Ben Neill wrote this article and it was published by Christoph Cox and Daniel Werner in the book, "Audio Culture: readings in Modern Music." This reading was assigned on November 17th.
Ben Neill discusses the connection of different styles of music and more importantly the connection of appeal with the use of computer technology to generate new music. He suggests that the flow of ideas between high art and popular art seem to have a particular significance and that we are entering a new cultural architecture that we do not yet understand. Though, high art and popular electronic music may use slightly different tools. Neill claims that rhythm is the beat that draws the dividing line between serious and vernacular, visceral and intellectual. Neill says that since the 1980's, art musicians have utilized popular culture elements and techniques that had never been seen before. A big part of the causes stems from the evolution of computer music technologies that started in the 70's-80's. Neill says that music schools have been teaching the youth, for music to be valid, it should be complex, dissonant and difficult to understand, though this was not universally agreed upon. Innovative pop electronic composers used steady pulse, loop-based structures and 4/4 time as a vehicle for a wide range of compositional ideas and innovations with allowed for new hybrids to form and new genres to constantly emerge. Early 1990's electronica had become the new art music connecting the future and the past of art music. Neill concludes by saying that the artists are not the center of attention; instead it is the role of the artist to channel the energy of the crowd and create the proper backdrop for their social interaction. I found this article to be quite informative considering the historical evidence of different forms of art music. I think Neill does a great job of making connections between genres that have produces new hybrid genres and he does so in a very easily understandable way.
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