog Folk section. Uploaded to Youtube in November 2007; 1069 views; 0 comments.
So, this is popular music... ...this is an Art music: And as this thread is dedicated to the avant-garde relation's to popular music, and I'd like to comply on that, the third video is actually PA' Prog Folk (i.e. Art music) band Jack O' The Clock from California whose catalog contains a certain amount of avantgarde. Uploaded at Youtube in August 2014; 103 views; 0 comments. I hope that these examples will explain my reasoning to the readers of this topic a bit more
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 02:40
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Well, the argument in the essay I linked to in the opening post goes that new ideas and paradigm shifts within popular music have to come from the "art music" world like modern classical, experimental jazz etc. but are then disseminated into popular music from more avantgarde forms of music somewhere in the liminal zone: Music that is technically speaking part of "low culture" but avantgarde so far as it's oriented towards a countercultural niche rather than the mainstream massculture and does look to the "art music" for inspiration... like certain styles of progressive/psychedelic rock (like Zappa and RIO), the more erudite corners of black/death metal, industrial/noise/power electronics and so on. The influence will then spread from the "hard core" of the music subcultures to the mainstream through, as the innovations are picked up on elsewhere in the subcultural genres into ever more accessible form. The paradox is that for the cultural life at large to advance and grow, that sphere depends on artists who either isolate themselves from it or outright reject it. Have I made that clear? The question is then whether that narrative actually holds up under scrutiny, so far it appears that it's probably a stretch at best though it might have a kernel of truth. In the words of the contemporary British poet Esther Adaire: Attempting to write history in a linear fashion feels like telling lies. Some truths are tangential to the line of emplotment. Once you delve into the complexities of an event, you find yourself in a feedback loop of metanarratives. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 03:15
I now understand a little more how you manage to be so confused. However, you have not answered my question. I did not ask for an explanation of your reasoning (you've done that already, albeit badly), I asked for an explanation why it was important to YOU that Prog should be fitted into Art Rock.
As Simon has observed: "Art Music/Popular Music" and avant-garde/mainstream are two different axes. (I would add a third commercial/non-commercial axis to that). Music can vary along the avant-garde/mainstream axis while remaining as Popular Music. A piece of music can be more commercial or less commercial and still be Popular Music; it can be more mainstream or less mainstream and still be Popular Music; it can be more avant-garde or less avant-garde and still be Popular Music; and it can be more popular or less popular and still be Popular Music. None of those factors affect whether it is Art Music or Popular Music because we can apply them just as equally to Art Music. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 03:45
I pretty much agree with this. The avant-garde of one era becomes the commonplace (mainstream) of another by some means or other. How this occurs is not cast is stone and doesn't follow any prescribed route. It often begins in the rarefied atmosphere of "high-brow" art because that is where innovation and forward-thinking is most encourage and accepted but it is not limited to only coming from there.
Earlier I mentioned Art Nouveau as an illustration of avant-garde (decorative) art. This movement in decorative arts lead to Art Deco, which isn't considered to be avant-garde although it was also influenced by other avant-garde movements in art such as Cubism, Modernism and Futurism. Art Deco was quickly adopted into the mainstream and became the ubiquitous "bolt-on" mass-produced adornment for everything from radios to buildings. The new avant-garde will then react against that newly established norm. As I said, copying avant-garde is not being avant-garde, and by the same reasoning, being influenced by avant-garde development does not result in avant-garde.
Crystal clear. (not that it was every cloudy to me  )------------- What? |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 04:03
It should be also noted that avantgarde actually begins with a controversial French artist (naturalized American) Marcel Duchamp who has made a strong impact to the Modern art. One of the first artists who used the already existing things (readymades) in his Art. The most famous work of this kind is his Fountain, a porcelain urinal, which he signed as his work at exibition of the Society of Indenpendent Artists, in 1917.  His art was greatly shaken the world, who had not seen anything like it before. In the beginning, his works have been rejected in many art galeries because of provocative titles and content. Today Duchamp is considered, along with Picasso, as the most influential artist of the twentieth century. |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 04:07
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^Piss artist. I don't believe something like Prog or any other form of highly evolved Rock Music would stand up to the sort of academic scrutiny afforded to Art Music*. That's not to say the latter is in any quantifiable way better, but most Popular Music when broken down into thematic development, modulation, rhythmic groupings, motivitic sources, counterpoint, harmonic innovation etc just looks a bit like erm...bo-toxed jingles advertising tight fitting clothing. (*That's correct, I can't define that either.) -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 04:08
As I said, I agree with this. That is NOT the part of your post that I questioned.  ------------- What? |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 04:45
