I currently play in six bands, but the one that's inspired the largest amount of posts is the one that plays droney avant-pop music and consists mostly of middle-class people with humanities degrees - one or two even have doctorates. Sometimes it's like visiting an alien planet. On Monday I was talking to the lead singer about some upcoming gigs and realized we have completely opposite venue preferences - she likes playing in clubs that charge for tickets and have fixed seating facing the stage. That makes the band the center of attention. I'd rather play in clubs that make their money in alcohol sales and have normal tables that make it easier for the audience to talk to their friends and room to dance. That makes the band the centerpiece of a larger social gathering.

That bit about acting as the centerpiece of social gatherings reminded me of something else. I've frequently mentioned that the purpose of the arts is to provide us with pieces of information which might be useful in various life situations. Think of all those songs about how much some guy misses some chick who dumped him - as annoying and despicable as they seem, I'm sure they've helped lots of teenagers going through their first breakup or middle-aged dudes going through their first divorce realize that their feelings are normal. But that's not the only purpose of the arts and I should mention the other major ones. They are the kinds of things most people understand instinctively on some level, but rarely think about consciously.

One important purpose is signaling - like your tastes in cars and clothing, your taste in art says a lot about you which it would take a lot more effort to communicate in more direct ways. It's really fun to annoy other people by implying their tastes are all about signaling - "I'm glad I can listen to music that's actually fun and has interesting lyrics about stuff relevant to real life instead of that boring Wagner to tell people how deep and intelligent you are".

Music also frequently serves another purpose which the other arts rarely do, and that purpose is to lead people. Armies no longer march into battle to music, but we've still got plenty of athletes who like to listen to something to get fired up, gyms blasting aggressive tracks etc. Dance music is another obvious example of music being used to lead - in this case lead a social and mating ritual. Sure, yelling "shake what yo mama gave ya" is pretty useless for the purpose of making you seem intelligent and deep, but it sure does encourage girls to shake what their mama gave them, and that makes the world a slightly better place for everyone.

I may not be very fond of political leaders, but this is one kind of leadership I can get behind. I should ask that singer why she's not into it.

From a band's point of view, it theoretically makes no sense to play your own songs for any reason other than an ego trip or impressing others - there are, after all, plenty of great songs already written. No matter how good you are at writing your own, they're not going to be better than the best of all the songs written by millions of different people in the past. You should play better songs instead of worse ones, right? Division of labor will make the product better, right?

Maybe, but maybe not. As Dennis Dutton wrote and I keep repeating, in music, as in all art, people aren't looking only for great melodies, lyrics, arrangements and performances, but also for a glimpse into your soul. With a cover band you get a glimpse into both the author's and the performer's soul, which is slightly confusing and therefore more difficult to trust. If you want to learn something about other human beings, unfiltered information is the best. So, if you want to learn about human beings from music, then a great performance of a great song can actually be an inferior product to a worse performance of a less interesting song if the latter is performed by its author. It won't be that way every time, of course. Authentic crap is still crap. At the upper end of the scale, Cole Porter didn't have much of a voice and his songs couldn't reach their full potential unless performed by others.

Is this interest in authenticity a new cultural phenomenon? After all one of the big historical trends in music over the past 50+ years has been the increased prominence of people performing their own material. I don't think any kind of shift in culture is necessary to explain that; culture has just been catching up with technology. Hearing Haydn's orchestra perform his composition with Haydn himself on violin was always more desirable than another orchestra playing them, but back then very few people could actually come to the performances, and just getting the orchestra to play in your summer palace was a huge pain in the ass for everyone. We've been gradually working our way towards making it possible for more people to hear a specific individual's performance since. Better roads and transportation, louder instruments and larger concert halls with better acoustics were all big steps in this direction. Later came amplification which was huge - it not only allowed many thousands of people to hear a single performance, it also allowed bands to shrink vastly and their equipmnent to become much sturdier which all made extensive touring far more practical. Recording, broadcasting and distribution technology followed, and now hearing Haydn's orchestra would be a trivial matter. Hell, I can easily hear songs written by middle-class teenagers on the other side of the world.

I don't think we're quite finished with the shift yet, though. Weddings and corporate parties used to require a live band, but now many of those gigs are going to high-end DJs - who are largely playing material performed by its authors. Sure, classical music, a lot of pop and Nashville country still maintain the division of labor, and hip-hop still has a strong division between producers and MCs - though it's sine qua non for MCs to write their own rhymes, so that part of the work is never split. I think the future will feature even fewer professional songwriters, more MCs making their own beats, and fewer cover bands.

