Does music develop, Improve, Mature and eventually Fade And Die Out?

[Bulldog]

Ah, but not all humans improve and mature!

Your optimism knows no boundaries.

[schweitzeralan]

The thread topic applies more to humans than it does to music.

As a consumate art form music is created by humans who are involved, who live, thrive, and survive in cultures and civilizations which they, and no one else, have created and have allowed the flowing, consummation, and eventual decline within that civilization, only to be "absorbed" by other humans with varying likes and tastes within their cultural ethos.

[owlice]

Your optimism knows no boundaries.

Indeed, and why should it? There are plenty of people who DO improve and mature; it is easy enough to rid one's life of those who would spit into one's whiskey!

[DavidRoss]

Indeed, and why should it? There are plenty of people who DO improve and mature; it is easy enough to rid one's life of those who would spit into one's whiskey!

If only it were so easy to rid oneself of those who feel entitled to spit into one's face while stealing one's hard-earned cash to spend as they like!

Good morning, owlice...so nice to see you posting here again!  (If only my own maturation were accompanied by nothing but improvements!)

[owlice]

If only it were so easy to rid oneself of those who feel entitled to spit into one's face while stealing one's hard-earned cash to spend as they like!

Sometimes it is not nearly so easy as one might like, indeed; certainly there are some who enjoy the spitting and stealing so much that they hang on as best they can so they can continue the spitting and stealing.

Good morning, owlice...so nice to see you posting here again!  (If only my own maturation were accompanied by nothing but improvements!)

Good morning, David, and thank you! It is good to be back to enjoy your posts once more! And of course you have done nothing but improve as you matured, hard though it may have been to find any aspect which could have been improved! Sometimes, the only thing left to do is improve the music collection!

[karlhenning]

Buon giorno, owlice & Dave!

[owlice]

Good morning, Karl!