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I'm reading the essay a second time and the author actually admits that avant-prog, industrial, metal, punk etc. have an advantage over "art music" even as they draw influence from it, in that those subcultures are not part of the academic cultural power structure. Hence, they have more leeway to think outside the box in terms of concept because they do not depend on academic consensus for approval and support. This might in turn be how they can open the possibility for the more mainstream music circles to pick up their innovations. People who won't listen to Edgar Varese might still listen to Frank Zappa, and people who won't listen to Zappa might still listen to The Beatles' later relatively experimental albums. People who won't listen to Karlheinz Stockhausen might still listen to Krautrock, and people who won't listen to Krautrock might in turn listen to electronic music or post-punk. People who won't listen to Glenn Branca might still listen to 1980s noise rock, and people who don't listen to 1980s noise rock might still listen to 1990s grunge. Another paradox, of course, is that for music subcultures to maintain their avant-garde role they have to be somewhat exclusive in order to not compromise their founding ideals... they can't be wholly part of the art music world but they also have to maintain some distance from the mainstream. Which can end up in subcultures eating each other up from the inside out of paranoia regarding http://politicaldictionary.com/words/entryism/" rel="nofollow - entryism from either front, see http://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=2109673" rel="nofollow - this essay on the very subject written by an electronic/industrial musician. I re-linked it on Facebook and one metal reviewer I know in person ended up agreeeing with it, I think it's a "memetic auto-immune disease" that no subculture is really free from even if it takes different forms in different cultures. The author also appears to admit near the end that it's dubious how often most artistic countercultures in practice live up to their self-declared ideals, in particular that of independence from both academic elite and mainstream mass culture. This is why he concludes that it's important for every music scene with an associated "ideology" or perhaps more accurate to call it a guiding ethos, to have an elite - however tiny - who actually live up to those ideals. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 04:57
Aside from the ill-mannered back-editing of a post after someone has quoted and commented on it, this is not wholly accurate (you are evidently not a Art Historian: avant-garde did not start with Duchamp). I also fail to see what purpose it serves in this thread. NO ONE has disagreed with your assertion that: 'So many people wrongly equate the avantgarde with ("ugly") abstractions', so providing an example of "ugly" avant-garde makes little or no sense.  Get a grip man! ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 05:04
I've never experienced a thread topic with such an extensive (prerequisite) reading list.  Personally I would prefer to read your thoughts and opinions on this subject rather than trawl through pages of linked articles. Thus far I'm not sure that I know what you think on any of the points raised here. The paradox you talk of smacks of elitism:  ------------- What? |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 05:31
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For the record, I personally don't believe that music coming from a genre with its own associated cultural movement has to live up to said movement's proclaimed ideals to be enjoyable or even interesting. However, while I haven't identified actively with any subculture for several years I do maintain extensive contact with the metal and punk cultures here in Denmark so I'm well aware that those "mythic ideals" are important to the people maintaining them as the grassroots level as something to strive after. They're what motivate so many musicians, fanzine writers, DIY concert organizers and whatnot to keep going. I'm also the kind of person who'll listen to Zappa, Krautrock or noise but not Varese, Stockhausen or Branca. Not yet, at least. As for my own commentary on those points buried in the article I just mentioned, I haven't drawn my own conclusions yet or formulated them into a comprehensible form at least, nor do I have time for posting them today. I'll probably get around to doing that tomorrow. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 13 2015 at 05:57
Actually you told it yourself (though I'd rather count of words with the right linguistic meaning rather than on words with no linguistic meaning): it'd make life easier, and we'd spare ourselves complex historical researches when debating it. I also feel it'd bring something fresh on the table. It makes sense that at times where tons of new confusing genre names appear, some of us may want to find easier ways in naming them. Don't get me wrong: I've managed to live all those years with "Prog rock" and it hasn't killed me, it even felt magic. If most people enjoy the current ways, I'll be happy for them...
An author may not intend to create inner-directed music, yet the music can be inner-directed in itself. It can be told on both of the pieces of your new album Centaur, that they contain at least partly inner-directed music: Some parts (complex rythms, dense harmonies) are too attention-focusing to work as background music, or even to enhance dance-like or other activities of the social kind. The pieces work into us through feelings, colours, etc that we link to the sounds heard: a kind of voyage is made inside of us. There might be people listening to it around, but each on their own. If one of them comments while the music is on, they interrupt the listening process. ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 04:10
From my experience of metal and goth subcultures in the UK I can't say that I saw any evidence of ideals in use, or any proclamations of what they might be even. Whatever motivates "promoters" of the subculture at grassroots level doesn't seem to follow any mandated ideology or manifesto in any way and certainly the "followers" are following the subculture not the cliques and cadres that form within it. The motivation seems to be "reward" - not necessarily monetary reward (thou' you seldom see any of them giving any profit away), but more often just the satisfaction of making something happen is reward enough.
