MusicalEcology
ThoughtStorms Wiki
Thinking of music from an ecological perspective
I've recently been discussing my conversion to some current BrazilianPopulistMusics : Axe, Pagode and Funk.
My friends were finding these musics appallingly simplistic and in bad taste. I started thinking about two kinds of biological analogy.
The Evolutionary Analogy
"Low" or popular musics are interesting because all our sophisticated music evolves from them. Compare the many species of jazz, rock and techno which are highly sophisticated. But in all cases the orginal vesions were simplistic and populist.
On the other hand, sophisticated musics seem to be dead ends. Once a genre is sophisticated, it doesn't evolve anywhere else much.
One possible reason why is that the populist musics are generally also popular. Having a wider distribution means more opportunities to mutate.
See also this discussion on ILM: http://www.ilxor.com/thread.php?msgid=3466804
The Ecological Analogy
This analogy finds the low musics interesting because they are necessary to support the musical ecosystem. Just as it's becoming clear that life on earth is swimming in a soup of organic molecules and bacteria, without which, larger animals, further up the FoodWeb would be unsustainable; so maybe "high" or "art" musics would be unsustainable away from a soup of low musics.
How might this work? Well, the low music might provide a basic musical education. Most people listen to it, and learn some musical sensibility from it. Some then develop this sensibility into listening to more sophisticated musics. But without a general background of low music this sensibility would be harder to discover and less likely to develop.
Similarly, the low musics may keep a wider pool of musicians. Once again, many people learn to play the popular music. Some of these will teach those who develop more sophisticated musicianship. But if there was no general popular music, only a few would become musicians.
Again, mutatis mutandis for the network of shops selling music on CD and employing musicians.
Or for broadcast networks
Compare LowRoad, DisruptiveTechnology, FolkVsPop
OK, I know this is really Memetics.But that word is overused and misunderstood.
Counter Arguments
These genres are actually degenerate versions of earlier more sophisticated genres (Pagode is debased samba, current Axe and Funk are debasements of earlier versions) This proves music can devolve as well as evolve.
And anyway, just because there's a relation between low and high music doesn't mean we should actually listen to the low stuff.
SimonReynolds compares the models (including web of influences) for analysing music : http://blissout.blogspot.com/#95796929
It seems counter-intuitive and perverse to eliminate a whole set of prisms or angles that are all still capable of producing insights. One of the most interesting things about pop is that it isn't any one thing: it's radically hybrid, not just about sonics, or futurity, or innovation: rather, it's a dense, rich confusion of lyrics, image, personality/backstory, gestures, theatrics, and amy given pop object is inseparable from the wider meta-musical discourse, from its scene with its rituals and behavioural codes, and from broader social-political currents. Part of the meta-discourse involves looking back and looking forwards: myths of origin and fantasies of destiny/destination.
Transcluded from ElectronicDanceMusic
Quora Answer : What principles of ClassicalMusic don't apply to electronic dance music?
It's not really about chords or scales or things like that that people seem to get hung up about. EDM can use any kinds of chords, melodies etc. you like. From simple triads to the most complex "coloured" chromaticism you can dream up.
Unlike music played by "real" musicians, complexity isn't even a barrier. A beginner can just click in chord sequences which contain 9ths and 13ths and which vary from one key to another almost as easily as they can click in simple triads in C major. You can be as tonal, chromatic, atonal, microtonal etc. as you like.
It will still sound like EDM.
The real difference between classical music and, say, EDM is what the music is used for and how this influences overall structure.
A classical piece is intended to be listened to as a whole. That means that it contains its own narrative arc. It has a beginning, a middle, an end. It has contrasts between light and dark. Fast and slow. Happy and sad. Possibly it has a build up with a crescendo. It may have one theme, then development of the theme. Or two themes in a dialogue which come together.
Whatever clever / skilful tricks the composer uses to create this structure, the composer is writing with the assumption that the audience will listen to the whole piece and follow its narrative arc. From the beginning, through to the end.
It sets its own rules. Defines its own identity.
Whereas ...
most EDM type music (from the beginning of the disco era up until today) is written with the assumption that individual "pieces" are actually components of something larger : the mix that the DJ assembles in the club.
EDM tracks are not there to tell their own story, but as supporting characters, or supporting colour, scenery, energy, in the story that the DJ is telling over the course of the set. EDM tracks are like Lego bricks. They might have different sizes, shapes, functions. But their most important characteristic is to be easy to plug together into other bricks. To build up a structure which is greater than themselves.
THIS is why EDM tracks don't have an interesting narrative arc, or dynamical structure which changes subtly over time. Because we don't know how much of the track will actually be played. The track won't necessarily start from the beginning but be mixed in from the previous track. We may have two or three sections : a loud energetic one, a quiet beat-less one, a medium sustaining pulse. And we care about a good transition from one of these moods to another. But we don't know if the DJ will choose to use all of these sections in the set. Or just one, to make an interesting custom juxtaposition with a different track. Even playing something else on top of ours.
Because EDM composers don't really control the amount of time, or the context of what is coming before and after themselves, they can't make ambitious structures that evolve over time. Their job is to create music that has a very strong personality, in terms of its melody, energy, rhythm, which comes in and gets to the point and shines as quickly as possible. Then stays around long enough that the DJ can keep that message going for a couple of minutes. Maybe that vibe has its own internal contrasts .. the dramatic builds and drops which are now mainstream. But they can't disrupt the mood of the overall set too much. We can't just wander off, trying to turn the DJ's high-energy party into a melancholic lament. We have to leave the mood more or less where we found it, so that the DJ can fit the next record, within roughly the same genre, in.
This is the real "principle of classical music" that doesn't, and - when you think about it - can't apply to EDM. "Larger scale narrative structure". Because EDM artists are making music for a context where that large scale narrative structure is out of their control. And the DJ themself, while having control over that larger scale structure, typically doesn't have full control over the microstructure within the individual pieces.
It might be interesting to see how this evolves in future. For example, we might see "DJ"s playing not just with pre-rendered tracks from other artists, but with subcomponents that are "tracks" that offer more generative options. Possibly we can imagine in future that a DJ will have third-party plugins in, say, Ableton or Fruity that act more or less like a "track" (eg. they are bricks to build the larger structure out of), but also allow more parameters to be controlled. Perhaps even allowing common chord sequences or melodic material or motifs to be threaded through them. So that the large scale structure that the DJ builds up, does have the kind of thematic unity of a great symphony.
That's not where we are yet, but it's getting technically feasible. And if it works aesthetically, might well be where we're going.
CategoryMusic, CategoryEcologicalThinking