Kendra<\/a>: “Gioia notes early in this book that he’s been writing it for 25 years. That shows: his conception of how music history is taught and written about and discussed is about 25 years out-of-date, and his work in this book suffers badly from it. The book would have been a powerful call to action and change two decades ago, but today, with hundreds of fantastic, progressive, new, and radically different approaches to music historiography in practice, both for “art” and “pop” musics, Gioia’s work is out of touch, and the book’s claims come far too late for it to be relevant or useful”.<\/p>\n”<\/p>\n
1. Music is a change agent in human life, a force of transformation and enchantment.<\/p>\n
2. Music is universal to the same extent that people have comparable needs, aspirations, biological imperatives, and evolutionary demands on their behavior. Refusing to acknowledge the universal qualities in a community\u2019s music is akin to denying it membership in the broader human community.<\/p>\n
3. Songs served as the origin for what we now call psychology\u2014in other words, as a way of celebrating personal emotions and attitudes long before the inner life was deemed worthy of respect in other spheres of society.<\/p>\n
4. Over the centuries, freedom of song has been just as important as freedom of speech, and often far more controversial\u2014feared because of music\u2019s inherent power of persuasion. Songs frequently embody dangerous new ideas long before any politician is willing to speak them.<\/p>\n
5. Charts of best-selling songs can be read as an index of leading social indicators. What happens in society tomorrow can be heard on the radio today.<\/p>\n
6. For communities that don\u2019t have semiconductors and spaceships, music is their technology. For example, songs served as the \u2018cloud storage\u2019 for all early cultures, preserving communal history, traditions, and survival skills. Songs can also function as weapons, medicine, tools, or in other capacities that channel their inherent potency.<\/p>\n
7. Each major shift in technology changes the way people sing.<\/p>\n
8. Musical innovations almost always come from outsiders\u2014slaves, bohemians, rebels, and others excluded from positions of power\u2014because they have the least allegiance to the prevailing manners and attitudes of the societies in which they live. This inevitably results in new modes of musical expression.<\/p>\n
9. Diversity contributes to musical innovation because it brings the outsider into the music ecosystem. Consider how port cities and multicultural communities, from Lesbos to Liverpool, have played such a key role in the history of song.<\/p>\n
10. Musical innovation spreads like a virus, and usually by the same means\u2014through close contact between groups from different places. The concept of a song going viral is more than just a poetic metaphor. New approaches to music often arise in unhealthy cities (Deir el-Medina, New Orleans, etc.).<\/p>\n
11. If authorities do not intervene, music tends to expand personal autonomy and human freedom.<\/p>\n
12. Authorities usually intervene.<\/p>\n
13. Over the short term, rulers and institutions are more powerful than musicians. In the long term, songs tend to prevail over even the most authoritarian leaders.<\/p>\n
14. Kings and other members of the ruling class are rarely responsible for breakthroughs in music. When such innovations are attributed to a powerful leader\u2014as with the Song of Songs, the Shijing, Gregorian chant, troubadour lyrics, and so on\u2014this is usually a sign that something important has been hidden from our view.<\/p>\n
15. We still need to study these powerful figures in music history, not for what they did, but for what they hid.<\/p>\n
16. The unwritten (or erased or distorted) history is a measure of their successful intervention. Gaps in the documented history are often demonstrations of power. This is why stray and isolated facts that run counter to the sanctioned narrative deserve our closest attention.<\/p>\n
17. Whenever possible, try to go back to original or early sources. If someone insists that you can safely ignore a primary source or traditional lore, that\u2019s probably a sign you should take it seriously.<\/p>\n
18. Nothing is more unstable in music history than a period of stability. The signal for new disruption in performance styles is usually that things are going smoothly.<\/p>\n
19. Around the time of Pythagoras and Confucius, an epistemological rupture took place that attempted to remove magic and trance from the sphere of acceptable music practices. This agenda is always doomed to failure\u2014you can\u2019t reduce music to purely rational rules (or algorithms, as they are usually called nowadays)\u2014but its advocates never give up trying. We are still living with the after-effects of the Pythagorean rupture today.<\/p>\n
20. The battle continues to rage over two incompatible views: whether music is constructed from notes or from sounds. The arguments over analog versus digital music are just the latest manifestation of this conflict. It can also be described as an opposition between European and African traditions, and in many other ways. To some degree, this is the fundamental tension in all musicology.<\/p>\n
21. Music is always more than notes. It is made out of sounds. Confusing these two is not a small matter.<\/p>\n
