Critical Review: Hamm

In his article, Hamm criticizes Paul Simon for taking advantage of the musical culture of South Africa without taking a stance against the apartheid or in some way contributing to the liberation movement.  However, in making this criticism, Hamm blurs the line between criticizing Paul Simon and criticizing the culture that his album represents.  He quotes a complaint that Graceland perpetuates a style where African music provides the rhythm complexity and European tradition provides the melodic interest.  However, is it really Paul Simon's fault that this is the culture he is a product of?  The relationship between culture and art is complex; culture is of course a product of art, but art is also a product of culture.  I am not saying that this makes it okay, per se, but rather that the more interesting study here is on the culture that values the juxtaposition of African rhythm and European melody, rather than the art that caters to it.  Most of all, though, I think that it is a completely different issue from Paul Simon's political stance, and the two should not be confused.  

The argument against the lack of explicit political content in Graceland seeks the moral high ground through the claim that Paul Simon engages in a commensal relationship with South African musical culture.  However, whether he should have done something to support the liberation movement is different from whether or not he had a responsibility to.  On one level, whenever there is injustice, it is everyone's duty not to stand aside.  However, the criticism of Graceland clearly implies that his appropriation of South African culture in some way indebted him in a way that required him to support the liberation movement.  

One argument is simply that if you get involved at all with South African culture, you are too close to an injustice to stand aside.  However, this is still different from the issue of whether he owes them anything.  He used their culture, surely he is in their debt.  However, I am not so sure that this is true.  Who does the culture belong to?  Does it belong to the collective group of South Africans?  Or does it belong to each individual within that culture?  If the former, than all that is required is for him to contribute to the culture, not the people.  If the later, than he could never hope to repay each individual, and in any case, as long as he treated the musicians fairly, he has treated the tradition bearers and owners of the culture appropriately, for they have as much claim to own and share it as any other individual.  The final argument against Graceland is that even though he might not have owed anything, Graceland provided an opportunity to speak out against injustice on a global front.  Having the opportunity to reach such a large audience with such a meaningful message, Paul Simon should have taken it because him speaking out in this instance would be far more consequential than anyone else speaking out in the circumstance surrounding their voice.  This I think is the most interesting and strongest argument against Graceland.  One the one hand, relinquishing this opportunity is giving up a chance to make the world a better place.  On the other hand, if he felt it would mean a tarnishing in the quality of the art, did he not have a responsibility to improve the world by making the best piece of art possible?  

Challenge Question: Do artists have a responsibility to be socially conscious, or do they just have a responsibility to make the best art they can?  If they try to strike a balance, and the balance requires even the slightest diminishment in the quality of the art, is it worth it?  

Follow up question: Would the world really be a better place if Mozart had fed the homeless of Salzburg instead of writing his operas?

Response to Feedback

Response to Drew's response to my response to Drew's question.  (whew.)

Thanks for the detailed response; it raises some excellent points about what I wrote. I think a great deal of the divergence in our interpretations of the word authentic stems from the fact that I was addressing a composition, and you are addressing the performance of a composition. I think there is a very interesting philosophical stance beneath your assertions of the value of authenticity.

There are generally two extremes in the creation of a performance: do it exactly as the composer intended, or make it as “good” as possible. The word “good” is problematic, for it involves taste, which is by no means easily measurable. For example, while the production of Carmen set in New Orleans was certainly not what the composer intended, the director clearly thought that the setting would bring a valuable addition to the opera. As it so happens, pretty much everyone else disagreed. Being faithful to the composer might be safer, but it is in no way easier. Most productions of any sort—including your cover of Pink Floyd—tend to strike a comfortable balance in between. Do right by the original, but let them know they aren’t listening to a recording. I think that your singer’s decision to mimic Dave Gilmour showed that you were striving for artistry above the level of a high school band covering Pink Floyd—of which there are many poor examples (from your description of the audience’s reaction, I can tell you weren’t one of them).

Still, there is an interesting point to be made. Is mimicking the original the best way to do right by the composer, or would it be, in practice, more respectful to simply make the only ideal one of excellence? As I already said, most people tend to strike a balance between the two. In the case of Don Giovanni, keep most of the orchestration the same, but don’t worry about finding a clarinet in a, just use the regular b flat. Or when covering New York State of Mind, change the name of the city to whatever town you happen to be in. In my mind, the only real problem arises when someone wants to do something different, but feels they can’t out of an obligation to the composer. It’s hard to pin this sort of thing down, because it’s difficult to know everything about the creative process just by the performance, but in my experience productions that endured this sort of creative limitation tend to feel hollow and—dare I say—inauthentic. When you hear people reading Shakespeare exactly how they think people would have when it was written, it doesn’t feel authentic, it feels boring. You don’t have to change any of the words, you don’t even have to focus on sounding not old, you just can’t try to be authentic.

