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The Cultural Revolution Starts Here!

By Old Grumpy Guy on January 30, 2009 at 12:00 PM in Arrogance, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Democracy, Disenfranchisement, Elitism, Fascism, Humor, Media, OldGrumpyGuy

In my new video I look at the way the Emperor’s Clothing Syndrome has dominated the arts and humanities over the past half century, with the help of academic practitioners looking for theories to build on, trying to carve out some academic territory for themselves and becoming the high priests or priestesses of their chosen domains. In music, it ended with meaningless and very irritating noise.

Now I make some sweeping generalizations in this video, and may be overstating my case for effect, but that does not necessarily dilute the reality of what I am saying.

As I said at the beginning of the top ten composer series, we saw the Emperor’s Clothing Syndrome ( a tendency to pretend to see or believe something out of fear of being thought of out of step with others, or out of fear that you might be attacked or ridiculed if you show your true feelings) running rampant during the elections.

“It’s the kind of pseudo-liberal academic milieu that produces people like the Beast with No Name, who is a Rhodes scholar and yet one of the most narrow-minded and bigoted people you can find. One of the problems is that lot of people who excel academically are people who are able to absorb and reflect back what their tutors want them to,” I wrote then.

“They are the kind of people who try to impose their narrow and very theoretical world view on others and become blinkered in their focus, doing their best to beat down anyone who doesn’t agree with them. (Now what does that remind you of?).”

Academia can provide you with the tools and techniques of art, but the academic process cannot make you an artist, or even an art critic.

From a broader perspective, Academia can provide you with a framework for examining things, but to get close to the true nature of anything you have to examine it through a number of different frameworks from a number of different angles. If you keep using the same theoretical frameworks, they become blinkers.

Many branches of academia, particularly in the field of arts and humanities, strive to create a single framework or model of things and academics fight to have their models adopted as the only ones that are valid. That is what gives them power.

Art and life in general cannot be confined by academic theories or opinion. The essence of art is that it must be transcendant, and to be transcendant it has to be organic. It has to be able to grow beyond prescribed boundaries to achieve new perspectives.

As in art, so in life.

truthorconsequences

Academia will never replace experience. Life is a learning experience. Academia is another footnote in the history of life.

OldGrumopyGuy

I couldn’t agree more.
WildChild

Academia is a compilation of the experience of life. It’s how the generations outside of the immediate family pass on their experiences to the current and to the next. It’s how the past talks to the future. It’s how the present adds to the betterment of us all.

OldGrumpyGuy

Not when it is blinkered and biased and more interested in promoting self-serving or self-aggrandizing agendas.

WildChild

I suppose if it was the way you said it was we might have a problem. To truely find what you speak of, you have to go to church. The rest is noting more then a function of your hysteria.

Old Grumpy Guy

Hysteria? Do you really think you are in a position to throw strones Wildchild? Almost every comment of yours shrieks of confused hysteria.

WildChild

stones? really? Did it hurt you that badly? Or was it that you couldn’t justify your earlier comment about all things blinkered and biased so you had to lay smoke for cover and run?

Old Grumpy Guy

I don’t feel the need to justify anything to hysterical morons

WildChild

Then it must be mighty quiet around the diner table in the grumpy household

Old Grumpy Guy

You become more pathetic with each banal utterance Wildchld

andrew191

Careful OGG, I’m sure you’re well aware that when a wise person engages in an argument with a fool, it’s difficult to determine the one that’s the fool. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your deftly handled bouts with WildChild and V. Ironically, serendipity couldn’t have provided you two better examples of people that suffer from your “Emperors Clothing Syndrome”. It’s nice of them to come forward for our instruction and amusement.

http://www.cheneywatch.org/ truthtelling007

“Academia will never replace experience. Life is a learning experience.”

I truly think this is very important for academics to get. I have a really good, though snotty, friend who condescended me because I didn’t have a doctorate in the same field we both study. He threw his curriculum vitae at me and in return I threw my working resume at him. Touche! except now…his school is laying off jobs and he is cut to part time. Now he calls me to ask, “so what is the best way to interview for a job”?

It isn’t the first time I’ve been here either. Contrary to the smears of a few here, I’ve been salt of the earth my whole life, and love it, never be ashamed of it.

When I had a musician friend who was barely 23 tell me I hadn’t done anything while he had 2 grammys and had sat with powerful influential friends, I didn’t respond to him. I was 10 years older than he was, and had been on my own dime since I was a teen. What I did instead was start up my own business at the same time, and 6 months later he came looking for help in writing a resume. He didn’t have much to offer normal jobs. He couldn’t just tell them, “i have grammys”. They weren’t hiring “grammys”.

Don’t get me wrong, in both cases, I adore these two friends. But their dismissal of ‘normal’ folks was petty and shortsighted from people who had been truly blessed. They were very fortunate. Each had solid support from their families to get to their current level of success.

But this arrogance isn’t a new thing, it has old roots in the following story:
Mulla Nasrudin is a folk hero through out the near east and mid east, from Afghanistan to Turkey, he is part court jester and philosopher.

The story goes as told by Idris Shah:

Nasrudin sometimes took people for trips in his boat. One day a fussy pedagogue hired him to ferry him across a very wide river. As soon as they were afloat, the scholar asked whether it was going to be rough. “Don’t ask me nothing about it,” said Nasrudin. “Have you never studied grammar?” “No,” said the Mulla. “In that case, half your life has been wasted.” The Mulla said nothing. Soon a terrible storm blew up. The Mulla’s crazy cockleshell was filling with water. He leaned over towards his companion. “Have you ever learnt to swim?” “No,” said the pedant. “In that case, schoolmaster, ALL your life is lost, for we are sinking.”

This is a story that I will always cherish and I hope you enjoy it too.
I offer this as my gift to OGG for his pursuit to save Western Society from itself.

Old Grumpy Guy

Ah, pedagoguery and pedantry, the refuge of the anal retentive! Thanks TT.

Peggy Sue

Wow! That moment of silence was fantastic. You’re an absolute genius.

And in the video clip, how did that young man keep a straight face, while describing the movements of profound silence?

This reminded me of a day I took one of my sons to the Philadelphia Art Museum. They had several rooms devoted to “modern art pieces,” none of which I understood. One “installation” was a snow shovel suspended from the ceiling. It was a red snow shovel [I'm sure that was significant]. Another was a circle of rocks on the floor. Just rocks. My son, who was about nine at the time, laughed like a loon then plopped himself into the center of the rock circle, leaned back and declared himself an “Artist.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Good video, OGG. Yes, a revolution is at hand. We declare ourselves free of the rings in our noses and refuse to led around in silly circles.

Funny and sad!

OldGrumpyGuy

I’m glad you recognized the genius of my 10 seconds of silence. It took a lot of thinking about. You didn’t think it might have been just a little too “busy” perhaps?

Peggy Sue

Oh, no, no, no, no. It was sublime!

OldGrumpyGuy

Thanks Peggy Sue.

lark

I am going to first applaud you for the completeness of your thoughts and the way you end. You are a wonderful communicator.

