HAS THE INTERNET KILLED CULTURE?

A brief dissertation in which I muse on the musical pros and cons of global culture, and get some insight from the winners of the first serious completely online music competition. 

When we think back over our thousand years or so of western musical history, or even western art history generally, it seems that the greatest periods of creativity and genius coincide with personal or nationalistic movement: be it physical, moral or philosophical. Look at late eighteenth/early nineteenth-century German Romanticism for example. The early German romantics dreamed of a reversion to a simpler model of thought, comprising the philosophical synthesis of art, philosophy, and science. As ideas progressed, the problematic and unstable nature of this idyllic union became apparent and, consequently, late German Romanticism emphasized the tensions between reality and the seemingly irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. And the result of this collective processing of ideas, this seemingly unending human struggle for meaning…? Goethe’s Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers, Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and Caspar David Friedrich’s The Wanderer to name a few. 

My question is; can we as a western society achieve the same level of artistic genius in today’s world of technology and communications? Large-scale philosophical movements that historically have whipped up that frenzy of genius and artistic outpouring are all but extinct now as a result of sheer knowledge and access to information. Nationalism—in a cultural sense at least—is undermined by globalization and the concept of the international stage. We don’t lose devastating percentages of our offspring to childhood diseases, our lovers don’t die of syphilis, our wives pass safely through childbirth, we have rights that mean we are largely free from political persecution. Governments are obliged to listen to us, because we have the technology to listen to each other. We are freer, healthier, safer and more secular than we have ever been. I pose the question; if Clara Schumann had simply procured a no-fault divorce, and left Robert for Brahms, would the latter’s music have been as laced with poignant yearning? If Heloise and Abelard had had access to Skype, would their famous love letters have ever been written? Are we too happy, too safe and too well informed to be creative? In short: has the Internet killed culture?

I guess it’s easy to be too romantic. For all the artistic success stories throughout history, there must have been millions of people, brimming over with talent vision and ideology, who simply fell by the wayside because of religious, cultural or socio-economic barriers. How much have we missed as a result of being deaf to those voices? What additions to the sum of our collective knowledge, art and genius went unrecognized? Sure, the YouTube celebrity phenomenon enables a plethora of fairly talentless attention-seekers to gain a following of tweeting tweens, but it also (and not infrequently) brings to the attention of the world, a real artist who otherwise might never have been heard. The Internet provides artists with a platform to fight for their individuality, to subvert the paradigms propagated by big business and the commercial music industry. More and more, institutions, organizations and people are trying to harness this global infrastructure to support and encourage emerging artists. One example of this is ‘The World Competition’, a completely online music competition that enables entrants to overcome financial and geographical difficulties, to share their music with the world. The directors of The World Competition are two practicing young musicians, who saw a need within the traditional structure of the music competition culture. For emerging classical musicians, international competitions provide the pathway to recognition, opportunity and financial recompense. The World Competition allows young musicians, not only of the classical variety, but also those who are practicing jazz or contemporary music, to compete for significant monetary prizes and gain global exposure, without the investment in plane tickets, hotels and all the other accouterments associated with international travel. I asked the winners of the inaugural World Competition how they feel about the modernization of the system.

The Winners:

Abdiel Vazquez, Mexico (1st Place) is one of Latin America’s leading pianists, and enjoys an active career that has taken him to Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States, where he recently made his Carnegie Hall debut as the Grand Prix winner of New York Concerti Sinfonietta’s Shining Stars Debut Series. He has won the top piano competitions in his home country and is a regular soloist with all the major Mexican orchestras, having performed as soloist more than 50 times since his acclaimed Rachmaninoff 3rd with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2006. He currently resides in New York City, and is the founder and conductor of the Symphonic Youth of Monterrey, Mexico.

Daniel Nistico, Australia (2nd Place) has performed in numerous countries across the globe, establishing himself as a guitarist of highest caliber. Daniel frequently participates in major competitions and has been the recipient of several awards and prizes throughout Australia, including the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria’s Alhambra Sadie Award. In 2011 Daniel won 1st place in the Lions Global Youth Music Competition held in Seattle USA. Daniel is an active member of the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria, performing regularly through their sponsorship.

Pierre-Louis Marquez, France (3rd Place) began to study the trumpet at the age of 6. After an education that spanned France, Switzerland and Germany, he moved to Geneva in order to enrich his career with a ‘Master in Specialized Interpretation: Soloist.’ In January 2013, he joined the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, and continues to develop his musical and entrepreneurial skills, specializing in orchestral performance and other related orchestral projects.

Me: What made you decide to enter an online music competition?

