What is the difference between serious music for the soul and entertainment?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

At all times in music there was a division into serious music, "for the soul", and entertaining, "for the body." Moreover, in general, serious music was quoted much higher than entertainment-dance music - simply because it is more difficult to reach the soul and less often than to the body. Storytellers, ballad singers, medieval minstrels, were revered much higher than buffoons and jesters - both in elite circles and among the masses. Perhaps there are opposite examples, but in general, difficult serious music was quoted above entertainment.

Until recently, it was the same with you and me. If you recall Soviet culture, then you will hardly think of "Valenki" or other entertainment - you will rather recall "Katyusha", "Moscow Nights" and other lyrics. The most hyped pop stars even had a lyrical repertoire - for Pugacheva "A Million Scarlet Roses", and even for the main clown of the Soviet pop stage, V. Leontyev, "Sunny days disappeared" immediately come to mind.

In bardic music (which is modern, named after KSP, and not medieval), anything can happen, but still it is songs for the soul that are held in high esteem, and entertaining - so, according to the mood.

I'm not even talking about classical music - there is practically no entertainment genre, almost all music is for the "soul". In Soviet times, classical music experienced an unprecedented rise - it was promoted at all levels, music schools were opened all around, and amateur academic choirs were created. Because the upbringing of a person took place at all levels, including the upbringing of musical culture. Unfortunately, for various reasons, a layer of folk culture was removed from this upbringing, which, probably, led to such a sharp rebound in the post-Soviet era.

If we recall Russian (Soviet) rock, then during the "golden age" of the 80s, music with pretensions to be philosophical prevailed, albeit a driving one. Makarevich, Grebenshchikov, Tsoi, Kinchev, Butusov - in general, show men, but everyone tried to convey some thoughts to the viewer, they played more music for the soul than for the body. It was also possible to chatter, but in general I am not ready to call them entertainment music. With a different and not always positive attitude towards the listed persons.

And after the collapse of the USSR, somehow everything changed dramatically. Music has abruptly lost its educational component (let the Church think about the soul, if she wants to), and everything began to be measured in money. The pop stars turned out to be nafig not needed with their lyrical repertoire, and they had to urgently master songs in the "yo, nigga" style. Rock is practically withered, and the old stars are now essentially dinosaurs; new ones work in the "Sausage" genre, or very few people know them.

As a result, a unique situation has now emerged - no one really needs serious music, but the buffoonish clown sausage gathers thousands of audiences. Yes, a good show can gather a crowd without a sausage, but mostly if it is also for the body, and not for the soul; after the show, nothing really remains in my head - it means that the soul has not touched, it has passed right through.

So come on, guys, put the tumz-tumz louder, and forward, to the complete dilution of the brains of the audience.

As I have already written many times, we are not engaged in cutting coupons, but in educating people, gradually dripping onto their brains, preventing a person from sliding into a baby state. Yes, so far, complex music gathers many times fewer people than farce, but if we follow the lead of the crowd, then we will all turn into Ivanov, who do not remember kinship - not only on the national level, but also on the cultural and human level in general. And I personally cannot accept this (c).

Conscious and subconscious in music

A few more thoughts on the motives of the VotEtno festival, although this topic applies to it insofar as.

Somehow I was walking from the festival stage to the headquarters, and on the way I met a man, about my age, as it turned out, a fellow countryman. He was at our master class that day, and admitted that he just burst into tears on one song. Despite the fact that the species was far from botanical, and did not take any substances; a typical Siberian in appearance. Here, IMHO, we are talking about the subconscious influence of music.

"High" music, as a rule, appeals to the higher senses - here one can cite classical music as an example. But folk music acts at the subconscious level, awakens almost a genetic memory. Onotole would not approve of such terminology, but this is how it is.

Therefore, the effects of these types of music are generally different. Classics (and not only it, no doubt) enlightens a person, but one still needs to grow up to this music - one needs to have something to influence. Unfortunately, global processes, and not only in music, are moving towards simplification, including the simplification of a person as a whole. Therefore, such music, if you do not reverse the processes of moronization of society, is doomed to reduce the audience.

