We've discussed the extraordinary musicological homogeneity of popular music genres before. Homogeneous, that is, in terms of basic musical elements: scale (major-minor diatonicity), harmony, and rhythm. To that we could also add the almost complete absence of heterophony or polyphony, and also the rigid adherence to conservative music forms, especially strophic form. The only way the commodity music industry manages to manufacture the impression that popular music forms are in any way "modern" is by recourse to extra-musical associations—namely through advertising and promotion to make it look "cool", "modern", and "in". It's all pure and unadulterated capitalism, calculated to shame you into looking "uncool" unless you conform to their dictates, and openly concede to consumption of the requisite fetish-product by wearing their logo t-shirt like a sandwich board. If they can convince you to tattoo it across the unused advertising space of your forehead, all the better. However, once all of this extra-musical window dressing is stripped away (such as the meat dress, school uniforms, clown costumes, tattoos, outlandish hair-dos, body piercings, and face paint along with all other rock-star paraphernalia and stage antics), you are left with music that, on paper, frequently looks more baroque than anything contemporary.
Here is a good example, from Metallica. However, any more currently fashionable example of commodity music would work just fine:
First things to note: it still has a key signature. Next, the time signature is a homely old-fashioned 6/8. Harmonically, it is all pretty basic, as well. Anyone who submitted a composition like this to a modern music competition would be laughed out of court for writing something so archaic. If the musicians dressed appropriately for the musical language, they would have to swap their rock star costumes for powdered wigs and silk stockings. Note that it is so tonally conservative that there is not a single chromatic note on the entire page. You can go through books and books of commodity music scores and struggle to find a single chromatic note anywhere. It seems it is forbidden to stray even one chromatic note outside of the realms of the main key.
The radical avoidance of chromaticism in commodity music like Metallica even compares unfavourably to Brahms:
Arguments about "Brahms the Progressive" not withstanding, when you find the composer widely regarded as the very epitome of late Victorian arch-conservatism being far more radical in breaking down the restrictions of traditional tonality than Metallica, then it is time to complain.
Next, look at this example of real modern music, from Pierre Boulez's "Le marteau sans maître":
You can see immediately that there is no key signature, as the organising principle is more serialist, rather than being determined by functional harmony. Note too the rhythmic complexity: almost every bar on the page is on a different key signature, which includes a 5/8 and a 7/8 (sometimes called "irrational" rhythms).
One of the more bizarre things one hears about "genres" is that the Boulez is supposed to belong in the "classical" music pigeon-hole. In fact, from a purely music point of view (scale, harmony, form, rhythm and other basic elements of musical language), the Metallica is infinitely more "classical" than the Boulez! This is because their conventionally tonal musical language is infinitely closer to that which used to prevail during the so-called classical period, of Haydn and Mozart. But—wait! Schoenberg points out that in the opening of his Dissonance Quartet, Mozart suspends tonality:
The result, Schoenberg liked to say, was it was effectively "atonal music". So, which then is more aggressively modern in purely musical terms—Mozart or Metallica? Examination of the written score suggests it may well be the former. Remember, we are not talking about extra-musical associations, but just about the music.
It all depends too on what you define by "classical". If you meant by that a piece of writing that has come to be considered a "classic" in the same way that novels by Dickens or Tolstoy are considered "classics" then it is a bit silly to call contemporary composers, whose works are seldom played or heard, to be "classics", especially when the ink has scarcely dried on the score. Some contemporary composers even, rather laughably, call themselves "composers of classical music". That really is bizarre! I wonder if there are any novelists or poets out there who call themselves writers of "classical poetry" or "classical novels".
The term "classical music" as a truly bizarre catch phrase embracing composition from almost every nation in the world, including from nations that have long ceased to exist, as it encompasses music notated over a period of about a thousand years (especially as plainchant is often included in the "classical" umbrella). The sheer absurdity of the term is demonstrated by the fact that all of these next examples, from a Franco-Flemish, Japanese and a Greek composer, are considered "classical music":
The Dufay is essentially atonal (or "pre-tonal" as some euphemistically say) because it pre-dates the development of the major-minor system of diatonic tonality, although it is still diatonic in that it is modal. The Takemitsu post-dates tonality (you might call it a "post-tonal" work), and also evokes the Balinese gamelan percussion orchestra, and probably has elements of Japanese traditional music incorporated into it too. The Xenakis is totally electronic and uses mathematical formulae in its organisation.
Strictly speaking, by comparison to the huge variety of musical language lumped into one like this, the so-called "genres" (rock, pop, country etc etc) allegedly found in popular commodity music forms are astonishingly homogenous in their rigid adherence to a diatonic-homophonic language, and there is a far better argument to be made for lumping them all together under the one umbrella.
The problem, naturally, is what alternative term we are going to use if we are going to throw out the term "classical music" or to restrict its use to denote music from the Classical period, such as Mozart and Haydn—meaning that Wagner or Brahms must not be called "classical music". The best option is to call it "art music", in opposition to "popular music". There will be those who object that this is condescending etc, but I suspect that is just too bad. After all, nobody objects to the distinction between art film and popular film. Literary music is another possible term, to distinguish it from popular music. Another option that should be considered is "anti-capitalist music" or "anti-commodity music". Of course, there is always the term "grown up's music" to really infuriate people, it's opposite being "Kindermusik". There is also an important distinction to be made between Hörmusik (listening music) as opposed to Tanzmusik (dance music), or any other form of "utility music" intended as a subordinate backdrop to film, dance, drug-taking, or other social events (i.e. wallpaper music) that usurps the role of the music as the key event.
The difficulty with music is, that, as Schopenhauer said, it is the language of passion and emotions. The sorts of things that seem logical when applied to novels or films suddenly get thrown out the window, and people become bizarrely irrational and fanatically emotive. However, it is a good thing to educate these passions and emotions.
The biggest question of all is how it is that the commodity music industry has managed to brainwash the capitalist mass consumer into actually believing that their music is "modern" and "in", when from a purely musical perspective the music could hardly be more archaic in its language. The answer is that it is a testimony to the power of advertising, the power of capitalism in peddling its commodities. What better way to achieve this than by exploiting the blind passions and dumbed down tastes of the mindless consumer?
Recommended Reading
Adorno on Popular Culture by Robert W. Witkin
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