Props to Alex Ross (OT)

Man, that last post was way too long. Should have been one short paragraph. I do gas on sometimes. I should work on brevity.

But speaking of The New Yorker, since I was, I'd just like to provide a link in passing to Alex Ross's article "The Sound of Hate" in the July 4th, 2016, issue of the magazine. Might be the single best essay about music I've ever read. It starts out appearing to be a modest book review, of the new translation (from the French) of Pascal Quignard's 1996 book The Hatred of Music. He starts by talking about using music as a weapon—sound as violence, as a military weapon, as an instrument of torture, and as personal violation in the form of an intrusive "piercer of envelopes" (Quignard's phrase).

That last relates back my recent post about firecrackers torturing dogs, veterans, and Hmbl. Eds.

Along the way he touches on a number of things that, in isolation, have interested me over the years—from 7-11's use of Mozart to drive off teenage loiterers in its parking lots, to music's group-defining function, to the use of bouncy polkas blaring from loudspeakers to drown out the screams of victims in Nazi death camps, to musical infiltration as cultural hegemony, to the notion that music is always a positive art form being a post-Romantic-era formulation. "When music is applied to warlike ends, we tend to believe that it has been turned against its innocent nature," Ross writes. "To quote the standard platitudes, it has charms to soothe a savage breast; it is the food of love; it brings us together and sets us free. We resist evidence suggesting that music can cloud reason, stir rage, cause pain, even kill." 

Writer Alex Ross in 2008. Photo by Mark Mahaney, used by permission.

Music can be used to psych up an athlete for a challenge, or to agitate crowds. It can certainly be transgressive, but its meaning and acceptance changes as it is co-opted into culture—you can sometimes hear anthems of counterculture 1960s revolution used as muzak in supermarkets now. Few who saw the respective movies will forget the helicopters attacking over the blare of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" in Apocalypse Now, or the massacre scene in Arthur Penn's Little Big Man where the cavalry advances on the helpless native village to the airy lilt of "Garryowen." And it's a curious fact that "humans react with particular revulsion to musical signals that are not of their choice or to their liking." My reclusive and enigmatic musical-polymath friend Kim once had to quit a job because they played "inoffensive" classic pop hits over the PA system all day in the workplace, and he couldn't stand it.

In the end, Alex Ross suggests we "...renounce the fiction of music’s innocence. To discard that illusion is not to diminish music’s importance; rather, it lets us register the uncanny power of the medium. To admit that music can become an instrument of evil is to take it seriously as a form of hu­man expression."

A beautifully crafted, brilliant, deeply considered short essay. Highly recommended. It's online, under the title "When Music is Violence."

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Aaron Britton: "What timing, my wife and I were just talking last night about our dentist going on a Disney Cruise. The dentist talked about how they piped in Disney music all the time over the PA, even in the rooms. Wow, talk about hell."

BruceK: "Very interesting article. As a footnote, I went in for surgery this past January, and there was background music playing in the OR as I was wheeled in. The song? Dylan's 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door.' Good thing I have a sense of humor...."

JK: "Anyone who has ever been to Yodobashi Camera in Japan will have its theme song seared into their brain. It's set to the melody of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' with some silly lyrics telling you which trains to take to get there, played in an endless loop all day. I honestly wonder how the employees put up with it without going off the deep end. (And yet I Youtube'd it just now and have to admit feeling a pleasant moment of camera-buying nostalgia.)"

Comments

[psu]

Ross has also written two excellent books, one on 20th Century Classical music (The Rest is Noise) and one sort of about the relationship between Classical music and pop culture in the our current cultural context (Listen to This).

Recommended.

[Herman]

High Fidelity-

[Robert Roaldi]

One thought comes to my mind, and that's the overuse of movies in movie and TV drama. In too many programs, the music track is too loud and in moments of high tension, can drown out the dialogue, except it's the dialogue I want to hear. Does no one ever watch the final edit? There have been some programs that we stopped watching because of the music.