Folk music, on the other hand, affects absolutely any person, regardless of age and state of the brain. Despite the slightly negative attitude towards it, a lot of people start to get shocked and flattened when they are faced with live traditional music. Precisely because it affects some subcortical processes in the brain. You have to grow up to the classics - and folk music itself raises people, it has almost no entry threshold.

As I have already written many times, I divide music into stage and non-stage, folk music. Almost all modern music belongs to the stage, and traditional music, and, perhaps, the bards, belongs to the non-stage music. Bard culture is also not stage-oriented, but, unlike traditional culture, it is conscious music; she also needs some kind of base. In Soviet times, this base existed, and there was a real explosion of the KSP, but now everything is blown away, under the influence of pop culture.

Pop culture, in my opinion, is also subconscious, like traditional culture - this is what determines its popularity. But at the same time, it is not mass, but scenic (that is, elitist in essence). Now it is actually used to zombify the population - since it hawala both old and young, and will hawala regardless of its quality (see subconsciousness), then competently built-in messages can easily be used for your own purposes. And this is its main danger. Pop culture is now overbearing folk music, because you pulled out the speakers - and you can interrupt the sound of at least a dozen folk ensembles. Well, the money there is completely different, and this is the main thing.

It is clear that you can build houses with the same ax, or you can chop down old women; the instrument is not to blame, the performer is to blame. Therefore, performers must be careful in working with the material, so as not to become like all sorts of "hands up" and other representatives of the zombie box. That is why our circle of festival snobbery reacted so painfully when the bands on VotEtno left high music in tumts-tumts - in fact, this is a change of genre, and not for the better. In general, ethno music occupies a rather narrow niche in the middle between many musical genres, and one should feel it. I myself, of course, am not a great specialist in ethno, but when the music turns into pop or rap, and almost into dubstep, you can see it right away.

Folk music can also be dangerous - it is not for nothing that various sectarians use it to carry their ideas into unprepared heads. Therefore, a true folklorist or ethno-musician must have an ethnographic base; now, in the era of the Internet, you can take it without leaving the couch; everything must be supported by references or literature. But the sectarians don't bother too much - it's just that and that's it, just believe. But that is another topic.

About folk music and pop

In the last article about rifts in folklore, I mentioned the topic of ossification of traditional songs and entire groups. This, in my opinion, is one of the central dangers for a truly popular culture, because half-truths are worse than lies.

I have already written on this topic many times, but I would like to take a more substantive ride on this aspect, which folklorists like to mention when they snobbishly wash each other's bones.

Firstly, there is a huge layer of songs that have been called "Russian folk" since the Soviet era, which, at the same time, have practically nothing to do with this very Russian people - just someone wrote them in the style of "a la rus" and exactly but someone on the left performs them. The most striking examples of such clowning are the citizens of Babkina and Kadysheva, performing pseudo-Russian pop to modern instrumentation, while not disdaining to write on the website that they "preserve Russian culture." In general, I would put people who perform "folk" songs of my own composition under the article of the administrative code, or even under a criminal offense - in fact, this is a lie and spitting into our common history and ancestors. You can't wear other awards, so why the hell to give out some kind of handicrafts as national culture? Not good.

Such a pseudo-folk culture gives metastases in almost all areas of "populism". Among the Cossacks, although this culture is now the most popular and alive, even eat this good with a spoon - the costumed Cossacks with button accordions and false medals, singing about pullets and horses, this is already a byword. There are, of course, real Cossacks, but, IMHO, they are an overwhelming minority. For example, the same St. Petersburg "Bratina", which has been engaged in the Terek tradition for 15 years, performs without shoulder straps in order to differ from this "army" of mummers' Cossacks. Cossacks wore shoulder straps, medals and sabers only at the moment of being called up for service, and they walked around the village without all this - but this is a damn thing to know, but why study something if you feel like a Cossack? seven!

Unfortunately, collectives that initially dealt with tradition have become frequent visitors to this path of pseudo-culture; I’ll be without surnames, otherwise offenses will begin. It is clear that you can take a spectacular song in the style of "a la rus" and perform it with an accordion, and the audience will be delighted - but what does this have to do with "Russian folk" songs? It is necessary then, as is customary in choral collectives, to announce - the words of such and such, the music of such and such, otherwise deception and provocation will result.

