Postmodernism is an assault on the authority of modernism . The hegemonic pretensions of the Rational are replaced by an openess, that is, a toleration for different theories.

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This blockhead doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That sentence is a photocopy of a photocopy.
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A much better writer opens the book by acknowledging that, by then (1993), Postmodernism had made its way from a new and widely rejected theoretical movement to a phase of consolidation. Poststructuralist authors, says the writer, have produced ideas which are in general circulation and influence various fields including: ethnography, geography and archeology. Himmlefarb makes the same point from the critical point of view.
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Across the book where the subject is discussed, postmodernism is conceptualized by the notion that culture is dominated by by an epistemological hierarchy that pervades the imagery, discourse and subconscious social techniques of that culture. The movement seeks to expose these wires and challenge their architects. There is a certain denial of the existence of ‘architects’ and yet it is recognized that there are, at least, active agents.
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Multiculturalism is different to postmodernism. It is a policy and a fact of life. The policy usually follows the fact of life. The Right accuses the policy of seeking to render all cultural practices equivalent. This is neither entirely untrue nor entirely fair.
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There are numerous anecdotes of left-liberals particularly in the UK who have trouble pronouncing judgement on other peoples’ cultures no matter how severe or bigoted. I think, in Australia, we’ve avoided these extremes mostly. (But not the accusations). The story of a young woman, feminist, independent, educated, successful who thinks that a culture where she would be married off to some 80-year old rapist at the age of 13 is as good as the one that created her is… well irony doesn’t cut it.
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Postmodernism challenges the idea of hegemony of the one point of view, of the strict roles, of the rule and privilege of White Men. Multiculturalism feeds into this because it’s a policy designed to facilitate inter-ethnic cordiality and to take advantage of the Mosaic’s resources. Melbourne was a very boring place ’til the wogs came here .
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Feminism, likewise, links in for obvious reasons and feminist revisionists like Griselda Pollock find postmodernism useful. Theorists of multiculturalism may find it useful. Cultural Studies, which is only partially postmodern, has applied it (unfortunately creating the school of obfuscatory poetics along the way.)
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As the eds of the book say the common thread is difference.

Adam

Sunshine Coast

Oddly enough, I’m just waiting for a disk of Lomax field recordings to finish burning before I go and take the second half of today’s class on the roots of Afroamerican music (!), so I’ll come back and comment more substantively later.

“What bugs me is the attitude of certain sneering soi-disant music afficionados, whose routine decrying of anything with a backbeat – anything in fact that young or poor people like – results in me responding with a knee-jerk of my own. I suspect such people don’t really like classical music as much as they think they should, and resent the visceral pleasure rock/pop music gives to those who don’t share their pretentions. Y’know, the “you only like it because it’s easy to understand” argument.”

I agree, its a phony attitude and it is exactly what get me too. Sorry I didn’t mean to sound like I was attacking you but there has been a number of comments suggesting that if you take up the defense of the orchestral tradition you are being a snob and I wanted to point out that actually it goes the other way just as often. In fact I think it tends to happen more often because the cultural parameters of pop music don’t require a broad perspective of music and music theory. It more “get a guitar and go twang, and you’ve got music” to quote Sid Vicious. This is not a criticism of that approach, as I said if the Sex Pistols studied integral serialism at university before writing “Pretty Vacant” it wouldn’t work. The aesthetic is inherently about a narrow vernacular approach, which is what folk music is. The down side here is that the aesthetic tends to encourage ignorant perspectives on areas that fall outside of it. I guess this is why I concerned that the pop inspired culture that Marcus has been promoting has a tendency to need to define itself by saying “we are new, hip and relevant and you are not” as summed up in the song “Roll Over Beethoven”. Its a standard marketing approach, if you want to be current you need to get into this. The underlying emphasis is on youthful revolution and the definition of identity via a group./

Ben

Firstly I thank you for the tone in which you are having this discussion – I think this is valuable. I can’t see orchestras working without funding. Its one thing to play Mozart at a semi-professional level but another thing entirely to play Stravinsky or the kind of music that they should be playing (eg Stockhausen, Berio, Reich etc). The skills base for high quality contemporary orchestral music would be devastated. There could of course be models that are more fluid than the fixed orchestra approach eg: Ensemble Modern in France (which are strongly associated with Boulez and IRCAM), Schoenberg ensemble in Holland or even Bang on a Can in New York. The thing that I really care about here is that highly skilled acoustic performance is funded and is actually contemporary (and the use of this word here I intend to be free of immediate association with youth culture).

I actually suspect that our objectives may not be that different but my initial impetus for leaping into this topic was that this blog (of which I’m a keen reader) focuses so much on pop music and there have been many dismissive (sorry to use this word again) comments about “classical” (a term that is actually incorrect) music. The discussion regarding Professor Walker comes to mind here.

