Where Is Music Now?

For my humanities class, I am required to take something we discussed in class and do some research, then write up my thoughts about it. Here is an example that I thought would be interesting to share here.

I find it rather curious that a lot of people think that music is all about feeling. Although I acknowledge that emotion is an important part of music, especially for music on the romantic side of the spectrum, I don't think it is the only thing that gives music its value. I think that music can also have meaning in its various levels of structure. Before I was a Humanities major here, I was a music major at Snow College. I have studied a lot of musical structure, from individual chords to the way chords function with each other (or don't function) to overall form. Thus, it sounded a little strange to me last semester when students at the beginning of Music 101 could only think of the feeling of piece as a musical merit.

So what's my point? I think that as far as music, we are still generally romantic, and Dionysus still has the upper hand. It is true that our music is generally less grandiose than 19^th century Romantic music. (Movie music is a notable exception.) It is true that 19^th century Romanticism was still within the common practice period of music, whereas composers from the Impressionist movement on have succeeded in completely overthrowing the rules of harmony and rhythm in art music. However, I would argue that the general musical world is still essentially in a romantic stage. We have yet to see another major classical, Apollonian movement. It seems like what was almost a Dionysus/Apollo pattern in musical history has been broken.

The common practice period of music began with the Baroque period, an essentially romantic, Dionysian movement. Then, the neoclassical period came as a reaction to the perceived excess art and decoration. Reason, balance, refinement, and natural expression were valued in art, music, and thought. When the Snow College chamber orchestra played a piece by Mozart, our instructor told us how the expression was like love at a distance. It's never quite fully expressed like in romantic music. In spite of this seeming lack, Mozart, as we all know, was a genius. Neoclassical music was very well structured, as a rule, and one could make sense of it.

Then in the Romantic era, EVERYTHING was expressed over the top, and old forms were tinkered with or discarded. Then Debussy reacted against the huge sound of Wagner and the like. I still wouldn't say he reverted back to classicism. Though the musical emotion and volume wasn't excessive, he broke away from traditional chord functions and the major/minor system. He turned instead to the old church modes, pentatonic and whole-tone scales, and parallelism. Harmonically, his music was very un-structured. Feelings and impressions were an important aspect of impressionism.

Since the beginning of the 20^th century, we have seen several relatively small musical movements, many of them simultaneous. We saw neo-romanticism, expressionism, and another small neo-classical movement. The latter was a reaction to the former two, a return to reason and balance. Still, it was not a major movement, and it became a joke with some composers like Prokofiev. It may be argued that serialism has a classical slant because it is extremely structured. Still, as I mentioned, it is chaos to the ears. It is based on rules that were set up to render tonality and harmony impossible. It falls under the category of expressionism, which constitutes the expression of raw emotion and psychological turmoil not limited by the rules of harmony. (The Scream is a famous example of expressionism in visual art.) Primitivism was anything but Apollonian. It was characterized by driving rhythms, clashing harmonies, and harsh sounds (like today's popular music in a way). The theme was often focused on primitive, backward life before society was refined. Stravinski's Rite of Spring is a famous example.

I'll skip ahead to current pop music. It all sounds the same after awhile because little of it has a melody with a good contour (if any melody), and little of it has an interesting harmony beyond the old “Pachalbel Canon” chord progression (if any harmony). “But it has a good beat!” Yeah, the same one over and over again. The beat makes you feel a certain way. Is that all that matters? “The music video is awesome!” Does it have to have an image to mean anything? The singer looks good, but can't actually sing without a computer. I think that music reflects its culture. What does our music -- and media in general -- say about us? I think too many young people are too caught up in satisfying the senses quickly instead of really delving into the structure and meaning of things. I think it would do us a lot of good to sit down and listen to a symphony, watch an opera, or read a good book, and then talk about it, just like the Athenians used to discuss their plays and tried to learn something from them.