I agree with your basic premise and your hypothesis. But disagree with your construction. What I will say to agree with you, if I may, is that academia does constrain the purpose of their motive, the purpose of their mission and like government creates a bullet proof jacket that like government has only the intention of solidifying their status. Academia is only interested like most governmental entities in their own welfare. They can care less about the welfare of those they serve. “There I said it and I’ll live with it” (Mark Levin, Radio talk show).

Where I disagree is that in my opinion, you have chosen to bury those that propose true, not intuition, but thoughtful meditation. Now that I arrived at those words, ‘thoughtful meditation,’ those are the words that I will use to bring about my disagreement point.

But let me digress, first and go to the end. You are right that creativity is being stifled and that the mantra of ‘Emperor’s Clothing Syndrome’ is more than prevalent everywhere. Even here in this forum is a general mantra advocated regularly by a few of the authors in the forum. So I agree with your conclusion. Just that you arrived at your conclusion simply because your hypothesis is correct and did not need any proof. Funny line. Well yeah, you are a genius.

But the works of silence I think you somewhat misinterpret by giving talent a place that I do not believe it has when speaking about creativity. Of course talent is important in that it is central to focus. But not that important when you are speaking of communication. I think that’s what Messiaen is trying to say in that clip. I will cut this short now.

I think what you are missing is the solution to the problem. I think you think the solution to the problem is ‘talent unleash.’ I don’t. I think the solution to the problem is ‘thoughtful meditation.’ That’s what’s lacking.

Bravo for you.

andrew191

Spoken like an accomplished academician.
OldGrumpyGuy

Nothing should be undertaken without thinking about it, so I have no disagreement about that. But I’m not sure what you are saying about Messiaen.

ChooChooMagoo

Great points GOG. Unfortunately the mind set of viewing everything through a fixed frame work seems to flourish in too many quarter. Not just in academia.

I have two elderly friends. Both came from the same rural county. One has lived all her life (birth to 90+) within say 50 mile radius. But she has travel extensively around the world on tours. And considers her self very worldly. The other friend (80+) has lived in many states across the U.S. – big city and small, west coast, east coast. Not sure she has been out side the U.S. But she is the one I consider to be more worldly.

Both have interacted with people across the political, social, racial, ethnic spectrum, but the second woman also lived in totally different environments that had very different climate, life style, concerns, life focus. She lived life with different people, as apposed to viewed the life of different people. Too many assume the latter gives as much insight as the former.

Which is why the media fail to understand main street america. They view us but don’t live with us. They don’t share our concerns, life style or life focus.

ChooChooMagoo

Sorry meant – Great points OGG.

Diana L. C.

OGG,

Sign me up as part of the revolution!

All my life, my dream was to earn my Ph.D. Of course, life got in the way. I got through the MA in English with a 4.0 in my field, taking a major comp in British lit and two minor comps, one in American lit and one in linguistics. This was from our third-tier university in the state whose English department still required its students to know lit “from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf” and also to take classes in rhetoric and language as well as lit.

There are only two universities in my state to offer a doctorate in English. One is our “flagship” public university and one is a private university. I could not afford the private school, as I still had children to raise. So off I went to our well-known (for its football team scandals and its plagiarizing history professors) “flagship” school.

There I was one of only two people accepted into the doctoral program in English who already had an MA (because my test score was so high). The department liked to “groom” their doctoral students and specialize them early starting after their BA.

I took a course from the Dept. Chairman whose special form of lit theory was Marxist theory. He did not like it when I forced him in class with my dogged questioning to explain I.A. Richards’ theories about truth. He wanted only to discuss Richards’ comments about popular culture. Since his ideas about truth were central to Richards’ thought, I couldn’t see why he didn’t want to discuss it. (Of course, the answer is that they contradict Marxist materialism.) At one point, I had to tell him that the debate between the empiricists and the rationalists had raged for a long time through the field of linguistics and, in fact, were still raging at the time I was taking his class. He had said no one discussed it anymore. I told him he should cross the lawn to walk to a building across the campus to ask the people granting doctorates in linguistics. Needless to say, he didn’t like me much, though he graded my paper high since I did excellent research, even though it contracted one of his points. He asked me where I got my information. I told him that he needed to learn how to use the university’s most excellent research library–the best one in the state. (I don’t think he liked it either when I wore a “Nietzche is dead” t-shirt to class either.)

Then I took a course from a raging Irigaray feminist who made me (I believe I was the only one who was upset) spend six agonizing hours discussing why William Langland assigned his allegorical figures of the seven deadly sins the sex he had assigned them.

I was far more interested in Langland’s (for Piers Plowman) more Augustinian religion as compared to Chaucer’s seeming (mostly satirical I thought) emphasis on Jerome’s writing in The Canterbury Tales and in his other works, especially in regard to Jerome’s Adversus Jovinanum, when dealing with issues around sex.

My professor didn’t really know much about that, having specialized in “modern” feminist theory, and it was clear she wanted us to do modern feminist theory only with no mention of the time period in which the wonderful poem was written, a poem that I was not convinced concentrated at all on the differences between men and women and was a major “complaint” against the practices of the Catholic Church at the time. I even had to correct her reading of one passage since we were reading in Middle English (I can also read Old English. I had received an excellent education in those at my “third-rate” college.) Same story about my grade because I just didn’t want to turn in a feminist paper.

Then I started another seminar, only to realize that my professor was embroiled in a controversy spurred on by one of the major newspapers in the state. His specialty was pornographic literature. I think he would have been the easiest to get along with, actually, because the class was a lit theory review rather than a lit class per se.

My real goal had been to finish a dissertation on Tristram Shandy, the most hilarious novel in the world. Sterne was an Anglican priest in the 18th century and my dissertation would have been about the echoes I felt I had found from Ecclesiatesin the novel, which was, in fact, the major text of the sermon Sterne included in the novel. That would have meant knowing something about Christian theology, etc., and I soon realized I would not find anyone at that school to agree to guide my dissertation.

I just gave up. I was appalled by the English doctoral students who complained when their professors marked their papers for grammatical mistakes. (DUH! They were writing in English.) I was appalled when my feminist professor and half all the other students in the class did not know what I meant when I commented that the ending of Piers Plowman seemed to be echoed in the famous ending of Alexander Pope’s Dunciad. None of them had read it because it was “out of their specialty.”

It just seemed to be about, as you pointed out, carving a niche for oneself according to a current theory in a very narrow period of English lit without having to know anything about other periods of lit or other theories, whether or no their theory had legs to stand on in the real world–And to earn their oversized salaries funded by tax dollars.

oowawa

Wow. The intelligence, qualifications and experience of the folks behind the blognames on NQ are often really impressive. Thanks for sharing a bit of your reality, Diana.
lark

and I soon realized I would not find anyone at that school to agree to guide my dissertation

Write that as a header on your dissertation and do it on your own without guidance. Award yourself a pseudo PhD degree diploma and hang it in your office. 1. That would be much more difficult than a guided PhD dissertation anyways. 2. Give people a copy of the dissertation to read if they question your self-certified degree. You will get more readers of it since no one reads PhD dissertations anyways.
lark

and I soon realized I would not find anyone at that school to agree to guide my dissertation

I think BTW that those are very empowering words.
OldGrumpyGuy

Thanks for a very moving account of your academic experience Diana. There are many others like you who have suffered from, and been alienated by the trendy biases of Academia. These people live in ivory towers that keep them isolated from the real world. Unfortunately they tend to be subsidised unwittingly by people who do not generally agree with them – i.e. the general public and the taxpayers. In Britain the old school of unrepentant Marxists dominated the arts. Every theatrical piece – even musicals like Les Misrables – had to have a Marxist subtext for directors like Trevor Nunn and others schooled by tutors who believed that the main purpose of theatre was to send the audience out into the streets as Marxist revoltionaries. Many academics in all fields were seduced by the intellectual superstructure of Marxism, which was impeccable in its logic but was built on a fallacy. You can start with any premise, however shaky, and build an impressive superstructure of logic around it, and this is what a lot of academic theorists do. It was rampant across all disciplines.

