The Death of MTV?

While I was watching TV late last night, two surprising concepts emerged much to my surprise.  It is not very often that my system of values is reinforced on television.  Ironically at times a particular cable network will cater to my interests almost mystically.  How often do you see a commercial for a wireless home security system?  "Leave the premises now!"  I guess it is more often than I think.  That particular ad doesn't expound upon the technical aspects of their system.  What exactly is it?  How is it installed?  Is your home really monitored 24/7?  It seems Harbor Freight offers a few lower priced solutions that could give a homeowner peace of mind over the deluge of recent larcenies and murders in Fayettenam.  Needless to say I was surprised to see a television commercial recently for such a wireless device.  While a wireless home security system was not either of the two concepts that tickled my fancy, neither was hearing commercial music with integrity.  In short my definition of musical integrity simply is breaking out of the insipid norm of tepid pop-styled music.  I'm not sure exactly when the powers at be in America decided child-like bassinet music should be adopted as the new American mainstream music.  It is so innocuous that it could not convince a fly to buy pure sugar.  Instead its purpose is to be innocuous.  In our ever increasing P.C. country, slowly the goal of not changing minds has become our purpose.  If we forfeit our spines, our opinions, and our convictions then corruption will continue unabated stealing our money, infringing upon our civil liberties, and covertly installing a system of fascism in America.  It all ready has happened.  I am not saying the power of music is so great, but historically it has been proven music can inspire watershed events, changes of philosophy, and thus changes in culture.  Nationalist music has played an important role in politics and war possibly most represented by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  His personal style of composition lent itself well to the then important concepts of Russian idealology.  The Kremlin chose Tchaikovsky specifically to provide Russia with a musical world image of patriatism.  Interesting enough with this responsibility came rebellion from others.  The "Russian Five" emerged selling their own brand of individual nationalist expression.  It could be said that a similar event occured in America, but very few people know of its existence.  While the "Second Viennese School" was not American, are there similar musical tenants that emerged in rebellion to mainstream American nationalism?  I believe so, and it is an enigma to me that it is not recognized.  I used to believe that Jazz music was America's only true art form.  Luckily like the two concepts I observed last night on late night television it came to me.  Bluegrass and country music both are musical art forms in their own right.  Whether their roots can be traced only to American soil I am not sure.  Because America is a country of immigrants I am sure the origins of these two musics can be found in the folk music of Scotland and Ireland.  Similarly the polka music of Germany found its way into the American state of Texas.  It is refreshing to receive a fresh blast of musical inspiration.  It is important for America to understand musical roots are concurrent with a country's soul.  Music history aside the first concept I surprisingly observed on network television was something I have not seen in decades.  It was bittersweet, because I have experienced it myself albeit thirty years ago.  What it was simply was a family's visible support of their daughter's adolescent courtship.  They were encouraging her to bond with a male of similar age going as far as to provide a nearby home for him.  This almost was mind blowing.  A few weeks ago I spent an afternoon with my sister's family and friends.  I heard through the grapevine a family of a local Episcopal church purchased a room for their son at the yearly summer retreat.  Openly they allowed his girlfriend to stay with him on church grounds.  While I understand traditionally pre-marital sex is discouraged in God's teachings, I feel His teaching beg to be interpreted in a modern context.  I feel the same way about American music.  Somehow America missed the boat musically on how to become modern and thus more potent socially.  Still mainstream American society has yet to recognize Expressionism as a viable expressive aesthetic.  Why is this?  Why is it rarely do we hear modernist pieces on classical radio stations?  How have American's failed to evolve musically with their European counterparts?  It almost is comical.  I'll never forget when I interviewed for a college teching position at Western Carolina University in Cullowee, North Carolina.  Little did I know that the acting chairman of the music department also was one of their few composers in residence.  I had just completed my coursework for a D.M.A. degree in music composition at The Ohio State University.  I had become a serious composer in addition to a jazz artist, MIDI technician, and educator.  I was not prepared for what he said to me about modernist music.  While fully I love the Second Vieneese School and in particular Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, I had no response for his defintion of this intensely passionate, creative, and ground-breaking music.  "Bleep bloop music."  That is what he called it.  It is a known joke in academic music circles that Milton Babbitt could qualify for such a description.  I do not agree, but I understand the analogy.  To untrained ears these words onomatopoetically could represent the sound of some of this music.  "Bleep bloop."  Ironically this definition also could apply to one of the lesser known styles of American Jazz music.  