The Worst Genre Of Music

"Art music" is garbage and here's why.

There's a lot of great kinds of music out there. It's one of the most diverse art forms on the planet, and yet for some reason, there's this one specific genre of music that gets to call itself "Art music", which, uh... sucks. No easier way to say it. It's just bad. That's a bad thing to do and I'm mad about it. So mad, in fact, that I decided to make a whole video explaining why we should stop calling it that. Oh, and if you've never heard the term before, you'll *never guess* what kind of music it describes.

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Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

[tone]

Some additional thoughts/corrections:

1) I should note that the "work-concept" thing is complex and different scholars feel differently about it. It's not clear that pre-Romantic Europe didn't conceive of music works, but it does seem pretty well accepted that they didn't conceive of them the same way we do. That's why I focused on the _modern_ work-concept: The point isn't that no one in Bach's time thought musical works existed, but they most likely wouldn't have described them in a way we would recognize.

2) The thing I describe as "vernacular music" is also called folk music, but because that has specific stylistic connotations I chose to go with the fancier but more general term. Like most terms, "vernacular music" has multiple definitions, and some sources describe it as the umbrella category for both folk and popular music traditions, but in the Romantic period popular music wasn't really a thing yet.

3) Some folks might take issue with my claim that the "rewards close listening" definition exists to reify the superiority of the canon, because they view sufficiently complex jazz, rock, and whatever as art music too. In retrospect this might have been worth addressing in the video itself, but basically, the issue here is that, by definition, the principles by which we measure complexity are rooted in our understanding of the works we've already deemed complex. All music rewards close listening, but not all music does so in the same was as traditional "art music", so our conception of which new pieces get to be included will be based in large part on what's already there, and what's already there is the Western Classical Canon.


5) On the "not for profit" thing, some people may argue that it's not fair to conflate it with valuing the work of the independently wealthy, because art music still gets funded, it's just by public grants and whatnot. This is a cop-out and is barely even worth acknowledging, but just in case, let's do it anyway: The basic idea here is that public funding boards don't have to cater to the "lowest common denominator" (a problematic view in its own right) and thus can fund "real art". But consider who gets to be on those boards: It's the same wealthy aristocrats the so-called "art music" tradition has been catering to for hundreds of years. The things they fund don't represent "real art", they represent a specific subset of the population's aesthetic preferences. Just like every other kind of music does. Again, this funding model holds no special claim to the title of art.

6) Another option might be to go the direction rock did and treat "classical" as a suffix, so we'd have Baroque Classical, Romantic Classical, and so on. That'd leave us with something like Historic Classical or whatever for that specific era, just like we have Rock 'n Roll for the period that first claimed the name "rock music". Or, I mean, we could always call the Classical Period "Classical 'n Roll"?

[Jack-jezt]

"all music is folk music; I ain't never heard no horse sing a song, " --- Louis Armstrong

[michaelconlen]

One thing I really love about academics is their ability to spend 15 minutes to say "that's some bullshit."

[redangelsophiasvideoproduc]

16:05 - This problem is not just in music - but in art in general. I remember once asking an art teacher what class someone interested in Manga should take — and she responded by telling me that the graphics in comic books are not art.

[jhhwild]

I think the issue with calling it "art music" is that all music is art, it's redundant. It's like calling certain houses "architecture buildings". Just distinguish it by the genre it fits into, everyone already calls it "classical music" or we could refer to it as European classical or western classical.

[michaelromero]

I had never heard the term art music until i had to write a term paper on it for a college music class with a teacher i hated. I didnt know the meaning of art music and the best definition i could find was just music of artistic value. So i wrote a 4 page paper on nirvana i used music theory to explain how the notes of the songs work to express the meaning emotions and artistic creativity, i gave examples from their discography, and most importantly i cited my work with other bodies of text supporting my claims. 4 pages of some of the hardest work i had done that semester and she threw it out saying, and i quote “rock music is not artistic.” i don’t think ive ever come so close to beating the living shit out of someone as i had that day.

