"Music rots when it gets to far from the dance" ~ Ezra Pound Jonathan Pageau touches on SO MANY points here, especially as an amateur electronic music composer myself. I've had the intimation that much of our modern music is so banal, trite and "rotten" in some ways that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and Pageau here articulates some of the reason why. And I do agree with him that Jazz was/is perhaps the highest form of American Music, in terms of how it pointed to what could be called higher or more spiritual principles. Which is why I revere jazz as an art form, personally. Also, much of the repetition heard in modern dance music is to 1.) facilitate easy beat-matching and transitions by DJs and 2.) to facilitate brainwave entrainment, leading potentially to altered states. In many respects, modern Electronic Dance Music is a technological return to paganism and animism and the drum circles of various tribal animist groups around the world. The idea is to almost get "out of your body" from the pounding beats. It's Technoshamanism.
I remember reading RatzInger on liturgical music. I'm paraphrasing here .. Music that subsumes you, like loud heavy rock, EDM, whatever, music that swallows you up isn't appropriate for liturgy. That was his point. Picture a mosh pit vs Gregorian chant. I never forgot that.
@@Aengrod there're other types of non-European dances besides "belly dance" and "African shaking". But I halfway agree: dance for couples, like quadrilha, waltz, etc are more a western thing, looking to Asia, their traditions seems to be of a segregation of the sexes, not coupling - but I really don't know, their cultures are so old and vast, I wouldn't be surprised if proven wrong.
This made me realize that the tendency to take the practical elements out of art, is also why our practical objects have become so sterile and miserable, and why we have such a dramatic divide between the things that we consider "actually meaningful" and the things we consider pleasant. Perhaps this is why video games are so important to people. Today, video games are one of the few things in this (western) world that actually combine art with achieving goals. Even if those goals are artificial.
I realized something today as I watched this. Something very important was taken from us, and we didn't even notice. Back in the 1980s, people began to build homes without a fireplace. For tens of thousands of years, the fireplace was the center of the home. It was the linchpin, the axle, around which family life revolved. It was warmth and light and cooking was done there. It is in the last 30-40 years, the worst of the evil and chaos in our society has arisen. This is the same time frame in which we stopped building homes with fireplaces. The excuse, on the surface, for the homebuilders to stop installing fireplaces was this: they were messy, they were expensive, they were hazard, and people didn't want them. I don't think that's the case at all. I think somebody made a mistake, somebody decided a thing based on trivial numbers and did not realize the importance if the symbolic thing they were yanking out of peoples homes, out of their lives. Maybe we all ought to start taming the chaos by putting in a fireplace. If you have one already, fix it up and build a fire. Stop watching tv after dinner; sit by the fire instead. See how it changes how you feel about life.
Yes I notice this when I go camping. Hearth is important. I live in an old farm house where the hearth is in that cellar. As soon as I am able to I (husband, actually) intend to put one on the ground floor. A lot of the houses in my area actually have two.
In spanish the word for Home is "hogar" which comes from old spanish "fogar", related to the word "fuego" (fire) from latin "Focus". (Fireplace as Focus-place, the center of interest or activity)
Hey Jonathan, hope you're doing well. I don't know if you'll read this but I wanted to thank you for all the hard work that goes into creating, discussing and uploading these videos. It really helps us in growing spiritually and in depth of mind. So, as young man in the Latin West and if a I can perhaps speak on behalf on a whole generation of men who have grown up and matured with the help of others like yourself, many thanks.
Ezra Pound said in the ABC of Poetry that poetry atrophies as it becomes distant from music and that music atrophies as it becomes distant from dance. I think your observation about jazz and the dance was quite similar. I would add that my son had a mystical experience recently that persisted for 18 hours that was triggered by listening to Puccini’s aria Nessun Dorma. I
Interesting note about jazz. I've realized I don't like "heady" jazz where it's almost an intellectual exercise, I prefer percussion-heavy jazz with a strong groove; and it all comes back to dancing, how I'm meant to embody the music. Good stuff!
Perhaps the evolution in the arts toward modernism that sensually questions everything is just Pilate asking, "What is truth?" To get past the vanities that are not truth might be an important step for some in discovering it.
On the topic of music having a function of celebrating something, it does still carry that purpose. I noticed that songs with a specific theme tend to be the most successful songs in the long run, because they will be played every time the subject comes up. Like "New York, New York" being virtually guaranteed to be picked whenever a movie goes to New York. More recently I noticed the song Firework has received a similar VIP ticket to the front row of new year's event track lists. A more peculiar thing I noticed in the Netherlands, is that there's the Top 2000 in which people vote for their favorite songs. The #1 song is planned to finish exactly at new year. Virtually every year the winner is Bohemian Rhapsody. It created this peculiar ritual where thousands of people start off the new year by shouting, at the top of their lungs, "nothing really matters to me!". It's like a ritual anthem to glorify our collective nihilism. The other main contender for first place is Hotel California, in which the last line is "You can check out any time you like, But you can never leave". Another quite miserable nihilistic sentiment to start the new year with. The people don't even seem to realize they're doing it.
I would offer in the interpretation of "Hotel California" having a more sentimental slant other than nihilistic. We are getting dangerously close to an absolutist philosophy regarding morality. It's starting to seem symptomatic at this point, designed. Checking out of the hotel, but retaining the nostalgia of the experience (albeit, hedonistic) suggests a mantra or a mindset, an awareness of evil, a near miss. Moving toward purity as a synonym for good is a step toward objectification, inorganic. This song is coming in on the coat tails of American Blues music, which was based largely on resurgence and redemption. The freewheeling fringe, in the time of Vietnam, The House of the Rising Sun, Jim Crow, all had bloody hands. "Good" in this time, being the last ones standing, and who spent all their minas. The meek who walked dangerously close to the collapse of their salvation made some of the best plebeian anthems.
@Nikos Antikythera In Hotel California, the song's tone is certainly sarcastic, and does in that sense object to the shallowness of secular existence. It does represent a rejection of these self-serving things that serve no real purpose, but the reason I consider it to be nihilistic is because it provides no alternative. In fact, it says that there is no way out, that you can never leave.