Does that mean cover bands will disappear completely? Nah. I think we're just headed towards a different equilibrium where more people than before perform their own songs, but big numbers of symphony orchestras, professional songwriters and cover bands still remain. There will also be plenty of situations where music creates communion with other human souls but focusing on the entire community around us rather than the specific souls of artists - church music, children's music, military marches, national anthems etc. Still, I am something of a dying breed. I could sit around moaning that this means my enemies are taking over, or that people don't really want the best performances of the best songs, but really, the listeners get more out of the songs. When all's said and done, this is a change for the better. At worst I'll just have to get more gigs accompanying female songwriters.

All that stuff about being true to yourself, authentic etc. does contain a grain of truth after all. Sure, I play music "like most people take out the mail, or pour milk on their cereal, or pump gas" and will play just about any style, even music I'm not interested in ever listening to. That means I can play a lot more than people who are picky about only playing styles they like, make more money, meet more interesting people, learn more etc. Who wouldn't want all that?

In one way, though, playing something which accurately reflects your life and personality does have a benefit. The women who are into that music tend to be much better candidates for meaningful long-term relationships. They aren't horribly disappointed when they find out that you aren't really the avant-garde drone pop kind of guy who thinks more listenable music is beneath him.

So if you're like me and usually playing in four-five different bands (six at the moment), it's good to make one of them something that's all about things that are important to you and make up big chunks of your life. It's worth it even if other bands you could play in instead are better in other ways.

I guess what I really need is to find a way to put these two things together...

That could be a tall order... but if I could pull it off I'm sure I'd meet the perfect woman, or even quite a few of them.

Being a happy guy who likes the world and likes people, I also like happy music. That's why I dig a lot of Naija stuff which is earnestly happy and optimistic in ways which would just be totally embarrassing in any European or American mainstream music. This stuff is as positive as American gospel music, but you also get songs about hot chicks, spending money and other gospel-unapproved subjects. That's a great combination. I had an unexpected revelation when listening to the below track with its totally cheesy refrain.

I realized that I'm completely unlike Timaya in one way. My mother never told me I had to be strong. Neither did my father, or any relatives, any friends, coaches, teachers, bosses... no one. No one's ever told me I need to be brave or manly, either. That means that either no one ever actually says that stuff in real life, only on TV and in songs, or that I've done a pretty good job at being manly, brave and strong and haven't needed any encouragement.

It's an interesting exercise - to think about phrases you'd expect to have heard but have never heard in your life. You can learn quite a bit about yourself that way. Thinking about this subject some more, I realized that only one person has made any homophobic remarks in my presence during the past ten years. That person is a male-to-female transsexual. But I don't wanna think about what that implies!

I greatly prefer reading about sports to reading about music, but I dig Stuff You Will Hate. In a recent post, Sergeant D mentions in passing that some of the bands he used to like years ago didn't use microphones to amplify vocals because that would be "elitist". Some of the commenters confirm this, and also add that some of these bands would also refuse to play on raised stages. But what they did was roll around on the ground crying.

These comical trends never caught on widely, but people still remember them years later. That bit with the microphones is a particularly goofy kind of fake humility. Audiences want you to be better than them anyway, but they do want to identify with you on some level. If you want to be closer to them, a microphone is very helpful in getting there. Bing Crosby was probably the first person to really figure this out and use amplification effectively to reduce some of the gap between the performer and the audience. After all, amplifying your voice allows you to use the same voice tone and dynamics that you would if you were in a small room with the listener - the equipment will project your voice and make you heard.

Opera singers don't use microphones. Of course there's a tremendous upside to having such physically powerful voices that they can be heard in the back row without amplification over an orchestra, and they are the core of opera, but it's silly to suggest that opera singers are closer to the audience or less elite than a microphone-user. Stuff like this is why I'm such a big proponent of learning from the best of the past even if you find it completely boring - this bit of idiocy could have been avoided if these kids had understood opera and Bing Crosby a little better. Bing Crosby is relevant to screamo bands.

A lot of people might think that techno is just the repetitive soundtrack to a pile of turds. I don't dispute that, but there is one exception; the finest Eurodance song ever created (and a personal favourite of Alex's):

This song has a vital lesson for us all:

No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there's no limits.

But how do we reconcile having no limits with making shit techno? The rapper in this song tells us that people "try to diss me 'cos I sell out". However, he responds with "I'm making techno, and I am proud".

