Blog

 FORWARD:

For more reading on this subject Mr. Strunk also recommends reading Against Muzak!

http://kazumitna.com/antimuzak/?page_id=154

“Today, and for many decades now Fame has been determining Significance; rather than Significance determining Fame.”

- Composer Richard Byron Strunk

“There is nothing wrong with having treats such as a Snickers Bar or Cotton Candy; but a diet made up solely on this for Breakfast, Lunch and Supper is self-evidently unhealthy and lacks in substantive nutrition for the health of the body; likewise a diet made up solely/ or mostly of various popular Song & Dance Band genre is also self-evidently unhealthy and lacks in substantive nutrition for the health of the mind , heart and spirit.

- Composer Richard Byron Strunk

[As a supplement to better understand my assertions above here there are 2 links to 2 useful and accurate writings regarding the state of Music in today's world. Please read caution below first.]

As a quick primer to the works to read on Against Muzak & Dumbing Down's website you need to read my own essay on these matters and its lengthy dissertation following this Forward that predates that Anti-Muzak website by many years but in essence both are covering the same ground although mine does not nearly cover this subject to the depth and breath as this mans website.

Below is a website devoted to a deep, lengthy and comprehensive dissertation on the subject of the “Dumbing down” current and pervasive through out the mass media and societies within the West.  I highly recommend this, but with the caution stated below. Remember sometimes ignorance is bliss.

None of this has anything to do with ‘elitist’; and such a catch word is not relevant to the discussion. Personally, I do have a great sympathy for the audiences of mass merchandized song & dance band genre music; Americans, in particular, work hard and long through the week and sometimes weekend; with a lot fewer paid holidays then most of their counterparts of the middle and working classes in other advanced countries in the West. Substantive Music of any real culture that is unfamiliar and unknown to a person; that  is outside of their accustomed listening habits and background, does take a significant amount of time and real effort to learn about, to listen to, to slowly begin to understand and eventually to appreciate. The truly sad thing here is that the vast majority of Americans have so little knowledge, access or exposure to any of their own countries composers and substantive works.

There is no reporting from any commercial mass news media of any kind covering Music or Composers within the USA beyond the popular song & dance bands genre and occasional film composer.  No interviews of currently living composers on TV are ever done within the USA or have been done for my entire life. The very slight exception, once in a very great while might be PBS or NPR.  Americans are generally almost completely unfamiliar and unaware of their own countries composers and the many substantive works of music written by these serious American Composers.  Almost everyone seems to know a zillion 3 minute commercial song & dance band tunes; and thats it. Still, with the news media governed by mostly mass profit criteria and only reporting on mass entertainments and music business no one has much of a chance in America to ever hear anything of what actually is going on within the more substantive and serious strata within America’s actual (or Non-business manufactured pseudo-culture) musical culture.

I happen to like quite a number of Rock bands; and I have no problem with this; but the complete disregard by America’s news and mass media is bad, really bad, ultimately bad and detrimental for all in this country and for this country. America’s news and mass media report only on the more frivolous merchandize music manufactured for the masses consumption and although these 3 minute tunes may be highly popular, they are mostly music with little weight or musical significance. This utterly out-of-balanced state of affairs has been going on for over a century and is coupled with no reporting on any musical works or composers of substance or musical importance. That there is no interest by any news or entertainment shows to report or present any news or interviews on music or composers is really tragic. They report solely on criteria of significance based on mass profit, mass merchandizing or mass popularity; with no regard for importance based on any criteria within music.

It’s as if the only literature ever read by 90% of Americans is on a musically equivalent level of craft books such as Dick and Jane reading primer books; or sometimes if lucky Dr. Seuss books. Green Eggs and Ham is a great book by the way; but imagine that in ones reading through out ones entire life never goes beyond this. This is the musical state of affairs in America today for most Americans. It’s almost funny, if it wasn’t so sad, to sometimes to hear the latest TV entertainment or news reporter speak about and praise popular music and commercial musicians who are producing work equivalent to Dick and Jane books and elevating them to a musically unearned, fraudulent, lofty and grandiose status.

I began this note by saying: Personally, I do have a great sympathy for the audiences of mass merchandized song & dance band genre music; Americans, in particular, work hard and long through the week and sometimes weekend; with a lot fewer paid holidays then most of their counterparts of the middle and working classes in other advanced countries in the West. Substantive Music of any real culture that is unfamiliar and unknown to a person; that  is outside of their accustomed listening habits and background, does take a significant amount of time and real effort to learn about, to listen to, to slowly begin to understand and eventually to appreciate. The truly sad thing here is that the vast majority of Americans have so little knowledge, access or exposure to any of their own countries composers and substantive works.

That being said, I urge everyone who ever enjoyed a Star Trek episode or other fun exploration show into the unknown reaches of Outer Space or the Outer Limits or even if simply intrigued by Hubble’s pictures or akin explorations to launch yourself into all these unfamiliar, unknown, vast musical reservoirs of substantive music written by the substantive musicians within our time and times past within America and then propel your musical explorations even further, deeper and outward into many of the serious and worthwhile substantive cultures existing now and historically throughout our world. It only takes time and repeated listening. Good Voyaging to you All in your journeys and explorations into music!

Against Muzak - The Case Against Pop & Rock*

Current Link: http://kazumitna.com/antimuzak/?page_id=174

*Caution: This is a harsh and accurate analysis and assessment on all of today's Entertainment and mass media and in particular on music; not for the faint of heart. Although, I personally see this work as a bit overstated in its harshness to “Shallow Musical Waters” (Shallow waters can be rather pleasant and appropriate for music swimming from time to time; just as treats can be pleasant and appropriate when not overly used or abused within the context of a healthy diet).

