Organ Grinding: When the Audience Revolted at Carnegie Hall

I never said it wasn’t performance art through noise. It’s definitely performance art through noise.

It’s just that if there is any meaning to the word “music” above and beyond “structured noise” then I’m not sure this hits the bar.

@jedimastert commented below that in fact it was precisely this threshold which the artist was exploring in this piece, so instead of foreclosing on the discussion outright as somehow diminishing their work, maybe appreciate that there’s an interesting question here which actually isn’t just a matter of “turn off that god awful noise!”

I love electronic music and the history of electronic music. But as I was delving into that history, particularly its early history when it was known as tape music or avante garde, I discovered that the rift between east and west coast synthesis goes back much further than I realized.

I am unabashedly turned off by west-coast/avante garde/tape music. When I tried to enjoy, for example, the seminal work of the west coast school of synthesis (which is to say, the album which brought it into the public consciousness), Silver Apples of the Moon, no matter what attention I gave it, or lack thereof, it was just noise to me. It could not enjoy or appreciate it, even on a technical level.

I had the same reaction as I listened to early tape music. The following is my opinion alone. I know it will rankle those who love this stuff: I can find no beauty here, nor anything that pleases the ear or elevates the spirit. The emotional chord this music strikes in me differs from nails on a chalkboard only in degree.

This is not because I can only enjoy the modalities of western diatonic music. I have learned to appreciate and enjoy a lot of eastern, middle-eastern, and african music, even in scales decidedly bizarre to western ears. But what all those schools of music have in common is an internal cultural unity and structure. Each speaks with its own language, and this language can be learned.

Avant Garde is deconstructionist by its very nature, rejecting all unity, structure, and modality as too constraining to the composer. But the result (again, my opinion) is not an expansion of expression, but a lack thereof, and a decent into chaos.

And this isn't directed at you - but let me just make this clear. Orchestral performances are art. Shockingly, it seems like a lot of commenters think that music is just about the composition. Performances involve the composer and the performers' interpretations of the work, their technical skills, their styles. These are nontrivial. These add to and elevate a piece.

But you did not throw the paint in a context that turned it into a statement. In fact, you did not at all. That's the point.

There was some artwork created before I was born: An artist made a statement on commercialization of art. "You could sell shit in cans." So he defecated into cans. About ten years ago the can/one of the cans was auctioned off for some 5-digit amount. That's when I learned about the whole story. Yes, for me that is art - even though I can shit into cans as well.