Critical Theory, Musical Practice

[luk_luk_guy]

I picked up the "Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism" recently, mostly wanting to learn the context behind some very inspiring books about narrative structure and semiotics I've been reading. I've done this but in the process have also accidentally become somewhat acquainted with critical social theory of the 20th century.

My musical takeaway from this has been a newfound appreciation of the close relationship between Arnold Schoenberg (recent inspiration) and the philosophical environment to which his work was contemporary. Namely, the practical connection of dodecaphonic / atonal music ("there are no dissonances, only more remote consonances") with the idea of cultural relativism ("aesthetic merit is not natural or universal ... it is rooted in social experiences and reflects particular class interests") that I find in Marx, Barthes and beyond.

So I'm just generally wondering whether identifying a specific critical theory development as a cause of a specific music theory development can lead to a more general process of manifesting personal ideology into musically-quantifiable stylistic elements and if so what this process might be. Maybe some others have some thoughts on this, or in general the feasibility of communicating specific moral viewpoints through one's personal musical style (lyrics not included)?

Might not be the right forum for this but a wannabe jazz guitarist I remain so here it goes lol

[Christian Miller]

I picked up the 3k-page Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism recently, mostly wanting to learn the context behind some very inspiring books about narrative structure and semiotics I've been reading. I've done this but in the process have also accidentally become somewhat acquainted with critical social theory of the 20th century.

My musical takeaway from this has been a newfound appreciation of the close relationship between Arnold Schoenberg (recent inspiration) and the philosophical environment to which his work was contemporary. Namely, the practical connection of dodecaphonic / atonal music ("there are no dissonances, only more remote consonances") with the idea of cultural relativism ("aesthetic merit is not natural or universal ... it is rooted in social experiences and reflects particular class interests") that I find in Marx, Barthes and beyond.

So I'm just generally wondering whether identifying a specific critical theory development as a cause of a specific music theory development can lead to a more general process of manifesting personal ideology into musically-quantifiable stylistic elements and if so what this process might be. Maybe some others have some thoughts on this, or in general the feasibility of communicating specific moral viewpoints through one's personal musical style (lyrics not included)?

Might not be the right forum for this but a wannabe jazz guitarist I remain so here it goes lol

I'm not sure if I have the theoretical background to offer a huge amount. I am slightly familiar with Adorno, who I would is most familiar to musicians in general and of course was a student of Berg and a champion of Schoenberg's music. Among other things - man was a polymath.

I do knew that the European post war Modernists were highly ideological, and often Marxists. (Boulez calling himself a Leninist.) Schoenberg himself was a conservative, and by the end of his life was considered larger irrelevant to the cutting edge of 12-tone/serial music.

I would not describe any of this as cultural relativism. At least in the 1950's these musicians had a very strong idea of what they considered 'good' and 'bad' and in general a strong sense (from the essays I've read) that this could be somewhat expressed in objective and unyielding terms outside of social context. Boulez himself essentially constructed his own canon to support this specific direction in music, and ironically became socially influential in artistic circles. There were very much good and bad composers in his pantheon (which of course is not unusual for a composer). I feel in this sense they ingested a very European tradition (perhaps German?) of objective criticism such as that championed by Schenker - with all its implications of superiority of the Western canon - and transmuted it into a new aesthetic.

You would hear Boulez make cultural relativist critiques of the assumptions that Mozart, say, was inherently more accessible than Stravinsky (something I VERY much agree with from my own life) - but there was still an old fashioned tacit narrative that jazz and rock were somehow lesser - so on were not as serious art musics as those within institutions such as IRCAM. Adorno of course rejected the culture industry and saw dodecaphonic music as detached from such base imperatives. He didn't like jazz at all, famously.

These days of course, as culture has shifted so much, such a rarefied attitude seems very old-fashioned. The idea that valid cultural opinions are held only by an enlightened few is today not only laughable but actually inspires open hostility. People feel they have a right to like what they like.

