Pare This Down to Something

It is a typical and logical view to see the composer as creator, the one who makes something from nothing – fills the void that was with content, knowledge, purpose. This model lends itself to the soundscape of old, the silent vastness of the farmland where true reflection can be done. The romantic ideal of the isolated genius only immersed in their own thoughts and creations, the outside world is not permitted into this process.

The practitioners of music now, and the listeners as well, are mostly surrounded by the opposite. The loud abrasive city is all around, even in solitude it is heard. The noise of media, advertisements, promotion – even the imagery is noisy. All of this noise is the potential. With all sound as music, music making is no longer creating but editing. No longer is something coming out of nothing. The potential for anything is always present. Even to carry on a tradition is to scrape away to reveal a form. There is the potential for everything, but we look for those that pare this down to something of seeming purpose.

The Contradictory Nature of the Free Market and the Creative

I've been thinking over the annoyance that so many appreciators, myself included, of music have with the current hierarchy of the music industry. Though it tends to be the first point that people grasp onto, it is not the profit off of music by organizations that is the issue. If they were truly pushing the art form forward and keeping it abundant as part of our culture while making money, we should have no issue with it.

The issue, however, is linked to the profit making (though said profit is apparently shrinking this century). It is the age old tale of capitalism, to maximize profit one must be able to create a product for less while selling it for more. The idea behind this system is that an entity must conform to the expectations of the public in order to sell a product while simultaneously competing with organizations in the same field. Therefore, quality is upheld by public demand...right?

Well, if the public represents a well informed group of people, then yes, it will all balance out. But if the public is unaware of what actual quality is or has not been taught how to differentiate the many intricacies of a given topic, then it is up to the producers themselves to teach the public, to tell them what is good and what isn't, to show them the many possibilities. This goes for any field, medium, type of product.

Apply this model to music, or any art form for that matter. Consumption of music by the public is dependent upon taste. In a society where art and music are taught less and less in schools, it is up to other sources to generate interest and invariably shape the judgment of potential consumers. Who's influence will ultimately be able to reach more: one who holds a cultural tradition and the continuance of an art form dear or one who stands to profit of the same art form through public consumption? (No these two sides are not exclusive of one another, but stay with me for a second.)

With enough economic backing to support a great marketing campaign, either side could win, but money typically follows paths that lead to more money. Money moving towards cultural stimulation is like pumping water uphill.

So we have a ripe public full of consumers with little knowledge on the possibilities of the art form. What does an organization concerned with its profits produce in order to satiate the public hunger?

1. A cornucopia of options?
2. Or many variations of the same idea that can be marketed to appear as if they represent the spectrum of possibilities within the art form, thus shaping what consumers know to be possible and accept as appropriate?

The analogies to the food industry are plentiful, pun intended. Corn products have been disguised to create the appearance of an abundance of choices. The music industry isn't much different in its tactics, except that it doesn't have poorly designed government subsidies to spur its means of production.

For decades, bad music has been unleashed on the public through the record industry. It is easier to produce much of the same than it is to produce a wide variety.

This has shaped us as listeners in so many ways. For example, live acoustic performance of music has become a novelty in so many ways. It is not the only way to perform music. But it is a marvelously beautiful and important method. David Byrne explained the influence of architecture on music in a very clear presentation for TED.

There are musicians, record companies, and publishers that are expanding musical practices. We should be thankful for their push forward. But, as far as I can see it, this will always be an uphill battle.

Is Music Melody, or Is It The Other Way Around?

Is a melody as strong of a building block as a sentence or an image? A sentence is able to convey a thought or an action. An image preserves a moment, which in turn allows for some sort of understanding (not that it must, but that it is able to). What does a melody do? It stays in our heads for some unknown reason, but what is it?

It is not composed of words with meanings to combine to a thought as a sentence is. A melody is merely a set of tones played in a specific order with specific durations and accents. There are those that would argue that melody conveys emotion. Major = happy, delightful. Minor = sad, depressed. But there is nothing of substance to lead to that; it is merely our reaction to sound. (And that reaction in itself may just be trained in us culturally. Maybe if, from childhood, we were shown happy images alongside minor melodies and horrifically depressing images alongside major melodies, we would have a different perspective on the meaning of a melody, or rather, what emotion a melody conveys.)

I guess my point is that melody, as a building block for music, does not seem to be as strong of a basis as say a sentence for literature or an image for a painting or a photograph or a film. Music, in itself, seems to have less of a logical reason to exist as an artform if melody is its only reason for existing.

This leads to my point of writing all of this: I hate when someone says that something is not musical because it lacks a melody. A melody, as I see it, is only a small part of the artform of music. Music is an artform composed of sound. A melody is a happy coincidence of putting the right notes in the right order and then...well there it is, a singable tune. But what about the beauty of the scrapes and scratches and noises of everyday life? of the sustained chords that seem that they'll never end, taking on a whole new life just through the fact of their duration? These are the things I love to hear used in music. And, well, defining when they are sounded together correctly that is up to the listener.