Jonathan Kramer - PoMo music theory

A very interesting aspect of postmodern music theory. This will help you with your next essay.

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices." 
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist. 

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of post modern media.

First to understand why some people are not convinced we must understand what post modernism is, now this can be tricky as you can be as general to say that everything is post modern. Firstly it is a rejection of modernism and that everything ever created is new, for example one person may make a chair and another person may make that chair but in a different colour, a modernist would have you believe these chairs are in no way linked and that the creators simply thought genius thoughts at the same time. Now a post modernist would see the two chairs make a connection between them and suggest that one of the creators may have seen the original chair and decided to copy it but change it slightly to improve it, because how can we progress to the future if at the present we don’t look at the past? A post modernist will also believe in Grand Narratives; these are, religion, science and politics and that we all take pieces from these grand narratives to build are beliefs upon. Such as their are some scientist that are religious which modernism would not allow. 

Moving on to why some people are not convinced by this theory of post modernism, the simple and first answer may be that they are modernist and therefore would reject any thoughts of post modernism let alone their media. Also they may be neither post modern or modern and reject both theories. 

As for understanding a media texts a post modernist will watch a film for example and spot where the director/creator has taking inspiration (or homage) from other texts whether it be films, television, games, music or written down. For example if a post modernist watched ‘Dan Blacks - Symphonies’ (where he uses Levi-Strauss’ theory of addition, subtraction, substitution and transposition) he/she would be able to spot the intertextual references found in other media forms such as the use of French cinema style and taking the universal logo and changing it to fit his production. But; on the other hand someone with no previous knowledge of these references or of post modernism would be able to watch the video and see it for its owen merits as a good music video. 

Where this doesnt work is the film ‘Hobo With a Shotgun although it is post modern with its homage to a certain type of cinema (the same type that kill bill is) and works if you know its a homage it doesn't work on the same level as Dan Black because as a stand alone film it doesn't work because it has one standard narrative that there is a hobo that wants to kill people in disgusting ways In a city that would never exist. What im trying to say is that if you don’t agree with post modernism you would see all these attempts as time and money wasted. 

Post modernist also like to see things for what they are as René Magritte once did a painting of a pipe and captioned it as ‘this is not a pipe’ which to someone not understanding post modernism would find strange but to a post modernist would make sense as it is not a pipe but a painting of a pipe. Therefore in video games why do we get awarded thousands of point for completing something why not just one point and why do we do games set in space when it is near impossible for us to actually do these activities. This is where we get the post modernist game ‘desert bus’ instead of riding it round city roads beating up hookers like in some games you drive the best down a road leading to Las Vegas, to complete the game takes 8 hours and once completed you receive one point. You cant pause the game and if you stop or fall in the ditch you are towed right back to the start no mater how close you are to finishing. Now why would people play this game? Because it is the most accurate game made.

Post modern media texts challenge the traditional text reader because it made you think, is what you are watching, reading or playing actually what it is or just a copy of something else. The answer is yes it will be a copy of something already created, you may not know about this thing but it is still out there and you are not as cleaver as you think you are.

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