In the middle ages, music, food, art, dance and poetry were the companions of festival, but they're aren't the festival itself. Effectively the festival is a leisure activity and society would break from work in order to celebrate festival so leisure would be the basis of culture and the companions of festival facilitated that culture. The noblest festival was to break from working on the day of the Lord and to go to church to enter into the mass or divine liturgy. Today the situation is that we break to rest just so we can go back to work again because modernity has it that we have nothing to celebrate and we are nothing but functionaries.
I heard a radio documentary years ago that claimed people used to sing during work but modern technology stopped the practice. In my life when we didn't have a radio as a kid we used to sing almost naturally to fight the boredom. I believe medieval people would've been working and singing as well. This is how many songs were written, having people doing menial and time consuming jobs that allowed the mind to be free.
Yes. For example you can find specific songs Irish women sang over the process of making garments (spinning, knitting, etc). It's definitely a thing. My husband and kids sing all the time when they're out doing things. Not me, my singing would make the birds drop out of the sky😂
The observation I made is that artistic expression is drowned in the multiplicity of medium, which is a consequence of technological advancement. There are simply too many choices, leaving the artist paralyzed and dazzed. Let's take music as an exemple; in order to create something, the artist has to limit oneself to a selection of instruments, he has to set boundaries, whereas before, one would do with whatever was accessible. Not only that, he also has to select a music genre, whereas before, it was sort of imposed by mores of the times. So here we are. At the bottom of the mountain, dazzed by all this technology, left with is a sort of hand-me-down, forced and niched, nostalgic cry for the past. It all reminds me of the story of Lot's wife, looking back at Sodom with nostalgia and turning into a pillar of salt. I think the more we get away from tradition, the more we fall into this unhealthy nostalgia.
I'd guess that Vapor Wave is celebrating your own childhood memories and awareness basically, which it's yet another layer of idealization and celebration of individualism down to a very basic level of experience and perception, it's celebrating atomism. But I hate to admit it because I actually love vapor wave music. 😔 I'd also like to hear what Jonathan has to say about it.
Bach’s music was largely liturgical. As others have said, I wonder what Pageau would say about Bach’s Cantatas, where he took the best ideas from opera and reappropriated them for sacred purposes. This would be especially interesting given how the Lutheran emphasis on congregational participation led to the congregation singing at the end of each service.
I know Pageau has read some German philosophers. I wonder if he’s familiar with the concept, revived by Scruton, of the difference between Tonnkunst/Vortragsmusik and Gebrauchmusik.
He is also mentions Walter Benjamins idea of aura. Since Gebrauchmusik was aproached by Adorno, Benjamins colleague, I would say it is plausible that he is familiar with the concept.
@@aeternusromanus Yes, even though critical of this period and mediaval art, story and liturature as being false by the standards of Orthodoxy he said it should not be thrown out, riding on the coattails of Christianity these were all great works we would not see the likes of which again, and that they should not be thrown out. He said it was far superior to anything we might get at "the supermarket."
I agree, it's interesting to me that Bach, Pachelbel and Handel all originate in the Lutheran tradition; flowing from Luther's idea that music is the greatest art second only to theology. Yet it's Luther and Bach who bring cultural music into the liturgy and liturgical music into culture (or secular into sacred and sacred into secular). To note, Luther's adoption of 'bar' music refers to musical bars rather than public taverns, much to an alcohol enjoyers disappointment.
Bach did to music what Dante did to literature. He synthesised both the art of the time, with the sacred tradition, sanctifying the secular. His philosophy was always that music should elevate the soul for God’s glory, and he never compromised this. He found ways to respect tradition while refreshing it’s body. His music is fundamentally Christian. He is an exception, lived in humility, faith and devotion despite his grandeur. His major secular works were only written out of curiosity while he was court composer in Kothen for a Calvinist prince, who restricted his sacred composing to simplicity. So he used his free time to compose technical & secular pieces. The same cannot be said of his successors, the classical period was raunch with revolutionary enlightenment & occult.
would love to hear an explication of techno music, both on its own and within context of rave parties (tho the parties themselves really just serve as a vehicle for the passions).
Atonal music does take into account the ordinary way humans experience music. It just refuses to meet those expectations because it's trying to get you to experience something new and strange. There is nothing wrong with it.
@@romanduelin The sound is supposed to be "wrong." Dissonance and atonality both sound "wrong" to our ears, but Pageau would never criticize Beethoven for his use of dissonance. Music that sounds wrong creates texture, conflict, interest, drama, and emotion.
@@Molotov49 Beethoven's use of dissonance was to build tension which causes a catharsis when his compositions would resolve that tension. Most atonal music does not provide that resolution so its just bad for the sake of being bad. Very post modernist in it's construction.
I understand your point; you’re certainly not alone in feeling that artistic creation since approximately the 1840s is a story of diminishing value. To put late Beethoven on that continuum, though, is to misunderstand what he did and what he was. You can’t understand his third style-period without knowing his reaction to learning the truth about Mozart’s death, the political implications of it, and logical extensions producing music that entered the history of ideas. Alle Menschen werden Bruder is a message to humanity, speaking truth to power just as forcefully as his famous confrontation with the royal family in the Prater, which so embarrassed Goethe. But history keeps going. The great conductor Max Rudolf said to me, shortly before he died, that: “We live in a damned century; its achievements are not artistic; they’re technological. I anticipate that almost all 20th century composers will be forgotten in 50 years. Think of me then, and see if it is not so. Perhaps Bartók will be an exception, because of the folk elements in his work-but nobody else.” Thomas Adès probably wasn’t on his radar screen, but Stravinsky? Britten? These were his friends!
Is there some gathering were we can find other like minded people to discuss this? I need other people where I can talk to those subjects, tried in local church(Catholic), but they have a first level reading of scripture and do not want difficult conversations about faith and symbolism.
