The Tyranny of Pop Music

[Bryn]

"cummings", surely? - der Dichter, after all...

And did you identify the author of the quote about Beethoven and policemen following your mug of tea?...

Indeed. I am using an HP laptop with dodgy keyboard at the moment. Sometimes particular keys (mainly the space bar and the letters "a" and "s" fail to respond unless pressed firmly. Error about to be corrected. As to "e e cummings" versus "E. E. Cummings", I note that Universal use "Cummings", while IRCAM appear to use "cummings" when referring to the Boulez work.

[NatBalance]

"Premiss" should read "premise" and the only confusion here stems from the lack of obvious connection between the two, methinks.

Actually I've struck lucky with this spelling mistake:-

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/145322/difference-between-premiss-and-premise

[MrGongGong]

Not knowing our esteemèd member jean's view of the blues, I could not say...

That's two "over the head" in one day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5sIodyO9fM

[ahinton]

Actually I've struck lucky with this spelling mistake:-
http://english.stackexchange.com/que...ss-and-premise

Well, whoopty-doo!

Any chance of your contributing anything further to discussion of the topic, if that's not too much trouble?

[NatBalance]

Well, whoopty-doo!

Any chance of your contributing anything further to discussion of the topic, if that's not too much trouble?

Well, I wonder. Wood you b able to resissed picking me up on mi spelling? :)

[ahinton]

Indeed. I am using an HP laptop with dodgy keyboard at the moment. Sometimes particular keys (mainly the space bar and the letters "a" and "s" fail to respond unless pressed firmly. Error about to be corrected. As to "e e cummings" versus "E. E. Cummings", I note that Universal use "Cummings", while IRCAM appear to use "cummings" when referring to the Boulez work.

OK; understood. I hope that you resolve your key issues (if I may call them that) as soon as possible.

In the meantime, any advance on Ludwig and the Detective Constable?

[ahinton]

Well, I wonder. Wood you b able to resissed picking me up on mi spelling? :)

I don't know, but I wouldn't put you down on it. Anyway, for the record, "spelling" has only one "l", as Benjamin Britten knew well and as he evidenced on numerous occasions in his correspondence.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't know, but I wouldn't put you down on it. Anyway, for the record, "spelling" has only one "l", as Benjamin Britten knew well and as he evidenced on numerous occasions in his correspondence.

Talking of Britten"s spelling, take a look at the score of Noye's Fludde.

Anyhow BB can be forgiven for the odd lapse, having lived in the Land of Bad Spelling for long enough to pick up the odd bad habit.

[P. G. Tipps]

Classical music folk are beset by 'tyrannies' it seems ...

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/the-tyranny-of-lists/

[ahinton]

Classical music folk are beset by 'tyrannies' it seems ...

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/...anny-of-lists/

Interesting - and many thanks for posting it. I'd forgotten about T.S. Eliot's evidently premonitory "this twittering world"! But do you suppose that Liszt might have changed his name had he read this?

At least Albéniz and Granados weren't "beset by 'tyrannies'"; they each wisely preferred the Pyrenees (spelt without the acute accent for reasons that should be obvious)...

[doversoul1]

Well, if that is so why can't I hear the quiet parts, and why are not the loud parts actually loud? The most important question regarding this that I would like answering is my question in #319:-

The obvious answer to that is, you probably have some kind of hearing problem. As to your question #319, apart from occasional mishaps, it all sounds ‘natural’ and well ‘balanced’ to me.

[Lat-Literal]

Is there, would you say, a distinction between a function which the individual listener gives to it, and a particular 'function' which the composer intended for it?

What counts as a 'function'? Is music for a song/opera/film a function? To dance to? What about CFM's Music for Babies? CFM's Relax and Escape? Is there any difference between these types of 'function'?

NatBalance - as far as the relative volume of presenter and orchestra on Radio 3 is concerned, this is a frequent complaint that the presenter is TOO LOUD. Once the music starts, there should be no need to adjust the volume. The engineers are supposed to get it right so that on reasonable equipment the quiet bits sound very quiet and the louds bits sound loud without the listener having to do anything.

When it comes to the word "function" re piped music, concepts of labelling and identification run close. Beyond any impulse of "I don't need to know it's function, I just don't like it" and any additional political and cultural dialogue about tyranny etc, is the sort of irritation of just not knowing why it is there, ie "But just what is it intended to do and/or achieve?"

The answer to that question no doubt varies according to situation and however much we know or don't know about the content, we can only guess. That is, unless we ask and are then told or are involved in the process of introducing/maintaining it. So given most of us will not know, it can then come down to what any individual feels it says to him or her.

One of the reasons why I mentioned the four categories I did is that those things say something to me. When I hear the latest overpaid boy band, not only am I thinking that I don't find it musical but also "how this shallow celebrity culture is everywhere and I can't relate to it". If it is Bono and Co at the time of their first album, I might muse "to think in those days they seemed not far removed from us, yet how they left for an unreal life of stadiums, millions of dollars and a belief in being world spokesmen" or something on those lines.

There are other things that say to me - "ah, that was 1987 or I remember being there or they were good but the other ones were better or that was so-and-so's favourite song". There is an aspect that is personal diary with the familiarity and even losses that entails. If there has never been that involvement, it is more naturally regarded as just a racket.