I've just finished my second cup of coffee out on the patio; it's a very fine day here. I'm pretending to do schoolwork; I suspect I will have to retire to the house to actually get the work done! I'm listening to a neighbor's mower, a multitude of bird songs and calls, and the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze. One of the cats is on the garden swing up on the hill, Lord of All He Surveys, apparently, and the tall child is on a computer in the dining room, eating muffins as he types.

~~~

More to the point of the thread, here is something I wrote for a class I took last year, as a reaction to an article we'd had to read:

Generally in music, we see what looks like progression. Music is composed in a particular way for a while, and then something happens (or several things happen) to change the way music is composed. The monophony of chant gave way to ever-greater expansion of polyphony and harmonic development, sometimes with great contentiousness or outcry. Centuries of musical development have brought about harmonic development, with centuries of it tonal, then with the use of atonality, polytonal, and microtonality rising in the 20th century. Orchestration wasn't really discussed until Berlioz; since then, there's been a great expansion in orchestration techniques and technologies, just as there's been instrument development over the years.

A work that sparked riots when it was premiered is now part of the standard repertoire, a work that was declared "ugly" is now considered one of the greatest works written. These works haven't changed, but the way they are viewed certainly has.

Music that was composed in the last century couldn't have been composed in the century that preceded it, and music in the 19th century couldn't have been composed in the 18th. There is no place in past tradition for Princeton's laptop orchestra; not only were the instruments not yet in existence, neither were the notions of harmony it uses.

So in reading Shermer, I was struck by the notion that one does not have progress in the arts. He states, "While there is change in myths, religions, and art styles, it is not progressive change. Artists do not improve upon the styles of their predecessors, they change them. (Materials and techniques may improve, but these changes are incorporated to enhance the skill of the artist, not to help the style of art progress.)" (p. 17)

An interesting perspective that has made me look at music in a way I haven't before, just as Kuhn has made me look at science in a way I hadn't before.

From the Shermer article itself:

We cannot judge or define progress based on happiness. The only thing that can rationally be said about happiness is that all humans want more of it. The method of attaining greater happiness, however, is totally subjective and a matter of individual choice. An automobile may be one individual's pride and joy, another's headache and nightmare. Quiet solitude in a remote mountain retreat may bring peace and serenity to some, anxiety and boredom to others. Happiness, like good art, can never mean more than, "I  like it;" unhappiness, like bad art, can never mean more than, "I do not like it." Try telling an artist of abstract paintings why a Rembrandt is "better" than an irregular series of lines and cubes; or tell a fan of John Cage's random noises that Beethoven's Ninth is  "superior." After hours of fruitless attempts to find some objective standard of judgment, it will always come down to "I like it" or "I do not like it."  

In this regard Sydney Hook makes this interesting comparison between the arts and  sciences: "Raphael's Sistine Madonna without Raphael, Beethoven's sonatas and  symphonies without Beethoven, are inconceivable. In science, on the other hand, it is quite probable that most of the achievements of any given scientist would have been attained by other individuals working in the field" (1943, p. 35). The reason for this is that science, with progress as one of its primary goals, seeks understanding through objective methods (even though it rarely attains it). The arts seek provocation of emotion and reflection through subjective means. The more subjective the endeavor, the more personal it becomes, and therefore difficult if not impossible for anyone else to replicate. The more objective the pursuit, the more likely someone else would have made the achievement.

That from The Most Precious Thing We Have: The Difference Between Science and Pseudoscience by Michael Shermer, excerpted from WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of our Time (W. H. Freeman,  1997).

[karlhenning]

Very interesting withal, owlice! Will digest . . . .

[DavidRoss]

A belated good morning to you, too, Karl. 

Owl--what a lovely, sense-stirring impression you've painted of your morning in the opening passage above!  I did not know you were such a natural poet.  Set it thus and it would not be out of place in The New Yorker:

Saturday Morning, 9:00 a.m.

I've just finished my second cup of coffee
Out on the patio.
It's a very fine day here,
Pretending to do schoolwork,
Instead of retiring inside the house
And actually getting the work done.

I listen to a neighbor's mower;
A multitude of bird calls and songs;
And the rustle of leaves in the breeze.

One of the cats is on the garden swing
Up on the hill,
Lord of all he surveys,
And the tall child
Is on the computer in the dining room,
Eating muffins as he types.

-------------

Your comments on Shermer are interesting, too--particularly that through him you had the same sort of epiphany regarding "progress" that Kuhn sparked for you regarding science.  Isn't that the most hoped-for goal of all the arts? ...to effect a spiritual experience that profoundly transforms one's relationship with oneself, others, and the world?

[Bulldog]

Indeed, and why should it?

Because most people do mature and improve, even you.

[owlice]

Because most people do mature and improve, even you.

Bulldog, yes, I know, so it is easy for me to be optimistic!

David, you are too kind; thank you! In the poetry vein, tonight's would run something like this:

Back from a bike ride,
Nose full of the blast of the scent of honeysuckle,
I head for the shower
Because I stink.



The honeysuckle was amazing; my ride smelled really good, with honeysuckle and so many other things blooming. At one point the honeysuckle scent was so strong, it almost hurt.

Kuhn was very interesting; I had just never thought of science in that way before -- that science can progress only because there is a paradigm to guide it. If not for a guiding paradigm, it's not science, it's instead philosophy. I wish I'd read Kuhn when I was taking all the science courses I took in college.

And Shermer made the opposite point for music: that music doesn't progress at all! I had simply never thought of science, nor of music, in these ways before.

Isn't that the most hoped-for goal of all the arts? ...to effect a spiritual experience that profoundly transforms one's relationship with oneself, others, and the world?

Yes, though this experience came from a class in management. As Fats Waller may have put it, one never knows where one might find one's transformative experiences, do one?

[DavidRoss]

Because I stink.

  Must be all those honeysuckles....

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Ian Hacking (one of the smartest fellows I've ever known), with whom I also studied Popper, Ayer, Russell, Quine, Feyerabend, Putnam, Lakatos, and other specialists in the philosophy of science and whose influence profoundly altered my understanding of virtually everything.  I wish everyone interested in such matters were equally fortunate.

Gosh but it's good to have you posting here again!  How many others ever go from poetry, to broad humor, to the sweet cloying scent of honeysuckle, to Thomas Kuhn, and finally Fats Waller, all in the space of a few sentences?  And make sense every step of the way?!

That Mark's a lucky fellow!   

[schweitzeralan]

Good morning, Karl!

I've just finished my second cup of coffee out on the patio; it's a very fine day here. I'm pretending to do schoolwork; I suspect I will have to retire to the house to actually get the work done! I'm listening to a neighbor's mower, a multitude of bird songs and calls, and the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze. One of the cats is on the garden swing up on the hill, Lord of All He Surveys, apparently, and the tall child is on a computer in the dining room, eating muffins as he types.

