European Vs. American in the Context of Post-Modern

EUROPEAN VS. AMERICAN IN THE CONTEXT OF POST-MODERN

JAZZ, ROCK AND POP MUSIC

Yvetta KAJANOVÁ

Európske versus americké v kontexte postmoderného jazzu, rocku a pop music Abstract: In the context of different aesthetic approaches, the specifics of European aesthetic thinking appear very vaguely. However, if we look at the terms as aesthetic ideal, aesthetic experience and aesthetic consciousness, the subject of aesthetics begins to be elucidated in the historical development of classical, modernist, and postmodern art. If disciplines such as psychology or sociology will take over the areas of aesthetic research, then the subject of aesthetic research will be narrow. The same problem also arises in jazz and rock music, where the “object” of the research disappears and becomes equally vague in current development of music. Theorists talk about death of jazz and rock music. The preference of a high culture and a direction towards complicated performances have been recognised as typically European features in both music and art. This was particularly evident in the dominance of European classical music until the beginning of the postmodern era (Tery Riley: In C, 1964). In the second half of the 20th century, the typical European music features the sophistication of musical form and harmony was replaced by another non-European presentation – for example, by the sophistication of jazz harmony in American jazz; or the experiments of the modern European music of the 20th Century were substituted by electronic dance music (Brooklin). Keywords: classical art, jazz, modernism, postmodernism, rock, subject of research

In order to encompass the vast and diverse range of contemporary artistic expressions, the aesthetics of the new millennium builds upon well-established approaches, including the phenomenological, semiotic, structural, and formal (i.e. Gestalt theory). However, it is not possible to reconcile these methods as they provide their own explanations on aesthetic phenomena, such as the aesthetic ideal, experience and consciousness. This difficulty renders relative the existence of aesthetic constructs, or they become irrelevant in the context of the approaches' immanent theories. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the aesthetic ideal, experience and consciousness are explained in close regard to psychology and sociology. Aesthetic phenomena also extend to other disciplines, such as pedagogy, musical interpretation, artistic management, or ethics. Some examples follow. According to Nick Riggle, not only is sensibility, that is the sensitivity to perceive works of art, essential to the appreciation of aesthetic values, but the recipient must strive for a “motivating encounter with beauty” as beauty embraces a “wider world of aesthetic values”. Nevertheless, the existence of a vast number of styles, each representing a different aesthetic ideal, complicates the matter. At present, “to have a style” means one has to find their own aesthetic ideal. (Riggle, 2015, p. 435) A large number of styles means having many aesthetic ideals and reflects a pluralistic approach. The aesthetic ideal has even been introduced into such disciplines as ethics and management, which gave it scant recognition in the past. Ethics speaks of “the ideal of aesthetic life” and management theory uses the term “aesthetic leadership”.

When, in ethics, moral philosophy deals with the ideal of “aesthetic life” and “lifestyle”, it cannot be devoid of aesthetics and philosophy. “Aesthetic leadership” (referring to “organisational aesthetics”) in any kind of management emphasises the leader‘s personal qualities such as charisma and authenticity, which enable them to influence social and artistic relationships. The category of “aesthetic leadership” (Hansen & Ropo & Sauer, 2007, p. 544-560; Patrick, 2012) was introduced in the mid-1980s and, in music, it manifests itself in the leadership style of a conductor or an ensemble's artistic leader. For example, in regard to the relationship between conductors and musicians, a number of processes is being studied: relational listening, aesthetic judgement (of how something is viewed, e.g. ugly, beautiful, funny, distasteful, etc.), and kinaesthetic empathy, which incorporates, for instance, the conductor‘s gestures and their comprehension by the musicians. The topic of “aesthetic leadership” has been examined applying the knowledge of aesthetics together with the interpretation of psychology and sociology, with regard to the extent that aesthetic, psychological, and social relations are really effective. Terms such as aesthetic elements, aesthetic processes, aesthetic qualities, embodied cognition, and work practices are used to refer to aesthetic phenomena. (Koivunen – Wennes, 2011, p. 51-74) Nomenclature of aesthetics and art studies is even applied to analyses of non-aesthetic phenomena. For instance, David M. Kleinberg-Levin borrows terms, such as “capacity for listening” (Levin, 1989, p. 48), from other disciplines in order to explain an individual‘s growth through self-development which shapes their social and moral character. Levin maintains that listening to oneself is an abstract psychological process figuratively transferred from music, that is a search for analogues (“silence”, “noise”) (Levin, 1989, p. 79) which exist in the real listening and social interactions in our lives. According to Levin (1989, p. 48) aesthetics is a refined cultivation of sensibility, which depends on one‘s sensory capacity and an affective evaluation. Therefore, everybody is capable of making aesthetic judgements, the differences are only in such qualities as extent, depth, and intensity. Hence, Levin also links the general development of personality to sensibility, thus connecting purely psychological and sociological processes with aesthetics. Sensibility, in Nick Riggle‘s terminology, extends into psychology and is related to the ability to concentrate and acquire aesthetic consciousness, thus resulting in an aesthetic experience. However, the fact that perception leads to various types of aesthetic experience means that phenomena and experiences differ from one another. While aesthetic, that is artistic experiences, are typical of classical music audiences, attendees to new, contemporary music