Today, cultural relativism means we have detailed critiques of 1980s video game music by conservatoire trained musicians on YouTube. Which I quite like TBH. If you are looking for the roots of that you obviously need to be looking into post-modernism which is very much in tension with and even opposed to earlier Critical Theory. Today, of course, many thinkers of reached a synthesis, and it's something I've seen a lot in musical education theory. Post-modernism in itself catalogues rather than advocates for the cultural trends of Capitalism - but it is hard to think of our current world as anything other than a cumulation of several decades of post-modernist culture. Nowhere can we see this more than in online culture.

Recently, the idea there might be an 'objective' form of criticism seems to have resurfaced in online culture usually framed around the desire to recapture the Good Old Days (which at present seems to be 80s-00s). Of course this is nothing new, but it has become prominent more in recent years - and it seems something echoed across the political spectrum. On the left it's seen unsurprisingly through a more socioeconomic lens - the absence of interesting lighting in Wicked being a product of the material conditions of the modern movie industry and neo-liberalism will most certainly be to blame. On the right, as always, it is seen as a decline in moral standards or the influence of the perfidious leftists making everything more Woke or whatever.

However, often both sides agree on the central canon, which is interesting. Everyone younger than 40 seems to love the Lord of the Rings movies for example*. It seems like the Arts are living in the shade of the past no matter which way you slice it. Modernism is truly dead?

I myself have VERY mixed feelings about the critical theorists and cultural relativists in music education theory. While I appreciate much of what they have to say, and they are often right, there can be a rather patronising tone to a lot of this stuff. They mostly seem to be classical musicians who have fallen out of love with classical music for whatever reason. Sometimes I wonder if they like music at all, so concerned are they at discussing social context and praxis. I mean at least Roger Scruton seemed to like listening to music!

People are not ruled by their social context - sometimes great music can cut through all of that. We saw that especially in the 60s, in fact, in the UK. But now these cultural assumptions are contributing to the death of classical music in public education in the UK. Jazz OTOH is doing well out of it. Hey ho.

*I do wonder what Adorno would have thought of Howard Shore. Shore's body of work is interesting.

[starjasmine]

So I'm just generally wondering whether identifying a specific critical theory development as a cause of a specific music theory development can lead to a more general process of manifesting personal ideology into musically-quantifiable stylistic elements and if so what this process might be. Maybe some others have some thoughts on this, or in general the feasibility of communicating specific moral viewpoints through one's personal musical style (lyrics not included)?

As manifested by the popularity of "Use an accordion, go to jail" stickers that were ubiquitous in the 1980s.

Another example would be the plethora of jokes about banjo and trombone. Like the bone player who left his horn in the car overnight only to discover that someone had broken in and left three more trombones in it. Or the well-known definition of "perfect pitch" that involves throwing an accordion into a dumpster and hitting a banjo.

On a more serious note (get it?!) I saw an article recently about "Iraq's Olivia Newton-John" who had to hide her "sinful" voice till well into her 70s.

[Christian Miller]

I picked up the "Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism" recently, mostly wanting to learn the context behind some very inspiring books about narrative structure and semiotics I've been reading. I've done this but in the process have also accidentally become somewhat acquainted with critical social theory of the 20th century.

My musical takeaway from this has been a newfound appreciation of the close relationship between Arnold Schoenberg (recent inspiration) and the philosophical environment to which his work was contemporary. Namely, the practical connection of dodecaphonic / atonal music ("there are no dissonances, only more remote consonances") with the idea of cultural relativism ("aesthetic merit is not natural or universal ... it is rooted in social experiences and reflects particular class interests") that I find in Marx, Barthes and beyond.

So I'm just generally wondering whether identifying a specific critical theory development as a cause of a specific music theory development can lead to a more general process of manifesting personal ideology into musically-quantifiable stylistic elements and if so what this process might be. Maybe some others have some thoughts on this, or in general the feasibility of communicating specific moral viewpoints through one's personal musical style (lyrics not included)?