He should be, and quite rightly too. There are no limits. This means that most of the time, people will make hilariously poor Eurodance anthems if you let them. There is no point in trying to stop people doing nothing, or even worse making rubbish crap for most of their time, and for good reason; our growth as a civilisation depends on it entirely.

If we treat our existence as having no limits, and we do whatever makes us feel proud, very infrequently, one of us will stumble across something worthwhile. It was literally thousands and thousands of years, during which mankind only made shitty techno, until Beethoven came along.

Even if we do spend our entire lives being proud but producing only mincing Eurodance, at least we'll have spent our time dancing, having fun and giving everyone around us this message: this is awesome, we're not done yet; there's no limits.

A lot of people like to say that art isn't/shouldn't be/can't be "just a product". Although I tend to think of art in very cynical, functional terms, I actually agree with them to some degree. If you buy into Denis Dutton's ideas about the purpose of the arts being to provide people with glimpses into the souls of other people, art is an unusual and slightly fuzzy product. In addition to the physical medium (or reproduction), the product that is art also contains a little glimpse into the mind and personality of its maker. It's not "selling your soul" in the way Faust did, but it is renting out access to some part of it. In this way art works the same way prostitution does. (I wouldn't suggest they're morally equivalent, though. Most prostitutes are much nicer and more useful people than most artists nowadays!)

This is why protesting that "I'm only in it for the money", "I'm only doing what the people buy", "it's not my band, I just work here", "I don't have a soul" and so on will never really work. Even if you believe it, the public never will. They will always assume that you are giving them a window into yourself. Conversely, that doesn't mean that talking about revealing the depths of your soul makes you any better than anybody else - all art does that anyway. Explicit soul-baring doesn't make you any more artistically valid and if you overdo it you just end up being annoying.

A while ago I was having fun arguing with some pretentious twat who proceeded to make an analogy claiming that commercial pop music is like fast food. Of course I couldn't resist correcting him and pointing out that commercial pop music is much more like expensive fancy French cuisine. Fast food tends to be made by young people with little skill, basic equipment, and little idea of how or why what they're doing works. I'd say it's kinda like all those underground indie bands, except that those are more independent in their operations - more like that small kebab shop on the corner that makes really greasy crap and will shut down in three months due to a lack of customers. Fancy French food, on the other hand, is made by people who make decent money, have great expertise, use good equipment, and draw from centuries of tradition - exactly like commercial pop music. With music we get something even better because recordings can be duplicated and distributed inexpensively, making them available to people who aren't wealthy.

Of course I had no idea what I'm talking about as I rarely eat either kind of food and have never worked in a restaurant of any sort beyond playing music there, but who cares? Crappy analogy or not, the argument seemed to work anyway. Reflecting on this afterwards, though, I realized that when it comes to the most important aspect, the pretentious twat was right. Commercial pop music is exactly like fast food in a way which separates them from the vast majority of other human endavors. Both produce something which is enjoyed by large numbers of customers, but also provide free benefits for people who aren't their customers by giving them a way to display their moral and cultural superiority by preening about their dislike of the product and its customers.

Creating something of value for your customers is quite an accomplishment, but also creating value for people who never buy anything from you - that is quite a rare feat. It really makes the world a better place for everyone.

This important film chronicles the struggles and complex relationships of a group of dedicated artists working in the field of music. It is set during a critical time in their band's career, with the release and promotion of a new album plus a major tour of the US. Mixing documentary footage, interviews and performances from decades past, this is an unflinching look into the souls of true artists.

The myriad problems faced by the band, from corporate censorship of their album cover and the tragic deaths of their many drummers to power struggles among management, can be heartbreaking. Like the dedicated artists they are, however, our heroes unflinchingly persevere for the sake of their art.

As with all true-to-life films, "This Is Spinal Tap" can get depressing as the band seems to constantly and intensely struggle against the forces that would hold them down. However, the ending is truly uplifting and inspirational, and you cannot come away from it without feeling a renewed faith not only in musicians but in the entire arts community.

Even if you dislike heavy metal music (and what healthy, normal person doesn't?) there is much you can learn from this film about the nature of art, artists and humanity. Highly, highly recommended.

Buy this wonderful cinematic work at Amazon

Some months ago one of my bands was discussing business with the owner of our label and mentioned that we were going to play at a certain arts and music festival during the summer. He said that the people who win that festival seem to never go on to have much of a career, and if any do show up on TV it takes them years. I didn't give it much thought, but having later gotten to know someone who did win that very festival the previous year I now understand why this happens.

