[Aradon Templar]: 240.A Defense for Modern Music

Finished the paper :) Turns out better than the first draft by a boatload.
Finally, the views expressed in this essay do not reflect those of anyone. Oh, except me. </disclaimer>

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Caleb Moreno
Mrs. Lenhardt
ENGL 1101/1102 LCOM
9 October, 2007

A Defense for Modern Music

A musician walks on stage to a piano, pulls out the bench, and sits quietly for four and a half minutes, and the stunned audience hardly knows how to react. John Cage's musical styles, such as his four minutes and thirty-three seconds of complete silence, appropriately titled 4'33'', have sparked much controversy over what qualifies as music. The borders of musicality have been pushed back slowly over the last century. Contemporary composer Arnold Schoenberg used mathematical algorithms to create serial music, while Mozart on occasion used dice to randomly select pitches and phrases to use (Ruttkay 1). Steve Reich popularized phase music and minimalism, and today there is software capable of creating music based on fractal pictures, without any human involvement at all. Contemporary styles of music such as these have become commonplace in modern times, and while some of these minimalistic methods or awkward approaches have received little popularity, others, such as minimalist Philip Glass, have attained resounding success. Many people, though, from the common music-lover to the qualified theory expert, frown upon works like 4'33”. In a journal article studying Reich, Schwarz notes that “[Reich's] work has been unduly neglected by serious American researchers,” reflecting Reich's slowed acceptance into the “serious” musical world (374). Some listeners would even go as far as to outright state that these styles aren't real music. After all, if there's no sound, how can it be music? If there's no expression behind the cold formulas, is it really music? Can a non-sentient computer actually be called a composer? And the answer is, yes. The plethora of contemporary styles of music are in fact actual musical works in their own rights.
These strange styles have their origins in chance music. In this form, a composer would use random elements, such as dice, to determine components of a piece, ranging from instrumentation to actual pitches played (Keck). Closely related is serial music, which rose around the mid-nineteenth century to early twentieth century. Serial music is composed by using different sets of pitches called tone-rows. Each note in a row must be played before moving to a different row, and each row contains each chromatic pitch. These rows are calculated using algorithms, or mathematical processes, and severely limit the choices a composer has available. Arnold Schoenberg is largely responsible for the acceptance of serial music (Neighbor). A more modern style, phase music consists of using a single musical phrase and playing it twice at the same time, with one of the phrases at a slightly faster tempo. If done right, the two identical phrases will 'phase' in and out of synchronization with each other. Steve Reich, a very recent composer, has done a great amount of work in this area, as well as in minimalism (Griffiths).
More commonly seen as an art term, minimalism in music refers to using very little sound or very few pitches or chords, relying on simplicity. With minimalistic pieces, it is commonplace to use three or four pitches over a span of several minutes. Philip Glass, another modern composer, is fairly well known for his minimalistic work as well. However, when it comes to unique musical style, twentieth-century composer John Cage comes to the foreground. Cage's musical ideas range from several minutes of silence to a musical circus, or 'musicircus,' that involves multiple concerts in the same building (Driver). Cage has experimented with modifying instruments to produce different sounds, such as putting wood blocks on piano strings to dampen noise, and has in general pushed hard against the accepted musical boundaries. All these styles have, because their musical approaches result in very 'unmusical' products.
Most noticeably, these styles of music hold few or no formal elements of music. Traditional music tends to have chord progressions and definite structure and time. However, phase music defies countable rhythm by having two separate tempos in the same piece. Schoenberg's atonal serial music cannot follow diatonic chords because his work is chromatic and without a key signature. Finding structure in chance music is difficult, due to the unpredictable and unorganized nature of chance. Similarly, some people would argue that the artistic touch, like formal structure, defines music, and for this reason would frown upon automated music like the Symbolic Composer, a computer program that generates music using algorithms and calculated images. The software's website explains that “note durations and section durations, can be generated from maths and fractal functions” (Symbolic Composer web page). This automated process is not far from random chance music and the calculated methods of serial music, and many people feel that these methods leave little room for artistic expression. The methods create sound, but the sound is not necessarily good or bad, merely noise. From the audience's perspective, a little creativity on the composer's part to make the music sound good would be appreciated.
Furthermore, music is supposed to be expressive. Every artist has an idea in mind when they write, draw, or compose, but there is little expression in formulated music or pure silence. The composer could not possibly have a statement in mind when writing it because they do not have control over how the music turns out. In chance music, the random factors make it difficult to express any coherent musical idea. When it comes to Cage's work, anyone could have written 4'33'', and anyone could have played it. Reich takes a five-second violin sound clip and does a little looping and publishes it. Paul Driver, a music appreciator and journalist, wrote in the London Times after an exhibition of Cage's odd work, “Not much "real" music to savour, but plenty of quaint ideas about music; and I suppose it's in the Cagean nature of such an event to be less than the sum of its parts,” (26). He was referring to the Cage's musicircus, and how at this specific event the concerts had little to do with each other, besides being oddities in themselves. This lack of coherence, expression, thought, and organization is exactly why critics dislike contemporary styles.
However, to say that these styles do not possess talent, expression, or traditional elements does not examine the issue close enough. It is one thing to claim that music needs expression, but it is entirely different to state that the silence of Cage's 4'33” or Philip Glass's minimalistic works have no expression; every artist has a statement in mind when they make their artwork, contemporary musicians included. In The Musical Times, Geoff Smith notes that “Not only did [Cage] reveal the unity beyond the dualistic concept of sound versus silence, he also unified art and life by creating a music that was no longer 'spoilt' by ambient sound but which embraced it as material” (5). In other words, Cage's silence had a purpose other than to simply be quiet. It turned the audience in towards itself. Instead of listening to the performer, they found themselves listening to themselves, or perhaps simply appreciating the silence.