Might not be the right forum for this but a wannabe jazz guitarist I remain so here it goes lol

To address your specific point... I'm not sure that's possible.

Certain styles of music certainly became associated with a political creed - neo-classicism was generally right wing, while post war serialism was overwhelmingly left wing. Minimalism was associated with the counterculture in the 60s, and so on. But I'm not sure these associations carry on many decades later

It seems to me the street politics of pop and rock music in the past few decades is more expressed in lyrics. Hiphop and punk being obvious examples. Beyond that these will be cultural signifiers which lose context over decades.

[jazzshrink]

...Another example would be the plethora of jokes about banjo and trombone. Like the bone player who left his horn in the car overnight only to discover that someone had broken in and left three more trombones in it. Or the well-known definition of "perfect pitch" that involves throwing an accordion into a dumpster and hitting a banjo...

What do you call a gorgeous woman on the arm of a trombone player?
A tattoo

What's a minor 2nd?
Two trombones playing in unison

What does a trombone player say on a job?
Do you want fries with that order?

[luk_luk_guy]

Sometimes I wonder if they like music at all, so concerned are they at discussing social context and praxis.

These days of course, as culture has shifted so much, such a rarefied attitude seems very old-fashioned. The idea that valid cultural opinions are held only by an enlightened few is today not only laughable but actually inspires open hostility.

It seems to me the street politics of pop and rock music in the past few decades is more expressed in lyrics. Hiphop and punk being obvious examples. Beyond that these will be cultural signifiers which lose context over decades.

Thanks for your responses and for elucidating lots of terminology which I have learned over the last like 2 weeks and now liberally misuse (or simply make up without realizing they're real terms) . I think I'm coming to a point where I don't consider music capable of reference / encoding meaning (I've suspected this for a little while now) but DO recognize it as being able to comment on aesthetic non/conformity i.e. the culture it exists in in general?

To your point about the rarefied attitude being outdated and lack of a modern monoculture in general, it does seem true that "taste as class" is kind of dead but obviously class division still exists with some kind of corresponding cultures, right? Rather than being irreparably fractured and segmented, has media simply been liberated from any obligation to people that aren't its target audience? Free to directly communicate with the exact people the author wants to reach?

[Bob_Ross]

To your point about the rarefied attitude being outdated and lack of a modern monoculture in general, it does seem true that "taste as class" is kind of dead but obviously class division still exists with some kind of corresponding cultures, right? Rather than being irreparably fractured and segmented, has media simply been liberated from any obligation to people that aren't its target audience? Free to directly communicate with the exact people the author wants to reach?

For some reason this reminds me of a classmate I had at the New England Conservatory when I was getting my Masters in Composition ~30 years ago.
She kept insisting "WE NEED A NEW SCHOOL!" ...meaning, Schoenberg et al had the Second Vienese School, Stockhausen et al had the Darmstadt School, how are we (in, at the time, the 1990s) going to collectively define our aesthetic? And of course, the whole notion of having any "school" is indeed a rarified attitude, and reeks of Taste As Class... but then, the whole (alternative) notion that music should achieve its own worth in the ears of the listener is just a bit self-serving, ain't it? I keep coming back to this quote from composer Andrew Rudin:

"Great Art, almost by its very nature, is something of an elitist enterprise because it is all but impossible for truly big ideas to be put forward in terms that the least equipped or curious listener will get."

[luk_luk_guy]

"Great Art, almost by its very nature, is something of an elitist enterprise because it is all but impossible for truly big ideas to be put forward in terms that the least equipped or curious listener will get."

This can also become self-serving, however, in the form of "it's actually really good, they just don't get it." Moving forward, I might adopt a stance of "pick an audience with something you think they should see, make that thing, show it to them" -hopefully circumventing the question of whether it's capital-'A' Art and all the baggage it comes with!

