|
Confusing, complex, fragmented,
explosive, ever changing yet frightfully static, the
present age lays claim to being the most revolutionary
in the history of mankind. The potential for
enlightenment and technological and social utopia
coexist with an undeniable limitation – poverty, both
physical and mental – which reduces the human being to
an impotent and insignificant statistic. This indeed is
our world, not in the mind but in reality.
Music and the arts in general attest to this: not only
are they vehicles for expressing this reality but also
their very fabric reflects it. Even the terms artist,
craftsman, businessman, amateur, popular and "high"
culture, valuable and worthless, successful, hit,
masterpiece, original and fake no longer signify the
coherence and unity of the reality that was once taken
for granted; all of these terms are now interchangeable
according to the rules of a particular world.
While serialism has found its ideology and justification
in blending with science, the minimalist movement finds
its credo in liberation of the individual through
impersonal ritual and through deconstructed ethnic
music. Popular music, on the other hand, because of its
easy marketability through the media, has come to be
based entirely on formula and on satisfying the lowest
common denominator. These two extremes – elitist
(quasi-scientific) contemporary music and mass-produced,
formulabased pop and rock muzak – both show the same
symptoms: alienation, narrow or "tunnel" vision, and the
hypertrophy of one level of consciousness at the expense
of others. The result is a caricature of human
fragmentation – brain with no body, body with no brain –
the isolated self as opposed to the collective with no
individual identity, and so on.
A Historical Synopsis
 Looked at from the socioeconomic perspective, art in its
original syncretic form was a part of tribal life,
integrated into the whole, and the musician’s function
was clearly defined by ritual and custom. The musician,
as soothsayer, prophet, and supernatural being, was able
to communicate the psychical, the divine, to bring
people together on the collective, unconscious level.
His role, like the shaman’s, was as the catalyst for a
profound experience of collective reconnection with the
oneness of being. In other words, music had the same
function as religion (from lat. religare, to tie back).
This tribal or magical structure of consciousness was
emotive, instinctual, characterized by the sense of
timelessness and spacelessness. The individual and the
group were governed by social customs and laws that did
not leave much freedom of choice or room for a highly
differentiated sense of self. The performer-improviser
worked within orally transmitted archetypal musical
forms, based on elaborate systems of patterns. Musically
speaking, the emphasis was on rhythm, cyclical form
(derived from natural periodicity), pentatonic and
mode-based melody.
 Ancient Greece brought forth social hierarchization and
extreme economic polarity, in which the musician became
an outcast, untouchable, but paradoxically retained his
supernatural role in ritual and religion. At this point
in history, the hero myth prevailed and indicated the
birth of an independent ego against the background of
the collective unconscious. At the same time, because of
music’s appeal to the magical in man, the priestly and
ruling casts relied strongly on music, which became a
permanent fixture in religious ritual.
Thus, as social differentiation progressed, music
fractured into sacred and secular. The two faces of
music were created: the Apollonian, always in search of
balance and harmony, resulting in a long line of
aesthetic development – from the Pythagorean music of
the spheres to Bach’s crystallization of the tonal
system and polyphonic forms to the dream of total
serialism in the post-Webern period – but also serving
as a psychological pacifier allied with existing power
structures; and the Dionysian, subversive, relying on
the elemental strength of folk and popular idioms,
seeking to express the violence and frustration of the
oppressed (from Dionysian ecstatic cults in Greece and
Rome to the eruption of popular music in contemporary
blues, jazz, and rock).
The music of the Middle Ages was still a blend of sacred
and secular music. The jongleur was a vagabond, equally
comfortable at village festivities and in court; it
would take further social differentiation (in the
fourteenth century) to distinguish his role as either
court or street musician. Yet before this time there was
no specialization. The musician was a generalist:
performer, improviser, and composer in one. With the
advent of notation and an increasing use of instrumental
groups in both church and court, the distancing and
isolation of a musical elite took place hand in hand
with other developments.
