Problem is, it’s a lousy tune and nobody’s buying. So what can a lumbering dinosaur do to get some new love? Oldest trick in the biz: get your legions to dress gothic.

Of course I’m not talking about the band, but the UN agency.

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Do you sometimes have the feeling that the world you live in is a badly written horror flick? You aspire to freedom, peace, happiness and prosperity, but there seems to be no shortage of toxic surprises just lurking around the corner?

Problem is, you don’t have access to the script, nor do you know who the scriptwriter is. You only see the actors, basking in red carpet glory and awards ceremony honors.

Well, kudos once again for the good people at The Onion for pointing out the obvious.

Ominous Music Heard Throughout U.S. Sends Nation Into Panic

There, you heard it, the golden rule of horror flicks: “when you’re standing there relieved, that is when the horrible event is most likely to occur…” Do me a favor: keep that in mind this fall, when you’re standing in line waiting for your swine flu shot.

Just kidding: of course it’ll be fully tested and safe.

(post intro image credit: stuart anthony)

But it’s pretty much how I feel when, in polite company, we slide into that “to each his/her own tastes” relativistic chatter, Cheshire cat grins and all. Without the qualifying debate about how people acquire and develop tastes to begin with.

Also thought the music “excellence” wigs out there might appreciate the reminder that audiences care more for emotional relevance than peak performance.

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“I WANT MY ROCK STARS DEAD!” Yep, it’s none other than stand-up gadfly Bill Hicks, appearing in Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival in 1991.

Now, uh, what’s Bill doing here? This routine is probably one of the most “shock and awe” comedy segments I’ve ever come across, fully disorienting to any poor soul out on the town for an evening of fun and laffs.

“Shock and Awe“? Perhaps the only thread linking a doctrine of state terrorism to Hicks’ routine is the belief that shock can be therapeutic.

As distinctly American as this philosophy might seem, Hicks’ “shock comedy” act does bear kinship resemblance to the nihilistic absurdist performances of the dadaists, who gave voice to the trauma and desensitization effects of war during the giddy, light-headed post-WWI years in Paris and Berlin.

At least, that’s how I explain the New Kids on the Block/Hitler Youth robot dance Bill does. As fellow comedian Brett Butler put it:

For all the talk about Bill being like Hendrix or Dylan or Jim Morrison or Lenny Bruce, it was Jesus Bill wanted to be. He wanted to save us all. But Bill got freeze-framed in the scene where Jesus went through the Temple and said ‘This is my father’s house, and you’ve turned it into a den of thieves.’ Because that’s what Bill always wanted to do, he wanted to be Christ as his angriest.

So there you have it: Bill Hicks is a Dada Dandy for the Deep South, and a very, very angry Jesus. Your archetypal role model.

We’re not talking reverbs and echoes – amplifiers of natural voice qualities – but the complete synthesizing and processing of a human voice, to fit within a limited palette of teen grunts, coos and gurgles acceptable to music industry execs.

And appropriately conditioned mass audiences.

Here’s a couple of videos for you, on the issue of social engineering through the mass market shaping of our lifestyle habits:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Can the same argument be made re: music industry? The video below, featuring author and media critic Douglas Rushkoff, uncovers come surprising facts about the industry, as seen from the inside.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can by the DVD version here.

I was at my parents’, and we were receiving guests, members from my extended family. We were all sitting in the living room, sipping tea and nibbling away at Christmas treats. Conversation waned from the anecdotal to the trivial. At some point, my mother put on Glenn Gould’s landmark 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations in the background: I happily let my soul escape into Gould’s bravura performance, while my body stayed with the small talk.

I must admit, the music was a little too virtuosic for the occasion. Even at low volume. Still, I wasn’t prepared for what came next…

“hey, can we stop that and put some music on?…”

…flipped in my dad, nonplussed, who until then had been sitting quiet and nodding to the stories.

Needless to say, I got flustered. To explain…

First my disbelief: my father’s statement. To him, this music was clearly antagonistic noise. In other words, beyond the actual situation, he did not consider this stuff music. Oh holy of holies, how can Glenn Gould be considered noise, even if unsuited for the occasion!

Then my gut reaction: personalizing this. You know, like: Glenn Gould is an artist of stature. You can hear it immediately when you listen to his recordings, especially the Goldberg Variations. I’m an artist, and I believe serious, committed artists are pretty important to society. Glenn Gould is just such a person. Therefore, this kind of dismissal goes to the core of my personality.

Feh.

so what does your dad listen to?

If this seems unfairly harsh, I did opt for the broader view of things.