[Christian Miller]

I’m not convinced that the whole idea of Art and the Artist isn’t a recipe for bad mental health to begin with. A notion rather specific to the modern West.

Before the romantic era music was essentially a craft. The 19th century built a canon -Mozart was canonised, Salieri demonised and so on. The idea of progressivism in music became an article faith.

The Romantics celebrated bad mental health and toxic behaviour. The later modernists were really romantics in many ways even though they wore the skin of a scientific post war order. Boulez sought in some ways to synthesis the scientist and artist archetypes into one figure. But the idea of progress in music, originated by the Romantics became a central principle.

And of course Schoenberg was a hyper Romantic in some ways… expressionism being the terminus of that cultural path.

Great Art unquestionably exists, but maybe, just maybe we can’t think our way into it and it is emergent where you least expect it.

I think we are more at peace with that idea now .

Joshua Rifkin for instance reports that many of his friends who were serial composers gave up in the 60s in the wake of the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan show… they felt they’d been barking up the wrong tree.

Of course the Artist cult was the. transferred into rock and roll ….

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[joe2758]

This isn't necessarily to the point of Christian's post but

I find it interesting to compare certain composers biographies and notice their personalities compared to their music. It generally fits, but to different degrees.

For example I find much more melancholy in the music of Chopin compared to Schumann, but Schumann seemed to have much more mental health issues than Chopin.

[John A.]

For some reason this reminds me of a classmate I had at the New England Conservatory when I was getting my Masters in Composition ~30 years ago.
She kept insisting "WE NEED A NEW SCHOOL!" ...meaning, Schoenberg et al had the Second Vienese School, Stockhausen et al had the Darmstadt School, how are we (in, at the time, the 1990s) going to collectively define our aesthetic? And of course, the whole notion of having any "school" is indeed a rarified attitude, and reeks of Taste As Class... but then, the whole (alternative) notion that music should achieve its own worth in the ears of the listener is just a bit self-serving, ain't it? I keep coming back to this quote from composer Andrew Rudin:

"Great Art, almost by its very nature, is something of an elitist enterprise because it is all but impossible for truly big ideas to be put forward in terms that the least equipped or curious listener will get."

Maybe certain movements or examples are inherently elitist (especially ones that consciously embody some sort of idea or commentary), but there's an awful lot of great music that's very popular, including quite a bit of challenging/avant-gard music that attracts the interest of non-aficionados. I mean the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Zappa, Joni Mitchell (to name a few) ... Maybe it's just as self-serving for someone who composes music with a narrow audience to categorize it as beyond the understanding of the masses (or maybe a defense mechanism).

[Christian Miller]

Maybe certain movements or examples are inherently elitist (especially ones that consciously embody some sort of idea or commentary), but there's an awful lot of great music that's very popular, including quite a bit of challenging/avant-gard music that attracts the interest of non-aficionados. I mean the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Zappa, Joni Mitchell (to name a few) ... Maybe it's just as self-serving for someone who composes music with a narrow audience to categorize it as beyond the understanding of the masses (or maybe a defense mechanism).

At the end of the day, a lot of it comes down to funding.

Anyway here's an excellent video touching on the themes of Bob's post, and a small helping of critical theory in the background.

[Christian Miller]

Thanks for your responses and for elucidating lots of terminology which I have learned over the last like 2 weeks and now liberally misuse (or simply make up without realizing they're real terms) . I think I'm coming to a point where I don't consider music capable of reference / encoding meaning (I've suspected this for a little while now) but DO recognize it as being able to comment on aesthetic non/conformity i.e. the culture it exists in in general?

Yeah but this is highly context dependent. Most the canonised greats are understood to be innovators, but their music tends not to be heard that way today.