21 concerts are characterised by a preference for cognition and rationality in music: therefore they are seeking cognitive experiences. Listeners to jazz, rock, or electronic dance music, on the other hand, seek out an ecstatic experience; however, this type of experience incorporates also that one which is dominated by synesthesia or kinaesthesia, irrespective of the style and genre. Pragmatic aesthetics explains the 3 types of experience fairly well, emphasising functionality and practical benefits for the listener. At present, it is unimaginable to speak of aesthetic experiences without also taking into consideration their psychological and sociological aspects although, on the other hand, this often obfuscates the topic. Recent works in cognitive psychology (Annammama & Sherry, 2003, p. 259-282) relate aesthetic experiences to the subject‘s embodiment and embodied cognition, the awareness of their feelings and actions (the phenomenological approach), and to senso-motoric and subconscious bodily inputs during abstract thinking (the cognitive subconsciousness). Nevertheless, in the approaches of recent studies, the differentiation between the categorical types of experience is often absent, as they do not distinguish between the aesthetic experience of classical music and the ecstatic one in jazz, rock and pop music. While the aesthetic experience, directed towards inner emotional processes, is especially typical of European classical music of the 17th to 19th centuries, its opposite, the ecstatic experience, is characteristic for jazz, rock, and pop music, since these genres are associated with the recipient‘s bodily behaviour and subconscious body functions (such as breathing, pulse or heartbeat, goose bumps, and sensory motor responses). Neither do contemporary aesthetic theories discriminate between the types of aesthetic experience, but they tend to state that, at present, any style or genre can arouse all kinds of experience, from the artistic one through to cognitive, ecstatic, kinesthetic, and up to synaesthetic. In phenomenology, taking Roman Ingarden‘s views, (Casey & Anderson & Domingo & Jacobson, 2016) the aesthetic ideal is inherent in the object of perception, whereas in semiotics (the theory of sign systems and their meanings), it becomes irrelevant1. According to many semioticians, music phenomena are relatively the same, although there is a difference between cultural communication in the “first world” (for instance, North America and Western Europe) and the “second world” (e.g. Chinese opera is dissimilar to German opera), (Nöth, 1990, p. 30) while the first world itself is highly diverse both culturally and semiotically. To appreciate the distinctiveness of the two worlds, a multi-modal socio-semiotic approach is

1 Semioticians speak of the aesthetic ideal indirectly, e.g. in connection with iconicity in literature, which needs to be reconciled with semiotics. (Nöth, 1990, p. 30)