The Renaissance, which perhaps is paralleled only by the
present in its revolutionary sentiment, marked a
divisive line between non perspectival and perspectival
structures of consciousness. The discovery of
perspective not only led the visual arts to a new
understanding and perception of reality but indicated a
fundamental mutation in all aspects of the psychosocial
fabric. The emphasis was on the rational rather than on
the magical or mythical; on the individual rather than
on the collective; on ego identity rather than on a
collectively constituted unconscious.
In music, the refinement and static quality of the modal
system, as well as the rhythmic flexibility and metric
freedom, found in the late fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, became focused and coherently stylized during
the Renaissance of the sixteenth century. The
idiosyncrasies of particular modes were sacrificed to
produce a more uniform major-minor system: a scale
became a model to be transposed onto any degree of a
semitone-divided octave. Thus, a coherent hierarchical
system was established simultaneously with the mutation
of consciousness from mythical to rational. At this
point, the musician became a domestique, a paid servant
with a fixed position in the feudal court. Even though
the connections between court and popular music did not
dissolve completely, the role of musicians in each
became distinctly different: minstrels remained
musicians of the street, drawing their inspiration from
popular song, while court musicians became an
integrative part of the religious feudal elite,
glorifying the feudal master and writing music on
command. Thus, a musician caste was established that, in
the course of time, became highly hierarchical and
differentiated.
In the Baroque period, the musician was primarily a
craftsman; his ties to folk and popular music are seen
in his improvisational practices, in his double role of
performer and composer, and in his lack of social
luster. The contrapuntal and harmonic rules were
observed (with rare exceptions), and the formal
structure reflected, in its cohesion and balance, the
monolithic buildings of religious and social
institutions. With the advent of the printing press and
an increasing reliance on written rather than on
improvised music, the roles of interpreter and composer
became differentiated, and a road to narrow
specialization was paved.
The downfall of feudalism and the takeover of economic
and social power by the bourgeoisie brought countless
transformations in every aspect of musical life. The
court palace, for example, was replaced by the concert
hall, thus abandoning the intimacy of the chamber music
setting for the monumentality of symphonic music.
Whereas chamber music in the feudal setting represented
the sheltered subjectivity of an elect few, the concert
hall symphony proclaimed the newly acquired power of the
bourgeoisie, in which the previously hidden individual
suddenly became the focus.
The building of concert halls as unique places of
musical representation had a twofold effect: the
separation of the musician and musical experience from
everyday life and the growing perception of music as a
valuable object to be sold. Whereas in the feudal system
the musicianservant sold his services exclusively to a
master, in early capitalism he became an independent
agent, selling his work to various clients. Between
being integrated into the totality of tribal life and
being given an autonomous, isolated position in the
bourgeois system, there is a chasm, and both music and
musicians reflect this. The ensuing monologue in music
up to the twentieth century spoke of that emancipation
and autonomous development on the one hand and of
increasing alienation and social dysfunctionality on the
other. The final stage of this line of development is
familiar: music written and listened to by musicians in
empty concert halls.
The new formal archetypes of Classical and Romantic
music were based on the psychosocial transformations of
preceding periods: the formal growth of polyphonic
architecture through the development of one musical
thought (the fugue) was replaced by confrontation of
contrasting thoughts (the sonata). The Baroque
aesthetics of "self-generating" form based primarily on
the seamless development of one or more interrelated
motifs (a line that can be traced from the Renaissance
ricercar, to fugue, to monothematic Haydn sonatas, to
the twentieth-century serial and to some extent
minimalist forms) was transformed through increasingly
polarized harmonic and melodic material, as in the
treatment of the sonata by Beethoven and by composers of
the Romantic period. This form, in contrast to Baroque
polyphonic form, relied on the contrast, confrontation,
and dramatic resolution of the dialectic inherent in the
material.
As the music (and musician) lost its integration with
the totality of social life (as in ritual, ceremony, and
festival), it assumed a new autonomous and
multifunctional role. Because of the individual
composer’s increasing freedom from the formal archetype,
music became, potentially, an exposed privacy and
therefore a psychosocial way of emphasizing one’s ego
identity to an extent never dreamed of in previous
periods. If the older forms and styles gave the
individual the status of a participant in the universal,
the newer gave him the status of the universal itself.
