"Universalism" and "Imperialism" - how does Music "spread"?

[kea]

Western European culture is seen as more "civilised" and representing "universal values" etc, whereas other cultures are seen as "provincial" and "primitive", even in places like Japan that were never colonised. The reason it is seen that way is because of a centuries-long advertisement campaign that intensified after 1945 and positioned "the West" specifically in opposition to communism, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. This is also why Japanese institutions and elites took up the cause of Western European culture so wholeheartedly; the USSR and the PRC represented countries that had long been a threat to Japan, and communism specifically represented a threat to those institutions and elites because it had a good chance of taking away their wealth.

(Of course, the USSR and the PRC themselves retooled some forms of Western European culture into "socialist realism" in part because this advertisement campaign had started long before they came into existence, so the situation is more complex & nuanced than I've suggested, but it always on some level does come down to a "colonisation of the mind".)

[vinteuil]

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... well, ferney, I'm not really sure what you understand by 'commercial imperialism'. But I suspect that it's a bit more nuanced than just 'making commercial profit'. Much of my working life was involved in the world of 'soft power' (Richd: B will never talk to me again... ) - when the Beaverbrook press castigated the British Council for sending Morris Dancers to Patagonia (probably an apocryphal canard... ) it was because they thought it wd be ineffectual - they weren't necessarily against the idea of the West using culture as a means of 'winning friends and influencing people' (as we saw it) in a world that did not share our values.

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[MrGongGong]

A tangental comment (while I'm taking a moment away from editing)

When Kim Jong-il died I watched quite a bit of the online broadcast TV from North Korea.
What really struck me was how much the huge choirs and orchestras playing the "sad" music were so Westernised. I'm not an expert in Korean music but (maybe to do with his passion for cinema?) the "sad" music was huge romantic Western "Classical" music and nothing like Korean traditional music. Given the politics of the region, one might imagine that this wouldn't be the culture that would be embraced at such a time.

[kea]

Really? Do you consider CDs of Haydn Quartets (or Machaut masses, or Ferneyhough piano works) to be "commercial"?

Of course they are. The issue is not the CD of Haydn quartets by itself, which is harmless; it's that when they are brought to parts of the world that did not have them they're accompanied by ideology, usually in the form of advertisement, background music in films, etc, which presents Haydn's music as having some kind of essential universal quality that the "local" or "provincial" music lacks, and that associates those quartets with aristocracy and intellectual superiority and so on.

[Richard Barrett]

Western European culture is seen as more "civilised" and representing "universal values" etc, whereas other cultures are seen as "provincial" and "primitive", even in places like Japan that were never colonised. The reason it is seen that way is because of a centuries-long advertisement campaign that intensified after 1945 and positioned "the West" specifically in opposition to communism, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. This is also why Japanese institutions and elites took up the cause of Western European culture so wholeheartedly; the USSR and the PRC represented countries that had long been a threat to Japan, and communism specifically represented a threat to those institutions and elites because it had a good chance of taking away their wealth.

(Of course, the USSR and the PRC themselves retooled some forms of Western European culture into "socialist realism" in part because this advertisement campaign had started long before they came into existence, so the situation is more complex & nuanced than I've suggested, but it always on some level does come down to a "colonisation of the mind".)

Right. (This process did indeed intensify after 1945, but it had been going on for a long time before that - Christianity as promulgated by colonialism from its beginnings brought with it an ingrained narrative of those with access to universal truths against the ignorant heathen.) Thinking of music in a way that goes beyond throwbacks to colonial attitudes is I think an important task for creative musicians in the 21st century.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm beginning to wonder if there might be some "talking at cross-purposes" going on?

Of course they are. The issue is not the CD of Haydn quartets by itself, which is harmless; it's that when they are brought to parts of the world that did not have them they're accompanied by ideology, usually in the form of advertisement, background music in films, etc, which presents Haydn's music as having some kind of essential universal quality that the "local" or "provincial" music lacks, and that associates those quartets with aristocracy and intellectual superiority and so on.

