Music Land

[porphyry]

Here is one of the Disney Silly Symphonies, Music Land from 1935:

It shows popular culture actively engaged in war with traditional culture. Classical music is presented in a very misleading stereotype. It is, for a start, called ‘Symphony’ Music which is a somewhat antiquated term used by those who view it from outside with some suspicion (as I know from the example of my own mother). It is initially represented by a minuet played in a very tedious fashion, encouraging the viewer to think Classical music is boring. If, instead, they had played even the minuet from Don Giovanni, or the dance in the first movement of Schubert’s ninth symphony, to say nothing or more temporally proximate pieces such as the Firebird or the Scythian Suite, the audience might have been permitted to form a quite different opinion.

However, once open war breaks out between tradition and the modern, the fate of the Kingdom of Jazz is sealed, as the attack in the form of the Ride of the Valkyries played on the pipe organ would surely have overwhelmed all opposition, except the cause of tradition is betrayed by a Paris and Helen type intrigue. Afterwards, we are led to believe that the two forms of music will live in happy harmony, but in effect the popular seems to have won a total victory and supplanted tradition, which the audience is manipulated into viewing as a happy ending.

Comments

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

This of course begs the question: why could both forms not exist concurrently? And additionally, why would one be considered "better" than the other to begin with?

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Ah, but it is popular culture that frames the question this way. The goal is always to make the popular audience think that Classical music is inferior, old fashioned, oppressive, and above all not soemthing to spend money on. There are innumberalbe cartoons like this, where classical msuic is over-turned by the latest craze, jazz, swing, etc. And not just cartoons either: 'Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news!' 'The Ramones are the Beethovens of our time!' If you look at how characters who like the newest version of popular music are protrayed in ordianry mass-market films and TV shows, compared to those who like opera, you'll see quite a difference (though my knowledge here is somewhat dated since I haven't been able to watch such things for many years now). If you consider the situation today, when on the one hand you have Mozart and Beethoven, and on the other Fitty Cent and Britney Spears...well, there isn't even a question there to ask, is there?

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

Sure there is. In the 1950s, you could have framed that question as "when on the one hand you have Mozart and Beethoven, and on the other Charlie Parker and Miles Davis...well, there isn't even a question there to ask, is there?"

I honestly don't see where the threat is. If anything, such depictions as the one you describe above only serve as a testament to resiliency of "classical" music. And let's be honest -- patrons of classical music forms are often depicted as insufferable snobs because, well, some of them can be.

Just as there's nothing actually inherent inferior regarding "classical" music, on the other side, because something is popular does not make it automatically dreck, either.

Verdi was the Italian Fitty Cent of his day.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware Verdi was a convicted felon.

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

Disappointing.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Alright, try this:

The nosie generated by marketing keeps people, especially young people, from even knowing who Schubert or Schmann might be; their power of choice is deprived from them by the billiosn of dollars spent on advertising Britney spears, et al.

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

I would suspect the ones who teach young people who Schubert and Schumann are will remain where they always have been, in the classroom and in the home. This is regardless of the money spent by record labels and Madison Avenue suits. Some will take to it, most will not, and a few might actually enjoy both.

It's not popular music's fault that Brahms is uninteresting. Perhaps if more motivated teachers attempted to make these things more relevant to the everyday lives of average people, there would be more of a positive response. But will it ever hold sway with the vast majority of people? No. And I don't think it's meant to.

the importance of being irrelevant, yes, irrelevant

[(Anonymous)]

I (leopold_paula_b of the deleted account) was lucky to have had at least one good music teacher from my 10th to 14th year. She managed to make classical music important to many of us by stressing how *irrelevant* it was to our everyday lives. The importance, so she seemed to say, was its being different from muzak and its reluctance to be easily consumed. She didn't make too much of a fuss about justifying it, but straight dived into tackling some of the difficulties of a piece of music and showing us how rewarding and enjoyable it can be just to understand what a composer is doing. And I think that's the way to breed lasting interest rather than trying to make it palatable by showing the kids how Bach was recycled in pop music.

(I like a lot of kinds of music, but I'm a bit sceptical about crossovers.)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm tired of hearing people say, in dismissive tones, "Opera was just the popular music of its time."

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

That's why they say context is everything. The context for Brittany spears didn't exist int he 18th century.

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

Timely (for me at least, not being a fan of 50 Cent) analysis. I absolutely agree with your comments about how the whole high/low argument has been presented and the fact that the representatives of 'popular' culture at least have seen it as a war to be won. I've been thinking about this whole issue of the debasement of cultural aspiration for some time, even starting a debate of a rudimentary kind, here.

Though no Marxist, I'm drawing more and more towards Adorno on this, agreeing with his argument that the easiness of popular culture is one of the reasons why people have become passive, docile and content. It operates like sugar in the diet, pabulum to make people feel satisfied, no matter how lousy their personal situation is. And in popular culture the 'differences' such as they are, are oftenjust variations on a theme. The culture 'industry' that backs it all up - and which, over the years, has included a number of propaganda departments, as you outline above - is huge, however and it's victory seems almost certain. I'd cast my net wider than Adorno would, when looking for music (and culture) that satisfies - appreciating some things for what they are, even though they may not scale the heights, but then not all artists during, say, the Renaissance, were giants, but it doesn't stop us appreciating them.

I find it ironic that this idea - that people could and should deserve better - is deemed elitist, whereas the "they're dumb and wouldn't know any better" approach of modern media is seen as somehow egalitarian and inclusive. Perhaps, as the general standard of pop culture gets worse there will come a point at which some people at least rise up and demand better? Who knows?

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I don't think I was onto you yet, but I will devote, I assure you, more time than I ought to that posted discussion.

In brief, popular culture was invented by entrepeneurs to occupy the extra time and money of factory workers beginning after about 1850--that is when you first find professinal sprots (including bull fighting oddly enough), mass market sheet music, and 'dime' or 'yellow back' novels and mass market magazines and newspapers. It was specifically created as an alternative to any kind of traditional culture (whether folk or aristocratic) as soemthing that the entrepeneurs could wholly own and profit from. Radio, film, and television were merely extensions of this. While it is possible that genuinely creative work could be accidently produced within this paradigm (and it certainly has been), that it not its purpose. I don't know why anyone would accept this by-definition kitsch substitute for culture, except many people, even those in general intelligent and educated, even myself to a larger degree than I would like, do accept it pecisely because it is easier, as you and Adorno say, to do so.

In regard to people rising up, you may recall in Brugess' works (A Clockwork Orange and 1985) the lowest order of street thugs begin to appreciate Beethoven and the Romantic poets, and to study Latin, precisely because those activities are so completely counter-cultural.

well done

[(Anonymous)]

thank you, brother

Re: well done

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

You've psoted here before in this journla haven't you? I thought I knew who made that other post, but Now I don't. Why post anonymously?