To your point about the rarefied attitude being outdated and lack of a modern monoculture in general, it does seem true that "taste as class" is kind of dead but obviously class division still exists with some kind of corresponding cultures, right? Rather than being irreparably fractured and segmented, has media simply been liberated from any obligation to people that aren't its target audience? Free to directly communicate with the exact people the author wants to reach?

BTW the video I posted in the last comment addresses these issues well.

Re: Tantacrul's reflections on the reification of classical music as a signifier of wealth, class and privilege in popular culture - there's clearly a tremendous amount of social baggage involved still with music. Classical music is dying because in part those who celebrate this association don't see it as for everyone while those who wish for public arts funding to be more equitably divided don't see it as being for everyone either.

(I think classical music should be for everyone, but clearly the majority of people don't feel that way and it's easy to see why.)

This is a COMPLETELY different thing to the perceptions of elitism surrounding avant garde or serial music. In fact the first kind of elitists hate it because it makes them like they don't get it.

I do think culture to today is much more open. When I was young listeners were very tribal.

[luk_luk_guy]

I’m not convinced that the whole idea of Art and the Artist isn’t a recipe for bad mental health to begin with. A notion rather specific to the modern West.

...

Great Art unquestionably exists, but maybe, just maybe we can’t think our way into it and it is emergent where you least expect it.

This reminds me of the "paper author" in Barthes' "From Work to Text," and the whole idea of texts (existing separately from works) in general. But as you say great art exists and to me a work's greatness has something to do with the material benefit it brings to the world. In this sense the synthesis you mention makes sense as a scientist can be measured by this same (quite vague) metric as well as politicians, doctors, etc.. All just have different methods of discourse with the physical & mental state of the human species!

Anyways if we can't get there by thinking about it hard enough then I'm SOL

The Tantacrul vid I have seen before but it's been a while so might have to revisit especially with my new powers... The distinction you draw between "fancy" elitism and "educated"(?) elitism is an interesting one.

Edit-
Me: I wonder what Freud had to say about music!
Freud: "I am almost incapable of obtaining any pleasure [from it]."
Gee thanks.

[RLetson]

Me entire adult life has been spent in various parts of the arts biz (literature teacher, academic analyst, reviewer). And my training is pre-Theory (though not pre-theoretical, since rhetoric and prosody and semantics and semiotics are all pretty systematic and abstract) and not totalizing. I tried out some systematic aesthetic Theories of Everything in grad school, but teaching, say, poetry to undergrads cured me of that. What matters are questions like "how does this line work?" and "why this word and not that one?" and "what does the poet get by choosing this form?" Why a sonnet? Is the villanelle necessary? WTF is Dylan Thomas going on about? (I still don't have a good answer for that one.)

I gradually developed a set of Basic Principles: Art is stuff made by humans. All meaning is assigned. Don't argue with the text. The artist's intention is the completed work. "Universal" means "That's the way I've always understood it," not "The universe is constructed this way." No, this poem is not about your grandma's death, though it can connect with that experience in your mind*. Very little art is entirely "new." Any assertion of "greatness" in art is audience-bound, and that audience is longitudinal. (Is this poem great? Ask me again in a couple generations.)

Evaluative rules of thumb: There's no accounting for taste. Velvet Elvis paintings. Margaret Keane. My father thought that Kenny G was good jazz. Or, as one of my ancestral aunties is said to have remarked, "Love goes where it's sent, even if it's up a dog's ass." "Is it good?" is less interesting than "How does it work?"

I agree with Christian about the pre- and post-Romantic cultural/evaluative break and the artist-as-hero, though I wouldn't go so far as to see pre-Romantic music as only a craft. Making it might have occupied the "craft" slot in the cultural-economic evironment, but on the receiving end, it was doing to its audiences what it always has--evoking feelings, serving various social and individual needs and functions (fanfares, wedding dances, love songs, tafelmusik), as well as expressing something of the producers' interior life. (Bach was certainly feeling something significant amongst all that counterpoint and choral writing.) Making products-for-sale or merely-practical items does not preclude artistic value (whatever "artistic" means). Why would a viking carve a spoon handle into an elaborate design?