These kinds of festivals don't seem to exist in Western countries, they are very much a Communist holdover, so I will briefly explain what they are. They are usually open for anyone to enter, and those who have their entries picked (usually by passing regional eliminations) can go to the main festival. They get room and board, but don't even get travel costs covered. At the festival everyone gets to play a concert, put on their play, display their art or whatever, and the jury selects one winner who gets a decent amount of cash, plus possibly some other smaller prizes and/or honorable mentions.

So what kind of person wins these festivals? Well, the guy I know told me he finally played a gig with his band that he was really happy with at a certain bar. Playing at the same bar a month later, I had mentioned that to the guy who booked the gig. It turned out this had been a charity gig to raise money for some sick young woman's medical expenses. At that point I realized I've never even heard of this guy playing a normal gig on the capitalist free market where a venue pays him money to attract people who will buy tickets and/or alcohol. Everything he does is government-funded, government-subsidized or charitable. Even his "day job" is working for a government cultural agency.

It all became clear to me. The reason these festival winners never have much of a career because like this guy they don't want to whore themselves out on the free market, even though they are willing to work quite hard to promote themselves in the arts-and-culture circles' government-funded institutions.

Now... he's not really an evil person or an incompetent. He's just... well, he's free from the bonds of commercialism. That's the only thing that's wrong with him. He doesn't play in bars where his band would function as an advertisement for alcohol. He's all about promoting culture, not promoting beer. In other words, he's a career bureaucrat in a centrally planned government enterprise. To quote Ilkka:

...he is a ward of the state, of course, which is why these pros are the most conformist and defensive people in their panicky grasp to institutions that support them. You can take it to the bank that if some cause is supported by hordes of artists and the "cultural" crowd, it opposes freedom or anything really new or revolutionary.

Freedom from commercialism may sound nice, but I should try to talk him into trying freedom from cultural institutions sometime.

Talking about the factors most important to the success of a business enterprise, Arnold Kling writes:

I personally would emphasize a desire to sell. If you cannot overcome your fears and insecurities about selling (and who doesn't have those fears and insecurities?), then you are very unlikely to be successful. The notion that you can have such a great idea that it will sell itself (or "go viral," as they say) is very seductive and in my view almost always wrong.

I don't know how many businessmen are seduced by this idea, but I know ridiculously large numbers of musicians are. All of them would be better off if they dropped this concept and stopped being ashamed to sell themselves. Even if your ideas and your music are really, really good there are thousands of other bands out there competing with you. At least some of them also have ideas that are really, really, really good, plus have charismatic personalities. To have a shot at getting anywhere you need to have good ideas, at least one person with a ton of charisma, and the willingness to self-promote (in non-stupid ways, of course). Your ideas will sell themselves only if you are extremely lucky or working in such a small niche that you don't have much in the way of skilled competition.

This goes double for bands that aren't in it to make money and prefer other rewards. They suffer from this delusion the most. Most of the members of my middle-class avant-pop band certainly do, but luckily they have a shameless pimp like me to provide a reality check.

Once you get over those fears and insecurities, selling your ideas and selling yourself feel pretty damn good. So go for it!

In my last post I suggested some ways to piss off your betters. Gypsy mansions and Ed Hardy shirts aren't cheap, though. For those on a budget there are also other options - for example liking country music sends a similar signal, though it's not quite as good as it is not immediately obvious when someone sees you from 20 meters away. If you really want to piss off white middle-class people with your tastes in music, though, what works best is enjoying rap made by white middle-class people. I'm not sure why, but that's how it works. Maybe it's because hating black rappers would be racist, hating Eminem would be kinda racist too because he has too many black friends, and hating non-English-speaking white rappers would be unenlightened and lacking in appreciation of foreign cultures. All that bottled-up hate has to find an outlet somewhere, right?

Here is a great example of the kind of rap it's socially acceptable to hate:

These guys are also definitely OK to hate, even though they're Mexican and collaborated with E40 who is definitely not white. They must be doing something right if they can provoke even such socially risky hate.

As much as I like country, I gotta admit that all the hate for country music pales by comparison with what this stuff gets. I am impressed.

An anonymous commenter presents us a view common among unattractive nerds who like boring music and hate fun:

shouldn't the quality of music being performed be what's worth paying special attention? isn't that what people are paying for?

