[SanAntone]

I love music and sound. That's me. I don't try to "convert non-believers" like I used to. Listen to what you want.

That's me, too. I've almost given up on this forum, but then I see a post like this.

 

[SanAntone]

What is our job? To listen to music for the sheer love of it, and make your own assessments as to whether it is good to us or not ...

You have just described my entire approach to listening to music. Are you saying there's something wrong with that?

 

[SanAntone]

No. You didn't mention the "...and engage in free discussion" part. How do you feel about that?

The fact that I edited it out of my post should give you a clue that I don't place special importance on that aspect. I am less interested in discussing music abstractly as listening and sharing and learning about what music others enjoy.

 

[SanAntone]

That's right that it's not off-topic, because it is about modern art. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, it expresses a political view because it came from PragerU. Their stated goal: "We make exceptional video content that advances Judeo-Christian values. We distribute that content through a sophisticated marketing strategy. By reaching millions of people every day, we educate, influence and change minds. Conservative ideas can win the minds of young Americans.



No, Left or Liberal? wasn't posted, but it exposes PragerU's somewhat disturbing views on racial equality and immigration, and ends by defending Donald Trump's nationalism.

I disagree that the video "Why Is Modern Art So Bad?" is devoid of political implications, because it is a conservative view. That's political, as you just said.
But I will not ignore it.
I want to make members aware of the political context it emerged from. I am not as "trusting" as you.

Like Frank Zappa, I am concerned about what these "liberals" (religious conservatives) might do next to protect their "content that advances Judeo-Christian values." That might mean censorship. I want to be able to listen to Frank Zappa, and enjoy any kind of modern art I choose without it or its museum funding being subjected to a "Judeo-Christian" review board.

The only one advocating censorship is you. A conservative point of view is held by roughly half of the population of the US. There is nothing strange or dangerous about it. I don't think a purely political video belongs on a music forum, but PragerU does offer videos on subjects other than strictly political in nature.

I don't know why you appear to be so incensed. I think you need to take a few breaths and calm down.

 

[SanAntone]

Since a quote from a book I've been reading I posted was mentioned as evidence of the political nature of new music (one kind of new music) I thought I'd place another quote from the same book here, emphasis mine:

"Yet there is an irony that, by emphasizing the value of physical pleasure in musical listening, the new musicology might unwittingly support a more conservative economics, in which music is valued (and therefore commodified) purely for its functional ability to elicit affect. "Useful" affects might include familiarity, comfort, and consolation, leading to music that relies on gestures, styles, and idioms from the past that have already achieved cultural acceptance. When the importance of physical response and pleasure in determining musical value is over-emphasized, the risk is a race to the bottom for the most easily accessed pleasure. In some instances this has proved to be the case. However, musical pleasure is also more complex than this, and it is not always easy to align the conservative with the physical, easy, and pleasant and the radical with the cerebral, difficult, and unpleasant."

- Music after the Fall: Modern Composition and Culture since 1989 by Tim Rutherford-Johnson

It is clear there are several members here who have difficulty accepting new music which does not please and console them as does their favorite classical music from the past.

There has been a movement referred to as Neo-Tonality, promoted by a group of composers from the '70s through the '90s and even today, which does exactly that.

 

[SanAntone]

What do you think of Michael Torke's Ash. Shocking? The expression in music of political and ethical ideas which are no longer acceptable?

What is shocking about Ash?

I don't know the work, but I found some information which suggests Torke's synesthesia was an inspiration and some found "echos of Beethoven" and Gramophone said of his work, "some of the most optimistic, joyful, and thoroughly uplifting music to appear in recent years."

For example, from a concert's program notes:

"Ash,"written in 1988,is part seven of a larger work, the suite Color Music, where each movement of the suite bears the name of a different color. Torke is said to be a synesthete, that is, someone with synesthesia, a condition such that the stimulation of one sense triggers an automatic, involuntary experience in another. The Russian pianist and composer Aleksandr Skryabin famously "suffered" from synesthesia: for him, each key on the piano painted a different color, and each color evoked a different mood in the composer.Similarly, for Torke, each color "sounds" different from others. Of "Ash" Torke notes that the work makes use of a "fundamentally tonal vocabulary," with chords and chordal fragments leaping from tonic to dominant and back in jerky rhythms. One reviewer finds "echoes of Beethoven" throughout the work in the way the composer deals inventively with small motifs and minimal material. Gramaphone magazine finds in Torke's work "some of the most optimistic, joyful, and thoroughly uplifting music to appear in recent years."