I’ve recently read some interesting articles on the role of music in society and how a composer should write his music based on this. There are many roles given to music, but two of the most popular opposing sides it seems to me are that 1) music should be instructive and educate the audience, and 2) music should be beautiful and expressive.
Some of the biggest examples of the first side is what we might call “academia” music, music conceived from rules given to us from studying pieces of the great composers of the past or pieces designed specifically as a sort of puzzle, to prove the intelligence of the composer and to baffle the audience with it’s complex nature. These pieces might be brilliant when studied, but with so many pieces in the world to discover, who has the time to dedicate to studying this one score? I usually find that pieces of this nature are thick texturally with little breathing room and they are usually static throughout, the texture never moving and so it lacks a climax. When I hear pieces like this, all I can think is that it’s no wonder so many people still prefer Romantic or Classical pieces to modern music. There is so much out there that is confusing to listen too because the composer has pandered too much to their own brilliance, thinking that they are somehow above their audience. As Malcolm Arnold, a composer who only died quite recently in 2006, “Music is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.” If the audience doesn’t understand your writing, then it seems to me you have failed as an artist.
Some ideas, however, can be more innovative and interesting. When I was younger, my father loved to play us the piece “It’s gonna rain” by Steve Reich, a composer famous for his strange, minimalist ideas. We started having a discussion about the piece the other night at dinner and there was a split of opinions: some people thought the piece was annoying and didn’t see the point of it, while the rest of us (my brother, father and I spearheading the campaign on this side) thought the piece was an interesting study in how taking a few steps back from chaos can show that there truly is order to be found. These pieces are intellectual but actively trying to get the listeners to understand the piece, to see something bigger behind the actions than simply “wow this keeps going, when will it end?”. When done correctly, it can open your eyes to a broader life lesson.
Moving on to the second role of music, that it should be beautiful, this is a wonderful notion. We are aesthetic creatures and loving beauty is in our nature, however simply to say that this is the purpose of such a miraculous thing seems to me the equivalent of saying a beautiful person is meant to be looked at. It can communicate to the audience just as well as it can be beautiful.Georges Bizet once said that “As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.” As artists, our duty to our audience is not to distract them from day to day pain, doing that would be a”panem et circenses” effect and I refuse to be a diversion meant to stop people from looking at what’s important. Not all of it is going to be beautiful because we show what’s relevant in the contemporary world, we show the pain and suffering as well as the joy that is happening now.
That is our duty, it is what we document through art and music. We show the passions of the people we represent. Through our voice, someone else’s can be heard.
the music corner 