Well, today I was busy doing heavy lifting and receiving a paycheck (that's a change, isn't it?). Thus, instead of a real review or some random opinions on how strange the music industry is these days, I will discuss one of the things that has been on my mind for some time now.I was at a gathering of local writers one evening, and the topic of Beethoven came up. One of our more eccentric writers mentioned a study about Beethoven; the study concluded that, if Beethoven were alive today, he'd be making music for video games. The idea being that Beethoven was so experimental and powerful for his time, that if placed in a modern setting he'd be where the cutting edge is. Of course, this notion didn't sit well with some of our more tradition-minded writers (and I can't find the actual study itself), but I found the idea fascinating.
Perhaps our traditionalists were thinking of old Atari games or classics of Nintendo with cheesy chiptunes, but I argue that certain classics of video gaming had brilliant soundtracks. The one that I've been stuck on for awhile is the original NES Metroid. The title screen music, even as a chiptune, was quite amazing. The Legend of Zelda? Just plain cool. When we were young, we probably didn't pay much attention to the music, but now, we find those old themes captivating. I don't think I ever noticed how potent game music could be until Chrono Trigger on the Super Nintendo. That soundtrack was so good, it was made available on CD (mostly as an import from Japan; take that whatever way you please).
Technology has progressed to the point where games can have phenomenally rich music. If original music isn't quite the speed of the developers, current technology can accommodate a soundtrack consisting of real-world rock music (listen to the car stereos in the Grand Theft Auto series, for example).
Also, it seems like everyone and their dog has some kind of program to remix music on their computers. Video game music was certainly not forgotten in that respect, with vast legions of people layering unimaginative techno beats over old chiptunes. However, some have taken to remixing with a flair. Some aren't so much remixing as they are reinterpreting, using (gasp!) real instruments. Take this jazz variation on the Darkworld theme from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Slick.
I'm really impressed with where we've been and where we're going in this realm. It's a new world of technology and development, waiting for a musical genius to bring greater respect to this artform. If I am ever arrested for running an illegal Beethoven cloning experiment in my basement to achieve this end, please remember the cause and continue to fight the good fight.
Overclocked Remix (Fair warning: most are thumping techno. Listen before you download.)
a couple favorites from OCRemix:
Chrono Trigger "600 AD in Piano"
Metroid theme remix by efsisos
Bother me about putting up a decent review when my arms don't feel like they're going to fall off.
4 comments:
That had to be Rennselaer.
Since I consider to be TR to be the only living equivalent of LVB, and he did the Quake Soundtrack, I can almost buy it.
But not quite.
The thing is, people cared about classical music in Beethoven's day; he was a god in his own time and after.
Today, the classical, orchestral music being made is either used as film soundtracks or being performed for and listened to by elite, erudite obscurants who are educated enough to like it.
Doesn't require education to appreciate good music.
The problem is, music is so common now that it's taken for granted. It's everywhere: television, advertisements, movies, games, websites, greeting cards (!), etc. Imagine how powerful any kind of music would be if we weren't surrounded by music all the time.
It doesn't require education to appreciate good music.
But your average person does not have the musical sophistication, which needs to be cultivated and is best cultivated through education, to appreciate the subtleties, the dissonance, the quietness, the austerity, the "thought-tormented" quality of today's "classical music."
I'm not pissing on the layperson. It's just the truth. The apex of music achievement in the average American's view is karaoke done convincingly by a golden calf (American Idol) or one measure of an already written song repeated for four minutes over a "phat beat" with rhyming words spoken over it and a generic woman's voice wailing some generic chorus about love and lust (most of today's top-selling hip-hop).
People have been conditioned to expect and to like the painfully formulaic. Classical music is something for movies, cartoons, and ringtones for many.
As for today's classical music, its border-territory pariah nature is already being developed and exposed as far back as Joyce's "The Dead," and that's the early twentieth century, when a new composition, such as "The Rites of Spring," justified newsprint. When was the last time you read of a new classical composition?
It is made by the highly educated and formal for the highly educated and formal. While it may sound like I have a tone here and am being a Marxist, I am simply stating the facts. There are those who might appreciate the perverse swoons of torturous and austere raking found in today's fugues, but they rarely have the opportunity to hear it in the first place.
The only articles about modern classical music I have read have been book reviews of books written about the subject. It's on the endangered species list and no one really cares enough to give it its own little SeaWorld where it can flourish and be admired.
The way that we are conditioned by constant music pumping to want and to shop is somethign that deeply saddens and sickens me.
I stated that education isn't a requirement for musical taste based on the fact that I have known people with little to no higher education that would sooner pick up Wagner and Beethoven than Top 40 garbage. It's a personality and personal preference issue, not an educational one. How many of your fellow graduate students pop in mainstream hip-hop, or watch American Idol (good pun on the Golden Calf there, by the way) every night it runs?
I'm assuming you, like I did in class, scribbled names of composers in the margins of notebooks countless times whenever whatever professor mentioned them (Geoffrey Hill's The Orchards of Syon was great for this; ask Bob Waugh about it). That's the sort of behavior we would like to encourage in the classroom, but, unfortunately, we seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule. Once again, behavior and personality.
The zeitgeist of the 21st century isn't patience. It's geared towards ruining patience by advertising and myriad distractions. The generations that grew up expecting interruptions every 5 minutes via television are trained to have short attention spans; musical compositions that subtly unfold over ten, 20, 50, 75 minutes are an unbearable eternity.
I will agree that appreciation is best cultivated by education. One doesn't know what's out there until someone takes him by the hand and leads him, or at least lends a roadmap. But, as I am fond of saying, you can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think. Or develop their own tastes, for that matter.
It's also important to remember that the grand orchestral works of Beethoven and Mozart weren't written for the masses. That sort of music was intended for the upper class, the "highly educated and formal" of the time. Things are a bit different now; direct comparison between then and now isn't accurate. Today's highly educated aren't always formal, and the formal aren't always highly educated. I'd hardly call Bukowski either highly educated or formal, but I am told he was a great appreciator of the classics of music.
Orchestral music does need it's own playground (I object to the SeaWorld metaphor, mostly because I feel sorry for the animals caged therein). But, who will play there? It always was a limited-audience style; the masses enjoyed whatever folk bands or street music was available, the most direct comparison to contemporary counterparts being modern pop music. Maybe things haven't changed as much as we are led to believe.
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