THE ULTIMATE MUSIC
Bourgeois
music is a music the melodic integrity of which is usually balanced between
rhythm and pitch. Either side of this
music, in class-evolutionary terms, is music that is of a melodic integrity
either predominantly given to rhythm, as in the case of the grand bourgeoisie,
or predominantly given to pitch, as in the case of the petty bourgeoisie, both
of which classes are themselves divisible into an earlier and a later stage,
the musical constitution of which will be either more or less extreme but
never, or rarely, totally extreme. By
which I mean absolutist, and therefore given to the production of either pure
rhythm or pure pitch. These extreme
stages correspond, by contrast, to aristocratic (pagan) and proletarian
(transcendental) absolutes - pre-atomic and post-atomic integrities either side
of a bourgeois (Christian) atomicity.
Consequently they are not, as a rule, to be encountered within the
confines of relativistic civilization!
The rhythmic purism preceded it and the atonal purism will succeed
it. The earlier stage of grand-bourgeois
music stems from the former in its predominantly rhythmic content; the later
stage of petty-bourgeois music aspires towards the latter in a predominantly
atonal context; though such music, whether as modern jazz or avant-garde
classical, is rarely atonal in the strictly post-rhythmic sense. There accrues to it at least a vestige of
rhythm in either melody or percussion, the latter particularly prominent in
modern jazz which, owing to its negroid roots, is
more susceptible to percussively rhythmic indulgence than most forms of contemporary classical.
Taking the evolution of music as a whole,
we can contend that its progression is from evil to good via an evil/good
compromise. There is nothing lower or
morally worse, in musical terms, than pure rhythm, while, conversely, there is
nothing higher or morally better than pure pitch. The one stems from the diabolic absolutism
... of proton-proton reactions, the other aspires towards the divine absolutism
... of electron-electron attractions. In
between, one finds the atomic compromise of melody, as pertaining to all stages
of relativistic civilization. Melody is
to music what Christ is to religion - the humanistic,
'intellectual' compromise coming in-between the alpha/omega extremes. Thus pure rhythm stands to music as God the
Father to religion, viz. the alpha soulful extreme, while pure pitch stands to
music as the Holy Ghost to religion, viz. the omega spiritual extreme. Being relative, Christian civilization is
content with a melodic compromise equivalent to Christ, either literally, as
balanced between rhythm and pitch, or biased towards one or other of the two
extremes, depending, to a significant extent, on the epoch in question. It has no desire to embrace a post-atomic
absolutism. That must be left to a
transcendental civilization, in which free-electron criteria will prevail.
Thus notes are to music what electrons are
to atoms - the spiritual, positive, expansive ingredient, and we may define
them as electron equivalents. By
contrast, rhythm may be defined as the proton equivalent - the soulful,
negative, contractive side of the atom, and in the musical equivalent of an
atomic integrity notes will be bound to rhythm in melody, either with or
without a percussive accompaniment. Jazz
and classical are alike subject to percussive accompaniment, which stands to
melody as God the Father to Christ.
Usually, as noted above, there is more percussion in jazz than in
classical, but quite often the treatment of percussion in the latter,
particularly in the orchestral guise of symphonies, is more violent than in the
former, if, as a mitigating factor, its use is rather more intermittent than
continuous.
Yet if classical is, on the whole, nobler
than jazz in respect of a less frequent recourse to percussion, it isn't, as a
rule, quite so transcendental as regards instrumentation and pitch, since not
only tied to acoustic means but, through scores and conductors, to tonal or
quasi-atonal notation as well. Indeed,
the term 'quasi-atonal' aptly serves as a definition of higher petty-bourgeois
music, whether in jazz or classical, since complete atonality, though possible,
would transcend relativity and thus render all forms of rhythmic accompaniment,
whether percussive (overt) or notational (covert), taboo - a situation hardly
compatible with a petty-bourgeois civilization, in which criteria of musical
excellence and moral acceptability are ever relative! Besides, no less than contemporary classical,
jazz has its own safeguards or inhibitions against genuine atonality built-in
to the instrumental integrity of the music, whereby the persistence of a
percussive root makes the pursuit of atonality all but impossible. A violin or a guitar that seems to be free on
an atonal flight one moment ... will be brought back into line, as it were,
with a concession to rhythm or melody the next.