I haven’t found a formal society to discuss these kind of subjects although I do very much appreciate these discussions. I’m a traditional Catholic and a lot of us get really busy with families so it’s hard to squeeze in time for the creation and development of these subjects rather than simply consuming content online. LMK if you find anything like a discord server of these subjects, etc.
Would it be that modern compositions try to articulate a connection between space and time? We tend to be more comfortable with music as progressive entity; accumulative. Is modernism trying to consider it more proximal and proportional? To perceive something the same going, as it does coming. The point being, to expand our definitions of what dualism is, not for the sake of ambiguity, but for the sake of synthesis. For the sake of elevating subjective interpretations, and those stimulus, that merge in the eye and mind, so that the individual can judge indiscriminately.
examples: Hania Rani "Hawaii - Oslo" //// Arvo Pärt' "Fratres" //// Ólafur Arnalds "Woven Song" //// For the brave: Colin Stetson "To see more light" -enjoy!
Modern composers focus on 'visual music' since most modern commissions are for theater or movies. That's why it is so horrible to listen to, because it doesn't mean anything without the visual component. Older composers spent a lot of time on dances, which have a more vital component to their basis. While you don't necessarily need to be dancing to appreciate it's better related to the human experience.
Great clip, modernism is stuck in a metaphysics of opposites between the One and The Many. Nietzsche said like Beethoven, Rousseau made Europe get up and do a dance unto exhaustion in the French Revolution. He also said Rousseau being the father of the Revolution made Descartes it's grandfather. and that Revolution was an antichrist movement with roots in the Renaissance and a man centered religion. This took esoteric, pagan, and gnostic hermeticism tied to rebellious philosophy to subvert the Catholic church after scholasticism, chiliasm, and absolute divine simplicity (and human corruption.) This also started in the middle ages post schism, and we should be careful when baptizing the good things there. The Gospels say there will come a time when men prefer fables to the truth. Ie: it took alchemy and it's creation of science and esoteric extraction of Christianity that now imposes these gnostic systems you speak of in art, and destruction of man as image of God. Modern art at net is typically some form of a process theology in constant flux. Even as it tries to reclaim skill and pagan aesthetics you can see it in the 13 new statues like the Babylonian RGB medusa statue of RGB, the MLK statue, Baphomet etc. They all serve a purpose too, and it's deincarnation. I think your work is good and bringing people in. I know you take the correct stance of accepting that Origen is a heretic, and allow people to see Orthodoxy, myself included. But there is a danger area here yopu are bordering on with fantasy, Imaginal, and Vervaeke's language and it can very easily lead to these things infiltrating the church, many misunderstanding your positions and bringing this stuff in. And it will move off those in our church that already are leaning to Origenism (David Bentley Hart), discarding hesychasm, making fairy tales too important etc. While right wing phylotism and angry young men might be an issue on the other side of this, on this end it typically ties to Christian esotericism, or being amenable to left wing politics and ecuminsm, closing churches, misusing Ss. Gregory and Maximos for gender fluidity, piety signaling to silence dissident opinions and such. Modern trite music isn't just in the hips either, that's part of it and the type that serves this purpose. But the outright warrior gnosticism in much gangster rap, or metal isn't just in the hips. Even at the grammy's, the Lil Nas X video you critiqued, or Grimes there's outright warfare there right in front of everyone in the trite pop music and it's symbolism as well. The symbolism of Bael-Ptor: Lord of Open Holes.
@@IndyDefense Glad you found it useful. This method of discourse takes so much to be precise to few ppl, or you say it short and then get dismissed as unfair and simplistic.
But this isn't the stance of "Christianity" - it's the stance of the Eastern Orthodox (maybe.) Most Christians are Catholic and Catholicism certainly isn't anti-art.
@@nealkriesterer its completely the stance of Christianity. All art must be subservient to your god, and glorify your god. Any art that does not do this is by definition demonic and evil, and must be destroyed. Don't think so? You're the exception. Over and over, Christians have committed cultural genocide, mass murder of entire peoples. Why? Because they had the wrong art. This is precisely the ideology of Christianity. The religion is the stated reason, before, during and after EVERY genocide committed by the barbaric murdering hordes of the Prince of peace. You cannot decouple the religion from its adherents repeated actions through history. The very idea of "the final religion to replace them all forever" is inherently evil. Even if most Christians now wouldn't claim to want this (because they know they would be condemned for it, rightfully) they will sit there full of hatred for anything that denies their god, quietly wishing they could snap their fingers and make all non adherents disappear.
What a perfect illustration of Christian arrogance. "Something higher" is defined as "my god and my morals"; "has to" is the demand that all art submit to that: ie. your favourite god, who's truth you bought from someone else. The Christians have done that to everyone since their inception, and killed anyone that did not want to submit to their "has to" and their "something higher". The world is much more fascinating than you know, if only Christians would stop strangling the life out of it.
Awake-sleep cycle representing life and death, the Sun representing God in the sky bringing life to us, the Moon representing the Church, or the illuminated creation when it becomes an icon of God...
@@israelallen6430 I was being backhanded but I think it's a good symbol for unconscious desires if they're just uncontrolled passions. However, a desire for a good thing can also be unconscious, so the symbol wouldn't really work there, unless you consider a monster more like an "extremely foreign" thing that doesn't fit into your categories instead of a "bad" monster.
It's interesting to think about the role of counter culture music in that point of view, because basically all the religious people outrage against it back in the day would be justified and vindicated. Although I don't think it's the case to say that all that music itself that was made It's all bad by themselves but it's just that they lack a good guiding purpose, and also in the way that they came about to be popular it was clearly to help destroy the west's spirit and society, and it worked.
Atonality is such a great example. It's way too abstract to be enjoyable outside of the clinical, cold and dreary atmosphere of Academia. EDIT: I mean, Miles Davis isn't the end-all-be-all of jazz. The dance orchestras of the 1930s are extremely incarnate yet still a heavenly listen, a pity it was such a brief period.
