Please don't read this unless you read me regularly. I had gotten my blog readership down to about 150, 200 hits a day, and the commenters are almost all regulars, and I'm comfortable with that, because I can't explain my entire philosophy of life in every post. But for some inscrutable reason my recent anecdote about a student composer concert took off like wildfire, and was read by thousands of people. I always noticed, as a critic, that people have an amazing capacity to convince themselves, when they read something, that it says what they expect it to say rather than what it actually says. I could get bawled out for positive reviews and thanked for negative ones, and was frequently challenged to defend opinions I didn't hold and had never uttered. It's the strangest feeling. On top of that, one says things in a blog, inevitably, that, taken out of context by people who don't follow your monthly monologue, are easily misconstrued.

And so after a concert of pieces that were mostly pretty similar in style, some colleagues made a big deal about how diverse the music was, and I reflected that their frame of reference for new music must be vastly narrower than mine, for them to think that. A friend suggested that the music was influenced by Hollywood; that hadn't occurred to me, and I thought it interesting enough to report as an anecdote. So it subsequently whirls around the internet that I hate film music and consider it a terrible influence. In reality, I barely think about film music. Maybe ten percent of what I hear I like, ten percent I don't, and the rest I don't notice. I would certainly never generalize about it as a genre. You can look through my six books, my 3500-plus articles, and my 1500-plus blog posts, and you will not find a single general disparagement of film music, or Hollywood, nor any strong opinion expressed about it. When students say, "That sounds like film music," I don't even know what they mean. How does one "sound like film music"? But a friend of mine said the word "Hollywood" and I reported it, and suddenly I am the great hater of film music, and look down my nose at all young composers who imitate it. Imagine how much slush from your own subconscious you would have to pour into someone else's 116-word blog post to decide that Kyle Gann is contemptuous of film music and its cheapening influence - after Kyle Gann has published more than four million words without ever expressing a general opinion on the subject. I have to think that all those people secretly consider film music a guilty pleasure, and so they're constantly on the lookout for intellectuals who despise film music so they can complain about them. In short, I must have inadvertently touched a nerve.

Likewise, people crap all over me for complaining that postminimalist music is neglected, because the word is used, when used at all, in a very loose sense. I use it only in a very strict sense, and since I've written the major articles about it, I've decided that I know what I'm talking about. When I write for readerships outside this blog I make sure I define the term and the repertoire I intend for it specifically, but I can't go through all that every time I use the word. Those who read me regularly know what I'm referring to. Also, I have lamented that musicologists neglect new music because they're all doing gender studies - leading some to make fun of me as an old fogey who's threatened by gender issues, when in fact I had been cheerleading for gender studies from the moment they started appearing. What I typically object to is everyone doing the same thing.

I did express an opinion that musical ideology, which is generally frowned upon these days, has a close association with musical diversity, which is considered an unalloyed blessing. I was praising diversity, which I thought would be uncontroversial, and lamenting its absence, while trying to rehabilitate ideology, which I consider not as horrible a thing as people today think. It may be an odd opinion - I've never run across it in anyone else's writings - and so, being unexpected and not the kind of thing people say, no one picked up on it. People expect music professors to disdain film music and complain about their students, and I had written some sentences which, hastily read and without knowledge of my general principles, could be easily twisted into that caricature for a satisfying "Gotcha!" moment. And quite a few people did so, in comments here and elsewhere on the internet.

The human race is filled with individuals who simmer with resentment toward certain injustices they see in the world, and their sense of outrage is easily triggered by a sentence or two that appears to imply, or at least not to contradict, some nefarious opinion they're on the lookout against. I'm not claiming that I'm an exception, but I do avoid commenting on other people's web sites except to be supportive. Those who don't know what I'm about are welcome to my books, but I would rather they ignore my blog.

UPDATE 12.23.15: I recalled today that I used to teach suspensions in Theory 1 with Randy Edelman's film score for Gettysburg, in my own transcription, so I'm on record as not trying to shield them from the genre. I always liked giving the impression that music theory was something you might be able to make money with.

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COMMENTS:

Doug Skinner says: I continue to be bewildered by the fact that everything that I say or do is twisted by someone into what it's not, and flung in my face as a reason that I'm worthless. That's how people are. Some day when you knock at my door to borrow a cup of scotch, I can give you 2000 examples. Meanwhile, remember that it's not you, it's them.
KG replies: Doug, you're one of the most individual people I've ever met, and certainly the most individual person I knew in college. I thought being different from everyone else started to pay off by age 30. Recent experiences are suggesting that it takes at least twice that long, unfortunately.

Rodney Lister says: I read your posting, which somebody had linked to facebook, and it seemed to me to make a lot of sense. I have noticed that a lot of my undergraduate students know more of the music of Howard Shore or Danny Elfman than really anything else, not just Stravinsky or Schoenberg, or Nancarrow or Berger, or Reich or...you name it, but also than Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart. I don't necessarily want to assign any kind of value to that, but it does seem to be the case, whether for good or bad. Graduate students, though, at least my neck of the woods, seem to know Sciarrino, Lachenmann, and maybe some Ferneyhough, and more of that than Stravinsky or Schoenberg or Nancarrow or Berger or Reich or Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart. For older students it seems to me something that isn't such a good thing, but still, one way or another, there it is....I just wish they all knew more music....A lot more....it makes me kind of sad....
KG replies: I had to look up Howard Shore. The kinds of movies he does are ones I won't see.

Mjy says: Regular reader here. I was quite surprised at how quickly the comments on the post in question spiraled out of control. Seems to me that nowadays, an experts commentary is really just a hair trigger excuse for people to try to articulate their own agenda in response. So yeah, it's not you, it's them... need any regular readers remind you of the nonsense comments that flood the blog anytime you so much as mention the Beatles?
KG replies: Don't mention that name! I'll refer, if I have to, to the singer who rhymes with Fall Kashartney.

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