It goes like this: my father actually does like music. At least certain kinds of music. Specifically:

• music that relaxes you – but does not “transport” or get overly passionate
• music that successfully blends into the background – keep it subtly below the radar, at low volumes
• easy-listening genres – nothing experimental or brashly sensual, please

In many respects, I’m a lot like my father. For example, volume: I despise loud music (notable exception, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring). It’s nice also to have music that suits the situation. Plus: I worship quiet as much as he does. But I had a question to answer: how can “something of preeminent value” be summarily dismissed? What’s behind that?

And I’ve seen my dad in enough situations with music to know it’s not just… the situation.

I say Plato you say Hölderlin

The answer: incompatible world-views. About music. About art and the social value of artists.

My point: beyond debates about individual tastes, we all have philosophies of music we subscribe to, whether we’re conscious of it or not.

Knowing a little bit about philosophy, I’ll venture my dad has a “platonic” view of the role of music and artists. And it seems I have a “diametrically opposed” viewpoint. We’ll call my world-view “romantic”.

For the sake of oversimplification .

To explain: while Plato‘s views of music, taken in historical context, represent a rejection of bardic storytelling-as-knowledge, modern social engineers have sought justification for their views in his arguments.

Why social engineers? Well, for one, Plato has a prescriptive vision for the arts. You use this particular musical mode, dance and declaim your verse in such-and-such way, and your music is morally justified. Because it keeps the passions in check. Anything that arouses the passions is immoral because it destabilizes man’s “inner order”. More importantly for the social engineers, because of its emotional appeal, music properly harnessed can be a tool for maintaining social order.

You know, like Muzak. Or Mozart.

The Romantic viewpoint, by contrast, expounds a philosophy of music which posits man’s expressive needs as its core doctrine. Beginning in 18th century German revolutionary thought, the romantic creed has since become the common conception of what artists are supposed to be: complicated, hypersensitive, gifted and sometimes tragic figures, who “live through their art” .

Example: Beethoven, a deaf composer!

The romantic creed is certainly better known than the platonic viewpoint. If you’ve ever heard heard someone say “I do xyz to express something deeply personal”, you’re talking to someone who, consciously or not, has a romantic take on life and art. In fact, this philosophy is what motivates most people who call themselves “artists” to become artists to begin with.

Whether they’re committed or not, is entirely another matter .

So in a nutshell, the platonic view: DO NOT DISTURB. The romantic view: SAY IT TO THE WORLD!

If you can convince me these viewpoints are somehow compatible, well, my dad and I would certainly like to hear from you. For the moment, I’m just going to hide in my headphones and take in Handel’s Messiah, from Jesus’ point of view.

And wait for dad to turn down the volume .

Back in the 20th century, some clever people in the artistic avant-garde proved that you could “reinvent the wheel” of an artistic tradition by pulling off a few well-publicized stunts, while some important critic provided theoretical exegesis to help the audience swallow the pill.

And if the audience got hot under the collar, the critic could always pull out a protective amulet for his artist-as-gadfly, in the form of a magic word: iconoclast!

Iconoclast! That’s the guy who breaks the rulez!

Art as theology

Sure enough, look long enough into the iconoclast game of Modern Art and you’ll begin to see the man behind the curtain.

To anybody who’s followed the various avant-garde movements in modern art, it becomes clear at some point that the game is rigged, and that the art critic is doing the rigging. After all, if you upset the apple cart on a regular-enough basis, who’s going to help people make sense of what’s going on?

Surely not the artist.

To demonstrate this sweeping assertion, I’ll share with you my all-time favorite Monty Python sketch: John Cage’s 4’33” at Barbican Hall, filmed live on BBC Four. Possibly the loudest, most vivid display of Modern Art Theology known to mankind!

Instructions: just press play. Don’t fast forward. Endure this. Just once, please!

Do it for me.

seriously, though

Perhaps the biggest joke about the avant-garde is that critics have persuaded audiences time and again to take its pranks as formal seriousness.

But just so we can live in interesting times again: shouldn’t we also tell the critics the avant-garde emperor wears no clothes?

Indeed, for 4’33″ to be given a commemorative performance shows that the court jester meant no harm to the king, after all. The most telling moment for me: the audience is coughing between “movements”! The stifled atmosphere of the concert hall at its best!

agent provocateurs can be artists, too

Like a lot of the avant-garde, John Cage is famous for getting into the fight club of Hallowed Tradition to “make a point”. To me, he’s the equivalent of Marcel Duchamp and his urinal: just making sure there’s an air of ironic self-awareness wafting through art and music school lavatories.

That said, Cage seems to me more of an agent provocateur than his chess-playing mentor. At least at a deeper cultural level. Cage went further than Duchamp with the idea of playfulness and improvisation in art.