I call these are "door openers". Liking Can can (ugh!) open the door to listening to Stockhausen, you may not necessarily like what you hear but it could lead you to explore in other directions, or the experience could allow you to gain a different perspective on the music of Can. As a fan of music more than I am a follower of particular genres or artists I like these serendipitous explorations into other areas of music and will take every opportunity to open a closed door to take a peek behind. Not every find appeals to me, but once in a while I find something that instantly locks into the musical jigsaw puzzle in my head. Pointless anecdote #154: Back in the late 70s David Bowie appeared on a Desert Island Discs type radio programme where he picked pieces of music that had influenced him. Since this was in the middle of his "Berlin Trilogy" some of the records he selected were influences to his current music endeavour. Two of his picks were Danny Kaye (...or it may have been Burl Ives) singing "Inchworm" and "Knee Play 3" from Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. Bowie, being Bowie, deliberately chose these two songs to be played consecutively (partly I think to "educate" his listeners), he had seen a connection between them and wanted to share it with the radio audience. [when you see the connection it is an obvious one but no clues: if this thread is to have reading homework and video-listening homework then I can leave finding this connection as homework too]. Soon after listening to the broadcast I went out and purchased (a very expensive) copy of Einstein on the Beach (but not, I hasten to add, the soundtrack from "Hans Christian Andersen") and from that moment on became an avid fan of Philip Glass, however the influence of Glass on Bowie seemed superficial at best to me until Glass created the "Low" and "Heroes" Symphonies over a decade later. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 05:45
Personally I dislike these word-meaning exchanges I seem to invariably get suckered into. I think it is distracting and leads to arguments that can never be resolved, however I/we should not misuse noun-phrases that have an accepted academic meaning, such as Art Music. If only to avoid confusion. I am fully aware that for the majority of people that I discuss things with here English is a second language and that (believe it or not) can put them at an advantage in that they have been taught the language it whereas I picked it up as I went along. I failed my English Language and Literature exams at school, so discussing meanings and semantics is as more an education for me than anything. Where I (believe I) have the advantage is in the more idiomatic meanings of English words and phrases, because one thing I have noticed, is it is sometimes difficult to separate the literal and non-literal meanings of phrases, especially when a phrase is transliterated into another language (rather than being translated). [There is another problem and that is words get lost in translation: for example it seems that "mile-stone" got translated into 'Yugoslavian' as "cornerstone"... which is odd because both words exist separately in the Slavic languages and their counterpart translations have the same different meanings as they do in English; they are not interchangeable.] Forum posts are an informal conversation, this discussion is no different to two guys discussing something in a bar over a glass of beer. We are not presenting formal academic papers so our style of writing is lazy and informal. We will type Art Music, Art music, art Music and art music to mean the same thing or different things with little care to how the capitals are used. I have tried very hard to stick to a convention of using "Art Music" when I mean the formal (academic) musicological classification and "art music" when commenting on peoples' informal (colloquial) use of the phrase to mean "music as an art-form".
Touché! Well done, you got me.  My music is pretentious bollocks  Whether this is "inner-directed" or not doesn't mean much to me - I make music that is either "happy" or "sad" and in the main it is "sad and depressing", though I think that 'Centaur' and its companion album 'Oligarch' contain some of the happiest music I have ever written. None of it was created with the listener in mind so how it is used is for them to decide, one person said they like to listen to it while doing their laundry and that's fine by me, I am still trying to get used to the notion that other people listen to it at all. [I also have a 'philosophy' that since I cannot dance then all music is dance music because I cannot dance to any of it so will dance to all of it... and by the same argument I can 'inner-direct' any piece of music I listen to if I so choose.] As a music-constructor/creator/comp-poseur I do not attempt to classify what I create into any musical genre or style. When pressed, I will call some of it "pseudo-classical" or "experimental" but mostly I use the vague umbrella term "electronic" and leave it at that. It all fits within the classification of Popular Music as I believe I am amateurishly following in the mighty footsteps of other Popular Music electronic musicians. Even the experimentation I use is not avant-garde or ground-breaking, I simply found some kind of philosophical ideas that I want to explore and experiment around with those ideas. That resulting music will not necessarily be experimental sounding to others, (in fact my 'mission statement' made some 15 years ago was to produce experimental music that sounded normal). Some of those experiments work and some do not (as I'm sure you know from your own music) - for example the off-key piano melody in 'Chiron' was purposely created to sound odd and disconcerting, but on repeated listens it doesn't actually work, it just sounds bad ... and not in an "ugly" avant-garde way... it just sounds poorly played. This is partly because the piano tone is too pure and in a different instrument with a richer harmonic timbre is does not sound as miss-played. In a later re-mix of that track I have tweaked the 'bum-sounding' notes - they are still off-key of course but they sound 'better'. (It is actually unusual for me to go back to a piece of music and change it). ------------- What? |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 10:01
|
Time
to finally get around to typing my own thoughts on the subject. Like
I said earlier I'm going mostly with my experiences from metal, punk
and a couple adjacent genres like "desert rock". This is
going to be really, really long. Might end up dwarfing the ones I
linked to elsewhere.