It is clear that truly folk songs appeared like this - there was some village clever who either altered a well-known song, or simply composed a new one, and the rest of the villagers picked it up. All the bullshit was soon forgotten, and the most interesting ones survived to this day, and are still sung in some places, despite TV, radio and the Internet. For example, we have in our repertoire several songs of the Civil War and even the Great Patriotic War, recorded from grandmothers, who adopted them from their parents and fellow villagers - not through the radio, but live. Despite the venerable age of the songs, we treat them as "remakes", but nevertheless the tradition of writing and live transmission existed in the 20th century.

But when such remakes - already without quotation marks - occupy a healthy part of the repertoire, then it already starts to smell bad, honestly. This is no longer the preservation of the traditions and culture of the people, but their formation and alteration. In this regard, such "remixers" are even worse than classical pop singers - at least they do not hide behind a national screen, and openly copy Western music standards.

Now for pop music in general. In general, the "pop" genre may not be so bad - it is intended for "brains to rest", a genre for the body, "to get lost". The trouble is that this genre - situational and generally primitive in general - has now occupied an unjustifiably large share of the musical background that surrounds modern man. Wherever you go in the city - it plays around. Chanson and rock, with all their differences, generally use "pop" instruments and, in general, the style of music is generally similar - the differences are in melody and lyrics. Therefore, pop music dictates fashion not only to itself, but also to the surrounding styles of modern music. And I got to folk music too.

Actually, if you delve into the material, then in some musical aspects and in pop music you can find complex and ambiguous things; many compositions of Britney Spears, Madonna, not to mention Michael Jackson, a mid-range rock group will play hell, with all its snobbish attitude to pop. Another thing is that musical bells and whistles in pop are in general just bells and whistles, the song does not particularly affect the overall musical picture, and it, as a rule, is still limited to two or three notes and a couple of musical moves. Everything is done to simplify the understanding of music by the viewer - including the simplicity of the melody is justified by the same. The same chanson, such an impression, is based on 3-4 notes, everything is so simple and stupid there. Perhaps there are exceptions, but I have not heard about them, and I don’t want to hear about them.

The main pichalko of folk music is that it tries to enter the stage with works that are not intended for this very scene. The folk song has no spectators, everyone is performers. And when the performers understand that there is no return from the audience, they begin to look for other forms of conveying the song to the viewer - although, in truth, this is rather an attempt to gain a foothold on the stage themselves. If traditional songs are not perceived, then it is necessary, as one well-known acting director said. tsar, "something new, modern, tili-tili, trali-wali." This is how the introduction to music of generally pop simplifications begins - so that "people hawal".

Often "populists" say that "it is difficult to pick up a voice with a voice, so we take an accordion." And the audience does not understand you, and it is difficult to sing with your mouth - so maybe it's time to change something at the conservatory? I have already written to entertaining.

In fact, among the musicians, the opinion prevails that in the villages the people only thump and roll in the mud, but it is not known what roars in drunken voices. In a personal comparison, it turns out just the opposite. As I wrote earlier, let's take a version of the song in a village performance and in a "cultural" one, named after a school of culture - where does the song sound more interesting and varied? Yes, in the village version, the voices are a little unusual, not on the stage - but the variations in each verse, and the motive is more complicated - although the students probably learned from this recording.

We have acquaintances from the ensemble of the Semeysky village of Tarbagatai, "Fate". They sing well, with several voices, but at the same time - in the melodic and improvisational terms, they are much poorer than ordinary grandmothers in their village sing, without education and colleges. For the stage, of course, young people are much more attractive - but musically, it's up to them to grow and grow. That is, it turns out a kind of significant simplification of culture. I would understand if the youth did not have enough experience there or education - but it seems that many are there with muses. education, with good voices, sung like … they just are not interested in it. Simplifying the song and singing all the verses the same way is in the family tradition! - easier than thoughtfully adopting the heritage of your own ancestors.

