Musical Lab Work (And why your opinion about music isn't nearly as important to anyone else as it is to you)
When it comes to misnomers, experimental has got to be near the most common. This is particularly true in the arts and music.. Thanks to the ill fated hippie movement of the 1960’s, music that falls outside the simple AB pop formula has been deemed “experimental”. The term has been darkened even further with the association of drugs that was common with venturing out of the world of commercial radio. I’m sorry to say that even now, there is little sign that this image is going to be changed in the minds of the average consumer. I wouldn’t be so bothered with this if I thought that the music often described as experimental really was.
There is a deep disconnect that the arts have from their scientific brethren, even though in many ways they share a common goal.. To me, an experiment is a planned exercise where you have a hypothesis and you set to prove whether or not your hypothesis is correct through various tests. I fail to see where musical masturbation (self-indulgence of a musician in their own talents) falls into this. If anything, the professional songwriters and studio executives so painstakingly trying to score number one hits were the only people in the industry actually conducting experiments. They would have a hypothesis that a particular style or sound would propel a song to the top of the charts.. While there are a lot of flaws in terms of how songs become hits in general, the songwriters and producers all set about to put their hypothesis to the test time after time, taking apart successful songs of the past and trying to recreate updated versions using trial and error. I won’t argue that these were wildly imaginative experiments, but they meet far more of the criteria for experimentation than say, ten minute drum solos or the endlessness of The Grateful Dead.
I am not saying that starting at a singular musical idea and venturing out into the unknown isn’t useful. It is the foundation research and raw data collection that often leads to the pop experiment earlier discussed. Unfortunately for many, a lot of this venturing gets confused as a perfectly crafted song. While I don’t think any music should be praised merely for it’s reckless abandon, nor just because it is catchy as hell, the real problem stems from the fact that there is so little real musical knowledge among the general population. Some of it has to do with the fact that in terms of pop music, historically, a pretty small percentage of the performers really had a solid understanding of musical theory. There are, of course, exceptions, and it does not mean that a performer cannot be great without a formal education in music. But what ends up happening is that music of relative musical simplicity gets put out there because it’s hypnotic and easily remembered. The consumer base is not challenged consistently, so their sonic vocabulary does not increase. We then come to a situation where the people who grew up without real musical knowledge then grow up to become performers, thus perpetuating the real problem, which is when the average person is faced with music of more complexity and interest, few take to it. Those performers who do have the formal education do what they do and employ as many of the craft elements that music has to offer in relative obscurity.
On the other side of the complexity argument is the backlash from equally uneducated consumers who will criticize top 40 music purely on the grounds that it’s top 40. They will hail bands who wholeheartedly borrowed ideas from others (something that is impossible to avoid), and because of their lack of history or context, assume that because this is the first time they’ve heard it, that it must be the first time it’s ever been done. This was a huge problem in the 60’s with a band like the Beatles. The weird thing about the Beatles is that they started off with incredibly simplistic hooks and vocal harmonies which played right into the hands of the masses. Perhaps this foundation allowed them freedom to move on musically, although I won’t pretend like so many do that as they progressed that they were universally loved. Only through hindsight does the overall acceptance and appreciation of the Beatles hold up, and their achievements regarded as being progressive, even if those achievements were nothing more than applying some thoroughly explored musical tropes to pop songs.
What so many take for experimental music is just a rehashing of what composers have been doing for centuries. There is this persistent idea that just because a songwriter understands that there are such things as chord progressions, that somehow this is not only groundbreaking, but that it is automatically better than simpler music forms. An artist who employs more than three chords is suddenly propelled to be at the cutting edge of the sonic frontier. True experimentation isn’t knowing theory or how to make a particular sound, it’s using said theory or sound knowledge, then working tirelessly to apply that sound to a result that is definable and repeatable.
