Does modern society experience music differently than previous centuries?

To be honest I have no Idea where to post this.

I was on YouTube and I came across some musical score by a company called Immediate music, and it all snowballed from there. You see as I read comments I noticed a trend. Aside from the most non-prolific comments like,…”Ohhh man that song was epic!”… There was the general mantra of personal vision, and imagination, wherein people commented on their status of saving the world, or being a warrior, and much more. keep in mind this is based on an over all assessment of the more than 50 videos viewed,...(Yes, I'm well aware I have no life, thank you)

So here is my question, have we been conditioned by Hollywood and theatrical presentations to be more imaginative only when we are inspired by “epic” music?
When I say conditioned this is what I mean:
A generation raised on Hollywood cinematography and sweeping scenes of wonder set to a notable musical score for nearly 100 years.

If so, did people appreciate the music in a different way a few hundred years ago as compared to how we allegedly appreciate it now? Back then they didn’t have the vision assistance we have now of flowing camera movements and dramatic angles, and moreover the likelihood they would even associate such things with the song is in my mind up for question.

The following youtube scores are of two specific songs that I thought sounded nice, and they will give you an example of the kind of music I am referring to here in this thread. The important thing to do BEFORE clicking play is to make sure that you do NOT WATCH the youtube video itself. The reason for this is to not contaminate your mind with what the uploader has posted.

To get the experience I am talking about, where you have a unique vision, and not one presented to you. I think tht is important before any comments are made.
So what do you think, Are we being shorted by our inability to truly appreciate the subtle nuances of a musical score due to our Hollywood style vision, or are we more privileged t have the vision with the music?

Your take.

Again just click play but do not watch the video.

In my opinion, music is made of some of the most fundamental universal principles; mathematics and vibrations. It can change our mood, enlighten us, bring us together and rip us apart. It's very spiritual.

Modern chart music, pop songs etc have literally taken that away and majority of 'popular' music these days are souless and send the wrong message. Influenced by TPTB no doubt.

From my experience, people that tell me 'they just like what's in the charts' seem to be the least spiritually sound and mostly drole people around. Whereas people with varied tastes, that seek out new music for themselves, seems to be a lot more in tune with themselves and the world around them.

Whether it was always that way, i don't know. Modern pop music could be ruining it for us all. But i do think music has always touched the human soul in a spiritual way right from when we started banging logs as drums.

Also, we now have the ability with the internet to share our thoughts and feelings more. Maybe loads of people thought Bach was "completly epic and wicked" when they listened to his works but they just didn't have the internet to tell the world how they felt.

I'm gonna end this with a song my 'totally epic' tune that makes me smile and feel good whenever a hear it.

The short answer? Yes. Thank the big corporate record companies for ruining what the youth of today calls music. There is no talent in the industry any more. People use vocoders to alter their voice so it has perfect pitch, they lipsync there crappy songs and for the most part sell sex instead of talented music. Music today pretty much amounts to going to a strip club. So yeah, there is a difference.

reply to post by Nammu


Exactly my sentiments. pop cultures latest sound track is not only a waste of time, it also doesn't hold a candle to real music.
I have commented before that it is sad, that talentless people who scream in to a mic about having a poker face and dressing like a buffoon get all the attention while the real artists maintain their "silent hero" status in the shadows of obscurity.

I think really good music more than a 100 years ago people were probably more inclined to imagine romance with the opposite sex (relationship wise), or holy influences, feeling as though they were closer to God through good music.

Now days the "me" culture has allowed a person to envision personal exploits when the imagination is set free. A concept brought about by Hollywood's action and adventure genre. As children especially make children we are typically brought up seeing that are basically in an off hand way told to emulate the man on the screen.

Not that I have a problem with that per se, but it is just a difference in culture, temporally speaking.

I think so. One person with a computer can compose a piece and have it made listenable. Just like 3D rendering tools made things that were nearly impossible to paint or draw or animate now possible. This process used to take the resources of an orchestra or studio to do. Much more complex pieces can be performed on that machine in front of you than what used to be deemed possible 100 years ago. And the tools are readily available to anyone, as cost is no longer an issue either. Not much barrier of entry when downloading software like Audacity and LMMS and certain VSTi files. (They're free, other than the cost of a half-decent computer, electricity, and an internet connection.) However they are merely tools. What you do with them still takes vision. (I've played with them, but haven't made much that could be called "epic" or even "listenable".)

