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Tim, I agree - although I am on the verge of boredom at my job several times a day. Thus, this post!

The snob wrote:

These are musicians who, much like their contemporary classical company, are disciplined and skilled musicians with a keen understanding of theory and composition. The demands placed upon its best practicianers are no less than those placed on its classical counterparts - yet there is not the prejudice against it that so many hold to classical.

(Sorry - I cut off the part about jazz.) Are you saying you like jazz more because it's not formulaic? Are you saying that jazz is harder to play? Are you saying jazz is more popular than classical?

Wrong on all counts. Jazz (like classical, like rock, like country, like blues) can be just as formulaic. We measure what we like by what we don't like. We look to a few geniuses because there are a lot of also-rans. Jazz is just as difficult or as easy as rock can be. It depends on the composition. Jazz is just as unpopular as classical - both genres depend on the occasional break-out hit or novelty item to get people interested just enough to cover expenses and make sure everyone gets paid. Come to think of it, that sounds like rock music, too.

Steve Vai may know a hell of a lot more about guitar playing than Lightnin' Hopkins, but I'd much rather hear what Lightnin has to say on his.

The rock vs classical/jazz argument a lot of times comes down to the investment of time and attention. A lot of classical, and post big band jazz takes time to reveal itself. A string quartet or Coltrane tenor solo might take 20 minutes or more to resolve/reveal itself. Either you have the patience or interest to sit through it or you dont. In many ways it is like watching a movie or reading a story. It unfolds, takes many different directions, introduces new elements, evolves those new elements and eventually resolves itself.

Most rock/pop/r&b reveals itself in terms of structure,subject and direction within minutes if not less.

One is not necessarily better than the other, and both can be quite powerfull.

A lot of times I think people dismiss jazz and clasical because they are lazy and dont want to invest the extra amount of time and attention to hear what somebody has to say. An hour long symphony is asking a whole lot more from the listener than a 3 minute rock song.

Also, the neat thing about that whole verse/chorus simple song stucture argument is that the most powerfull and interesting thing about it is that it keeps reinventing itself. From Elvis to the Beatles to Black Sabbath to Nirvana - its really the same structures in usually the same keys, but they all manage to find a way to make it unique and their own. True, it is a simple formula, but its one that keeps working itself in new ways towards infinity.

(cracks knuckles and spits in palms)

Okay...

The weakest points of your discourse are:
*Elucidation of an evaluation protocol for critially examining music
*Reductionist definition of "music"
*Elevation (in your estemation) of lyrical content and vocal presence in importance with respect to "backing" music in rock
*Reductionist argument regarding consistency in tempo and meter
*Disparagement of repetitive or recognizeable song structure in toto
*Critique of harmonic compositional simplicity
*Dismay at the ubiquity of rock music in culture
*Disgust at the motivations of rock musicians for entering the fray
*Your postulate that rock musicians are naiive, unschooled, artless and proud of it
*Your embrace of postmodern 20th century academic music as an alternative
*(here I shudder) Your lionization of jazz as an idiom
*and finally: A retreat into international/multicultural eclecticism as a salvation.

I concede that these "weakest points" comprise your entire argument. I guess that means I think you are completely mis-reading rock music, rock musicians, the rock audience and the motivations of rockers. Let's take these point by point.

*Elucidation of an evaluation protocol for critially examining music

"I insist that the music I generally listen to be interesting, original (being the historical architype or developmental paradigm for a given style or 'genre'), and has some complexity and depth in either structure or texture. "

That the music you find interesting should be "interesting" to you is not a characteristic worth commenting on. Your definition of "original" presupposes that all music is part of a panorama of definable styles and genres. I suggest that this itself is a taxonomic distinction of no interest to those who listen to music for its own sake, on its own terms. "Complexity," as well (although it can be quantified mathematically, given a range and accuracy of measurement) is a meaningless term. I can prove (given time and a budget to do it) that every instance of music ever listened to -- even repeat listenings of the same recorded note -- is unique. As Neil Young put it, after being asked why the guitar solo in "Cinnamon Girl" was made of a repeated one-note figure, "Those are all different notes."