Diana L. C.

The Marxist professor was full of himself because he was from Cambridge.

OldGrumpyGuy

Cambridge was for a long time a hotbed of middle-class Marxists.

Magic Puzzle Box

So that’s you in the video, Old Grumpy Guy? That’s a really great post.

It’s ironic about Marxists dominating the arts in some of these places because Communist countries were some of the worst when it came to art, all that socialist realism about a man falling in love with his cement truck and becoming a good worker and all. I have a degree in Russian language and Literature, and I hated the Stalinist stuff, my favorite were the underground writers like Andrei Beli whose Petersburg and Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog” were a revelation. I read later that in the former Soviet Union the state even decided who was allowed to buy art supplies.

But back in my college years, the sad thing is that I loved creative writing as a child and decided to take a creative writing seminar in college, but I quickly found my inspirations were not welcome. They had a really narrow idea of what constituted good writing, and I liked to write genre fiction, sci fi or horror or fantasy, not the slice of life boredom they preferred. I had to get advice from another professor about which writing class to take so I wouldn’t have my style and interests discouraged out of me. I hear the situation has gotten better in the decades since I took that class, but I know exactly what you mean by the fascists, let me tell you.

Old Grumpy Guy

I liked to write genre fiction, sci fi or horror or fantasy, not the slice of life boredom they preferred

I like the term “slice of life boredom”. Reminds me of those French movies of the 50s and 60s where people sat around discussing cabbages. I don’t think it matters what genre you write in. Dean Koontz is a great writer and presents many insights into the human condition while being very entertaining. I don’t much care for the supernatural aspects of his work (same with Stephen King) but both can write beautiful prose.

elise

“So off I went to our well-known (for its football team scandals and its plagiarizing history professors) “flagship” school.”

I wonder if we attended the same school?

V

My, he does crap on so, dosn’t he.

In discussing the use of latin among the erstwhile high priests, and trying to tie it somehow into present day politics, he laughingly ignores, the dope, the use by our current high priests: doctors and lawyers.

Old Grumpy Guy, if you’re reading, find and listen to Morton Subotnik’s “Touch”, a record out of the late sixties, consisting entirely of Mort’s beeps, farts, and buzzes on the then-new “Moog Synthesizer”. Yep, a professor of something-or-other.

At the same time, Wendy Carlos (well, back then, Walter Carlos) was actually making music with the new instrument.

You get to choose, as we always have. This isn’t going to change. This is how old your argument is.

As an add to John Cage’s 4’33″ of silence, I have a tale:

Mike Batt, in 2002, put a track on an album tiled “A Minute of Silence” which was in fact a minute of silence, and bizarrely found himself the subject of a lawsuit by the estate of John Cage, which held that he had copied the work from Cage.

Mike Batt’s mom had the best comment: “which minute are they saying you copied?”

And Mike added: “mine is the much better piece. I was able to say in a minute what took Cage four minutes and thirty three seconds to say.”

Batt cheerfully coughed up a sum to the John Cage trust, and that was that.

And then Mike released a single with, you guessed it, “A Minute of Silence”.

Diana L. C.

Interesting history about the “minute of silence.”

But there is no need to criticize OGG for discussing this general issue of the Emperor’s supposed clothes.

It IS an old argument–heck, let’s talk about Scholasticism.

But I am sure OGG is working up to discussing how this syndrome affects politics. Give him time. Many people haven’t been nerds their whole lives as some of us have been.

I am especially incensed by the DNC’s fawning over George Lakoff’s theories about politics, just because he is a “professor.” None of those idiots in the DNC know anything about linguistics, so they just followed the equivalent of an Orwellian snake oil salesman (in my mind) since he is also a “linguistics professor in a top university.”

(It’s my opinion Lakoff was still miffed at Chomsky (Read The Linguistic Wars and now wants to be read for politics as well as for linguistics–the way Chomsky is.)
Diana L. C.

Interesting story about the “minute of silence.” Music is not my field.

But there is no need to criticize OGG. It IS indeed and old argument; heck, let’s discuss Scholasticism.

I am sure OGG will get to the point of how this issue of the Emperor’s supposed clotes affects the current political situation.

Right now I am still incensed by the DNC’s use of George Lakoff’s leaky political theories. It’s my opinion that they bought the equivalent of a linguistic snake oil salesman’s good just because he is a “famous professor of linguistics at a famous university.” (I also am convinced that Lakoff was still trying to one-up Chomsky–read The Linguistic Wars and become a well-known political writer as Chomsky–the father of modern linguistics–is.)

Those people at the DNC just followed the “emperor” without knowing if he really had clothes.
oowawa

Thanks for the great Mike Batt story, V. I hadn’t heard of this before, and it sounded like an “urban legend,” and so I looked it up, and it seems the particulars are as you say. It seems that Batt got in trouble by crediting Cage as a co-author of the “piece.” Oh well, Pretty silly, in any case! Here’s a link:

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/23/uk.silence/
OldGrumpyGuy

I don’t ignore it, dope. It’s implicit throughout the video. Obviously you were not perceptive enough to see it.

V

I don’t ignore it, dope. It’s implicit throughout the video. Obviously you were not perceptive enough to see it.

Boy, I’ll say, I never get it right when it comes to implication.

So, where you from, Grumpy?

DAB

As a long-time fan of the sound of silence, I congratulate OGG on his classy rendition.

Silence is certainly a major improvement over the atonality of Schoenberg and his ilk and that intuition sometimes discovered in silence informs me that I should avoid listening to ANY “music” that makes me ill.
oowawa

Thanks for the provocative piece on criticism, Old Grumpy Guy. I suppose some young hooligans might characterize your views as “reactionary” rather than “revolutionary,” but I am an OLD hooligan and will not be so rude.

I certainly agree with you on Adams’ ridiculous Nixon opera: it actually made me laugh (but so does Wagnerian opera, sometimes). I disagree on Messiaen: I thought the clip you played was interesting, and made me want to hear more. The Cage “silence” is certainly attack-worthy, though I do see what he is getting at: the ambient sounds and noises around us are interesting and worthy of our attention. Similarly, some modern visual artists try to call attention to the taken-for-grranted objects in the everyday world around us. Is it art? Answering this keeps the critics busy. I find remarkable little poems in some of the commments on NQ. I should note that John Cage does have a vast and varied body of work, and empty silence is not characteristic of it.

I am very sympathetic to your remark about academics “trying to carve out some academic territory for themselves and becoming the high priests or priestesses of their chosen domains.” This quest to find a sustainable niche in academia can be a matter of survival. And it all does get ridiculous sometimes.

