I had read this piece; you re-shared it recently, and it's good.
I appreciate what you're saying about Suspension of Disbelief, and don't have much to add.
The discussion of naturalism and realism reminds me of two thing (both of which you may well know already).
First, in _Tea With The Dames_ they talk about how each generation of actors feels like the prior generation was too artificial and tries to develop new techniques that feel more natural but, they say, some of that is just changes in style.
Second, I remember being really impressed in the documentary about Cicely Berry, _Where Words Prevail_ how good she was at helping actors connect to Shakespearean language and have technique and use that technique to be able to engage deeply with the language.
Yeah it’s funny—don’t all big art movements do this, to an extent? Impressionism was a reaction to the stilted Salon, Oulipo was a reaction to the constraints of formal forms, Postmodernism sought to deconstruct the rigid rules of their forebears… across mediums and genres.
"This civilization of ours is a fast-moving thing. New inventions and discoveries continually change our ways of living: we move from place to place, and not many of us get to live in the places where our parents spent their childhood. In some ways, the changes are good: distant neighbors are not so distant as they used to be, and we are slowly learning not to be suspicious of people just because they happen to be different in some way from ourselves. But one effect that is not so good is that it is hard for us to see how we are related to our ancestors, whose lives were so different from ours. And this makes it hard for us to say, "I know who I am, and I know where I belong in the world." In my own case, the study of folk music has made this easier. My ancestors seem more real to me when I learn that they and I have laughed at the same song; and when I sing a song that I learned from my mother, who learned it from her father, who learned it from his father, and so on back for generations. I have a feeling that there is a place for me in the world, because so many people have helped to prepare it for me. Even when I sing new songs, it gives me pleasure to think that it may live to be an old song, and that, in some far-off day, somebody may feel a kinship with me because of it. And, so, I am passing these songs on to you, in the hope that you will enjoy them, that you will make some of them your own songs, and that you may pass them along to future boys and girls who will call you their ancestor."
"One of the most important things about folksongs that makes them different from other kinds of songs is that there is never just one way to do them: everybody can sing them in his own way, and nobody can say that there is any "right" or "wrong" about it. Of course, if a song came from the mountains of Kentucky, and if you weren't raised in the mountains of Kentucky, when you sing it your way it will no longer be a Kentucky mountain folksong. But it will be your song."
From Liner Notes For "Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts" -- Sam Hinton
It feels slightly different in conversations about music. I think the concept of "authenticity" in musical performance is often misleading, and people use it as if the term was stronger than it is.
But you have both constant change of new styles promising more authenticity (that's part of the appeal of punk, for example) and, at the same time, there are reference points that people continue to return to as examples of authenticity.
Having said that, I start to get uncomfortable, because I don't want to set myself as an arbiter but I think there are aspects of traditional music that continue to feel authentic.
Punk is indeed an example of the authentic as first aesthetic—at one point, I understand some bands would be denigrated to some extent because they had the audacity to sound good, or to learn to play their instruments. (My partner is the punk guy, not me—I should get his 2 cents on this.)
I am also old enough to remember the wide-sweeping outrage of betrayal that followed the reveal (heh) of the fact that Milli Vanilli hadn’t been lip-synching to their own voices. I don’t recall if anyone’s figured out why only they were lambasted with that level of ire, but.
Maybe another interesting example would be rap & hip-hop. I'm talking about something I'm largely ignorant here, but I think about Chuck D's comment, "rap is black America's CNN."
There's nothing specific about the style of rap/hip hop which makes it more authentic but part of why it was so successful was that the early artists were using it as a vehicle to community things which didn't otherwise have a place in popular music.
I have no experience in any of this, so all of it is cool. The idea that realism doesn't always have to be the end goal in drama is especially interesting. We left that behind a long time ago in other arts! But certainly I've found myself judging performances by this metric.
I had read this piece; you re-shared it recently, and it's good.
I appreciate what you're saying about Suspension of Disbelief, and don't have much to add.
The discussion of naturalism and realism reminds me of two thing (both of which you may well know already).