If you do not want your delusions, dreams or world view punctured do not read this. A MUST READ for all Composers and REAL Artists who are actually trained and educated within their craft beyond garage song and dance bands..

WORDS OF CONCERNS (Main Article)

The purpose of my speaking to you concerning the 3 works you are about to hear is simply to clarify and briefly explain the new compositional tools that I invented and discovered many years ago in the very early ‘80s. Throughout these many years I have used these new compositional tools to author a number of new works including these recent works you are about to hear.

However, before I speak concerning these new works I’d like to give you some sense of where I am coming from as a composer. You are welcome to like or dislike; agree or disagree with what I am about to say. I am not primarily trying to convince you to think like me concerning music, but after many years of studies, observations, and thoughtful consideration I have reached the point where I am prepared and ready to share with other people some understanding of myself as a composer. Please bare with me.


‘New Music’, simply put means, ‘New developments in Music’, or as the California composer David Cope put it for his 1970’s book title, ‘New directions in music’. It is quite possible and often done that a composition of music is made containing, inferring, or implying no knew development in craft, skills, tools. and techniques of musical composition within the full context of Western Culture. These pieces might be called a new work, such as, a new song; a new sonatina; a new fugue; etc., but they are not New Music, since their is nothing substantively new in terms of musical tones (lyrics don’t count) in what they offer. Much music has been written or made that adds little to expanding the composers resources of craft. Yet, there are still composers well studied in the craft of their profession within the context of tools, skills, and methods of Western Culture, who knowingly reach beyond the well-known ways of cliche, of merely making and remaking more and more old coherent sense patterns in very worn, well traveled, and quite familiar tonal territories and methods of musical craft. These composers choose to step into unknown and unexplored possibilities of making a kind of music never before heard, or thought, or felt within Western Culture.

These composers by their courage and works give to the rest of us and later generations additional new compositional resources and options in the art of making music in Western Culture. Thanks to these New Music composers our hearts, minds. and souls now have additional musical options, new musical possibilities, and greater freedom for musical expression of fresh and newly born musical sense-patterns. Without these composers continuing contributions to Western Culture and the continuing performance of these sometimes evolutionary, sometimes revolutionary, and sometimes revelatory new works, music making might simply degenerate into the performance of old, well-worn, and very familiar works by long dead composers turning the creative art of music making into merely a history museum of performing art of the past with some sadly, desperately or smugly trying to convince us that music is not primarily a living, vital, and present-tense creative form of art. It is ironic that much of the music of the past that we now find so familiar and is so well understood and is so well accepted by audiences was often New Music in its day breaking into new musical possibilities of its time and many times these unfamiliar, misunderstood or not understood, works were rejected by audiences rather than enjoyed.


Years ago I was told by a composer -who -teaches, that Mozart had one time been in a bit of a financial pickle and needed to generate some quick cash. He decided to write a string quartet and have a concert to make some quick bucks. It was a dismal failure financially and was quite unpopular. Why? In this quartet he had used two violas and one violin for an overall darker timber rather than the tradition up to that time of the brighter timber of two violins and one viola. What Mozart had done was an innovation. something new and unfamiliar, and added a new possibility in the writing of string quartets for all the generations of composers since that time. Thus, this work was important and significant by expanding music into new possibilities and new freedom or options of expression for the heart, mind, and soul of the composer in the art and craft of making music for audiences.


Beethoven, in his 4th Symphony, because of some of its innovations was severely panned by the young critic-composer Weber as ‘being a madhouse with the instruments being the insane inmates’ although he did add that their were flashes of genius. This work although important and significant to advances in the art and craft of making music in the West was not popular. Yet today, audiences now quite familiar with its innovations take it almost for granted and ‘naturally’ enjoy it on its’ once innovative musical terms rather then with Weber’s limited prescribed expectations of the tonally familiar of his time.


Stravinsky’s premier of ‘The Rite of Spring’ with its innovative use of quickly changing meter and the utilization of a compositional form based in discontinuity (like putting to gather puzzle pieces to make the whole) rather than the traditional formal structures based in continuity methods, caused a riot in the audience because it was so incomprehensible and unfamiliar to their prescribed learned expectations of what is music. Decades later, now at the end of this century this reaction by that audience to this New and innovative music seems really surprising to us, for we now accept Stravinsky’s then radical innovations as simply an expansion of new compositional resources for the serious composer. This work , ‘The Rite of Spring’, is enjoyed today and known as an extremely significant and important work of music but it was not a popular work at its premier.


In these examples, as in countless others, historic significance or importance in the art of music making has to do with innovation and adding new resources to the craft of making music and not simply because a work is popular. In fact, Clementi was a popular composer in his day (the Italian Mozart), but without the significant contributions to the art of music that were provided by Mozart and so historically now sounds a bit run-of-the-mill and has much less significance. Hummel was as popular, perhaps more so than Beethoven, but again without the major contributions to the art of music making that were provided by Beethoven and so historically sounds rather run-of-the-mill for that time and has much less significance. Does this mean that to be historically important in music one has to write unpopular works. Not at all. Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky all had some popular successes, but whether their innovations and works were celebrated or booed; popular or unpopular this wasn’t ultimately the primary criteria and determiner of their historic importance to succeeding generations of creative musicians. What was important to succeeding generations of composers was their authoring new and innovative open metaphoric tone patterns of content and/or form making for expansions in the craft of music, whether popular or unpopular. In many of these cases I personally bet that even though composers like to shock the audience once in a while that these composers often had hoped that these innovative works might attain some popular appreciation even though it was these very innovations that by going beyond the commonly accepted norms of their time often alienated their audiences. The point is that popularity or unpopularity of works is not a primary determiner in Western Culture of significance or insignificance in the history of music.