Anyway, thanks for once again getting my tired old brain cells to think a few thoughts!

OldGrumpyGuy

Schoenberg himself said that John Cage was talentless.

http://www.cheneywatch.org/ truthtelling007

Appeal to Shoenberg fallacy?

http://www.cheneywatch.org/ truthtelling007

and for those who might not know, Shoenberg was one of Cage’s teachers along with Henry Cowell.

V

I should avoid listening to ANY “music” that makes me ill.

In saying “I like that” or “I don’t like that”, you have performed the fundamental duty of any music critic. Thankfully, unlike the paid critics, you do not have to compose a column of reasons for it, which usually gets them into trouble– but it really is that simple, and always has been.

That’s why the Grumpy fella’s rant is so puzzling to me. Yes, we know, experimental pieces are often unlistenable. So what?

Diana L. C.

The so what is this: You do have a choice in music and in literature and any field. But this “intellectualism” IS rampant in the progressive movement. The universities promoting these theories and “experimental” ideas are also graduating our public school teachers. We need a citizenry of well-rounded thinkers with broad backgrounds. I was often sick of young English teachers trying to get high school students to do deconstructionist literary criticism, for God’s sake. How many high school students want to do that or have a reason to do that. In history and social studies, there is also a problem. Try putting a student who is really interested in history and put him into an ultrafeminist teacher’s class when she expects him to write papers only about his male guilt. Or, in another case write papers about baseball, a subject he has no interest in, because his teacher thinks the history of baseball is a perfect metaphor for American history.

We should have choices; you are correct. But students who are “captives” in some classes don’t have those choices.

And many don’t understand really the dynamic behind the disgust they feel–they sometimes just hate school or start to belive they are the “stupid” one.

OldGrumpyGuy

You have hit on a fundamental point Diania – the lack of choice in a milieu dominated by trendy leftist bias (which we saw running rampant in the media during the elections).

bert

Your use of the Emperor’s New Clothing Syndrome is an excellent choice for describing much of what ails the arts and America today. Everywhere, in every field it seems someone is trying to, as you say, “impose their narrow world view” on us. Whether it is the media, entertainment industry, education, culture, politics or government there are those who try to force feed us pabulum.

This has led to setting low expectations in every realm and field: art, music, architecture, literature, movies, education, and even Presidential elections.

I have said this before on this blog, I think a lot of this phenomena stems from the self-esteem movement in our public schools. (Or is this philosophy the logical conclusion of these narrow world views? Which came first – the chicken or the egg?)

The self-esteem movement in and of itself is proof of what OGG writes ; that is, a philosophy created by elite academia and is a narrow and very theoretical world view that is super imposed on education, teachers, schools, our children and ultimately on all of American society.

Basically this movement says that children should never, ever feel bad about themselves. It says they should feel good about themselves and their performance even if that performance is poor. All that matters is a child’s internal self-image even if that image is at odds with external reality.

If everyone is good at everything, and if every product is equal and as good as every other product, then no one is great at anything. And no product is truly great either.

IMHO, this philosophy has meant that we have lowered everything to the least common denominator. Thus we have poor movies, poor music, poor architecture, and poor literature. And the pen-ultimate lowering of standards, we have elected a man to the highest office in the land who believes he is great because he has an internal self-image as competent and great even though this is at odds with external reality.

lark

It says they should feel good about themselves and their performance even if that performance is poor

Aha aha. First people write something, then they immediately become defensive of what they wrote. Ohhhhh, don’t write anything even minuscule that crosses it. Oh no. Defense, defense, defense. Why? Because of what you just said, bert. I agree. Self-esteem needs to be preserved at all cost. Where is that learned? Now is taught in kindergarten.

V

Commenting on a post on the ‘net is entirely about self-esteem, and don’t you forget it.

V

The so what is this: You do have a choice in music and in literature and any field. But this “intellectualism” IS rampant in the progressive movement.

I wish I could say that Morton Subotnik’s (cited above) view of music was not the primary influence of music students.

Happily, I can say exactly that. Mort taught electronic music (at CalArts), sure, but, he didn’t teach Morton Subotnik. As a composer, he sucks, as a teacher, well, you’d have to talk to one of his students.

Probably, you could find a number of them in the credits of a handful of movies you’ve seen lately. I can’t say for sure, but you’ll find CalArts in the bio of a lot of them and that kind of means Subotnik.
V

But this “intellectualism” IS rampant in the progressive movement.

Intellectualism. Sounds like a lot of work. What do I do, think about things?
V

Diana writes: But there is no need to criticize OGG. It IS indeed and old argument; heck, let’s discuss Scholasticism.

Yes, there is. The high priesthood is still alive and well and it’s not political, it’s in the profession of doctors (RX) and lawyers (pro bono) to give a (couple of examples).

OGG missed it, and now he knows it. Oughta get out more. Curious: OGG, where are you from exactly? Tell the truth, now–

OldGrumpyGuy

As I said above, you are not very perceptive are you V? My video started as a follow-on from my composer series, but took in ALL fields of academia (which obviously includes doctors and lawyers). If you didn’t get that, you need to pay more attentionm. Or get out more. As for where I am from, I have answered this question on numerous previous occasions.

V

Thanks for the great Mike Batt story, V. I hadn’t heard of this before, and it sounded like an “urban legend,” and so I looked it up, and it seems the particulars are as you say. It seems that Batt got in trouble by crediting Cage as a co-author of the “piece.” Oh well, Pretty silly, in any case!

Personally, I think Batt sampled the Cage piece. They do sound very much the same.

oowawa

Hmmmm . . . it seems a lot of artists are open for a lawsuit for that segment of silence (of varying lengths) that so many artists are placing between the last track on a CD and the “hidden track.” All directly sampled from John Cage, I’m sure.

V

.. or the couple of seconds between any track and another, hee hee.

OldGrumpyGuy

Both lacked talent, in my opinion.

V

Both lacked talent, in my opinion.

Isn’t there anything Mike Batt did that you liked?

Diana L. C.

I am just not convinced that OGG is writing only about music. I think he’s trying to get to a broader perspective of the way “intellectualism” has done much to harm our society.

The self-esteem movement mentioned about is a great example. Read The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology. Everyone in education should read this book and then research how the points it makes has affected their particular field of education.

Yes, most public school music teachers know better than to teach experimental music. They have to play to audiences of mostly parents, so they’re stuck with marching music for the football games, popular music from common musicals put on by the drama department, etc.

Again–I don’t think OGG is thinking only about music.

OldGrumpyGuy

You are of course right Diana. I was not just talking about music.

Murray

O Grumpster.

I’ve been haranguing my teenage son all his little life on exactly this, with art instead of music. I’m fairly sure that his understanding exceeds mine, by now.

Thank you for vindicating me.
socalannie

Fun post, Grumpy. I agree with what you’re saying, and wish there was a cultural revolution where everyone was brave enough to call bs when they see it, or hear it. Your post reminded me of two things:

1) Back in my young pup days (80′s), I was dragged to a concert by a very popular music producer. The concert consisted of a man & a woman standing up in front of the sizable audience and either screeching or mumbling sheer gibberish into microphones. That was it, made-up words or sounds. There were a lot of wealthy “patrons” there. I couldn’t believe it. After we left the music producer I was with asked me what I thought. I told him it was annoying and a waste of time. He laughed & said he agreed (but then why bother taking a date to an event that you know is terrible?).