Before I reply to this (much of which I see the argument and logic of - and you and MrGG are right to suggest the use of film scores as part of the process) I think I need to ask if you mean that a lifelong citizen of Kyoto buying the CD of Richard Barrett's Dark Matter they are buying into an image of The West as representative of an intellectual superiority that the "local/provincial" Music lacks?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I should point out that I don't think that you do mean this, Kea, but that there's a different idea of "commercialism" in our use(s) if the term that sort-of suggests to me in my (mis) reading of your post that you could so mean.

[kea]

I think I need to ask if you mean that a lifelong citizen of Kyoto buying the CD of Richard Barrett's Dark Matter they are buying into an image of The West as representative of an intellectual superiority that the "local/provincial" Music lacks?

A hypothetical citizen? It's something they have already bought into because of that message being everywhere, subtly and overtly, in their society, & therefore likely something they already believed when they spotted Richard's CD at the local Tower Records, provided that it's been placed in the classical section & therefore is considered to have that prestige. Of course it's also totally possible that some people will buy it not because they have any interest in "classical music" or the "classical tradition" and everything embedded within that tradition, but because e.g. they saw Richard at an electro gig in some poorly lit Kyoto basement full of aspiring noise and no-wave artists and liked his stuff, but I suspect that's not the median experience. (It is released on a "classical" label after all, & one that proclaims its purpose as specifically to preserve British cultural heritage. Due to market segregation, bit more likely that the hypothetical electro fan would end up buying Numbers or Pollen etc.)

[kea]

I should point out that I don't think that you do mean this, Kea, but that there's a different idea of "commercialism" in our use(s) if the term that sort-of suggests to me in my (mis) reading of your post that you could so mean.

I think "commercialism" means something different from "commercial"—the latter refers to anything that's bought and sold as a commodity, the former is an ideology based on conceptualising the acquisition of commodities as the highest and most meaningful activity. "Commercial imperialism" is basically just an "imperialism of commodities", imperialism based on economic conquest rather than military.

[vinteuil]

... "Commercial imperialism" is basically just an "imperialism of commodities", imperialism based on economic conquest rather than military.

... yes, but the 'imperialism of commodities' of course also brings with it (or perhaps rather is brought by... ) a whole panoply of sociological/political/cultural baggage.

'America' is mediated by Hollywood movies; street kids in Bombay/Mumbai imbibe an awareness of CocaCola, DKNY, whatever while gawping at what Tom Cruise is doing. It's all intimately intermeshed.

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[doversoul1]

In a word: yes.

One of the things that interests me most about Japanese classical music is that it displays various features which might be regarded by many Western listeners as "unnatural", like the way that the tempo of a gagaku piece is always speeding up very slightly, or the coexistence of several sound-layers often without any harmonic or rhythmical connection in Nō theatre - "the very construction of the nōkan flute, causing it to overblow at different intervals between a minor seventh and an octave, generates a structural incommensurability between the music’s different layers"* - or the way the biwa is played using what in Western terms would be called "extended techniques. And yet these traditions have existed with little change for many hundreds of years. No doubt one could say the same sort of thing about the rhythmical sophistication of various African musics, and there would be many other examples, but this is a more familiar area for me. If we're interested in resisting and overcoming the industrialisation of music we need to realise that it's deeply ingrained in the "Western classical tradition"...

* "from my forthcoming book" (it's at the printers now!)

Sorry Richard but you will have to explain what’s all that got to do with Western music in non-Western cultures. And what exactly do you mean by industrialisation of music? You are not saying that Western music has been sold (or it has sold itself?)to all those non-Western cultures without the receiving cultures realising they are being sold something they didn’t really need or want?

What's the title of your book?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think "commercialism" means something different from "commercial"—the latter refers to anything that's bought and sold as a commodity, the former is an ideology based on conceptualising the acquisition of commodities as the highest and most meaningful activity. "Commercial imperialism" is basically just an "imperialism of commodities", imperialism based on economic conquest rather than military.