What of making a livelihood as a serious composer versed in the tools and skills of their profession? Business, and making a living with money as the medium of exchange is something we don’t question much in this country and even though our country is suppose to be a representative democracy it is today very much a mercantile society with business ways, business priorities, and business criteria of thought often ruling as common sense. Still, money, has only been with us for an extremely short time in the history and prehistory of our species and although very real by our current customs isn’t anything close to being a component of what has been real since the beginning of the species. The work of music making has been around for eons before money and commerce ever entered the picture. Money and commerce are the new punks on the block in human society, but the work of music making, not meaning to tread on anyone’s religious faith, according to both the Vedas of the Hindus and the Bible of the Christians is about as old as creation. What this means is that the art of music making may have determinates, priorities, and criteria and a way of assessing and living reality that are different and sometimes in conflict with the commonly accepted business priorities, norms and views of our current mercantile society in America.


For many centuries serious composers in the West were servants of the church and the church was our patron. Even though their might at times have been imposed limitations upon what we did in music by the church still their was innovation and new developments authored in the craft of musical composition. The 6 main diatonic modes were developed along with various polyphonic forms of compositions including the large scale work of the time the mass. If the creative composer was only limited to getting funds for his work based on its mass appeal or immediate popularity much significant work in the art of music making might have been even more delayed then it already was simply by having to convince merely the church overseers that what innovations we developed were in the best interest of the church.


Later, serious composers in the West had two patrons for a long time again measured in centuries between the church and the aristocratic courts. Again we as creative composers in Western Culture continued with innovations. Bach, synthesizing an equilibrium and balance between the old horizontal contrapuntal orientation with the vertical or chord coincidence of tones that eventually led to a primary interest in the vertical or chord coincidence of tones that came to be called harmonic progression and led to developing new homophonic compositional forms such as the Sonata based on harmonic progressions. The chords commonly used in pop music today were discovered or invented by classical composers. The modes and keys used by pop music today were discovered or invented by classical composers.


More recently in the past century the serious composer could actually earn a living by composing quality and substantive musical compositions. There was a sector of society that was musically trained and literate and these people wanted new music to play at home. With the advent of records at the beginning of this century the situation changed. People no longer needed to be musically literate and buy published works by composers to play at home. Now they simply bought records of music and played these records. This was the beginning of the music-business and the end of the serious composer being able to earn a living by publishing their works. For one of the main priorities in the music -business was to make a profit and that met that it would mainly produce recordings of music that would be liked as quickly as possible by as many people as possible in order to make big bucks. This was a business priority and criteria for success in business; but was and is not a musical priority and criteria for success in music.


For most of this century the serious composers in America have simply found another patron to provide them with funding to continue with their musically substantive and important creative work. That new patron has been the colleges and universities. There are pluses such as having college ensembles around to perform new works, but because of the duties of teaching there is much less time to devote to composing. For the most part, today, there really are no viable options for making a livelihood for the serious composer in this country except by teaching or holding some kind of ‘day-job’ leaving little time for the serious creative composer competent and well studied in their craft to compose new music.


Still, during this century there have been significant and important contributions made to the art of music-making by numerous creative and serious composers well versed in the craft of music. Debussy’s use of the whole tone scale; Schoenberg’s intense Chromatic method; Milhaud’s poly tonalities; Bartok’s use of altered or synthetic scales; and so much more. The craft and art of making music has expanded incredibly giving the serious composer of today seemingly unlimited choices with many more kinds of musical expression possible with tones then ever before known in Western culture.

Meanwhile, The business-music industry in the past 80 to 90 years has grown steadily until today it has become a huge commercial success and folk music’s indigenous to our country that were formerly the mainstream of listening for the musically illiterate general populace have been replaced with various kinds of uncreative commercial-music’s, plus in the mainstream populace there is an almost complete lack of appreciation and almost total ignorance of the creative work done by the serious composers of today and earlier in this century.


I used the term uncreative in describing the commercial-music’s. Let me explain with a simple example. If a child is learning for the first time during a piano lesson about basic harmonic chords within the traditional tonal modal system and on its own while at home is playing around with the harmonies and comes up with the notion of secondary dominates has this child created something new? Within the limited frame-of-reference of only the individual child’s life, the child has indeed been significantly creative and has created something new. However, within the context of Western culture as a whole, secondary dominates are nothing new and were actually created centuries ago. So within the context of Western culture nothing creative has been done by this child, yet within the context of just this child’s individual life the spark of creative work has truly begun and needs to be encouraged by the teacher. If the child chooses to continue to devote its life to the learning and study of the musical literature of Western culture, after many years of study, coupled with application in composing and / or performance, there may come a time when from this cultivated original creative spark the child, now an adult and well versed in the craft of music, might come up with a viable and significant innovation that is indeed new to Western culture and with this truly creative contribution to the art of music has now reached the stage where they are both creative within their individual life and within Western culture as a whole. Commercial-music’s exist within the greater context of Western culture as a whole and within that larger frame-of-reference is much like that child making secondary dominates for the first time. Yes, within the individual life of a commercial musician they may have done something new for themselves, or new within the severely limited context of the business of commercialized-music’s, but in the higher or greater context of Western culture as a whole the commercial musician very rarely, if ever, does anything that is actually significantly creative and new.


