[NewMusic] What David Cope is up to

[Matthew Goodheart]

On Dec 28, 2007, at 6:14 PM, barry threw wrote:

> All art is made within boundaries and limitations, and with goals in
> mind. I don't think anyone is ever "free" or some kind of non-
> contextualized muse with no forces at play on them.

No one would argue that. But it doesn't necessarily follow that all  
forces are the same or should be regarded as equivalent.

> I do not believe
> that these limitations being set by an individual rather than a
> corporate force make the created art inherently any more pure or
> valid, although they affect the art in different ways.

I'm always suspicious about the word "pure". . . on the other hand,  
I'm not so relativistic. Its hard to find the right language to talk  
about these things, since they are not absolutes, and the word "art"  
is problematic. Nonetheless, I will still stand by the statement that  
they are not the same. Music reflects the function it was created for,  
therefore music that is produced to fulfill a particular economic or  
sociopolitical function must adhere to certain strictures and  
underlying assumptions about what it is and what it does- it would not  
fulfill its purpose if it went beyond that. Again, if one believes  
that the structure on which it is based is  corrupt, then the music is  
not somehow magically free from that corruption. Its the Leni  
Riefenstahl problem, in a way.

>>  A composer in these circumstances is a craftsperson above all else.
>
> I know many composers who would take serious issue with that.

Of course they would, that's part of the trick. No one is saying they  
are not composers, nor that what they are making isn't music. It has  
to do with that weird mix between "art" and entertainment, and between  
cleverness and insight. An architect is not a sculptor, though there  
are sculptural elements to architecture;  if the architecture destroys  
its functionality, it ceases to be a building; the architect is no  
longer an architect in the technical sense.

This problem emerges from the mid- to late- twentieth century  
questioning of the categories of high and low art, in the distinction  
between "art" music and other kinds of music; a good boundary to  
destroy, since it was based on racial and class distinctions. However,  
what ultimately has been left in its wake is a populist twist on post- 
modernism where all things are considered to contain equal validity,  
no matter their source.  This has been so thoroughly exploited by  
corporate influence as to have become a general indoctrination, and to  
question it one most often gets cast as some kind of anti-democratic  
throwback, a luddite or classist or racist or elitist. This is a great  
success for those in power, since the population now polices itself  
for questionable thinking, and propaganda can substitute for cultural  
expression. Indeed, the two are most often indistinguishable; the  
composer embraces the spectacle-commodity as their own self-expressive  
"art."

> The very power of music is to transcend.

I would have to disagree. Music rarely transcends: it far more often  
manipulates, anesthetizes, intoxicates, indoctrinates, and seduces. On  
the positive side, I'll say it "provides solace" and "reaffirms your  
connection to the community and to the past," although that connection  
to the past is often fraudulent.   I come to this conclusion from  
having worked since my childhood as a musician and composer in a wide  
variety of capacities.  The music I've had to do to survive does those  
things- some years ago I realized that was its purpose. Usually while  
its doing those things, the music is "pretty"; which is why it works.  
Occasionally its even beautiful.  In almost all of those cases it  
offers the image of transcendence while in fact reaffirming extremely  
earthly authoritarian structures, basically exploiting the fact that  
music causes your brain to kick out oxytocin.

As with corporate-hire compositions, all this musical functionality is  
the realm of the artisan and craftsman; the priest and the merchant.  
There's no place for the prophetic.

> Game music does not suck because of some sort of failing on behalf  
> of  the content creators.

Did someone say it "sucked?" Some of it is quite well crafted,  
creative, and very intelligent. But that doesn't mean its purpose  
isn't to fill a particular political-economic function, and that that  
function permeates every aspect of it.  Propaganda works best when it  
is engaging and creative, which comes about when its creators have a  
personal investment in it.

What would you consider a game that is also a work or art in the  
"prophetic" sense, or where the deeper meaning of the work became of  
primary importance, though it would damage its success as a commodity?

I haven't played that many games, but the original MYST was at least  
provocative: it seemed a meditation on how we find meaning, and the  
way meaning in one realm unlocks and interlocks with deeper levels of  
meaning. It also used imagery that related to historical imagery but  
was somehow detached and an entity to itself. But it failed as work of  
art because it insisted on being successful as a "game"; its necessary  
adherence to an archetypical narrative of good and evil undermined its  
potential as any kind of revelatory work. As a piece of well-crafted,  
engaging entertainment, yeah it worked great.  But ultimately that's  
all it was.

mg



Matthew Goodheart
composer ~ improviser ~ pianist
matthew at matthewgoodheart.com
http://matthewgoodheart.com