What I suspect is that you like music that surprises you. This element of surprise can come in many forms -- the simplest being a violation of a stylistic norm that the listener has imposed on the music externally. Hearing a cannon fired in a symphonic overture, for example, must have been surprising the first time. As was hearing a James Brown yelp over a break beat. Neither has much impact now, but a pure expression of the creative impulse doesn't require such cheap gimmicks. It is constitutionally surprising.

*Reductionist definition of "music"

I generally think of music as a succession of organized sounds or tones that occupy space over time. There are sounds, of varying pitch and/or timbre, that occupy spaces in time and are separated by periods of silence or decay and are usually deliberate on the part of the composer or performer.

Much of what I like about music would not fit into your definition. Your definition betrays a superficial understanding of the creative impulse: "Musicians deal purely in sound. " Hooey. The ultimate rationale for any artist is that he is obeying a creative impulse that manifests itself in whatever means are available. A creative, driven artist, given a rock and a flat place to put the rock, can express himself, and the expression is more than a rock. Music, if it has any value, is infinitely more than sound.

Christian Marclay is a good example. He makes records and performs with them, but his records are not strictly for listening to -- they are for wondering at, thinking about, playing with and -- yes -- listening to. I have the same complex relationship with my favorite rock bands' music. I don't just "hear" it; I appreciate it through whatever thoughts come to mind.

*Elevation (in your estemation) of lyrical content and vocal presence in importance with respect to "backing" music in rock

When someone adds words to music, the music is no longer an expression of the otherwise inexpressible, but merely an accompiament to someones linone ofguistic statement - at it's most abstract; poetry with backup sounds.

If the function of lyrics and singing were merely to dictate text for transcription/ assimilation, then you would be correct. I don't find that to be the function of vocalization in music, and I feel sorry for anyone who does. Some of my favorite vocalizations, if taken as literature, would be trivial.

Thankfully, they are not. Subject matter and literal meaning are just two of many variable functions that can shade the place, emphasis and effect of vocalization, but they are no more important than the tonal or emotional functions. I cannot criticize the vocalization of (to give one example) Will Oldham, even when he is singing pure gibberish. The "text" value of such singing is nil, and you would be foolish to think his listeners are taking it as literature.

There are other vocalists whose texts are indecipherable, yet who convey the emotional arc of their music. In the classical tradition, opera is sung in the compositional tongue, even to audiences who cannot understand it, and in a stylized form that is meant to serve an almost purely tonal role. Your willful ignorance of the utility of vocalization is telling.

*Reductionist argument regarding consistency in tempo and meter

-Fixed duple beats - usually around 120 bpm

For every example you give, I will give you 2 counter examples. Ready? Go!

*Disparagement of repetitive or recognizeable song structure in toto
*Critique of harmonic compositional simplicity

-ABABA, or similar 'song' type structures
-Major/minor modluations and 3,4, & 5 chord progressions in fixed even measure structures that repeat or occurr in predictable patterns

I will jump ahead in your argument to the part where you look for inspiration to foreign cultures. Many traditional musics are based on repetitive patters, some so stylistically hidebound that they allow only a few permissible notes, one rhythm, one meter and fixed instrumentation. Surely these musics are more limited compositionally than rock music. That they are novel to you (in a cultural anthropology sense), allows you to gloss over this glaringly obvious characteristic.

That such "limited" kinds of music have survived, thrived and remained inspirational hints that there is something to music that you haven't yet articulated: The part that can't be categorically defined, i.e. the important part.

*Dismay at the ubiquity of rock music in culture

Our parents and grandparents listen to it. Its been the predominant popular music style for almost 50 years. It's used to sell laundry detergent, salad dressing, and postage stamps.

No, that's classical music you're talking about. Or hip hop. Or Phillip Glass. Or Stravinsky. Wait -- everything can be co-opted. I tend not to watch a lot of commercials, so I'm not that "up" on what's in vogue now, but I also don't allow it to affect my taste in music. I would also argue that genuinely good music of any type is first recognized by aficionados, then their friends, then their friends, and eventually the whole world. Imagine the shock Ravel would have felt if he had lived to see Dudley Moore and Bo Derek humping to one of his less distinguished pieces.