I'm under the impression that most subcultural music genres are motivated by the fact that the people behind it have some kind of aesthetic preference that the pop/rock mainstream doesn't really cover. Maybe it's just on the aesthetic/stylistic level, maybe they don't really resonate with what the music stands for in terms of the deeper conceptual themes and philosophical ideals behind it. The point of most subcultures, not just those that revolve around a particular style of music, is for people dissatisfied with the mainstream to create their own culture that functions from ideals they can make sense from - either to do so separately from the mainstream, perhaps with the hope of later influencing the culture at large into a course they find agreeable. The ideological aspect is in my experience more important to people from places like Eastern Europe, Latin America, South East Asia and the more religious parts of the United States... again, referring here to the metal/punk side of things. In North America and Western Europe, the outer shells of the subcultures co-exist with the mainstream where they mutually influence each other. The underground "harder cores" of the subcultures, the ones referred to in the essay linked to in the OP, are exclusive by design. They're the ones most willing to build up basement distros and do-it-yourself concert venues and whatnot, because they feel the least at home in the cultural mainstream hence being least willing to compromise with outsiders... basically they've got a kind of "patriotism" about their respective subcultures. The subcultural elites of are as a result rather suspicious towards outside influences, or new members that come in because they might not completely understand or even appreciate the ideals of the community, perhaps just appreciating the superficial without having to go through the experiences that a full on commitment would entail, most so the case when the respective subcultures become popular. This is where that Letter to the Underworld essay comes into relevance, because it means the genuinely dedicated in the underground end up going against each other instead of standing together. The woman who wrote it is not just an industrial/noise musician, but also a veteran of feminist/LGBT activism and oldschool hacker culture... she's in particular annoyed at the latter two coming into conflict with each other in recent years, when she finds both at risk of mainstream co-optation and wants them united against that front. As a result, her experiences with subcultural cannibalism are very harsh. (this might also explain why she frames the whole thing in a political angle) Where the "art music" world comes in is that it's often drawn from people who also are dissatisfied with the popular culture, but perhaps from different backgrounds and dissatified for different reasons. To start with, as a result of being intertwined with academia and cultural (sometime also economic) elites it's made by and for people with higher social status than the general public. The subcultural art/music scenes, on the other hand, tend to attract people who are lower in social status. Either it's because they didn't really have that much of a choice in the matter, because of things like social class or ethnicity or sexual orientation etc... or because they've actively rejected the frames. Sometimes it's both... see the author of the essay I discussed in the last paragraph as an example, the goth/indus/noise music scene seems to be disproportionately LGBT. Now, the avantgardes of the art music community and those of underground art culture as shown in the music subcultures I've mentioned do sometimes end up borrowing from each other, through artists who happen to be on both's wavelengths. The fact that they are willing to think outside of box because they value different things than mainstream culture means that they're more likely to come up with... as a result, those willing to "compromise" between the mainstream and both high culture/sub-culture might be responsible for keeping the mainstream culture evolving. Think of mainstream culture, high culture and underground culture as a 3-circle Venn Diagram in this regard. This is why while the subcultural patriotism I referred to earlier is a mixed blessing. On one hand, the subcultures might end up dying completely or fall apart if everyone distrusts not just new members but also each other for not being "true". (I already mentioned the intersection with politics earlier in the thread, which is an interesting tangent to keep in mind but I'm not sure I can really do that justice right now) On the other hand, there also needs to be a hard core who maintain some distance because they keep the flame burning, offering different perspectives from every other cultural community. An example is that metal's golden age in the 1980s and early 1990s came, or punk's a bit earlier, about because the underground back then was exclusive enough to only let in those who "got it" but also good enough at rewarding interesting new music coming out within the framework of that culture. As far as the question of how often countercultures in general, and those related to music in this regard, actually live up to their own declared ideals, goes... it is my conclusion those are rare occasions. This does not mean they aren't good ones to strive for. It's debatable how many progressive/psychedelic rock groups had that much of a coherent ideological/philosophical concept beyond "let's fly into space", with groups like Amon Düul II or Henry Cow or The Mothers of Invention (Zappa in general?) or Magma being the exceptions. Nor how many of them synthesized classical and jazz into rock music beyond more the use of outside technical flourishes in the context of rock songwriting, again it's something that I get the impression that Beefheart/Zappa/RIO-style avant-rock and Krautrock (or "Kosmische Musik") was better at integrating compositional structures into something genuinely new than the classic Anglo-prog. Indeed, beyond Beef and Zap the avant-prog stuff is not something I listen to very often, and even in their case there are large stretches of their discography I haven't gotten around to listening... often including their most celebrated output. Krautrock I now listen less to than newer electronic music inspired by the scene. This does not invalidate or mean good music can't come out of it without fulfilling those lofty goals, indeed said mythic ideals of the underground music might be more useful as abstract Platonic ideals to strive for with only the rarest few actually achieving them, but can still impact people's lives opening them up to new directions as well a second-hand inspiration towards not just more avant-garde and highbrow music forms, but also new