New Music

Explaining why it can't be explained

published in New Music 1978-1979, Melbourne, 1980

The term ‘new music’ is actually quite an archaic resorts to terminology, where language as a means of categorisation can be seen to be quite impractical. Firstly, new music is not necessarily new, nor is it directly or solely related to music. Obviously the term ‘new music’ is not descriptive at all: our task is to find out not what it describes, but what it means.

New music most definitely is not the school, which is defined either primarily or solely in terms of a stylistic handling of the medium, only erring from its definition because of the artistic temperament and personal idiosyncrasies of its artists in their approach to the medium. Nor is new music legitimately a movement because, quite simply, the huge amount of work that has been and is being classified as a new music is too broad, diverse and conflicting, not only in what each performer or piece has to say, but also in what each performer or piece is commenting on.

The dilemma of new music has a double edge: (i) how do I, as a writer, clarify new music as a useful and practical term?; and (ii) how do I, as a composer, make new music? Discussing this dilemma involves discussing the problematics of art as it stands today.

It is a valid observation that the further the history of art has progressed, the less direct, simple, straightforward and singular are the references, commentaries and criticisms (either artistically deliberated or historically determined) made by the most contemporary art. The 20th century has witnessed a gradual but noticeable change from form and structure as the primary means of identifying and classifying art, to concept and ideology is the primary means for discussing and analysing art. But such a statement on history is undoubtedly problematic, mainly because I am making such a statement from point within history (the only position from which I could make such a statement anyway!). This ‘gradual change’ is most likely more based on the way that the dichotomy between idea and product has been articulated throughout history as a hierarchical concept oscillating between both sides, rather than a change in the actual works themselves. What remains, though, is that a simple handling of the medium usually overlooks or is unaware of regarding the problematics of the totality of history. The making of new music (which is happening now at a time where it would be considered as part of ‘the most contemporary art’) involves coming to grips with the ideological base of what one is doing, not merely establishing a basic, expressive relationship between oneself and the medium of music. It is the medium of music that allows one the freedom to say something — but it is the history of music that implicates whatever is said.

Each wave of contemporary thought in art is getting more oblique and complex to handle in the way that it relates itself to either the immediately preceding wave of thoughts (or the rest of art history, mainly because each time there is one extra wave of thought). To complicate matters more, art history, although it is in the past, is determined by a continual process of change, as each current philosophical trend alters the preceding perspective given to the remainder of art history. Each instance of the present changes all the instances of the past. This is to say that while new music is undoubtedly involved in new ways of hearing, it is also involved in different ways of interpreting and evaluating these new ways of hearing and their implications, as well as re-evaluating the old ways of hearing.

So how does new music relate itself to music history? The difference now between Old and New cannot be seen how it used to be seen, i.e. in terms of historical changes within the medium, where changes in direction, attitude and methodology were located and named from a temporal, linear perspective. New music is not merely what comes after all ‘old music’. It is the whole history of music, each piece of new music being a statement on music; too transparent to be analysed stylistically, too vaporous to be held within the walls of the singular school or movement. Its complex, conceptual relationship with music history is a regular pain in the arse.

What is important to realise, though, is that this notion of a ‘statement’ has got very little to do with artistic intention or political determination. It is inevitable (though not natural) that any piece of music stands as a statement, simply through it evoking the music of the past. The primary perspective that new music affords us is that all music says something — whether we want it to or not. Art can currently be defined as the definitive Tower of Babel: a whirlpool of language beyond our control, meaning everything and saying nothing. Such a state of affairs easily gives rise to supposed credibility of fallacies like “beauty is in the eye/year of the beholder”, etc. Art is so saturated with meaning (historical, social, political, cultural and mythological) that it is virtually impossible to perform an exercise in meaninglessness — every move, every thought, every gesture, every concept is loaded. Meaning runs rampant — But the artist is time tired. Ironically, now is the time that articulation is desperately needed.

Why is articulation so difficult? Because it is impossible to fully talk about a piece of new music without relating it to the history of music. Movements, schools and individual artists allow one to make clean comparisons between isolated components/elements of music, as well as allowing one to handle only fragments of the history of music. But all these supposedly innocent and warranted uses of formal categorisation can no longer be used so easily. We’re at a stage where there is no immediate or current school/movement/etc. that one can belong to. We are therefore forced to confront history as a whole and not simply arbitrary fragments of it from our choosing.