20th century dodecaphonic music/serial music was an art of abstract compositional technique and structure at the expense of “aural” based structures and techniques. In fact they deliberately attempted to redefine the aesthetic experience and tastes.
So that's why "meme-music" appearing in platforms like TikTok gets more attention, because it is somehow related to human experience in the world... ok, I'm joking. Have anybody else realized how pop rock concerts and gigs in general have become some kind of rite or mass or something? People gets on a really religious mood when attending these shows.
A lot of art went downhill in the Renaissance, where, as impressive and aesthetically pleasing as it may be (especially compared with what's considered art today in the Weimarican empire), they figured they were just gonna copy classical art because some people with a lot of money to spend liked cargo-culting Ancient Greece and Rome. Notably though, some people in the 20th century tried to revive (neo-)classicism with a modernist spin and give it a more transcendental character again (Arno Breker comes to mind).
Another thing about contemporary music that really bugs me is how the notion of beauty has been completely eradicated. Even when you hear people complain online about say, rap it’s 99% of the time about the lyrical content, not about the use of electronic drum loops or the trans humanist element of auto tune, etc. which arguably uglify everything. Without beauty or truth what ideal are you aspiring to in music, besides a crass narcissism?
@Die Enchanted isn’t Jonathan being old fashioned as well? Part of this whole exercise of criticizing modernity is to well, see what worked of the past.
@@jaredfairfield there two rhetorical tricks at play here that are massively abused during our time: 1. That you've found an exception to the category does not invalidate the category. All categories have exceptions. I agree there are beautiful implementations of auto tune, but you are talking about a category of music that is broadly focused on the good, the true and the beautiful, vs a category of music that is broadly focused on degeneracy. 2. We in the west have been in cultural decline for many generations, so older stuff is naturally going to be superior to new stuff. New stuff might speak to us more viscerally since it is created in our own context, but it's not old-fogey-ism to recognize the decadent state of our civilization ---- rather it's "presentism" to subjectively elevate the current simply because it's current, and if you can see past that it's very obvious our art is, relatively speaking, rather awful.
Interesting on the jazz comment. I’ve been thinking of good music, insofar as it has more than one actor, as an Aristotelian mean between the tyranny of the excess of melody, where the one melody dominates and there is little to no recognition of the many. This as opposed to the deficiency of melody, which leads to its own form of tyranny where there is no unified melody, rather competing individual songs that occupy the same space and time, but result in something unintelligible to the consciousness aka noise. I tend to think, at least modern jazz, fits more in this category. The proper mean would be a category that allows both for a unified melody to exist, and space for the individual pieces to be present to the consciousness. I’d argue, there’s a hierarchy where melody is to be prioritized to a certain degree.
"Hierarchy" is right, because we perceive hierarchically. Good orchestration must be planned in terms of foreground, midground, and background, and a good composer must be a good psychologist.
Multiplicity in unity. I think it explains how Trinity works. I was talking to a Muslim friend and in a sense Islam is multiplicity in unity too. Bc you can't point to one act or doctrine and say Oh that's Islam. Like is giving alms Islam? Is prayers? Or etc etc? No,I think you can say that it's all " Islam". It's more than "Trinitarian"
I disagree with Johnathan on music becoming more trite. Music is music, its a category. Theres good and bad, so the thing that changed would be the number of music producers, the types of instruments and the reach of that music.
"music is music" ? Why bother saying anything if your stance is no claims or judgements can be made "People are people" "grass is grass" "technology is technology" .... Now what?
An assault on the neighbors nervous system, is not music or meditation. “{{{(((all good vibes)))}}}”🖕 If society is a dance, I think it’s safe to say it isn’t twerking. (This is some unforgivable shit.) You got a skull bowl? …cool.
i think modernism is twerking... its all about coom doom and consoom product, with a anti quality love theme. quality love is when people enjoy caring for others wellbeing even if it takes effort, as a form of purpose in life beyond own wellbeing, to make ones own wellbeing feel purposeful... a mindset essential to fatherhood as opposed to "pump her then dump her", all of which has been a motivator for advancing beyond simple hunter gatherer lifestyle from human nature.
Bach and Mozart both created liturgical music. Orthodox would not have a knowledge of that. Not sure about Beethoven. Jazz is discordant and at times almost atonal. I’m a little perplexed that Jonathan would put it on the same platform as organic folk music.
"Music rots when it gets to far from the dance" ~ Ezra Pound
Jonathan Pageau touches on SO MANY points here, especially as an amateur electronic music composer myself. I've had the intimation that much of our modern music is so banal, trite and "rotten" in some ways that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and Pageau here articulates some of the reason why.
And I do agree with him that Jazz was/is perhaps the highest form of American Music, in terms of how it pointed to what could be called higher or more spiritual principles. Which is why I revere jazz as an art form, personally.
Also, much of the repetition heard in modern dance music is to 1.) facilitate easy beat-matching and transitions by DJs and 2.) to facilitate brainwave entrainment, leading potentially to altered states. In many respects, modern Electronic Dance Music is a technological return to paganism and animism and the drum circles of various tribal animist groups around the world. The idea is to almost get "out of your body" from the pounding beats. It's Technoshamanism.
I'd read your substack in this if you had one! Haha
I remember reading RatzInger on liturgical music. I'm paraphrasing here .. Music that subsumes you, like loud heavy rock, EDM, whatever, music that swallows you up isn't appropriate for liturgy. That was his point. Picture a mosh pit vs Gregorian chant. I never forgot that.
Only European culture came up with civilised form of dance. Everything else is primitive form of bumbling around.
Gregorian chant is not very close to any sort or dance, but it's not close to rot either.
@@Aengrod there're other types of non-European dances besides "belly dance" and "African shaking".
But I halfway agree: dance for couples, like quadrilha, waltz, etc are more a western thing, looking to Asia, their traditions seems to be of a segregation of the sexes, not coupling - but I really don't know, their cultures are so old and vast, I wouldn't be surprised if proven wrong.
