Last week’s post pondering whether the current ‘indie / alt-classical’ ‘movement’ was just a fad elicited some smart comments, including this one from composer / performer Matt Marks:
IMO most of the ‘compromise’ young composers make is in making sure their music sounds ‘uncompromising’. What’s unique about the ‘alt-classical’ scene is that these composers are no longer forcing their music to sound ‘challenging’ and are rather letting it sound like the music they (we) grew up with: pop. This seems to be the main difference between earlier generations and ours. They added (forced?) pop flavor into their pieces. We are simply allowing it to naturally come out.
Matt’s comment points to a generational difference between the way ‘classical’ composers handle and have handled encounters with pop music. Does this have anything to do with how composition is taught at institutions of ‘higher learning’? Is pop music taboo in academic composition departments?
By now everyone knows that one of the biggest trends to emerge in new music recently has been the synthesis of elements of pop, rock, hip-hop, electronica, and all gradations of popular music in between. Of course, using pop and rock influences in new music is nothing new; the origins of minimalism are rooted in the rock music of the 1960s, and post-minimalists, like the folks of Bang On A Can, have been at it for at least a couple decades now. But in the last 10 years, and especially the past 5 years, this practice has become undeniably mainstream. I think a lot of this has to do with generational shifts at institutions of higher learning; a literal ‘out with the old and in with the new’ changing of the guard.
Composers, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that in the past when a student went to college to study music composition, they were more or less required by those in charge of their compositional development to check their pop music influences at the door. Though you could be a pop music fan, there really wasn’t any place for that sort of trite, repetitive music in the realm of “serious” music composition so composers were passive-aggressively required to repress these lascivious musical tastes; a sort of elitist musical don’t ask, don’t tell (and certainly don’t you dare write music like that!) policy.
But now, times they are a changin’, and popular music influences in the ivory tower don’t seem to be quite as taboo as they once were. Far from repressing the coming-of-age music of their teenage years, a new generation of composers is embracing those influences with exceptional vigor and working to create a new musical hybrid. As you might expect, there have been various approaches to contributing to the zeitgeist.
Some composers and ensembles have taken the juxtaposition of classical meets pop very literally. For example, have you heard Metallica played by four cellos? How about Aphex Twin arranged for chamber ensemble?
Is there value in this sort of literal translation?
Will these ‘experiments’ create anything lasting?
R they PR ‘stunts’?
Who will be the next ‘relevant’ electronica artist 4 ‘indie / alt-classicists’ to ‘transcribe’?
If ur a composer and u ‘remix’ yourself is that ‘meta’ or resourceful?
What r some other ways ‘indie-classicists’ r ‘synthesizing’ pop music with ‘classical rigor’?
R u more ‘free’ as a composer now because the ‘old guard’ is leaving academia?
If u went 2 a college / university / conservatory that discouraged u from ‘synthesizing’ pop music in ur songs r u mad?
Did u ‘butt heads’ with ur comp teacher?
Tags: Academia, Alarm Will Sound, Aphex Twin, Matt Marks, Metallica, Pop Music, taboo
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It’s also good to note that a lot of the “new music” coming out is by people from backgrounds in folk, pop, indie etc using ideas from maybe going to college and learning classical music, or collaborating. The whole post-rock field is littered with people like this.
ie it’s not just the old using popular music as a source for your thoroughly still-classical music thing, it’s also a continuation of 70s art rock.
[...] his blog, Brian Sacawa highlighted a comment I made in his discussion of whether the ‘alt-classical’ scene is a fad or not: IMO most of the [...]
Sorry I missed out of responding to last week’s question about alt-classical as a fad. Back in July on Nico Muhly’s blog there was an interesting discussion, which I did respond to, between him and Amanda Ameer about this idea of scenes surrounding certain kinds of music which might be relevant to your topic (http://nicomuhly.com/news/2009/scene-but-not-heard/).
Also, back in November during my monthly Composer Salon, I discussed ‘alt-classical’ or my more inclusive term for the zeitgeist, ‘mixed music’ (http://numinousmusic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mixed-music-stylistic-freedoms-in.html), as well as during a response to a discussion on Greg Sandow’s blog (http://numinousmusic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mixed-music-vs-alt-classical.html), so I won’t repeat all of my thoughts here.