2) Also in the 80′s, there was a show called Murphy Brown that was popular. Murphy was a tough newswoman. Anyway, in one episode she covers an art exhiblit where everyone is ooohing and aaahing over a pile of pink sweet n low packets on the ground. Murphy calls them out on it, so all the people there (art experts all) make fun of her. She gets even by having her toddler do some finger painting, which she then takes in to the gallery (not revealing they were done by a toddler). The art critics love the pieces and they begin to sell, so she has the last laugh.
V

Again–I don’t think OGG is thinking only about music.

Agreed, but OGG is a simple glibertarian, and clearly hates the fact that gummint should subsidize anything. He’s chosen a few academic examples of music (which God knows nobody’s gonna pay money to hear) as example.

Government subsidization of arts– well, do I really need to explain the benefits? You’re not that far gone, are you?

OGG’s wrongheadedly ignorant windy-ass essay brings to mind Abe Simpson’s famous featured photo in the Springfield newspaper, which was captioned “old man shouts at cloud.”

WildChild

John Kennedy Jr. was killed by a cloud

V

Hah! Just as I suspected!

WildChild

You’re slow. The FAA figured that out years ago.

V

It was the Atlantic Ocean that did him in, wasn’t it?

WildChild

you’re confusing cause and effect again.

V

Yeah [laughing], fair enough. Nevertheless, if that damn ocean hadn’t been there–

WildChild

…then he would have impacted a solid

OldGrumpyGuy

You are not only rude but extremely dumb V

Peggy Sue

I agree, Diane.

When OGG started his composer series, he said he was out to save “Western culture.” That’s far broader and ambitious than any single medium or discipline. And he listed specific qualities used in his measurement: 1)originality, 2) historical significance 3)depth and range of output, 4) influence, 5)durability, and

6) je ne sais quoi [or the x factor]

I think we could easily use these parameters to judge quite a bit. But, of course, you need to believe that judgments are possible and that all things are “not” created equal. The word “genius,” so frequently tossed around, has been rendered meaningless and useless. Unless, you have a reasonably straight and true yardstick you’re willing to use, unsparingly. Like OGG’s.

So, I have been paying attention, OGG. I find your vids entertaining and thought provoking. Thanks for that.

OldGrumpyGuy

I have taken extreme stances at times simply to be thought-provoking and (hopefully) entertaining. I must say I am generally very pleased with the responses I have had. But of course there are always silly people like V around who don’t get it.

OldGrumpyGuy

Or am I being elitist in saying that? (Basically I don’t mind silly people but I hate gratuitous insults and rudeness, and I hate it even more when it comes from people who don’t realise how silly they are).

V

Well, so far, your response is that I’m dumb, silly, not perceptive, and don’t get it.

These all fall into the category of, as the latin language was kind enough to give us, Ad Hominem.

If that’s all you have to say in defense of your work, I’m more than willing to leave it at that.

OldGrumpyGuy

I don’t feel the need to defend myself, you silly person. I just don’t like the combination of your rudeness and lack of anything worthwhile to say.

oowawa

Yes OGG, you have been thought-provoking, and moreover, you have maintained your cordiality under provocation. I look forward to your presentations, and I do learn from them.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I am very fond of a Bollingen Foundation volume called Sound and Symbol by Viktor Zuckerkandl. It explores the nature of music, and how it exists in mental space. In passing, it explains why Schoenberg’s 12-tone system doesn’t work. But I guess you already know that from the evidence of your two ears!

OldGrumpyGuy

Please don’t spread rumors of cordiality about me oowawa. There is a “grumpy” in my name. I have to try to live up to the moniker. And I did not feel cordial in my responses to V.
OldGrumpyGuy

Yes, I rely much more on the evidence of my own ears, rather than what some academic theorist thinks I should feel and think. But to be fair to Schoenberg, I think it is his followers who are the real earsore (followers who may have misinterpreted him). I believe that Schoenberg himself regarded many of his followers as talentless posers. John Cage was one of them.

Ferd Berfle

From a broader perspective, Academia can provide you with a framework for examining things, but to get close to the true nature of anything you have to examine it through a number of different frameworks from a number of different angles.

You are spot on. I was quite lucky that my undergraduate advisor was adamant that, as a Chemistry major, I take as much of the humanities as was possible so that I might be a more rounded individual.

I ended up with a Chemistry degree with a minor in Philosophy. That minor has helped me immeasurably during my career, mainly in enabling me to see through the crock of manure called the politics of employment and the crap that is passed off as new and improved, which is seldom either.
Katmoon

i may be way off, however:

How I “heard” the music videos OGG put together for us, was a sort of book, chapter by chapter displaying many different views, that were presented in (to me) in a metaphorical context to represent what we call perception.

For me it is about perception, and how we allow the manipulation of it to suit our needs for acceptance. I could be way off on this; I am an older person, functioning in the life as a new student once again. What is consistent for me is the change I am willing to perceive; understanding it or trying to qualify that change is another topic.

If I volunteer to step into the role of student, have an awareness of the apathy and finality of the academics who believe their perception is the only way to see, I can either go along with the command version of the subject at hand, or I can function on a high level completing the work, with the knowledge I am not serving this pushed perception, my comprehension and success is not agreement, or acknowledgement.

Also, I have not heard a “new” thought or idea in many years; but have heard many wonderful and interesting expressions colored with fresh introspection and honesty. That I can appreciate, the rest of the perception being passed along is at times a tired buffet, with no thought of what the hungry would be sated with. I prefer to try and speak with the chef, and recommend input from those who choose to dine. OGG offered a pick at an entirely different menu.
Ferd Berfle

From a broader perspective, Academia can provide you with a framework for examining things, but to get close to the true nature of anything you have to examine it through a number of different frameworks from a number of different angles.

You are spot on. My undergraduate advisor insisted that I get a minor in the Humanities to go along with my major in Chemistry. I ended up with a minor in Philosophy. That was a wise recommendation and I’m glad I took his advice. That minor has helped me immeasurably in my profession, mainly by enabling me to steer clear of the faddish crocks of manure that were being sold to addle-headed businessmen such as TQM, Continuous improvement, self-assessment and other such malarkey and concentrate on what is important-processes. It didn’t hurt that I could also work my way around the political bs prevalent in today’s business environment.
http://sonicninjakitty.wordpress.com Sonic Ninja Kitty

Dear OGG,

If anyone can save Western culture, I do believe it is you! I love the deconstruction of The Beast Who Shall Not Be Named (btw–you’ve given her a rather poetic moniker!). Anything that shines the light of truth on her is a great help to our culture.

I greatly respect your judgment, but wish to put in a good word for mediocrity. Without it, how would we understand true greatness? I mean, have you ever spent a night camping, cooking Spam over an open fire, roasting your marshmallows until they catch fire but eating them anyway with a slice of ordinary Hershey’s some graham crackers? Then you hunker down in your drippy tent on a mattress with a slow leak and think about all the bats, spiders and skunks you are sharing in this great experience with? And you say to yourself “This is completely awesome!”