This is because the attitude towards music as a means of earning has long been rooted among musicians. And you can only make money on the audience - more precisely, on the fact that "people hawala". The musicians themselves decide for the audience what they like and what they don't (we ourselves are guilty of the same), and they try to bring to the stage what is simpler, "tili-tili, trawl-wali". Thus, turning folk culture into pop music.

Therefore, folklorists are very jealous of attempts to simplify songs and, in general, in all kinds of stage antics to convey the song to the viewer. Yes, it’s more difficult, so you can pump the hall, if only you are specifically stuck, and if you have 5 concerts per week … As a result, a paradoxical situation occurs - in order for the audience to like it, the song must be simplified, but this turns out to be a perversion of the very foundations of a folk song, and without that it is not very difficult - in fact, this sabotage is obtained; but if you do not simplify, then why go on stage, the viewer will not understand, but for him, in fact, you have to perform … So you have to maneuver.

Whoever has enough stubbornness, they maneuver, and whoever "sags under a changeable world" carries that along the way of sliding into pop music. And there are really a lot of them, which cannot please.

About the cultural basis and creations based on it

In the last article about money, I touched on the basis of the attitude, now I would like to develop my idea in a different direction - from politics to jump to my second favorite topic, about the cultural basis. Today we'll talk about music and culture in general.

General thoughts on the cultural basis

I regularly present in my articles an illustration in the form of a construction from cubes - in order to build a tall and solid house, a foundation is needed, it is also a basis. This applies to many things, not only the Komsomol construction projects.:) In the last article I talked about moral values, now - about culture.

Have you ever wondered why in Caucasian or Central Asian "hangouts" music with their national roots is almost always played?.. Even young people, who, it would seem, should listen to Justin Bieber, listen to "tumts-tumts" to their native pentatonic scale. And our racial - mostly music in fascist, (in neglected cases - in Japanese, etc.); but, in general, you will not hear "kalinka-malinki" there; to folk culture, even in an ethno-variant like "Ivan Kupala", people come here closer to 30. But why?..

But because there are different approaches to the formation of the cultural basis. From infancy, our children are surrounded by "universal" music - albeit not bad, and one might even say good, but nevertheless not Russian. We simply do not have a decent answer to Western pop music, and traditional music has long been in the corral. As a result, our children, at least musically, grow up to be common people, not Russian people.

It is clear that the basis does not consist of one brick - of hundreds and hundreds of small pebbles, but the ratio of flies and cutlets is important here. If a person, for example, listens to "Pink Floyd", but at the same time 80% of its basis consists of, for example, Ukrainian songs, then "Pinky" will not become an idol for him - they will be one of his bricks, perhaps the brightest, but - just one of. And remember the teenage fan wars - punks against metalheads, metalheads against rockers; for our children, music (often low-grade) becomes literally everything, because there is no other basis.

Traditional music, in comparison with modern pop music (and not only pop, any popular), has one important feature - it is multifaceted, it moves from one genre to another, and still remains itself; behind the cradles there are children's rhymes, behind the rhymes there are games and chants, behind them are youth games and songs, then labor and battle songs, and so on - to spiritual verses and funeral rites. Therefore, you can cook in it all your life without breaking the basis. And modern children enter the world with one music, at school they get to know another, with a third - as a result, they have a change of cultural basis all the time. In terms of cultural diversity, this may not be so bad, but in general, for the development of personality, such Perestroika is an absolute evil, because it helps to form the modern type of person - tumbleweed. Today he listens to jazz, and tomorrow he will sell his homeland. Once it seemed ridiculous, probably, only after all it sounds like the truth …

About multiculturalism and other creations

Here we will talk about musicians.

As I have already written many times, folk traditional culture, due to its all-encompassing nature, even despite its somewhat disdainful attitude towards it, is still interesting to musicians, even quite modern ones. Sometimes they are mistaken for "covers" of folk songs - often they come out well, although mostly, of course, epic failures are obtained - in my preconceived opinion. And why? Yes, all because of the basis, or rather - its incorrect combination.

In the best cases of attempts to cross a snake with a hedgehog, there are two diverse groups - one modern, the other traditional, and they attack creativity from both sides; if both have everything in order with creativity, then it turns out well - for example, ans. D. Pokrovsky + Paul Winter's orchestra; and the joint work of our "Krasota" with the Swedish "RAmantik".