artistic/literary inspirations and philosophical/religious/political ideas. I've also gotta admit that I at times admire the avant-garde of art more through its second- and third-hand influence on more accessible stuff. It's not that often I have enough brain capacity to process really "highbrow" stuff. I know I did touch on the sociological/political aspects of underground music without exploring them further, something I might have should have done especially now that I brought up punk. At the end of the day, though, the fact that I don't find most underground music subcultures fulfilling their own proclaimed ideals very often means that it's a long time ago I've actively identified with them. Perhaps being that kind of active participant just requires even more time and commitment than I've been willing to expend, so the option of not dropping in on the "formative experiences" of an underground subculture is one option I might not really have had that much in a pre-internet age? I might explore them in a future post I'll make later this week, perhaps where I also summarize the conclusions I made here in this post. (and could provide more concrete specific examples) Think of this as first draft of my own conclusions. My next post might start with a summary of this one. I really should start a blog of my own one of these days. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 10:46
|
(my last post took like between 2 and 3 hours to write, I felt like half my day has gone missing...) ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 10:50
|
^ Don't sweat it Simon, often the catharsis of writing out your thoughts has more value than the hours it took to write them. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 11:12
Re bolded - - it's exactly a reaction of people in 1917 what Marcel Duchamp really loved as an artist who is responsible for the great avantgardes of the twentieth century such as Pop Art, Conceptualism and Performance Art.Re unbolded, well, as on the previous page I showed examples of how folk can transform in both non avant art music and in the avantgarde, so I proved that avant-garde can come from different directions and even from folk basis. As a repetition is the mother of learning, I would like to give you three examples of the same kind of transformations but in the field of Electronic music, and also Metal. Electronic music Techno is undoubtedly the best example a popular Electronic music, as this music was very well grow in rowdy neighborhoods of big cities, especially in USA where the genre was originally born in 80s (e.g. Cybotron's Techno City , 1984) > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZFL2Ewo-oI" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZFL2Ewo-oI A beautiful Berlin School (also that contemporary Neo-Berlin School) of Electronic music is Progressive electronic music and Art Music par exellance! I think that Klaus Schulze's Crystal Lake (1977) is a perfect example  > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCzXtjoOOtI" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCzXtjoOOtI Wo0 is an artist (already in PA' Progressive electronic section) from my hometown of Belgrade. Wo0 has succesfully managed to merge Progressive electronic (which is not the Berlin School) and avantgarde. Great Art music indeed! His album from 2010, Six For Screening > http://herbariumrecords.bandcamp.com/album/woo-six-for-screening" rel="nofollow - http://herbariumrecords.bandcamp.com/album/woo-six-for-screening (name your price) Transformation of Metal (examples) Sarajevo's trio Vatreni Poljubac ("Fiery Kiss") is one of the pioneers of the New Wave of Metal with their debut album recorded in London's Matrix Studio and released at Sarajevo Disk label in October 1978, as a fusion of 70s Hard Rock and punk, so their debut a perfect example of the popular music for many kids in late 70s > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2vaRPrSEw4" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2vaRPrSEw4 Progressive metal is Art music per se, and as an example I choose the greatest masters of the genre - of course, that's Dream Theater, and the song is that stunning Dance of Eternity (1999) > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MshUFnfEfeA" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MshUFnfEfeA Avant-garde metal... what to say? LOL that's even unnecessary to point out that it's Art Music without a question (do you like Giant Squid's Dead Man Slough from 2009?) > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwM1zXEgeA4" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwM1zXEgeA4 Oh and a bit more of "piss artist" Duchamp...  Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel, readymade from 1913.  |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 11:28
|
This is getting silly.
No he wasn't. It reveals an ignorance of Art History to make such a claim.
No you didn't. That was not why you gave those three examples.
...Repeating the same mistake expecting a different outcome? ------------- What? |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 12:31
Unless we can't join those who accept it without objection, that is !! Sorry if those exchanges feel fruitless to you. I can't call it small-minded to argue about a noun phrase including an immense word like "art". That everyone should try and define what art is feels healthy. I'm happy to have my opinion shared on that topic at least once! Meanwhile, tons of PhDs are caught in endless fights for having the last word on a definition... As french wikipedia for "Art music" is "Musique savante"...
There's no argument that a long sojourn in England would help me, not only regarding idioms, though online translators provide much stuff.
No evidence of this if google-translating "milestone" or "cornerstone" to serbian, slovene, croatian, czech, and reverse.
Ha ha ! Are you kidding ? Let's have a conversation on the same topic recorded in a pub for further analysis... Ha ha ha !
That's not the feeling I have when I read your posts. Many of us seem far from being careless, even regarding the use of capital letters...
My main chore is, that I'd struggle for a piece to sound the best possible, then it'd become cleared for a fondly celebrated upload. But months, even years later I'd find a better sounding option. Several pieces count ten or more (one counts even seventeen) test renderings, each one remixed several times because of EQing, volume, balance problems ! I'm frustrated with youtube (though I bow down to the overall quality of YT) because they allow changes of a video's audio track, but only with tracks that belong to a imposed list. We can't replace it with a home made track, and if I want to replace a mix I don't trust I must delete the video and replace it.