Of course people care about what musicians and all kinds of artists look like, act like and are like as people. (Even if they didn't it'd be a good idea to dress well in any situation where large numbers of people will be looking at you anyway.) We all know they do, but why? Those fun-hating nerds would say "because they're shallow and stupid and I'm better than them". But is that the real answer?

As Denis Dutton wrote in The Art Instinct, "intense interest in art as emotional expression derives from wanting to see through art into another human personality: it springs from a desire for knowledge of another person" and "Creative arts inexhaustibly give us ways of looking into human souls and thus expand our own outlook and understanding". Now, I personally find the idea that someone wants to look into my soul because I'm plucking some strings pretty weird, but it's true.

People are more interested in the souls of interesting people. No one really wants to peer into the soul of someone who's boring, low-status and ugly. Now, if you sound really, really good that will get you enough status that some people might start to be interested in you, no matter how uninteresting a person you actually are, at least in theory. In practice I've never known anyone who achieved much in any kind of music without at least one charismatic person, except for church organists and playing background piano music in restaurants. Even symphony orchestras and military bands need conductors and/or soloists with serious presence.

No matter who you are and who your audience is, though, there's no sense in intentionally looking boring because "it should be all about the music". Audiences will always prefer to seek this spiritual communion with people they think are better than them. If the audience thinks you're better than them, they will be more interested, the communion will be deeper and they will actually get more pleasure and more understanding out of the performance. Don't deny them that by intentionally looking and acting boring.

And just for the hell of it, one of my personal bass heroes...

I've recently found myself playing a completely new style of music, and one which is typically played by people half my age. That meant I had to do a little thinking about how to avoid looking like the boring old guy who doesn't belong there. That led to a general list of things that guys shouldn't wear on stage, or in many other situations where people will be looking at you and you're hoping they don't find you boring, such as clubbing. A few of them also apply to women, but only a few.

Hawaiian shirts
A lot of old and boring guys desperate to make people think they're not old and boring yet will grab the most colorful thing in their closet. All too often that is a Hawaiian shirt (or even worse one of those short-sleeved shirts with flames printed on it). Either instantly identifies you as an old and boring guy desperate to make people think you're not old and boring yet. People who aren't old and boring just don't have such things in their closets.
How it might work: It's part of some ridiculously incoherent getup - say you wear a basketball jersey over it, a cowboy hat, and tight purple jeans. Then you'll just look like a complete idiot.

Hard-to-see patterns
With distant stages and dim lighting, small or low-contrast patterns become practically invisible. I've definitely got too many shirts like this. Even a really loud but small plaid will just look like a blurry blob from the back. It won't really look bad, but what's the point? Large, high-contrast patterns are better.
How it might work: If it looks OK as a blob but really, really ridiculous up close. Some redneck-styled animal print shirts would qualify.

Brimmed hats
Even if you're young, as long as you're playing anything other than country any hat other than a ski cap or baseball cap makes people suspect you're balding and trying to hide it.
How it might work: You look like Indiana Jones' or Crocodile Dundee's more badass cousin.

Khaki trousers
Nothing says "I'm a boring guy with a boring job I hate" like trousers in any kind of khaki, tan or beige color. Most people just have that association in their mind, and there's no good reason for you to trigger it. Any other color is OK, though.
How it might work: If you're built well enough to look like a male stripper, are wearing nice dress shoes and no shirt, and are playing at a gay bar.

Shirt tucked into trousers
The only people who do this are boring old guys and young guys who are forced to by their job's dress code.
How it might work: You're wearing a suit or at least a sportscoat, and don't have the slightest hint of a gut. Generally the less casually you're dressed the more likely it is you can get away with this.

Leather trousers
Leather trousers might have been "rock'n'roll" once upon a time, but that was decades ago. I was going to write that only middle-aged women wear these nowadays, but then I realized that some homeless bums also wear them in the winter.
How it might work: You're constantly drunk, frequently piss yourself on stage, and want to be able to do it without people seeing anything.

Anything that makes you sweat a lot
Most people work up a pretty good sweat on stage, so plan accordingly. In other words, don't wear that tweed jacket unless you're playing outdoors or in an unheated church in the middle of winter.
How it might work: You've got a suit that needs a trip to the cleaners anyway and don't mind soaking it thoroughly in sweat.

Everyone all in black
It's boring, stereotypical and lazy. It's really a way for everyone in the band to half-assedly match without having to make any thought or effort.
How it might work: It's an amateur performance of classical music where looking boring is definitely better than attenition-whoring.