Abdiel: The idea immediately appealed to me. First of all, being able to record and choose the best performances. In theory one can record a piece over and over again fully satisfied with it, whereas in a standard competition there are too many variables that can affect a performance, and you only get one shot at it.

Secondly, it appeared like a great platform to get exposure, given that the videos would be online for three months for the whole world to see. And third, it just seemed like there was nothing to lose if I didn’t even have to travel. I should also add the special challenge of the competition being open to all instrumentalists and singers, not just pianists!

Me: How did you go about choosing which videos to submit?

Daniel: I usually choose repertoire that I feel I can communicate well and also that might be neglected and deserving of becoming a more standard part of the repertoire.

Abdiel: I went for what I thought was most representative of myself as an artist and pianist. If I didn’t pass any of the rounds, I knew I would have at least been satisfied with having presented my best. I think it was the right choice.

Me: What do you value most in a musical performance?

Pierre-Louis: A musician without something to say is like a novel without a story. A good musician needs a good instrumental technique of course, but this is only the means used to achieve their musical insights, which are linked to the essence of the music and the artist’s own life experiences. The musician must put some colors into the shapes drawn by the composer in order to make the frozen picture come to life. 

Me: …And what is the end goal?

Pierre-Louis: To share that insight with other artists and with the audience, (who in turn link the music heard with their own life experience/feelings.) A good performer has to be aware of this and must constantly seek for engaging ways of creating this link…

Me: How do you approach the recording of your videos?

Daniel: This is a good question. I would just suggest becoming absorbed in all of the details and emotions of the music and being your own listener. That being said, I definitely feel as though it’s much easier to communicate with a live audience. If possible, try and have even just one person there when you record. My previous mentor Anthony Field would often be this person and that was always an enormous help because he knew what I was capable of and was able to guide me into better musical results. 

Me: Would you recommend this kind of competition structure to other young musicians?

Abdiel: Definitely yes. Our world is more and more connected through social media, and I believe the idea of an online competition puts the world of classical music and international competitions fully in the 21st Century. An online model eliminates limitations and also provides the opportunity to compete with a recording, meaning that every competitor is able to present his or her very best. 

The model of The World Competition represents the future, or at least, an important part of the future of international music competitions. I am surprised it didn’t happen earlier, and I am very happy to have been part of it!

In the end, I think we have to accept that things are changing. Dylan was right. But we can make it work for us. If our aim is to—as Pierre-Louis put it—‘share (our musical) insight with other artists and with the audience’, then why not jump on a bandwagon that will help us to do so? People are still people, we have our griefs and cares and joys as we always have, in spite of lifestyle diseases and Pinterest; we just have a bigger audience amongst which to disseminate our ideas: the smart artists are making the Internet work for them. So, without any disrespect to our magnificent past, it’s time to become part of a beautiful future. Go create something to share with the world. And if you still need inspiration, you can always spend a few hours watching the Ring Cycle in the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall…

Nichla Smith is a singer/song/writer from Melbourne Australia. She is currently based in Germany, where she lives with her cellist boyfriend and her mini lobster Cedric, and concurrently plays jazz and works on her great novel (with occasional guilty sessions of writing for her Masters of Music which is based on eighteenth century English opera.)

For more info on the World Competition, head to www.theworldcompetition.com.  

You can check out Abdiel Vazques at www.abdielvazquez.com, Daniel Nistico keeps fans updated at www.danielnistico.com, and Pierre-Louis Marquez will be online soon!

Comments

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The internet changed everything relating to how mankind interacts with information. The rate at which information transfer probably proceeded at an exponential phase. The expression of the totality of human activity (culture) used to be bound by time and place. At the introduction of the internet into global usage, the process of divorce of human culture from place (which had been going on for decades prior to the internet) was accelerated. So while humanity as a whole was by the late 90s completely under the prerogative of predatory usury-driven capitalism, itself a global force which divorced humanity from an organic expression of culture, the introduction of the internet (which was meant to accelerate the transfer of information to facilitate consumption-driven-production of hyper-capitalism) accelerated the displacement of culture from place.
The result is that the internet has become the repository of culture. This is a contradiction, since human culture needs a time and place to manifest. But the internet has no "where-ness". So human culture, which now takes place in the internet, also has no "where-ness". So man and woman at the dawn in the 21st century, like his descendants for the past 200 years, slaves away for his financial paymasters who exert their powers via usury and banking. But man and woman express and experience their lives in the domain of the internet. They experience culture "nowhere". Man and woman are nowhere.
Fuck this. I'm getting off the internet.