22 needed. The classic notion of the aesthetic ideal as being both aesthetic perfection and the aesthetic norm for art in its particular time and space (Mistrík, 2013) is likewise unclear even in Gestalt psychology‘s theory of hearing. Since the aesthetic ideal is a specific and classic phenomenon of aesthetics, its explanations by disciplines other than aesthetics is somewhat imprecise. When the areas of aesthetic research — previously their own domain — are investigated through the methods of sociology and psychology, they result in a narrower analysis. On the other hand, all the modern theories, although not always respecting the history of aesthetics, have contributed to the explanation and expansion of psychologically-related phenomena such as aesthetic experience, aesthetic consciousness and subconsciousness, and aesthetic cognition. While, until recently, aesthetic and theoretical analyses were sufficient in music research, current musicological studies embrace scientific psychological and sociological procedures, techniques and methods such as observation, testing, questionnaires, interviews, and experiments. Information technologies have permeated throughout musical analyses and performances. Thirty years ago, when comparing the performances of the same composition by two different musicians, researchers would rely on their own empirical observations, memory, and conclusions. Today, the utilisation of software (Sonic Visualiser, Vamp Plug-ins) (Robertson, 2012, p. 475-480) has accelerated music analyses and enabled, for instance, the determination of time algorithms in recordings of non-notated music. For instance, it reveals the complexity of rhythmic phrasing in the timing of drummer Ringo Starr when he performed the Beatles‘ songs but, on the other hand, it deprives the reader of aesthetic attributes which, previously, the researcher had to demonstrate in their narrative and endeavour for an “elegant” exposition of Ringo Starr‘s performance. Nowadays, the computer handles detailed data far more effectively than the minds of researchers, for example in a comparative analysis of the performing styles of four different pianists. The question arises, however, for whom and for what purpose such analyses serve as the aim is not always for a scientifically exact conclusion. For the reader to understand the complexity and conceptuality of an artistic interpretation, the researcher has to bring their own aesthetic evaluation. Therefore, studies which express a “beautiful narrative”2 of musical performances continue to be written.

2 (Hellaby, 2009). In this study, Hellaby compares the piano performances of Bach's Toccata in D major, BWV 915 by G. Gould, J. Hellaby, A. Hewitt, and S. Richter.

The ground space for aesthetics, as well as for musical aesthetics, is definitely shrinking. However, aesthetics as a discipline which determines beauty still has its own role and significance, and its goal in differentiating “beautiful and ugly” as aesthetic qualities has certainly not changed. What is more, this very goal has become a primary and irreplaceable function of aesthetics in the contemporary trend of constant emphasis on exactness, and on extreme and alternative manifestations of art. Post-formalist aesthetics represented by Kendal Lewis Walton emphasises “beautifulness” in the light of the twentieth century‘s development and specialisations. (Clercq, 2008, p. 188-2002) Exponents of post-formalism hold that aesthetic qualities are not only a random cluster of the object‘s attributes, but that they depend on the essence of the object itself. Thus, aesthetic characteristics are contained in the very object of art. By returning to the original categories such as aesthetic qualities and artistic object, post-formalist philosophers can oppose the formalist theories of signs, structures, and listening. (Dowling, 1995) In this way, they transpose the values of classical aesthetics into the new, post-modern world. The research topic also becomes more complex when defining jazz and rock music. What is still jazz and rock, and what is not? Where are their boundaries? Laurent Cugny (Cugny, 2016, p. 44) calls attention to the vagueness of both the artistic object and the object of research in jazz; he points out that, even in the first third of the twentieth century when jazz began to be developed, its research object was not clearly defined. In the opinion of a large number of jazz historians, jazz history terminated in the late 1960s with hard bop and modal jazz, and with the emergence of jazzrock. (Nicholson, 2005) When jazz mixes into its original foundations other, non-typical expressions, such as minimal music, electronic music, hip hop, and nu jazz, some listeners do not consider it as jazz anymore. Similarly, rock and roll is now an old-fashioned genre and, to many contemporary listeners, it represents something other than genuine rock music. (Flanagan, 2016) Some argue that rock is dead for only those people who use this term also to denote a countless range of different sub-genres. (Catalano, 2012) On the other hand, managers and producers claim that bands and their fans are not too much concerned about whether their music is classified as rock. “The genre often has defined itself combatively to other styles, but among a streaming-and-playlisting younger generation, that kind of formal loyalty is increasingly passé.” (Wilson, 2016) In music, the specific features of European aesthetic thinking can be narrowed to a quest for beauty through the perfection of music form and harmony. Artists, architects, and philologists also speak of form and harmony. Naturally, aesthetes strived for their generalisation. Nevertheless, with the advent of twentieth-century compositional techniques,