Happy man you are, unless you're meaning that you'd hear suspicious or ill-sounding parts but wouldn't trust your music enough and correct them ! ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 12:36
|
'Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.' ~ Pablo Picasso
Whether this adage can truly be attributed to Pablo is uncertain but it has often been repeated and paraphrased by many musicians over the years. These rules are not strict "must do" rules, they are the rules of expectation and convention. It is not so much a breaking of rules as a defying of convention that alters our expectation. [Picasso wasn't such an idiot as to defy the technical rules, such as applying "fat-over-lean" when painting in oils for example - he knew that he needed to increase the amount of linseed-oil and decrease the amount of turpentine in each successive layer of paint or the finished art-work would crack and peel. Some rules cannot be broken¹.] My "happy" or "sad" remark in my reply to Jean-Marie got me thinking. Way back in Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers analysed the various musical Modes (read: scales) that musicians were using and attributed emotional feelings to each one because it seemed to them that each one had a character that differentiated it from another. For example a piece of music played in the Ionian Mode sounded happier than one played in the Aeolian Mode. Classical musicians of the Classical Era of Art Music returned to this 'philosophy' of attributing emotion to various musical scales, and they found that playing these scales in different keys altered the degree of emotion contained in a particular mode or scale. These became part of the "rules" of Music Theory, and were there for artists to use or break as they required. So when a composer (such as Mozart) wrote and published a piece of music or a symphony he titled that music with both the dominant scale and the predominant key in it was written in and thus performed (for example: Symphony No.40 in G Minor). We continue this tradition (thou' perhaps unwittingly) today and, with some minor modification, tend to hold to the analysis of those Ancient Greek Philosophers' and that of "Music Theory". The Ionian Mode is better known as the Major scale and we recognise it as do re mi fa sol la ti do (As Oscar Hammerstein observed you can sing most anything when you know the notes to sing) and we can pretty much put those notes in any order we like and arrive at a melody that sounds okay (more so if we omit "fa" and "ti" from that so further limiting our choice to a pentatonic scale). Our familiarity with that do-re-mi scale means we can essentially predict (or expect) that the following note in a sequence that goes do-re-sol -do-re will be one of those eight notes, for example "la", and we'll be happy. But what if it isn't... what if instead of "la" we sang a note a semi-tone lower (that we can call "le") ... now that expectation isn't resolved, we feel flattened, saddened even. The mood of the melody is now different, it's less "happy". When do the same to "mi" and "ti" (as "me" and "te") to give do re me fa sol le te do we have created the Aeolian Mode, or as we better know it - the Minor scale. As a general rule (though not hard and fast or cast in concrete) happy songs are written in major scales and sad songs are written in minor scales. I wouldn't be totally surprised to find that most Prog Rock (and Alt-Rock and Metal) was written in Minor scales or at the very least non-Major scales. I've cribbed this table from the interwebs:
We don't need to know what these 8 modes are, just that they exist and over the years people have described them using emotional adjectives. Modal Jazz makes extensive use of these modes, but then so do other forms of Popular Music. Avant-garde plays with our expectations, it throws a curve-ball when we least expect it, but it doesn't throw out all the rules, or randomly break some rules and not others, it also creates rules of its own. Someone recording the sound made by dropping a xylophone down a flight of stairs is not avant-garde, it's just random notes - and music that sounds like someone has dropped a xylophone down a flight of stairs is also not avant-garde - we can achieve that by giving a 2-year old child a xylophone. Atonality (an oft quoted feature of avant-garde music) is where the music lacks a tonal centre and the commonest form of this is music that employs the entire chromatic scale. That "lack of tonal centre" is a rule in itself. In creating the twelve-tone system Schoenberg didn't simply say: forget these modes, just use all 12-notes of the chromatic scale (do di re ri mi fa fi sol si la li ti (do)) - that had been done long before Schoenberg - he prescribed rules and rule-sets that dictated how these notes should be used so that no single note is emphasised more than any other. This became "Serialism" because the 12-note patterns were repeated serially. Others took these rules and modified them and some reacted against them, creating different rule-sets where some notes were emphasised more than others (e.g. Riley's In C - atonal music that has a tone-centre in the form of a repetitive pulse [in C]). When Rock Music adopts these methods, (or creates new methods [rules] of its own), to produce avant-garde rock music it does not stop being Rock Music; the use of atonality in Rock does not suddenly and magically make it more erudite or serious. ¹Not every Modern Art artist is aware of the technicalities of paining in oils. Some years ago I went to an exhibition of 20th Century Art in London where many of the key pieces of modern art where on display (including a replica of DuChamp's Fountain - the original having long been lost many years ago...). What struck me about many of these pieces was how badly they were made. As remarkable/shocking/ground-breaking as they were, some are not holding up too well to the ravages of time - simple mistakes in basic painting technique were causing some of them to flake and peel very badly. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 12:52
 sounds good to me. ------------- What? |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 12:57
|
You mean Skype ? I have and could manage a try tomorrow evening, but must find the way to actually record...Eh, Eh ! Cheers... ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 13:45
No, I mean that if by chance we find ourselves in a pub or bar somewhere, sometime. (Not by plan or invitation, just happy coincidence.) ------------- What? |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 13:56
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 14:17
|
^ the point being that :- A: one is an important quality or feature on which something depends (cornerstone, foundation stone) and the other is a significant event in the development of something (milestone, event-marker). Online translators seem to be happy with translating Croatian 'prekretnica' into milestone and 'kamen temeljac' into cornerstone without confusing the two. B: you translated this as: "these albums were cornerstones of Progressive Rock" ... something that Logan never actually said... because it made your argument look more legitimate.  /edit: I am fully aware (because I can see the f*ck*ng time-stamps) that Svetonio has cheaply and childishly back-edited his post after I posted this reply. All this does is reinforce my low opinion of him as a petty and spiteful individual who cannot and will not stop behaving like a dick. Please note that I have not just (nor have I ever) called him a dick, but will observe that he is doing a very good impression of one.