But such cases are rare, and most of the musicians begin to create, as they used to say in our infantry, "in one snout" - we ourselves with a mustache, the conservatories have finished, and come on here to submit material for outrage! And off we go. The main pichalko consists in the fact that the basis of musicians nowadays rarely contains even a small part of traditional music; in the best case, there is a creep, about which I have already written many times. As a result, the true basis is practically invisible, and even after grasping a good piece, the musicians cut something out of it that has nothing to do with the original at all - because it is built on the wrong basis. After all, music is not only notes, it is attitude, costume, and intonation - the musicians will understand. How would classical musicians, for example, react to a "cover", for example, to an Italian opera performed with a Caucasian accent, wearing caps, interspersed with lezginka and horse riding? So why is it possible to paw our folk songs at random? There is a secret great.

Even when people sincerely want to do something kind and eternal, but due to the lack of a suitable basis, they do not really understand how; quite often such people are brought into ZasRaKult, or into ethno - even when they want to engage in "true and popular". Worst of all, they do not even understand that they are mistaken, they also tell others: here, we are singing Russian songs, so they sang among the people. Yeah, people sang in chorus with an accordion, in formation on stage … They just do not have an understanding of "what is good and what is bad" - sometimes they were taught that way. And learning is the creation of a basis.

In general, the creation of a cultural basis is a Cyclopean task. For years you have to immerse yourself in a certain culture; It is not without reason that professional musicians study for years in their schools, colleges and conservatories - there they not only teach to play the violin, but also study the history of music and other musical theory. In folk music, the theory is simpler, but it is full of other aspects - everyday, calendar and so on; there, too, with a bare heel, you can't jump on a checker.

And therefore, even when professional musicians go to folk art (even after the "folk" divisions), a lot of surprises await them there. The basis for them is not quite the same system, the bricks of the primordial one or two and count, but modern hoo; so often these pros twist from side to side. Whoever manages to balance and gradually expand the "correct" part of the basis - respect and respect, and whoever falls into the sin of folk choirs in kokoshniks all the time - needs a separate conversation with those.

In the ending, I would like to say again about folk culture as a basis - it will not interfere with any musician, even classical, even rocker. You cannot bring up your children on Stradivari and Pink Floyd - the most difficult music is music "for the brain", and this brain still needs to be developed first; I have already written about the conscious and the unconscious. There will be no popular basis - there will be something different, most likely - much more negative; or even not a damn thing, and nothing can be built on emptiness, I repeat.

Once again about music and culture

Once again, I will raise the "cultural" theme - this time in the context of the positioning of music and culture in general in human life.

While on expeditions to Transbaikalia, sometimes I heard the expression "Artists have arrived." This is about us, a purely amateur gang in every sense. It's just that people - even deep, deep in the villages - have already got the impression that if you are making music, then you are already an artist. And sometimes it is difficult to convince that you are the same person as they are; especially the older generation.

As I have written many times, culture and music have completely changed their place in human life over the past 50 years. Previously, they were almost a daily routine of every person - both a barge haule on the Volga, and a nobleman somewhere in the palace. Now music is the lot of specially trained woodpeckers, musicians, and the people listen and applaud.

I have already spoken about the peasantry - music surrounded a person from birth to death, and not "tumts-tumts" from speakers and headphones, but a live sound, and moreover, the man himself was an instrument. The peasants had folk music, the nobility had their own, albeit European and divorced from life, but still - they also played music, writing and all that. That in the institutes of noble maidens, that in the cadet schools, from childhood, she was accustomed to culture - not at the level of "we all listen to PinkFloyd", but learned to play the instruments, sing and dance. There was a kind of cultural upbringing of the elite; I have already spoken about peasant education 100,500 times.

Almost any person could play or sing a piece - not for the stage, for himself and familiar; it was a kind of leisure. Now it is difficult for us (you) to believe it, but sitting at the piano is no less exciting than drinking a bottle of Pepsikola. There were simply no other alternatives among the people - it became dark, either go to bed or sing songs.