[Roger Botting]

I can understand the use of music for good and bad.
I used to manage the camera department in a department store. (it was an employment low point). The background Muzak was terrible, and repetitive. You could set your watch by it.
It was designed to innocuous to the average shopper, who was probably completely oblivious to it, yet the staff found the 'grey noise' grating.
During those many quiet moments between customers, when your mind zones out and gets into the lazy rhythms of the bored musicians your teeth start to grate, your mind turns to cheese and going postal seems like a reasonable life alternative. That is when you start to take better photographs in your mind. But, the job paid so poorly that you were pressed to afford the bus fare.
That is why a person can hate mall music.

[G Dan Mitchell]

No art form is innocent, particularly if "innocent" means having no intent or power to change those who are exposed to it.

[Nigel]

Pat Metheny's "Zero Tolerance for Silence" comes to mind after reading this post.

[mike plews]

This is not exactly on topic but TOP readers may find it interesting.
Alex North composed a soundtrack for 2001 A Space Odyssey. The score was discarded in favor of a collection of music by other composers that had apparently been place holders in the rough cut while Norths score was being done.
You can compare the two on this site. You have to wonder how much impact Kubricks film would have had if it had kept the North score.
In my opinion the Alex North score really does not work in this capacity. You may differ. Give it a listen.
http://www.slashfilm.com/original-2001-score/

[Keith]

Reminds me of the photo of the girl standing on top of the toilet, the context changed the meaning of the image.

[Trevor Small]

Similarly interesting is "The Singing Neanderthal" by Steven Mithen. Among other things he argues that music affects our emotions in ways that speech rarely does.

[Kevin Purcell]

Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise is an excellent history of (art/classical/film/experimental) music of 20th century.

http://www.therestisnoise.com/

[David Owensby]

One is reminded of the central plot of "A Clockwork Orange". Music used as reprogramming.

[Richard Reusser]

Very interesting article. Brings to mind "A Clockwork Orange" and its many music / violence juxtapositions.

[Richard Reusser]

...oops, fell prey to the old "comment before thoroughly reading" syndrome. A Clockwork Orange is mentioned in the story !

[Sarge]

The national anthems of formerly colonized countries are usually marches or have sanguine lyrics.

[Manuel]

Have you ever felt music can be intolerably beautiful?
Have you ever been so moved by music you felt uncomfortable listening to it?
Have you ever had to hide your face when listening to music, so that no one would notice you were crying?
I did. That was when I listened to Pachelbel's Canon in D major for the first time.

[John Willard]

"The Murderer" by Ray Bradbury. Incredibly, written in 1953.

[Frank Figlozzi]

A few years ago a big box store opened in our area. I went there and found that each department - appliances, CD's, photo, and so on - had its own unique background music. As you were walking through the store you could hear two - and sometimes three - different genres of music being played simultaneously. LOUDLY!

I paid quickly for whatever I was buying and when I was done said to the young girl behind the counter, "how can you stand it in here?"

She replied, "oh, you just get used to it after a while."

I sometimes wonder where she is today.

[Hugh Crawford]

"you can sometimes hear anthems of counterculture 1960s revolution used as muzak in supermarkets now"

My 5 year old son got quite the looks when he would sing along to the Beatles "happiness is a warm gun" in the supermarket. I used to know a girl in in highschool who would sing along to the MASH theme song when it was popular as background shopping music. For those who are unfamiliar with the song, "Suicide is painless" http://www.neatorama.com/2015/07/28/MASH-Notes-The-Story-Behind-Suicide-is-Painless/ is one of those songs everybody recognizes but no one knows the lyrics to.

[Lynn]

I shared the link with a friend, a retired AP journo - his take was that music is a fundamental communication tool can be used or misused, just as words can. Would we rather use words or music to incite to violence, or to express and celebrate the better aspects of human nature? He found it "disturbing, like any article that essentially celebrates violence - however elevated the tone".

As to me, for Alex Ross to say "To admit that music can become an instrument of evil is to take it seriously as a form of hu­man expression" seems fatuous, as it implies music might not have been taken seriously before, and that an admission of misuse is required in order to take it seriously. Really? What nonsense. Music has always been a serious form of human expression linked powerfully to our emotions, and it doesn't take evil misuse to make it so.