Even more ironically still it is the most current and therefore credible evolutions of jazz music.  The Avant Garde still is current yet how many Americans even know what it is?  If they do, can they understand its abstract content?  Possibly they could if they were aware of Expressionist music from the l920's.  Simply it was meant to represent the clanging cacophonous sounds of a thriving modern city.  It would be a stretch for traitional America to replace Stephen Foster with Charles Ives.  I call it evolution.  America has ceased to evolve.  Fundamentally it has become clear to me that our lives are choices we make both consciously and instinctively.  We rely upon both processes for our growth.  At times we use our experiences and emotional responses for comfort.  At times we consciously choose our paths.  At times we are influenced by our surroundings. We must by necessity understand that which is important to us for future continual growth.  My instincts guided by my environment help me decide.  If something is "not working," then it doesn't feel right.  For a variety of reasons I will uncomfortable in my own skin.  Often as history has proven to me, things once that were comforting become disconcerting.  That is my instincts telling me to move on.  I believe as a nation America has failed in this process.  Instead we have a stalemate between two.  Conservatives possibly want things to remain the same.  After all if the system isn't broken then don't fix it.  As Americans we all know this is far from the truth.  Our system of government has failed to operate effectively for over a decade.  Even with no new ideas upon which to base America's future, Conservatives continue to cling to anachronistic ideals.  One particular entrepreneur was successful at becoming modern but at the expense of a nation.  It is a fine line.  Steve Jobs pioneered the iTunes store allowing computer users to purchase music online via the internet.  He with what could be considered to be his most valuable attribute single-handedly forged deals with musical artists and record companies to create this new business model.  It simply is buying music on the web.  While he did modernize Apple, this one event has left a gaping hole in the traditional music industry.  Every tenant of music production has suffered at its inception.  Somehow not only the purchasing of music on the web but also its pirating has devalued music as a once tried and true American commodity and art from.  This new business model coupled with America's refusal to evolve artistically toward modernity has stymied music production.  When the populace begins to believe the arts have no value, purpose, or worth then we are doomed for an American Dark Ages.  It all ready has begun.  Cheap commercial constructs have undermined American art, because we a nation have no other alternatives for gross domestic product.  Until America's traditional business structures have been repaired and reinstated, art will continue to fail.  Ironically upon perusal none of the traditional systems that built America are represented today in clear view.  They exist at academic levels and in certain governmental shells, but America's economy is flailing in ignorance.  The second concept I observed on late night television was musical.  More importantly it could be considered critical to survival, because it strives to change the Condition of America.  Ted Allen, the host of of the Food Networks "Chopped," curiously pointed this out as three competing chefs attempted to prove their culinary skills.  What he said I could accommodate.  It certainly was not a "Bleep bloop" kitchen.  He had asked the chefs to transform discreet ingredients into a savory delicious meal, transform being the operative word.  Transformation simply was not cooking the ingredients in a traditional way.  Transformation took the original ingredients and collectively turned them into something completely new and innovative.  His word for this process was "creativity."  It was the first time I had heard this word in the context of a cooking competition, but it also was mind blowing.  Media acknowledgment of a crucial artistic process on mainstream television?  It had the same effect on me as parent's openly concerned about the marital future of their adolescent children.  Simply we do not see these things everyday.  Many many crucial structures in tradition American culture are gone.  The term creativity has substantial underpinnings.  In this cooking scenario creativity saved the day.  Why?  It is because the process of creativity is as complex as the decisions we make daily about our growth.  Some are based upon our experiences and our emotions.  Others cognitively are chosen.  Often they are blended together in an ever-changing, adapting, and solving algorithm.  They are jazz improvisation.  While I am tempted to end this blog entry with such a statement, I must follow up.  It would be nice to have jazz improvisation once again respected and understood for its value, but it would be better to have jazz improvisation be respected and understood in its most current form, the Avant Garde.  This modernization in America should be setting standards for American culture.  If people have trouble with the bleeps and bloops, they must evolve enough to understand that the sheer, visceral, and immediate emotional responses to those sounds is what is intended.  
As exemplified by the visual art form "Abstract Expressionism," those complex, bold, and evocative gestures of Jackson Pollack are attempting the same thing as jazz Avant Garde.  They solicit immediate emotional response to the authors message.  Unfortunately we have grown as a nation so complacent, so selfish, and so inhuman, the receiving of an artists emotions no longer is in vogue.  How could it be that hundreds of years of world history have been changed?