In other words, the individual had the power to recreate
the world.
 While the musician-shaman and musician-servant had to
assume rigid social roles and accept aesthetic
postulates, the increasingly independent musician of the
Classical, Romantic, and contemporary periods became the
center and focus of artistic social life: the expression
of creative and personal idiosyncrasies not only became
possible but was an essential ingredient of this new
role.
The birth of the "star," with all its economic and
psychosocial implications, can be traced to the
mid–nineteenth century. Two events were of fundamental
importance: in 1830 Liszt played compositions of other
composers in concert, thereby giving the music repertory
a spatial dimension; and in 1829 Mendelssohn performed
the St. Matthew’s Passion by Bach, thereby giving the
repertory a temporal dimension. These events caused an
aesthetic and economic upheaval: the separate functions
of the interpreter and the composer became firmly
established; an expanded musical universe was created
that included music from various regions and times.
Economically speaking, a completely new market of
clients interested in music from the past was created,
transforming both the "star" and the music into a
valuable object akin to capital stock. The classical
music market today is a direct outcome of this, and if
one could compare the masterpieces of the past to living
fossils, the classical "stars" could be compared to
traveling curators. Never before in the history of music
have living composers had as much competition from dead
ones as they do today: a famous masterpiece by a famous
composer, performed by a famous interpreter, is the
highest-yield, lowest-risk stock.
As the power of the aristocracy faded, the patrons, who
in earlier times commissioned pieces from composers,
were replaced in the nineteenth century by publishers,
by the general public, and by the amateur market. With
this change, Western classical music was dethroned as
the only musical art money could buy, and the doors were
symbolically and literally opened to other kinds of
musical venture.
Popular music, for example, was brought out of obscurity
and into the concert hall mainly through cabaret, a
variety of caf’ conc’ (cafe concert), which gave popular
music a stable outlet from the mid–nineteenth century
onward. Whether we consider the caf’ conc’ of Europe or
club performances in the United States, the genealogy of
the pop star is primarily connected to the oppressed and
to those racially or economically discriminated against.
Since popular music could not depend on support from the
rich and sophisticated as classical music did, it relied
on ordinary men and women and their purchasing power.
Because of the popular
song’s intrinsic simplicity and its appeal to the
artistically unsophisticated, a new market for musical
representation of unprecedented dimensions and power was
created. The pop star not only embodied the musical
tastes of the underprivileged but also became a symbol
of social and economic success; he or she became one of
the groups who "made it." Ironically, the symbol of the
pop star simultaneously served another role, that of
social pacifier: frustration – helplessness and
powerlessness – could be infinitely rationalized and
sublimated through the image of a socially successful
equal.
If the Classical period of Western art music liberated
the musician from his preordained social role in the
hierarchical world of feudalism, the Romantic era
strengthened this process further: the musician’s role
as an individualistic and original spirit which had been
a new possibility, became an exigency. It is mainly from
this era that the image of a suffering, misunderstood
genius comes. In other words, the totality of the
individual became the exclusive focus of music. The same
process that had served to liberate the musician became
an instrument of his alienation. The logic of this
process can be seen in the historical transformation of
the musician’s role and of musical practices in the
social context and in the genealogy of musical processes
and structures. Several distinct lines of development
follow from the Romantic period to today: an increasing
complexity of the elements and overall form of music; an
integration of spatially (diverse ethnic sources) and
temporally (diverse periods) different musical worlds; a
replacement of natural frames of reference with
artificial or scientific ones; and an increasing
elasticity of musical expression.
The rhythmic profile was refined horizontally, to
include diverse subdivisions, and vertically, to include
complex superpositions: the beat was no longer the
carrier of the rhythmic pulse but only a reference in
the general flow. Melody and harmony followed the
emancipation of dissonance in horizontal and vertical
aspects. The natural hierarchy of the overtone series
was replaced by an artificial, relative universe (from
drone to modal to major-minor to extended tonal to
serial). Similarly, there was a shift from cyclical and
periodic forms to aperiodic and nonarchetypal forms.