This made me realize that the tendency to take the practical elements out of art, is also why our practical objects have become so sterile and miserable, and why we have such a dramatic divide between the things that we consider "actually meaningful" and the things we consider pleasant. Perhaps this is why video games are so important to people. Today, video games are one of the few things in this (western) world that actually combine art with achieving goals. Even if those goals are artificial.
I realized something today as I watched this. Something very important was taken from us, and we didn't even notice.
Back in the 1980s, people began to build homes without a fireplace. For tens of thousands of years, the fireplace was the center of the home. It was the linchpin, the axle, around which family life revolved. It was warmth and light and cooking was done there. It is in the last 30-40 years, the worst of the evil and chaos in our society has arisen. This is the same time frame in which we stopped building homes with fireplaces.
The excuse, on the surface, for the homebuilders to stop installing fireplaces was this: they were messy, they were expensive, they were hazard, and people didn't want them. I don't think that's the case at all. I think somebody made a mistake, somebody decided a thing based on trivial numbers and did not realize the importance if the symbolic thing they were yanking out of peoples homes, out of their lives.
Maybe we all ought to start taming the chaos by putting in a fireplace. If you have one already, fix it up and build a fire.
Stop watching tv after dinner; sit by the fire instead. See how it changes how you feel about life.
Yes I notice this when I go camping. Hearth is important. I live in an old farm house where the hearth is in that cellar. As soon as I am able to I (husband, actually) intend to put one on the ground floor. A lot of the houses in my area actually have two.
Interesting how "artificial fires", such as phones and TVs, have replaced hearths and bonfires.
In spanish the word for Home is "hogar" which comes from old spanish "fogar", related to the word "fuego" (fire) from latin "Focus". (Fireplace as Focus-place, the center of interest or activity)
Hey Jonathan, hope you're doing well. I don't know if you'll read this but I wanted to thank you for all the hard work that goes into creating, discussing and uploading these videos. It really helps us in growing spiritually and in depth of mind. So, as young man in the Latin West and if a I can perhaps speak on behalf on a whole generation of men who have grown up and matured with the help of others like yourself, many thanks.
Ezra Pound said in the ABC of Poetry that poetry atrophies as it becomes distant from music and that music atrophies as it becomes distant from dance. I think your observation about jazz and the dance was quite similar. I would add that my son had a mystical experience recently that persisted for 18 hours that was triggered by listening to Puccini’s aria Nessun Dorma. I
Blessed Seraphim Rose's chapter in "Orthodox Survival Course" on classical music, especially Schoenberg, has the same energy Pageau is conveying here.
Yes! The chapter on modern art too.
Interesting note about jazz. I've realized I don't like "heady" jazz where it's almost an intellectual exercise, I prefer percussion-heavy jazz with a strong groove; and it all comes back to dancing, how I'm meant to embody the music. Good stuff!
Perhaps the evolution in the arts toward modernism that sensually questions everything is just Pilate asking, "What is truth?" To get past the vanities that are not truth might be an important step for some in discovering it.
On the topic of music having a function of celebrating something, it does still carry that purpose. I noticed that songs with a specific theme tend to be the most successful songs in the long run, because they will be played every time the subject comes up. Like "New York, New York" being virtually guaranteed to be picked whenever a movie goes to New York. More recently I noticed the song Firework has received a similar VIP ticket to the front row of new year's event track lists.
A more peculiar thing I noticed in the Netherlands, is that there's the Top 2000 in which people vote for their favorite songs. The #1 song is planned to finish exactly at new year. Virtually every year the winner is Bohemian Rhapsody. It created this peculiar ritual where thousands of people start off the new year by shouting, at the top of their lungs, "nothing really matters to me!". It's like a ritual anthem to glorify our collective nihilism. The other main contender for first place is Hotel California, in which the last line is "You can check out any time you like, But you can never leave". Another quite miserable nihilistic sentiment to start the new year with. The people don't even seem to realize they're doing it.
I would offer in the interpretation of "Hotel California" having a more sentimental slant other than nihilistic. We are getting dangerously close to an absolutist philosophy regarding morality. It's starting to seem symptomatic at this point, designed. Checking out of the hotel, but retaining the nostalgia of the experience (albeit, hedonistic) suggests a mantra or a mindset, an awareness of evil, a near miss. Moving toward purity as a synonym for good is a step toward objectification, inorganic. This song is coming in on the coat tails of American Blues music, which was based largely on resurgence and redemption. The freewheeling fringe, in the time of Vietnam, The House of the Rising Sun, Jim Crow, all had bloody hands. "Good" in this time, being the last ones standing, and who spent all their minas. The meek who walked dangerously close to the collapse of their salvation made some of the best plebeian anthems.
@Nikos Antikythera In Hotel California, the song's tone is certainly sarcastic, and does in that sense object to the shallowness of secular existence. It does represent a rejection of these self-serving things that serve no real purpose, but the reason I consider it to be nihilistic is because it provides no alternative. In fact, it says that there is no way out, that you can never leave.
More music talks please!!! Symbolism in music is so deep
This particular clip resonates with me in a deep level.
Thanks for featuring my video!
I love the fact that these clips keep getting longer.
In the middle ages, music, food, art, dance and poetry were the companions of festival, but they're aren't the festival itself. Effectively the festival is a leisure activity and society would break from work in order to celebrate festival so leisure would be the basis of culture and the companions of festival facilitated that culture. The noblest festival was to break from working on the day of the Lord and to go to church to enter into the mass or divine liturgy. Today the situation is that we break to rest just so we can go back to work again because modernity has it that we have nothing to celebrate and we are nothing but functionaries.
I heard a radio documentary years ago that claimed people used to sing during work but modern technology stopped the practice. In my life when we didn't have a radio as a kid we used to sing almost naturally to fight the boredom. I believe medieval people would've been working and singing as well. This is how many songs were written, having people doing menial and time consuming jobs that allowed the mind to be free.
