Ideologies Affecting Music and Musicing-Part 4

Ideologies Affecting Music and Musicing-Part 4  

            Modernists exalted the work of art as a self-contained, almost sacred object.  They purposefully removed the work of art from any connections to the external world, to nature, to history, to human life.  Art that reflected natural beauty or that expressed human emotions was dismissed as ‘less than pure’.  Art existed for the sake of art.  These modernist artists exalted the artist, his work and the intent.  What this means is that they believed that the artists autonomous will established an autonomous intent and an autonomous artist controlled meaning.

            Postmodern in its simplest form means that which represents thinking that is a further development of the thinking of modern man.  The term “postmodern” when referring to time simply means postmodern times or after modern times.  Postmodernism refers to an ideology that is more advanced or liberal, if you will, than modernism.  So, when a writer refers to a postmodern musician,  he or she is referring to  a musician’s whole-life ideology which, of course, includes all of that person’s music and musicing.