Similarly, serial composers are faced with the task of using an unusual 'material', to use Smith's words, to create music (Smith 5). Expression using predetermined notes is especially hard, but even in serial music and chance music there is room, through very careful choice of orchestration, voice leading, and in the case of tone-row music, deciding when to use each tone set, and how to arrange it in terms of chords. The complications of methodical composition are massive and formidable, yet Schoenberg wrote entire pieces in such a manner. These pieces, despite being calculated, are in fact expressive on their own, in a very careful and delicate manner. For example, Cherlin notes in his book that Schoenberg's fragmented and contrasting tone rows “raise questions about cognition and perception that are at the core of Schoenberg's musical expressivity” (231). Rather than being less musical, contemporary composers are faced with a more challenging task to compose in their own genre of rigid rules and still be expressive.
The idea that little thought or talent is involved with these modern styles is most incorrect. It is in fact quite ingenious to think of a silent piece and actually perform it. Cage's other ideas may not have been as widely celebrated, but musicircus takes creative thinking as well, and in both musicircus and 4'33”, the key is not simply thinking outside the box, but lies with the impact on the audience. The art of Cage's work is how it involves and anticipates the audience's reactions to lead them towards an idea. Without playing a single note, Cage's 4'33” directs the audience towards the idea of silent ambiance and energy.
When it comes to talent involved, phase music, when done without the aid of a computer, such as when performed on piano, is exceedingly difficult to play, due to the lack of definite countable rhythm. Just like Cage's work, phase music is played with the audience in mind. Artists use phase music to create consonance and then dissonance as the two parts spread away from each other. The created tension reflects just as much thought and consideration as any accepted classical piece could, because stylistically, most music is about the building and releasing of tension.
In the same way, the creation of algorithmic music such as chance music or serial music takes no originality at face value, but again, to use such inflexible standards as mathematical sequences and make them malleable requires considerable talent and thought. Even without sounding 'good', organizing methodical music into something comprehensible that makes audible sense, and furthermore has a semblance of structure, as most serial music does when technically analyzed, is a commendable accomplishment. Surprisingly, even the Symbolic Composer involves thought from an artist. The program cannot choose which images to synthesize into sound. It requires input from a composer to choose which algorithms to utilize. The image is generated via another set of algorithms, which the composer must choose carefully. The process is far removed from typical music making, but it clearly requires a great deal of thought from a human composer. Even though the computer could randomly select these criteria and generate 'music', the majority of fractal music put forth is quality material created by well-qualified composers. The Symbolic Composer web site explains that “besides providing the composer a toolbox of traditional composition tools Symbolic Composer also enables the composer to explore advanced fractal and chaos mathematics to determine compositional elements,” (Symbolic Composer web page). In effect, the program is simply another tool as an extension of the composer.
Finally, traditional elements of music can be found in modern music, although it's not very easy to identify. For example, Symbolic Creator utilizes a 'logical rule set' that takes advantage of common or pre-selected chord progressions as well as other traditional techniques (Symbolic Composer web page). Minimalist artists such as Philip Glass use common chords often, and pay very careful attention to the concept of tension to experiment with how minimal a piece could be without being completely bland. When it comes to serial music, traditional theory is hard to hear, but surprisingly evident when examined. Serial music makes great efforts to develop some sort of recurring theme, especially involving a particular tone row. A particular tone row can become thematic by being played in reverse, inverted, in chords, modulated, and any combination of those. A musical phrase repeated backwards, however, is nearly impossible to identify by ear, so much of the genius of serial music is unappreciated. Ian Quinn, a music theorist, describes a the structure of Reich's The Desert Music minimalist piece as melodic lines that follow similar “contours,” despite “beat-class modulation” which involves variations in the melodic lines rhythmically and harmonically to add interest and mask this pattern he follows (283-284). The format clearly represents a melodic theme and formal structure of a theme and variations, a very traditional style. Finally, Reich's phase music shows signs of classical structure as well. The pattern of consonance and dissonance creates what Quinn refers to as an “arch design” which shows a set form of ABA, where A is the consonant, synchronized loop in the beginning and B is the dissonant, unsynchronized pattern in the middle, reminiscent of a theme, elaboration, and recapitulation (283).
On the surface, these contemporary forms of music seem to have little musical skill, thought, or value, but this lack of music is simply an illusion. When examined closely, it becomes apparent that a great deal of thought is put into each of these forms of music. Indeed, to be accepted, the composer must make sure the work is founded on the solid ground of theory and form, and more importantly, to be accepted the artist must keep in mind how the work will be received and comprehended in order to have the intended effect on the audience. Undeniably, these genres require complete comprehension of what goes into a piece. No possibility exists that Schoenberg did not understand his music theory, because there are traces of theory throughout his works, and Reich had to anticipate how his audience would respond when he looped his music to create and release tension. Minimalist writers must always be mindful of when their work becomes 'boring' and ceases to entertain their audience. These nuances, though, do not become apparent at face value. What is apparent upon first hearing of a controversial piece is that it does not fit into our idea of 'music', which is founded on centuries of structured, formal rules. However, even tone-rows and chance music date back to the days of Mozart, who used dice to write music. Nobody challenges his position as a musician today. Many modern artists, notably twentieth-century Escher, make use of algorithms to create images called fractals, and they're called artists. The new methods of music are really just extensions of other principles into new medias: applying mathematics to music, integrating music and technology in a method that isn't too different from synthesizers, and branching music into new formats, such as musicircus, which is merely a new arrangement of traditional music. The fact is, these music styles that are heard today that sound bizarre are merely new ideas that are firmly planted in the musical world, and they are certainly 'real music'.


