# Thinkers who assert the superiority of Western art music?



## dove (Sep 25, 2014)

Hello everyone,

I'm writing a musicology paper for university, and I'm struggling to find philosophers, thinkers, or critics who have said that Western art music is superior to other forms, such as folk or popular music. Can anyone out there help? I'd greatly appreciate it.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Adorno. Read Adorno.

Also, with a completely opposite view on Modernism, try Roger Scruton.

I seem to remember that Fred Lerdahl has asserted that Western Classical Music is one of only a few traditions that really provide a full artistic experience (though he includes some other Classical traditions around the world and Jazz as well, I believe).


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

You might also investigate Jacques Barzun.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

JACE said:


> You might also investigate Jacques Barzun.


More specifically, "From Dawn To Decadence"

Theodor Roosevelt also wrote quite extensively and was constantly extolling the superiority of Western Art, primarily as a justification for Western Cultures subjugating non Western.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The idea that western music is superior to other cultures' music would've been part of a colonial ideology, and the idea that "art" or upper-class music was superior to folk music would've been part of the ideology of any non-democratic regime. So you know where to look!


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2014)

A websearch for "superiority of Western art music" finds this

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/948146?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104226478371
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_music
http://www.gregsandow.com/BookBlog/Ch5Riff-1.pdf

Surely some philosophers to be found named or linked in these sources?


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

I teach my students how to search for literature - it is very easy to find academic sources and links (much easier than in the days before the internet). Even if your university does not have a dedicated library search system (such as Quest) you can still use key words to search in a search engine such as 'Google Scholar' where you can find articles using key words *and* you can find sources that cite the search results

Or you can ask a forum to do save you doing the work yourself


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Headphone Hermit said:


> I teach my students how to search for literature - it is very easy to find academic sources and links (much easier than in the days before the internet). Even if your university does not have a dedicated library search system (such as Quest) you can still use key words to search in a search engine such as 'Google Scholar' where you can find articles using key words *and* you can find sources that cite the search results
> 
> Or you can ask a forum to do save you doing the work yourself


A couple years ago, someone would've posted that snarky "Let Me Google That For You" link. I guess now it would just be tacky.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

^^^ Google Scholar is specifically for those who seek academic sources. The clear indication of how many times a work has been cited by other academic works is very helpful for indicating the quality and influence of a particular source - by clicking on 'cited by' you are led straight to links to those sources in question

for example:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> I teach my students how to search for literature - it is very easy to find academic sources and links (much easier than in the days before the internet). Even if your university does not have a dedicated library search system (such as Quest) you can still use key words to search in a search engine such as 'Google Scholar' where you can find articles using key words *and* you can find sources that cite the search results
> 
> *Or you can ask a forum to do save you doing the work yourself[/*QUOTE]
> 
> ...


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## wandelweisering (Aug 5, 2014)

Argued once with a random person on the Internet who thought everything - from turbo-folk through indie rock to electronic music and even jazz - is of the same value = "folk" music that is necessarily inferior to Western classical music. (S)he worships Bach (which I can understand) and says no to improvisation (which I cannot understand). Dismissed me as a "hipster" and blocked me right after my mention of gamelan...

Not a philosopher by any means, I guess.

However, my "relativism" does not negate the fact Western art music is indeed complex, still more complex than many other traditions, I guess. But as I tried to debate with the person mentioned above, there are other traditions, other types of art music which offer something else, not necessarily "inferior" or "superior".

P.S. I am not a philosopher either, so excuse me. This is just a post in a forum. :tiphat:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Teddy Roosevelt thought that Western music was superior to folk musics, and thought that we should invade it.


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## dove (Sep 25, 2014)

To everyone who responded with names of thinkers, thanks very much for the help. This has really helped give me some great starting points for my research, and I didn't come across most of these names over several days of searching.

To those who have criticized me for seeking help on a forum -- first, English is not my first language, and my native language isn't written in Roman letters, so that makes things a bit more challenging. Second, Google Scholar is an extremely flawed search engine. So, yes, after a lot of fruitless effort, I asked some people on a music forum whether they had any names off the top of their head -- not to "do the work for me."


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Adorno. Read Adorno.