 Profound psychological changes took place at the same
time: if the archetypal form and overtone-based natural
hierarchy gave a confining but secure place to the
premodern individual, the newly constructed relative
universe gave him a limitless but isolating freedom.
This freedom resulted primarily from a heroic effort of
the intellect, which subsequently became a hallmark of
twentieth century music.
Historically speaking, every period’s particular
psychosocial reality is manifested in the idiosyncrasies
of its musical structures and processes: a strong
rhythmic pulse coupled with the pentatonic and modal
systems of tribal (folk) music reflected a collective,
rather than an individual, consciousness; the tonal
system combined with the unified but limited rhythmic
profile of Western art music before the twentieth
century reflected an increasingly individualistic
emotional and intellectual reality; the atonal,
aperiodic, free-pulsating music of the contemporary era
points to two extremes: at one end, a highly refined but
narrowly focused individual consciousness and, at the
other, a quasi-scientific, ego-free and thus impersonal,
consciousness.
PART II of IV
Orientations
If the nineteenth century planted the seeds of spatial and
temporal expansion, the twentieth century brought this potentiality to
full fruition. A multitude of orientations appeared, which could be
roughly classified as follows:
• The influence of ethnic music
• Historical awareness and conservation
• Scientific development and experimentation
• The explosion of popular idioms and development of communications
media.
The Influence of Ethnic Music
Ethnic music has in general been the source of composed music. Although
diverse levels of stylization and abstraction of folk elements have
characterized different periods, the fundamentals of musical style can
usually be traced to ethnic music. At its most particular, folk music is
a tradition limited to a certain region and people; at its most
universal, a powerful source for synthesis in an international context.
West European folk music (and to a lesser extent, that of the
Mediterranean region) has been the principal source for Western art
music. The history of Western art music is characterized by a process of
refinement and complexification, which despite independence and
isolation, has often undergone profound transformation through the
influence of folk music. One could even argue that most of music history
oscillates between the particularity of the folk element and the
universality of its stylization.
Although the influence of folk music has been substantial throughout
history, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that
the great syntheses of folk and art music took place: I refer primarily
to Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, Maurice Ohana, Olivier
Messiaen, and others in contemporary classical music, as well as to a
large number of blues and jazz musicians. Debussy’s music clearly was
influenced by oriental music; his use of quartal harmony, pentatonicism,
and modality refer to Indonesian gamelan and Chinese folk music.
Messiaen’s Promethean synthesis of Indian raag and occidental systems
inspired many later developments, although none that match the strength
and coherence of his creation. As Stravinsky and Bartók uncovered the
powerful rhythmic and melodic structures of east European folk music,
such jazz greats as Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, Don Ellis, John
Coltrane, and others accomplished various syntheses of African and other
kinds of music, while reintroducing the art of improvisation into the
creative process.
Although improvisation was an integral part of musical practices from
folk to Renaissance to Baroque, as role specialization increased,
improvisation gradually lost its place. According to Piaget’s Psychology
of Intelligence, irreversible processes such as perception and
semireversible processes such as sensorimotor systems belong to older
psychophysical layers of consciousness while reversible processes such
as operational thinking belong to newer layers. It is not surprising
therefore, that most folk music relies strongly on improvisational
practices, especially since such music is based mostly on oral, rather
than written, tradition. Both irreversible and reversible processes play
major roles in both improvised and composed music. A fundamental
difference, however, is that while improvisation occurs irreversibly,
the compositional process has the possibility of reversibility. In other
words, composition is "frozen in time," permitting control of the
horizontal, vertical, and overall formal aspects of a piece, while
improvisation relies mainly on the inspiration and chance of the moment.
Yet both improvisation and composition are
based on unified and elaborate musical systems.
The twentieth century, therefore, reintroduced the vitality of the folk
idiom and improvisational practice into musical reality. Psychologically
speaking, this reintroduction caused an eruption of older layers of
consciousness (magical and mythical) from beneath carefully guarded
rational consciousness. A whole generation of composers and improvisers
has been experimenting with the integration of these musical universes
in various practices such as aleatoric operations, free jazz, and
others.
|
