I just thought of something that I think is kind of interesting. It will probably make me sound like a pretentious ponce to write it here, but I don't have any one else to tell it to.

So I was listening to some CDs that a friend burned for me, and I was reflecting on the fact that this friend really doesn't like classical music and kind of makes fun of me for appreciating it. I thought it was kind of ironic, since the CD he burned for me (Boards of Canada) sounded a lot more like twentieth century art music than like rock.

And that's pretty interesting.

All music can pretty much be put into two categories: folk music (of which popular/rock music is a subcategory) and art music (e.g. classical music). Folk music came first. Cavemen beat sticks together rhythmically, and that was folk music. Then, when societies started getting more advanced, the advent of aristocracy create art music, because rich people can afford to pay people to be professional musicians. In Japan, this was Gagaku - in Indonesia, gamelan - in India, khyal and what became modern Indian classical music. In Europe, it was what we now know as classical music.

Classical music in Europe started out in the church, since that was the primary source of money for pretty much anybody. It then moved toward aristocratic patronage - Mozart didn't make money by selling CDs to the public; he worked as a court musician. Eventually, art music evolved into what it is today, with composers thinking more about expressionistic effect than listenability.

Popular music evolved out of folk music. Naturally, most people would rather listen to folk music than art music, because it is simpler and easier to understand. But folk musicians were not professionals (by definition), so their music couldn't really reach outside the sphere of their small communities. But with the advent of recording technology, folk musicians (in America - mainly blues singers) could sell recordings of their folk music and become professionals. This gave way to rock as we know it.

Until recently, rock music has stayed pretty close to its folk origins. It has been more about having something fun and easy to listen to than about artistry. But lately, bands like Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and Boards of Canada - bands that are, ostensibly, in the rock category - have been making music that is not fun or easy to listen to at all. They have really been making art music.

Most people kind of assume that art (classical) music came first and that everything else evolved out of that, but that's not true. Folk (and therefore rock) music has always been completely independent of classical music, and I find the fact that rock bands are now looking to create art music from a genre that is essentially the very opposite of art music very interesting.

That's about the nerdiest post I've ever written.

posted at 6:37 PM by Alison

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