Theodore Gracyk,
Music's Worldly Uses, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and to Love Led Zeppelin
- Gracyk's summary of Scruton
- The superiority of the musical tradition of Western harmonic music
from Renaissance to early 20th century
- Importance of educated listener's sympathetic response to music, so
listener reaches out of themselves in experience of feeling that is both
free and disciplined
- Dancing is paradigm sympathetic response to music, with silent
listening being "latent dancing"
- Because dancing is a community activity, appropriate dance response
to piece of music indicates the character of the society that so
responds
- Aes response to instrumental music is paradigm of engagement with
music
- Its autonomy from worldly uses allows it to invite a
sympathetic response with an ideal community, nobler than
any we actually encounter
- (Much) Contemporary Pop music repudiates taste; it is deficient in
melody, harmony and rhythm; a kind of negation of music; invites a
sympathetic response to a decadent disordered community
- Gracyk thinks Scruton philosophy of music (which Gracyk shares in large
part) does not justify his conclusion that recent pop music is not fit to be
granted status of music.
- ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL CONTEXT IN MUSIC
- Music only yield its meanings to listeners in the context of a culture that
gives the music its significance
- Gracky can't get a musical exp from Tibetan Tantric Buddhist ritual
music because he doesn't really know how to listen to it
- Knowledge of how to listen to a piece of music is key to having a
musical exp of it
- Formal training not needed
- What matters is that listener hears the music in right way
- If one does not know what knowledgeable listeners recognize in certain type
of music (appreciative audience actually finds in a piece of music), we have
no idea what meaning they get from it (what music's meaning is)
- Scruton does not know what listeners to pop get from it and merely
speculates instead of investing the matter empirically
- Gracyk's students listened to a traditional folk song from a Burundi (about a
homesick man remembering his youth) (and assuming the mood of the
music was appropriate to the words), they were mistaken when they heard a sexual dimension to it
- Demonstrated musical ignorance
- Are there objective emotions that come from music separate from
lyrics?
- Sad music, happy music, lonely music?
- See Gracyk's definition of objective musical emotion below
- MUSIC INVOLVES MEANING, NOT JUST SOUNDS
- Like language, music has meaning that transcends the sounds we hear
- Exp of music is exp of meaning
- We don't hear music simply because we hear sounds that happen to
be music
- We hear music when we understand the organization of the sounds
and grasp what is conveyed by that organization
- Just like a gesture of pointing towards something should not be confused
with what it is pointing to, so the sounds of music should not be confused
with what those sounds are trying to convey (i.e., the meaning of music)
- Language analogy
- Language, like music, transcends the sounds that convey it and exists in an "intentional realm"
- If you don't understand a language, you hear sounds of speakers, but
don't understand how one sound relates to any other
- Sounds that happen earlier will not be heard as establishing the
rightness/wrongness of later sounds
- Just as one can listen to conversation w/o hearing it as speech, one can
listen to music w/o hearing the ordered relations that must be heard to hear
it as music
- "Cat in the ....."
- Do you hear/expect "hat?"
- Perhaps not if you don't know children's books
- But you will expect an adjective or noun
- If adjective follows you will soon expect a noun
- "in the" demands it
- You don't have to be conscious of these rules of syntax, to anticipate what
should and shouldn't happen next
- The obvious analogy here is to how one tone in music leads us to expect
others
- And one does not have to be aware of the rules of music's ordered
relations to hear them
- But language really has meaning separate from the sounds; does music?
- Music's meaning
- Expressive (sad, cheerful)
- Lyrical (but then its linguistic)
- Music's expressive character is the central feature of music's content/meaning
- Listeners don't understand music if not grasp its expressive character (e.g., it's being sad or cheerful)
- No assumption that listeners must be able to articulate what they
understand
- Music is objectively expressive when informed listeners are moved to
respond to it in the same way
- Scruton claims (and Gracyk agrees?) that
- MUSIC TELLS US SOMETHING ABOUT OUR CHARACTER
(INDIVIDUAL & SOCIAL)
- Gracyk "I had preconceptions about what it would say about me if I liked Led Zeppelin"
- Doesn't it say something about you as a person if you like certain music and not others?
