What is Modern Music?

[Pabmusic]

It's like "Classical Music" - or, as you suggested on the other Board, "Early Music": a flexible general term that works only so long as you don't enquire what precisely it means! It seems to mean "anything written since the Second World War that hasn't entered (or doesn't fit into) the 'mainstream repertory'" - which, in turn, might lead to a Thread titled "What is Mainstream?"

I'd say that it means whatever the user wants it to mean, it's so vague. Sometimes it's used pejoratively (I don't like this modern music), sometimes in an elitist way (yes, but it's not really 'modern' is it? - a criticism I've had, in those very words)), sometimes very broadly so as to distinguish it from previous styles (modern music is not constrained by the expectations of Late Romanticism), sometimes very narrowly to allow for individual innovation (Schoenberg's system, Grainger's Free Music machine, and so much more). Such a broad range of uses make the term useless unless you take the time to explain the context.

[Beef Oven!]

I'd say that it means whatever the user wants it to mean, it's so vague.

I think the discussion has identified that it can't mean whatever people want it to mean (not sure what 'the user' is), and I'm not sure there is anything vague about the Britannica description.

Sometimes it's used pejoratively (I don't like this modern music), sometimes in an elitist way (yes, but it's not really 'modern' is it? - a criticism I've had, in those very words)),

Yes, but pointing out that music that is not modern, but backward facing, doesn't have to amount to disapproval.

Such a broad range of uses make the term useless unless you take the time to explain the context.

I agree, in so far as any term that ignores the underlying terms of reference, is meaningless.

I'm very passionate about 'modern music' and I would therefore not be nonchalant about it (I think there's a modicum of nonchalance in your post).

[Pabmusic]

I think the discussion has identified that it can't mean whatever people want it to mean (not sure what 'the user' is), and I'm not sure there is anything vague about the Britannica description...I'm very passionate about 'modern music' and I would therefore not be nonchalant about it (I think there's a modicum of nonchalance in your post).

Oh dear!

No discussion can identify whether anything can or cannot mean X. Suggestions and possibilities can emerge from discussion, and a consensus can appear. If I have missed the post that amounts to an agreed definition of 'modern music', please enlighten me; I was commenting on Ferney's description of it as a "a flexible general term that works only so long as you don't enquire what precisely it means". Clearly, both Ferney and I were mistaken and it is indeed a very precise term.

Or this might be a good example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

[Beef Oven!]

Oh dear!

No discussion can identify whether anything can or cannot mean X. Suggestions and possibilities can emerge from discussion, and a consensus can appear. If I have missed the post that amounts to an agreed definition of 'modern music', please enlighten me; I was commenting on Ferney's description of it as a "a flexible general term that works only so long as you don't enquire what precisely it means". Clearly, both Ferney and I were mistaken and it is indeed a very precise term.

Or this might be a good example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

If fernie thinks that the term 'modern music' is either 'so vague' or 'a very precise term', I would say he is indeed quite mistaken and shouldn't have said it. And more fool you for following him.

[Pabmusic]

If fernie thinks that the term 'modern music' is either 'so vague' or 'a very precise term', I would say he is indeed quite mistaken and shouldn't have said it. And more fool you for following him.

Ferney will of course have to answer for himself. I quoted to you part of what he said in post 3, which did not include the words "so vague" or "a very precise term". Clearly you don't agree that 'modern music' is "a flexible general term": but that's what I was addressing. For my pains you accused me of 'nonchalance'.

All I have been addressing throughout is the terminology; you seem to have missed this. You will continue to be passionate about 'modern music' and will define it exactly as you like, completely unaffected by my dislike of an imprecise term.

[Beef Oven!]

Ferney will of course have to answer for himself.

More importantly, speak for himself in the first place (you put the two peas in the pod, not me, nor him)

Clearly you don't agree that 'modern music' is "a flexible general term"

That was the implied starting point of the discussion. The discussion has moved on.

but that's what I was addressing. For my pains you accused me of 'nonchalance'.

No, I make no accusations. I'm just saying that you don't appear to want to engage in a discussion of the meaning of the term, you seem happy to have it as 'vague' and 'meaningless'. You complain that 'modern music' has been applied pejoratively to your own music and I have pointed out that it is not pejorative, in the sense that it does not disapprove of your music, purely because it is backward looking. If that's the way you want to face, so what? Let's not kick the idea of modern music into the long grass, though.