[ahinton]

When it comes to the word "function" re piped music, concepts of labelling and identification run close. Beyond any impulse of "I don't need to know it's function, I just don't like it" and any additional political and cultural dialogue about tyranny etc, is the sort of irritation of just not knowing why it is there, ie "But just what is it intended to do and/or achieve?"

The answer to that question no doubt varies according to situation and however much we know or don't know about the content, we can only guess. That is, unless we ask and are then told or are involved in the process of introducing/maintaining it. So given most of us will not know, it can then come down to what any individual feels it says to him or her.

One of the reasons why I mentioned the four categories I did is that those things say something to me. When I hear the latest overpaid boy band, not only am I thinking that I don't find it musical but also "how this shallow celebrity culture is everywhere and I can't relate to it". If it is Bono and Co at the time of their first album, I might muse "to think in those days they seemed not far removed from us, yet how they left for an unreal life of stadiums, millions of dollars and a belief in being world spokesmen" or something on those lines.

There are other things that say to me - "ah, that was 1987 or I remember being there or they were good but the other ones were better or that was so-and-so's favourite song". There is an aspect that is personal diary with the familiarity and even losses that entails. If there has never been that involvement, it is more naturally regarded as just a racket.

Interesting points, of which some nevertheless rather tend at times to lean on a kind of "golden age" interpretation that might in reality be open to question (as "golden age" claims are sometimes wont to do!).

It seems less than unreasonable to presume that those who provide piped music in public and other places where people might congregate or in elevators and the like believe that it has a "function" if for no better reason than that they have an agenda in making it available. How successful in practice such an agenda might be in any given example might be hard to measure, but the fact remains that what almost all such music has in common is lack of intellectual and emotional challenge and excitement, for that is not its purpose; however, mere acceptance and understanding of of what it is not there to do and what it therefore doesn't do might at least narrow the possibilities of what such "function" might be, especially as said "function" is not primarily musical and could therefore be argued to contribute little or nothing to anyone's appreciation of or feelings about or responses to the music to which people make a conscious effort to listen.

The question of whether anyone needs to know its intended and/or actual "function" is in the brain of the beholder, as is that of whether people do or do not need to be told what it is by Roger Scruton or anyone else, but that doesn't of itself discourage some people from questioning it (nor indeed should it do so). You are, however, correct in pointing out that those who don't know what it is are inevitably left with little more than having to express (or not) their opinions on it and an the effect that it might (or might not) have on them and, as such, some might be influenced by Roger Scruton's view or Elliott Carter's view if for not other obvious reason than that they have each expressed it publicly.

[Serial_Apologist]

. There are other things that say to me - "ah, that was 1987 or I remember being there or they were good but the other ones were better or that was so-and-so's favourite song". There is an aspect that is personal diary with the familiarity and even losses that entails. If there has never been that involvement, it is more naturally regarded as just a racket.

For a lot of us the turning point was probably the Stones at Altamont, 1969; it was then that what had always to a great extent underpinned the world of pop and rock really hit home; and that was a time more conducive to radicalisation, in the sense it then meant, than 1987.

[Lat-Literal]

Interesting points, of which some nevertheless rather tend at times to lean on a kind of "golden age" interpretation that might in reality be open to question (as "golden age" claims are sometimes wont to do!).

It seems less than unreasonable to presume that those who provide piped music in public and other places where people might congregate or in elevators and the like believe that it has a "function" if for no better reason than that they have an agenda in making it available. How successful in practice such an agenda might be in any given example might be hard to measure, but the fact remains that what almost all such music has in common is lack of intellectual and emotional challenge and excitement, for that is not its purpose; however, mere acceptance and understanding of of what it is not there to do and what it therefore doesn't do might at least narrow the possibilities of what such "function" might be, especially as said "function" is not primarily musical and could therefore be argued to contribute little or nothing to anyone's appreciation of or feelings about or responses to the music to which people make a conscious effort to listen.

The question of whether anyone needs to know its intended and/or actual "function" is in the brain of the beholder, as is that of whether people do or do not need to be told what it is by Roger Scruton or anyone else, but that doesn't of itself discourage some people from questioning it (nor indeed should it do so). You are, however, correct in pointing out that those who don't know what it is are inevitably left with little more than having to express (or not) their opinions on it and an the effect that it might (or might not) have on them and, as such, some might be influenced by Roger Scruton's view or Elliott Carter's view if for not other obvious reason than that they have each expressed it publicly.

Well, it seems to have created quite a bit of "excitement" on this forum in the broad sense of that word. I think it can make a difference too to social behaviour. Setting aside "poor" old Beyonce, a diet of the Beastie Boys's "Fight For Your Right To Party" and a Heavytrackerz Ignition Mix generally played at snowboarding events will produce a different "shopping experience" to The Smiths's "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" and selected works by Leonard Cohen! Knowledge of them isn't needed. I can absolutely guarantee it.

Is piped music a medium, I wonder? Perhaps it is a key outpost of the mass media or a channelling of "them". And on a "golden age", yes, I do believe that there have been more golden ages in the mainstream mass media and by association popular culture for this is not a golden age at all. It might well be that in terms of culture, there is more of the good than there has ever been but it is mostly on the fringes. But then even the more solid and recognizable elements of the establishment are similarly sidelined and operate virtually underground. I need to put these comments in a numerical context. I do not view any year beginning with a "2" as representing any sort of reality other than in terms of the very evident ongoing elements and the natural world. The 1990s were neither here nor there, partially because of Clinton but in the UK what occurred during John Major's "government".