Re: [microsound] Adorno redux

[Matthew Mitchell <matmi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I guess I should have made clear in my 
'unbelievably dumb' reading of that Adorno quote that I was really responding to 
that quote in particular and have not much of an opinion yet regarding Adorno on 
the whole, having read only bits and pieces scattered over the years.  What 
it set off in me was a general revulsion for music criticism that deals little 
with the actual music and instead speaks in sweeping generalities.  While 
social implications are interesting, they are secondary to me, as the artist has 
little control over them once the art is created.  The Adorno snippet on 
jazz (that I unfortunately don't have anymore) struck me as beyond 
presumptuous in the way he dismissed jazz without dealing with virtually 
any aspect of the actual music itself; it mostly struck me as a guy who 
simply didn't like jazz trying to construct an edifice to support his 
dislike.  Undoubtedly it suffered a bit out of context; did he name names 
elsewhere?

 

The impression I get is a position such as this, where the music itself is 
paramount and social considerations are of secondary importance, is what passes 
for 'privileged and bourgeois.'  I undoubtedly feel privileged to be a 
musician, to be able to think about such things, and to live in the country in 
which I live, the recent political situation notwithstanding.  However, for 
anyone who owns a computer to take someone to task for a position they see 
as bourgeois is beyond rich, in my opinion.

 

At any rate, my real, only semi-related complaint that always stews in my 
brain is that 98% of music critics seem to actually know nothing about 
music.  (Adorno is obviously an exception, having studied with Berg - I'm 
kind of moving on a tangent here.)  For some reason, this has been OK for 
years and years now.  Even the 'best' critics with whom I often agree and 
to whom I look for opinions regarding recordings I haven't yet heard will make a 
statement or two occasionally that reveals shocking ignorance towards the most 
basic building blocks of the music they're reviewing.  The literary 
community probably wouldn't take too kindly to critics who didn't understand 
basic sentence structure, just as I'm sure art critics are probably expected to 
know how to recognize the color blue.

 

One last thing:  I didn't know that calling people (or statements 
made by people, whatever) 'unbelievably dumb' recently became acceptable 
discourse on this list.  I guessed I missed that memo.  

 

-mm

 

www.mattmitchell.us 

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