The Unanswerable Question

[MrGongGong]

The reference to David Lodge reminded me of something that happened more than thirty years ago.

When I was at school, a trip was arranged to visit the Royal Academy summer art exhibition. We were fifteen, high-spirited boys from a Merseyside comprehensive...

An empty wine glass was discovered in one of the exhibition spaces. A peach stone (recently divested of its fruity covering) was casually dropped in the glass, and the whole ensemble placed on a convenient pedestal.

There were several people (unconnected with our group) holding forth on its artistic merits next time we came into the room.

Cage was right.


( “Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.” )

[Domeyhead]

WHen I listened to Coxhill's version of the song I thought that the actual heart of the piece wasn't music, melody or rhythm etc but the idea of juxtaposing chidren's voices singing incongruous (though well known) lyrics, so if he had used the same technique with (say) Sympathy for the Devil, or even the Beatles' Revolution would it really have been more or less the same piece?
I love this thread :-)

[heliocentric]

There were several people (unconnected with our group) holding forth on its artistic merits next time we came into the room.

One way in which art can come into being is by accident.

Returning to music: music is a way of hearing. Any attempt to define it more precisely inevitably becomes a question of taste (and probably prejudice). I find the sound of my fridge more involving and interesting (and pleasant) to listen to than the compositions of Delius, but I wouldn't go round saying that therefore one of the two absolutely IS music and the other isn't.

[heliocentric]

Returning to the start for a moment -

when does music stop being "experimental" and simply become rubbish?

If the word "experimental" means anything in a musical context, it denotes an attitude towards making music which is going to produce what some will consider to be "rubbish". I was slightly acquainted with Lol Coxhill, and, although I wouldn't describe myself as a great admirer of his work, you only have to glance at his biography to see his lifelong devotion to imaginative freedom and his lack of interest in pursuing fame, wealth or notoriety. Not that knowledge of an artist's background should necessarily make a difference, though. When you hear something as "rubbish" what you really mean is "I'm not (presently) capable of or interested in hearing it as anything but rubbish" which begs the question why, and responses of the "my dog could do that" variety, as I hope we have sufficient insight to realise, don't really answer that question.

So the answer to the quoted question is: that depends on you.

[MrGongGong]

WHen I listened to Coxhill's version of the song I thought that the actual heart of the piece wasn't music, melody or rhythm etc but the idea of juxtaposing chidren's voices singing incongruous (though well known) lyrics,

That idea IS a musical one
as much as Beethoven's idea of having an orchestral evocation of "the countryside" in the 6th Symphony is

music isn't necessarily composed of "melody" and "rhythm" (it can be , of course)


I also think that one needs to be careful about the use of the word "experimental"
in some ways ALL music is "experimental" , it is an experiment with sonic phenomena (with a few exceptions ............I know )

There is an interesting discussion about this in relation to Stockhasuen's Mikrophonie 1 (but i can't remember where I read / heard it ?) where he talks about the process of composing the piece as an experiment BUT when it is performed it isn't. It could be that it is an "experiment" for the audience as it would be for me to voluntarily attend a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah

[Domeyhead]

The aesthete in me says that it is important to distinguish "good" art from "bad" art in all sorts of areas and for all sorts of reasons, and the mathematician in me says that there should be ways to do it.
The reason is that if we can't express that distinction in one form or another then we have to regard everything as being of equal artisitic merit, which worries me, as ultimately "everything is art". It's a kind of Gilbert and George view of everything-as-art and while I do kind of like them, not everything they do is of equal interest or value. We have to be able to somehow express the view that a Beethoven symphony is in some way more valuable than (say) the music played during hour 13 of a continuous 24 hour recital from Bang on a Can (I assume anyone still reading this thread will know who they are :-)
It sounds like musical fascism but the truth is that even on this enlightened thread our collective endorphins would register more strongly for Beethoven than for BoaC without denying BoaC the absolute right to produce and perform their music, and to get back to my original point anybody pushing the frontiers of any art form should not be beyond criticism. Lol Coxhill himself produced a body of work but surely not all of it is of the same merit or quality.

[MrGongGong]

So are you equating "good" with longevity ?

Surely you have to start by thinking about what you mean by "good" ?
and for me that means thinking about the context

compared to Orbital Beethoven is crap dance music (for example)

and more things etc etc

"Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical?"

[Domeyhead]

So are you equating "good" with longevity ?

Surely you have to start by thinking about what you mean by "good" ?
and for me that means thinking about the context

compared to Orbital Beethoven is crap dance music (for example)

and more things etc etc

"Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical?"

I do like the truck and school analogy!

Is there a relationship between "good" and "longevity"? On the whole I think there is, in that the longer the piece, the more difficult it is to sustain levels of quality, interest, development and so on. Not impossible, no, but difficult, yes.

regarding context, it is a given that we are talking about serious music, by which I mean, music that the listener has consciously or deliberately made the effort to listen to, as opposed to (say) hearing it in a lift, or hearing on the radio by pure chance.

I am starting to realise that my initial premise that a piece of music could be classed as "rubbish" was wrong and even dangerous, because if such a uniform assessment was possible it would also be possible to prescribe "rules" that might even prevent some music from being created!
I admit defeat.

[MrGongGong]

Don't give up
this is interesting stuff indeed

by "longevity" i meant how many years it has "lasted"

but thinking about some of La Monte Youngs pieces I think that extreme duration is what they are partly "about" , though in this music there is often no "development" in a conventional sense

the truck quote is Cage

[Domeyhead]

Yes time is a good test. It made me think that it is paradoxical that you can only really become a visionary in hindsight! I was thinking of Miles Davis, who probably endured a lot of "rubbish" taunts in his time.
As Bob Monkhouse said "They laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they're not laughing now".

[MrGongGong]

Yes time is a good test.

I'm not sure that I would always agree with you there
there is some music that I think is wonderful that only "works" for a short amount of time
Some musics aren't "robust" and don't last as long but are still worthy of our attention

[heliocentric]

Yes time is a good test.

It can be quite deceptive though - in 1800 many people would have said that the music of JS Bach hadn't really "stood the test of time", but fifty years later that was no longer true.

And, as MrGG implies, if you judge music on whether or not it "lasts" you're going to miss quite a lot, in particular a lot of what's going on at present. One can have an opinion on whether some music or other is still going to be listened to in 20 or 50 or 200 or 2000 years' time, but to me it seems very strange to confound such speculative thoughts with whether one appreciates it in the present moment.

[teamsaint]

I do like the truck and school analogy!

Is there a relationship between "good" and "longevity"? On the whole I think there is, in that the longer the piece, the more difficult it is to sustain levels of quality, interest, development and so on. Not impossible, no, but difficult, yes.

regarding context, it is a given that we are talking about serious music, by which I mean, music that the listener has consciously or deliberately made the effort to listen to, as opposed to (say) hearing it in a lift, or hearing on the radio by pure chance.

I am starting to realise that my initial premise that a piece of music could be classed as "rubbish" was wrong and even dangerous, because if such a uniform assessment was possible it would also be possible to prescribe "rules" that might even prevent some music from being created!
I admit defeat.

I don't follow this bit of your thinking. "serious " music I still think is a useful term, (though others I know disagree), but music heard by accident, or produced without some heavy duty/intellectual/artistic intention can still be of great value.
Who didn't love hearing "Land of Make Believe" with that wonderful drum noise back in '81?
Ok, lots of people, but so it goes....

[MrGongGong]

I don't follow this bit of your thinking. "serious " music I still think is a useful term, .

I'm not sure of this (as you probably know)
by "serious" do you mean

intent ?
application of it's creators ?
or
complexity ?

[teamsaint]

To mark intent really. I doubt if i can justify that...there is plenty of "serious" music..music with intelletual or artistic aspiration that is bobbins.
However, since there is a lot of music whose sole intention is to fill the airwaves of Spire FM and numb the senses of a compliant population even further, the description may still serve some useful purpose.
But maybe not !
Anyway, you marked my essay yet , MrGG?!