22. Musical sounds existed in the natural world as creative or destructive forces (sometimes latent, other times already actualized) long before human societies put their power to use. As such, the pentatonic scale, circle of fifths, functional harmony, etc. were not invented by musicians, but discovered by them\u2014much like calculus was discovered.<\/p>\n
23. The recurring structures and patterns in compositions invite analysis, yet music cannot be reduced to a pure science or a type of applied mathematics. Powerful aspects of emotion, personality, and deliberate subversion resist this kind of codification. Even in the most restrictive and controlling environments, these elements persist\u2014and, if given the chance, will dominate.<\/p>\n
24. We can learn about music from neuroscience, but music does not happen in the brain. Music takes place in the world.<\/p>\n
25. Historical accounts often tell us more about the process of legitimization and mainstreaming than about the actual sources and origins of musical innovation.<\/p>\n
26. Insiders try to rewrite history to obscure the importance of outsiders\u2014or to redefine the outsider as an insider.<\/p>\n
27. The very process of legitimization requires distortion\u2014 obscuring origins and repurposing music to meet the needs of those in positions of power.<\/p>\n
28. Legitimization is ongoing and cumulative. In other words, music history is no different from other types of history: each generation rewrites it to match its own priorities, of which truth-telling often ranks low on the list.<\/p>\n
29. The process of legitimization typically transpires over a period of between twenty-five and fifty years\u2014or what we might call a generation. Attempts to accelerate the mainstreaming of radical music at a faster pace (e.g., in order to make money from it) will bring irresolvable tensions to the surface. Sometimes people will die as a result.<\/p>\n
30. Music has always been linked to sex and violence. The first instruments were dripping in blood. The first songs promoted fertility, hunting, warfare, and the like. Most of music history serves to obscure these connections and to suppress elements judged shameful or undignified by posterity.<\/p>\n
31. The \u2018shameful\u2019 elements in music history\u2014sex, superstition, bloody conflicts, altered mind states, etc.\u2014are usually closely linked to the process of innovation itself. When we cleanse them from the historical record, we guarantee our ignorance of how new ways of music-making arise.<\/p>\n
32. Even love songs are political songs, because new ways of singing about love tend to threaten the status quo. All authority figures, from parents to monarchs, grasp this threat implicitly, even if they can\u2019t express it clearly in words.<\/p>\n
33. Institutions and businesses do not create musical innovations; they just recognize them after the fact.<\/p>\n
34. They usually strive to hide this\u2014with the goal of exaggerating their own importance\u2014and sometimes succeed.<\/p>\n
35. If you really want to understand music in the present day, turn away from the stage and study the audience.<\/p>\n
36. Music was once embedded in a person\u2019s life; now it projects a person\u2019s lifestyle. That may seem like a small difference, but the distance between the two can be as large as the gap between reality and fantasy.<\/p>\n
37. Music entertains, but it can never be reduced to mere entertainment.<\/p>\n
38. The audience is never passive, and it always puts music to use.<\/p>\n
39. Songs still possess magic, even for those who have forgotten how to tap into it.<\/p>\n
40. Those who devote themselves to music as a vocation\u2014whether as performer, teacher, scholar, or in some other capacity\u2014can ignore this magic, or they can play a part in restoring its potency. In other words: with music, we can all be wizards.<\/p>\n
”<\/p>\n
Gioia, T. (2019). Music: a subversive history (First edition). Basic Books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I hadn’t read books specifically on music before, maybe one or two loosely-knit ones. Lately I got interested in and affected by music. One day I found myself searching for music books with an introduction-level history. I thought of listening to an audiobook so that I can daydream while walking outside and listening to it. … Continue reading Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia | quote from the epilogue<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[757,716],"tags":[770,769],"class_list":["post-6000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-quote","tag-music-a-subversive-history","tag-ted-gioia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9WYIs-1yM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5746,"url":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/25\/books-on-electronic-music-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":6000,"position":0},"title":"Books on Electronic Music I","author":"yalpertem","date":"25 December 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I watched Sisters with Transistors (2020) again and thought of gathering some books related to the history of the electronic music from different perspectives. Sicko, D. (2010). Techno rebels: the renegades of electronic funk (2nd ed.). Wayne State University Press. \"When it was originally published in 1999, Techno Rebels became\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "genel"","block_context":{"text":"genel","link":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/category\/genel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/electronic-music-I-collage.