Further? Cage went fully (Zen) Buddhist. He sought to remove human agency (or “intention”, as he put it) from the creative process altogether. He wanted the universe to compose his compositions, and taught audiences sit around and simply pay attention to… to… to whatever was at hand.

‘Cause human creative tampering just messes things up with motives.

In other words, Cage’s 4’33” may be a famous stunt to some, but I’d argue that his “philosophy of creativity” has had a more enduring impact on contemporary audiences.

By making music into pure form, removing human motive, agency, intention – with his “aleatoric music” and “chance operations” – Cage would pave the way for the stochastic processes of algorithmic and computer-generating music. Thus, in a fundamental way, “processes of music” under Cage can be said to have distanced themselves from the human body.

Music could now aspire to be completely disincarnate.

And how does the body react to this? How long can we play the “interpret the concert-hall silence” game, until the (very repressed) body steps in and makes itself heard?

Cage has a point

Of course, there is a basic point to 4’33”: silence is an intrinsic part of music. Or to use the language of Gestalt psychology: silence is the assumed “ground” to the “figure” of musical awareness.

And my point is that the subliminal message of 4’33” goes even deeper: the concert-hall is more hallowed than a religious temple. It requires total bodily control, and obedience.

Got it. Got it all. Not my religion. So, can we forget Cage’s gambit now? Or at least honor his contributions… in the field of cybernetics?

Person John Cage

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Favorite? Well, in the realm of learning I’m a sucker for clear explanations, using the simplest of terms. As a workshop facilitator at the N.F.B. in Montreal, it’s my job to find the best ways to explain stuff to youth audiences (film animation, for example). And simple always gets the best results, in terms of understanding and excitement generated for the subject at hand.

That said, if you’ve ever taught some basic concepts or skills to someone, you know that making things simple and clear… isn’t all that simple.

Take our favorite subject: music. As soon as I head over to the music department of the S.E.W., I get hit by a juicy paradox.

Damn it’s hard to define music

I don’t mean describe music. Most definitions of music actually describe music, and pretty well at that. For example, here’s what the S.E.W. lay savants have to say about music:

Music is an art that puts sounds together in a way that people like or find interesting. Most music includes people singing with their voices or playing musical instruments, such as the piano, guitar, or drums. [...]

Music is sound that has been organized and made on purpose. If someone bangs saucepans while cooking, it makes noise. If a person banged saucepans or pots in a deliberate way (on purpose), they are making a simple type of music. Blues music was a music that was played by singing, using the harmonica, or the acoustic guitar. Jazz musicians used instruments such as the trumpet, saxophone.

Music started many thousands of years ago. When early people first banged pieces of wood together and enjoyed the sound, they were discovering music. Early people also discovered that when they cut off the horns of animals they had killed and blew through them, they could make interesting sounds. People also blew into conch shells and made sounds that they liked. They probably started to sing or shout in celebration. (italics mine)

This is actually a pretty good definition overall, especially in terms of speculating over the discovery of music. Except there’s one pitfall. It assumes that organized sounds made on purpose – or even merely interesting sounds made on purpose – can be called “music”.

Does this make Morse code an example of music? How about shouting at a clerk in a supermarket? (Hmm… see next section…)

Yep, the purpose part of making sounds hasn’t been clarified in this definition.

Most music theory avoids this “deliberate-sound definition pitfall” by immediately calling to attention the elements of music – melody, rhythm, harmony – and by looking at the historical/evolutionary development each of these elements.

The end result of this approach is that it has produced a very rich understanding of the development of music genres (my favorite example is the UK Channel 4 series How Music Works, hosted by Howard Goodall). But not as much about the purpose of music.

psychology lab

In the 20th century, an experimentalist tradition rose in Western music to reopen the questions of music’s inherent ambiguity. This tradition decided that composing and performing music wasn’t sufficient in itself to fully realize music’s aspirations. Instead, it sought to probe music as an open-ended experiment in human psychology and perception.

Overall a good move. Only thing: the basic stance of most experimentalists was polemical – whether a modernist composer seeking to break conventions, or avant-garde musicians wanting to go free – and stay free all the time. In other words, “experimental” and “avant-garde” music today is widely seen as a rejection of – or rebellion against – “mainstream” music. This has meant that it has carved out its niche on the basis of people accepting or rejecting its “anti-establishment” stance.

Which means that the original questions on the nature and meaning of music kinda got lost during the process of bickering about the rules.