These things tend to by cyclical, in the 70’s, period instruments and performances were extremely popular, and then in the 80’s they fell out of favor. Now, it looks as though they are making a comeback, though not to the level of before.

Striving for authenticity can be a creative goal, and I suppose it can even be liberating to some people. Value judgments bring taste into the discussion, and thus bias. I think it’s probably clear at this point that I am biased towards not restraining yourself with exact replication for a number of reasons, but I recognize that this is my taste. I would rather see a “good” performance than a “right” performance, and I of course realize that the two are not mutually exclusive. My opinion, wrought from years performing/getting others to perform/composing music, is just that being creative is hard enough without limitations that hinder rather than help. Again, this is a matter of preference, as the limitations that strangle me could inspire others.

There is also the issue of an impossible goal; for we can only get close to complete authenticity, we cannot ever reach it. For example, as authentic as your performance of Pink Floyd is, it is not as authentic as a performance by the band itself. This is a dangerous road to go down, because we can even look at a performance by the band itself and say it is not authentic—this was a huge issue for Bob Dylan when he switched to electric guitar. As soon as a particular performance is labeled as authentic, subsequent performances can only imitate the ideal. This is especially an issue with modern music, for a studio recording can often become the only truly “authentic” performance, creating an even more impossible standard. Would we even want to listen to a concert that sounds exactly like the CD? As Jimi Hendrix famously said, if you want to hear the recording, go home and listen to it. Most people strike an instinctual balance in their performance by just doing what feels right, and I think this is the best way to go. On the notion of authenticity, however, I have to agree with Jimi—if you want to listen to an authentic performance of Don Giovanni, go home and stare at the score.

Response to Challenge Question Response

Response to Mike's response

I really enjoyed reading this response. Your point about the “traveling ethnomusicologist” perpetuating a pre-existing order is complex and interesting. I think that you are right, and the idea of a western traveler being exposed to a new culture pre-disposes us to think of that culture as an “other.” However, the question I have in response is whether or not that causes the reader to adopt a western bias—in other words, is emphasizing the non-western-ness of a culture the same as emphasizing the western-ness of the ethnomusicologist? I think it’s a very subtle facet of the argument to which the length of the challenge question wasn’t conducive to fully addressing.

I also liked very much the way you brought in the concept of technology to help trace the progression of ethnomusicology from being an outsider form to an insider form. I agree with your statements, and I think that it will be interesting to see if your predictions about the level playing field take effect.

Your statements about the benefits of insider ethnomusicology were also very interesting, and I enjoyed your discussion on how it exemplified the difficulties of a post-colonial relationship. However, I am not sure if I agree that there are fewer ethical dilemmas than with outsider ethnomusicology. I certainly agree that the ethical dilemmas are different, but insider bias is just as likely as outsider bias to give a distorted view of the culture—do the insider ethnomusicologists not have an equal responsibility to the scholarly discipline as they do to their culture?

Overall, I thought this was a great challenge response. I think you addressed the question very thoroughly and elegantly, and I very much enjoyed reading it.

Questions for Miller 2004

How did you go about dealing with the tension created between the written and oral aspects of Sacred Harp tradition?  I would assume this tension is always present, but it seems that the privileged status and importance of the song book makes it especially important in this context.  Was it difficult to try and represent the performance in a visual medium given the two contrasting facets of the tradition?

What makes one singer higher status than another?  In many singing cultures, skill is an important ranking factor.  However, one of the things Sacred Harp singers pride themselves upon is their openness to singers of all experience levels and natural ability.  While experience can be gained, it seems as though Sacred Harp leadership would be dependent on things important to its culture, rather than other cultures--range, for example, is less important, given that the songs are all transposable.  So what things do make one person a higher ranking singer than another?  

Discussion Question:

This article described how a group of singers revise the book that then becomes the standard for the entire community.  Does this republican form of tradition-editing stifle the natural ability of a culture to progress at its own rate, or is this just the method of this culture progressing naturally?

