Modern musical trends (from the listener’s perspective)

It’s a challenge: to write briefly, interestingly and clearly about what is happening in modern music. Yes, write it in such a way that a thinking reader will take something away for himself, and another will at least read to the end.

Otherwise it’s impossible, what’s going on with music today? And what? – another will ask. Composers – compose, performers – play, listeners – listen, students – … – and everything is fine!

There is so much of it, music, so much that you can’t listen to it all. It’s true: wherever you go, something will creep into your ears. Therefore, many have “come to their senses” and listen to what he personally needs.

Unity or disunity?

But music has one peculiarity: it can unite and make huge masses of people experience the same and very strong emotions. Moreover, this applies to songs, marches, dances, as well as to symphonies and operas.

It’s just worth recalling the song “Victory Day” and Shostakovich’s “Leningrad Symphony” and asking the question: what kind of music today can unite and unite?

: one to which you can stomp your feet, clap your hands, jump and have fun until you drop. Music of strong emotions and experiences today takes a secondary role.

About someone else’s monastery…

Another musical feature, as a consequence of the fact that there is a lot of music today. Different social groups of society prefer to listen to “their” music: there is the music of teenagers, young people, fans of “pop”, jazz, enlightened music lovers, music of 40-year-old mothers, stern dads, etc.

Actually, this is normal. A serious scientist, music academician Boris Asafiev (USSR) spoke in the spirit that music generally reflects the emotions, moods and lifestyle prevailing in society. Well, since there are many moods, both in a single country (for example, Russia) and in the global musical space, what is called –

No, this is not a call for some kind of restriction, but at least a little enlightenment is necessary?! To understand what emotions the authors of this or that music offer the listener to experience, otherwise “you can ruin your stomach!”

And there is some kind of unity and cohesion here, when each music lover has his own flag and his own musical tastes. Where they (tastes) came from is another question.

And now about the barrel organ…

Or rather, not about the barrel organ, but about sound sources or about where the music is “produced” from. Today there are many different sources from which musical sounds spill out.

Again, no reproach, once upon a time, a long time ago Johann Sebastian Bach went on foot to listen to another organist. Today it’s not like that: I pressed a button and, please, you have an organ, an orchestra, an electric guitar, a saxophone,

Great! And the button is close at hand: even a computer, even a CD player, even a radio, even a TV, even a telephone.

But, dear friends, if you listen to music from such sources day after day for a long time and for a long time, then, perhaps, in a concert hall you may not recognize the sound of a “live” symphony orchestra?

And one more nuance: mp3 is an amazing music format, compact, bulky, but still different from analog audio recordings. Some frequencies are missing, cut out for the sake of compactness. This is about the same as looking at Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” with shaded arms and neck: you can recognize something, but something is missing.

Sounds like a music pro’s grumbling? And you talk to great musicians… See the latest musical trends here.

Professional’s explanation

Vladimir Dashkevich, composer, author of music for the films “Bumbarash”, “Sherlock Holmes” also wrote a serious scientific work on musical intonation, where, among other things, he said that microphone, electronic, artificial sound has appeared and this must be taken into account as fact.

Let’s do the math, but it must be noted that such music (electronic) is much easier to create, which means its quality drops sharply.

On an optimistic note…

There must be an understanding that there is good (worthwhile) music and “consumer goods” music. We must learn to distinguish one from the other. Internet sites, music schools, educational concerts, just concerts at the Philharmonic will help with this.