24 especially serialism, the perfection of music form and harmony has reached a hypertrophic stage (Kresánek, 1977, p. 36-37) in which all the possibilities seem to be exhausted. Elements from other cultures infiltrate the previously “spontaneous” and “conscious” developmental stages of European music form and harmony and their continuity is disrupted. Marcus Zagorski cites the views of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Györgi Ligeti expressed between 1952 and 1966. According to Stockhausen and Ligeti “there are no fixed formal schemes; based on the historical constellations, each work must reveal its unique form, adequate only to itself.” (Zagorski, 2017, p. 75; Stockhausen, 1963, p. 222-237; Ligeti, 1966, p. 23-25) Since the music syntax has become individualised, composers such as Boulez, Ligeti, Lachenmann and others have also aired the same views on harmony, rhythm, and polyphony, when they explored specific solutions in each of their own works. (Zagorski, 2017, p. 75-76) The evolution of European classical form and harmony (as Jozef Kresánek speaks of in connection with the hypertrophic stage) ended with the 1964 composition In C by Terry Riley, in which he anticipated the emergence of minimal music and the post-modern era. The whole arena of differentiating the specificities of European culture and aesthetics acquires another dimension when the new phenomenon of global culture (as opposed to glocalisation) comes to the forefront. Post-modern theoreticians point out that the possibilities are not at all exhausted since music development will progress towards a non-Eurocentric global synthesis. However, the ever-present character of European culture will not be extinguished and, on the contrary, its advancement is only possible within the context of further, non-European stimuli. One of the examples here is jazz harmony. Especially in the latter half of the twentieth century it plays an essential role in providing new harmonic progressions (Zahradník, 2015) and contexts which derive from a synthesis of European and American music cultures and, hence, cannot be called solely European. Unlike classical composers, who emphasise the individualisation of musical syntax, jazz musicians have not abandoned the exploration of the standard harmonic progressions and have continued to develop them. (Baker, 1987; Baresel, 1952; Damian, 2002; Levin, 1995; Mehegan, 1959; Reeves, 2001; Russell, 1953) Nowadays, there are still obvious differences between European and American jazz. American musicians, more than Europeans, rely on spontaneous action, special message, and specific timing. The greatest contrast between the two jazz aesthetics lies in the balance given to rationality and logic in the musical process on the one hand, and intuition, freedom and spontaneity on the other. The current experimentation by European modernists in refining and honing their sounds (e.g. aleatoric music, sonorism, or electroacoustic music) is not an exclusively European

25 phenomenon. Such experiments have also been conducted in American electronic dance music and had their beginnings in DJing, turntablism, and hip hop on the Brooklyn scene. However, the contemporary era is more favourable towards European artists, with a strong representation by the Dutch, French, German, British, and other nationalities (Paul van Dyk, David Guetta, Armin van Buuren, the band Lamb, the alternative band Everything Everything: CD Man Alive, 2010; SP Final Form, 2011; and alternative rock/indie rock). Sound experiments are gradually incorporated into mainstream styles which means that the global aesthetics of pop music has smoothed down their previous typical features. For instance, Beastie Boys (USA, est. 1981), originally a hardcore band, adopted many hip hop and electronic music elements; rappers Jay- Z and Kanye West also popularised hip hop, electronic music, and rap creating contemporary pop music with millions of albums sold (e. g. “Niggas in Paris” from their 2011 CD album Watch the Throne, USA, with the sale of five million digital units). After all, the aesthetic ideal can only be analysed in association with the type of easthetic experience, music style, place and time of its origin, and in relation to phenomena such as historical roots, subconsciousness, symbols, signs, and structures.

This work has been supported by the VEGA grant No. 1/0086/15.

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♣ prof. Yvetta Kajanová, PhD. Department of Musicology, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava Slovak Republic [email protected]