Yes. For example you can find specific songs Irish women sang over the process of making garments (spinning, knitting, etc). It's definitely a thing. My husband and kids sing all the time when they're out doing things. Not me, my singing would make the birds drop out of the sky😂
The observation I made is that artistic expression is drowned in the multiplicity of medium, which is a consequence of technological advancement. There are simply too many choices, leaving the artist paralyzed and dazzed. Let's take music as an exemple; in order to create something, the artist has to limit oneself to a selection of instruments, he has to set boundaries, whereas before, one would do with whatever was accessible. Not only that, he also has to select a music genre, whereas before, it was sort of imposed by mores of the times.
So here we are. At the bottom of the mountain, dazzed by all this technology, left with is a sort of hand-me-down, forced and niched, nostalgic cry for the past. It all reminds me of the story of Lot's wife, looking back at Sodom with nostalgia and turning into a pillar of salt.
I think the more we get away from tradition, the more we fall into this unhealthy nostalgia.
Fantastic comment, you're so right.
Bach was the last spiritual composer, and by his death he was the last one holding onto sacred music
Now Wondering what Jonathan’s specific thoughts on vapor wave are
I'd guess that Vapor Wave is celebrating your own childhood memories and awareness basically, which it's yet another layer of idealization and celebration of individualism down to a very basic level of experience and perception, it's celebrating atomism.
But I hate to admit it because I actually love vapor wave music. 😔
I'd also like to hear what Jonathan has to say about it.
Bach’s music was largely liturgical. As others have said, I wonder what Pageau would say about Bach’s Cantatas, where he took the best ideas from opera and reappropriated them for sacred purposes.
This would be especially interesting given how the Lutheran emphasis on congregational participation led to the congregation singing at the end of each service.
Love your work man and I couldn’t agree more
zoom in on the group. hilarious!
I know Pageau has read some German philosophers. I wonder if he’s familiar with the concept, revived by Scruton, of the difference between Tonnkunst/Vortragsmusik and Gebrauchmusik.
He is also mentions Walter Benjamins idea of aura. Since Gebrauchmusik was aproached by Adorno, Benjamins colleague, I would say it is plausible that he is familiar with the concept.
I do wonder what Pageau has to say about Bach's cantatas.
Fr. Seraphim Rose loved Bach.
@@aeternusromanus Yes, even though critical of this period and mediaval art, story and liturature as being false by the standards of Orthodoxy he said it should not be thrown out, riding on the coattails of Christianity these were all great works we would not see the likes of which again, and that they should not be thrown out. He said it was far superior to anything we might get at "the supermarket."
I agree, it's interesting to me that Bach, Pachelbel and Handel all originate in the Lutheran tradition; flowing from Luther's idea that music is the greatest art second only to theology.
Yet it's Luther and Bach who bring cultural music into the liturgy and liturgical music into culture (or secular into sacred and sacred into secular).
To note, Luther's adoption of 'bar' music refers to musical bars rather than public taverns, much to an alcohol enjoyers disappointment.
One has to think about the mindset of the period, a period of toil and drudgery. Hearing this in church must of seemed like heaven on earth.
Bach did to music what Dante did to literature. He synthesised both the art of the time, with the sacred tradition, sanctifying the secular. His philosophy was always that music should elevate the soul for God’s glory, and he never compromised this. He found ways to respect tradition while refreshing it’s body. His music is fundamentally Christian. He is an exception, lived in humility, faith and devotion despite his grandeur.
His major secular works were only written out of curiosity while he was court composer in Kothen for a Calvinist prince, who restricted his sacred composing to simplicity. So he used his free time to compose technical & secular pieces.
The same cannot be said of his successors, the classical period was raunch with revolutionary enlightenment & occult.
monumental genius
Thanks
would love to hear an explication of techno music, both on its own and within context of rave parties (tho the parties themselves really just serve as a vehicle for the passions).
I can listen to John Williams movie scores. It tells the story.
But would it tell anything without the movie ?
Atonal music does take into account the ordinary way humans experience music. It just refuses to meet those expectations because it's trying to get you to experience something new and strange. There is nothing wrong with it.
Except for the sound of it.
@@romanduelin The sound is supposed to be "wrong." Dissonance and atonality both sound "wrong" to our ears, but Pageau would never criticize Beethoven for his use of dissonance. Music that sounds wrong creates texture, conflict, interest, drama, and emotion.
@@Molotov49 Beethoven's use of dissonance was to build tension which causes a catharsis when his compositions would resolve that tension. Most atonal music does not provide that resolution so its just bad for the sake of being bad. Very post modernist in it's construction.
@@romanduelin You can still learn to appreciate it. It's not bad. It just doesn't sound like what we are used to hearing.
@@Molotov49 no it's bad. You're just trying to rationalize it's badness as a social construct when in reality it's just bad.
"Do the hip shake, baby!" ~ The Stones
definitely agree with the video title.
I understand your point; you’re certainly not alone in feeling that artistic creation since approximately the 1840s is a story of diminishing value. To put late Beethoven on that continuum, though, is to misunderstand what he did and what he was. You can’t understand his third style-period without knowing his reaction to learning the truth about Mozart’s death, the political implications of it, and logical extensions producing music that entered the history of ideas. Alle Menschen werden Bruder is a message to humanity, speaking truth to power just as forcefully as his famous confrontation with the royal family in the Prater, which so embarrassed Goethe. But history keeps going. The great conductor Max Rudolf said to me, shortly before he died, that: “We live in a damned century; its achievements are not artistic; they’re technological. I anticipate that almost all 20th century composers will be forgotten in 50 years. Think of me then, and see if it is not so. Perhaps Bartók will be an exception, because of the folk elements in his work-but nobody else.” Thomas Adès probably wasn’t on his radar screen, but Stravinsky? Britten? These were his friends!
Is there some gathering were we can find other like minded people to discuss this?
I need other people where I can talk to those subjects, tried in local church(Catholic), but they have a first level reading of scripture and do not want difficult conversations about faith and symbolism.
I haven’t found a formal society to discuss these kind of subjects although I do very much appreciate these discussions. I’m a traditional Catholic and a lot of us get really busy with families so it’s hard to squeeze in time for the creation and development of these subjects rather than simply consuming content online. LMK if you find anything like a discord server of these subjects, etc.
