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Fear of Progress

from Brutality by Aaron Clarke

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about

This piece is my all out attack on the values of the music conservatory (an aptly named institution). The great compositional pleasure of this piece was transcribing the contours of the spoken text and assigning approximate pitches to match those same contours for the saxophone to play. This was done in part because I simply enjoyed the sound produced, but the practice is also meant to imply that music is present in everything, including plain speech.

lyrics

IN THE YEAR two-thousand seventeen, THIS...
...is still considered “bizarre”; THIS…
...is still “revered”; and THIS…
...is still laughed off as not being “real” music.
Let’s delve further into this, shall we?

Music schools, CONSERVE-atories;
this is where musical prejudice is bred,
amongst people who ought to know better.
Where do we get off saying Mozart matters but Tupac doesn’t?
Why is the symphony any more serious or important than the jazz club?

And on that note, why is jazz a second-class citizen to classical?
Not to mention all the other genres, which are persona non grata.
The narrowest bits of big band and bebop are all that sneak into the
university classroom or concert hall.
When was the last time you saw a celebration of improvised music at all?
The written note has been, and apparently remains, the only important
one.

This attempt to keep most music out of serious discussion comes from a
place of fear;
FEAR of possibly having to move out of one’s comfort zone;
FEAR at what most people will DO with this sacred thing called “music”;
FEAR of PROGRESS.

To the musically conservative, I say this:
It’s been happening, and it’s gonna keep on happening, whether you
choose to take note or not.
Music is progressing and expanding and experimenting out there in the
real world.
So while you keep hacking away at Handel and Haydn, just know that
you’re not creating the future - you’re trying to revive the past.

credits

from Brutality, track released October 22, 2017
Ali Sarnacchiaro - voice
Hunter McKay - tenor sax
Max Richardson - trumpet
Aaron Clarke - guitar
Alex Ouellette - drums

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Aaron Clarke Boston, Massachusetts

Aaron Clarke is a composer and musician from Rockland, Maine. He is a recent graduate from the University of Southern Maine, where he received a Bachelor of Music in Composition, studying under Dan Sonenberg. Clarke plays guitar, drums, percussion, and sings. ... more

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