Yes - and that is how I intended it to be understood in #10. But whilst creating/promulgating a myopic idea of what Music is (by flooding the market with commercially-manufactured Pop Music, and by exclusively using a limited range of Musical styles as background Music to films, TV programmes, adverts etc) I don't think that vinty's "promulgation" of CDs of Haydn String Quartets is a commercialist activity, precisely because there isn't very much "economic conquest" involved here, is there? These do not make huge profits either in the West, or anywhere else in the world, do they? And, whilst the Musics of the Western Classical Traditions used to hold a certain kudos, isn't that something of the Past rather than a Present phenomenon? The promulgation of Minority interest Art (such as Machaut, Ferneyhough, Haydn operas, Evan Parker ... ) is in defiance of Commercialism, isn't it? (Genuine question - I can quite imagine that I'm being sweetly but hopelessly naive about this, and I'm keen to see your response about this.) I would imagine that the idea of Simon Reynell (one of only two people I know who drives a car older and more dilapidated than my own) being an agent of Commercialism because anothertimbre recordings are on sale throughout the world would be one that would astonish him.

I'm not trying to score points here - I think that there is a real difference between Commercialism (a definition of which I think we agree upon) and the sort of Cultural Exchange that vinty describes in #17 and which is reflected in the easy availability of "minority interest" repertoires. A difference that is reflected in the fact that Commercialism largely ignores these repertoires unless it can see a way to increase its already infalted profits from them.

[doversoul1]

A hypothetical citizen? It's something they have already bought into because of that message being everywhere, subtly and overtly, in their society, & therefore likely something they already believed when they spotted Richard's CD at the local Tower Records, provided that it's been placed in the classical section & therefore is considered to have that prestige. Of course it's also totally possible that some people will buy it not because they have any interest in "classical music" or the "classical tradition" and everything embedded within that tradition, but because e.g. they saw Richard at an electro gig in some poorly lit Kyoto basement full of aspiring noise and no-wave artists and liked his stuff, but I suspect that's not the median experience. (It is released on a "classical" label after all, & one that proclaims its purpose as specifically to preserve British cultural heritage. Due to market segregation, bit more likely that the hypothetical electro fan would end up buying Numbers or Pollen etc.)

kea
I haven’t read all your post, so correct me if I got you wrong but what seems to be missing from your argument is the intelligence of the receiving cultures. We are not talking about some tribes in remote mountains that has never seen a white man. Japan, for example, has known Western cultures in various fields since 1600. The Western cultures that they have taken in are almost all by the choice of the culture/people and despite the appearance, Western influence today is not much more than a small addition to its own culture. If there is some Imperial power behind it, it hasn’t had much success.

[Richard Barrett]

And what exactly do you mean by industrialisation of music? You are not saying that Western music has been sold (or it has sold itself?)to all those non-Western cultures without the receiving cultures realising they are being sold something they didn’t really need or want?

For (I think) the third time, no I'm not saying that. By industrialisation I mean just that - mass production of standardised cultural products, whether pianos or recordings or whatever. All I'm saying is that the penetration of Western music into "markets" around the world has no more to do with its inherent qualities than the omnipresence of McDonalds hamburgers makes them in any way superior to other foods.

[doversoul1]

For (I think) the third time, no I'm not saying that. By industrialisation I mean just that - mass production of standardised cultural products, whether pianos or recordings or whatever. All I'm saying is that the penetration of Western music into "markets" around the world has no more to do with its inherent qualities than the omnipresence of McDonalds hamburgers makes them in any way superior to other foods.

Did mass production of standardised cultural products exist back in the mid-19th century?

Are you saying (forth time) that Western classical music has spread (only) because they have been marketed or sold into the market? Does the same apply here? Do we listen to what we do because the music is being penetrated into the market we are happen to be in? Or are we different in some way?

I don’t think anybody is that naïve to believe Western classical music has spread because it is superior to other music. Pop songs have spread far wider, come to that.

You seem to be extremely reluctant to accept the idea that non-Western cultures (whilst small part of each nation) are capable of deciding what they consider to be worth appreciating without any external forces, hard or soft. By this, I don’t mean you look down on other cultures. It seems the other way round; you seem to prefer not to admit that some Western cultures may actually be worth appreciating for its own sake.

I think it will be much more interesting to think what it is that people in different cultures with their own music traditions find in Western classical music than looking at the phenomenon as just another capitalist vice.

By the way, The Beatles weren’t marketed when their first two singles came out, at least they weren’t in Japan. When we first hear Please Please Me on the radio, the record shop in the town knew nothing about it.

ferneyhoughgeliebte

I'm not trying to score points here

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Neither am I.