My own feeling is this: if the experimentalists did accomplish one thing, it was to test the assumptions that everyone had been holding for so long about what is music, and what isn’t music. It did this by taking what was considered culturally as noise, and by demonstrating it could be “music”, too.

How? By staging a noise event in a concert venue.

back to the beholder?

So far, we’ve seen that attempts to define music in the details has led to more argument than insight. So why is it so hard to define the human cultural phenomenon of music?

Here’s my hunch. At root, music is a subjective phenomenon.

In other words, in our attempts to define music we’ve too long paid attention to the object of interest/contemplation – the art of music – and not enough on mind/body of the composer, the performer and especially the listener.

Yet the more I look into it, the more music seems to belong to the the “beholder” part of beauty (i.e. “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”).

One good example of this is that everyone has a fairly clear idea of what music is – and what music isn’t – for him/her.

“This stuff is music to my ears… This other stuff is just noise, crap!”

try this!

Here’s an exercise: on a blank sheet of paper, draw a vertical line to create two columns. Title one column “music”, and the other “not music”. Then start to fill in with examples.

See if you can avoid putting music you really hate in the “not music” column

This exercise might not tell you that much about music, but at least you’ll have a profile of your tastes. For bigger kicks, try this exercise with friends.

Or family, yeow!

a fresh start

Beyond personal and critical debates, I feel that this difficulty of defining music should be taken as an important clue to revise our method of looking at things. Today, in a world awash with music, more than ever we need to look at why we invented music and continue to reinvent it.

My two cents: as previously stated, Philip Dorell’s arguments about “human musicality” might be the right place to gain a fresh perspective in our efforts to understand this elusive phenomenon.

So if you don’t mind, follow me back to square one. Humans, with instruments, making noise on purpose.

Person Howard Goodall

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Funny funny, but were it only that simple, I say!

For, who has access to “one or two sonatas daily”, except… anybody with a digital audio player and the appropriate mp3 files or CD’s in his/her collection.

And this is exactly the assumption made by this tongue-in-cheek joke. Press the play button, and let Mozart take over your wounded psyche.

Right?

mozac prozac muzak

Certainly the idea of prerecorded instrumental music as mood enhancer is nothing new. In terms of industrial applications, music as mood-enhancement – or Muzak – is alive and well today in the service and retail sectors of the economy, as well as in many large organizations.

And the pharmacological equivalent is, of course, Prozac, the world’s most famous mood-enhancement pill – which the above faux-label is parodying, in a gesture of critique of our Prozac Nation.

To be sure. But as social commentary goes, how self-aware is this joke? For, whether we’re popping blue pills or music pills, shouldn’t we be asking: is the “instant mood-enhancement” way of life truly improving our lives?

In fact, has it ever? Like, if you’re hearing a Mozart sonata while being put on hold on your bank’s customer service phone line, does it truly relieve your stress?

music for the (moral uplift of the) masses

Yes, popping pills for every real or perceived ailment is here to stay. But as it pertains to music, how did this expectation of instant uplift become so widespread?

In reviewing the historical roots of the mood-enhancement view of music, I’m reminded of a little-known essay by the American idealist philosopher Manly P. Hall, called The Therapeutic Value of Music, published by the Philosophical Research Society way back in 1982.

In this small tract, Hall reviews various philosophies of music (mostly from Ancient Greece) , with an emphasis on the study of music’s effect on the human psyche. He notes that the therapeutic effects of music were well-known and understood in the Ancient world, and that philosophers thought of music as an “applied science” for mental health, what we would today call an “expressive therapy“.

The main difference between the ancients and the moderns being that the ancients thought music, in its everyday use, as integral to everyone’s mental equilibrium, whereas we moderns use music therapy approaches in cases of pathology and illness.

And this is precisely where Hall sides with the ancients. First, his description of the inner life of modern man is striking in its use of the Ancient Greek philosophical concept of psychic integrity, applied to the modern world:

Lack of personality integration also plays a part in the stress patterns of modern man. There is too much emphasis upon efficiency and not enough upon integrity. The individual is not equipped to meet shock and stress. He lacks self-control and self-directives. He is worried constantly by economic pressures due, at least in part, to the desperate effort to live beyond his means. Luxuries have become necessities, and the fear of debt hangs over millions of families. [...] We must realize that the intense struggle for economic survival has transformed our world into an economic battlefield. As in the case of most psychic disorder, the sufferer is his own worst enemy, and in many instances his troubles are due to his mental and emotional tensions. (The Therapeutic Value of Music, p. 24)

Having made a diagnosis of what ails us (economic insecurity due to debt financing), Hall goes on to suggest… the industrial application of the Ancients’ philosophy of music as the cure! That’s right, instead of suggesting corrective political action, Hall opts for the classic social engineering approach. You will no doubt be familiar with some of his prescriptions for “therapeutic music in industrial settings”:

