Art School vs. No School

Oops, I forgot - she has gone to USA and is NEVER COMING BACK

I don't know. I don't think 'art school v no school' is a good way to divide things, but I tend to prefer the sort of musicians who are distanced, who do change around ideas. Although 'pop' acts do this just as well every few albums, by virtue of production.

I think mostly I just dislike aggressively dumb bands, since it more often than not ends in conservative rock..

The Art School vs. No School debate seems to be a relatively recent innovation --- apparently more popular in the UK than in N. America, or at least more so in the NME than, say, Spin or Rolling Stone--- used to frame charges of "pretentiousness" on the one hand, and to prop up working class/Noble Savage mythology on the other. From an outsider's perspective (mine, at least) it looks a lot like protectivism; hell-bent on preserving a particular tradition (Oasis-type Britrock, for instance) from outside influence (for the sake of argument let's call it, um, intellect). That the tradition in question happens to be rockist/loutish is almost secondary: what's really at stake is the continued relevance of a genre these people happen to like. Bringing a class issue into the debate is just a convenient way of rallying support.

If this is true (I'm just thinking out loud now, bear with me), it explains why this proposition is absent from any similar version of the "Old Guard Rock vs. 'more progressive' forms" debate in the US. It isn't that the US press is any more forward-thinking than the British, or any less disposed to venerating well-established/traditional/hackneyed musical ideas --- it almost certainly is not --- but that class issues aren't as openly discussed on this side of the Atlantic (I'd go so far as to say that the US likes to imagine it doesn't have any class issues, but that's another thread). So an insult based on someone's educational background just doesn't cut the same way here; "Arty" generally does the trick. The Pixies' art schooling may not have helped them reach a huge mainstream audience at the time, but you didn't see a lot of "U-Mass Students! J'ACCUSE!!" outrage either.

If anything, the class issue tends to surface the most here in cases where the question involves trying to reconcile an upper-middle class upbringing with a From The Streets pose (eg. the Strokes), and even then it's only a hot topic in certain (eg. "No, Weeeee're from The Streets") circles.

As for the other question, though... well we could easily spiral into a semantic black hole with this one, but my bias towards "brainy" hangs on the luxury I allow myself of reading "braininess" into music where perhaps there is none. So I differentiate between music which is "wilfully stupid" (The Ramones, to the point of Genius) and music which is just "stupid" (can't speak for Slade so just insert your favorite band here. Ha! no...), as I see fit. It might not hold up under close scrutiny, but it's no more ridiculous than the NME championing the working class by way of bizarre left-handed compliments which amount to: "These lads make better music because they haven't got a brain cell between them. FUCKING BRILLIANT ***** ".

... unless you're Ned, in which case a pre-emptive "I only used Oasis as a previously-mentioned example, i didn't mean anything by it" is probably in order (winky face!)

when i was first reading music mags as an early teen i noticed that a lot of u.k. musicians noted in interviews that they had gone off to art school. i started to wonder what this "art school" thing meant as apparently it did not mean the same thing as here. the impression that i got was that art school was the only option available for young people who didn't want to submit to the drudgery of the workforce (just yet). or something.

Hm? Oasis have been called all sorts of names on ILM, no worries. :-)

(any more than iggy pop is)

(or oasis come to that)

fields of salmon: it occurs to me that I'm making some assumptions about "art school" in the UK myself, in terms of demograhics. I'm presuming it's not as much of an option for working class kids. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch but it might be a mistake. Not sure I'd agree entirely with your other point though-- I don't think the US press has more benevolent intentions in this respect necessarily.

;-)

Hey.

;-)

A little, bit. Yeah.

Let me just try it in a sentence... "You really think so? Astral Weeks, huh? Well to each his own I guess ;-)" AAAHH! Ow.

No. I'm more of a Wells man I guess. Thanks, though.

I think music is really seperate in some aspects from intellegience, you can teach all you want to a person about music and how it works and still it wouldn't garentee that they would produce 'good' music.

Music is as much about feeling as it is about an intellectual theory.

apologies in advance for this scatterbrained post, and if there is a better thread where it's already been discussed, please let me know.

i'm wondering why it is that visual artists are seemingly required to get an MFA in order to be taken seriously, while many musicians are rarely formally trained at all.

i guess i'm starting with the premise that by and large, going to art school is necessary to be a successful artist these days. "successful" meaning that you're inside the art scene instead of looking in, that you might get written up or reviewed, that your work could be displayed somewhere. i understand that the ubiquity of the MFA is just the latest stage of a long line of events leading to the institutionalization of the visual artist (this probably isn't the best article on that, but there was a recent atlantic piece on artists morphing into entrepreneurs that touches on it). and i understand that there are examples of artists that have no formal training, and that outsider art is a thing and all of that. but generally, it seems that visual artists' credentials almost always include the inevitable MFA.

on the other side, it wouldn't even occur to many musicians that they should pursue formal training or a degree, and there are a fair amount of people, i think, that would argue music school might create worse, less creative musicians. i understand that there are wonderful, creative musicians who went to music school. and i understand that there are certain music genres (orchestral, duh, among others) that are generally filled with formally-trained musicians. but again, generally, when you go out to see a band play you would never hear anyone ask the guitar player what music school he went to as if the fact that he attended music school was a foregone conclusion.

so i guess i'm wondering...