Currently and for some time now, the vast majority of commercial-music’s are limited (because of mass profit-incentives) mainly to the writing of songs or songlike variants (such as rap). This is true in all the various sorts of commercial music’s, more accurately called business-formats then styles, such as Rock, Country, Funk, Soul, New Age (a watered down parody of the serious creative works of the minimalist movement), Hip-Hop, and others. These songs or lyric-based compositions (for the most part) often have duration’s of around 3 minutes. The reason why this is the case has to do with business priorities; not music priorities. In all the different kinds of commercial-music’s profit-incentive rules. Since the song form is the easiest, fastest, and most immediately assessable form of music to the most people and the business priority is to make as quick and large a profit possible you have mainly songs being done by commercial musicians, produced and recorded by recording companies and played on commercial radio stations. Plus, there is a business reason why they so often only have a duration of around 3 minutes. It is because that is the attention span that sells the most currently with the general listening public. With business priorities governing they obviously want music that uses harmonies and modes already long familiar to the most people possible so the songs done with these long familiar chords and modes will be immediately accepted and liked, giving nothing new or creative in harmonic or melodic content so as to sell as many recordings as possible to make as much money as possible. Using more creative harmonies and modes developed in this century in the serious art of Jazz (not the commercialized sugar-candy jazz) and by the serious composers won’t work in the business of commercial-music in America because creative uses of harmony and mode won’t be nearly as quick to be liked or sell as much as using already long familiar and uncreative musical materials.


If you flip open a college catalog of course offerings and majors you will notice that there are dozens of various disciplines or professions possible to choose. Business is but one of these. Among many choices a person might become a Theologian, a Medical Doctor, or possibly a Composer. Today, the commercialized-music business with the business interest of profit-incentive rules the commercial-music’s for business priorities, rather then businesses funding the creative work of studied and competent composers and serving the best interests of the art of music and our societies cultural life. This means that a kid who has learned perhaps only a dozen chords on the electric guitar and in a rock band can be used and promoted by business as a significant and important musician because they are selling a lot of recordings. That is a lie. This musician prompted by business and promoted by business for business interests may be significant and important in the history of business, but is, in fact, insignificant and unimportant in the history of music in the West. Today, in this mercantile society if you have learned some of the tinker-toy basics of harmony and modes, about a semester’s worth of study, you ‘re a composer. That is like a medical student taking one semester in medical school then saying they are now a medical Doctor. It is a tragic farce, but American society buys it, unaware of the cultural mediocrity and shame it means to us all.


Unaware, for how can the general public be aware? Most of the radio stations and TV stations are commercialized and in their profit incentive interest aren’t going to tell the people the truth; Most recording companies are basically interested in making their profits from uncreative, but popular commercialized-music's rather than promoting recordings of New, and substantive creative music that would profit our country culturally. High schools spend little to no time in music classes teaching the students about modern developments in serious music. Even the Classical stations, and major orchestras often need to program mainly what they already know will be popular (Old music from previous generations of composers) to please their listeners and keep their funding secure. I’ve been listening to a mainstream noncommercial jazz station for years and I still haven’t heard any late ‘Trane. How many Americans even know about and celebrate our great American Symphonists such as: Roy Harris; William Schumann; Aaron Copland; Samuel Barber; and so many more. What of the accolades we traditionally give to great inventors and explorers in this country like Thomas Edison, Bell, Lindbergh, and again recently to John Glen. Yet in music in this country within the context of the general public there is little or no knowledge, appreciation, or mention of Charles Ives, John Cage, Harry Partch and many others. What about the accolades we give to people great in sports. What if in professional sports we as a society gave the highest salaries to the least competent players and the lowest salaries to the most skilled and competent players and further if the player is too good, too great at their sport we kick them out of their professional sport so all they could do is play their sport in sand lots after working their ‘day’ job. This would be ethically and economically unjust. This is what we do as a society with serious and commercial music. Nothing much has changed in the past 20 years concerning this situation. In the 1970’s I told a woman I was a composer and she said, “Oh, like Berry Manilow.” More recently, I was doing a performance with a group that was doing pieces from various African cultures and I was asked of what culture was my work? I replied, “the West.” She had a blank look on her face, so I said, “Western Culture.” Then a light dawned in her eyes; she figured I was from somewhere out west, like California.


Even our news media of both TV and newsprint cater primarily to what is of mass appeal and most popular, mistakenly thinking that means important, while often ignoring the actual substantive and significant new music occurring in performance venues in our communities. Recently, Aaron Jay Kernis won the Pulitzer prize (1998) for his composition String Quartet No. 2, musica instrumentalis, commissioned and premiered by the Lark Quartet. I found out by the forum newsletter. I did not hear about it on the TV news or Newspaper. One of the most important events of the year in our communities musical cultural life, an event that could even be considered of national cultural interest, was as far as the news media goes pretty much ignored. Even more neglected are the smaller accomplishments in the field and art of music. Was the landmark New Music series covered by Channel 9’s The Buzz; what about the Walker’s New music series? All this and much more ignored and neglected by the news media. The news media considers supporting and promoting the commercialized-music events to make more significant profits for the businesses promoting these events as being the important criteria for public reporting rather than significant and creative advances within our culture as determined by criteria of importance inherent within the Fine Arts and not of business. The news media isn’t reporting the significant cultural news within our communities to make for a culturally informed public, but sadly for us all, are simply serving as commercial-music’s news-lackeys.


