The Future of (Art) Music
Posted on July 28, 2004
Filed Under Culture, Music |
At ArtsJournal, several prominent New York music critics have come together for a conversation and examination of the future of music. What they are talking about is “art” or “western art” music, although I hesitate to include the term “western” since in New York, there are more influences than only the “western” (western European and American) culture. The discussion is in the form of a weblog (of course), so if you follow the link, you’ll need to read from the lowest placed entry on the page to the highest if you want to follow the conversation like a normal human being.
The question the critics are pondering is, What is the next Big Idea in (art) music? They are having enough trouble determining what the Big Ideas were in the twentieth century. In fact, they have totally missed the boat.
The Biggest Idea in the past hundred years or so has been the development of jazz! Perhaps they are intentionally overlooking this genre—after all, jazz tends to bridge the gap between art music and pop music, but so did the music of many of the classical composers in their time. According to Alex Ross, minimalism (a Big Idea, but as Big as jazz?) also bridges this gap. Perhaps they ignore jazz because it is not “classical” music, but I don’t see how it is any less “classical” than minimalism, for example. Also, jazz is partly rooted in African (that is, non-western) music tradition. That cannot be a reason for exclusion by New Yorkers viewing the world from the twenty-first century.
Perhaps jazz is just not revolutionary enough to be included in their thoughts. Minimlaism and 12-tone play with harmonies and melodies in such a way that is remarkably different from everything else that has existed prior. Jazz uses familar triads and sonorities that have been around for centuries (although the earlier roots of jazz merely approximated western harmonies). The critics might see jazz as just an Idea, not a Big Idea.
As far as finding the next Big Idea, it’s obvious that it’s difficult for people—even some of the best critics—to predict the future. It is an interesting discussion, and I’ll be following its progress throughout the next few days.
Your post just showed up in a search. Jazz as art music is an interesting concept. Note that I have a blog re: american classical music, meaning art music. However, I want to blog about Dexter Gordon, Coltrane etc. but haven’t decided if I should create a separate blog or interperse posts with the more traditional “classical” music.