You should keep in mind that Adorno was setting out to prove the superiority of _German_ classical music, really excluding modernism, which he grudgingly accomodated (Schoenberg) and too, Shenker's method of analysis was also with an agenda to prove that both tonality and German classical common practice period music were superior to all else musical.

Parochialists, both, regardless of how brilliant they were.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

PetrB said:


> You should keep in mind that Adorno was setting out to prove the superiority of _German_ classical music, really excluding modernism, which he grudgingly accomodated (Schoenberg) and too, Shenker's method of analysis was also with an agenda to prove that both tonality and German classical common practice period music were superior to all else musical.
> 
> Parochialists, both, regardless of how brilliant they were.


At this point in time, I would consider anyone who asserts the superiority of the Western classical tradition over all other traditions as parochial.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> I teach my students how to search for literature - it is very easy to find academic sources and links (much easier than in the days before the internet). Even if your university does not have a dedicated library search system (such as Quest) you can still use key words to search in a search engine such as 'Google Scholar' where you can find articles using key words *and* you can find sources that cite the search results
> 
> Or you can ask a forum to do save you doing the work yourself


Dear HeadphoneHermit, may I ask, are you a literature professor?


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

PetrB said:


> You should keep in mind that Adorno was setting out to prove the superiority of _German_ classical music, really excluding modernism, which he grudgingly accomodated (Schoenberg)


He was and he did? Interesting interpretation.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

dove said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> I'm writing a musicology paper for university, and I'm struggling to find philosophers, thinkers, or critics who have said that Western art music is superior to other forms, such as folk or popular music. Can anyone out there help? I'd greatly appreciate it.


I take it you attend a _Western_ university?

I suggest the _Natya Shastra _(Sanskrit: नाट्य शास्त्र, Nāṭyaśāstra) as a source. Written during the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE in classical India and traditionally attributed to the Sage Bharata, the work is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music. I believe it predates a couple of fellows by the names of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven by a couple of years.

After that I suggest you investigate the _Yayue_, the "elegant music" of ancient Japan, which is first mentioned in the _Analects_ of Confucius, who is even earlier than the abovementioned Bharata.

Perhaps one reason you are struggling to find legitimate sources ("philosophers, thinkers, [and] critics") who hold the view that "Western art music is superior to other forms, such as folk or popular music" is because such "thinkers" have already digested the commentaries of Bharata and Confucius, among others.

Best of luck with your studies, and welcome to the Forum.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> After that I suggest you investigate the _Yayue_, the "elegant music" of ancient Japan, which is first mentioned in the _Analects_ of Confucius, who is even earlier than the abovementioned Bharata.


The Japanese name is "Gagaku", and I doubt that Confucius was referring to it rather than the native (related) Chinese version.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> The Japanese name is "Gagaku", and I doubt that Confucius was referring to it ...


Indeed. When Confucius lived, Japan was still mostly pre-historical. The first mention of Japan in Chinese texts was still 600 years in the future.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Indeed. When Confucius lived, Japan was still mostly pre-historical. The first mention of Japan in Chinese texts was still 600 years in the future.


Yes, Japan didn't even have a written language until around the 8th century or so (AD), at which time they took Chinese characters and awkwardly grafted them onto Japanese pronunciations and sentence structures.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> Dear HeadphoneHermit, may I ask, are you a literature professor?


No, Sir, I'm not 

I use the term 'literature' to suggest high quality source material (as in the term 'Literature search' for a chapter in a thesis)


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## Funny (Nov 30, 2013)

Someone mentioned Heinrich Schenker in passing. But to me he would be the poster child for this line of thought, as he returned to it in large and small ways in many of his writings, and went further than most (for instance, in taking apart the acoustics of the harmonic series to scientifically "prove" Western music's - by which he meant Germanic Western music - superiority over anything not ultimately derived from the circle of fifths) and paved the way for the Ubermann "artistic" theories of the Nazis. Look him up if this is the kind of thing you're looking for.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

trazom said:


> A couple years ago, someone would've posted that snarky "Let Me Google That For You" link. I guess now it would just be tacky.


Posting that snarky "Let Me Google That For You" link
was an automatic penalty-earner on another forum I was on, lol.

But seriously, graduate students asking for resources from fora, those fora with their memberships being in a vast majority those who do not have any upper level degrees in music? One has to wonder at the naivite of it all.


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