I won’t say I appreciate all music equally. I am a human being and I have subjective opinions about nearly everything. While some music is inherently better to me than others, it is important to remember to step away from your emotions from time to time, look at a piece of music on its own merits and where it stands in the grand scheme of music. Then decide whether or not you think the piece is doing what it set out to do. If it is, get a tattoo of the lyrics and then regret it when the song makes the top 40. If not, move on and don’t be such a dick about it.
There is a deep disconnect that the arts have from their scientific brethren, even though in many ways they share a common goal.. To me, an experiment is a planned exercise where you have a hypothesis and you set to prove whether or not your hypothesis is correct through various tests. I fail to see where musical masturbation (self-indulgence of a musician in their own talents) falls into this. If anything, the professional songwriters and studio executives so painstakingly trying to score number one hits were the only people in the industry actually conducting experiments. They would have a hypothesis that a particular style or sound would propel a song to the top of the charts.. While there are a lot of flaws in terms of how songs become hits in general, the songwriters and producers all set about to put their hypothesis to the test time after time, taking apart successful songs of the past and trying to recreate updated versions using trial and error. I won’t argue that these were wildly imaginative experiments, but they meet far more of the criteria for experimentation than say, ten minute drum solos or the endlessness of The Grateful Dead.
I am not saying that starting at a singular musical idea and venturing out into the unknown isn’t useful. It is the foundation research and raw data collection that often leads to the pop experiment earlier discussed. Unfortunately for many, a lot of this venturing gets confused as a perfectly crafted song. While I don’t think any music should be praised merely for it’s reckless abandon, nor just because it is catchy as hell, the real problem stems from the fact that there is so little real musical knowledge among the general population. Some of it has to do with the fact that in terms of pop music, historically, a pretty small percentage of the performers really had a solid understanding of musical theory. There are, of course, exceptions, and it does not mean that a performer cannot be great without a formal education in music. But what ends up happening is that music of relative musical simplicity gets put out there because it’s hypnotic and easily remembered. The consumer base is not challenged consistently, so their sonic vocabulary does not increase. We then come to a situation where the people who grew up without real musical knowledge then grow up to become performers, thus perpetuating the real problem, which is when the average person is faced with music of more complexity and interest, few take to it. Those performers who do have the formal education do what they do and employ as many of the craft elements that music has to offer in relative obscurity.
On the other side of the complexity argument is the backlash from equally uneducated consumers who will criticize top 40 music purely on the grounds that it’s top 40. They will hail bands who wholeheartedly borrowed ideas from others (something that is impossible to avoid), and because of their lack of history or context, assume that because this is the first time they’ve heard it, that it must be the first time it’s ever been done. This was a huge problem in the 60’s with a band like the Beatles. The weird thing about the Beatles is that they started off with incredibly simplistic hooks and vocal harmonies which played right into the hands of the masses. Perhaps this foundation allowed them freedom to move on musically, although I won’t pretend like so many do that as they progressed that they were universally loved. Only through hindsight does the overall acceptance and appreciation of the Beatles hold up, and their achievements regarded as being progressive, even if those achievements were nothing more than applying some thoroughly explored musical tropes to pop songs.
What so many take for experimental music is just a rehashing of what composers have been doing for centuries. There is this persistent idea that just because a songwriter understands that there are such things as chord progressions, that somehow this is not only groundbreaking, but that it is automatically better than simpler music forms. An artist who employs more than three chords is suddenly propelled to be at the cutting edge of the sonic frontier. True experimentation isn’t knowing theory or how to make a particular sound, it’s using said theory or sound knowledge, then working tirelessly to apply that sound to a result that is definable and repeatable.
I won’t say I appreciate all music equally. I am a human being and I have subjective opinions about nearly everything. While some music is inherently better to me than others, it is important to remember to step away from your emotions from time to time, look at a piece of music on its own merits and where it stands in the grand scheme of music. Then decide whether or not you think the piece is doing what it set out to do. If it is, get a tattoo of the lyrics and then regret it when the song makes the top 40. If not, move on and don’t be such a dick about it.
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