All I have been addressing throughout is the terminology; you seem to have missed this. You will continue to be passionate about 'modern music' and will define it exactly as you like, completely unaffected by my dislike of an imprecise term.

It's not imprecise. My 'definition' in post #13 is....

"Any music, composed from 1890 to present, that radically breaks from the past and either deliberately or accidentally forms a symbiosis with the concurrent forms of new and different forms of expression, in the arts."

And yes, irrespective of this 'discussion', I will remain passionate, committed and in the thrall of modern music.

[Pabmusic]

More importantly, speak for himself in the first place (you put the two peas in the pod, not me)..

Actually, I didn't. I was addressing Ferney's post, not yours; it's just that you responded to it. As far as I was concerned, whether or not the discussion had moved on, I wanted to comment on Ferney's post.

As for the rest of your post, you did "think there's a modicum of nonchalance in [my] post", which is at least a half-hearted accusation. Also, although you might have supplied a definition with which you are satisfied, that is not to say that others are satisfied with it, or that they are forbidden from saying the term 'modern music' is vague. You would have to show first that your definition is so widely accepted that it would be perverse to call it 'vague'. I doubt you can do that.

This is why I referred to the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy: your definition is the right one, so nothing else is 'true' modern music.

[Beef Oven!]

"...As for the rest of your post...."

You don't respond to 'the rest of my posts'. You cherry-pick. I find that somewhat disingenuous.

[Pabmusic]

You don't respond to 'the rest of my posts'. You cherry-pick. I find that somewhat disingenuous.

Well, another accusation. You and I so rarely seem to 'get on', which is a pity. Must be me.

[Beef Oven!]

You and I so rarely seem to 'get on', which is a pity. Must be me.

Yes, I agree.

[Beef Oven!]

Beef Oven! has gone to bed (well he hasn't but he's finished here).

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm very passionate about 'modern music' and I would therefore not be nonchalant about it (I think there's a modicum of nonchalance in your post).

I don't read anything in the least nonchalant about the post in question i.e.

I'd say that it means whatever the user wants it to mean, it's so vague. Sometimes it's used pejoratively (I don't like this modern music), sometimes in an elitist way (yes, but it's not really 'modern' is it? - a criticism I've had, in those very words)), sometimes very broadly so as to distinguish it from previous styles (modern music is not constrained by the expectations of Late Romanticism), sometimes very narrowly to allow for individual innovation (Schoenberg's system, Grainger's Free Music machine, and so much more). Such a broad range of uses make the term useless unless you take the time to explain the context.

which struck me as a thoughtful and revealing contribution from someone who is a passionate composer (and arranger) and appreciator of 'serious' music in the 'modern' / 'contemporary' / current era.

It also happens to be a contribution with which I agree, and which doesn't seem to me to be at odds with the Beefy view (with which I also agree) on terminology which is what this thread is about...

[Pabmusic]

...It also happens to be a contribution with which I agree, and which doesn't seem to me to be at odds with the Beefy view (with which I also agree) on terminology which is what this thread is about...

Thanks, Cali.

[Now, where should I leave the brown envelope?]

[Aubade]

In my book, modernism very firmly refers to the replacement of naturally artistic expression, which involves an element of emotion, with cerebral concept(s). For example, modernism is the movement in the visual arts that started in 1906 when Picasso and Braques sought to represent subjects using concepts — the features on the other side needn't be ignored simply because they are out of sight. The simplest example is the Magritte painting of a pipe, which contains the caption "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", ie it's not a pipe but a picture of a pipe, and, by the way, Magritte entitled the picture "Chanson". Or composers like Webern and Schoenberg took the idea that the accepted Pythagorean scale was an arbitrary construct and so replaced it with a conceptualised mode that left people thinking, hey, they've replaced the music that could conjure with my emotions with a cold, bloodless intellectual idea. Similar abasements were attempted by Joyce and Eliot in the printed word. Fast forward and you find a pile of bricks in the Tate with an unmade bed in the next room. Both could be argued to engage us intellectually but neither is capable of touching or calling on our emotions. Except possbly derision.

[jean]

Without saying anythinng about the value-judgments in your post, can I just point out that the adjective modern covers a wider semantic area than the noun modernism.