What of Pop Culture in this country? More accurately called a business formatting system geared primarily for profit making rather than culture making. A number of years ago back in the winter of ‘90 through ‘91 I was very financially poor, and was living in a large basement room of a warehouse without a kitchen or bathroom. I had little money to spare for food, but had been given a number of boxes of sugar cookies from my family for the holidays. So, when ever I got hungry I nibbled on a few sugar cookies and my hunger soon abated. After a couple of months of this I was hospitalized because I was having manic and paranoia problems. It was determined that not only was I severely malnourished, but my body was actually starving. I had lost a great deal of weight. During those 2 months I was eating those sugar cookies I was on an almost constant sugar high and felt great. If I had not been hospitalized and put back on a nutritious diet within another month I’d have most probably starved to death, but with a sugar high smile on my face. It is obvious to most of us that a diet based solely on sugar isn’t going to give us the nutrition our bodies actually need to remain and grow healthy. What if in our country all food stuffs other then candy store items were no longer offered to the public. Would this be healthy for the American populace. Much of the uncreative musical materials used in the making of pop songs in various business formats (styles) is basically like cotton candy, chocolate bars, and gumdrops. Sure, as a treat now and then, this is fine, but as the main or only cultural diet for the hearts, minds, and souls of the American people this is deplorable and unhealthy. Business, in using music to make the bucks has promoted primarily adolescent fancies, feelings, and thought in its institutionalization of a business that mandates a perpetual youth cult and sells this as ‘culture’. Are there no adults in America? What about someone who wants something more than adolescent frustration, childish rebellion, immature thought, and juvenile dreams within ones culture? In America, they are out of luck. I am reminded here of what Saint Paul once said, It went something like this, “When I was a child I spoke (and acted) as a child; and now as a man I have put away childish (not child-like) things and I speak (and act) as a man.” My theory of American beer also relates to this situation metaphorically. Make the beer as tasteless as possible so to offend no one and then load all the money in to advertising that it is a great tasting beer that way you can sell the product to masses of people rather then to just a few. In Europe quality matters and their beers actually have strong tastes and so the ones who like it really enjoy it, but it doesn’t have the mass market potential of the tasteless beers brewed in America. Since European breweries are more concerned with quality over quantity in the selling of their beer they make better beer and enough profit to survive rather than in America where the breweries make massive profits on massive sales of beer with little taste. So also the music’s of Europe still have often a strong creative taste and although sufficient far less profit when compared to the States who have massive profits with music’s of a weak uncreative taste.


I listened to Lake Hammond's Jazz show on KSJN recently and he was interviewing a Jazz Saxophonist. This creative musician had located to Germany and put it simply, “Europe is a better situation for the artist than the states since it doesn’t have the ‘Profit Incentive’. In European states the Radio stations are nationalized and run by the government, so a creative, competent and studied musician actually has a good chance of getting their CD’s broadcast, that is near impossible in the states. The recording companies are often cognizant of their cultural heritage and looking for new significant creative work in music to record. There is funding from the European governments proud of their musical heritage, they invest in the creative musician in commissions and grants and help to support the creative composer. There is far more funding for the creative arts in Europe than in the states. The people in Europe listening to their truly public radio and TV stations are exposed to New music in their culture routinely when compared to the states. What is sad about this is that in order to succeed a fine American Saxophonist practicing a serious art medium that as he said was and is an American Art Form had to move to Europe to survive.


What is profitable for business isn’t always right, good, or healthy for America or the cultural life in America. Have we forgotten the sweat shops and children working 12 - 14 hour days at the turn of the century in this country? In European countries their are national health-care plans so even without money to pay or insurance if a person is sick the Doctors will treat them. This might not always be cost effective in the short run, but in their medical professions the valuing and saving of human life is a higher value and much older priority than too strict and rigid business points of view and priorities of profit making.


So Is the Pop culture without any real redeeming value? There have been some partially creatively successful efforts by creative Musicians within the Pop sector of music making. The German band ‘CAN’ did some very creative work using a rock ensemble format back in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s; also the English band Henry Cow a name that punned on the name of the serious American composer Henry Cowell, did some very innovative work with the standard rock ensemble. Plus, Fred Frith from that band took off with Prepared electric guitar derived from Henry Cowell’s experiments with prepared piano. Frank Zappa in our country did some excellent creative work. Early work by King Crimson was also at times highly creative. Still, these and other creative bands and musicians haven’t been promoted and successful in the mainstream of the Pop business industry and for the most part were although musically significant merely existing on the sidelines of the mainstream pop business world.


Pop music as judged by music criteria and priorities rather than by business criteria and priorities does offer us the audience a little nutrition for our hearts, minds, and souls in three ways mainly. The first is the 3rd stream efforts of creative bands akin to the ones just mentioned, and the second is when the pop musician puts their roots back into the folk spectrum of indigenous music’s of our culture. Folk roots that were originally exploited by recording businesses primarily for profit making rather then any altruistic cultural reason. After all, Pop hasn’t created much, but rather has exploited musical materials that originated in the serious and creative fields of classical music, jazz, and the folk music’s of long ago such as making music with chords derived from 18th century classical harmonic practice, and using scale-modes invented by Classical composers in the Middle ages, and the blues note (probably a century old folk music by now, developed originally in the folk slave-songs of African slaves). Musically Pop isn’t made of modern musical materials relevant to and possibly reflecting our times, but uses musical materials seriously outdated and out molded not to reflect or be relevant to our time, but to make music with materials already very familiar to the audiences ear, to sell the pop songs to as many people as possible to make big bucks. Still, when Pop emphasizes its folk roots it tends musically to hold a little more musical worth for the discerning ear. Thirdly, Pop, not in its music, but in its lyrics, occasionally offers us a great reward, such as the almost pure folk song by Bob Dylan, ‘Blowing in the Wind’, that musically is without any importance accept to so simply and perfectly support a mature and thoughtful lyric that might well prove to be timeless in significance.


What of Film music? A composer once told me that is mainly effect for underscoring the films visual component and usually there is little to no compositional concern to creating music that can stand up on its own merits. Plus a lot of those film composers simply rip off and use sound events that were originally created by a serious composer in a concert piece; these film composers make their movie effect music derived from the creative experiments and work of serious composers of the present and past without ever giving those serious composers the accreditation they deserve, such as using a 12-tone dissonance derivative from Schoenberg’s work to create a feeling of anxiousness and suspense without ever accrediting Schoenberg. The composer who told me this, years ago now, also mentioned that there were a few exceptions to this state of affairs in Hollywood, such as the composer Bernard Hermann who had developed his own highly personal and creative method and style of composition. Still, I don’t trust Hollywood much.


