Introducing Modern Music and Serial Extensions

I have been thinking about this most recent discussion more. Actually it's still kind of driving me nuts. It occured to me that there are other forces at work here that need to be explored.

First, McIntire says we should basically use our anger to have something to push against. I think that there is a great deal of validity in this and I've never thought about it this way (stupid me!). This is good advice and utilizing it can help us prove to the world that we do, in fact, have something to say and we might not have the desire to say it in the same way as our predecessors (or we do want to say it like our predecessors a couple of generations removed, take your pick). So from that point of view it's good to have something to push against.

Second, and this is big, is it possible that those of us making this argument are doing a great disservice to the two or three generations of composers before us that worked hard to break free from this kind of dogma to open up new vistas for us, the "younger" generation? This is my fear now. The "live and let live" attitude that began developing in the 1960s helping bring about the "return to tonality" (not that tonality ever actually went anywhere) seems to have, in many respects, come full circle. It seems that now those in what might be referred to as the "tonal majority" are beginning to treat those in the "minority" with furious anger. In a sense doesn't this violate the basic tenets of this philosophy? Are we not wandering into dangerous dogmatic territory of our own? Shouldn't the music itself be the thing and not the means that brought us to that end?

Third, I've found what truly makes me angry. It's not the music. It's not its underying philosophies or techniques. I wish that the subject matter had been presented to me better when I was an undergraduate. I wish someone had taken the time to explain to a me a little bit more about Babbitt's background. I know he's nuts about jazz and musical theatre. I know that Sondheim (genius) is probably his most famous student. I just wish that someone would have placed his ideas into the proper context rather than just said, "Here it is. Deal with it." This angers me a great deal and should I ever have to teach it I know for sure that I would teach it with a much more open mind.

I realize that this music rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Most of it, in fact, doesn't have this affect on me. It's the dogma behind a lot of the music that bothers me. I think my own personal experience with modern music of all kinds has actually been better than a lot of musicians/music students. Perhaps this is because I came to the music of the Second Viennese School and beyond on my own and without any kind of academic pretense. This doesn't keep me from feeling a kind of ambiguity about it though. I like and respect a great deal of the music. I admire much of the complexity. But I also have this deep love of neotonal music representing both postminimalism and the new complexity.

I invite your insults of "waffler" and such, but this entire discussion has given me cause to think about the whole affair a little more.