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This is a place for continued discussion of concepts covered in class, new discoveries you have made, questions you have that you just might forget before the next class, and other educationally creative pursuits related to your music studies.
2 comments:
I find this to be an awfully jaded point of view. However, I agree to a greater degree. Music used to be enjoyed for its own sake, or part of daily life. The American music industry is something I currently define as the group of big name corporations which seems to have a parasitic hold on radio stations and cable TV.
With the advent of music videos and such, these people became unduly interested in "the whole package". I wouldn't go so far as to call it "evil" though. The music industry simply has different motives for what it as a whole does than the music community of old. It's a side effect of capitalism, really.
On the bright side, now people of almost all classes can partake in the same music. In the 1600s, it was unthinkable for a farmer to take a day off to attend a baroque concert. The only music he might have had access to was at church, or folk songs. Now almost everyone can find everything to listen to. A CD player costs about 10 dollars, and a library card is free.
In the future, if you have a response to a post, please post a comment on that specific post so we keep the subjects all neatly tied together.
Also, let us not forget that several traditional composers such as Franz Liszt and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart capitalized on THEIR appearances and charms, as well, in order to obtain money. Of course they had tremendous talent to back it up, but they used the same tactics in many instances, just under different societal constraints.
In fact, the reason the general public has shied away from "intelligent" or "art" music in the recent centuries is that composers hid themselves in universities, creating sounds that were generally unpleasing to the ear long before the masses were able to understand what was being produced. Composers were too impatient with the public, putting avant-garde ideals above catering to the listener's abilities to absorb and keep up with the advanced compositional trends. The result is that many people threw up their hands, gave up, and found comfort in the familiar I, IV, V chord chart that they've known for centuries.
Let this be a lesson to all composers- NEVER forget who your audience is, what they want, what they need, and what they are capable of absorbing at this point in time... or they WILL forsake you.
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