Looking like the average guy in the audience
The audience wants to think you're better than them in some way... otherwise why would you be worth paying any special attention to?
How it might work: If you look like the average guy in the audience but in a much better version. If your audience wears shorts and T-shirts you can do it too if you're taller, more muscular, and your clothes fit better.

I'm sure there could be countless other items added to the list, but this is a good list of stupid stuff I commonly see guys in bands do. What do you often see on stages that you wish people would stop doing?

Philip Ball reviews a David Stubbs book which tries to answer the question why contemporary avant-garde music is less accepted by the public than contemporary avant-garde art. He hits what I think is a very important factor:

Many musicologists accept a definition of music as “organised sound.” Yet sound is structured into music not on paper, nor even in the mind of the composer, but in the mind of the listener. Music is sound in which the organisation must be audibly perceptible to a listener, not just theoretically present. . .

The composer’s job is to manipulate the expectations that these principles produce—enough to avoid predictability and create a lively musical surface, but not so much as to lose coherence. Out of the interplay between expectation and reality comes much of music’s capacity to excite and move us. But what happens if these rules are undermined?

I agree that this is probably the most important factor but I think that bad music is more obnoxious than bad visual art also for another reason. It requires the production of energy to create soundwaves in the air (even if the music is unamplified and the energy comes from human muscles), so music is a more "active" art than painting or sculpture which only passively reflect light. In that sense music is more like a video or a light installation, except that the soundwaves will fill the entire air - unlike the lightwaves from a video screen which one can quickly and easily look away from. Add to that the duration of musical works, and you've got something which hurls physical energy at you, comes at you from all angles, and you can only escape it by leaving the concert hall or staying until the end. If you wanted to design an effective method of irritating people, that would be pretty good. No wonder the US government uses music to annoy suspected terrorists but as far as I know hasn't tried using really bad paintings.

A painting that really sucks is only moderately annoying; a video that sucks a little more so. For visual art to reach the obnoxiousness levels of really lousy music is possible - a room with shifting lights blaring from all its surfaces, for example - but fortunately rare. I don't think contemporary composers are really any worse than contemporary painters, but the nature of their work makes it less likely people will put up with their crappy products.

HT: Arts and Letters Daily

A list of the prominent Swedish composers that I like the most. Nothing more, nothing less.

Franz Berwald

Berwald is most famous for his three movement symphonies, not really recognized until after his death. Maybe like no other Swedish composer, Berwald had complete control over the symphonic format. His compositions follow a very logical structure and are rooted in a German classicist tradition. Indeed, one could call Berwald the Romantic Beethoven of Sweden. His blend of Classicism and early Romanticism continues to impress listeners outside of Scandinavia.

Favorite works: Sinfonie capricieuse, Sinfonie singuliére

Hugo Alfvén

Heavy Romanticist that came to play a key role in the Swedish nationalist consciousness. Listening to Alfvén's works one understands why: motifs packed with Swedish folklore, nature and singing. Alfvén wrote dramatic, wild and ecstatic music, and mastered the instrumentality of symphonic creation brilliantly. Certainly of strong personality, yet so very national in character that most Swedes find his music capturing the Swedish mentality, Alfvén is not to be missed.

Favorite works: Symphony 1 & 4, Midsommarvaka

Johan Helmich Roman

The father of Swedish music who brought Händel and baroque music closer to Sweden. The key work is the music of Drottningholm, written for royal entertainment, but thanks to its musical qualities now belonging in every Swede's music collection. The music ranges from joyful celebration to more melancholic scenes. History was written with these notes; undeniable beauty.

Favorite works: Drottningholmsmusiken

Joseph Martin Kraus

Like Berwald, Kraus was of German ancestry, which is reflected in his music. Often (incorrectly) referred to as "Sweden's Mozart," Kraus forged a new path by embracing the Sturm & Drang era at the time. As a result, his music varies between the Classicism of the Enlightenment and the Romanticism of the early Romantic period. The tension between often solemn, light passages and abrupt, emotive motifs create a rich listening experience that deserves a whole lot more attention.

Favorite works: Sinfonia C sharp minor, Symphonie funèbre

Lars-Erik Larsson

Neo-classicist composer who wrote a lot of pastoral works containing ancient Greek motifs. There's a clear Romantic dimension to Larsson's works, which nevertheless always maintain a clear, rational structure, making it perfect for choir. Not much to say, except that he is one if the better-known composers in Sweden, and his pastoral suit is not to be missed.