But I will say that, I think the bigger trend now is how composers are now more interested in connecting with their listeners, by including them and caring whether they are engaged with the music. and naturally giving them an ‘in’ by incorporating sounds, structures, instruments that they are more familiar with from pop/rock music is one way to create that connection, which is wonderful. And sure for some people there is a certain amount of PR in all of this (nothing wrong with that). There is also a fair amount of showing one’s hipsterness by declaring one’s love of indie rock, with a ‘hey, look at how meta and cool I am, by letting that rock influence come through my classical lens.’ And while I believe that composers in school and professionally are usually free to include any influences from the popular side of things in their work, I think there is still only a certain kind of indie pop/rock music that is deemed the ‘right kind’ to incorporate into one’s music. I wonder what would happen if some alt-classical type wrote a piece based on the music of Justin Beiber or Ke$ha? would they have to give up their ‘cool kid’ card? Maybe not, I guess, if it sounded great but I’m not so sure.
Will this movement create something lasting? I think Dennis DeSantis’s comment about the only thing that matters is “what the music sounds like” is a good place to start. I do believe there are many mixed music works that will be long remembered although while much of the music is interesting to listen to (and much I really like), I often question does the music always really move or stir me on a visceral level? Do I really resonant with it? does it reach for something beyond just interesting? Do I LOVE it?
While I was in school I definitely did experience a perpetuated conflict between “purist” modernism and the use of elements from pop music. One of my composition teachers in grad school particularly had an ideological beef with any music that had repetitive rhythm or was trance-inducing, and drew a connection with the militaristic music of fascism and its aim of undermining critical thought. The regular rhythm in Bach was apparently an exception to the rule.
At an earlier stage, when I was just starting to study composition, it did make sense for me to immerse myself in the techniques of modernism to the exclusion of more familiar influences that I had grown up with- for me it was about learning new modes of expression. By the end of my time as a student, however, it made more sense to integrate my various other influences- hip-hop, electronica, etc., to create more of a personal hybrid (my own voice). I wouldn’t write the music I do now though, if I hadn’t been on this whole journey.
What does “classical rigor” actually mean?
I’ve heard this phrase thrown around for years, and the only consistent thing I can figure out is that the people who use it when referring to their own music are the same people who like to remind you that they write their music at a desk instead of at an instrument.
The only thing that’s ever mattered about music – ever – is what it sounds like.
As a longtime educator (both in and out of academia) I can tell you that academia is slow to adopt any change whatsoever. I remember being at music school and laboring for weeks if not months on music of the Baroque Period and in the final days of the semester our so called ‘hip’ professor spent a brief moment of one class talking about Jimi Hendrix.
The future of music education lies outside of academia, using advances in technology and software like MusickEd.com for example. IMO Indie or alt/classic artists seem to have an interest in learning traditional music education and have adopted these non-traditional ways to obtain it.
It’s not surprising that academia lags behind. Colleges and universities still prepare ‘future’ music educators to lead Junior High and High School band, choir, and orchestra programs (basically jobs that are rapidly dwindling) while completely ignoring the larger, tech-savvy (and income making) 18 to 50 yr. old demographic.
The internet is changing the music industry in many ways. It will do the same for music education.
Oh my God!
First of all, who ever said there were “taboos” in music? Sure, when you walk into a freshman year music theory class, they tell you to forget about pop music. This is because you’re already familiar with pop music, it’s time to learn something new. Why wouldn’t a composer equip themselves with all tools possible???
Second of all, whatever comes next will not be a musical reinvention, it will be a revolution.
Nobody saw atonal music coming before Schoenberg wrote, what, Pierrot Lunnaire in 1912? Nobody thought to feed a piano a bail of hay until LeMonte Young propositioned to do so. It’s fine if composers want to try and regain listeners’ devotion through compromise, but this does not mean they’re uncovering the “new music.”
If composers feel like they need to incorporate a pop mentality to connect with the listener, then they’re doing music an injustice, might as well write film scores.
Unless, of course, a composer’s heart is in reinventing popular song. In which case, that’s wonderful, but it’s still not “new music.”
Stravinsky wasn’t revolutionary for setting old folk melodies, it was just something he did beneath polytonality, unprecedented rhythmic vitality, and genius orchestration, amongst other things.
Also, reorchestrating popular song with more traditional instruments like Metallica played by four cellos is not a blend of popular and classical, it is a reorchestration. This, of course, begs the question, what is classical music?
I don’t know. But, I do know it means more than just a cello arrangement.
I would hope that we’re moving away from “taboos” in new music, period – taboos are a pretty silly reason not to do something as an artist in the twenty-first century.
The pieces I really like that have to do with pop music – for example by Laurence Crane (“Some Rock Music for Alan Thomas”) and Nic Collins (“Devil’s Music”) – try to acknowledge, in some way, that pop music and classical music represent not just different libraries of musical material but also different ways of listening and musical sociologies.