Challenge Question Response

Question:

1) This year we have discussed at length the 'invention of tradition.' Recently we have introduced the related topic of authenticity. Does complete authenticity imply that tradition is no longer being 'invented'. Is this what our goal is when we strive for authenticity? What is the significance of true authenticity being impossible? What would the implications be if it was possible?

Response:

Before beginning to answer this question, I must attempt to clarify two key points. First, who the “we” is that is “striving for complete authenticity.” Second, I must clarify the definition of “complete authenticity.” There are two possibilities—first, that “we” are insiders of the culture and trying to authentically create it; second, that we are outsiders/ethnomusicologists, and trying to authentically represent it. Due to the length limiting my response to a single interpretation, and the inclusion of the concept of “invention of tradition,” I shall focus on the first interpretation.

The trouble with calling a piece of music authentic is that the criteria are often only crystallized after the style in question is no longer the vernacular form. Indeed, the style in question more often than not does not define these pieces as authentic—rather, these authentic pieces define the style. For example, Beethoven’s sonatas do not conform to the “rules” of classical sonata writing—rather, the rules of classical sonata writing conform to Beethoven’s sonatas. Thus, the criteria of authenticity are fluid until the form is out of style. Perhaps in fifty years, they will teach the rules of writing pop songs in music theory classes. Now, however, even though we can trace tendencies and similarities, they are not rules. This may seem like a pedantic distinction, for these tendencies and similarities are the very things that eventually become rules, but in practice there is an important distinction. The affinities between pieces of the same genre result from the situations that gave birth to them. For example, a pop song typically lasts three minutes. This is not because this is a god-given rule, but rather because radios tend not to play songs longer than three minutes, given the attention span of the listening audience. For a very long time, radio exposure was a key element in the success of a pop song; therefore, songs tend to run three minutes. In fifty years, perhaps a three-minute length could be a rule, but at this time, it is not a rule, but rather a characteristic resulting from the situation under which the song is born. Similarly, Mozart’s piano sonatas were written for amateur players—had Beethoven not come along, simplicity of texture and ease of execution could be rules alongside those we study today.

The reason it is impossible to create a truly authentic piece of music in a post-authentic age (such as writing a classical sonata today) is that the situation that gave life to these rules no longer exists. We would be following the rules for their own sake, not because they have any innate purpose or artistic value. When someone composes to a set of rules, rather than as a response to the world they live in, they are composing inauthentic music. In this way, the only true way to be inauthentic is to try to be authentic. However, writing a piece to which authenticity can only be applied in the future—a pop song, for example—is perfectly authentic. In not trying to be authentic, and instead leaving that judgment up to future scholars, the artist ensures that their music is authentic, even if it is only judged as such in the future.  An interesting study is new composition of Sacred Harp tunes.  While they might seem on the surface to seem inauthentic because they restrict themselves to a musical vocabulary seen by many as outdated (no accidentals, for example) in reality, it is perfectly authentic.  This is because the reasons for the restriction--namely the shape note method--are still in place.  If they had switched to the system of notation standardized by western art music, yet still refrained from using accidentals just because, this would be inauthentic.  However, because the situation producing this type of music still exists today, not just a set of rules, the new music created is a viable part of tradition.  

A common objection is the hypothetical question of if someone who had never heard of Beethoven's music had written a piece sounding just like his Fifth, would it then be authentic, because they were not striving to imitate?  The answer is simply that this could never happen.  While this seems like it is just avoiding the issue rather than addressing it, this is not the case.  The likelihood of someone writing Beethoven's Fifth who was not Beethoven is the same as someone who does not speak a word of English writing Romeo and Juliet.  If we think of Beethoven's Fifth as a random collection of notes in the same way that Romeo and Juliet is a random collection of letters, it is impossible that by pure chance it would be recreated (for an interesting comparison regarding the famous one million monkeys recreating Shakespeare quote, see this excellent link, and consider that while Shakespeare had letters, punctation, and spaces, Beethoven had not just notes and rests but rhythmic durations of great variety to work with).  There is also the problem of musical fluency, for how would someone who was not familiar with western art music intelligently not just combine twelve tones together to form this piece of music, but indeed create a system of twelve tones identical to the language of Beethoven (before Bach, even western art music was only working in an eight tone system).  On the other hand, fluency with the musical vocabulary requires facility with everything that has come after Beethoven and has been influenced by him--even up to the Beatles.  Furthermore, Beethoven's Fifth is not just a random assembly of notes.  It is a distinct product of the situation of its birth.  Given that we have established (empirically by logic, mathematically by association if you care to check out the link) that even given the twelve notes it is impossible to randomly recreate his Fifth, we must ask is it possible for an intelligent, creative person to actively compose the Fifth.  We must answer no.  Our times our different, our creative requirements and impulses are different.  Beethoven wrote the Fifth to actively stretch the conventions of the Symphony, and to shock.  The things his society found shocking (for example, the fanfare at the beginning of the last movement) no longer shock us.  They have been conventionalized.  What composer would set himself a goal to write a piece that would shock an audience who died two-hundred years ago?  Were Beethoven to be alive today, even he would not write the Fifth.  No one today would write the Fifth, or indeed, anything like it, for no one today lives in a society that could produce the Fifth.  The only way to produce a similar piece would be to artificially recreate a past age, and thus apply rules that have no purpose.  This is what it means to be inauthentic.  Our own lives are too rich to spend time resurrecting the legends who trod the paths that brought us here.  