- Dance a certain way and not others?
- Rock music is a geopolitical force and this irks Scruton
- Music is a kind of politics?
- Account of why music is tied to individual and social character
- Because music (like language) is intentional and involves
participating in a shared community
- Understand music (as meaning) only possible because we are
members of a community tradition (like language community)
- Why can't people all alone appreciate music?
- Our participation in that community shapes us;
- Makes us think and act in certain ways because we have
internalized that tradition
- Thus our interest in music reflects engagement in certain social life
and reveals something about our character
- GRACYK REJECTS SCRUTTONS CLAIM THAT:
- POP'S MUSIC
FOCUS ON SOUNDS AS SOUNDS (NOISE), UNDERMINES ITS
CLAIM TO BEING MUSIC (WITH MEANING)
- Scruton argues (mistakenly according to Gracyk) that when a composer
makes us aware that the sounds are sounds (reminds us of the physical
conditions of music production), that this awareness distracts us from the
meaning of the music (that the sounds are supposed to lead us to)
- Edouard Manet's critics in 19th century Paris claimed he didn't
finish his paintings; painters were expected to blur and obscure
evidence of brush marks; "how could an audience look at the painting
if the artist insists on calling attention to the paint?"
- Musical role of noise in pop music
- GRACYK'S DEFENSE OF LED ZEPPELIN'S D'YER MAK'ER
- Overview
- Has humor built into its musical arrangement (objectively)
- It is objectively there in the music and was so intended by the
band
- Can't understand this humor without understanding its musical
and political referents (e.g., how good the guitarist is, relation
of song to Reggae)
- Displays musical intelligence
- The pure sound quality of the guitar is relevant to the meaning of this
music
- Can't always divorce musical meaning from awareness of the
material conditions of the music (the sheer sounds of the music)
- The arrangement of the music, not its the tonal quality or harmony is
what gives it its meaning
- This music
subordinates harmony to the role of support for the melody and
rhythm
- Listening to such pop music is to participate sympathetically in a
rich and fertile musical tradition (but of this world) of the pop
music that Scruton thinks is decadent and debased
- Details
- Structured to lead to the unexpected
- Frustrates one's expectations?
- Vocal contribution is entirely at odds with musical tone
- Lyrics a trite silly plea to a departed lover
- The rhythm suggests Jamaicans reggae
- At the time reggae was regarded as militant expression of Jamaican
nationalism
- A guitar solo in the song is not the shrieking, heroic, wailing guitar
we expect from Led Zeppelin, but a weak anaemic distant sound that
repeats the melody of the lyrics
- Response: What is this guitar doing in this song?
- A surprising let down
- Deflates all expectations about what should appear at this point
in the song
- The joke depends on being aware of the sound quality of the
arrangement
- Exp of meaning is not undermined but arises from awareness of the
brute fact of guitar solo's specific tone color
- The guitar solo which repeats the melody of the lyrics makes fun of
them
- Part of the joke is that, knowing the guitarist is a virtuoso, we don't
expect him to play anything so obvious
- This seems to support Scruton's claim the music is about the
performers
- If we leave music's meaning in an abstract spiritual realm, we can't
acknowledges this instrumental virtuosity and a philosophy of music
must do this.