"Melody tropes" that repeat in different EDM tracks, are called samples lol
This is obvious, but most people don’t see it. Western art and culture was in a state of crisis LONG before it was apparent in the political realm.
Do you listen to Minnesang or Bard poetry’s?
Folk songs? I would be very interested 😊
wow, spot on
Would it be that modern compositions try to articulate a connection between space and time? We tend to be more comfortable with music as progressive entity; accumulative. Is modernism trying to consider it more proximal and proportional? To perceive something the same going, as it does coming. The point being, to expand our definitions of what dualism is, not for the sake of ambiguity, but for the sake of synthesis. For the sake of elevating subjective interpretations, and those stimulus, that merge in the eye and mind, so that the individual can judge indiscriminately.
the chord
examples: Hania Rani "Hawaii - Oslo" //// Arvo Pärt' "Fratres" //// Ólafur Arnalds "Woven Song" //// For the brave: Colin Stetson "To see more light" -enjoy!
Modern composers focus on 'visual music' since most modern commissions are for theater or movies. That's why it is so horrible to listen to, because it doesn't mean anything without the visual component.
Older composers spent a lot of time on dances, which have a more vital component to their basis. While you don't necessarily need to be dancing to appreciate it's better related to the human experience.
What is the artwork for this clip?
AI recently won a compitition with a piece that has a very similar style..
Great clip, modernism is stuck in a metaphysics of opposites between the One and The Many. Nietzsche said like Beethoven, Rousseau made Europe get up and do a dance unto exhaustion in the French Revolution. He also said Rousseau being the father of the Revolution made Descartes it's grandfather. and that Revolution was an antichrist movement with roots in the Renaissance and a man centered religion. This took esoteric, pagan, and gnostic hermeticism tied to rebellious philosophy to subvert the Catholic church after scholasticism, chiliasm, and absolute divine simplicity (and human corruption.) This also started in the middle ages post schism, and we should be careful when baptizing the good things there. The Gospels say there will come a time when men prefer fables to the truth.
Ie: it took alchemy and it's creation of science and esoteric extraction of Christianity that now imposes these gnostic systems you speak of in art, and destruction of man as image of God. Modern art at net is typically some form of a process theology in constant flux. Even as it tries to reclaim skill and pagan aesthetics you can see it in the 13 new statues like the Babylonian RGB medusa statue of RGB, the MLK statue, Baphomet etc. They all serve a purpose too, and it's deincarnation.
I think your work is good and bringing people in. I know you take the correct stance of accepting that Origen is a heretic, and allow people to see Orthodoxy, myself included. But there is a danger area here yopu are bordering on with fantasy, Imaginal, and Vervaeke's language and it can very easily lead to these things infiltrating the church, many misunderstanding your positions and bringing this stuff in. And it will move off those in our church that already are leaning to Origenism (David Bentley Hart), discarding hesychasm, making fairy tales too important etc. While right wing phylotism and angry young men might be an issue on the other side of this, on this end it typically ties to Christian esotericism, or being amenable to left wing politics and ecuminsm, closing churches, misusing Ss. Gregory and Maximos for gender fluidity, piety signaling to silence dissident opinions and such.
Modern trite music isn't just in the hips either, that's part of it and the type that serves this purpose. But the outright warrior gnosticism in much gangster rap, or metal isn't just in the hips. Even at the grammy's, the Lil Nas X video you critiqued, or Grimes there's outright warfare there right in front of everyone in the trite pop music and it's symbolism as well. The symbolism of Bael-Ptor: Lord of Open Holes.
That was one hell of a post. Had to re-read it a few times.
The jazz of opposites...got it.
@@IndyDefense Glad you found it useful. This method of discourse takes so much to be precise to few ppl, or you say it short and then get dismissed as unfair and simplistic.
@@Ac-ip5hd It's a risk we all take.
I think I get what he's saying here, but I'm not sure. I love art, so the idea of it all being corrupted is very troubling.
This right here is what made me finally give up on Christianity. Like Plato before it, its fundamentally anti-art, and therefore anti-human.
But this isn't the stance of "Christianity" - it's the stance of the Eastern Orthodox (maybe.)
Most Christians are Catholic and Catholicism certainly isn't anti-art.
@@nealkriesterer its completely the stance of Christianity. All art must be subservient to your god, and glorify your god. Any art that does not do this is by definition demonic and evil, and must be destroyed. Don't think so? You're the exception. Over and over, Christians have committed cultural genocide, mass murder of entire peoples. Why? Because they had the wrong art. This is precisely the ideology of Christianity. The religion is the stated reason, before, during and after EVERY genocide committed by the barbaric murdering hordes of the Prince of peace. You cannot decouple the religion from its adherents repeated actions through history. The very idea of "the final religion to replace them all forever" is inherently evil.
Even if most Christians now wouldn't claim to want this (because they know they would be condemned for it, rightfully) they will sit there full of hatred for anything that denies their god, quietly wishing they could snap their fingers and make all non adherents disappear.
It's not anti art. It's just the art has to point at something higher.
What a perfect illustration of Christian arrogance. "Something higher" is defined as "my god and my morals"; "has to" is the demand that all art submit to that: ie. your favourite god, who's truth you bought from someone else.
The Christians have done that to everyone since their inception, and killed anyone that did not want to submit to their "has to" and their "something higher".
The world is much more fascinating than you know, if only Christians would stop strangling the life out of it.
What are some patterns y’all see in daily life ?
Awake-sleep cycle representing life and death, the Sun representing God in the sky bringing life to us, the Moon representing the Church, or the illuminated creation when it becomes an icon of God...
@@sonicgems I like that thanks .Do you know if any symbolism around subconscious appetites or desires ?
@@israelallen6430 Sea monsters creeping under the surface!
