hey, welcome to 12tone! a while back we made
a video analyzing the harmony of Black Hole
Sun by Soundgarden.
you probably already know that.
in fact, there's a good chance you're here
because of it.
we got a lot of great feedback from it, but
there was one comment we kept getting that
stood out.
the basic idea was that Chris Cornell didn't
know music theory, and thus it was somehow
misguided or even disrespectful to look at
his work in that way. and that's a fairly
common attitude, extending far past Chris
Cornell: there's a belief that, if music isn't
written from a theoretical perspective, it
shouldn't be analyzed from one, that to do
so strips it of its soul, and while I obviously
disagree, it got me thinking about where that
idea comes from and why we don't seem to see
it as much with other kinds of art, and this
might surprise you but I actually think it's
coming from a really good place.
I think it reflects a deep appreciation of
some of the most important aspects of modern
music as an art form, and trying to understand
how that appreciation of music becomes a distrust
of theory tells us a lot about how we, as
theorists, are perceived.
music sits in a pretty unique place in the
world of art.
first of all, it's incredibly accessible.
that is, anyone can do it.
we may not all be Beethoven, but most people
can pick up an instrument, learn a few chords,
and go write some songs with their friends.
and not just basic stuff, either: some of
the most important music of the modern era
has come not from studios, but from garages.
that's a really powerful thing, and I think
we take it for granted, but compare music
to something like, say, film-making.
making a feature-length film, even a really
bad one, requires tens of thousands of decisions
and could involve hundreds of people.
you can't just make a feature film in an afternoon
with a couple buddies, it's a huge production
with lots of moving parts.
so it makes sense to view film through the
lens of expertise, because you have to be
an expert in order to make it.
but that's not all: music is also incredibly
pervasive.
it's everywhere.
it's worked its way into almost every part
our culture, including many of its other art
forms.
and, again, that's great: it means we're able
to share our work with the entire world, instead
of the small subsection of it that happens
to be interested.
here, I'd compare it to poetry or, more specifically,
poetry outside of song lyrics.
like music, poetry is really accessible: anyone
can put words on a page, and a basic understanding
of the forms and practices of poetry is pretty
easy to come by.
but when we talk about poetry, the first question
is often whether someone likes it at all,
whereas you'd probably never ask someone "hey,
do you like music?".
you're much more likely to skip straight to
"what kind of music do you like?" because
there has to be something, right?
everyone likes music.
poetry, on the other hand, is seen as a more
niche art form, so it makes sense to view
it through the lens of expertise because most
people think you have to be an expert in order
to fully appreciate it.
that's not to say, by the way, that poetry
is a lesser art form, or that people who haven't
studied it can't enjoy it.
it just doesn't have the level of cultural
saturation that music has, at least not right
now.
please don't hate me, poets.
anyway, we've established that music is both
accessible and pervasive.
everyone can do it, and everyone likes it,
and that makes it almost uniquely positioned
as the art form of the people.
it's democratized: everyone gets to be involved,
and it belongs to everybody.
viewed like that, it makes perfect sense that
people would be wary of academics coming down
from our ivory towers and declaring that they're
doing it wrong, that things they think are
good are actually bad for reasons they don't
understand, or that they shouldn't make art
because they don't know all the rules.
our job, then, is to prove that that's not
what we're doing.
well, first of all, our job is to not do that.
there are certainly theorists out there who
will loudly and repeatedly insist that they
are the gatekeepers of musical quality, that
they get to enforce their expertise over other
people's artistic experiences.
but most of us don't.
most of us take what in linguistic circles
is called a descriptivist stance, which means
we're not trying to say what's good, we're
just trying to say what's happening.
how does this one piece of music relate to
other pieces of music, and what does it say
about the culture it grew out of?
what things can it teach us about how to write
other songs, and what cool tricks did the
composer use in order to make it sound the
way it does?
those are the sorts of questions we tend to
ask, not whether or not you're allowed to
enjoy your favorite songs.
fundamentally, then, this is a communication
problem.
people are hearing things that we're not trying
to say.
so how do we fix it? that's a really complicated
question, and I don't have the full solution
or anything, but a good first step is probably
to just be respectful.
understand that music is subjective, and different
people may have different musical experiences
from you.
recognize that your academic background doesn't
invalidate their views.
and most importantly, don't tell people they're
wrong for liking things you don't like, and
never, ever insist that something doesn't
count as music.
these sorts of communications can be hard:
I'm certainly guilty of having described things
as "bad" or "wrong" when what I meant was
"non-standard", and while a theorist could've
recognized that intent, someone who's not
used to how we talk probably would've heard
that as an attack.
so if we want to convince people that we're
just here to help, we need to choose our words
and our battles carefully.
we're walking on sacred ground here, and we
have a responsibility to respect that.
anyway, thanks for watching! if you want to
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subscribe, and keep on rockin'.
