Why Genres are Crap

9 days ago, at about 4:30 in the afternoon, my thesis topic suddenly and irrevocably changed. I was planning to write something about improvisation in renaissance or baroque keyboard music, but was struggling to find a reason to research and write about that. As a joke I said maybe I should write a thesis entitled "Why Genres are Crap", and my excellent and insightful supervisor (yes, I know you're reading this!) suggested that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

So for the last few days I've been thinking about the idea of genre in music, and the seemingly great rift between classical and popular music. At this point I have no idea how I am going to tackle this gigantic topic, and what will be my specific argument, but I am really interested in questions like:
Is genre useful or restrictive?
Does it mean that people focus more on the type of music rather than the artistry or merit or value or any of those things that make music beautiful?
Do we concentrate on the style at the expense of the substance?
Why do people listen to the music that they listen to?

Basically, I think that the division between 'popular' and 'art' (classical) music is pretty ridiculous. Musicians are constantly put in little genre pigeon-holes: classical, early music, country, pop, hip-hop, fusion... even 'cross-genre' is almost a genre in itself.

Obviously I have to come up with some swanky, uber-intelligent argument at some stage, but in the meantime I'm going to ramble and see what happens.

Stay tuned for some slightly more coherent and incisive... stuff...

In the meantime, I am glad that there are other people that are thinking along the same lines, though :)

Pop vs Classical?

Greg Sandow once again writes about the gulf between classical music audiences and concerts and the world of popular (for want of a better word) music. He mentions the ways different audiences respond to music:

Often orchestral music is very rhythmic. Why doesn’t the audience move (even a little) to the rhythm? Do orchestras preclude that, by sitting blankly onstage themselves?

I am not so sure that it is entirely about the music that they are playing, but perhaps more about the attitude and engagement of the performers and the general atmosphere of the performance. I am still formulating my ideas about this, and will try to write more about my thoughts soon.

But in the meantime, Sandow's post reminded me of something I heard about on the radio this morning, which was a concert by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and supported by youth radio station Triple J. The ASO have a series this year called "The Edge", which

will seek out the sounds of contemporary culture fusing the music of the X and Y generations to the classical. The Edge will merge the forces of Triple J with ABC Classic FM, 1960’s French poet of jazz Serge Gainsbourg with Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Muse and Jeff Buckley. The emergent sounds will have its audience listening to music standing bravely on The Edge! These late-night, one hour concerts at the ASO’s Grainger Studio will be recorded for broadcast on Triple J Radio with the support of ABC Classic FM.

It will certainly be interesting to see what these concerts are like, and how they resonate with their target audiences.