-danny elfboy, you are the most insecure person I have ever seen.
I would be ashamed of having a thread like this, in fact, I would be ashamed to have said anything you have said so far in this thread (didnt even get to read it all yet).
Its clear reading this thread that you feel "you dont get" modern music, and thus have decided to reject all of it, and come up with elaborate ideas about your shortcoming. We all get it, you dont like modern music, we get it, you feel there is nothing to "understand".
We also tend to get that you are totally insecure that you really probably "dont get it", and that you think you "should" get it. Thus, your violent reaction towards it... anyway, its all silly and stupid. People like you KILL the arts for me, and disgust me.
I don't think you've read my post.
Insulting and acting like an hostile psychotic won't help you either in stating your point.
First of all I've never talked about modern music, but modernist music.
Modern is an adjective which refer to what is actual.
If someone in 2007 writes a fugue for organ that sounds like a baroque piece, it is modern music. The soundtracks of the movies we see at the cinema at modern music. The r'n'b we listen at the radio is modern music. On the other hand a Xenakis piece is NOT modern.
Just like the Beatles are not modern.
So that's the meaning of "modern" and as you say once can't say "I don't like modern music" because it doesn't mean anything since everything, every style and every genre could be "modern" as long as it is recent creation.
But I was talking about modernism. Modernism is a self-referential label, just because it calls itself modernism it doesn't mean it has anything to do with "being modern". It is as self-referential as a nazi party calling itself "the party of freedom". It doesn't mean that from then on "freedom" should be equated with that party and its products.
Modernism is a philosophy and it is born as a philosophy. Only later it used the arts to communicate and build its artistic propaganda. Since there are millions of philosophies in this world and each of them attract certain people and detract others, no biased philosophy can be considered "the standard". To state that the philosophy of modernism and its artistic products must be considered the quintessences of modernity, novelty and innovation and must be considere the "standard" for music is the most asinine and ignorant idea someone could have.
I just stated that "personally" I don't like this philosophy either and clearly I don't like its products. That's like saying that someone who don't like the philosophy of Ayn Rand won't like the products of this philosophy whether they're music, books, sculptures, poetry or what not.
That being said I would give my life for the freedom of modernists to keep making the music, books, poems they want and to keep promoting and philosophy they believe in. Likewise though I expect whatever other human creation to have get the same respect and freedom to exist.
As long as modernism accepts to be nothing but one among hundreds of philosophies and one among hundreds of different art forms, no one complains. It's when modernism and its followers starts to claim that modernism is the new standard for accademic music and that not accepting modernism as the standard is like being nostalgic and tied to outdated music, that people get pissed off at such hallucinated bullshit.
Modernism and modernist music (not to confuse with "modern music") is nothing but a tiny part of the whole, of the musical spectrum. It has no special role as any kind of modern stardard or as the quintessence of novelty and innovation.
There are many reasons to "personally" dislike this kind of music.
It may just be not a music that speaks to you and that strikes your chords.
You may not agree with the ideological and philosophical premises behind this music.
You may fight against the attempt to call this style of music "the standard for modern music"
None of these reasons has anything to do with understanding this music.
As a matter of fact if I dislike a philosophy and art form and what it stands for it not because I don't understand it but because I do understand it and I don't like it.
In fact when in Spain people don't understand the meaning of the lyrics of an english song they usually are quick at liking it. It's when they translate the lyrics and understand what they actually mean, that they can really think hard about it in a conscious way and choose that they just either like what the song states and they don't or absolutely hate it.
I made the example of that group of teachers, students, composers, musicologists, theorists and so on because they're educated in this kind of genre and style of music, they do understand it and just don't like it or agree with anything it has to say.
THE ONLY REASON why they created such a group is not because they feel the need to bash this music (I don't feel the need to bash what just doesn't suits me and my personality and tastes) but because of the bad habit of trying to force people to accept this tiny, small and little style and genre as the new "standard" for accademic music.
I don't think someone can disagree with me because what I'm saying is very democratic: live and lets live, period. I'm neither bashing modernism nor I'm claiming that it should disappear from the face of the heart and that composers should not be allowed to compose in that style.
It's like the difference between accepting a religion and the freedom of its followers versus accepting the fanatic and militant dogmatic or those that would like that religion to be the standard for everyone, the standard for morality and punishment for the whole universe while being hostile and violent with those following other religions.
Just because I would indeed fight against the latter, it doesn't mean I'm bashing the religion itself and its freedom to exist.