I’d like to say now for the record that I am not anti-business, but merely pointing out that in many areas of our lives business terms, priorities, and values simply don’t make sense or are inappropriate in regard to bettering ourselves, our society, our culture, and our country. There are many businesses that help out with food-drives; and clothing drives; and other worthwhile charities to help the disabled and/or less economically fortunate among us, and many times they do this not merely because of tax-write offs. If businesses really want to help build our culture into greatness in this country they could start by giving more funding for commissions and grants for new music by serious composers and serious Jazz artists. This is how for millennia serious artists have made their livelihood, by patrons, since any significant work in the Fine Arts will because it is creative work often be either very difficult to mass market or not immediately liked or simply not yet possible to be appreciated by the often musically illiterate mass populace. Recently, I heard on the TV news that The Rolling Stones are making ‘music history’ in the Twin cities since some of their tickets for their November concert were selling for $150.00 dollars. In the history annals of business this might be deemed significant, but in the history of music The Stones even with their huge popularity haven’t actually done much of creative significance when compared to many less known and sometimes unknown non-commercial musicians devoted to creating substantive New music in the West. Garth Brooks was recently acclaimed, “The Greatest Recording Artist of all Time”, simply because he has sold more recordings than anyone. What is true here is only that he has sold the most recordings(and this means he is ‘great’ in and of business), but this does in no way mean that he has done anything of musical significance in Western Culture. There are many artists truly far more remarkably skilled and creating in truth great music in the West that have only a limited appeal to the commercialized mass media business-manufactured audiences and whose recordings although not selling nearly as many as Garth, are, unlike Garth, actually music recordings of great musical significance in Western Culture. It is these recording artists although often not hot sellers or of massive popular appeal that are by music criteria (not business criteria) in truth, “The Greatest Recording Artists of all Time”. Even though McDonald's has probably sold more hamburgers than any other restaurant in history doesn’t mean it ranks as one of the top world restaurants. On a ranking list of the100 finest restaurants in the world McDonald's doesn’t even make the grade. Again, let me emphasize that in business history these ‘pop’ icons are significant, but in music history they haven’t even attained sufficient significant musical accomplishment to earn even a footnote. In most of the countries in Europe, as well as, some other countries also included in Western Culture unlike as in America where commercial junk music serves primarily to further real business interests ,defined in a business perspective, by business priorities, in these commercial-free countries, business serves primarily to further real music interests, defined in a musical perspective, by musical priorities (priorities that by really being creative are often at odds with American business priorities of mass merchandising). ‘Pop Culture’ isn’t a real musical culture, but merely a commercial-mass-media business industry. Why can’t businesses become patrons of New music composers and perhaps the sometimes rather outrageous, vain, and superficial Stars of pop music could also start contributing big bucks for the creation of significant new works of music by serious composers that unlike their superficial works could actually be important in the history of Western music culture within America.


As I said earlier, once in a while I too want a candy bar or possibly a scoop of ice cream for a treat; and so I too sometimes slip on the Stones, or Moody blues and give the adolescent within me a treat. Yet I don’t exaggerate and inflate this music’s importance and deceitfully credit this dance music that is made primarily for listening and dancing by teens as having major creative cultural significance. Even Paul McCarthy, of the Beatles, I heard he said a while back, that they were just a good rock band. This was both humble of him and honest; It was admirable that he said this. He wasn’t trying to pass himself off as having the importance in music history, as let us say Stravinsky, or other significant serious composers of the 20th century. I am not saying get rid of these music’s primarily designed for adolescents, but I am asking the commercial-music industry to reevaluate itself and get honest; dispense with all the inflated and fraudulent hype (lies) and start helping to produce and promote serious works of new music by the creative and educated composers of our time in our country. There won’t be mass profits of money made in this, but the mass public and American cultural life will reap great profits musically. Currently, business-music in America sells the illusion of freedom as freedom, while in Europe they actually have real freedom. Due in part to a lack of sufficient education in modern music in our public schools we have a mass populace left pretty much in ignorance concerning new music in America and they can be and often are manipulated by all the commercial-music's hype and so the business-music-industry in America sells the delusion of creativity as creativity, while in Europe they actually have real creativity.


Is the only way to become a real composer is by formal study by attaining a BA and MA in music theory and composition. Not at all, The important criteria for having attained at least a minimal competence level and knowledge of musical craft to be called a composer is by paying the dues of doing and completing all those studies that will bring you to at least a minimal skill and knowledge level needed to be a composer. This can be done by apprenticeship, by taking informal privet lessons, learning from colleagues, or even just doing it by oneself by going to the library and reading the theory books, and history books, and musical scores and practicing what you learn from these resources. If all you want is a little knowledge of harmony, modes, and keys in order to write folk or Pop songs this can be accomplished within a few months of study, but just this little bit of knowledge and ability isn’t sufficient to label oneself a composer or professional. Calling oneself a composer when one isn’t besides being dishonest, disrespects those people who actually have spent the years of study needed to be called a composer. Call yourself a Hobbyist, Student composer, Pop songwriter, or Commercial Artist, if that is what you are, but don’t call yourself a composer, a professional, or an Artist, or creative Artist unless you’ve paid your dues in education by either a formal or informal process. Merely making a lot of money by music isn’t a determiner of whether you have attained the minimally required professional know-how in music to call yourself a professional in music. There are a number of composers, artist, and professionals in music that are out-of-work, or between jobs, but they are still professionals even if they aren’t currently making a lively hood with music because they do have at least the minimal required professional know-how in music to call themselves professionals. There are many commercial musicians with little professional learning that have made it in the “big time’ with tinker-toy adolescent fast-food like junk music such as Prince, that still haven’t earned the right to call themselves either Artists, Professionals, or Composers in the craft of musical composition even though dishonestly and disrespectfully to the profession and art of music they, or sometimes others in describing them, undeservedly misuse these labels to describe these commercial Pop Icons.