- Not a subjective response of Gracyk, that he found humor in the song,
as the band said they intended it to convey humor
- Gracyk independently heard in the music something that he was
meant to hear and is objectively there in the music
- The meaning of the song
- Does not come from expression formed by expectations centered on
the song's tones, the movement of tones and harmony formed by the
leading voice
- As Scruton assumes meaning must be delivered
- But from the song's arrangement
- Example shows
- Can't always divorce musical meaning from awareness of the
material conditions of the music (the sheer sounds of the music)
- Listening to such pop music is to participate sympathetically in a
rich and fertile musical tradition (but of this world) of the pop
music that Scruton thinks is decadent and debased
- His response draws about Caribbean rhythms that originally
came from Africa, and on the musical and lyrical conventions
of popular love songs of the 50s, on his ear for European
harmony
- But instead of aiming at closure of the music's final tone, this music
subordinates harmony to the role of support for the melody and
rhythm
- Getting the solo guitar joke assumes one is familiar with many
aspects of this tradition
- Can't grasp the meaning of this music if one is deaf to voices of past
- Music is rich in cross reference and allusion
- Its riches have nothing to do with unworldly character or harmonic
organization and complexity
- SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF LIKING ZEPPLIN'S D'YER MAK'ER
- Gracyk is arguing that those who listen to Led Zeppelin and the other pop
music Scruton rejects are involved in a world of musical meaning that has
implications for their characters and values, but these are values that
disagree with and are in tension with the character and values that Scruton
prefers
- What does the response to such music (D'yer Mak'er) say about those who
prefer it to European classical tradition?
- He's accepting idea that musical taste tells us something about the
person/group and his/her/its values
- Sympathy with the project of multiculturalism, as this music is
multiculturalism in action
- Reveals a cosmopolitan orientations that erases and redraws cultural
boundaries
- REJECTS SCRUTTON'S MONISM
- Abandons the presumption that there is one musical tradition that is
inherently superior to all others and with it the idea that there is only
one right way to live
- No expectation that one dimension of one musical culture should rule
supreme
- Deflates Scruton's utopian insistence that music is a realm of pure
abstraction
- But result is not that listeners thrown back onto self-regarding
narcissism of own private desires
- This music, as all music, is something into which we join
- All response to music is a response to a social order
- EXAMPLE OF PHILLIPS CD PLAYER COMMERCIAL
- Clean-cut elegant young man setting up dinner table with wine
glasses, candles, flowers in exquisite vase and when attractive young
woman enters he turns on music:
- "A crude, grinding, industrial noise erupts over a stead brutal beat. A
deep growling voice joins the clanging, discordant grind of
"industrial" rock. The guttural timbre of the voice is the sort that's
used in horror films for characters subject to demonic possessions. It
rasps "Let me call you sweetheart/I'm in love with you"
- At first she is confused then smiles and is delighted and starts moving to the
rhythm of the music as her friend joins her
- Funny as first think she is horrified by his lapse in taste: can't let this
music into this social exchange
- But she is touched by his expression of love, he has provided music
that gratifies her tastes and she conveys this by moving joyfully
with it
- Kind of music Scruton thinks dehumanizes spirit of song
- Woman is responding to what music says to her and sees it as his gesture to
her
- Had he chosen dif musical style---jazz singing of Billie
Holiday-though it might have conveyed same sentiments to a
different audience-it would not have conveyed them to her
- Arm chair philosophizing can't tell us whether Grunge or industrial
rock is so different from Schubert or Wagner when it comes to
musical expression
- Lessons? Concerns? Objections?
- True that different people will find music expressive in different ways
- What conveys love and considerateness in one context might
fail to convey it in another
- Is the conclusion that whatever works for an audience is good
expressive music?
- How does this fit with his claim that his students got the Burundi
music wrong?
- How does this fit with the idea that some music expresses objective
emotions?
- Consider the response that says: There is something wrong with someone
taking that sort of noise as an expression of tender love
- If expressions of love are conveyed by "crude grinding noises and
voices from horror movies" then those involve are sick and
dehumanized
- What if he had handed her the head of her exlover and she had
thought that a wonderful expression of his love for her?
- Though it would be true that this gesture conveyed that emotion (love), it also is true tht it is a sick and dehumanizing gesture.
- Why think that lyrics can redeem any sort of obnoxious sound?