@@sonicgems lol oh yea huh
@@israelallen6430 I was being backhanded but I think it's a good symbol for unconscious desires if they're just uncontrolled passions. However, a desire for a good thing can also be unconscious, so the symbol wouldn't really work there, unless you consider a monster more like an "extremely foreign" thing that doesn't fit into your categories instead of a "bad" monster.
It's interesting to think about the role of counter culture music in that point of view, because basically all the religious people outrage against it back in the day would be justified and vindicated. Although I don't think it's the case to say that all that music itself that was made It's all bad by themselves but it's just that they lack a good guiding purpose, and also in the way that they came about to be popular it was clearly to help destroy the west's spirit and society, and it worked.
Atonality is such a great example.
It's way too abstract to be enjoyable outside of the clinical, cold and dreary atmosphere of Academia.
EDIT: I mean, Miles Davis isn't the end-all-be-all of jazz. The dance orchestras of the 1930s are extremely incarnate yet still a heavenly listen, a pity it was such a brief period.
A plethora of words that express nothing at all. Clouds without rain. Words without content.
you must have ears to hear first.
20th century dodecaphonic music/serial music was an art of abstract compositional technique and structure at the expense of “aural” based structures and techniques. In fact they deliberately attempted to redefine the aesthetic experience and tastes.
So that's why "meme-music" appearing in platforms like TikTok gets more attention, because it is somehow related to human experience in the world... ok, I'm joking. Have anybody else realized how pop rock concerts and gigs in general have become some kind of rite or mass or something? People gets on a really religious mood when attending these shows.
A lot of art went downhill in the Renaissance, where, as impressive and aesthetically pleasing as it may be (especially compared with what's considered art today in the Weimarican empire), they figured they were just gonna copy classical art because some people with a lot of money to spend liked cargo-culting Ancient Greece and Rome.
Notably though, some people in the 20th century tried to revive (neo-)classicism with a modernist spin and give it a more transcendental character again (Arno Breker comes to mind).
it's fitting an empire as hostile to the Good the True and the Beautiful as ours is would violently destroy most of Breker's work
Another thing about contemporary music that really bugs me is how the notion of beauty has been completely eradicated. Even when you hear people complain online about say, rap it’s 99% of the time about the lyrical content, not about the use of electronic drum loops or the trans humanist element of auto tune, etc. which arguably uglify everything. Without beauty or truth what ideal are you aspiring to in music, besides a crass narcissism?
auto tune makes me ill regardless of the type of music
@Die Enchanted isn’t Jonathan being old fashioned as well? Part of this whole exercise of criticizing modernity is to well, see what worked of the past.
@@jaredfairfield there two rhetorical tricks at play here that are massively abused during our time:
1. That you've found an exception to the category does not invalidate the category. All categories have exceptions. I agree there are beautiful implementations of auto tune, but you are talking about a category of music that is broadly focused on the good, the true and the beautiful, vs a category of music that is broadly focused on degeneracy.
2. We in the west have been in cultural decline for many generations, so older stuff is naturally going to be superior to new stuff. New stuff might speak to us more viscerally since it is created in our own context, but it's not old-fogey-ism to recognize the decadent state of our civilization ---- rather it's "presentism" to subjectively elevate the current simply because it's current, and if you can see past that it's very obvious our art is, relatively speaking, rather awful.
May I introduce you to a hardcore/metal show and mosh pit.
We love that Bach is mathematical under the beauty
Interesting on the jazz comment. I’ve been thinking of good music, insofar as it has more than one actor, as an Aristotelian mean between the tyranny of the excess of melody, where the one melody dominates and there is little to no recognition of the many. This as opposed to the deficiency of melody, which leads to its own form of tyranny where there is no unified melody, rather competing individual songs that occupy the same space and time, but result in something unintelligible to the consciousness aka noise. I tend to think, at least modern jazz, fits more in this category. The proper mean would be a category that allows both for a unified melody to exist, and space for the individual pieces to be present to the consciousness. I’d argue, there’s a hierarchy where melody is to be prioritized to a certain degree.
"Hierarchy" is right, because we perceive hierarchically. Good orchestration must be planned in terms of foreground, midground, and background, and a good composer must be a good psychologist.
Multiplicity in unity. I think it explains how Trinity works. I was talking to a Muslim friend and in a sense Islam is multiplicity in unity too. Bc you can't point to one act or doctrine and say Oh that's Islam. Like is giving alms Islam? Is prayers? Or etc etc? No,I think you can say that it's all " Islam". It's more than "Trinitarian"
I disagree with Johnathan on music becoming more trite. Music is music, its a category. Theres good and bad, so the thing that changed would be the number of music producers, the types of instruments and the reach of that music.
"music is music" ? Why bother saying anything if your stance is no claims or judgements can be made "People are people" "grass is grass" "technology is technology" .... Now what?
@@Ojibwadecendent look up what trite means. Then remember that a description of a category has to be true for the whole or its a bad description.
Its the spirit of man that has changed who makes the music
Childish comments about a rich and varied art form.
see my response to mr ed the wave and mr keith jhonson, the video maker is alluding to ideas which i better explain, and i add to it a bit
An assault on the neighbors nervous system, is not music or meditation.
“{{{(((all good vibes)))}}}”🖕
If society is a dance, I think it’s safe to say it isn’t twerking.
(This is some unforgivable shit.)
You got a skull bowl? …cool.
i think modernism is twerking... its all about coom doom and consoom product, with a anti quality love theme. quality love is when people enjoy caring for others wellbeing even if it takes effort, as a form of purpose in life beyond own wellbeing, to make ones own wellbeing feel purposeful... a mindset essential to fatherhood as opposed to "pump her then dump her", all of which has been a motivator for advancing beyond simple hunter gatherer lifestyle from human nature.
I never liked atonalism
You just don’t understand, Radiohead is the greatest musical entity of all time.
Bach and Mozart both created liturgical music. Orthodox would not have a knowledge of that. Not sure about Beethoven. Jazz is discordant and at times almost atonal. I’m a little perplexed that Jonathan would put it on the same platform as organic folk music.
this guy has never been on /mu/ smh