Works Cited
Cherlin, Michael. Schoenberg's Musical Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Driver, Paul. “From one extreme to the Other.” Sunday Times [London] 4 June, 2006: 26. LexisNexis. University of Georgia Library. 26 Sept. 2007. <http://global.lexisnexis.com/us>.
Griffiths, Paul: 'Reich, Steve', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 6 October 2007), <http://www.grovemusic.com>.
O.W. Neighbour: 'Schoenberg, Arnold', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 6 October 2007), <http://www.grovemusic.com>.
Schwarz, Robert K. “Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process: Part I.” Perspectives of New Music 19, (1980 - 1981): 373-92. JSTOR. University of Georgia Library. 26 Sept. 2007 <http://www.jstor.org/>.
Smith, Geoff. “Composing After Cage: Permission Granted”. Musical Times. 139:1864 (Autumn 1998) p. 5-8. IIMP through Galileo. University of Georgia Library. 30 Sept. 2007. <http://andromeda.galib.uga.edu/>.
Symbolic Composer. Tonality Systems. 26 Sept. 2007. <http://www.symboliccomposer.com/page_main.shtml>.
Ruttkay, Zsofia. “Composing Mozart Variations with Dice.” Teaching Statistics 19 (March 1997) p. 18-19. Viewed 4 Oct. 2007.
Quinn, Ian. “Minimal Challenges: Process Music and the Uses of Formalist Analysis.” Contemporary Music Review 25, (2006): 285. EBSCOhost. University of Georgia Library. 26 Sept. 2007 <http://search.ebscohost.com/>.
Keck, Danielle. Music Theory lectures. Duluth High School. Duluth, GA. May 2007.