The next night, if you are a bit lucky, you go out to dinner and have a gorgeous filet mignon, perfectly cooked (medium rare!), with a delicious glass of red wine and the most heavenly creme brulee for dessert. Then back home you crawl into your 800 thread count sheets on your perfectly constructed mattress and say to yourself “What ever was I thinking last night?”

Spam is not filet mignon, of course, but we can appreciate it fully at the time we have it as long as we don’t pretend it’s the pinnacle of culinary art. I really like your point about ‘experts’ pushing their narrow ideologies on others to boost their own importance–it is very insightful. Maybe we don’t have to throw the Spam out completely, though?

I do like Schoenberg and Cage–I like math, physics, and exploring other schools of thought. They have their own beauty (although not nearly at the level of Mozart, whom I also love), and sometimes it’s nice to have a break from emotions. It is what it is!

oowawa

Sonic Ninja Kitty, I love your letter. So much so in fact, that I will not say another snarky weisenheiming word!

http://sonicninjakitty.wordpress.com Sonic Ninja Kitty

I had to look up ‘weisenheim[er]ing’–LOL!!!

OldGrumpyGuy

I used to love camping out (and would still enjoy it) and other simple pleasures like watching the grass grow. I can also tolerate spam if therew’s nothing else on offer, but I don’t like spam that pretends it is more than it is.

http://www.cheneywatch.org/ truthtelling007

OGG, by and large I agree with your critique of intellect over art. Playing with notes as mental masturbation isn’t necessarily musical unless we reduce the meaning of musical to be anything that has tones, regardless of structured harmony and metre.

I am formally trained in both Western classical and Indian classical music, more so in Indian classical music actually. And the differences couldn’t be more profound. In Western music training and my jazz training, I found that the formulas prevented me from moving forward. I have an ear that can reprocess much more readily anything I hear than eyes that care to stare at notes on a sheet of dead music, no matter how nice.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love to read the Rite of Spring orchestral score while listening to a great rendition of it, but Stravinsky’s piece was very impressionistic of what it was portraying regardless of the notes.

In college I had to do all sorts of arrangement and compositional exercises. The dean of the arts department was often telling me my composition was wrong or this note wasn’t proper. When resisted, he’d clarify that he meant within the particular exercise. But the problem later was I had to learn to lose all that confine and express again…thus enter my Indian music training.

In both Hindustani and Carnatic music, musicians improvise within some set rules but are free to express many themes within the raga (north) or ragam (South).

A quick digression here, I’ve often found a small outsider’s humor about the clash between northern and southern musicians who slam each other’s traditions. The Northerners think the Carnatic music is too fixed, very regimented and it generally keeps the same tempo, using subdivision to give the sense of speed. In the South they think the North seems to play ‘whatever’ they want and are too loose. Having studied both without a need to side with one or the other, I understand the internal criticisms there, but disagree in the totality.

I found after 15 years of doing this, that the north has plenty of fixed compositional rules that you can’t deviate from and remain in the form, and the south has much more expressive freedom than might be apparent at first glance. But the argument between the two does give an example of differences of opinion about what music is and how it should be materialized. The training I’ve undergone, and continue with for life, tells me that I have learned more about intuition in these arts than in the Western formalities I learned in college.

But I want to take exception to your view of Cage. And I couldn’t have done this until last November when I hosted a panel discussion on a related topic. In there I asked the panelists what brought them to their current position of understanding these “world music” voices. The answer of one of them was more revealing than if he’d gone on and on about the instrument I know he’s mastered.

“It was the sounds of the instrument, not some intellectual decision to play a difficult instrument, that drew me in.”

When I heard him say this, I was opened up. I thought I had the answer down before he spoke. I thought he was going to discuss how impressed he was with the advanced techniques and possibilities, but no…he was simply following the sound. In all the years of his compositions, I found this to be evident and in a single moment he unlocked what I might otherwise thought of as “thinking music”.

Which brings me to Cage. I believe Cage was not an intellectual masturbatory composer. He was trying to explore what sound could do, and I only believe that because I’m not concerned with the 4:33 piece as his tome. He composed much more than that. But that piece says something and it strikes me as very basic in its expression, not heady at all, it is Anti-Heady if anything.

Musicians who do gymnastics on their instruments, composers who do gymnastics and Jackson Pollock style notation do not necessarily bring the average listener to a new place or to a new experience. It can be something that isolates.

If you have to think about what the person is doing then gap of it being expression vs exercise is vast.

In the West, around the turn of the 20th Century the need to industrialize musicians took precedent over real artist expression. In my eastern music studies it is nothing if it does not express.

In raga, if we do not keep the ‘rasa’ (mood) of the piece then we lose the audience. And unfortunately after all these years I know so many technically proficient musicians who can’t communicate a damn thing with it unless you are looking to give them an olympic gold medal for speed and ‘virtuosity’.

But mainly I appreciate the point you are making about placing elitist conditions on music, then creating elaborate defenses that tell the average person, whose heart and spirit matter, ‘if you don’t get it, its because you aren’t in the fold.’.

Do I read you right on that?

I love lots of music that might drive the NQ crazy. I don’t expect people to enjoy Frank Zappa or Edgar Varese. In return there are many musical expressions which might be enjoyed that I consider robotic, cut and paste, and entirely void of originality (ala Kenny G).

We aren’t discussing the beauty of viva la differance, but the elite can’t get it without being inducted into the ‘getting it’ club. And that knife cuts both ways in our shared interest of politics and other areas. Many times a person might get it, but doesn’t dig it. I get Stockhausen, but I’m not into it. Someone else is, fine.

I was once taken to an art gallery and then subsequently yelled at by my date for not being impressed with a single piece I saw. I asked her, why are you blaming me for not connecting with a piece that didn’t move me? I didn’t insult the piece, it just was paint, canvass, and…chaotic ‘expression’. I can marvel at the technique, but put me in front of a Rembrandt and I forget the technique and enjoy the image. Put me in front of the Guernica and I can feel the struggle of the Spanish civil war.

Thanks OGG for being willing to take the time to share these views and thoughts with us. I hope I honored your offering with respect, because I do respect it.

OldGrumpyGuy

Thanks for your thoughtful response truthtelling007, which presents a lot to think about.

But mainly I appreciate the point you are making about placing elitist conditions on music, then creating elaborate defenses that tell the average person, whose heart and spirit matter, ‘if you don’t get it, its because you aren’t in the fold.’.

Do I read you right on that?

Indeed you did.

The only place where I really part company with you is your views on Cage:

Which brings me to Cage. I believe Cage was not an intellectual masturbatory composer. He was trying to explore what sound could do, and I only believe that because I’m not concerned with the 4:33 piece as his tome. He composed much more than that. But that piece says something and it strikes me as very basic in its expression, not heady at all, it is Anti-Heady if anything.