The virtue of Theory for me is that it can kick up useful bits of kit (to use a Britishism) that I can detatch and add to my analytical toolbox. Almost nothing in there is matched-set/one-brand stuff. Not unlike the physical toolbox of extra items from his workbench my father gave me when I left home sixty years ago and to which I've added over the decades.

* My wife had students who were sure that Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" is a depiction of child abuse. See also I. A. Richards' Practical Criticism.

[Christian Miller]

It would be remiss of me to not point out that we see the culture of the past through the narratives of the more recent past and the present.

Bach for instance really wasn't a very typical baroque composer. He was however very influential on German late-classical and romantic composers. In the nineteenth century German music historians and critics defined a nationalist canon that we still use today. If you want to understand music history, and what the mainstream style of the early eighteenth century actually was, he's actually less helpful than Corelli. OTOH Bach's music is certainly more complex, progressive and ambitious.

Better? Not to the ears of most early 18th century listeners.

If we were to look at the 18th century in general through the eyes of the era, the most important and influential composers were Italians who are fairly obscure today. we remember Mozart, but forget Durante. Salieri becomes the villain in Mozart story (Pushkin) or worse still portrayed as an untalented jealous hack (Schaffer.)

Today in an attempt at representation, we are seeing the music of Hidegaard, Barbara Strozzi, Chevalier St-George, Clara Schumann, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Florence Price and even David Baker (yes, that one) being introduced to the canon and featuring heavily in the playlists of BBC Radio 3. This is all excellent and overlooked music, and it is probably a good thing that we hear it even without the ideological aspect. But it is a conscious ideological effort to introduce some diversity to the canon of great composers.

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this - it feels quite deliberately ahistorical. I mean there were a LOT of Italian blokes, but not many women. Just the material conditions of the time, sadly. It is true that those who cut through the attitudes of the time were pretty remarkable, though.

OTOH those who bleat on about Wokeness invading the canon OTOH usually ignore, or are ignorant of, the truth that the existing narrative was also consciously chosen through the lens of ideology. So even in 2025 it's 19th century German nationalist version of music history which is considered mainstream in the English speaking world, which I find quite funny.

I suppose I wish I could separate art from ideology, but I expect this has never been possible. If championing female and non-white classical composers helps democratise and expand diversity within classical music I am certainly for it.

[wolflen]

In trying to digest this topic and the comments.

While I dont have a educated historical context of European classical music and its presentation and acceptance on the culture of the day.

I do realize it is still alive and well to many..including some in the entertainment "culture". I have heard excerpts of Bach..Beethoven and other classical pieces
used in soundtracks of some major films that were aimed at the general population and not an elite class.

What I find in common with modern culture and its artists and how they are perceived is the way the art is communicated now with electronic media.

It is a major factor in todays "art"

Bob Dylan went from being a coffeehouse folk singer of traditional songs of the genre. He evolved to become a major influence on many top rock and
and commercial music expressions.

He was scrutinized by the press/media for an explanation of his success. What do his lyrics mean..are they protest songs..does he use hidden meanings/messages..are your songs aimed at politicians..

According to some interviews and comments of those closes to him..he became resentful of the press et al. for reading into his music elements that were not there.

Ahh..a precursor of this may have been in one of his early works ".. I gave her my heart..but she wanted my soul.."

There were other musicians..artists that were investigated by local and federal groups for being a "threat" to persons..groups..local and federal institutions during the same period
of time early late 1960s. Some Artists were accused of using drug references in their songs..Peter,Paul and Mary's song--Puff the Magic Dragon was about Pot?

And on it goes..Black lists/Red Lists..

separate art from ideology?..Perhaps art IS ideology..and always has been.

