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Richard Jernigan -> RE: is this good singing? (Apr. 15 2012 3:29:42)
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I've spent a few weeks in Bali from time to time over the last twenty years. Tourism has become bigger and bigger, but the Balinese culture survives and adapts.
On my first trip I made friends with my cab driver. On my second trip I took a guitar. He asked me to play. Then he took me to rehearsal of the gamelan of Bangli. The town was the seat of one of the seven kings of Bali before the Dutch showed up. it is still conscious of its status as a cultural center. My cab driver was a respected member of the orchestra while still in his twenties.
The only person in the gamelan who makes his living from music is the guru. The rest of the twenty-odd members pay dues to defray the expenses of maintaining the instruments, travel, the guru's wage. They do it out of a love for music, and also out of civic pride. A town without a good orchestra would be shamed.
The guru composes the pieces and teaches them to the members. The pieces are as long and complex as an early Mozart symphony. Bangli is not really on the tourist circuit, so the audience there is largely local. People from all walks of life flock to the concerts, the dance performances and the temple ceremonies where the orchestra provides the music. They take great pride in their orchestra. They follow the annual contest among various town orchestras from all over the island with the enthusiasm of European football fans.
There is a greater production of music, dance, painting, sculpture and architecture in Bali than in any of the other fifty-odd countries I have visited, and by a very wide margin. There are very few professional artists in any genre. The man who carves a new sculpture for the village temple is likely to be a rice farmer.
Not only is there a much higher production of all art forms in Bali, but it is of a much higher quality. That's because the artists are in charge, and they perform for the people, not for wealth and fame.
In old time economics there was Gresham's Law. When the king ran short of money, he might resort to debasing the coins, putting in less gold or silver. The good coins would soon disappear from circulation as people hoarded them. Gresham's Law was "Bad money drives out good."
In a mass consumption capitalist society where art is made into a commodity, bad art drives out good. You can make more money pushing out trash at the lowest common denominator, and hypnotizing consumers into buying it, than you can make by letting the artists work to turn out good stuff. At least that's what the "music business" thinks.
Real art, relevant to the people, may bubble up irresistibly from time to time, like the big band swing music of the 1930s in America, or rock 'n roll in the 1960s, when the music actually meant something. But the commercial interests soon overwhelm it and resume churning out mass produced crap like the tin-pan alley schlock of the 1950s or most of today's pop music in the USA.
It's what happens when you make art into a commodity to be sold like a shirt or a stick of chewing gum.
There are positive trends today. The corporations used to control the means of production and distribution of music. Now with a few thousand bucks worth of equipment and the internet artists are taking control of their work. That's got to be a good thing.
Meanwhile the "music business" flops about like a beached and dying whale, trying to buy legislation, clinging to the past as hard as it can.
As Dylan sang, with acid disdain:
"And you know something's happening but you don't know what it is
do you, Mr. Jones?"
RNJ
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