…to convince my mother and other baby boomers that current pop music is not all garbage. Ya know, that stuff they play in the mall, and the top 40 radio stations- yeah, that’s mostly crap. BUT there are lots of artists that have actual fans, if not radio airtime, that are making excellent music.
Musicianship is NOT dead! But I can’t win, it seems… Radiohead is too noisy and chaotic. Helio Sequence is too repetitive. And don’t even mention any punk or hiphop stuff- that’s a whole other ballpark. And I get nowhere if I talk about how hard is to put together anything wholly electronic, to sync up different tracks and put together good rhythm (I would know, I took a digital music class a few years ago, it was frikkin HARD) that’s catchy and works well as a whole. But no, anything that isn’t classically-trained musicians on actual instruments is crap.
I must agree to disagree, I guess.
OK, I can't resist here. In 1968, when I was 18, I encountered "Switched On Bach", an album of electronic renderings of classic Bach. I was enthralled. I sat up and took notice of Bach, something I hadn't done to that point, and my interest never faded. I learned that the beauty and complexity of his harmonic progressions was no less fascinating when produced electronically than when produced in the traditional form. I, a boomer, have no bone whatsoever to pick with digital music. My problem is with non-musicians who don't realize they are non-musicians composing (digitally or not) for non-musicians, and the whole lot of them hasn't a clue. Musicians who haven't heard complex music can't reproduce it. I can't blame them for this omission in their lives-- exposure to complex music,music theory, sightreading, ear training, etc, are not taken seriously anymore nor taught in schools. No one has to learn to make music--you just listen and flounder around and do the best you can with no instruction. The result is today's popular music-such a far cry from the much more complex popular music of even the 20's or '30's. when almost everyone learned to play the piano or other instruments, and there was a piano teacher on every block. A very sad thing has happened and no one knows it...
ReplyDeleteI dunno, there are still lots of skilled musicians. Of all the people I've lived with, FOUR were classically trained musicians, and they still enjoy pop music. (Kilii- violin and self-taught guitar, Olivia- violin, Tori- viola, Ellen, violin) I think that complexity is not the most important feature of music, most of the time. There are certain rhythms and harmonics that just resonate in my soul, for lack of a less-cliched phrase.
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