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
In tenement halls"

Yeah..that could be a threat to some

[RLetson]

Dylan certainly did write "protest" songs--or, to be precise, songs of political-social engagement. One of his models, after all, was Woody Guthrie, whose "machine" killed fascists. As for "Don't Think Twice," it's a breakup song--no need to look for a political subtext.

[omphalopsychos]

I’m not convinced critical theory really explains the development of those compositional techniques. Historically Schoenberg’s move into free atonality and then the twelve-tone method happens before what we usually mean by “critical theory” is even in place, and in his own writing he presents those changes as answers to compositional problems inside the tradition not as a social or ideological project.

For me there’s a difference between frameworks like critical theory or ethnomusicology which are ways of talking about music after the fact and the actual reasons composers change how they write. Critical theory can give you interesting readings of Schoenberg or of modernism in general but that isn’t the same thing as saying those ideas caused the techniques. The techniques came out of people working with inherited musical materials and norms and deciding they no longer wanted to write within late romantic idioms.

So I’d say modernism in music and critical theory are both responses to the same broad historical moment but critical theory itself isn’t the driver of the specific changes in musical language. It’s a way of interpreting those changes not what generated them.

[John A.]

...

So I'm just generally wondering whether identifying a specific critical theory development as a cause of a specific music theory development can lead to a more general process of manifesting personal ideology into musically-quantifiable stylistic elements and if so what this process might be. Maybe some others have some thoughts on this, or in general the feasibility of communicating specific moral viewpoints through one's personal musical style (lyrics not included)?

Might not be the right forum for this but a wannabe jazz guitarist I remain so here it goes lol

I would say that if a musician has in mind some ideology he/she can claim that there's a connection between that and his/her music, but I doubt that absent that claim anyone could detect a connection. Relatedly, non-musician ideologues can make all sorts of claims about whether a piece of music does or does not conform to the reigning ideology (as Stalin notoriously did), and musicians can go along with that (as they had to in order to avoid the GULAG). But I think it's a sham. Music is music, politics is politics. Claims that there's a genuine connection between theories (or praxis) of each strike me as nonsense. Ditto for trying to express morality through music -- you can say that this or that piece of instrumental music or your method for making music expresses your moral viewpoint, and your emotion that it does may be genuine. But no one who stumbles on your music at random would be able to tell that your sounds are moral and someone else's are not.

[joe2758]

I'm not kidding here when I say, if someone is able and willing to put this into simpler terms it sounds like an interesting discussion. I probably have an opinion, but if I'm honest it is too dense with terms I'm not familiar with. No one has to, but it sounds interesting and I'm sure the point is simpler than it sounds here?

[James W]

I would say that if a musician has in mind some ideology he/she can claim that there's a connection between that and his/her music, but I doubt that absent that claim anyone could detect a connection. Relatedly, non-musician ideologues can make all sorts of claims about whether a piece of music does or does not conform to the reigning ideology (as Stalin notoriously did), and musicians can go along with that (as they had to in order to avoid the GULAG). But I think it's a sham. Music is music, politics is politics. Claims that there's a genuine connection between theories (or praxis) of each strike me as nonsense. Ditto for trying to express morality through music -- you can say that this or that piece of instrumental music or your method for making music expresses your moral viewpoint, and your emotion that it does may be genuine. But no one who stumbles on your music at random would be able to tell that your sounds are moral and someone else's are not.

Music and musicians are a part of society and as such, subject to its politics, don't you think? Pretty basic fact and not a sham. I mean, I'm not sure about claiming a piece of music is moral or not - or putting it in those terms - but people do make judgements which in some way do bear relation to ideology whether underlying or explicit. I think Nietzsche claimed Wagner's music was immoral. I guess the relation is more oblique for music as an art because it has a very strong abstract aspect to it, but it's there, as one aspect of it. I can listen to Wagner despite his antisemitism (which does pervade his music dramas) and Stravinsky and Webern despite their dodgy politics too. Music/art definitely reflects whatever society it arises from and yet can transcend it, or at least some can.