- why did music and the visual arts diverge in this way?
- when did music and the visual arts diverge in this way?
- or, what is it about the visual arts that reinforces the MFA as a gatekeeper of legitimacy?
- or, what is about music that allows for those that aren't trained to be taken seriously as musicians?

MFA is more a gatekeeper of salary, for the opportunity to teach more art students while doing your own art, amirite? And the connections to the gallery world that follows from two more years in the studio.

Gallery art is confined, mostly, to spaces that don't charge a cover and don't charge for alcohol, things that traditionally funded the musicer who's at the bottom of the ladder. If you were planning to make the kind of music that was funded by arts grants, a conservatory degree would be in order.

so i guess i'm wondering...

- why did music and the visual arts diverge in this way?
- when did music and the visual arts diverge in this way?
- or, what is it about the visual arts that reinforces the MFA as a gatekeeper of legitimacy?
- or, what is about music that allows for those that aren't trained to be taken seriously as musicians?

― ♪♫_\o/_♫♪ (Karl Malone), Tuesday, February 3, 2015 4:06 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've wondered about this a lot myself, especially since my wife considered an VA MFA for a long time but ultimately opted against it, and at the time I was like "WTF, you really need this degree to be taken seriously by galleries?!" since it wasn't like that in the worlds I knew at all.

My theory is that art, at least if we're talking about The Art World, i.e. artists who sell via established galleries, is different because it involves the production of a luxury good, not a mass good. The rich people buying art mostly come from a credentialist world (e.g. Ivy League degrees --> finance/law), and hence impressive-sounding MFA credentials give them some kind of assurance that they are buying something actually worth the tens or hundreds of thousands they are paying (whereas by the time you're in the millions category you're talking about established artists that no longer need to assert where they got their degrees). The uncharitable way of putting that would be that a lot of these idiots want status goods but have no confidence whatsoever in their own taste or are too afraid of not buying the "right" artist, and the MFA is at least subconsciously comforting.

Obviously books and music are mass-produced and available to ordinary folk who mostly don't give a fuck about degrees. Also at least with certain kinds of music, e.g. classical and jazz, there are somewhat objective standards that can be measured in an audition and obviate some of the need for credentials -- you come in and you can either play the piece perfectly from sight or you can't. You either have good intonation and rhythmic feel or you don't. Etc. Visual art, on the other hand, has become so anything-goes that I think people crave some kind of reassurance of quality -- people feel confused as objective "technical" standards of art go out the window and concepts take precedent.

IDK if that's the whole story, maybe there's also some kind of incestuous relationship btw galleries, museums, top MFA programs that feeds and encourages the system.

Of course I think the "MFA-Industrial Complex" should be blown up, but there will always be tastemakers and gatekeepers needed to assuage the insecurities of the rich -- I just think that it shouldn't be on the artists to pay for that service.

If you were planning to make the kind of music that was funded by arts grants, a conservatory degree would be in order.

This is def. not necessarily true, at least here. (Google "metric band grants".)

MFA is more a gatekeeper of salary, for the opportunity to teach more art students while doing your own art, amirite? And the connections to the gallery world that follows from two more years in the studio.

Is that all? Do people not learn any content or technique in these programmes? Is the material learned just as well outside this system in less expensive ways? (Genuine questions, related to the sorts of doubts I have all the time.)

2xpost

My impression from people I have known in Visual Arts MFAs is that emphasis on technique widely varies, but it's sort of tricky in visual art these days -- what SORT of technique should be taught? I mean think about sculpture -- you have an infinite range of possible materials to work with, what do you teach? Welding? 3D printing? Figurative stone sculpture using a chisel? I do get the impression MFA programs can mean access to resources though -- equipment, materials, space, software, perhaps someone who can teach you the technique you choose (depending what it is).

Columbia has a new sound art mfa

All the sound art mfa ppl I've researched make p uninteresting stuff tho

In terms of pure music tho, some make good sculpture or instruments I guess

The latest holly Herndon energy drink interview goes into this a bit as well

I have a friend who did the Brooklyn College Sound Art MFA, where David Grubbs is a professor and apparently heavily involved in the program. He makes good stuff, but he did so even before the program. But I think he got the opportunity with a lot of expensive cutting edge tech and software.