And then something suddenly happened in the middle of the 20th century, with the advent of the media. It is now customary for us to nod at the "damned communists" who have ruined the popular culture - but after all, the same tops have happened all over the world, perhaps, with the exception of India and China. People in their overwhelming mass ceased to be carriers of culture and turned into consumers of culture; now it is fashionable to measure themselves against who listens to what, and not who performs what.

Most likely, such a rebirth happened for completely natural reasons, there was probably no particular malicious intent in this - since everything collapsed so synchronously everywhere; just new types of leisure appeared - radio, then television - so music changed its function. But now it has become obvious that this is a dead-end path, and we must toss and turn towards the original concept of culture - as part of the life of every person.

Now there is a very dangerous situation, that in fact the culture was concentrated in the hands of a small class of a circle of people - musicians, directors, poets and other "cultural figures". I have nothing against these comrades, especially if they are not engaged in sabotage, but somehow it seems to me a wrong separation from the culture of the rest of the population. If we are talking about Russian culture, then it should be the business of every person, but now it works out - we sit and listen to what the big guys have to say about our culture. All the more so since perestroika times in our Russian culture, half of the names are not Russian at all. I have nothing against non-Russian Russians, many of them really did more for Russian culture than the classic Ivan Ivanichs, but when the creativity of Germans and Jews begins to be understood by Russian culture, then I already have certain questions.

Culture is not violins and canvases, it is a worldview and a system of values, if you will. In Russian culture, for example, the concept of a man-orchestra was adopted - each person should be able to do everything in a row - to build a house, to protect a family, to play an instrument, and to look after a cattle, and so on - all by himself. But now another concept is being introduced to the masses - a narrow specialist who may or may not be digging, and then in a narrow area. I understand that the division of labor, increased productivity and all that - but in the end we get a very unstable system that works efficiently only in ideal conditions, and if something happens - and everything falls down, because that is not there, this one is on vacation - and there is no one to replace, and in the end, everything collapses, and nothing can be done.

Exactly the same happened with our culture. From the bottom, culture has almost left - relatively speaking, only "Oh, frost-frost" remained drunk - and the upper circles, which were supposed to be responsible for bringing culture to the masses, degenerated to the point of complete obscurity. And what to do now with all this is absolutely incomprehensible. Only in the old fashioned way is it possible to roll up our sleeves and to restore the damaged things ourselves. If you don't like folk songs, take a guitar, violin or phono in your hands (especially since now you can buy a synthesizer almost cheaply, it's easier to move it), and create yourself, don't rely on big guys "from TV".

I understand that our cultural upbringing is awesome now - but nevertheless, many children go to music schools, they get a certain basis there. And without musical education, you can enter into music, without artistic education - into painting, and so on - you just need desire and practice.

Why do I post everything on my YouTube channel - not only to boast that I am this or that, and I know such and such:)) - so that there is someone to learn from. If someone likes something, you can take and learn directly from the YouTube record. We often learn something from audio recordings of fkontakte, so technologies can be used not only to the detriment, but also to the benefit of traditional music. Previously, I had to run for original samples in circles all over the country, but now I went to Yandex - and here's the material for you, I don’t want to take it.

Professional musicians can and should be used as a reference point, but in no case as an icon and bearers of absolute truth, be they at least three times Stradivarius and four times Paganini. Pros - they really live like that, among music, for this they receive rather large sums of tenge, but this, as I wrote above, is at odds with the Russian understanding of life - in our country, a person should be able to do everything himself. And when a person cuts on the violin all day, then his shores are already beginning to get confused, and the center of gravity in the head shifts, which we see in the example of our current "cultural" elite. This is in folk music, as a rule, performers are holistic personalities, they are not bad as musicians (at an amateur level), and as people very much even - and with the pros all the time "you have to separate your personal life from creativity" - then he is a drug addict, then he walks around the women, then what else … Our "elite" can not provide either moral or moral examples - so let them be sawing something on the guitar, they don't get past the notes, and okay. Just don’t take them as teachers of life and bearers of Truth, which is why our young people have been seriously sinning lately - for many such “teachers” the fool is crying, not to mention the healing camps of the GULAG.

Culture from below should come from ordinary people. To which I urge. It is not as difficult as it seems - you just have to want and do it.