~~~

More to the point of the thread, here is something I wrote for a class I took last year, as a reaction to an article we'd had to read:

From the Shermer article itself:

That from The Most Precious Thing We Have: The Difference Between Science and Pseudoscience by Michael Shermer, excerpted from WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of our Time (W. H. Freeman,  1997).

Intersting post.  The info addresses several issues I've considered listening to great music over the decades.

[greg]

Music grows in cycles, perhaps somewhat like societies.  First there is a new idea, then a period of growth and development which often spirals to tremendous complexity, at the end losing touch and demanding another new idea.

One cycle began when the first church musicians began to add a second line to plainsong.  That led to polyphony, of which Guillaume de Machaut was one of the first great masters, and then to ever-increasingly complex polyphony expressed in such things as Thomas Tallis' 40-part Spem in alium.

Another cycle began about 1600 when Claudio Monteverdi and some musical colleagues invented opera, a mostly monodic form that demanded new ways of handling the voice in a dramatic context.  So in maybe a half-century or so, music had retreated from the increasing polyphonic complexity of the late Renaissance and placed great emphasis on solo singing and playing with simple accompaniment.  But then, naturally enough, composers began to add other solo lines and extra-musical reference like the birdsongs, thunderclaps and so on in Vivaldi's The Seasons, eventually leading to the wonderfully complex music of J.S. Bach and Handel.

And then the Classical period began, again featuring simple harmonies and melodies but this time strengthening the element of form, or shape.  (Once again an opera composer, Christoph Willibald von Gluck, led the way.)  Early Classical-period music is, on the one hand, a stylistic leap from late Baroque music, but a leap to simplicity.  Listen to Stamitz, Boccherini, early Haydn and very early Mozart and you get the idea.  Late Mozart and Haydn is beautiful and still has elements of the early simplicity, but again it's more complex.

Then come the Romantics.  Schubert in his songs, Weber in his romantic operas, and Beethoven and Berlioz in several masterworks re-added strong emotion and elements of fantasy to their music.  (It's an open question, though, whether Beethoven should be classed as Classical-period or Romantic.  He's best described as a transitional figure.)  Yet very quickly Romantic music got bigger, longer, and more complex, culminating in Wagner's awesome music dramas.

Another cycle began in the early 20th century with Arnold Schoenberg's atonality and 12-tone systems.  In one sense it was the next logical step from Wagner's and Liszt's expanded, indefinite tonal styles, but in another it was a break with the past.  And again, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern started small and simple, then gradually worked in larger forms and with increasing complexity.  In a closely-related development, Edgard Varèse's music represents a break with traditional forms and definitions of music.

And even the minimalist movement is another cycle, representing a break with the complexity and atonality of the mid-20th century to the simple idea of progressive repetition.

These cycles seem to show that progression, "improvement" and increasing complexity are very well and natural up to a point, and then music seems to need a Monteverdi, a Gluck, a Schubert or Schoenberg to take it in a new direction.

I really like this post. Very simply and logically put.

[jochanaan]

I really like this post. Very simply and logically put.

Thank you.

[schweitzeralan]

I really like this post. Very simply and logically put.

I guess this thread is finally "wound out." In my few contacts with those interested in music and by virtue of my sundry readings and studies and those comments posted here, music changes over the years; indeed, over the centuries.  There is to be sure increasing complexity evinced in all factors: rhythm, harmony, intensity, various ranges of experimention, and so forth.  

I studied literature and could not help but acknowledge that the "arts," have undergone change over the centuries. Renaissance; Baroque; classical; romantic; realism (in lit.); impressionism; cubism (painting);neo-primitivism (Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev); representative examples in the literary and musical of avant Gard technique; minimalism in music, posters know all this.  Unfortunately I haven't kept up with the truly nouveau.  There are several post 20th century music I've listened to but nothing seemed to impress me.  Those post 1960's composers whose works I regularly appreciate are generally the Finnish composers: Rautavaara and Sallinen.