what have I missed? ... oh yeah... one of these: ------------- What? |
Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 14:42
| The term "avant-garde" assuredly turned me off to this thread. |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 14:54
|
The cornerstone conversation has become a millstone and should be kicked to the curbstone (or kerbstone, if you prefer). P.S. Tangentially speaking, I have always read that the term "Art Music" refers to classical music, as opposed to folk or popular music.
------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 15:09
|
"Avant-garde you say? Sounds more like they avant-garde-a-clue! " The late George Harrison remarking on a sixties era prog rock band. Guess who? ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 15:10
The Guess Who was prog rock? Oh, those wacky Canadians. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 15:13
|
^ ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 15:17
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Although I believe "Running Back to Saskatoon" and "No Sugar Tonight" were both composed in sonata form. Randy Bachman left Guess Who for BTO so he could pursue more prog compositions, hence Not Fragile.
------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 15:21
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^you're on a roll, Greg! I think George the Great was talking about the first Genesis album, so he gets a pass on that one.
|
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 18:20
...and that is what it does refer to. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 18:37
Musique Savante ("Learned Music" or "Erudite Music") is probably as emotive as «Musique Sérieuse» ("Serious Music") and «Grande Musique» ("Great Music") - the names alone suggest it represents an elite club of music that people want their favourite music to be a member of. For them, non-membership would imply that Prog is not serious music or that it is uneducated music. The French wikipedia seems to have a very balanced and level-headed view of the subject that clarifies some of the points that the English-language version does not. Both state that it is distinguishable from Traditional Music and Popular Music.
I never fret over a mix - If I can hear every instrument and it's placed in the soundstage where I want it then I'll leave it alone. At some point you have to say enough is enough and walk away or everything just gets muddier and muddier.
I remixed the last two albums because I wanted to make vinyl versions and that required moving the Bass and Kick drums to mono, which also meant the EQ needed tweaking. As I was doing that I re-did the piano melody because it was annoying me.
------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 14 2015 at 19:24
One problem I see with all this is Progressive Rock doesn't have a subculture and it was never a counter-culture. You could shrug this off with a "so what" or you could do what ***** does and invent one, but the bottom line remains that there isn't a subculture or collection of smaller subcultures that unifies all the people who are involved with Progressive Rock. There isn't even (nor has there ever been) as Scene associated with it. It has no fashion, no art, no literature and no theatre. It also has no cultural or social implications or impact. It exists solely as a loose genre of music with no clear definition or ideology. The Canterbury Scene wasn't a real scene and even Krautrock was a disparate unrelated un-associated bunch of bands that distributors lazily bundled into one single category to make them easier to sell. Whatever influences that fed into the genre occurred in isolation on a band by band basis with no two being alike, so when we say the avant-garde was an influence on Progressive Rock we cannot identify which avant-garde, or how that influence was felt, so make some vague arm-waving gesture in the general direction of avant-garde and hope to hell that no one asks us to be a little more specific. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 02:53
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I haven't gotten around to debate the last many posts made by other people here than Dean, which I might get around to addressing too but I don't have time for that either for the next couple days. I do suppose that a lot of the problems we have ran into in terms of discussing this article's theory here come from its assumption of underground music scenes as "cultural communities"... something that makes sense for a metal/industrial/neofolk webzine to use as a central premise, but not so much in a prog-rock context. Like I mentioned earlier, it's not a coincidence that the only prog/psych example the author uses is Henry Cow and their Rock In Opposition movement. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 04:48
Is this Zappa's track an avantagarde music i.e. Art Music, or popular music i.e. a Rock music with "some influence of avant", but in your opinion? You shouldn't answer if you won't to do it by any reason. |
Posted By: twseel
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 05:20
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Nice job cutting Dean's name from the quote -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 05:28
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------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 06:13
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*Note I have quoted Svetonio's post verbatim and in full to make it crystal clear exactly what I am commenting on so to prevent it looking like I have commented after he made any fatuous back-editing of said post. I have "commented out" the videos merely to blank them from the text.