Almost everyone and their cousin does techno/dubstep because it's easy, but there are still plenty of musicians that have the classical influences. So I picked these vids by various musicians from one of my Youtube playlists as an example. I think there's plenty of contemporary music that's beautiful in a way that can pull at emotions.







And using the exact same software tool as the above music...



But hey, everyone has their own tastes in music and is free to explore them. Right?

I think so. In the past, music was a group activity with everyone joining. Just look to folk music roots to see the inclusive nature of music. Such group activity is socially lifting and inspiring.

Nowadays, music is generally a solitary activity (festivals excepted), where the iPod delivers the music to the person. Judging by the bored expressions on most listeners faces when they are listening, I would speculate that their experience is hardly uplifting.

So, modern technology has driven music to be solitary.

I would advise everyone to sing out loud, no matter how badly you sound. If you are with 20 others noone would care, but you would feel better for it.

Regards

reply to post by paraphi


Well i would certainly not encourage everyone to sing out loud.

To be honest, (and thanks for your reply by the way), the best music i have ever heard has been that which is devoid of human voice.
It isn't that I am hate the human voice when applied to music, I am just turned off by it. For me it has to be a certain way or not at all, but that's elements of style in and of itself. Everyone has a like and dislike and if there is any amazement to be found it is in the plethora of tastes out there. Things that may sound utterly appalling to one and be completely different to another. I wish there was a way to find out what a person sees in certain things that attract them to it.

I totally agree with your statement on solitary listening vs the generations past, where it was a social occurrence.

reply to post by pauljs75


I am interested in what you have posted, expect a U2U.

reply to post by snowen20


Very interesting topic snowen20

It would be an interesting study to carry out with some New Guinea tribe with little or no knowledge of such music.

Do we have an innate sense of what entails a `happy` or `sad` note ?

--------

I can`t recall the name of an absolutely fabulous documentary which examined music from Beethoven to the Beetles highlight certain similar characteristics . All I can remember was a reference to the juxtaposition of happy and sad notes alongside one another in a tune - and how such contrast effects us.

To answer your specific question I would say no. People have been putting music to plays to emphasize points long before recorded music or video came along so that has always been a part of dramatization and making people imagine things.

The media may have changed but the purpose hasn't. As far as music in general you will always have those that make standard music that anyone could do and market it well enough to be very successful but you also have those that truely have a gift.

Singers like Christina Aguilera or Whitney Housten, before she went "crack is whack" have voices that are just simply amazing, or instrumentalists who are masters at their craft such as everyone from Eddie Van Halen to Kenny-G.

Use the Star Spangled Banner as a point of reference. Alot of people nowadays try and turn it into something of their own and that's fine but usually it's sort of blah, but every once in awhile somebody nails it and for a brief moment your taking away in either the perfection in which it's sung or the meaning behind it.

I believe those moments cannot be changed by hollywood or anything.

interesting thread I sometimes think about the evolution of music
just for comparison have a listen to the worlds oldest written music played on the instrument it was written for

Originally posted by snowen20

So what do you think, Are we being shorted by our inability to truly appreciate the subtle nuances of a musical score due to our Hollywood style vision, or are we more privileged t have the vision with the music?

Visual accompaniment simply bypasses whatever visions could be evoked in the listener. And for those like me with synesthesia, the video portion never "matches" the visions evoked from the music.

But I don't think it influences us much. People aren't typically persuaded to endure a terrible song just because the visual accompaniment may be fantastic. People still are drawn to the music...

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


hats what I was thinking too hat on a base level it will always be the music followed second by imagination. not necessarily a preconceived notion like movies or television.

I have seen an awful lot of that do resort to mental story telling when they listen to music, but then again I have seen a lot of people toeing the party line on many subjects. Maybe such thinking in music is for those couch potatoes. I figure I'm probably wrong, a study would be nice to have as mentioned above.

Not just music but all forms of sound. 20/21st century noise pollution (white noise) as well as visual accompaniment/interference have, I think, altered how we perceive sound.