*Disgust at the motivations of rock musicians for entering the fray

rock was not some cutting edge musical vangaurd, as much as it was a way for creepy or effemme guys in their 20's to get 14-16 year old girls to want to fuck them.

You postulate this as a universal motive. Speaking as an actual rock musician, and a friend of many rock musicians, I can say with authority that rock musicians do not get into music for either money or sex appeal. Neither are likely to follow, and everyone knows it. Wracking my memory, I can think of a few pussy hounds who were rock musicians, but they would have been had they been parking lot attendants. I cannot think of a single example of a musician who counts beaver as a significant rationale for staying involved with music.

Granted, this is repeated in the music press often enough that the uninitiated might think it is true, but this betrays a misreading of music, musicians and the lifestyle by rock journalists (a class almost uniquely ignorant of their subject pool, fraught with fantasies about them, and hence vulnerable to such delusions).

*Your postulate that rock musicians are naiive, unschooled, artless and proud of it

Why is there such a consensus that musical ignorance or lack of mastery somehow conveys integrity or honesty?

Expressive genius can overcome limitation in execution (could Beethoven play the double bass? The contra bassoon? No? Still, the Fugues are nice...), But that doesn't bother me as much as your presumption that rock musicians aren't dedicated to their performance technique. Anyone in a position to judge can name virtuoso-level mastery of rock instruments, and inventiveness in technique that would would shame those stuck in the "French" or "Italian" technique schools.

*Your embrace of postmodern 20th century academic music as an alternative

Some of the best music, in my opinion, was written for orchestras and ensembles from the latter part of the 19th century through the better part of the 20th. These composers were innovative, uncompromising, and destroyed the 'rules' of form and harmony that had been established and rigidly enforced for the previous 250 years.

I can't discount 20th Century music, since much of it is as interesting as good rock music, but I appreciate it with the knowledge that it is exclusively supported by the moneyed elite and the academic establishment, neither one of which I can comfortably align myself with on any important matter. This music is also made to a formula, but the formula is an abstraction of those ideas which can attract funding. In the current climate of technological bedazzlement and cultural anthropology, anything with both aboriginal people and the internet is a shoo-in.

*(here I shudder) Your lionization of jazz as an idiom

Jazz is another wonderful style that has many of the same qualities as classical, but with a less formal, organized approach.

By "less formal (and) organized" do you mean they posess a "musical ignorance or lack of mastery?"

Jazz serves a cultural function in the music scene. It is a signifier for musical "adulthood." To embrace jazz is to don a kind of graduation cap, signifying a broadening of tastes outside "mere" rock music. This ostentatious display of "sophistication" is an insult, and I find the graduation cappers transparent and tedious. Certainly there must be interesting music one could call "jazz." There must be. I've never heard it, but I grant that it is out there somewhere.

Jazz has a non-musical parallel: Christiania, the "free" zone in Copenhagen. In Christiania, like in jazz, there is no law. People are left to their own inventions to create and act as they see fit. In Jazz, the musicians are allowed to improvise over and beside structural elements that may themselves be extemporaneous. Sounds good, doesn't it? Freedom -- sounds good.

The reality is much bleaker. Christiania is a squalid, trashy string of alleys with rag-and-bone men selling drugs, tie-dye and wretched food. Granted Total Freedom, and this is what they've chosen to do with it, sell hash and lentil soup? Jazz is similar. The results are so far beneath the conception that there is no English word for the dissappointment one feels when forced to confront it. Granted Total Freedom, you've chosen to play II V I and blow a goddamn trill on the saxophone? Only by willfully ignoring its failings can one pretend to appreciate it as an idiom and don the cap.

*and finally: A retreat into international/multicultural eclecticism as a salvation.

There are so many sources of musical inspiration in the world. So many ethnic and traditional, classical (not just European, think Japanese, Javanese, Indian), and modern (Jazz, musique concrete, etc). It would be exciting to see aspiring music lovers and performers draw inspiration from deeper sources than the Beatles, Ramones, or Nirvana.

It occurs to me that there is a Javanese post-collegiate intellectual typing onto a web-board these words right about now: "There are so many sources of musical inspiration in the world. So many rock and pop, noise (not just Cage, think Japanese, Ann Arbor, Providence), and modern (glitch, puppet music, etc). It would be exciting to see aspiring music lovers and performers draw inspiration from deeper sources than the Gamelan..."