- GRACYK ON ROLE OF NOISE IN THE MEANING OF SOME
RECENT ROCK MUSIC
- Important ideal expressed by abrasive eruptions of beat and sounds that
characterize recent rock music
- Music's aesthetic appeal includes noise, it is not music that is appealing
despite the noise
- For listeners who hear melody and noise as two parts of a musical
complex, refusal to let melody triumph can stand for political refusal
- Nirvana has refused to "normalize" its activity in conformity to the demand
that tonality must govern music
- Nirvana's musical balancing of noise and melody is a stand against a degree
of repression we often assume must be part of modern life
- Mistake to think that pop music that turns its back on music dominated
by the intentional world of tones (as has Western classical music) is less
musical
- GRACYK'S ANALYSIS OF NIRVANA'S SMELLS LIKE TEEN
SPIRIT (1991) (3rd most significant pop song of last 40 years)
- Furious blast of rock and roll
- Elements of heavy metal and punk rock
- Feedback drenched rhythm guitar
- Vocals tend to be throaty shouted rasps
- Arrangements designed to disguise Kurt Cobain's flair for melody
- Though it was this that made them a major pop star
- Graced with aching sweet melody
- When melody played and sung "without distraction of the guitar and
pounding drums" is incredibly expressive and uses the tonic formula
of ending in a resolution of earlier sounds
- Nirvana added noise so as to make listeners work to hear this melody
- Non-fans will see this as incompetence or decadence
- Nirvana has decided to put melody and accompaniment in sharp conflict
- Music's aesthetic appeal includes noise, it is not music that is appealing
despite the noise
- What is happening here is something that happens in intentional space (in
the meaning it has for its community)
- For listeners who hear melody and noise as two parts of a musical
complex, refusal to let melody triumph can stand for political refusal
- Nirvana has refused to "normalize" its activity in conformity to the demand
that tonality must govern music
- There is melodic gesture
- But not extreme subordination of discord that has been price of the tone
focused European music
- So discordant music can be good music in virtue of it being "discordant"?
- Group displays discipline in audible acts of taming noise, of civilizing chaos
or controlling impulsive outbursts of sound and energy
- John Cage is pinnacle of modernist movement that rejected logic of tonal
music
- Rolling stones and Nirvana never part of that
- Nirvana's musical balancing of noise and melody is a stand against a degree
of repression we often assume must be part of modern life
- Ten yeas later they are out of style and music fashion is back with
harmonies
- Mistake to think that pop music that turns its back on music dominated
by the intentional world of tones (as has Western classical music) is less
musical
- There is a lot worth understanding in such pop music.
- MISCELLANEOUS; IGNORE BELOW
- Eds on Gracyk
- Gracyk opposes Scruton, arguing that rock music fans do practice
discrimination in their aes responses
- While listening is less oriented toward melody and harmonic complexity
than for classical music
- Distinctive musical understanding is demanded by music of the heavy metal
band Led Zeppelin and Grunge rock of Nirvana
- Agrees with Scruton neither blanket condemnation nor blanket acceptance
of pop music
- Challenges Scruton's thesis of declines in listening practices and education
of taste
- G: agrees should question relativism and have a dist better and worse
responses to pieces of music
- But rejects idea some types of music are objectively superior to all others
- Types not specific pieces within a type
- A pluralism: maybe there are a bunch of objectively superior types
but also objectively inferior types?
- G says Scruton
- Mistaken about what culture of listening implies for pop music
- Agrees that phil of music address how music bears meaning
- Gives up on philosophy when attacks grunge and heavy metal
- Speculates about what audience exp when listens to pop
- Both agree that the meaning of music is whatever an informed audience
understands while listening
- Scrutton should find out what popular audiences actually understand
in their favorite music
- If they are abrasive, does that make them bad music?
