#computer music

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And just what is art music? This is the critical notion without which the rest of my remarks make no sense. The Wikipedia has a decent form of the standard definition:

Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerations or a written musical tradition. In this context, the terms "serious" or "cultivated" are frequently used to present a contrast with ordinary, everyday music (i.e. popular and folk music, also called "vernacular music"). Many cultures have art music traditions; in the Western world the term typically refers to Western classical music.

But I do not think the standard definition is complete. It focuses on the effort and cultivation required to hear art music well and to enjoy it. I would prefer to include also the occasion: the concert hall, worship, important rituals such as weddings and funerals, and most of all, private listening to music that is sufficient unto itself. In these occasions, the music is required to be of high quality and to elevate the audience.

Briefly, art music is music where the music itself is the center of attention. The standard definition just lists some of the things that are normally required to make music that rewards being the center of attention. After all, plenty of popular music ends up being art music, because listeners find it rewarding to listen to all by itself. This was and is the case with jazz, and it continues to be the case with ambient, shoegazing, minimal techno, New Age, and a considerable swatch of alternative.

Furthermore, the written tradition part of the standard definition of art music is not adequate. I would change that to written tradition and/or fixed recordings of improvised or partially improvised music. Electroacoustic music is full of music like that.

So my definition of art music ends up being:

Art music is music from any culture that rewards being the center of attention, is intended to elevate the listener, and exists in some fixed representation. Such music is normally but not always created by composers educated in a critical tradition. Music created for important ritual occasions is usually art music, or can function as art music. Some music created as part of popular or folk culture also can function as art music, and can be adopted as art music, or used as source material by composers of art music.

Now that that's out of the way, we must note another critically important but often neglected issue: not only the uses of music but also the occasions when music is used have radically changed, and are continuing to change. The causes of these changes, approximately and in chronological order, are:

Democracy. First, the masses are exposed to art music; second, a watered down version of art music is produced for the masses.

Secularization. Art music of high quality continues to be composed for worship, but fewer and fewer people are exposed to it.

The phonograph. Art music and popular music mingle indiscriminately. Some of the better popular music is adopted as art music, while much art music finds itself competing, in a depressed sort of way, with the masterpieces of the past and becomes "neo-" something.

Radio and television broadcasting. Ditto for the phonograph. At first, radio spreads some of the best art music to a general audience; but then, broadcasting of art music becomes a niche. Newer styles of art music are totally niche.

Portable listening devices (including stereos in cars). This increases the amount of time that music accompanies work or play, and decreases the amount of time that music itself is the center of attention. On the other hand, listening to a car stereo on a long drive is a fantastic way to listen to art music!

The World Wide Web. All of a sudden, all fixed music is available to all listeners. This is potentially a very good thing, but for various reasons, there is no curation. Finding music that not only is intended to be art music, but also actually stands up to being the center of attention, is challenging to say the least.

Targeted social media. To replace the vacuum of curation on the World Wide Web, advertisers use social media to collect private data and expose listeners only to what will encourage them to look at advertisements. Indirectly, this means that the listeners must make a positive effort to keep music as the center of attention. It also has the effect of splitting up culture into many, many small subcultures.

To these causes must be added the changing class structure of society, both Western society and other industrialized societies, where the relatively secure middle class of the 19th and 20th centuries, more or less faithfully followers of a canon created by their teachers and critics, is pushed back down into a lumpen class while the rich retreat upwards into their own subcultures, which tend to be nouveau-riche.

That's my take on changes in the uses and occasions for art music in general. As for electroacoustic music, its trajectory is additionally defined by the following events:

Electronic music was since the 17th century (read Sir Francis Bacon!) a project of Utopian visionaries. It was not until recently a project of the art music system.

Electronic music did become a part of the art music system, but only the 1950s, springing from serialism and other Utopian styles, which never found (for other reasons that I will not go into) a general audience. These stylistic roots tend to ensure that electroacoustic music will continue to be a niche form of (aspirationally, anyway) art music.