The Tyranny of Pop Music

[NatBalance]

Does anyone remember Alistair Cooke's Letter from America series on Radio 4? Well, that slot has been replaced by a series called A Point of View and I just happened to catch last night's episode. You might find it interesting:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mv4js

(This link is stated as being 13:13 minutes but the actual lecture is just under 10 minutes long)

I'm not sure what he means by pop music. Is he including popular classical? Like Vivaldi being played on hold on the telephone, and classical music is also used as background music in some cafes.

Rich

[cloughie]

Does anyone remember Alistair Cooke's Letter from America series on Radio 4? Well, that slot has been replaced by a series called A Point of View and I just happened to catch last night's episode. You might find it interesting:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mv4js

(This link is stated as being 13:13 minutes but the actual lecture is just under 10 minutes long)

I'm not sure what he means by pop music. Is he including popular classical? Like Vivaldi being played on hold on the telephone, and classical music is also used as background music in some cafes.

Rich

Did you mean tyranny?

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm not sure what he means by pop music. Is he including popular classical? Like Vivaldi being played on hold on the telephone, and classical music is also used as background music in some cafes.
Rich

A kindly host might sort out the typo.

Yes, as he's a philosopher I thought Scruton might have defined his terms a bit more carefully, but they emerged, more or less, over the course of the talk. At first he did appear to be lumping pop (which presumably includes some good stuff) with muzak, and was definitely more concerned about mindless electrical pulses, but his objection to background music as default would presumably by implication include Vivaldi and Eine Kleine on tape loop. I liked the passive smoking analogy.

He made a strong case for silence (by which he meant the absence of background music, as of course ambient sound is all around us), and a plea for musical education, both learning instruments and music appreciation....not quite sure about that, music appreciation played no part in my musical education at school, and compulsory choral singing I found a total turn-off....but hard to argue with music as a form of communication rather than a blank to shut other things out.

[Hornspieler]

BBC ONE TV has a weekday quiz called "Pointless"

The object is to find a true answer which nobody among a hundred volunteers has thought of.

Four couples compete in a series of knockout rounds. At the end of each round, the couple with the highest number of points is eliminated.

Geography, Famous People, Science, Literature, Historical events, Sports, The Natural World - are among subjects included.

But the competition works against the more knowledgable contestants (usually middle aged or above) by its obsession with Pop music and "The Charts".

So much for the viewer to learn from those correct/incorrect answers; but who cares "...who was the drummer in the ???? Boy Band which topped the Charts in 2004?"

I have yet to see Classical Music included as a subject on this programme, but if "University Challenge" is anything to go by;-

Question Master "For ten points, Who wrote Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? " (Buzzer Sounds) "Merton?"

Answer (from Merton student) "Mozart?"

Don't send your son or daughter to Uni Mrs Worthington - (Unless they know how to spell and pronounce the word "University")

HS

[french frank]

He made a strong case for silence (by which he meant the absence of background music

A natural conclusion from 'Ars gratia artis' rather than music defined by its everyday function?

[Sydney Grew]

The Tyranny of Pop Music

I think things are better right, especially in the titles of threads. Think of the word "tyrant", to which "tyranny" is related. Are there not any longer spelling examinations in British prep. schools? Is spelling no longer taught, even?

[ahinton]

Does anyone remember Alistair Cooke's Letter from America series on Radio 4? Well, that slot has been replaced by a series called A Point of View and I just happened to catch last night's episode. You might find it interesting:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mv4js

(This link is stated as being 13:13 minutes but the actual lecture is just under 10 minutes long)

I'm not sure what he means by pop music. Is he including popular classical? Like Vivaldi being played on hold on the telephone, and classical music is also used as background music in some cafes.

Rich

I think that the problem with this aspect of the talk is that his subject is in reality the ubiquity and invasiveness of all vapid, valueless "musical sounds", be they "pop" or popularised (such as the examples that you cite) and the inability of most of us to avoid them in public places (or indeed on the phone, as you write); that's what makes it "tyrannical" and "pop" accounts, I think, for the vast majority of it and, although it's not only "pop", Roger Scruton alludes almost exclusively to "pop" when deploring the consequences for society of what it is that he's talking about.

His point about the value of silence being lost or at least gravely undermined is a particularly pertinent one, I think - as though silence is somehow intolerable; the absence of access to silence has many possible consequences, one of which is that the mind's ear has almost no opportunity to "hear" internally. That it is possible for the mind's ear to function at an exalted level is evident from the example of the deaf Beethoven seeming to encounter little difficulty in writing his Op. 127 quartet and the four that followed it in relatively quick succession; OK, Beethoven had ample musical experience before his hearing deteriorated and therefore had much upon which to draw but, in his final quartets, he was not only recalling and regurgitating the kind of music that he had experienced when his hearing was intact - far from it, indeed.

[ahinton]

I think things are better right, especially in the titles of threads. Think of the word "tyrant", to which "tyranny" is related. Are there not any longer spelling examinations in British prep. schools? Is spelling no longer taught, even?

Why would you be concerned only with the teaching of spelling in prep. schools? Wouldn't you be concerned about it in all schools?

[NatBalance]

Ah, but at least I always use a capital letter for a proper name.

[jean]

His point about the value of silence being lost or at least gravely undermined is a particularly pertinent one, I think...

And we have done it here, recently and much better.

The judging of music as 'good' or 'bad' is a different argument altogether, which Scruton as a 'philosopher' should know. But I don't have much respect for him as a 'philosopher' - or as anything else, really.

[french frank]

- as though silence is somehow intolerable

Your 'as though' is interesting: for many people, silence is intolerable.

I suppose we're all different in this respect, but I find music far more distracting when I'm working than, for instance, loud traffic noise or a pneumatic drill outside. Is adapting to ubiquitous music a facet of human evolution?

[ahinton]

Your 'as though' is interesting: for many people, silence is intolerable.

I suppose we're all different in this respect, but I find music far more distracting when I'm working than, for instance, loud traffic noise or a pneumatic drill outside. Is adapting to ubiquitous music a facet of human evolution?

I suspect that silence is intolerable for most people precisely because they've been tyrannised into assuming it to be so and indeed that somehow it should be so.

I empathise with your second point.

[Hornspieler]

Why would you be concerned only with the teaching of spelling in prep. schools? Wouldn't you be concerned about it in all schools?

Am I right in thinking that Sydney's use of the word "prep" is intended to mean what we now tend to call "First Schools" (as opposed to the now defunct use of the terms "Infants" and "Junior" schools and "Secondary" schools for ages from 10 to 18)?
Welcome back, Sydney!

HS

[gurnemanz]

I switched this on about half way through not knowing what or who it was, hearing pronouncements like "young ears cannot reach out to this enchanted world". He clearly really did think that only his type music (he mentioned a couple of dead white Europeans) has the power of enchantment and that with his superior discernment and deeper insights he is in a blessed position to look down on the pitiable youth of today. He reminds us that muzak and much pop music is rubbish - hardly "a point of view" but a restatement of the bleeding obvious. There is plenty of artistry, profundity, beauty and subtlety in contemporary rock music which actually is the music of our time. It is his loss, if he is stuck in his backward-looking elitist rut. After two minutes of his smug drivel I found myself abusing my radio and turned off.

[gradus]

I liked some of his ideas and I suppose that for some his prescription for improving the musical taste of the young might work but it (or something like it) didn't for me. Others too may find it difficult to account for their love of classical music since it seems innate and no amount of 'musical education' made any difference, except perhaps to put me off musical education and teachers.