[NigelSequeira-pykq]

"Every culturally relevant genre has its own form of complexity...If you can't find it, you're probably not looking in the right place."
Right on.

[Linkdoublezero]

The problem arises because people began to conflate "art" with "prestige"

If something doesnt have any percived prestige then it's not "art" to these people.

[statsy]

The thing that got me laughing the hardest was the idea that “art music” is the only one where value is gain by listening closely. Hello? You can do that with every single song in existence and divide it into many different instruments and understand why the music works so well. Any song needs to be listened to for you to enjoy it fully

[omicdog]

I always thought it was called art music because they play in movie scenes set in art galleries.

[BroudbrunMusicMerge]

I mean, genres often have bad names.
Examples:
-Anything with "modern"
-IDM, or "Intelligent Dance Music", which is a pretentious name for a fun genre

[InevitableHimes]

When I was going through music history, my professor separated the two as classical (lowercase "c") as the western orchestral tradition and Classical (uppercase "c") as the Classical period. They would also use the term Vienna Classical for a period specific term.

[eboethrasher]

What would really piss off a lot of people is Chris Thile and his ability to slip effortlessly between "art/classical (baroque)" music and bluegrass and indie/alternative rock and folk music. He's written a wonderful 4 movement piece called "The Blind Leading the Blind" and it is for a bluegrass quintet. And I think his abilities would be maddening for those people who love the concept of calling it "art" music.

[jrpipik]

Call the overall genre Classical Music, since that's what everybody already calls it. And leave the Classical Period as is, too. We are smart enough to understand the distinction if we can be wise enough to make a big deal out of it.

[kaylamattheashames]

"classical music" is already pretty much understood to mean this kind of music even vernacularly among musicians, I've definitely heard people specifying "classical era music" vs the more general "classical music"

[LRMo]

I never heard the term "art music", but even without that term my music teachers quickly made me feel like "classical music" is a superior form of music and the rock and pop music us kids were listening to was simplistic crap unworthy of a music theory analysis or any other form of educational attention, which lead me to view both music history and unfortunately also music theory as knowledge that I don't need ("couldn't care less to impress those arrogant snobs!") and eventually I ended up thinking I was completely unmusical, because I realized a few years later that I can't make heads or tails of the music theory they were teaching even if I tried to understand it and I had forgotten by then that it's because I didn't listen all those years before when they taught the basics they expect me to know in order to be able to follow along. I was always passionate about music, but as a result of this poor education I never had the confidence to try making music as a kid.

Nowadays I sing in rock band and try to write my own songs and wish I had learned at least basic theory in school instead of having to learn it now, between working full-time, doing household chores, maintaining friendship and practicing my instruments. 😵
If only my teachers had presented me a compelling reason to learn theory in middle school, but no, they didn't consider the music us students were interested in worth mentioning. Cause _"children don't need incentives to care about our topics, amirite?"_ 🤦‍♂️
Teachers be like...

[Theresa-ujle]

as a visual art student, when you said 'art music' my first thought was music engineered to pair with modern art that you'd see in a museum. Using strange sounds and messing with patterns. Almost always with a variation of that one droning sound - they love that one XD Very different to what its 'supposed' to imply. Its a matter of perspective, and definition can very much influence that perspective, so I agree with you completely

[rickwoods]

I've literally never heard the term Art Music before this video

[thegeekclub]

Honestly, it’s kind of amazing (and depressing) how much of this video’s points can be directly transmuted to the visual arts.
Art never changes.

[ankoku]

I think one of the most formative conversations I had towards destroying the insane pretentious attitude I had as a teenager was when I was talking to a musician friend of mine about what counts as art and he had counterarguments to every point I tried to make. The conclusion we came to by the end of it is that if even one person believes something to be art according to their definition, then that thing is art and people saying otherwise doesn't change that.