Music has been used to stir emotion not just in peacetime or recreational activities but also during times of protest or war or even sporting contests, to create psychological advantage, ie Haka.

Prior to the radio, recording, video ages, music for entertainment was always live. Chamber music was so called because it was specifically composed to be played to small house parties. Quite a different experience compared to putting a disc in a machine or watching a distracting vid!

Physics and music have been related for millenia. The art and science of music acoustics are presented here, in musician-friendly format, as is our research in music science.

www.phys.unsw.edu.au...

The site offers a service, to test your own hearing response curve (interactive web service).

Here's a link to University of Cambridge Pendlebury Library of Music, lots of resources.

www.mus.cam.ac.uk...

Good question OP. And one I am definitely not qualified to answer. My gut tells me that no, we aren't experiencing music any differently, but the mechanism or vehicle through which the music is conveyed has been broadened. Through the advent of recorded media, it has allowed us to "take music with us" in a way that is unprecedented. But how we process the music (i.e. hearing/aural) has not really changed so much, IMO.

Originally posted by snowen20
reply to post by paraphi

 

To be honest, (and thanks for your reply by the way), the best music i have ever heard has been that which is devoid of human voice.

I too prefer instrumental tracks to ones with a vocalist or vocal accompaniment. There is just something about listening to an instrumental track that rings true for me personally.

reply to post by BiggyMcBigPants


You make a really good point.
I strongly suspect that like most things in modern society we have also taken music for granted. That is to say the ease by which we can listen to it or have it readily available at all times.

I comment on SHTF survival threads a lot and i sometimes wonder how hard I will have to scavenge around just to find a battery for my MP3 player. Once society crashes (if it ever does) music will become a primitive recreation again. No longer will it have the refinement that is the result of a 1000 years of evolution. The silence, would be sorrowful in that regard.

Like electricity,food, and comfort people do not realize what they have until they no longer have it.

reply to post by snowen20


I would say yes, not because of "epic" aspects of contemporary (or previous) songs, but because of desensitization and passivity. In the past, music was not an everyday, all day occurrence. You would have songs reserved for specific social events: a hunt, a kill, a battle, a marriage, a dirge, a coming-of-age, etc. These songs would not be passive, and depending on the culture, the whole group would have taken part (call and response style, for example).

The passivity of listening to music (especially the top 40 stations) in your car or while working, where the same songs are repeated in a certain pattern all day long, interspersed with commercials, is not anything like how music was experience prior.

What's more, the use of music in advertising allows a storage of association. So rather than hearing a song and knowing it is the song of a fallen elder of the tribe or the wedding song or the funeral dirge, you end up with songs you associate with FedEx, KitKat bars, Ford and Walmart.

It's sad.

reply to post by Sphota


WOW. That is exactly what i was looking for but I couldn't put it in words the way I wanted. But yes that is what i was thinking. The evolution of music, and sound in general. Thats an interesting concept to me.

On a side note not as related I have always wondered how well someone from a a few hundred years ago would sleep in a modern house. Homes with constant noise pollution. The sounds of Air conditioning, other appliances, radios, televisions, outside noises. insanity!

Excellent thread.

Remember music is at it's best when it motivates people to be free-thinkers and expand their knowledge. Every mass social movement created by music has been slapped down by the man - the hippies, the punks and the ravers.

While there is still an amazing amount of underground music out there the people are no longer allowed to gather en-masse ad-hoc to celebrate and dance to this music, it's confined to small dark clubs instead of the huge fields and warehouses of yesteryear.

In the early 90s I honestly thought we were looking at a mass-global conciousness shift through the ingestion of psychedelics and the creation of Temporal Autonomous Zones, unfortuantely the events of Castle Morton put a stop to that, and the movement was legislated against. Sad times.

reply to post by yakuzakid


I agree.
I wonder how people will adapt if they find themselves unable to enjoy music at any time.
I know the secondary generations will be okay, but it is the first gen people that were used to it that will be the worse for ware in the absence of it. I wouldn't be surprised if some people were to off themselves if they couldn't escape a bad situation, and music certainly helps you do that.

One of the common comments on youtube and other places has been, "Who needs drugs when you have great music?" That is absolutely correct.