Music: Entertainment? Culture? Or both?

[James]

I often get the impression most people use music as form of cheap disposable entertainment and not much else. Even on this board, where people seem to horde so much 'product', so quickly, that it seems unlikely that it could ever leave a deep meaningful impression that can provide a real benefit.

Sure, music can be entertaining and serve as entertainment (which when this is the 'emphasis/focus' is more often about business & commerce, than a exploration of the art) .. but on a deeper level; music (the deepest & most profound of all the arts imo) can be so much more than just serving to entertain, right? Of course. It's capable of achieving a much deeper meaning & function for us that stretches way beyond mere 'entertainment'. For me, I've always viewed serious music as 'culture', and that's in fact, what it is.

Whats your take?

[DavidW]

Buying large quantities of cds doesn't undermine the cultural significance of classical music.  You know you can download Charles Dickens' great masterpiece Bleak House a hundred times over without paying a cent.  You could load your computer, ereader, and even smart phone with a library of classics just as much as you could CM.  Does that undermine their cultural significance?

Nope. Here's the thing: monetary value is not the same as cultural value.  Civilization as a whole admires, respects the legacy of music made by Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg etc etc and honor them with recordings, performances and biographies.  The fact that we can buy their works on the cheap and how so unrare they are is a sign of how we as a whole love and cherish their work to make them available for all to hear.

[Brahmsian]

For me, music is everything and means everything to me.  It's entertainment, it's art, it's culture, it is human expression and it is the greatest gift or tool that God (whoever that is) has given to man.

[karlhenning]

Nope. Here's the thing: monetary value is not the same as cultural value.

Seems obvious, doesn't it? Yet of course, there are contexts in which (and people to whom) one needs to express the obvious ; )

[karlhenning]

I often get the impression most people use music as form of cheap disposable entertainment and not much else.

Dude, you read my mind viz. Stockhausen!

[Szykneij]

Both. Music is such a an ubiquitous and powerful means of expression, I have no doubt it will continue to reflect the highest ideals and ideas of our culture, provide pleasant diversion, increase sales of burgers and filet-of-fish, and everything in between.
  There are cultures today that don't have a term for "musician" as we do because making music is such a large part of everyday life that designating someone "musician" would be like calling him or her "eater" or "breather". I can somewhat identify with this.
I make my living teaching music. During a typical day, I conduct a high school orchestra, instruct music classes, perform with kids after school, repair instruments, arrange performance pieces, and review new musical material. After work, I still enjoy listening to music and discovering new pieces and composers, as well as reading and talking about music on this forum and other places. Over the course of my life, I've played in classical ensembles, rock bands, jazz combos, polka bands, and other groups.
  It seems to me when you have an inside-out experience of music, you get less hung up on labels and ratings. You're not as concerned about what is a particular style and what isn't. You just experience the music, gain what you can from it, and take it for what it is.

[DavidW]

Seems obvious, doesn't it? Yet of course, there are contexts in which (and people to whom) one needs to express the obvious ; )

It's a common enough trap that people will sell things at high prices just so we think that they must be worth alot.  Like Lady Gaga headphones.

[Grazioso]

I often get the impression most people use music as form of cheap disposable entertainment and not much else. Even on this board, where people seem to horde so much 'product', so quickly, that it seems unlikely that it could ever leave a deep meaningful impression that can provide a real benefit.

Sure, music can be entertaining and serve as entertainment (which when this is the 'emphasis/focus' is more often about business & commerce, than a exploration of the art) .. but on a deeper level; music (the deepest & most profound of all the arts imo) can be so much more than just serving to entertain, right? Of course. It's capable of achieving a much deeper meaning & function for us that stretches way beyond mere 'entertainment'. For me, I've always viewed serious music as 'culture', and that's in fact, what it is.

Whats your take?

My take: fundamentally all art is entertainment--and that's entertainment without any attached or implied pejoratives like "cheap", "just", or "merely." Art delights, puts beauty in front of us, helps us while away our leisure hours. Music is fundamentally decorative, and decoration is an expression of culture.

That said, art can make statements or attempt to instruct. (Literature and the visual arts can say things literally or symbolically, music tries to communicate by eliciting sequences of emotions.) Art can inflame our animal passions, point our thoughts and emotions towards elevated things, or soothe us into passive tranquility. It can serve as an indirect way for people to connect with one another.

And yet art is not and should not be used as a surrogate for science, philosophy, or religion. Art is a square peg that can't be forced into those round holes.

[Grazioso]

So all serious musical culture merely equates to 'decorative' or 'entertainment' ... nothing deeper? Wow that's such an off base & typically empty perspective Grazioso (but no surprise though; as it's coming from you).

My-my, what an uncharitable and aggressive response to a thoughtful answer offered in good faith. Sit in a comfy chair and quietly repeat the "Pff" mantra until you calm down.

Better now? Great!

You've done precisely what I explicitly refused to do and injected value judgments like "merely" and "nothing deeper?" into a description. Entertainment is not inherently base or noble, shallow or deep. Ditto decoration, which you saddle with a pejorative sense of fatuous filigree, whereas I mean it in the more literal sense of something created for the non-pragmatic end of introducing beauty into the quotidian.