Shostakovitch seems to all but dominate and hover over many of the current composers; of course not all.  I can't express too much of an opinion because I don't really know what's going on contemporarily with any detail.  I do notice a sort of hodge podge of classical mixed with popular propensities.  Many of you out there know more about this "cultural "decadence" about the general public's taste is there and was predicted by many other writers, maestros in the fields of philosophy of history.Alas, for me music "stopped" after 1959, after the death of Martinu.  There have been good works conceived during the 70's, 80's, 90's.  And, much of the music I became impressed with were movie music, in particular, John Williams; Jerry Goldsmith; Danny Elfman; and, a few others.  Weird.  These composers reunite within the body of the background music (not necessarily the different themes) the styles, complexities, and subtleties of earlier 20th century works.  There's a thread on this topic. I guess the best thing for me is to stick to my own interests and continue enjoying that one "spiritual" quest in higher psychological levels of being, most notably for me the many wonderful music composed between 1880-1959.  Thanks for your interest and some of my posted topics.  It is indeed great to be able to communicate with those individuals so well informed about my favorite subject.

[owlice]

David,

 Must be all those honeysuckles....

hahaha!! No, weren't the honeysuckles, alas!

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Ian Hacking (one of the smartest fellows I've ever known), with whom I also studied Popper, Ayer, Russell, Quine, Feyerabend, Putnam, Lakatos, and other specialists in the philosophy of science and whose influence profoundly altered my understanding of virtually everything.  I wish everyone interested in such matters were equally fortunate.

Fortunate, indeed! I don't know how I would have responded to philosophy of science when I was a college student; I wish I'd taken some philosophy, any philosophy, back then. I'm glad the tall child is more well-rounded in this regard, and got a kick out of a comment he made when we were picking up books for one of his "nerd camps" sessions: "Descartes again?!"

Gosh but it's good to have you posting here again! How many others ever go from poetry, to broad humor, to the sweet cloying scent of honeysuckle, to Thomas Kuhn, and finally Fats Waller, all in the space of a few sentences?  And make sense every step of the way?!

That Mark's a lucky fellow!  

You are very kind, and I'm going to have to watch the "making sense" part!

Mark has been trying his luck with someone else for quite some time now (though he neglected to tell me this for the first year-and-a-half or so, alas). We're divorcing; I wish him well.

schweitzeralan,

I do notice a sort of hodge podge of classical mixed with popular propensities.

This has nearly always been the case throughout the history of music, yes? Because we are unfamiliar with much of the "popular propensities" of, say, Mozart's day, we do not pick up on the nods to the popular in his music -- we have lost that extra-musical connection, but more importantly, we do not miss it. The popular of that day passes into nothing, or into esoterica, unfamiliar to us and undetected by us in the music.

Because we live now, we have the opportunity to pick up on the popular propensities, we pick up on the exchanges between the musics, the popular and the classical, being written now.

And, much of the music I became impressed with were movie music

Sure, and why not? Many admire and listen to the incidental music of classical composers from the past (Beethoven, Grieg, Mendelssohn, etc.). There is much to admire in movie music today; composers have to make a living, and one way they can do so is to write for movie studios. My local symphony orchestras (National, Baltimore) play modern movie music in concert, just as they play Stravinsky and Schubert, Handel and Mahler.

Sometimes, one can even get live music with a movie, music which fits very comfortably in the classical tradition.

The problem with contemporary classical music -- if indeed, one sees this as a problem; not all do -- is that the sifting that takes place over time has not yet been done. We start the sifting, but it will continue beyond us; as the fortunes of past composers changed over time as a result of the sifting of previous and current generations, so will the fortunes of today's composers, famous and not, change as they pass through the sieves of generations, of time. In that sifting, nods to the popular culture, to contemporary events, may become footnotes to the music, which will get listened to, or not, by those whose lives are untouched by the culture and/or events which shaped the music, just as has happened throughout the history of music.

[DavidRoss]

Mark has been trying his luck with someone else for quite some time now (though he neglected to tell me this for the first year-and-a-half or so, alas). We're divorcing; I wish him well.

Sorry to hear that, Ali, but glad to hear that you're healing so well.  Hope the tall child understands and doesn't feel that he's been betrayed or caused the problems.   Hope you and Mark are on the same page about that!  FWIW, our twenty-two-year-old new college grad is home now for most of the summer.  Several years ago, when he was in high school and his mother and I were having the usual difficulties in making a marriage work (especially where children are involved!), we knew that our troubles were hard on him, too, no matter how much we tried to avoid it.  But just yesterday, during a long catching-up conversation among the three of us, we were able to refer back to those times and use them to illustrate life lessons more relevant to him today as he takes another giant step into his own independent life.  Few things are necessarily good or bad in and of themselves; rather it's how we think of them and what we make of them that determines how we judge them.