Favorite works: God in disguise, pastoral suit

Oskar Lindberg

Lindberg composed on the organ, which was common at the time, and was an in-and-out Christian Romantic with strong pantheistic leanings. Pompous, heavily emotive and religious music expressing Biblical themes and evoking the landscape of Swedish nature. Vastly overlooked.

Favorite works: Organ sonata g minor, Sorrow music, Old carol from Dalarna

Wilhelm Peterson-Berger

Very much debated and disliked to this day, Peterson-Berger was a music critic - and a very mean-spirited one, attacking just about every contemporary Swedish composer. Some still argue whether he ever really mastered the symphonic craft, especially counterpoint. What people do agree upon is that his collected piano works, Frösö flowers, is a wonderful piece of music. Peterson-Berger was a Nietzschean Romanticist, heavily nationalistic, and has remained a musical symbol for the beautiful northern parts of Sweden. No wonder.

Favorite works: Frösöblomster

Wilhelm Stenhammar

Very often played today around Europe, Stenhammar belonged to the line of Scandinavian composers who were baffled by Bruckner and Wagner, but realized that in order to not sound like Wagner, they had to invent a new musical language. Still, Stenhammar's moderately Romantic works reek of Wagner's pompous atmosphere and Bruckner's dense motifs. The unique personality of Stenhammar is his tuned-down (or "aristocratic" as it's been described) dramatic language, never really certain of itself and thus always touching the melancholic. His later works are therefore his most mature expression.

Favorite works: Symphony no 2, Piano concerto no 2

Robert Wilbin writes an interesting post about how some ways of chasing status are more beneficial for the rest of society than others; that's the kind of thing we often think about when we make fun of other peoples' status games for being worthless or condemn them as harmful, but we almost never put in Wilbin's clear and direct terms. Is a particular status competition positive-sum, zero-sum or negative-sum? That's an excellent question.

He's dead wrong about one thing, though: that competitions in which a few people gain extremely high amount of status are less desirable. If plenty of people make small-to-medium gains from something, I don't see the problem wtih a few at the very top making huge gains. The examples he brings up are popular music and sports, and I know for a fact that not being an international star still brings me plenty of status instead of creating unhappiness for me, as Wilbin seems to think it would.

The same thing with sports; I don't even compete anywhere but lifting weights makes me look better and more intimidating (both major status boosts), it also gives me the status of "strong dude you should ask for help when you need heavy shit moved". I come out well ahead in this status game even though I'm no Gennaro Gattuso or even Hossein Rezazadeh. Their far greater status doesn't make me sad in the slightest.

I don't think I'll ever understand egalitarians...

HT: Ilkka

Ilkka Kokkarinen writes about the excellent Hall of Douchebags:

"badass musician" is an oxymoron, and I'd say that is the best and most succinct way to put it. A successful career in music requires tons of discipline and practice and thus a middle class value system, to say nothing of having the financial means and a place to practice, which is why these days bands tend to come from suburbs.

Well... he's right and he's wrong. Successful musicians are definitely more reliable and organized than badass, but they're not really all middle class. At least where I live most cover bands, especially the ones which play weddings, are made up of working class dudes, while most bands that write their own songs and lose money are middle-class. Pointing out one more example of how the working class tends to be more interested in chasing material well-being while the middle-class is more interested in seeking status isn't interesting, but the bit about a place to practice got me thinking about a tangent.

Having somewhere to practice is especially important for drummers. In a densely populated city where real estate is expensive and scarce it can be very difficult, which is why drummers are easier to find in small towns or out in the country (or, I suspect, in sprawling American cities such as Houston). That doesn't mean that big city music tends to have worse drumming than small-town music - successful bands end up with a good drummer one way or another - but it does make a real difference in another way. Big city drummers are usually forced at some point to learn to control their volume, not only so the neighbors don't call the cops when they practice but also so that they can play in tiny big-city pubs without being so damn loud that the band will never be hired to play there again. I think that's why city bands are more likely to rely on variations in tone color - think of all those post-rock bands with guitarists with a dozen effects pedals which are very much a city phenomenon. If you've got a loud-as-fuck drummer and need to crank your amp all the way, it will make no difference whether you've got some knob on some effects pedal set to 4 o'clock or 3 o'clock. With a more restrained drummer, small differences like that can be perceptible. Hell, maybe you can even use a dulcimer in a few songs without the idea getting murdered by feedback problems. You rarely see that kind of thing in small-town rock bands.