Zappa was a Rock Musician, a Jazz Musician and a Classical Musician. This is accepted fact that NO ONE is questioning. He made Rock albums, Jazz Fusion Albums and he made Classical albums (and crossovers thereof). No one is denying this. He composed contemporary Classical (Art) Music pieces alongside his Rock and improvised Jazz pieces, and (as Glass did with Bowie's Low and Heroes albums), he used themes and melodies from his rock albums to create contemporary Classical (Art) Music pieces. 'Bogus Pomp' is an example of his contemporary Classical (Art) Music - it is not Rock, it is not Popular Music and it is not Jazz. Bozzio's presence on the track, for example, is as a percussionist not as a Rock or Jazz drummer. As a piece of contemporary Classical (Art) Music it is (as the name suggests) it is a satirical piece that reflects Zappa's sense of humour and his perception of music establishment. Therein, the avant-garde element is not wholly irrelevant. Zappa is echoing (copying?) Varèse in that he is using a freedom from composition strictures to construct a piece of music in a seemingly ad hoc manner and to juxtapose contrasting sounding instruments (again, like Varèse). Zappa's "seemingly ad hoc" compositional structure was actually a "collage" technique so the brief "rock" motifs that appear in the piece are referential in the same way that Ives and Copland reference popular pieces of music in their contemporary Classical (Art) Music. What 'Bogus Pomp' is not, is Progressive Rock. So any argument that this validates any claim that Prog Rock is Art Music is doomed to failure. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 06:17
He did it again to remove [/edit: that part of] Simon's quote entirely. ------------- What? |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 06:20
If we focus on common ways we'll say what "everyone" says. If we focus on the way music is offered to people, that is Zappa would say "Common kiddies gather round we're celebrating music together" we'll say Zappa is a popular artist, even if it delivers erudite music to the audience. If we focus on the music, we'll say "erudite music" or "pure art music". PS: I appreciate that you share music (I guess) you enjoy while, er... Sharing, in often risky ways, your uncompromised-looking views. Thanks to your efforts, I've discovered several amazing bands without any hard research.
You're meaning that the french scholar who first pronounced the magic "musique savante" shouted "Ça c'est de la musique savante !" with a trembling voice and tears in his eyes. Meanwhile, the english scholar would say "this is...art music" without the least noticeable emotion (but he'd have to compensate in a pub / brothel afterwards, lest a colo-rectal cancer being diagnosed because of the contained emotional storm inside him). If "savante" refers to intellectual curiosity and sense of structure + control, this word isn't a choice that mediocre..."Musique Sérieuse" or "Grande Musique" sound cheaper, because serious or great/grand doesn't equate to being knowledge-thirsty. Now you may want to have french academicians cry at they lack of emotional control.
I guess the mud you're talking about is the adding of new layers, effects, so that the overall sound loses on quality. I've fallen in this trap though not very often. The most common chores I'm refering to are: Finding better fitting samples for an instrument, esp the drums & bass Cleansing lead/backing lines from unnecessary notes, improving them. Using better EQ tools Trimming a long piece, or adding bars to a short piece for a better structure. Obtain a better dramatic tension into changing instrums Enough is enough: true... Provided it's actually enough !! ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 06:40
Not really. I mean the words used can cause an emotional response in the non-academic lay-person, not the academic scholar who invented the terminologies. It is the false-logic (fallacy of argument) that any music that is not called "Serious Music" must be non-serious; music that is not called "Erudite Music" is uneducated; and thus, any music that is not called "Art Music" cannot be art or artistic. Those are emotional responses, not musicological responses.
If a piece of music needs that much effort I tend to move on to a new piece, rather than try and fix something that I find unsatisfactory. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 06:44
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Posted By: brainstormer
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 10:02
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"Avant-garde" can be a pretty useless word, IMHO. It has never been synonymous with "irritating music," or politically charged, as in transgressive. Debussy and Satie, and many of the other greats of the mainstay classical repetoire were avant garde -- I would define the true avant garde as the greats who were not fully appreciated in their lifetime, irregardless of the marginalization their music causes in the future. This is a way to reclaim the word. ------------- -- Robert Pearson Regenerative Music http://www.regenerativemusic.net Telical Books http://www.telicalbooks.com ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net |
Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 10:16
My Dinner With Andre. |
Posted By: brainstormer
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 10:24
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An example of some avant-garde I like, Pietro Grossi / Sergio Maltagliati all in that series so far I've heard/seen have been rewarding. ------------- -- Robert Pearson Regenerative Music http://www.regenerativemusic.net Telical Books http://www.telicalbooks.com ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: April 15 2015 at 11:21
I've just discovered your place ! There are some surprizing tracks... http://www.regenerativemusic.net/External_Omni/12_R.S._Pearson_External_Omnipotent_Moments_Procession.mp3 http://www.regenerativemusic.net/RS_Pearson_Live_KMLP_First_Concert/RS_Pearson_Live_KMLP_First_Concert.mp3 ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |