Howard Goodall on BBC Two

[Ian]

One aspect of contemporary culture to which we perhaps all need to readjust is the fact there is so much stuff out there - all more easily available than ever before. How relevant is the concept of a shared “great” core-repertoire when we can now so easily create our own personal version?

Of course there are loads of people (vested interests, trend mongers etc.) out there that want to influence your personal core-repertoire, for example, institutions, businesses etc. selecting specific sorts of repertoire to promote as being (exclusively) “great”. And, of course, that’s going to have an effect - but perhaps an increasingly ineffectual one as more and more people gain the confidence to follow their own individual passions and interests.

BTW, the term “value” usually works better than “like” - the use of which so often means you have to sit through a load of predictable stuff about how "great" music isn’t created to be merely liked...

[Quarky]

this is not an assumption, it is my experience

it comes from the ether as it were, so being in the same space allows the apparent random arrival of 'notes' etc to 'belong' in that space and one is observing their presence ...

I like that observation Calum.

Pursuing the analogy - rather like observing stars in the night sky - patterns and shapes will emerge - bears, goats etc!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There’s a bit of an ambiguity with the notion of ‘understanding’ music, isn’t there? You can ‘understand’ it in the sense that you somehow ‘get it’ aurally, it ‘makes sense’ to your ears, you ‘follow’ it, you ‘like’ it, you’re persuaded, as though by a good argument. And then there’s the sense of understanding, say, what Schoenberg was up to with serialism as a composition technique, or what Mozart and Haydn were up to with classical form.

Good point: when I used the word "understand", I mean discovering why a composer chose that particular note/rhythm/structural course at a particular point in a piece - how an event is caused by what's gone before, and how it affects what follows. The more I "get" the context of such events, the closer I feel to an understanding of the piece (I don't believe that I fully understand any piece: the greatest works seem to open more possibilities and connections with each listening). I think that covers both types of "understanding" that you suggest.

I don't attach any "superiority" to one over the other - it's just the way my "puzzle brain" works: "that's fantastic! How's it done?" is just the way I get the most of my enjoyment of Art.

Which is also why I'm fascinated by Jazz and improvised Musics - they defy (demanding that I re-define) the way I want to think about them: making me listen for different criteria.

[Julien Sorel]

as more and more people gain the confidence to follow their own individual passions and interests.

I'm sure this is an entirely predictable response, but this future state will happen against the grain of marketing, advertising, corporate entertainment saturation etc.? Or do you mean people will gain the confidence to say - yes, we really do want what capitalism wants us to want!? Because if I have any idea what you mean by "trend-mongers" they are popguns compared to the nuclear arsenal available to the marketeers, advertisers, corporate entertainment saturationers etc.

[anotherbob]

a lot was said (and still is said) about the liberating / democratising / plural internet

Schoenberg ringtone anyone?

[aeolium]

I suppose I suffer from that Boulezian idea of central themes in music, analogous to historic forces that are acessible to elucidation in their workings at any time

But didn't Boulez despise tonal composers like Britten and the minimalists on the grounds that they were resisting the remorseless logic of musical development? That attitude seems to me far more authoritarian and restrictive than liberating.

I'm scared of all the millions and millions of isolated little individuals, in front of whatever their Macs will be, in ten, twenty, or however many years' time, imagining they are making history-shaking contributions to art as significant expresswion and means of communication, in a world whose very other aspect and effect on the individual is controlled by mass media at the behest of huge transnational corporations, and all the forces protecting them.

So for you the internet is simply another vehicle for corporate, capitalist control. It's really working well in North Africa, the Eurozone etc, isn't it? And why do you assume that individuals are not capable of making discriminating judgments, as you do, about art and society? I'd say there was a fairly widespread rejection or at least critique of the workings of capitalism and big corporations not least because the machine seems to have worked pretty badly for quite a few years now. And the internet has enabled an enormous proliferation of different types of music to be available to many people - infinitely more than was available for instance when I was young in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps that is what is disconcerting to some people, that there is so much choice, so much diversity, but it isn't to me. And the mass media (including the broadcasters) seem to me to be losing control, not increasing it: people are turning away from the institutional and commercial sources of information to seek others, in part because those institutions like so many have lost credibility.

[Serial_Apologist]

But didn't Boulez despise tonal composers like Britten and the minimalists on the grounds that they were resisting the remorseless logic of musical development? That attitude seems to me far more authoritarian and restrictive than liberating.

My only agreement with Boulez concerns the loss of pointers, namely an historical form of critique of Western values, which I believe can be found if its music is examined for subtextual messages. There many not be enough, for some people who look outwith these traditions, but there is I think more than we are sometimes prepared to glean, so we look to other cultures by which to measure up our own. I'm not saying I agree with Boulez's specifics, as regards a particular path of inevitability.

So for you the internet is simply another vehicle for corporate, capitalist control. It's really working well in North Africa, the Eurozone etc, isn't it?

Is that meant to be ironic?

And why do you assume that individuals are not capable of making discriminating judgments, as you do, about art and society?

I would make no assumptions about my own abilities as regards the latter, though I think of myself as having benefitted from a period when Radio 3 did go some way towards inculcating standards and values to that effect.

I'd say there was a fairly widespread rejection or at least critique of the workings of capitalism and big corporations not least because the machine seems to have worked pretty badly for quite a few years now. And the internet has enabled an enormous proliferation of different types of music to be available to many people - infinitely more than was available for instance when I was young in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps that is what is disconcerting to some people, that there is so much choice, so much diversity, but it isn't to me. And the mass media (including the broadcasters) seem to me to be losing control, not increasing it: people are turning away from the institutional and commercial sources of information to seek others, in part because those institutions like so many have lost credibility.

I would see the response as atomised.

[Quarky]

Schoenberg ringtone anyone?

Good idea - http://www.dilandau.eu/songs-mp3/arn...oenberg/1.html

Rather partial to Pierrot Lunaire myself.

[Bryn]

Schoenberg ringtone anyone?

I do indeed use one, a short motif from Pierrot Lunaire. Not a composition which employed serial technique, however.

[Ian]

I think of myself as having benefitted from a period when Radio 3 did go some way towards inculcating standards and values to that effect.

I was instinctively including R3 in my model of trendmongers. Just being even-handed/taking no chances, don't you know.

[french frank]

I accept that the discussion progressed directly from the Howard Goodall programme, but it had become theoretical and as three or four people had voiced the view, I have (at the risk of crucifixion) moved the discussion on the internet, capitalism, the market etc to a new thread in Ideas and Theory. This thread is for discussing the (continuing?) Howard Goodall programmes.

[Thropplenoggin]

I accept that the discussion progressed directly from the Howard Goodall programme, but it had become theoretical and as three or four people had voiced the view, I have (at the risk of crucifixion) moved the discussion on the internet, capitalism, the market etc to a new thread in Ideas and Theory. This thread is for discussing the (continuing?) Howard Goodall programmes.

Hurrah for sensible forum moderation!

Hurrah for French Frank!

[ahinton]

Schoenberg ringtone anyone?

I'm not sure about a Schoenberg one, but quite an effective Schönberg one could be the opening of Gurrelieder, perhaps (and messages from it could also be shown as "sent from my iPhönberg")...

[ahinton]

Hurrah for sensible forum moderation!

Hurrah for French Frank!

Seconded in both cases!

[french frank]

Hurrah for sensible forum moderation!

Hurrah for French Frank!

Well, thoughts on Goodall's views on serialism (and contemporary music in general?) may well lead it down the same road. ... If people still want to talk about the TV prog, this is the place.