What is “Classical Music” as most people think of it? People normally associate it with Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and think of it as music played by large orchestras or non-popular instruments such as violins, clarinets, and the like. It is something which “cultured” (aka snooty or old) people listen to, and it belongs to the past.
But the wide ranging body of musical literature which is collectively viewed as classical music should better be termed “Art Music” because that is what it actually is–music that is of greater intrinsic value than non-art music. However, it was not always so, because a lot of the music that was written in those times was the popular music of its time. You or I or John next door would listen to that music (at church maybe, or if we could afford to go to the performances in concert halls). And yet because it was the popular music of the time, it means that not all of it was truly art music–not every single “classical-sounding” music you hear today is necessarily art music, because just as this a wide variety of quality within the large umbrella that is “popular music,” so it is with “classical music.”
I would argue that actually even “art music” and “popular music” are not very accurate terms, since it seems to imply that there is some magical boundary on one side of which is popular music and on the other, art music. It’s most likely a continuum, on which each piece of music can be placed, according to its own merit. So on this continuum, I would place most “pop” music such as Britney Spears on the low end of the spectrum, whereas most people would agree that many of Mozart/Bach/Beethoven’s music would be near the higher end.
As a brief aside, I know that many will question this assumption of something having inherent merit. Since that’s not my main point with this essay, I’ll sidestep that issue for right now and just use the following as a rough working definition for what I mean by “quality” or “merit”: Music A has more quality (or merit) than music B if A has more depth (i.e. will remain interesting for more listenings) than B. Again, this is a very hand-wavy definition, so don’t look at it too closely.
But the times, they are a’changing, and no one (OK, very few) people write “classical” music now. There are many who write for high-school and college bands and orchestras, and even some who write symphonies and other works commissioned by large and small orchestras, but as a whole, things seem to be dropping off in the rarefied world of “classical music.” Many will say that film scores are the “new classical music,” and perhaps that is so, but even those are diminishing in number, as more movies prefer to use “popular” music instead of a composed film score. So does this mean that “classical music” is dying?
Yes. Taken in a strict sense, “classical” actually refers to a time period of less than a hundred years (basically encompassing the lifes of haydn, mozart, and beethoven). That era ended no later than 1825. Taken generally (according to popular usage), “classical music” is also dying out (as I describe in the previous paragraph). However, if we instead revert to the term “art music,” I will answer vehemently “NO” to the question, “is it dying?”
There is no reason to believe that the overall quality of music composition should drastically decline (or increase) in our times. However, what has changed is the medium that the art musicians of our time use to express their works. It is changing from the music composed for “traditional” orchestras and bands into music for different groups of instruments. First and foremost among this is jazz, much of which will definitely fall under the category of “art music” because of its high musical merit.
While the previous statement might not seem so revolutionary to many (especially jazz artists), much of the traditional music community very adamantly refuses to believe it (and will slowly suffer for their beliefs as their way of life is slowly eroded). Change is inevitable, and one has only to look at history to foresee the future: if someone had proclaimed that serialism, or atonal music, or minimalism would be the “classical music” of the future in 1800, people in the musical community would have been similarly poo-poohed such ideas as they are doing today. However, the truth is that only so much can be done with a limited set of tools until the major avenues of exploration are exhausted. At that point, further work simply fills in the cracks and churns out more elaborate and polished versions of the same ideas. The only way to make progress is to change the set of tools, and in the world of music, that frequently means changing ideas of what art music (and in general, music) is.
However, jazz is not the only avenue of art music. I think an even stronger thread of art music is electronic music. Before you start to despair at the thought of Sasha and Digweed being hailed as the Mozart of our times, let me be very clear in reminding you that trance and other dance music is only one very narrow sliver in the wide spectrum of electronic music. I am instead arguing that electronic music as pursued in academic circles (such as music composition and performance that is aided or performed by computers and electronics) falls on the higher end of the spectrum. As the number of tools musicians have at their disposal increases rapidly with the addition of these electronic devices, I believe that there is much unexplored territory to discover and chart out.
And in the popular world, there is one man who is singlehandedly exploring many different regions of this vast space through his music: Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin. With a career spanning over two decades now, his releases span the gamut from sparse prepared piano pieces (ala “Avril 14th” on Druqs) to the hard drum and bass of “Windowlicker” to the cheesy tracks on Melodies From Mars to the hardcore sirens of “Ventolin” to the laid back acid on the new Analord series) to many other styles to numerous to name or even categorize. Very rarely has anyone showed such amazing breadth of talent within the creation of music, nor the depth of expression present in many of his works.
As a corollary to my continuum theory, it follows that all music must fall somewhere on this spectrum of quality. For those that wonder why I listen to the lesser known artists that I do, or why I take such a dislike to many of the more popular artists, it is because I am addict of music. This means that just as a coke addict needs progressively stronger hits to satisfy his craving for the narcotic, similarly I need music of stronger dosage (i.e. quality) to satisfy my craving for music. Nor is this specific to me–I think anyone who is a great lover of music is the same way, and will need music of ever greater quality to satisfy them. That is why classical music is more preferred by older people, since the high quality of a lot of it makes it simultaneously the only fix that will satisfy those who have extracted all they can from lower quality popular music, and also inaccessible (i.e. too strong of a dose) for those who are still enjoying the lower quality of music.
This is not meant as a slam on those who listen to popular music: rather, it is meant as a call to realization that one should always be striving to greater heights, and I think that as people mature and start to grasp (and then grow tired of) their level of music, they should try music higher on the quality spectrum (however you define that quality spectrum for yourself). It is for this reason that I find my musical tastes to be constantly evolving.
Tags: aphex twin, art music, electronic music, Philosophy
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