One of the hopes, in this great democracy experiment called America, as was true in other democracies in the world, was that we wanted within our country to give each of our citizens the opportunity to better themselves. No longer, was a college liberal arts education only reserved for the upper class aristocrats, but this possibility was now assessable to anyone of us; No longer, was the wealth controlled by the heredity of the upper class aristocrats, but the possibility of succeeding financially was now an opportunity for anyone of us; No longer would the finer things in life such as the Fine Arts be reserved for the privileged few, but now would be available for anyone of us to enjoy; and so on.. The idea in this enlightenment wasn’t to tear everyone down from being highly educated into ignorance; or to tear down the creative and substantive works in the Fine Arts into tinker-toy commercial junk music’s, but just the opposite, to have the opportunity and freedom to uplift ourselves into a realm of a bit better material situation; a higher education and allowed to learn about and enjoy and appreciate the Fine Arts. Today, in mass society we have developed a new aristocracy of celebrities of wealth, and fame, and in idolization of these entertainment stars we have in this country neglected and almost forgotten the Fine Arts. As a society, we have traded our gold for tin. And these entertainers in our mass commercial society are often promoted and advertised by the mass commercial news media as heroes, Manafactured-heros-that-often-have-severe-and-habitual-character-defects might be a more accurate label. What of the real musical heroes in Americas high arts such as: John Cage; George Crumb; Steve Reich; Terry Riley; Charles Dodge; Henry Cowell; Fritz Bergman; Harry Partch; Kenneth Garburo; Peter Todd Lewis; Libby Larsen; Homer Lambrecht; Janika Vandervelde; Stephen Paulus; Mary Ellen Childs; Joan Tower; Randall Davidson; Ellen Lease; John Devine; Elaine Klassen; Eleanor Hovda; Pat Moriarty; Cari Thomas; Eric Stokes; Aaron Jay Kernis; and countless other competent and talented serious artists in creating new music of our time poorly funded, not promoted by the mass commercial media, unknown to the general public, yet quietly, humbly, lovingly, faithfully, steadfastly, and cheerfully continuing the substantial work needed for our real non-business-manufactured culture to progress and persevere. While, the famous, the rich, and the sometimes shallow and vain stars of the entertainment industry are lauded and acclaimed in the commercial daily news fooling themselves they deserve the adoration of their uninformed or misinformed fans.


The Commercial-world of music might point out that the situation is merely different likes and dislikes, that it’s ‘merely different strokes for different folks.’ Some people like Popular Song and Dance-band music while others like New Classical music. This is a lie. Adversity can and in the case of the commercial music ‘s does use ‘Diversity’ as a smoke screen to mask Adverse, destructive, and unjust motivations of greed using deceit as its guide and cover. Those in charge in the so called ‘music’-business consciously promote the slickest, but least creative pop songs geared to capture the biggest market possible by emphasizing in musical materials what is already most common to the most people in the people’s listening background rather than emphasizing and promoting anything that is actually in truth new and creative and be a learning and broadening of diverse musical experience, knowledge, and appreciation. The so called ‘music’-business especially is geared to exploiting the youth of this country through the pervasive musical naivety’ and cultural ignorance of the youth of this country and through these kids the music business levers the wallets of the parents open to buy for this child what the child’s musically immature heart has set its sights on to get. Their is no loyalty in this. When Jazz-bands were easy to sell and easily liked they were Pop-culture, but as soon as the late 50’s and 60’s came around wherein Jazz began to develop in to a more highly creative and serious art tradition, Pop-culture became Rock. Rock, with an easy to sell and easily liked musical syntax and vocabulary and calling itself counter-culture has in the past thirty years almost done away in the minds of the masses in America that any other REAL culture exists. Today, counter culture is passe and if one wants to go counter to mass musical reality in America it isn’t counter-culture, but Pro-culture (New Music in the Fine Arts) that is the place to be. Commercial music’s rely on music’s made of musical materials and tonal relationships that are many decades old, even centuries old in order to mass merchandise for big profits. Meanwhile, the serious composer isn’t living in an Ivory Tower during all this, but has continued throughout this century to create new works of substantive music using new musical materials developed in this century that musically actually reflect and are relevant to our adult populace and time. Pop-culture is a perpetual Ivory Tower of youth worship and exploitation musically devoid of any mature reflection or relevance in American Society and the present world situation except to make as many bucks as possible from sadly the least musically informed general populace in the West, the American people.


The commercial- world with its various business-music formats might inaccurately think and/or advertise itself as being diverse, but this is a lie. Serious composers have been into real diversity for many decades in this century, and it has been only very recently that this interest has filtered down to the awareness of the general public so engrossed in commercial interests is this country. Most recently, back in the, early ‘60s Terry Riley was studying aspects of Indian Classical music; around the same time Steve Reich was studying Indonesia Gamelan tunings that produced a natural phase-shifting and techniques involved in African drumming; and the list goes on. These and many other serious composers have studied and made use of various techniques of music making found in cultures other than our culture in the West. Diversity is nothing knew to us. If the commercial- Music- Industry was actually promoting and appreciating diversity within America then they would program these and many other serious composers works influenced by and emphasizing music of other cultures, as well as, programming the actual music’s of these other cultures. In fact, the commercial radio stations don’t even program new serious music of Western culture, possibly as a 2 hour show on Sundays, much less program serious music’s both Classical and Folk from other cultures.