While striving for authenticity does stifle the re-invention of tradition (the very act of striving requiring a reliance on no longer fluid rules), the concept itself in no way prohibits it. Tradition can be authentically re-created, but re-invention implies an acceptance of change and progress. However, this only means that the new tradition must be authentic when held to different criteria from the old tradition. One must accept that while their new art might not be authentic according to the bounds of the static tradition, it will define the future conditions of a future old tradition, and as such, remain an integral aspect in the chain of tradition that forms culture.

Critical Review: Campbell

This reading deals primarily with the modernization of the Sacred Harp tradition.  The party in favor of modernization focused on two specific facets of the tradition: material and notation.  Specifically, inclusion of material from the gospel repertoire, and a shift from four symbols to seven symbols.  However, both of these changes brought about a great deal of controversy whenever they were attempted.  Whenever change to tradition is resisted, the rational is often that the tradition will be lost.  However, it is interesting to examine exactly what would have been lost by these changes.  The change from four to seven note heads would not have been a difficult change logistically, indeed, the eventual clarity it would provide would doubtlessly make up for the transition period.  This is, of course, only decisive so long as the battle is fought on purely practical grounds; as we know, this is not the case.  This means that the four shapes of the notes have more than musical meaning--they are somehow intertwined with the identity of Sacred Harp singing.  Perhaps it is the simplicity of having only four notes, the perceived fundamentality of resisting all but the most basic notation that gets tied up in the notion of Sacred Harp singing as a primal, basic art form.  These adjectives are not meant to degrade, but rather to associate Sacred Harp singing as a transformative process rather than a performative one.  There is not an audience in the traditional sense, it is the experience of being part of the process that is important, and thus a means of notation that can theoretically be understood by as many people as possible on the merits of its simplicity would be ideal.  In this way, something as simple has the difference between four and seven note head shapes can carry connotations of the very purpose of the culture.  

The issue of gospel music is interesting as well.  Gospel music is unarguably an American art-form, so the idea that it would tarnish the "Americanness" of Sacred Harp singing is not probable.  Neither is the notion that it is not congruent with the southern identity of Sacred Harp singing, for American Gospel music is southern in origin.  One possibility that I do not want to either personally refute or support is that the issue with Gospel music stems from the origins of Gospel as a means of communication among slaves, tarnishing the positive image of the south that Sacred Harp promotes.  

Whatever the reasons, the attempt at modernization for Sacred Harp singing is unique in that there are a few individuals attempting to pull a group of people who are both the audience and performers into facilitating the changes.  Generally, a performance culture has two identities--the identity the group has of itself, and the identity the audience has of the group.  This means that only one identity needs to be influenced to successfully reinvent the tradition to some degree--for example, in the Canadian folk band we studied earlier this year, a small group of performers attempt to affect the view that the public has of their tradition.  They do not need to convince a large group of performers to agree with the change, they only need to identify the shift in the public consciousness.  However, in the case of Sacred Harp, the group of performers is also the audience.  Does this mean that, in a way, those who were trying to "modernize" Sacred Harp singers were acting as outsiders attempting to modify the culture they were not a part of?

Discussion Question:

We have discussed at length the pros, cons, and ethical complexities of an outsider trying to preserve a culture they are not a part of.  What are the ethical concerns when an outsider tries to change a culture they are not a part of?  Is there any situation where this is acceptable, ethnomusicologist or not?