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/electronic-music-I-collage.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/electronic-music-I-collage.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/electronic-music-I-collage.png?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/electronic-music-I-collage.png?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6538,"url":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/06\/solnit-on-woolf-and-uncertainty\/","url_meta":{"origin":6000,"position":1},"title":"Rebecca Solnit, on Woolf and Uncertainty","author":"yalpertem","date":"6 August 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Rebecca Solnit is my favorite author for the audiobooks I listen to. Maybe she's the one who got me into listening to audiobooks with her Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Her essay collection Men Explain Things to Me has seven essays, one focusing on Virginia Woolf in dialogue with Susan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "genel"","block_context":{"text":"genel","link":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/category\/genel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6023,"url":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/16\/on-headphones-i-this-is-your-brain-on-music-daniel-levitin\/","url_meta":{"origin":6000,"position":2},"title":"on headphones I | This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin","author":"yalpertem","date":"16 April 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The opening sentences of Daniel Levitin's book This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession. \" In the summer of 1969, when I was eleven, I bought a stereo system at the local hi-fi shop. It cost all of the hundred dollars I had earned weeding neighbors\u2019 gardens\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/this-is-your-brain-on-music.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5285,"url":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/02\/books-on-berlin-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":6000,"position":3},"title":"Books on Berlin I","author":"yalpertem","date":"2 October 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"First attempt at building a personal archive of books about Berlin. I plan to randomly search for books online or in bookstores and find texts on the different aspects of the city, hopefully from different disciplines. I was firstly inspired by a bookstore's \"Books on Berlin\" section. I have no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "berlin-books"","block_context":{"text":"berlin-books","link":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/category\/list\/berlin-books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/berlin-books-I-min-1024x819.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/berlin-books-I-min-1024x819.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/berlin-books-I-min-1024x819.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5451,"url":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/21\/books-on-berlin-xii\/","url_meta":{"origin":6000,"position":4},"title":"Books on Berlin XII","author":"yalpertem","date":"21 October 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Mesch, C. (2018). Modern art at the Berlin Wall: demarcating culture in the Cold War Germanys. I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd. \"At the height of the Cold War, art produced in divided Germany contested the cultural demarcation of East and West. Here Claudia Mesch shows how a wide group of artists\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "berlin-books"","block_context":{"text":"berlin-books","link":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/category\/list\/berlin-books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/books-on-berlin-XII-1024x768.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/books-on-berlin-XII-1024x768.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/books-on-berlin-XII-1024x768.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5307,"url":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/09\/books-on-berlin-v\/","url_meta":{"origin":6000,"position":5},"title":"Books on Berlin V","author":"yalpertem","date":"9 October 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"MacLean, R. (2015). Berlin: portrait of a city through the centuries. Picador, St. Martin\u2019s Press. \"Berlin is a city of fragments and ghosts, a laboratory of ideas, the fount of both the brightest and darkest designs of history's most bloody century. The once arrogant capital of Europe was devastated by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "berlin-books"","block_context":{"text":"berlin-books","link":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/category\/list\/berlin-books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/books-on-berlin-5-1024x313.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/books-on-berlin-5-1024x313.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/books-on-berlin-5-1024x313.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6000"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6021,"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6000\/revisions\/6021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yalpertem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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