{"id":12391,"date":"2015-10-27T11:42:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T10:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nmz.de\/badblog\/?p=12391"},"modified":"2015-10-27T11:42:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T10:42:43","slug":"the-blurred-line-of-21st-century-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nmz.de\/badblog\/2015\/10\/27\/the-blurred-line-of-21st-century-song\/","title":{"rendered":"The blurred Line of 21st Century Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

Again an article by our english language correspondent Jake Bellissimo – the links are very worth checking out!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Blurred Line of 21st Century Song<\/strong><\/p>\n

While studying composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, I saw a very special \u201csenior recital\u201d towards the end of Spring semester 2015. The recital was given by tenor Sam Grosby, and the concert was pretty standard for an Eastman recital\u2014it contained some Beethoven, some Rachmaninoff, etc., the essential repertoire for any operatic vocalist wishing to graduate with a degree.<\/p>\n

Still, there was a rift in the common repertoire that occurred after intermission. As his choice of a modern song, Grosby chose to sing three songs from The Dirty Projectors album The Getty Address.<\/p>\n

As the lights dimmed it became clear this would be an irregular operation. I already knew the songs, so I wasn\u2019t necessarily surprised when I saw 10+ people crowd the stage with a mixture of instruments and found objects. There was no denying that this was an atypical performance, though, especially in the context of the \u201cclassical concert hall\u201d. They proceeded to go through the songs (starting with \u201cI Sit on the Ridge at Dusk\u201d<\/a>) with raucous applause at the end, and everybody agreed that it was an exceptional performance of truly beautiful music.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s the problem with this? Well, the type of music David Longstreth (the mind behind The Dirty Projectors) writes certainly isn\u2019t representative of typical \u201cart song\u201d. Despite The Getty Address involving the help of many classical musicians (even sporting arrangements by David Lang), Longstreth was an English major at Yale when he penned the cycle and therefore not an \u201cofficial\u201d composer of song. Because of his lack of technical qualification, his music is described more often as pop music than it is art song.<\/p>\n

However, this isn\u2019t representative of the music itself.<\/p>\n

The difference between \u201cclassical art song\u201d and various other types of song (folksong, etc.) has always had to do with tradition and teaching. If you were to get to the core of the issue, you\u2019d find the main differences are technique, place of performance, performers, and compositional methods. These practices were also tied to class, accessibility, instrumentation, and distribution, which is why something like \u201cThe Circus Band\u201d<\/a>\u2014despite being straightforward pop music\u2014is still circled in classical scenes and concert halls before songwriting circles and bars.<\/p>\n

By the mid-twentieth century, this had all changed. Plenty of traditionally trained composers were incorporating elements of pop, jazz, and folk music into their compositions<\/a>, and today it\u2019s common for composers to have songs living in both classical and pop worlds.<\/p>\n