Hope for New Music in the Modern World
This article is the third segment in my series on New Music in the modern era. If you’d like to check the previous entries out, the first article is “Recordings of New Music Need to be More Accessible”; and the second article is “New Music is Not Made for the Algorithm.”
For fans of New Music, classical, or any other “legacy” artform, there is a familiar and somewhat tiresome debate which may succinctly be phrased as: is it dead? On one hand, I think the issue of New Music’s health is as pressing as ever, but since we’ve been having this debate for decades—or more accurately, centuries—then the implication is that New Music is stubbornly clinging to life. That is to say, we still have time to save this strange child of the canon, so let’s avoid as much hand-wringing as possible, and instead apply our anxieties to solving this problem together! Go team! (If you can’t tell from the liberal use of exclamation marks, I’m also trying to encourage myself here.)
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But before we jump into possible solutions, I want to give you some idea of who I am, and why I even care about this in the first place. My awareness of the New Music genre did not occur until I encountered it firsthand, as a saxophonist in my high school concert band. While I certainly knew there were composers for movies and video games, I had not considered that the concert hall could still be a place for new works. This discovery was (to put it mildly) life-altering; I now have a doctorate of musical arts and am a composer in the early stages of my career. But this specter of invisibility is far from behind me, for when I talk to people outside the industry, I often have to describe what a composer of concert music even does. While my own backstory can only serve as an anecdotal example, I believe it illustrates how hidden the genre can be, and how much we should prioritize solutions related to visibility.
The familiar concert program which pits a single contemporary piece against the historical canon is a format not without its faults, but I owe it my gratitude, for I eventually fell in love with those strange pieces at the margins. Like the eccentric and wonderful family relative who only passingly resembles a very old line, New Music intrigued me. Better yet, it has since introduced me to a community of people who share this same passion—many of whom I can count as my closest friends. But as much as I adore our little niche hiding in plain sight, and selfishly want to keep it that way, I also want to spread awareness so that every potential fan (who surely must exist) has the opportunity to join the fold. Plenty of people genuinely enjoy odd and challenging things, and New Music should be no different!
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So now that we’ve covered a bit of my backstory, I think it is time we return to the main thread of this article; which is to say, how can we improve the health of New Music? We may not agree if it is already dead, still dying, or (gasp) actually on the mend, but I think we can all agree that things could be better. By “better” I basically mean getting more people involved, in any capacity. The previous two articles in this series (which are linked in the header section) explore a few of the issues New Music faces when it is presented in online spaces. But if you’re pressed for time and would simply like a quick rundown, there’s no need to fear, I’ve got you! Here’s a short summary:
First, I make the case that recordings of New Music need to be more widely available, given that many people initially discover music online, and then only go to concerts after they have become a fan. But even if recordings were to become widespread, the genre is often not suited for quick viral clips, or algorithmic discovery, since it is more so designed for the focused and long-form environment of live performance, where works tend to be more experimental and less normative.
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And yet, I have hope for New Music in online spaces, and that hope is based on a broad umbrella-term of genres which might be called the popular avant-garde. This could bring to mind avant-rock artists from decades past, such as Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa; but it could also be extreme genres of today, such as Noise, Industrial, or various metal subgenres like Deathcore or Grindcore. We need to remind ourselves that there are underground scenes just as experimental as New Music (if not more so), and that they have found ways to exist in the modern world. If they can do it, so can we. I will, however, admit that there is an obvious difference in cost between putting a rock band onstage versus a large ensemble, let alone an orchestra or an opera; but I still believe there are things we can learn from the popular avant-garde, and I’d like to dive into them here.
To focus the conversation, I’ll talk about one popular avant-garde genre in particular—a personal favorite of mine—known as Japanoise, or Noise music from Japan. To the uninitiated, it basically sounds like a wall of harsh and incomprehensible static, glitches, screeches etc.; but if you continue to listen to it, go to shows, discuss it with other fans, and read about it (the research of David Novak is indispensable), you might get to a point where it begins to sound truly awesome. That is, Japanoise is transformed from a chaotic mess into a vibrant, and even ecstatic, sonic force through the actions of community. Meaning can be found in the music itself, certainly; but while shoulder-to-shoulder in an underground venue, with your shoes sticking to a grimy floor, the music will glimmer differently. The energy of lived experience changes a venue into a community and a record store into a safe haven. It is the difference between meaningless noise and meaningful Noise. Music is alive when it is part of a community.
If you’ve gotten to this point of the article, and are thinking that “community” is an obvious and unrevelatory answer which is not easily enacted—then don’t worry, I’m right there with you. If we look just a bit deeper though, I think the answer reveals itself in the finer points of how these genres compare.
New Music and Japanoise have a lot in common: they’re aesthetically challenging, primarily experienced in-person, and ill-equipped for online spaces. In short, they’re both commercially limited; and I think that’s totally acceptable. But where Japanoise clearly differentiates itself is in its venues, which are the heart of its scene and community. These venues are in dense city environments, they look a lot more like clubs, pubs, or cafés, and they allow for passersby to casually walk in and passively engage with the scene. Countless friendships are forged through late-night conversations over shared drinks and food, but the venue has to provide the time and space for this to happen naturally. Although the classical world’s many concert halls, performance spaces, and summer festivals have made strides in this regard—and community engagement seems to be more of a priority than ever before—our venues are not the hubs they need to be.
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Imagining punk rock without CBGB, psychedelic groups without The Fillmore, or Satie without the cabaret is basically impossible because a scene needs a place to exist. A home-away-from-home, a third place—whatever you want to call it—humans are social creatures who need to gather. A lot has been said about the decline and commodification of the third place in modern society (especially after the pandemic), and I can’t help but think that this is, paradoxically, an opportunity. People still need community, and if we throw open our doors and create venues where someone might passively and casually encounter New Music by living composers, then our community will grow.
My purpose for writing this article is not to disparage classical venues (The Cleveland Orchestra’s Severance Hall served as my third place for many years), but to rethink our priorities in the modern era. New Music matters to me, and this is a problem-solving exercise as much for myself as it is for the genre as a whole. While we all know we need better funding and bigger audiences, I believe our venues serve as the foundation, literally and figuratively, for all of our efforts. A dedicated, full-time venue is the platform for community, and it is too often overlooked in these discussions. Whatever your ideal New Music venue looks like (a cozy and bookish café, a raucous club, a casual pub etc.), I bet there are other people who would love that place too. Thinking back on Erik Satie and the cabaret, I could personally imagine New Music thriving in a similar environment of food, drink, and conversation—who doesn’t love dinner and a show?