This is a fair definition of the quasi-atonal. And yet, morally considered, it signifies a
distinct improvement on persistent melody, such as can be found in trad jazz and in most types of bourgeois and early
petty-bourgeois classical. The electron
equivalent is therein straining at the leash, so to speak, of proton
constraint, which can only auger well for the future freeing of pitch from all
forms of rhythm. Only when pitch is
completely free to exist on its own spiritual terms ... will music attain to a
climax, becoming, in consequence, purely transcendent. Such a climax, it need scarcely be
emphasized, cannot be achieved or furthered by the adherents of relativistic
civilization. It will fall to those
nations/musicians specifically concerned with the development of an absolutist
civilization.
Which instrument or instruments, you may
well wonder, would be most appropriate for a truly atonal music? Certainly none of the traditional acoustic
ones, whether predominantly made of wood or of brass. Not, either, such typically petty-bourgeois
or, rather, bourgeois/proletarian instruments as electric guitars, bases,
pianos, organs, and the like. Although
signifying an evolutionary improvement upon their acoustic counterparts, these
instruments require a degree of manual manipulation incompatible,
it seems to me, with the transcendental criteria of an absolutist
civilization. The playing of an electric
guitar, for example, presupposes a compromise between rhythm and pitch, the
fingers of one hand being concerned with notes, either separately or collectively,
and those, or one or more, of the other hand having to sustain the notes
through a variety of rhythmical procedures either independent of or, if more
civilized, dependent on a plectrum.
Clearly, such musical relativity would be
incompatible with an absolutist civilization!
The electric guitar is nothing if not a quintessentially
bourgeois/proletarian instrument. For though, as an electric instrument, it signifies an expansion of
the spiritual, its technical manipulation presupposes a degree of respect for
the rhythmical. This, however,
isn't the case or, at any rate, needn't be so where synthesizers are concerned,
which can be programmed to realize a variety of atonal sequences independently
of manual control, being susceptible, in any case, to the minimum of manual
effort. I would be extremely surprised
if such highly synthetic instruments didn't play a leading role in realizing
the music of tomorrow, a music programmed in advance and conveyed by remote
control, thereby relieving composers of the obligation to perform their own
music in public, an obligation which, though concerned with the cultivation of
being, entails a degree of doing. A
civilization with an emphasis on transcendent being couldn't countenance very
much mundane doing!
And yet, the performance of a particular
work by the composer himself, either alone or in conjunction with other
musicians, is preferable, from an evolutionary standpoint, to the performance
by a number of musicians of someone else's work, and we may note here an important
distinction between modern jazz and its classical counterpart, the latter of
which entails, more often than not, a division between composer and performers,
thereby indicating a greater concession to relativity and making, in the
process, for a dependence on scores and conductors - two factors which
presuppose a degree of respect for appearances and, by implication, the proton
root. Were classical music determined to
become completely essential, entirely rhythm-free, this situation could not be
countenanced. But the plain fact of the
matter is that classical music has no such ambitions, being resigned to
reflecting, in various degrees, an atomic relativity, the structure of which
bespeaks a compromise between essence and appearance, inner and outer, in
deference to relativistic criteria.
Here, as in certain other contexts, it is inferior to jazz, a music
which scorns appearance in a partly memorized, partly improvised musical
self-sufficiency approximating to essence and therefore closer, in consequence,
to a musical absolutism, whereby no composer/performer, conductor/score lacunae
exist between performer(s) and music. It
is on account of such facts that modern jazz is entitled to be considered a
mainstream petty-bourgeois music, one more transcendental than its orchestral
counterpart, as applying, in the main, to Europe. And to the extent that, since the
late-twentieth century,
Speaking as an Irish-born writer, it is
scant humiliation for me to discover and acknowledge such a fact, since I am
led, with my spiritual bias, to identify more closely with American than with
European culture, though not to the point of forgetting that the
bourgeois/proletarian civilization of the contemporary West and the future
transcendental civilization, which I hope Ireland will be instrumental in
furthering, are two entirely different things, in consequence of which very
little common ground can be established between them. If modern jazz, as pertaining to
bourgeois/proletarian civilization in its predominantly petty-bourgeois phase,
is the 'best of a bad job' in musical class-evolutionary terms, it is still
somewhat short of being a completely 'good job', which could only develop, it
seems to me, in a society dedicated to absolute values and, hence, to the
establishment of a free-electron music - electronic and, in its pure pitch,
highly appropriate to a people who pay no respects to the alpha, nor to its
part-alpha 'Son', but are dedicated, instead, to an exclusive, absolutist
aspiration towards the omega. Such
transcendental music, significant of the post-atomic, will be vastly superior
to melodic music and almost infinitely superior to its pagan precursor in the
overly percussive past. It will be the
ultimate music, of universal import.