- Perhaps it is ugly music that is aesthetically positive/interesting; it
shocks, humors, criticizes, makes you think or feel
- Similar to how some avant garde art is ugly, but aesthetically positive
- Ideal of music as an expression of ordered living
- European "art" music offers spiritual utopian ideal by sublimating rhythm in
favor of tonal adventure
- Rock music offers an earthbound metaphor for life and helps in the struggle
to build human community
- Music as politics: Musical organization is a species of political
organization (ideas from Jacques Attali)
- Code of music simulates the accepted rules of society
- When an individual develops a taste for the musical organization
typical of that individual's culture, she subordinates herself to the
body politic
- Some pop music embraces noise and allows it to coexist with melody and
harmony and rhythm
- Scruton thinks Nirvana's music is deficient in melody and drowns out inept
harmonies
- Thus fans can't possibly be listening to the music and so their interest
is in something else.
- GRACYK CRITICIZES SCRUTON'S EMPHASIS ON DANCE AND
EMPHASIZES SINGING INSTEAD
- Rejects Scrutton's idea that dance is the best means of externalizing
and demonstrating audience's sympathetic response to music and best
way to reveal the character of the social life of those who respond to
such music
- Scruton's focus on instrumental music received in silence in the concert hall
makes it plausible to think of most relevant audience response as latent
dancing
- But most people are interested in songs, not absolute music
- How do they really respond to songs?
- They sing along with them
- Public activity of joining in is itself an expressive act that reminds us that
we belong
- Act of singing is a mending of fences, a gesture of reconciliation and mutual
forgiveness
- Raising of voices in common song is a public response that creates
rather than expresses community
- Use of song is common in sporting events and other gatherings when
national anthem used to unite crowd in common community
- Dance is a response to rhythm and not to tonality or melodic line
- Pattern of dance is fitted to tempo and rhythm, not harmonies or the
lyric
- Dancing to music does not reveal everything that music can express, for if it
did, tone would play little role in exp of music meaning
- By emphasizing dance, Scruton sells short idea that informed listeners grasp
complex meanings that convey range of emotions and ideas
- One doesn't have to understand much about music to engage in a communal
dance
- Audience's ability to synchronize their movements with music's pulse
and beat does not really demonstrate a movement from physical to
intentional realm
- Scruton: formation dancing enacts social order
- But ability to join in Scottish Highland reel tells us nothing about
supposed superiority of European music as conveying messages
through tones
- Lyrics are important too: Nor does it mean you understand the song,
unless you respond to whole complex of music and lyrics
- GRACYK CRITICIZES SCRUTON FOR SPECULATING ABOUT
THE EMPIRICAL QUESTION OF WHAT LISTENERS GET FROM
POP MUSIC AND WHAT THEIR SOCIAL RELATIONS ARE
- Argues that Scruton's suggestion to imagine what sort of dancing goes with
Renaissance music and then the music of Nirvana and then further imagine
the social relations of the people who listen and dance to such music is
peculiar as this is an empirical matter that must be investigated
- Only when we have investigated how in fact people use the music can
we be confident about what they understand when they listen
- Music exists in an intentional realm, separated from the physical space
of sound waves that reach our ears
- Music result from listener's comprehension of those sounds
- Music, like language, is constituted intentionally by the understanding
of the participants and is not the same as the physical stuff (sounds)
that conveys it
Because Scruton doesn't like these characters and values he claims
the music from which they arrive is lousy (not real music)
- But he also gives a distorted account of what these
values/character/mores involve
- G questions the superiority if Western music as a civilizing force
- Discussion of movie Cameron Crowd's Almost Famous
- How rock star gets back with his group and their singing together is
what helps make this happen
- Rock music is a geopolitical force that so irks Scruton
- Movie addresses Scruton's concern that pop music is both sentimental and
idolatrous
- Crowe says it can be otherwise and often is
- Scruton sees inevitable decline
- Crowe sees both decline and poss for community that finds common
public expression in pop arts
- Scruton's theme that musical exp is active participation in a public
arena