You are bored because you think you have grasped rock music in-toto. Because you think you understand it, you think there is nothing more to it. You are wrong. Your "understanding" of rock music is based on misconceptions, misunderstanding, ignorance (willfull and passive), and a delusion bordering on megalomanic about your insight.

There is genius in rock music.

steve wrote:Christian Marclay is a good example. He makes records and performs with them, but his records are not strictly for listening to -- they are for wondering at, thinking about, playing with and -- yes -- listening to.

steve, i could kiss you.

regards,
jet.

Your dismissal of jazz Steve is quite lazy. Its obvious you dont like it, but that does not make you above it.

This is probably the most interesting discussion about music I have ever (semi-) participated in. Thanks to everyone who took the time to write such interesting and involved posts.

Your dismissal of jazz Steve is quite lazy. Its obvious you dont like it, but that does not make you above it.

this is true, but it's like seeing an old friend. it warms my heart to encounter this argument again, after at least six months away!

i miss the blues rant also

i think there is a good point to be made in there about certain elements of jazz, but all of jazz cannot be thusly tarred in a justifiable manner

IN
MY
HUMBLE
fucking
OPINION
!

steve wrote:
There is genius in rock music.

give the man a ham fucking sandwich

*doffs hat*

*sigh*

but the forms that music takes are now dictated by the structures imposed by the very non-abstract meanings of spoken language.

Wrong. That is only if you (quite erroneously) assume that everyone writes lyrics first, and then music. However, it’s often the opposite case, in which the music dictates or at least limits the kinds of lyrics one can enhance or accompany the music with.

And… I’m sorry, but... did you just say something about the meaning of language being non-abstract? A word is to a lyricist as a single color of paint is to a painter. Perhaps a single word cannot be taken as something abstract, but when you create lyrics, you are creating art, much along the same lines as a poem or a short story.

To me, stating that lyrics have only “non-abstract meanings” indicates either a lack of imagination, a lack of emotion, or both, on the part of the listener. In any case, it seems quite foolish to blame the musicians for one’s own deficiencies.

Also, let me just point out that the voice is the most ancient of all instruments, and lyrics are also prevalent in all of the “ethnic music” that you claim to enjoy. If you were able to understand these languages, would you dismiss their lyrics and say that they detract from their music as well?

The predominance of the guitar; an instrument that, when at it's best, has no effects changing its sound and is played by someone with a fair amount of discipline and skill. It is otherwise played by everyone, with true skill and innovation by very few, and can be pulled off with little dedication or discipline (a boon to its universal popularity).

How fascinating that you mastered the guitar with so little dedication or discipline. I am sure you wouldn’t mind sharing samples of your work with all of us, in which you prove that it is indeed as easy as you say it is?

Rock is now the most conventional (and popular) thing out there.

How odd that you refer to rap music as “rock”. The current American Billboard singles chart top 10 is made up almost exclusively of rap and R&B artists. In fact, 9 out of 10 of them were rappers, or as you would call them “rockers”.

That isn't to say that I hate rock music entirely, but that 99.9% of what's been done has already been done - over and over, or wasn't interesting to begin with. It's usually at its best when fun and self-parodying.

Wow. It’s impressive that you’ve heard 99.9% of what’s been done in rock music. I’ve been listening to rock music for quite awhile, and I doubt I’ve even discovered half of the amount you claim to have reviewed and then discarded.

Or more likely, could it be that you are much like a person who can look at a Monet and a copy of a Monet and think they look exactly the same? To an untrained ear, nearly ANY group of songs from the same genre of music might sound like “more of the same”, but this is usually just an indication of a person’s complete lack of sophistication and knowledge about that particular genre. Usually, one only develops such sophistication/amasses such knowledge BECAUSE of the fact that a certain genre appeals to them.

So, please don’t embarrass (accent on the last syllable) yourself by trying to explain away the fact that rock music doesn’t appeal to you by making the accusation that it’s not innovative. This will only serve to cause any true connoisseur to laugh in your face.