First, as a therapy for nervous tension, the music should be heard rather than listened to. This means it must be played softly and the volume adjusted to the acoustical problem of the store or factory. If it is dominant and attracts direct attention, it becomes annoying and interferes with mental concentration. It may also conflict with the rhythm of industrial routine. Second, if the compositions played are too subjective, difficult or involved, they can cause concern or tip the listener into a negative mood. Also, unfamiliar melodies require more conscious attention and are therefore unadvisable. Third, background music – with a certain gentle insistence, pleasant and kindly, gracious and relaxed, and frequently repeated – becomes a suggestive therapy.

Fourth, problems of individual taste must be considered. When several thousand listeners listen at one time to a particular program, a common denominator of acceptance must be found. This involves the same type of thinking which endeavors to choose a popular program for radio or television. Experience shows that a certain type of music has the broadest type of appeal to every class of audience. Fifth, by trial and error it has been learned that jazz has little or no therapeutic value. If this seems to be an attack upon a popular music form, the outraged disciples of syncopation can take heart in the thought that grand opera is no better. Jazz is a stimulant and an irritant and so are all compositions featuring broken rhythms, dissonances, and exaggerated tempo. Most operatic selections require too much listening, as well as highly-trained acceptance and appreciation.

Further research has eliminated vocal music. Words do not always broadcast clearly, and the mind becomes actively intrigued and instinctively listens. Intense rhythms fatigue those who hear them and cause a positive reaction such as the effort to keep time with the feet or nodding the head. Semiclassical music, featuring persuasive melodies and familiar tunes – sometimes slightly nostalgic, is the more successful. A pleasant melodic line, carried mostly in the strings and not noticeable in the brass percussions, was found to be universally acceptable, fulfilling the old doctrine of Pythagoras. (The Therapeutic Value of Music, pp. 25-26.)

Does this sound like a program for the “psychic integration of the whole personality” to you? Or rather: the philosophy of elevator music?

from mood enhancement to sonic branding

It’s pretty clear to me that the model Hall prescribes in his Therapeutic Value of Music is what is known today as “easy-listening“. That is: that bland, formulaic, feel-good, endless-melody sonic streams that still pollute many of our indoor public environments today.

For most people, the entrenchment of elevator music in all spheres of public life is due to the successes of the Muzak Corporation. Indeed the word “Muzak” has come to be synonymous to elevator music, as “Kleenex” to snot rags.

This short video history of the Muzak Corporation briefly covers the corporation’s response to such intense negative branding:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve got a hunch that the Muzak Corporation’s radical makeover in the 1980′s has also something to do with the fact that the positive effects of easy-listening have been grossly over-estimated. I don’t know if such studies exist, but I bet one could establish a significant correlation between easy-listening music and an increase in ambient anxiety.

brave new leisure society

Perhaps Manly P. Hall and Muzak should be seen as products of the broadcast era, where the problem of mental health for the masses is viewed from above, and solutions are prescriptive. In other words, whether you’re popping Prozac, or your workplace broadcasts preselected playlists to optimize worker performance, the decisions about what’s best for everyone are made by expert psychologists.

To a great extent, this also still applies to the health sciences. In institutional contexts, therapeutic applications of music are in the hands of accredited experts in the field of music therapy, even if such applications are “personalized” and “patient-centered”.

But outside of the medical enclave, who’s privy to in-depth therapeutic uses of music? In other words: aside from your infinite mp3 playlists, how are you to meet your “personality integration needs” with music?

Taking our cue from Manly P. Hall, perhaps the answers may lie, after all, in a re-examination of the Ancient philosophy of music. But instead of a prescriptive approach, perhaps we could nurture age-old insights about music’s therapeutic properties from the point of view of learning to play an instrument, with self-expression as our goal, or deeper motive.

Here, I will give psychologist John Sloboda the last word:

We need living and socially relevant forms to replace the church choir and the village brass band. Recent pleas by major figures in classical music for the government to reverse cuts in school instrumental provision may have come too late, if the social institutions that support music making outside the academy are no longer there.

I have no idea what these social institutions might be, what they might build on, or how they can be encouraged. Psychology cannot provide the answer to such questions. All it can do is indicate some of the conditions that must be met if these institutions are to enable the flourishing of individual development.

The evidence [...] indicates to me that performance potential could be unlocked in millions of people if we could recreate social institutions that focused on musical enjoyment, and personal and communal fulfillment, rather than on the need to be best, or to meet the taxing performance requirements of a professional elite.