Remember Mark Vanhoenacker's Slate piece the other week? (Link is to this blog.) It looks as though there will be some arm-wrestling about the current state of classical music after all. See the following:
- Will Robin writes a blog posting for The New Yorker, and Andy Doe, who already cracked the whip on Vanhoenacker, provides a stupendously great and very funny graphic. Make sure to look at the URL for the blog posting!
- As usual, Jon Silpayamanant has wise words.
- Anne Midgette takes issue with almost everybody. Perhaps a few people will take issue with her.
- Here's a fine article by David Stabler that looks at the specifics of some organizations without sensationalizing anything.
- And here's a barrage of tweets from a several-days period:
Folks, let's maintain some perspective.
ReplyDeleteWhat is art music for? Fun. Entertainment. And NOTHING more.
But this romantic notion of sacralizing art means artists and musicians cannot accept the plain truth that they are entertainers and nothing more. It is also precious, arrogant and absurd.
To seek classical music as other than mere diversion is to put too much expectation on it.
That you post that anonymously means you're a coward.
ReplyDeleteThat you post it here, anonymously, means you're a troll.
That you can't tell the difference between, say, the Bach B-minor Mass and the next X-Man movie means (to put it charitably) that you're not very thoughtful.
Anon, I have no idea what you are responding to in this posting, which isn't about individual artists, isn't about "sacralizing" anything, and isn't about the value of one style over another. It's about the crazy idea that classical music might somehow be dying and why such ridiculous notions need to be dealt with head on.
ReplyDeleteYou know, until I wrote the above, I wasn't sure whether I agreed with Tom or not, but now I have to say your comments do sound like trolling.
(Nota bene: I have anonymous commenting enabled because there were folks who were having trouble getting past the authentication process.)
Tom,
ReplyDeleteOf course I know the difference between a Bach Mass and a pop culture work. But this doesn't change the fact that music is useless in terms of human evolution and development. At the end of the day it's a trivial amusement that just happens to tickle several important parts of the brain. Its value doesn't go beyond the rush of dopamine it inspires.
Please demonstrate that music has no value.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention, you have evidently missed a bunch of stories about the role music has played in human social and possibly biological evolution.
Anonymous - we know humans have been making musical instruments for at least 40,000 years - nobody knows how long we've been singing - and music-making is considered a human cultural universal.
ReplyDeleteYou're confusing evolutionary "purposes" (which aren't really "purposes", and are often the subject of vigorous scientific debate) with human purposes. The fact that evolutionary biologists are puzzled about the relationship between music and human evolution is in no way proof that music is "a trivial amusement that just happens to tickle several important parts of the brain", and the history of music in human culture suggests pretty strongly otherwise.
I'm not commenting on this again, because as Lisa points out, this issue really has nothing to do with the topic of the post.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteNone of that changes the fact that music communicates nothing but formless emotion.
Shrug. You're welcome to keep believing that.
ReplyDelete