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?