I don't believe depth inheres in any music, only relative levels of objectively describable complexity. Any "depth" is something we project onto it or something that arises from our unique, personal interactions with it. Mahler's 9th might make one man think of mortality and move him to tears; to another, it's "Shut that shit off and turn the country station back on!"

[DavidW]

I agree with you James about building up large collections quickly.  But I don't know many that buy quicker they can listen and absorb, and those that do probably have psychological issues.

[Grazioso]

I agree with you James about building up large collections quickly.  But I don't know many that buy quicker they can listen and absorb, and those that do probably have psychological issues.

Then GMG is the looney bin!

[DavidW]

I agree with Grazioso, and think that recalling that entertainment is a diversion, and great art is as diverting from mundane life as say jackass can be there is nothing demeaning about something being entertainment.

After all Fermat's Last Theorem was born from entertainment from a French lawyer that would become serious work in the hands of professional mathematicians years later!  And yet it started as a diversion.

[mjwal]

 Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci,
lectorem delectando pariterque monendo
He has won every vote who has mingled the useful with the pleasant, in equal measure delighting and instructing the reader.
- That bard alone gains all his ends
Who pleasure with instruction blends;
Whose genius finds the happy art
To charm the ear and mend the heart.
(Horace, Ars Poetica tr. William Boscawen, Esq. 1797)
Horace was writing on the art of poetry, but it seems to me that his words - and those of Boscawen imitating him - are just as appropriate to the art of music. The great pleasure we take in, say, The Goldberg Variations, is not separable from what we learn from it about the complexity of mingled tones, how melody and harmony may be rhythmically blended in ways that teach us how to think and feel at the same time, to accept the possibility of conjoined but countervailing voices finding new forms of resolution.

[Sergeant Rock]

My-my, what an uncharitable and aggressive response to a thoughtful answer offered in good faith. Sit in a comfy chair and quietly repeat the "Pff" mantra until you calm down.

James is being self-righteous, judgmental, arrogant and a complete asshole....i.e., the James we've all come to know and love 

Sarge

[Grazioso]

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[mc ukrneal]

New from Pff Productions! The Depth Charge 3000!!

As a follower of James, you know how hard it can be to keep the Faith. You're surrounded by non-believers and film music. What do you do? Now, with the Pff Productions Depth Charge 3000, you can instantly and accurately determine the depth of any music without accidentally exposing yourself to shallow pap!



How does the Depth Charge 3000 work? It's a miracle of modern science! "3 beeps and you'll know!" With our patented Charge Induction Coil, the Depth Charge 3000 bombards any music CD with harmless^* thermodynamic flux waves:



You'll then hear 1, 2, or 3 beeps to indicate how deep the music is:

1 beep: As shallow as John Williams. Destroy CD immediately!
2 beeps: About as deep as Saint-Saëns. Proceed with caution.
3 beeps: As deep as Boulez, or maybe even Stockhausen! James-Approved!

With the Depth Charge 3000, it's "3 beeps and you'll know!"

Only 3 easy payments of $19.95!

Other fine Pff Productions products include:

WWJD (What Would James Do) Bracelet--Now in new colors!
New and Improved Sacred Syllable Prayer Bandana

^{* Mostly harmless: Melts pacemakers. Long-term use may cause testicular shrinkage, premature ejaculation, suicidal thoughts, joint pain, hair loss, short-term memory loss, and ingrown toenails. Use responsibly.}

Amusing indeed and quite creative. 

[jochanaan]

Music is what it is.  It can be used as decoration, entertainment (and again, I attach no pejorative to those words), "culture"--whatever that word actually means--or many other things.  It can even be used as prophecy, in the sense that prophets speak uncomfortable but necessary truths; think Shostakovich in the Stalinist Soviet Union.  But ultimately, it is exactly and only music.

("The greatest of the arts"?  I'm not so sure about that; but it is the most imminent and evanescent of them.)

[Mirror Image]

I agree with you James about building up large collections quickly.  But I don't know many that buy quicker they can listen and absorb, and those that do probably have psychological issues.

In this case, I'm one sick individual.

But seriously, I've amassed a pretty large collection in just three years. There are still many recordings I haven't heard that I own and there are some I don't have any intentions on wanting to hear again anytime soon. But regardless if a person owns 10 recordings and another person owns 6,000, this has absolutely nothing to do with how one hears and absorbs the music. I'm incredibly passionate about music and there have been many (and I do mean many) occasions where I play the same piece over and over again until I feel I'm satisfied. I mean there's really no telling how many times I've heard RVW's 5th symphony for example. I listen to music because I love it and want to continue to grow into a more knowledgeable listener. Some listen for pleasure, I listen out of necessity. For me, I'm not satisfied until I've explored the depths of a work.

[Szykneij]

In this case, I'm one sick individual.

But seriously, I've amassed a pretty large collection in just three years.

I don't see anything wrong with buying recordings that you know you can't listen to immediately. If I see something appealing or unusual that interests me, especially at a good price, I get it while I can to listen to when I have the time or the inclination. I think people who get bent out of shape at the large collections of others might be suffering from diskus envy, so if you do have a large one, it's a good idea not to flaunt it too much.    

[Grazioso]

Yea ... for a 3 year old. Maybe he'll grow up one day and understand the question.

James-Thread Frequently Asked Questions:

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