Analysis

Where I disagree with both Wittgenstein and Guter is in the claim that what makes music good is its striving to render expressible the dissolution of a culture’s traditions.

This view, if it is true to Wittgenstein’s thinking, is probably a product of Wittgenstein’s time. Wittgenstein wrote the diary entries quoted by Guter in the 1930s, when so many traditions of European culture seemed to be falling away or in danger of doing so and the present resembled the past less and less. In this sense of dissolution of cultural resemblances, good music takes that dissolution seriously and attempts to deal with it, while bad music and vacuous music both ignore the dissolution, though in opposite ways.

Bad music attempts to break too much with past traditions, perhaps accepting too readily the loss of tradition. Vacuous music uncreatively copies old traditions, ignoring the reality of change.

I agree that it is good if music or art can express the dissolution of cultural traditions. I would not agree that such an expression is necessary for music or art to be good. Such a demand, I think, would be a step too far.

I think it enough to say that good music is creative but grounded, avoiding the timorous vacuousness of reproducing earlier musical forms and avoiding difference for the sake of being different. I will show my own bias for world fusion music and say that music that blends multiple traditions in new ways is very good music.

It is good because fusion honors tradition and embraces change. Where I most agree with Wittgenstein is that composers should, as we all should, get to know who they are and express that through music.

“It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.”

Originally published at https://insertphilosophyhere.com/wittgenstein-modern-music-and-the-myth-of-progress/