And yes, I use the word “connoisseur”, because, while you seem to consider yourself one, you seem to lack proper knowledge of the details, techniques and principles of the art of rock music that would deem you competent to act as a critical judge. And, until you provide the aforementioned samples of your guitar mastery, as well as proof of the ability to reproduce certain guitar lines that myself and others will be more than happy to enumerate for you so that you may further prove the ease of mastery of this instrument, I shall remain of this opinion.

Most composers live or lived in obscurity, fought vigilantly for acceptance without compromise, worked solely for the love of what they did or do, and expect very little recognition or reward. On the other hand most rock musicians' impetus to play are the dreams of recognition, the attention of an audience, getting laid, and the money "when we get big", or "get our break".

I’ll have you know that many rock musicians work solely for the love of what they do, and, much like the masses of idealized, unmaterialistic, non-fame-seeking composers of classical music that rarely existed outside of your imagination, expect very little recognition or reward. However, you obviously wouldn’t know this, since your naïve stereotype of rock musicians seems to be based on the Guns ‘N Roses of the late 80’s. Let me assure you that there is much, much more to rock music than you are apparently capable of seeing.

Some of the best music, in my opinion, was written for orchestras and ensembles from the latter part of the 19th century through the better part of the 20th. These composers were innovative, uncompromising, and destroyed the 'rules' of form and harmony that had been established and rigidly enforced for the previous 250 years.

I think you’ve got it backwards, actually. Improvisation used to be a STAPLE of classical music. Improv was common from the Baroque period all the way up until the end of the Romantic period (1900). In fact, most medieval organ music includes instructions for improvisation, much like jazz fake books work today. The scales used for improv back then were chosen using the same principles of improvisation that are still used in jazz today. So, if anything, it wasn’t UNTIL the 20th century that classical music started to let go of improvisation and become more “stiff” and restricted, at least from the musician’s perspective. Nearly all of the great piano virtuosos and distinguished composers of the past (Back, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and many others) were excellent at improvisation, which back then was called extemporisation. You’ll be hard-pressed to find many composers of classical music who can improvise at such a skilled level in this day and age, although granted, a few do exist.

Jazz is another wonderful style that has many of the same qualities as classical, but with a less formal, organized approach.

Hmmmm. I’ve played in orchestras, and I’ve played in jazz bands, and I can tell you that the only real difference is that I will get to improvise my solo in jazz, whereas in classical, the solo is ready for me to play right from the page. The soloists are the only ones who have any freedom to do anything new and unusual, and even they have to stay within certain pre-established rules, scales, chords and time signatures. If you’re talking about small jazz ensembles, yes, there can be more freedom for individual musicians, but the same is true of rock bands of a comparable size.

It would be exciting to see aspiring music lovers and performers draw inspiration from deeper sources than the Beatles, Ramones, or Nirvana.

Since when does one aspire to be a music lover? If you're aspiring to do it, it sounds like you are trying too hard. Loving music isn’t something you aspire to. It is something you simply do, and you can use whatever the hell you want for inspiration. If you want so desperately to see people get inspired by something different, go out there and write it, but until you do, please don’t write self-righteous posts claiming that you’re a “music snob” or anything of the sort while providing lame explanations of why you personally find one type of music superior to another.

I'm considered by many to be a music snob. I don't argue with that assesment, or those who may express it, since the criteria I apply to music when listening is not that which other listeners may be sensing or evaluating.

Yeah, you don't argue with it because you obviously enjoy it.

Well, sorry to rain on your parade, bud. You’re no “music snob”. But you’re right that the “criteria you apply to music” is not the same that other listeners are using. The “criteria” you speak of is what most of us just call “taste”, and so yes, you are just like every other average Joe, whose taste is indeed bound to be different from the next guy’s.

Two things in response to Not an Intern-

1) There are more rock CDs sold every year than rap CDs.
2) Guitar, at least in comparison to other instruments, is relatively easy to play. It can take someone's whole life to master the piano or violin, and you can forget it if you didn't learn to play them when you were younger; whereas with guitar, nearly anybody can acquire a reasonable level of skill within a few years. That doesn't mean that they will accomplish greater things with those skills, but they at least have the potential to.