At 07:20 PM 4/11/06 -0400, Darcy James Argue wrote: >Apologies for misattributing an anti-pop position to you. I guess >it's just that since I don't believe in the high/low art distinction, >the "nonpop" label tends rubs me the wrong way. >The question of what to brand this music is a thorny one. I know >you're very much invested in the "nonpop" moniker, but to me, it >smacks a bit of the classical establishment's dripping condescension >towards popular culture generally, which is a huge turnoff for me and >my peers. Of course, I'm gratified you don't intend it that way.
David and I tossed this around a long time on our show. The thing is, we are often asked what kind of songs we write, what kind of music we broadcast, etc. That's what 'composer' means, if it means anything at all, when we're introduced. We ran down the terms. Classical has too much baggage, and is pretty much wrong. New music means something to a certain crowd, but then just loses meaning at all. Art music? That applies to any genre with enough skill behind it. Avant-garde is long gone. Concert music might do it for those who distinguish between, say, a rock concert and a symphonic concert. So we sliced the map pretty much down the middle, not by composer, but by a given piece, and came up with "nonpop" as a hard-to-pin-down, baggage-free term. It's mushy, and certainly isn't especially good at historical analysis. But in contemporary culture, there is an extreme of sides that has a mix of basic chords, simple structures, bare-bones technique, short length, an entertainment and/or dance purpose, and studio-driven production values (i.e., the performers are interchangeable) that qualifies as pure pop. At the other extreme is the pen-and-paper type of solo composer of classically influenced structures, complex or atonal harmonic patterns, messy rhythms, extended length and bloated orchestration that could be nowhere but that particular kind of concert stage. As it moves toward the vortex of vagueness, the various levels shift toward the other side. The music becomes ambiguous, but you still pretty much know what's NPR material and what's Clear Channel material. When you arrive at the vortex, all clarity disappears. The presentation determines the meta-genre as much as the piece sometimes, and there are artists who are always in the vortex (Bley, Zappa, Parker, Glass, Mingus, Ashley, Lauten, Coltrane, Belarian, Ware...). A lot of jazz artists appear there because of the peculiar circumstances of its growth as an artform, and (my bias is strong here) the classical portion of nonpop has a great deal to learn about composition, imagination, and presentation from jazz. My own earliest influences include Earl Brown, Braxton (Anthony, that is) and Coltrane, and my own self-criticism as a composer is not failing to learn from Stravinsky or Babbitt, but from failing to learn enough from those artists. Naturally, the question is why name meta-genres at all? Simply because people like making genres (Ishkur's Guide is still one of my favorites, http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html) and it helps to do what needs to be done with "my world" (pace, Johannes) of music: market it to those who need genrification. "What do you write?" "Nonpop." "Huh?" And the conversation can continue. Use any of the other descriptions (art music, classical music, concert music, avant-garde...) and the conversation comes to a quick and uncomfortable halt. >I've had some luck calling my music "indie jazz" -- you know, as >opposed to the music produced by the jazz-industrial complex. Andrew Durkin's Industrial Jazz Group is actually pretty good! Andrew was on our show a few years ago ... some great stuff. Their "City of Angles" CD is really powerful. Dennis -- Please participate in my latest project: http://maltedmedia.com/waam/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
