I came across this gem in my google feed last night:
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/its-time-to-let-classical-music-die/
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/its-time-to-let-classical-music-die/
"Western classical music is not about culture. It's about whiteness. It's a combination of European traditions which serve the specious belief that whiteness has a culture-one that is superior to all others. Its main purpose is to be a cultural anchor for the myth of white supremacy. In that regard, people of color can never truly be pioneers of Western classical music. The best we can be are exotic guests: entertainment for the white audiences and an example of how Western classical music is more elite than the cultures of people of color."
I have made no comment about racism vis a vis John Cage. If you don't want to listen to John Cage, fine. Just don't inflict your bogus pronouncements about his music on me.Of course when people listen to the music of John Cage they have to try and make people who don't listen to it feel bad and so they invent the bogus and fatuous claims about racism. So funny. Just listen to John cage if you want to. But don't inflict it on me.
The highest voted comments in this video:
"No one will ever know if you make a mistake that's for sure."
"If you make a mistake on this sonata, it's called "improvisation""
Does anyone disagree? If so, can you explain?
I suspect that they feel that they want/need the cover of established credibility. There may also be a hope that they can drag along the facilities and audience already established, as they presume, probably accurately, that they have not the resources to survive on their own.. . . In other areas of fine arts there is a clear distinction in categorization between classical stuff and modern stuff:
classical literature vs. modern literature.
classical painting vs. modern painting.
But why not in music?
I don't know why modern music practitioners and their followers are so obsessed to get themselves into the same bandwagon as "classical music". If their music was not considered "classical music", would it diminish its value? Why not come up with a different name that sounds just as lofty then, such as "modern art music"? . . .
I never said classical music is racist; that's what the OP article said. I only said it is "white."Much of this thread is semantic foolishness. Classical music is classical music. One can call it "racist" by expanding (beyond all reason, imo) the definition of racism, but this is just an act of labeling; at a deeper conceptual level nothing has been said.
I don't think Cage ever said he'd rather listen to traffic than Beethoven. What he has said is that after leaving an art exhibit of abstract paintings he found himself waiting to cross the street and was looking down at the pavement and was struck at the similarity between the paintings he'd just seen and the texture and design of the pavement. I too have had this sensation. It is really wonderful. Nothing to ridicule.that puckish mushroom picker who'd rather listen to traffic than to Beethoven.
Are you talking about Child of Tree (1975) and Branches (1976)? Interesting works that have produced some really beautiful sounds. There have been times when I'd rather listen to them than Beethoven. I guess I should be ridiculed.My identity cannot be threatened by cactus-tickling offered in the name of music
True; I never said they were overtly racist.Just because Western classical music is almost exclusively written by white male composers does not mean that classical music fans are racists.
If a listener is resistant to modern music, then they are preserving an old paradigm of 18th-19th century music. If they exhibit open, agressive hostility towards John Cage and modernism, this is a clear indicator of their deep investment in the 18th-19th century white male paradigm. If they simply ignore modernism, and say "live and let live," this is a better indicator that, to them, it's just music they don't like or identify with. Actions will tell us, not words.It is just a genre of music. The issue for this forum, as I see it, is accepting what exactly IS classical music, i.e. where do we draw the line? Some on this forum do not wish to include much of the music written by 20/21C composers (trained in the classical tradition but) who compose music not based on the attributes that have defined classical music for centuries. Others, like myself, see classical music all as one long wide river with side streams and tributaries which create little ponds here and there of extraordinary musical expressions which broaden the idea of classical music, but do not threaten it. I prefer to see "classical music" as inclusive.
True, good art has a universal appeal, but there's only so far you can take that assertion. It sounds more like you are giving conservative, exclusive "old paradigm" listeners an excuse to reject modernism, and giving them your blessing.However, just because no one is writing in the style of Beethoven anymore does not mean that the music of Beethoven is no longer current. The music of the greatest composers has a universal quality, they left us living, breathing, works of art that offer new possibilities of interpretation throughout the ages.
Row, row, row your boat, gently into obsolescence.
But Bach, Bach...Bach's music is a gift to us, of pure joy! Pure joy! and Love! :angel:
And this is supposed to be posted for the sake of endorsing in Cage's favor? Just checking since it is the kind of thing that I might post for the exact opposite reason.John Cage : The Perilous Night (1943-44)
Aki Takahashi (recorded in 2007) . . .
Wuorinen is employing the usual strawman argument for classical music, i.e. comparing it to the worst of popular music. A more apt comparison but one which does not prove his point is that Wuorinen and classical music in general is not a "higher" musical expression than Robert Johnson's blues or Louis Armstrong's jazz or flamenco or the best of pop music.Charles Wourinen did not agree with this, and wanted to keep the distinction, because he considered his intention, and his music, as having a "higher art function" and intent than what we might hear on the radio produced for mass consumption.
The majority of my posts are in response to someone, mostly you. Again you want to silence those who don't share your dismissive attitude of John Cage and new music.SanAntone: However, for me, none of this matters very much. I like what I like unconcerned if my opinion is echoed by a majority of members on TC or not.
JAS: Apparently it does since you keep posting about it, over and over.
Unlike you, I am not trying to silence (or censor) anyone. I am even usually happy to let you have that last word (particularly since you often make my case for me better than I do).. . . The majority of my posts are in response to someone, mostly you. Again you want to silence those who don't share your dismissive attitude of John Cage and new music.
Of course they wouldn't, since this is unspoken and part of an invisivle ideological infrastructure. It retains its power by remaining unspoken.Do you think that the French or British would talk about German superiority in their music theory classes? I have no experience but I doubt!
So they don't recognize "the three Bs?"Most European countries have their own classical music history and those of the bigger European countries have also been competing with each other - French vs German in the 19th and the 20th century is probably the best example. Assuming some inherent German supremacy in European universities would just be a bit out of place considering the history of Europe and European classical music.
I think this is a really fair point, but I think we've gone too far in this direction. It's one thing to ask what the nature of art is and another thing to make art. The problem I have is when people say that because a work does the former it is the latter. It's also a bit tiring to be constantly told that I'm having my conception of art challenged: I spend quite a bit of time thinking and reading philosophically about art and actually viewing art in many different forms, and a lot of the that I'm told are challenging me are either old news or pretty shallow. Furthermore, conceptual art does not have a monopoly on this topic. Plenty of non-conceptual works of art have made me question or rethink the nature of art, from Chomei's Hojoki to Dante's Divine Comedy to Jacques Tati's Playtime. In my experience, the work of interpretation itself is the most interesting way to come to new insights about what art is. I think that a lot of conceptual pieces are more akin to creative psychology experiments than art (based on my thought out ideas of what art is, not naive preconceptions).fluteman said:I think it's safe to conclude from your comment that conceptual art is not your fur-covered cup of tea, and that's fine. But taking the lazy way out or demeaning the very idea of art is not what the conceptual artists had in mind. Much of their work was painstaking and labor-intensive to an almost absurd degree. And a lot of it, from René Magritte's men in bowler hats to Andy Warhol's soup cans, is impossible to forget, so great is its impact. If it were so easy to create cultural icons like those, why haven't you or I done it? I guess it's because you don't like conceptual art, and I've been busy. ;-)
What nonsense! I find it amusing that "Anti-Racist" types are often incredibly racist most often to people of European descent "White" but increasingly towards the Japanese to. This is only going to create ill-will between groups of people. I fear that is the intent and that it is working.I came across this gem in my google feed last night:
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/its-time-to-let-classical-music-die/