narrative in music
Dec. 5th, 2009 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacHere are two posts, the second in response to the first, about the nature of music, neither allowing comments, so I'm putting mine here.
ACD says that certain minimalist works should not qualify as music "as they lack any semblance of a coherent, sustained musical narrative." Besides the fact, as Lisa Irontongue points out, that not all the works of the disapproved sound like that, it's a curiously blinkered definition of music to require something that's not at all essential to it. I wonder if ACD thinks of music as drama. I note that he excludes Philip Glass's operas from consideration under his strictures at all. Perhaps he sees opera as by definition "narrative," though Glass's operas are not exactly noted for urgently verismo plots.
The "narrative" content of instrumental non-dramatic music varies. Some works ("Till Eulenspiegel" or "The Sorcerer's Apprentice") tell explicit stories. Attaching these to music that doesn't is a sure way to irritate me. ("The whole orchestra cries out to no avail" etc.) It reduces the abstract to the allegorical. The idea that even non-story-telling music should be a teleological quest narrative, focused on seeking out (or sometimes evading) its end point, was invented by Beethoven, and carried on by composers like Mahler. Other composers, especially earlier ones, are more architectural, and the "narrative" of their music is like a walk through an architecturally distinguished building, watching perspectives change across a room, and passing from one room to the next.
But then there's Bruckner, whose works move in this manner, but on the way he spends so much time stopping and admiring a particular view that much of his music appears not to be moving at all. [Listen to one of my favorite bits of Bruckner] This is a major source of complaint from those who don't like him, and a major source of joy for those of us who do. The music isn't much interested in going somewhere; it's content to just be, staying where it is. What listeners get to do is surround ourselves with the effectively unmoving sound.
After Bruckner came other mystic composers like Hovhaness who equally preferred being to doing [Listen to some Hovhaness], and then came minimalists. If Steve Reich's sound world doesn't appeal to ACD, that's too bad, but that's personal taste. I find that Reich's music for large ensemble (18 instruments and up) is the most spiritually healing art that I know. I am anything but bored; I am entranced. The more it goes on, the longer I want it to last. [Listen to some Reich] (An earlier work by a usually more action-packed composer that strikes me the same way is Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. I wonder what ACD makes of that? [Listen to some of the Symphony of Psalms])
So no, narrative is not a requirement for music. What is? Irontongue defines music as "organized sound moving in time." Is there organized sound that doesn't move in time? Is a continual drone organized? Is it music? Did not John Cage (and Pierre Schaeffer, separately) advocate considering non-organized sound as music? And Irontongue also says that music is "typically organized by one or more of" several factors.
I'd say it needs several of those. When I first heard Varese's Ionisation for percussion ensemble, which is pure rhythm (and meter, if you class that separately, and timbre also enters in it, but it's hard to say there's melody or harmony), my reaction was, "This is wonderful, but it isn't music." [Listen to Ionisation] I decided that the field of "organized sound" is a larger set than the field of "music," though I do not insist on the terminology. You can call it all "music" if you want, but then "music" means two different kinds of things. I talked about this more here. Read especially also this comment.
The thing is, ACD says "it's not music" in order to dismiss and denigrate it. I say "it's not music" to put on the proper ears to listen and appreciate a different art form for what it is, instead of complaining because it doesn't fit my presupposed categories. Stuff I'd hate if I listen to it as "music" becomes art if I listen to it as "organized sound" instead.
ACD says that certain minimalist works should not qualify as music "as they lack any semblance of a coherent, sustained musical narrative." Besides the fact, as Lisa Irontongue points out, that not all the works of the disapproved sound like that, it's a curiously blinkered definition of music to require something that's not at all essential to it. I wonder if ACD thinks of music as drama. I note that he excludes Philip Glass's operas from consideration under his strictures at all. Perhaps he sees opera as by definition "narrative," though Glass's operas are not exactly noted for urgently verismo plots.
The "narrative" content of instrumental non-dramatic music varies. Some works ("Till Eulenspiegel" or "The Sorcerer's Apprentice") tell explicit stories. Attaching these to music that doesn't is a sure way to irritate me. ("The whole orchestra cries out to no avail" etc.) It reduces the abstract to the allegorical. The idea that even non-story-telling music should be a teleological quest narrative, focused on seeking out (or sometimes evading) its end point, was invented by Beethoven, and carried on by composers like Mahler. Other composers, especially earlier ones, are more architectural, and the "narrative" of their music is like a walk through an architecturally distinguished building, watching perspectives change across a room, and passing from one room to the next.
But then there's Bruckner, whose works move in this manner, but on the way he spends so much time stopping and admiring a particular view that much of his music appears not to be moving at all. [Listen to one of my favorite bits of Bruckner] This is a major source of complaint from those who don't like him, and a major source of joy for those of us who do. The music isn't much interested in going somewhere; it's content to just be, staying where it is. What listeners get to do is surround ourselves with the effectively unmoving sound.
After Bruckner came other mystic composers like Hovhaness who equally preferred being to doing [Listen to some Hovhaness], and then came minimalists. If Steve Reich's sound world doesn't appeal to ACD, that's too bad, but that's personal taste. I find that Reich's music for large ensemble (18 instruments and up) is the most spiritually healing art that I know. I am anything but bored; I am entranced. The more it goes on, the longer I want it to last. [Listen to some Reich] (An earlier work by a usually more action-packed composer that strikes me the same way is Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. I wonder what ACD makes of that? [Listen to some of the Symphony of Psalms])
So no, narrative is not a requirement for music. What is? Irontongue defines music as "organized sound moving in time." Is there organized sound that doesn't move in time? Is a continual drone organized? Is it music? Did not John Cage (and Pierre Schaeffer, separately) advocate considering non-organized sound as music? And Irontongue also says that music is "typically organized by one or more of" several factors.
I'd say it needs several of those. When I first heard Varese's Ionisation for percussion ensemble, which is pure rhythm (and meter, if you class that separately, and timbre also enters in it, but it's hard to say there's melody or harmony), my reaction was, "This is wonderful, but it isn't music." [Listen to Ionisation] I decided that the field of "organized sound" is a larger set than the field of "music," though I do not insist on the terminology. You can call it all "music" if you want, but then "music" means two different kinds of things. I talked about this more here. Read especially also this comment.
The thing is, ACD says "it's not music" in order to dismiss and denigrate it. I say "it's not music" to put on the proper ears to listen and appreciate a different art form for what it is, instead of complaining because it doesn't fit my presupposed categories. Stuff I'd hate if I listen to it as "music" becomes art if I listen to it as "organized sound" instead.