Also notice that the most urban of genres - hip-hop and R&B - often use sampled or programmed drums, meaning it's possible to work on it even if you live in the middle of a city and don't know anyone with a drum kit. I don't think that's just a randomly cultural development, I think it's caused in part by the economics of urban real estate which affects the economics of music and therefore the sound of city music.

This GNPX post mentioning the different attitudes of various social classes regarding the importance of genetics in athletic success reminded me of a Dusk In Autumn post from last year about what hip-hop lyrics have to say about the heritability of personality traits. That got me thinking about all those country songs about being an alcoholic, criminal etc. Do they blame these "poor life outcomes" on environmental variables or genetics?

Of course the first song to come to mind was Kevin Fowler's "Long Line Of Losers".

The lyrics are full of indications that Fowler believes genetics are very important, and no blame directly placed on environmental variables. The meaning of lines such as "my bloodline made me who I am" is obvious enough, but there are more subtle clues as well. Note that his grandmother was never around during his life, his grandfather wasn't around much as he was in jail half the time and working on the road a lot (running moonshine), but he considers them important enough to how he turned out to start the song with them.

Even the "good" environment of having a mother who always went to church is not shown as helping Fowler grow up to be an outstanding citizen. The most telling line, though, is "I was born with a shotglass in my hand" - that is to say, inclined towards alcohol from birth, before any environmental variables had much of a chance to influence anything. So, there you have it - just like underclass blacks, rednecks generally believe that personality traits are strongly heritable. In this they are also joined by urban underclass whites, as evidenced by these Euro-wiggers who recorded a hip-hop cover of "Long Line Of Losers".

If you want this post to have a serious point, it might be that scientific research and the common beliefs of the stupidest and least educated members of society are pretty well aligned in this case, and the nurturist beliefs so popular among the middle and upper classes are wrong.

An anonymous commenter wrote something worth looking deeper into:

I think this applies to all of us in the local music scene...I like the attention I get from gentlemen in between sets...usually other musicians...and I make a lot of friends that way...but the big shows with big stages (yes, I play these too)...most of the people are in awe of a woman who is not a "chick singer" and they don't know how to approach me...

It definitely is easier to meet people and make new friends at some types of concerts than at others. For maximizing opportunities for sex with groupies the dynamics are different, but I will uncharacteristically ignore sex while I write this post and just stick to the subject of forming friendships.

Playing music in public is a great way to "be somebody" and make other people interested in you. Some of those people will want to meet you, shake your hand and get to know you. Yet they do this a lot more at some kinds of concerts than others. Anonymous writes that large stages and large venues keep this from happening because they make you seem less approachable. I agree that playing in auditoriums and concert halls will generally make you fewer friends than playing clubs, but I don't think that venue size is the major part of the story. I suspect the venue's design and purpose has more to do with it than size. If it was really just about venue size, artists would make fewer new friends at exhibit openings in large galleries than in small ones. I don't think that's true, though if any artists know how it works from experience please let me know in the comments.

I think it's easier to meet people and socialize in places which are designed primarily for selling alcohol, such as pubs. Notice how it's considered unusual and almost rude for band members to pack up and go home as soon as they finish their last set - the normal expectation is that you'll at least have a drink and spend some time being social with fans and other band members. It's also perfectly normal for audience members to hang out at the venue afterwards, even for many hours if an afterparty develops. There is also plenty of opportunity to talk before the gig and during breaks. The more time everyone spends in the venue the more drinks sold and the happier the owner.

That kind of thing just doesn't happen in auditoriums, theaters and arenas whose lifeblood is ticket sales not alcohol sales. There the audience basically leaves when the show ends as there isn't much else to do. Some will stand around chatting for a little while but not for too long. Also the band will usually disappear somewhere into the back after they tear down which makes them more difficult to locate. You can still make few friends at that kind of gig, but it'll mostly be among the organizers, other bands etc. Even if you're out in the audience during someone else's set the seating arrangements facing the stage don't facilitate socializing and the amplification is more likely to render attempts at conversation pointless.

There are ways to play big stages and make plenty of friends, though. One is to plan an official or semi-official afterparty at a nearby pub. Another is to play various non-music festivals. For example, those tourism-promoting civic fests don't really revolve around alcohol sales or socializing but their purpose is to give people something to do for a few hours or even for the whole day, and that provides plenty of opportunity for people to approach the band they dug.

I guess much of the above probably also applies to making new friends when you're part of the audience, but I attend concerts where I'm not playing so rarely (once every few years) that I wouldn't really know.