To gather an entire orchestra together to do nothing but sit in silence is, to me, the ultimate exercise in pretentious posturing. I have heard some of his other “music” and found it even more banal than John Adams. I fully understand why Schoenberg dismissed him as untalented.

http://www.cheneywatch.org/ truthtelling007

“To gather an entire orchestra together to do nothing but sit in silence is, to me, the ultimate exercise in pretentious posturing”

nor would I talk you out of that view…but I can say I used to teach using a method like that. I’d sit a student down for their first private lesson which was free. And the only lesson was to sit for 30 minutes, not really that long compared to the length of my lessons which could be 2-3 hours minimum. And all they had to do was sit and listen for 30 minutes. When one of my younger students couldn’t do it, I asked, “how can you make music worth anything if you can’t simply listen to your own environment for 30 minutes”?
Two years later I ran into him again and he told me that that moment changed his life, which is not unlike when my Indian teacher did that with me 3 years previous to that moment.

But performance and lessons are different, quite.

4:33 was composed in 1952, it is classified as one of his middle period works. But it is hardly indicative of his compositions. And I believe it has been over-hyped by both Cage enthusiasts (for the very elitist reasons you spelled out) and by the detractors…for the same reason.

Those that laud the piece take pride in getting it. And therefore touche! you have busted an icon, and maybe rightfully so.

But there are other examples of the “longest concerts” and “shortest concerts”…still masturbatory in emphasis…who says Cage emphasized it though? I think fans and critics did.

He is frequently toted as the “most important composer of the 20th Century” and anyone with such a title is bound to be hit with criticism. I think the greatest composer of the 20th Century was Frank Zappa. (sorta joking…actually it was stravinsky)

But one reason for Schoenberg’s criticism of Cage was the emphasis of what music composition needed. To Schoenberg it was the harmony that mattered. Schoenberg’s twelve-tone row was certainly a bit inventive, though oblique to the average audience even today. And Cage was focused on the rhythm of music.

It is even said that Schoenberg confronted Cage about his lack of interest or understanding of Harmony to which, Cage responded:

I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, ‘You’ll come to a wall you won’t be able to get through.’ So I said, ‘I’ll beat my head against that wall.’ (Kostelanetz 5)

Now, your emphasis is on the elite nature of this whole thing, so I don’t want to avoid addressing that point through the thread, but I think this comment reflects a very elitist view by Schoenberg about what composition needs, and Cage challenged that assumption.

In the 20th century we saw a major shift from the elite of strings, woodwinds and brass. The rise of percussion based composers like Varese, Cage, Lou Harrison, and others represented a departure from what many percussionists might also consider an elite club. They were willing to explore the instruments like marimba, xylophone, celeste, and many others.

The pieces I enjoy by Cage are not so oblique as to render them only good for mushrooms and too much narcissistic reflection. Nor are they derivative and mimicry of the strings, woodwinds and brass. Since those instruments were designed to mimic the human voice, it is generally considered vital to know their behaviors when learning music. However, our world is filled with pulse and textures that are entirely rhythmic and barely melodic or harmonic.

This phenomena is not exclusive to the west either. In other parts of the world the drums are coming out with much more emphasis than in the past. Where as they were once relegated to the background, many are becoming very popular and front and center as solo instruments or lead instruments.

In India for example, tabla players (drums from north India) were rarely ever seen as solo instruments unless it was a recital, and even then there are rare examples of this before the late 20th century emergence of Ravi Shankar and his reliable sidekick the late Ustad Allah Rakha. Until the mid60s, the instrument was an instrument that was given little respect, and the players even less. But now..in the 21st century you will find it is a booming growth in the music. Every desi kid wants to learn how to be a fast and fiery tabla player and have lost sight of the vocal music that it was meant to support.

I don’t disagree with this trend only because I’ve had to put historical position into perspective…this too shall pass. I hope with the good teachers we have left, that the instrument will balance back out and that people will learn to appreciate the vocal music again.

But getting back to your primary point:
I have never been part of Academia from the inside out. I was a student, a student assistant and aide, then I moved on into the world. I have gained more learning from my Indian, Uzbek, Turkish, Italian and Arab teachers about music outside of college than I did in 5 years of trying to “get it” inside college.

The college experience ruined my chances to be a good jazz musician because I couldn’t get past the heady theory that dominated the atmosphere. And this is where I agree with you.

I’ll put it in the words of an ex-girlfriend who criticized a friend of mine who is lauded as a ‘virtuoso’ (though I disagree)…She watched him play and said it didn’t make her body move. And in that…it failed. The less technically proficient players in the room, myself included, we had groove, we had musicality outside of fast licks and intricate theory…and it was much more readily accepted.

Music must connect.
I’ve experienced both sides of this question and I am with you ultimately that if it is something that requires more than listening and simply connecting with it…it by definition becomes music for elite.

I think there is music that is quickly called elite when it isn’t but only because it is presented in a terribly lazy way by people who are elitist. I used to experience this when people told me they couldn’t stand Indian classical music or even folk music. But knowing the western sensibilities about music better than the Indian context, I would hand pick introductions to the music that were much more palatable.

The good metaphor is, maybe you don’t like prawn vindaloo…but that is a rough start if you’ve grown up on an English meat and potatoes diet. if there is no thought about the introduction, then who in the hell can get it, and why would they? Then a negative bias ensues and all is missed.

I have learned to appreciate the ‘Ick’ response of food, art, and music. Because it is real, raw, and impartial. It is rarely biased at first, bias follows. I’ve seen this happen with my kids, my students, and friends. My teachers are why I was able to understand the growth of John Coltrane from his cool jazz days to his final explorations in Interstellar Space. That CD was the first one I purchased and it was like diving into the deepest ocean. I didn’t get it, it was almost profane. But then I started over…went through his progress from Charlie Parker to Miles Davis to his own ensembles and then into his later works with Rashad Ali. Now I love those pieces as truly impressionistic of the chaos of the universe, Mars is a great piece on the cd, and of living.

Music should be allowed warts. It just shouldn’t present exercises as performances. It just doesn’t appreciate the audience that way.

Last, promise…
In Indian classical music the interaction between the performer and audience is the key event. If it is all about the performer it is a selfish narcissistic experience and if it is all about the audience it is greedy and again…selfish and narcissistic. If it is blended well then the artist feeds off the mood of the audience and the audience the performers. Then the balance is clear and the music is allowed to come forth in an intuitive and truly expressive manner.

Thanks OGG for your candor and honesty.

oowawa

TT007, I’ve really enjoyed & learned from your comments in this thread. Thanks. Indeed, the whole thread is full of insights from various people. OGG, I would say this board is a big success!

truthtelling007

LOL, thank YOU. This was a treat for me too. I get where OGG is coming from and have experienced it from both sides of the equation.
I’m glad we have OGG posting here too!

CG

Amusing and interesting OGG. At Eastman School of Music in the late 70′s to early 80′s there was pressure put on composers to write in a certain way, to garner the admiration of (intellectuals) academia in the new classical tradition. I always kept an open mind in terms of appreciating the value of the listening experience, and it came down to this for me… to each his own, not an opinion one would dare share at the time. It is not accurate to say this, but for lack of a better description, the music was intended to be “emotionless.”