The problem with contemporary classical music -- if indeed, one sees this as a problem; not all do -- is that the sifting that takes place over time has not yet been done. We start the sifting, but it will continue beyond us; as the fortunes of past composers changed over time as a result of the sifting of previous and current generations, so will the fortunes of today's composers, famous and not, change as they pass through the sieves of generations, of time. In that sifting, nods to the popular culture, to contemporary events, may become footnotes to the music, which will get listened to, or not, by those whose lives are untouched by the culture and/or events which shaped the music, just as has happened throughout the history of music.

Well said.  True, too, of all the arts, and the same sort of sifting takes place in assessment of social and political events, too, as the things that we're too close to today for most of us to see clearly, will eventually get put into perspective by the passage of time.  The cream rises to the top as the milk is churned; a glass of turbid water left to sit undisturbed eventually turns clear as the suspended grit settles to the bottom.

[owlice]

it's how we think of them and what we make of them that determines how we judge them.

Yes, there are many avenues to personal growth; though some may not be of our own choosing, one can still grow from those experiences.

True, too, of all the arts, and the same sort of sifting takes place in assessment of social and political events, too, as the things that we're too close to today for most of us to see clearly, will eventually get put into perspective by the passage of time.  The cream rises to the top as the milk is churned; a glass of turbid water left to sit undisturbed eventually turns clear as the suspended grit settles to the bottom.

Exactly!

[Cato]

I guess this thread is finally "wound out." In my few contacts with those interested in music and by virtue of my sundry readings and studies and those comments posted here, music changes over the years; indeed, over the centuries.  There is to be sure increasing complexity evinced in all factors: rhythm, harmony, intensity, various ranges of experimention, and so forth.  

(My emphasis)

No, it is not "wound out" by any means, because Cato has not yet commented!   0:)

You began by mentioning the organic view of Spengler et al. on History.  You can debate long term how valid it is: e.g. take the History of England.  One can say that England as an Empire was born in the 1500's, matured 200 years ago, went into senescence in the early 1900's, and "died" after WWII.

But what about "England" itself?  England is obviously not dead!  If one takes the long view, England has lived through many cycles, from Celts to Romans to Anglo-Saxons to Normans etc., each cycle leading to the highly civilized population now on the island.  While at the bottom of a cycle things may have looked bleak (e.g. the Romans abandoning the island, the Cromwell Protectorate, the 1970's, etc.) eventually there was a rise to a higher level.

Pessimists like Spengler and Nietzsche have ignored that the end of a cycle does not necessarily imply the impossibility of a resurrection.

With Music, which is less dependent on large-group dynamics than political or economic progress, you can ask several questions about its future development:

Is human physiology such that in auditory matters there may be a symbiotic relationship with musical experimenters?

e.g. the experiments in non-traditional systems by e.g. Schoenberg, Scriabin, the Microtonalists, Tibor Serly and others are pushing the evolution of hearing to higher levels.  I am reminded of claims that Western polyphony was at one time considered incomprehensible by various non-Western cultures: today that would not seem to apply any longer, since a good amount of "pop/rock" around the whole planet music is at least somewhat polyphonic.

Imagine e.g. Gesualdo being rediscovered by a future composer born today, who fuses Gesualdo with the harmony found in a 19-tone scale based on third-tones or quarter-tones.

Imagine that plainchant makes a comeback (in popular kulcher I do believe it is called "rap"        ) and that another post-2035 A.D. composer born today decides Arvo Pärt showed the way back to the future, and so this future genius charms post-2035 audiences with melodies so sinuously interesting that he eschews polyphony.

Imagine that a future composer with the help of computer chips implanted in the brain is able to "hear" previously inaudible sounds, the way certain animals can see parts of the light spectra invisible to us.  Such an expansion produces unheard of possibilities (Wocka!) and this composer produces such beautiful works that a demand is created for the brain-interface chips, so that more people can participate in this new experience.

Would there be enough future listeners with "expanded hearing" to allow our future geniuses a living and maybe even a place in Music History?

If one is skeptical about the arrival of Nietzsche's blinking, entropic Last Man of History, whose appearance will be much delayed, if by nothing else than the explorers who go to the Moon and Mars and beyond, so also may one be skeptical of a parallel Last Man of Music, where evolution in Music stops, and nothing new is possible except a variation of the old.

See also Hermann Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game.    0:)