An idle thought crossed my mind...
I was thinking about the putative distinction between low and high culture, and in particular that between popular and classical music (that distinction being imprecise, as classical music denotes a period and style that is narrower than its colloquial use - for that matter, as the charts attest, not all popular music is that popular). Why is the latter associated with high status individuals, those at the top of the socioeconomic ladder?
Popular music, on average, tells stories about life events. It captures mood, frustration, and transition among other things. Its currency is immediately obvious because the referents are stark. It is on tap to service the fluctuations of life. Classical music can certainly impart emotion, yet its message is less clear. Is this sorrow for the loss of love or for my impending doom that Beethoven causes me to feel? Of course, I can choose when to play Beethoven, and apply it like a band aid to multiple existential wounds. Popular music is injury specific.
But none of this explains the possible socioeconomic discontinuity. So I thought: might it be something to do with virtuosity? The orchestrated skills of so many musicians playing complex sequences of sounds, a polyphony with an emergent strand hovering in the ether, that stuns us with its finely drawn beauty. To be compared with the visceral urgency of a cracking voice forcing our attention, renting us from our complacency.
Musical virtuosity is hard won and costs time. The construction of such music, and its performance, relies on people who can afford to take time out of life and work on nothing else. For sure, there is the struggling musical genius locked in a garrett desperately trying to convey an obscure sensation. This individual is not living the life most middle class people would expect and hope for, but inevitably there is some story of sponsorship in the background - these heroes are grant assisted and do not have to raise goats and sow seeds for their survival. Classical composers and musicians are the price we pay for a liberal democracy. Is their music also a symbolic price? Perhaps those who are thriving are drawn to such displays because they signify the control they have over life's vicissitudes. And, of course, such people have far fewer and less diverse injuries than the rest of society.
I've read this line:
ReplyDelete"Classical composers and musicians are the price we pay for a liberal democracy"
several times and I'm still not sure I'm parsing it correctly.
Interesting thoughts. Jazz is, I believe, still considered the most popular musical form and the virtuosity of some performers is pretty impressive--e.g. John Coltrane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kotK9FNEYU
ReplyDeleteNot sure about classical classical music (so to speak) but opera is all about life history--sex and violence mainly--as in this example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xN-o21Y79jg
On a related note despite its reputation rap battles can be highly articulate and fairly blatant male-male competitive contests. Baba Brinkman has picked up on this of course but its pretty obvious to any one who has studied even a little biology. My current favourite example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4he79krseU
Thanks for these comments. I was meaning classical music in its precise sense, rather than music that is not pop music. Though I might also have included baroque and other forms. So, opera is indeed a source of story telling and that is an art form for direct representation of the social fabric.
ReplyDeleteAs to the price we pay - what I meant was that in order to develop virtuosity one needs a society that can support musicians. We might argue that society is structured precisely to divide labour, increase key resource yields etc. in order to allow some of us time to produce works of beauty. But I am not so sure. I think virtuosity fills in the gaps, the gaps left by a lifestyle that does not demand spending most of the time finding suitable calories to maintain basal metabolism. None the less, I also think the urge to elaborate is based on costly signalling, so the more one can elaborate the more one indicates a certain resource wealth or robustness: a 'look at me, I can waste this much time and energy and I am still alive' signal. Combine these two ideas and you get run-away costly signalling happening in societies such as our own.
So, high culture is an absurd signal of wealth, broadly defined. Which, of course, does not undermine the pleasure and beauty that it brings to all of our lives.