What did you think of Dr. Atomic?
OldGrumpyGuy

Doctor Atomic was even more abysmal and laughable than Nixon in China. Nice to hear from someone who suffered the phenomenon I have described at first hand.
JozefAL

Sorry, Grumpy, but your dismissal of Messiaen is hardly any different from the way many people regarded the works of Debussy when HE first emerged (Messaien, in fact, was an avid devotee of Debussy’s work). It also sounds JUST as “elitist” as many were when the first sounds of jazz emerged in contrast to both classical and more “mainstream” popular music.
Many of the greatest jazz musicians (Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock) have stepped far out of any sort of comfort zone and dared to challenge the “conventions” of jazz, often stripping songs of their base melody and improvising around what’s left with a result that can sound completely atonal, yet can remain a very powerful (and emotional) work.
Perhaps what irritates you most about Messaien is the way he strays out of “conventional” European classical music. I’ve listened to other bits of his work and, inherently, it sounds no worse than traditional music from China, Japan and India, or “music” from nature. Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Indian music tends to sound rather atonal to western ears but that doesn’t make the work less valid nor are fans of the music necessarily “elitist” or members of “the intelligentsia”.
Maybe Messiaen doesn’t float your boat (pardon the common idiom) but why should YOUR interpretation be considered more valid than that of an “academic”? Remember that for a generation, both “academics” and “non-academics” condemned rock music as having no redeeming qualities (and there are many who still feel that way). Even fans of some rock artists find other artists to be less important to rock music. Heck, even from some of the comments left when you were doing your countdown of the 10 greatest composers, not everyone agreed with the placement of some of the composers and many felt that other composers deserved to be in that Top 10 in place of some of your choices. I also found the “Nixon in China” piece to be rather ludicrous, especially your rather snide dismissal of the piece. Considering the fact that most of us don’t speak or understand German, Italian or French, I’d have to say that most operas tend towards the absurd when contrasting what the performers are “saying” with the way “ordinary” people would speak. If you replaced those English lyrics with German, Italian or French translations, I have a feeling that the “non-academics” (comme vous) would be much more impressed. (Honestly, can you really defend operatic trilling from a coloratura soprano as being INHERENTLY BETTER than the “Nixon” lyric? If so, that says more about your own cultural elitism than anything else.)

Old Grumpy Guy

If you replaced those English lyrics with German, Italian or French translations, I have a feeling that the “non-academics” (comme vous) would be much more impressed. (Honestly, can you really defend operatic trilling from a coloratura soprano as being INHERENTLY BETTER than the “Nixon” lyric? If so, that says more about your own cultural elitism than anything else.)

That comment (and most of the rest of what you have to say) is just so off beam it suggests you are deliberately misconstruing the gist of what I am saying. Why on earth would I (or anyone else of reasonable education and perception who uses the evidence of their ears, rather than what academics tell them they should feel and believe) be impressed by the same drivel served up in another language rather than English? That would be an even more pretentious form of elitism.

Sorry, Grumpy, but your dismissal of Messiaen is hardly any different from the way many people regarded the works of Debussy when HE first emerged (Messaien, in fact, was an avid devotee of Debussy’s work). It also sounds JUST as “elitist” as many were when the first sounds of jazz emerged in contrast to both classical and more “mainstream” popular music.

Again, I am using the evidence of my ears, rather than what someone like you tells me I should feel or believe. And to my ears Debussy’s originality and genius is as evident as Messiaen’s cacophany.

Jeremiah God Damn AmeriKKKa Wright

I swear, Old Grumpy Guy, if I could I would have your baby.

Old Grumpy Guy

Thanks Jeremiah (I think).
Judy L. NC

JEREMIAH! Good to see you here. I’ve missed the many belly laughs you gave me before the election. I hope you’ll post often.
socalannie

omg. I haven’t seen you here in months. I’ve missed your unique style!

http://www.lesstalkmoreactivism.blogspot.com whoframedrudy

Isn’t it a bit academic to even mention these minor and less than minor composers in a comment about Beethoven? Weren’t there forgotten posers, mediocrities and less than minor musicians in Beethoven’s time as well?

One of the things I appreciate about Beethoven is that he was a self-promoter, he could push through the cultural politics and get his music the contemporary (not posthumous) attention it deserved. Unlike Mozart, he got his patrons to accept his terms. If he were alive today, he’d do the same.

Another of my personal gods, Mark Twain mooned the entire literary establishment. To this day, the ‘sophistos’ are still having fits trying to rationalize what is basically an extended ‘fart joke’ at the end of his literary masterpiece Huckleberry Finn. I think it was just his way of telling the ‘Henry Jamesians’ to choke on it. And yet pop star Twain is the guy who had Faulkner and Hemingway kissing his kneecaps.

There will always be well-connected socialites in the arts world who enjoy a good ass-kissing, and no shortage of aspiring ass-kissers. God willing, there will always be disciples of Beethoven and Twain to bring them to their knees–both creatively and practically.

http://www.cheneywatch.org/ truthtelling007

“Isn’t it a bit academic to even mention these minor and less than minor composers”

I’d disagree with this, though I appreciate your comments on Beethoven and Twain. But to call these other composers “minor” and “less than minor” is subjective in the way you’ve used it. There are so many composers across the centuries since Beethoven and Mozart, that to call the ones mentioned here “minor” would be to overly reduce the range available.

There are no Mozarts in the last 100 years. There are no Beethovens. Stravinsky is no “minor” composer. Shostakovich, Copeland, and many others…hardly minor.

Academics would more likely talk about Karlheinz Stockhausen or Edgar Varese, and even then, I’d hardly call them ‘minor’ but perhaps publicly obscure.
The premise creates such a vast list of composers who are minor and or almost irrelevant that I’d have to take up a whole blog mentioning them.

SO I guess I should ask you…what makes them minor?

oowawa

Karlheinz Stockhausen

I think I’ve got his “Greatest Hits” in my I-Pod. And then there’s the classic Karlheinz Stockhausen Meets Czeslaw Niemen . . . . And the obscure Zappa masterpiece: Frank Covers Karlheinz

Old Grumpy Guy

What about Frank Zappa and Abbott&Costello Meet the Wolfman?

oowawa

LMAO!

Oh, by the way, I thought up a new code especially for you to use in your posts, OGG:

IMLTHO, or “In My Less Than Humble Opinion”

Old Grumpy Guy

I like it. Thanks. IMLTHO that is one of your better suggestions.

(PS We can’t go on meeting like this. I think people are beginning to suspect)

truthtelling007

“Frank Covers Karlheinz”

Never heard of that. I have over 100 CDs of Zappa, all the official albums and tons of live shows and bootlegs. The closest I have is his work with his classical mentor Pierre Boulez.

Is that it?

oowawa

TT007, As is my curse, I was being snarky, just making up a couple of titles that seemed outrageous and would have been cool, had they ever existed. Sorry! The name Karlheinz Stockhausen does strange things to me.

oowawa

By the way, in regards to your Zappa collection, I’m in awe. I also have a very similar stash of obscure Zappa, but it’s all in mp3 form. I am old enough to have bought The Mothers’ Freak Out LP when it first came out. I hated it! Took a few decades for me to appreciate what they were doing.

Old Grumpy Guy

Mark Twain will be one the writers discussed in my new series on favorite writers

oowawa

Well OGG, it’ll be interesting to see if Frank Zappa’s name is mentioned as often in “Favorite Writers” as it was in “Greatest Composers of All Time!”