To adhere to any ‘past’ movement can only be critically discussed under the previously defined terms of that movement — i.e. utilisation of the medium; subsequent analysis of style; method of expression; etc. Of course the history of music is not typified by a singular, regular pace, because as I write about new music, every other type of music from the whole history of music exists and is currently being played. The forefront of any history of art doesn’t totally destroy its preceding history — it merely voices the uselessness, in concept, of whatever preceded it. Stylistically, one can revive a past movement, but the original ideological base of that movement is lost in history and can only be substituted with a new ideological base determined by the shifting of such a movement out of its original context and into the present. Thus, to be involved in what is happening now is to be located somewhere in no mans land. New music is such a no man’s land, when meaning runs wild because of the implications that we cannot fully explain, because we would be invoking the whole history of music — the politics of tonality, composition and performance. Articulation is difficult because one cannot easily isolate components/tangents of new music for a analysis, because its relation to the rest of music is indirect, complex, oblique and multiple.

Art has generally avoided articulation of a deliberately self-reflexive, critical nature, and has only recently (in historical terms) followed such lines. In avoiding explanation, and preventing attempts to explain, art survives through mystification. Surely the most common questioning art is the hackneyed “what does it all mean?”. Even now, such a question has generated into a cute joke — a joke that suppresses articulation and thereby gives artists a license for unqualified and indulgent doodling’s. The magic and mystery of art exists as long as part can deny and defy definition, description, articulation and justification. The weapons for the survival of art here are religious myths and manufactured altruisms, all based around honouring the wondrous act of creation, and praising those gifted enough to master it. Artists are therefore seen to be beyond the crudeness of justification. But just as the linear nature of historical categories is no longer a sufficient means of examining history from this current point in time, so too have artistic myths become impotent: the artist is no longer an innocent, indulgent being. Engulfed in a world full of language beyond his control, the artist must strive to explain himself or else except his vulnerable position and drown in the criticisms of the implications of his apparently innocent move. He must acknowledge the loss of artistic control. And the greatest myth of all is that of ‘artistic control’.

Even the forefront of any contemporary art, with all its radical proclamations, is guilty of such a safe life, as it tends to divert attention away from itself to what it is attacking. Inevitably, new music – or parts of it thereof– Must fall under this heading. But the act of rejection is nevertheless important as it is the starting point of articulation. The meaning contained by the term new music is bound by what it stands for and what it rejects. More importantly, what is integral to new music is not only the reason to such a political stance, but the foundation of reason: is it because of belief? philosophy? concept? or instinct? Such would be the terms of articulation, taking in anything from the bemused idea, to the purist action, to the most fearful axiom.

I talk of the ‘foundation of reason’ because a political stance in new music need not at all be deliberate, as the artist’s ‘reason’ would not cover the multiple complex of implications resultant from the relevant political stance. The basic act of rejection is inevitable due to the saturated state of current art. Even the most innocent, natural move one makes within the context of art stands in opposition to a whole series or complex of other possible moves. To accept is to reject, and vice versa. If anything, it is the foundation of reason that is deliberate, and not the political stance.

Articulation is getting more specific when one chooses to discuss the politics of tonality, composition and performance in terms of either belief, philosophy, concept or instinct. Music encompasses these vastly differing ways in handling the history of music; of coming to terms with the pieces’ ideological, conceptual base; and of realising how one’s piece relates self to music history.

Let us recall that double aged dilemma of new music: : (i) how do I, as a writer, clarify new music as a useful and practical term?; and (ii) how do I, as a composer, make new music? We discover that rather than having a double edge (two separate, individual sides), these two sides are more of a front-and-back nature, where one cannot exist without the other. To clarify ‘new music’ as a useful and practical term is to realise what it is to actually make new music. The functional difference between the roles of writer and composer becomes blurred, dissolved in the quest for articulation. New music covers any music happening now that realises the need for a holistic awareness of (i) what statement the composers’ music is making irrespective of their intention; and (ii) how they interrelate themselves, their music and the history of music. Talking about new music and making new music involves the same problematics – the problematics of art as it stands today. Not everyone in art is guilty— but no one is innocent.


Text © Philip Brophy. Images © respective copyright holders.