Lastly, I’d like to mention that I do think that the Christian Church’s choice of beginning to use folk music elements and materials in the Mass celebration was and is a good idea. However, the church can still commission devout serious composers for scared music for worship and special events and needs to do this for the sake of accruing and having new substantive works of sacred music for praising, thanking, and celebrating the Christ. Also, I think it might be a mistake in the long term (Although it might have short term gains) for Contemporary Christian music to more and more musically imitate the musical styles in the popular commercialized-music’s of America; to move away from its legitimate classical and folk roots, in order to get more converts at a quicker pace, by using Pop-like sugary, sophisticated, slick, and cliche musical patterns of orchestration and arrangements to make like in Pop a very polished kind of music, that (unfortunately for the Church) is also often vapid, banal, trite, and uncreative in its use of tonal materials, unlike the real substantive musical worth found in new sacred folk or new sacred classical compositions. Believe me, there is a lot of this kind of music I do think is of real worth especially in it’s lyrical content, but I fear, that this Contemporary Christian music except for its lyric content, is in fact, rather than “being in the world, but not of the world”, is becoming at least musically more and more of the world rather than of Heaven or of the Kingdom of God. I talked recently to a Contemporary Christian Music guitarist and he said the Holy Spirit directed his playing, but the Holy Spirit might be limited by him as a living vessel to play through because of his unconscious and conscious limited musical awareness. Substantive musical works don’t just happen especially by a musician who leaves their heart in the darkness of ignorance, too stingy or too lazy to educate their heart in the serious field of music (the ‘It just Growed Theory’; or the ‘born with it theory’ in the main don’t hold up for although there are a number of genetic gifts that can be of value to the serious musician, even with one of these, there is still a lot of learning to do to master the profession; the ‘gift’ of subtractive music making is mostly earned by hard work). A musical education is still a good thing for it can give the heart as well as the mind of the educated musician many more possible musical options, and techniques in playing and creating new content and forms in music so that not only does the mind have a deep and comprehensive understanding, the enlightened heart is also truly free with an intuition far more powerful than mere ignorance can ever be (examples of the unconscious pouring forth a great work of music through the musically well educated minds of the day: 1) Handel: The Messiah; 2) Bartok: a String Quartet;) . So, for this spiritual musician an education might give the Holy Spirit playing through his heart and his mind more available options with him as a vessel. This young man thinking himself versed in Contemporary Christian Music had, believe it or not, never heard of possibly the greatest Composer of Christian Sacred music in Western culture of this the 20th century. I am referring of course to the French composer, Olivier Messiaen.

After all I’ve said, a person might mistakenly get the impression that to write a Pop Song is wrong; this is not the case. What is good about Pop music idioms is that because it is music made up of extremely simple musical materials and the formation of a piece of Pop music is so easy requiring very little talent or hardly any compositional skills, it allows almost anyone even people unskilled  in musical composition to have the wonderful experience of creating music. However, with the Mass merchandising of these very simple pieces (almost always songs because the music isn’t interesting enough to hold anyone’s attention for very long without lyrics) and the show business interests promoting this level of music making as a Pop ‘culture’ the American public unknowingly is severely shortchanged mistaking this quite remedial level of music making as a culture when it is only a mass merchandising business that has little to do with the Fine Arts and the highly skilled composers of Serious Music that create music for the highly and deservedly revered Musical Culture in the West. What is wrong is to accredit the musical worth of a Pop song for more than it actually is. I write a Pop tune once in a while, but I don’t lie about it and try to represent it as having major substantive creative musical worth, however, unfortunately for us all, this is too often the deceitful norm of the Pop industry in America at the end of the 20th century.
Simply put, I feel that the serious, substantive, and truly creative composers in this country do not want, nor need to be so wrongly slighted, ignored, and neglected anymore by the commercial-music-industry and the commercial-mass-media. When there is a New music concert in town, at least put it on the TV news, and let the people know about it; I’d go so far to say record it; release the CD; and promote it; for an uninformed public isn’t what the forefathers of this country intended, since it is only with a culturally informed public, (and not with the current perpetrated common denominator of cultural ignorance), that the public can preserve their freedoms and the democracy we all enjoy in this nation.


As for appreciating new Music, you only need to recall this, that the new work of music has its own patterns of tones and sense and by repetition you can eventually pick up on these patterns and start to know the piece on its terms, rather than frustratingly trying to fit the new work into prescribed familiar patterns of what you think is musical sense. Eventually, you will come to understand it for what it has to offer on musical terms natural to it; and even if by then you don’t really like it, you can at least appreciate and respect it for what it is, and understand that it is possible that another might like it for what it is.


So do serious composers give up in America, or simply move to Europe? The American Composer Forum does offer us some little hope in this cultural wasteland. Although under funded, through no fault of their own, they can still help to sponsor some performances of new music and fund some commissions and grants to the serious musician on a yearly basis. This cooperative organization is making strides in helping to reach out to high school students and our communities so the next generation might become a bit better culturally informed than the preceding generation. The Inter-Net may assist Composers to connect with the public directly and so allow composers to promote and sell their music on CD’s, as well as, obtain new commissions for new works; all done via the Web. The National Endowment for the Arts is still with us although severely under funded compared to many other countries in the West. There are still the universities and colleges that haven’t yet let down their professional standards. There are new possibilities that might yet develop in America, and all is not lost in this country, if we composers keep going; keep trying and succeeding in getting performances of our new works; keep speaking aloud our concerns; and keep creating new music.


Thank you for letting me share with you some of my concerns about the state of American culture today and I hope these ‘Words of Concerns’ rather than simply being dismissed merely as complaint or misinterpreted as being a slight against commercial musicians (that isn’t the case or my intent) are seen as an accurate and just protest against all the injustice, greed and deceit currently and for some time perpetuated in the popular song and dance band business a very limited, uncreative, and extremely small fraction of what is being done in the far larger realm of music in the West and with this essay I hope to help provoke discussion beyond the current musically bleak status quo that is a consequence of the music-business. I am thankful for this Salon initiative and the opportunity this means for composers to share with their family, friends, and each other new works of music.