Some really interesting comments on my book. I am currently revising it--so this feedback is REALLY helpful. Thank you all! Pleased read my reply to Anna's first comment.
Hello Julian, thank you for your blog, and the signpost to your book, which I have just read. It's an interesting read. However, I must disagree with your analysis of musical culture, and in particular your dismissal of high culture as 'mostly effete snobbery'. You may not like classical music, but to imply that it is worthless is shockingly narrow and uninformed, and reveals a lack of insight about the relative cultural impact of different forms of music.
From a technical perspective, popular music is incredibly limited and repetitive in comparison to classical music, with the same few chords, the same monotonous rhythms and the same few instruments used over and over again. You have focused on Jethro Tull, and it is true that they are less repetitive than most, but they are also hardly typical of popular music, so if you are going to appeal to the overall superiority of popular music we must look at that genre as a whole.
In general, popular music is designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator within the human psyche. With the lyrics being at best over-simplifying, and at worst driven by self-pity, rage, sex, violence and general hedonism, complex realities are reduced to soundbites, and the focus is on pandering to human excesses and weaknesses. The repetition of rhythm and motif has a powerful hypnotic effect that drives the negative message of the lyrics home. In the last few decades, popular music has played an important role in bestialising and coarsening society, as people have wanted increasingly shocking and sexualised music in order to titillate their jaded palates. It is amazing to me that you have cited Keith Richards in a positive way, given his rampant drug use. His brand of hedonism has ruined countless lives all over the world; we simply cannot cope with the impact of having such people as role models.
The development of people's intellectual capacities is primarily fostered by exposure to more complex and challenging ideas and stimuli. With respect to music, classical music embodies more sophisticated patterns that require greater concentration over longer periods of time in order to discern themes and resolutions. Popular music, on the other hand, is formulaic and simplistic for the most part. It may soothe or stimulate, but it is never going to edify. At a time when culture is increasingly dumbed-down, and people are becoming noticeably less intelligent, this is a major concern.
The notion that Shakespeare is some kind of analogue to popular music is plain nonsense. Shakespeare was a classically educated scholar whose plays and sonnets reveal his deep knowledge of the high culture of his day - the history of the known world, the Greek and Roman classics, contemporary literature, and the Bible. He was a virtuoso writer who displayed great creativity and variety in his works - far more than any popular musician. He was also strongly focused on complex patterns of behaviour, and moral issues, and gave his characters great emotional depth and sophistication. How can any of this ever be said of popular music?
Of course it would be wrong to claim that listening to classical music can guarantee mental and intellectual health, and in any case not all classical music is equally helpful in its effect, but experiment after experiment has demonstrated the power of classical music to evince positive responses from humans and animals, whilst popular music has negative or at best neutral effects. In a time when people are increasingly subject to dangerous and negative influences, we should be all the more careful that we only listen to music that can help us become the best version of ourselves.
Popular music is juvenile - and I disagree with you that being called juvenile could ever be said to be positive. You are confusing being juvenile with the capacity to play, but they are not the same. To use Huizinga's definition, playing is the ability to enter into an alternative world that has been consciously created with its own rules and norms, purely for its own sake. Being juvenile means having childish patterns of thinking and behaviour, to the detriment of the person and those around them. Playing implies a lack of limits to possibilities, but being juvenile means that the person is unable to free themselves from the limitations of immaturity. The latter is not a condition of the former, and it is a mistake to confuse the two.
Mental Floss article was poorly written, biased, and had no foot notes. I only subscribed to your newsletter for Ukrainian news. I can tell by your being taken with this article there is not anything else on your plate I would be interested in. Your academic credentials don't impress me either. From and old construction engineer in North Texas.
Some really interesting comments on my book. I am currently revising it--so this feedback is REALLY helpful. Thank you all! Pleased read my reply to Anna's first comment.
Hello Julian, thank you for your blog, and the signpost to your book, which I have just read. It's an interesting read. However, I must disagree with your analysis of musical culture, and in particular your dismissal of high culture as 'mostly effete snobbery'. You may not like classical music, but to imply that it is worthless is shockingly narrow and uninformed, and reveals a lack of insight about the relative cultural impact of different forms of music.
From a technical perspective, popular music is incredibly limited and repetitive in comparison to classical music, with the same few chords, the same monotonous rhythms and the same few instruments used over and over again. You have focused on Jethro Tull, and it is true that they are less repetitive than most, but they are also hardly typical of popular music, so if you are going to appeal to the overall superiority of popular music we must look at that genre as a whole.
In general, popular music is designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator within the human psyche. With the lyrics being at best over-simplifying, and at worst driven by self-pity, rage, sex, violence and general hedonism, complex realities are reduced to soundbites, and the focus is on pandering to human excesses and weaknesses. The repetition of rhythm and motif has a powerful hypnotic effect that drives the negative message of the lyrics home. In the last few decades, popular music has played an important role in bestialising and coarsening society, as people have wanted increasingly shocking and sexualised music in order to titillate their jaded palates. It is amazing to me that you have cited Keith Richards in a positive way, given his rampant drug use. His brand of hedonism has ruined countless lives all over the world; we simply cannot cope with the impact of having such people as role models.
The development of people's intellectual capacities is primarily fostered by exposure to more complex and challenging ideas and stimuli. With respect to music, classical music embodies more sophisticated patterns that require greater concentration over longer periods of time in order to discern themes and resolutions. Popular music, on the other hand, is formulaic and simplistic for the most part. It may soothe or stimulate, but it is never going to edify. At a time when culture is increasingly dumbed-down, and people are becoming noticeably less intelligent, this is a major concern.
The notion that Shakespeare is some kind of analogue to popular music is plain nonsense. Shakespeare was a classically educated scholar whose plays and sonnets reveal his deep knowledge of the high culture of his day - the history of the known world, the Greek and Roman classics, contemporary literature, and the Bible. He was a virtuoso writer who displayed great creativity and variety in his works - far more than any popular musician. He was also strongly focused on complex patterns of behaviour, and moral issues, and gave his characters great emotional depth and sophistication. How can any of this ever be said of popular music?
Of course it would be wrong to claim that listening to classical music can guarantee mental and intellectual health, and in any case not all classical music is equally helpful in its effect, but experiment after experiment has demonstrated the power of classical music to evince positive responses from humans and animals, whilst popular music has negative or at best neutral effects. In a time when people are increasingly subject to dangerous and negative influences, we should be all the more careful that we only listen to music that can help us become the best version of ourselves.
Popular music is juvenile - and I disagree with you that being called juvenile could ever be said to be positive. You are confusing being juvenile with the capacity to play, but they are not the same. To use Huizinga's definition, playing is the ability to enter into an alternative world that has been consciously created with its own rules and norms, purely for its own sake. Being juvenile means having childish patterns of thinking and behaviour, to the detriment of the person and those around them. Playing implies a lack of limits to possibilities, but being juvenile means that the person is unable to free themselves from the limitations of immaturity. The latter is not a condition of the former, and it is a mistake to confuse the two.
Mental Floss article was poorly written, biased, and had no foot notes. I only subscribed to your newsletter for Ukrainian news. I can tell by your being taken with this article there is not anything else on your plate I would be interested in. Your academic credentials don't impress me either. From and old construction engineer in North Texas.
Thank you Julian! I will buy your book.