First, in _Tea With The Dames_ they talk about how each generation of actors feels like the prior generation was too artificial and tries to develop new techniques that feel more natural but, they say, some of that is just changes in style.
Second, I remember being really impressed in the documentary about Cicely Berry, _Where Words Prevail_ how good she was at helping actors connect to Shakespearean language and have technique and use that technique to be able to engage deeply with the language.
Right, cool. Thanks.
Yeah it’s funny—don’t all big art movements do this, to an extent? Impressionism was a reaction to the stilted Salon, Oulipo was a reaction to the constraints of formal forms, Postmodernism sought to deconstruct the rigid rules of their forebears… across mediums and genres.
Follow-up, this is one of the smarter comments I've seen on folk music, which does speak to the question of authenticity:
-----------------------------------------------------
"This civilization of ours is a fast-moving thing. New inventions and discoveries continually change our ways of living: we move from place to place, and not many of us get to live in the places where our parents spent their childhood. In some ways, the changes are good: distant neighbors are not so distant as they used to be, and we are slowly learning not to be suspicious of people just because they happen to be different in some way from ourselves. But one effect that is not so good is that it is hard for us to see how we are related to our ancestors, whose lives were so different from ours. And this makes it hard for us to say, "I know who I am, and I know where I belong in the world." In my own case, the study of folk music has made this easier. My ancestors seem more real to me when I learn that they and I have laughed at the same song; and when I sing a song that I learned from my mother, who learned it from her father, who learned it from his father, and so on back for generations. I have a feeling that there is a place for me in the world, because so many people have helped to prepare it for me. Even when I sing new songs, it gives me pleasure to think that it may live to be an old song, and that, in some far-off day, somebody may feel a kinship with me because of it. And, so, I am passing these songs on to you, in the hope that you will enjoy them, that you will make some of them your own songs, and that you may pass them along to future boys and girls who will call you their ancestor."
"One of the most important things about folksongs that makes them different from other kinds of songs is that there is never just one way to do them: everybody can sing them in his own way, and nobody can say that there is any "right" or "wrong" about it. Of course, if a song came from the mountains of Kentucky, and if you weren't raised in the mountains of Kentucky, when you sing it your way it will no longer be a Kentucky mountain folksong. But it will be your song."
From Liner Notes For "Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts" -- Sam Hinton
Yes, I think it's a common impulse.
It feels slightly different in conversations about music. I think the concept of "authenticity" in musical performance is often misleading, and people use it as if the term was stronger than it is.
But you have both constant change of new styles promising more authenticity (that's part of the appeal of punk, for example) and, at the same time, there are reference points that people continue to return to as examples of authenticity.
Having said that, I start to get uncomfortable, because I don't want to set myself as an arbiter but I think there are aspects of traditional music that continue to feel authentic.
Punk is indeed an example of the authentic as first aesthetic—at one point, I understand some bands would be denigrated to some extent because they had the audacity to sound good, or to learn to play their instruments. (My partner is the punk guy, not me—I should get his 2 cents on this.)
I am also old enough to remember the wide-sweeping outrage of betrayal that followed the reveal (heh) of the fact that Milli Vanilli hadn’t been lip-synching to their own voices. I don’t recall if anyone’s figured out why only they were lambasted with that level of ire, but.
Maybe another interesting example would be rap & hip-hop. I'm talking about something I'm largely ignorant here, but I think about Chuck D's comment, "rap is black America's CNN."
There's nothing specific about the style of rap/hip hop which makes it more authentic but part of why it was so successful was that the early artists were using it as a vehicle to community things which didn't otherwise have a place in popular music.
And the eternal conundrum of sampling in those genres, too…
Good point.
Fascinating! This was such fun to read and think about.
Glad you enjoyed it! I’ve been thinking about going a little deeper into some of these concepts--what do you think I should I expand upon?
I have no experience in any of this, so all of it is cool. The idea that realism doesn't always have to be the end goal in drama is especially interesting. We left that behind a long time ago in other arts! But certainly I've found myself judging performances by this metric.
It’s funny how ingrained some cultural tastes become. Realism was nauseating and vulgar back when it first came about. Now it’s ubiquitous.