Being a classically educated composer, pianist and musicologist with a sincere interest also in contemporary pop music, I find this type of article a bit narrow-minded.
Yes, the West perhaps the whole world is definitely culturally declining, but it is neither a simple nor linear process. It primarily reacts on musical impacts, not the amplitude. Besides, when jazz was introduced, the well-educated generations saw it as anti-music, mere noise lacking any sophistication. In addition to school programs and private instrumental lessons, in the past many children learned music at church.
What you said is very true! I certainly agree with the concluding point of this article: schools should offer more music options for students. I personally find no issue with people having personal biases: I am of course biased towards plenty of things. But being aware of my biases for what they are, I find no need to go out and denigrate the personal biases of others to justify my own proclivities….
In particular, this article takes a poorly aimed potshot at modern pop music. Musical quality is humanly subjective. Notably absent is any comment on what music is actually being analyzed, how much music has been analyzed, etcetera.
There are more people making music now than anytime previous in history. There was just much less music in the past, and fewer people making music. I find it difficult to believe, just on the grounds of numbers, that there is less diversity in music being produced nowadays than there was in the 60s. Speculation ahead: It seems to me that what this study has probably revealed, more than anything else, is that there has been a narrowing of the definition of popular music.
In the past, pop music was more diverse because the radio was a source for music listeners of ALL genres. It seems to me that pop music is just a more defined, narrower genre than it once was. The narrower your net, the more homogenous your music will be. Because of this, I imagine radio has withered to what is truly most accessible to the majority.
If you want to hear something else, you just go elsewhere. This fuddy duddying is just unnecessary pessimism. Ear training IS the most important piece to mastering jazz. I say this for a very simple reason illustrated in primary and secondary education.
The eventual goal is a Technical Paper, Thesis, and eventual Dissertation. The student has learned all the pieces necessary to write and publish a text. Jazz is no different. The student can not learn to play jazz if their ears cannot translate what they are listening to, into improvised lines on the instrument.
If an individual is able only to hear the , how can they be expected to hear anything else but that? When you make a steady habit out of listening to different jazz artists your ears will gradually open up, and you will be able to listen to improvised lines on albums and hear the chord changes.
I agree with everything apart from slating the Edge. Too much is made of his guitar effects. He is one of the most original musicians of his generation and a proven songwriter for 40 years. That being said, I recently stopped into a T-Mobile store and was appalled at what I heard. The music was a collection of electronic sounds that to me seemed anti-human. Taking us further away from our human souls rather than toward them.
The repetitive beat timed to sexual intercourse never let up. I kept wondering what a steady diet of that all day long does to the mind and the human soul. People in the store kept time robotically in my opinion. I agree wholeheartedly. Modern music all sounds the same. There is no originality or talent in the musicians. I can think of no period in which Billy Joel stands out. He is the problem. Now that my anti-Billy Joel rant is over, I think the problem is our overall cultural push toward anti-intellectualism.
The classic rock era was characterized by a move to elevate the genre to an art form. Here we see expansions of melody and harmony, inclusion of non-traditional instrumentation, more varied time signatures, increased usage of the studio as instrument, lyrics that are more poetic or socially conscious, and increased complexity of compositions. This pattern repeats itself. Hip hop transitioned from Wu Tang to Puffy Combs overnight and has devolved to dirty south then to crunk to trap whatever the hell that is to mumble rap.
Anytime something legitimately creative and intelligent is dropped on the world, it is met with a massive, anti-intellectual response. This depresses me to no end. This mindset devalues the contributions of all kinds of culturally significant works of music.
Should Afrobeat and Music Popular Brazil be dismissed for its rock influence while we simultaneously embrace reggaeton and K-pop?
Has the whole world gone crazy? Objection to the idea that music cannot be empirically quantified using science is anti-science. Music is nothing but a harnessing of the complex mathematics of harnessed vibration. I miss the days when most artists could play an instrument, write and compose their own songs and sing it.
As a Zahm House resident, we have a biweekly tradition of getting together to appreciate the female pop genre by singing and dancing along to artists like Ariana Grande, Shakira and even Taylor Swift. However, these songs should be enjoyed with the realization that they are lacking in substance.
Or, even worse, Tay-Tay is the root cause of all of this, so she can continue churning out hits about terrible men to rally her fans around her. So please, for your own sake, listen to some of the oldies and gain a little perspective as to what has happened to music.
Hopefully the record labels and even the artists themselves can create their own mechanism for delivering their music to listener and bypass Apple, Spotify, etc so they can keep more money for themselves and invest it in finding real artistic talent. I sure hope so. Avant garde bands of the 80s like Pixies, Kraftwerk and Violent Femmes just a few bands off the top of my head would not have the same audience today as they did then.
Our instagram culture has limited our attention and imaginations. Just and old guy rant for what its worth. Like Like. The only thing changing is the worsening quality of the world we live in. Cultural decline is ugly and there is no cure. Our 21 st century is fraught with mayhem and decline from mass shootings to environmental collapse to pandemics to bad music.
We as a civilization or barbarism are in steady decline and the final outcome is extinction. Yes, you are right. Modern music lacks quality because nowadays musicians just want to become famous overnight. They do not have formal training in music. You are right. Modern music is awful because they are made by musicians who are just interested to become famous overnight. They are not focused to create quality music.
I think you sound great. I have focused on vocal training but to me you have an interesting voice. Good songs and good songwriting. You have it nailed. The repeating of familiar music for the purpose of popularity and increased sales you refer to mirrors the political environment here in the States, and perhaps elsewhere too. The politicians and their media shills make up lies and repeat them over and over until people believe them.
The lies become familiar and comfortable — just like the crappy music. This technique was developed and perfected in the Hitler regime by Joseph Goebbels, his minister of propaganda, in the s and s. The 90s the last great decade for music? The 80s were the last great decade for music. But like Prince said, the 60s, 70s and 80s were the golden era. Did you just include Metallica when discussing the 90s?
That let alone tells me you simply know nothing at all young little millennial.
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