[John A.]

I'm not kidding here when I say, if someone is able and willing to put this into simpler terms it sounds like an interesting discussion. I probably have an opinion, but if I'm honest it is too dense with terms I'm not familiar with. No one has to, but it sounds interesting and I'm sure the point is simpler than it sounds here?

"Critical Theory" is a school of thought (with through lines to later schools of thought). It originated a with group of intellectuals associated with the Institute for Social Research, a sort of think tank founded at the University of Frankfurt during the Weimar period in Germany. The best known names are Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich, and Herbert Marcuse. Jurgen Habermas is often included, as well, even though he is a generation younger. Adorno in particular wrote extensively about music, and regarded popular music and jazz as little more than commodities intended to appeal to the masses' baser desires. What is often termed the "new left" (post-Stalin socialist movements in the west) is often seen as an outgrowth of Critical theory, as are movements in cultural analysis such as post-structuralism (e.g., Foucault, Derrida).

Most of the members of the Frankfurt School were Jewish and/or leftist and fled Germany as the Nazis came to power. The institute moved first to Geneva, and then to Columbia University in NY. In parallel, the University in Exile was found at the New School in NY as a refuge for scholars fleeing fascism, and a number of the Frankfurt school people wound up there (the New School itself was founded as a refuge for scholars fleeing Columbia's rigidity and conservatism, which lends it all some irony).

The term "critical theory" is intended to express the idea that theories of (society, culture, the arts, etc.) need to be critical of what they describe in service of human emancipation from political and economic tyranny. It's rooted in Marxism (as in Marx's philosophical and economic analysis of society, not Marxism as a revolutionary political movement), but at the same time was also opposed to Marxism/Leninism as both too intellectually rigid to be able to explain what was happening in Europe and itself descending into tyranny in practice. The actual ideas are not necessarily all that complicated, but the writing is extremely difficult. Partly this is because German philosophy in general is written very densely and idiosyncratically with all sorts of compound words, neologisms, and counterintuitive repurposings of existing vocabulary. Plus it's all extremely difficult to translate, which makes it all quite a slog. So no surprise that this conversation is somewhat puzzling.

I am not by an stretch an expert in this stuff, but as someone who majored in philosophy in college I spent a little time with some of it (which seemed like a lot of time because of the slogging nature of it).

[joe2758]

Thanks John, would I be correct if I framed the question this way:

Is instrumental music capable of expressing/commenting on modern societal values., culture etc...and how is it done?

[John A.]

Music and musicians are a part of society and as such, subject to its politics, don't you think? Pretty basic fact and not a sham.

Of course. It's perfectly valid to examine musicians in terms of their political conduct, and music in terms of how it fits with institutions, relations of power etc. That's not what I'm calling a sham.

I mean, I'm not sure about claiming a piece of music is moral or not - or putting it in those terms

The OP asked whether it could be, which is what I reacted to

I - but people do make judgements which in some way do bear relation to ideology whether underlying or explicit. I think Nietzsche claimed Wagner's music was immoral.

The OP excluded lyrics from the discussion, and Nietzsche's turn against Wagner was mainly about his operas and the way they invoked religion and invented Germanic mythology. He didn't like Wagner as a person and political figure (after having previously championed him) and superimposed that dislike on his descriptions of the music, but I don't think the music itself (other than the lyrics) has any inherent political content.

I guess the relation is more oblique for music as an art because it has a very strong abstract aspect to it, but it's there, as one aspect of it. I can listen to Wagner despite his antisemitism (which does pervade his music dramas) and Stravinsky and Webern despite their dodgy politics too. Music/art definitely reflects whatever society it arises from and yet can transcend it, or at least some can.

Again, of course there's a social context for music, and people declare connections between ideas and music, but that's analogous to declaring that the color red is communist.