[NewMusic] What David Cope is up to

[Sarah - 21 Grand]

Barry:
> 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.

- Well, we've gone at it over things being "valid" before ... sure, it's
equally valid as a musical work or aesthetic experience, and there are
plenty of people that prefer the aesthetic products of corporate or
political or religious propaganda to romantic or modernist "art for art's
sake."  I am not one of those people, though I have gotten teary-eyed once
or twice to "The Internationale."

Matthew G:
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.

- However, there's a "school" of post-modernism that attempts to find
subversive meanings and themes in this functional art. One could dismiss it
as the equivalent of junior high kids looking for the silhouette of the
naked lady in Camel cigarette ads or trying to rationalize their like or the
majority of society's like for mass market "crap." And then there's the
whole issue of how audiences respond to this work. Going back to Mr.
Goodheart's example of religious music, what about the kids listening to
some of Bach's St. whoever's Passions and developing a love for
Satan-worshipping black metal?

Matthew G:
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

- Seriously, it is depressing to think that romanticism > modernism > early
post-modernism (where art was valued outside of its service to other powers
- church, state, commerce) was such a small blip. I occasionally read indie
rock discussion lists, and these people are proclaiming their appreciation
and fondness for Brittney Spears and commercial R&B albums. I find that
depressing in that there is so much music out there, one might as well
listen to something other than the current top 40.

sl