Also pop music is not a desert (you really mangled my metaphor!) but it has removed cultural diversity around the globe. To explain this I would need to write an essay which I can’t do right now but the reason the Arunda and Pitjatjantjara people in central Australia are loosing their traditional musical culture is because all the young people want to play pop (maybe they should but we should recognise what gets lost). This is happening in all kinds of ways in cultures everywhere. Another quick example, where previously there have been a multitude of different tuning systems (with inherently different sounds) now the equal tempered system has taken over so that people can play “world” music. Listen to the old Lomax recording of African American in chain gangs in the 30’s or Son House playing blues for that matter. It has a wildness to the sound. This quality comes in no small measure from the fact that they are not singing or playing equal tempered tuning. Listening to blues performers today singing the old songs I always felt that something was missing until I realised this point.

I think that serious criticism of pop aesthetics and its impact is long over due (and please I’m not lobbing a bomb here, as I have said I would like to criticise the orchestral world also). Why is it that many forms of art have systems for analysis and criticism but the kinds of art that Mr Westbury has been championing
(which he claims is now established) don’t? I sometimes feel like its a sacred cow.

Have to work now….

I got the disturbing feeling as these sentences progressed that ‘you’ started out referring to ‘one’, then progressed to referring to me. I know a fair bit about lots of forms of music actually, and feel quite comfortable on the ground I’m on in this conversation. Which by the way, is not at all intended as ‘having a go’ at any form of music.

Nor in fact the practitioners of any form of music. I’m good mates with a few classically trained musicians, a couple of conductors and classical music producers. I managed, by merely humming it, to get Jive Talkin’ by the Bee Gees stuck in one colleague’s head as he prepared his lecture on Shoenberg & Webern. And he thanked me.

What bugs me is the attitude of certain sneering soi-disant music afficionados, whose routine decrying of anything with a backbeat – anything in fact that young or poor people like – results in me responding with a knee-jerk of my own. I suspect such people don’t really like classical music as much as they think they should, and resent the visceral pleasure rock/pop music gives to those who don’t share their pretentions. Y’know, the “you only like it because it’s easy to understand” argument.

Interesting that you invoke Bartok, by the way. Further from today’s dominant forms of well-funded music you couldn’t possibly get. As you know he was all about the folk music, and “western classical music tradition” be damned.

“Ah, but there’s the rub. When you make those criticisms of funding, the return-fire argument is that orchestral music is inherently more meritorious (with the built-in assumption that anyone who disagrees is musically ignorant)…”

This is not the point at all! Its not about merit but diversity. What I find really frustrating is that classical musicians actually know pop stuff (and often play it for money and/or fun) but get painted as stuck up biased prigs. Where is the evidence that the pop music world actually knows about Bartok or Cage or Ligeti or Lutoslawki? If you want to practice folk music (without reference to a broader world or time) then fine. You shouldn’t have to go to university to play spontaneous guitar band music – and please don’t study it, do it. But if you want to have a go at classical music please learn about it first.

I do think its time that people stopped this “us” and “them” mentality. For example you posted:
“Further reading on the prejudices of classical musicians: here is a terrific article by Mark-Anthony Turnage in The Guardian on Why so few classical musicians take jazz seriously”

A multitude of counter claims could be made here just as easily. The point is to try to avoid these divides. Yes funding for orchestras is expensive. Can you run them without it? No. If you don’t want them to be funded then you want them to disappear. If thats what you want be honest about it instead of insinuating that what they do is worthless or narrow.

I really should sleep so I won’t answer your arguments point by point but the key issue is not that I’m saying that everyone into pop music forms are ignorant but rather that the general exposure to a range of musical ideas is very limited at present and without without orchestras even more so. For example, how many people who read this blog know that the oldest form of continuous musical practice on the planet is probably, in this coming decade, about to disappear all together? I’m referring to Central Australian tribal singing. What people hear generally is pop music made by Aboriginal people and this is the general level of representation given to Aboriginal music via the kind of pop music dissemination channels. This is not a value judgment, I’m talking about the range and extent of perspective that is available. We can of course say that the “songs” (which is a european concept) are recorded and therefore not lost. But this is like pinning butterflies in a display board. The knowledge and history the songs contain carry layers that can only be transmitted person to person. Similarly, orchestral music contains knowledge that is gone if we don’t practice it. What I do say is ignorant is destroying this music without knowing about it, at a deep level. Don’t bulldoze the rainforest until you know whats in it and what you might loose.

One topical example is Christos Tsiolkas whose lastest novel has just been published by Allen and Unwin. Yet, he still works as a veterinary nurse.

http://www.currencyhouse.org.au/pages/pp_issue_16.html

And I know it was a throwaway line, but this comment of Ben’s: ‘do we decry Jane Austen today because she wasn’t a “professional writer”? ‘ – Ben, she certainly was a professional writer! She made deliberate commercial decisions about her career, she invested her own money in her publications, and she was delighted when she profited from her novels. Part of the attraction of writing for her was that it was possible for a gentlewoman to make money from it. She didn’t earn enough to live independently on, but this would have changed if she’d lived past the age of forty-two.