This is an important topic and deserves consideration by all who are
serious in their attempt to understand culture and what makes music
work.
There was a sea change in musical culture that went along with the
60's revolution. Something happened at that time that had never
happened before: a population explosion reached adolescence, and the
vagaries of the market based economy followed the tastes and
experience of that population. (The other important aspect of
adolescent boomer's experience is that, in many cases, their economic
position was a comfortable one; they had disposable money that they
hadn't earned and didn't value as adults.)
It was important to this generation of people to reject what they
understood their parent's culture to be, and they rejected the good
with the bad. Ellington out, Dylan in. (I know, that's a limited
and weighted example.)
Because of the lack of demand for structural sophistication in music
that sold well because of it's pertinence to adolescent
sensibilities, guitar grips that happened to contain the note the
"composer" was singing substituted for harmonic grammar based on the
principles of functional harmony. I could go on. Examples abound,
and they refer to observable aspects of purely musical/structural
elements, not superficial questions of whether or not one generation
accepts the rebellion of the next.
My future son-in-law was here yesterday - bringing saxophone quartet
and soprano arrangements he had done of Elvis Costello's "Juliet
Letters" - some attractive songs with decent lyrics and melodies.
The problem with the arrangements was the incoherence of the harmony
and erratic, weak and distracting voice leading that came from a too
literal copy of Costello's version. This is just one example, and it
is one that uses rather more sophisticated thinking than much of post
60s popular music.
We are all products of the culture to which we were exposed in our
most receptive (and vulnerable) years. It is possible to expand
experience beyond that, but it's not easy. That makes it difficult
for people who became affected by post 60s music in their youth to
recognize the depth of the esthetic change and the resulting
impoverishment of the musical landscape. It is hard to see the
picture if you are inside the frame.
My frame includes elements that direct my understanding in this way,
and I study this phenomenon every day. It is not a pretty musical
picture. Please understand that I believe that the human spirit is
indomitable, and that creativity continues in many areas. It's music
that's in trouble, from my perspective.
Chuck
Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com
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