What is Ardent Formulism?
Ardent Formulism in music is the deliberate application of formulaic patterns to original compositions. It can be summed up by the following impertinent statement:
“Originality has been done to death. It’s time for something new!”
Ardent Formulism is not a genre in itself. Instead, it is what I call a meta-genre. It is a way of presenting a genre, a sort of commentary on an existing genre. It is based on several principles. First, music is not written for critics, theorists, or the composers themselves…it is written for the audience. Second, music is not a life-or-death enterprise; it’s about the enjoyment of life.
The third and perhaps most important principle is this: The need to be iconoclastic, to continually push the envelope in the pursuit of creativity is a Western cultural phenomenon. It need not be the driving force behind all creative thought.
This is not to say that modern music is valueless; far from it. The argument here is that modern music results from an attempt to continue to follow the paradigm of Western Music, in that it strives to evolve and explore new territory over time. The difficulty is that western music has in fact been left behind. Western harmony is largely irrelevant. In any case, if it is used at all in modern music, it is done without adding anything new to the technology.
That being said, the fact that the technology itself is not being developed does not mean that this existing technology cannot be used to create something new. So, while it is true that no further development of the system can be expected, the idea that nothing new can be created from this system is false. Otherwise, the discovery of a previously unknown Mozart symphony, written at the height of his creative powers (however unlikely such a discovery would be), would be seen only as a historical curiosity. If it were true that everything that could be done in WM has been done, then such a symphony would be musically valueless. This viewpoint is clearly absurd.
Today we see such genres as the classical symphony, the various incarnations of the concerto, and the mass as being formulaic. Thus, when modern composers create their own versions of these genres, they do their best to break from the traditional formula, or from any previously used version of the genre. Such continual genre-bending becomes habitual, a behavior that is almost formulaic in itself. Witness the development of the Requiem mass, which, ever since Brahms composed his vernacular interpretation in the nineteenth century, has rarely been set to the same text more than once.
Up until the middle Baroque, music tended to evolve naturally as different composers experimented with different things. Then, with the advent of the galant style (which eventually led to Rococo and Classical forms), composers began to “force” change. This need to continuously evolve accelerated until Beethoven set a new standard for musical development. From this point on, the message became: “Form is okay, but if the same form is used more than once it becomes tainted…it becomes formulism. Formulism is bad.”
Ardent Formulism (hereafter to be called “AF”) declares that, not only is formulism acceptable, but it is something to be celebrated. Music written in this style enthusiastically embraces and luxuriates in the same formulism that is rejected by the modern music establishment. It does away with the arbitrary notion that all new music must be new in form as well as content. It offers the composer the considerable challenge of injecting novelty into a very limited (and often overused) framework. It takes the trite and elevates it to something exciting, perhaps even noble.
So, in order for a piece of music to be considered AF, how closely must it conform to a formula? Should the formula be structural in nature, harmonic, or both?
The answer is that it is entirely up to the composer. The composer may use traditional structure with modern harmonies (as Prokofiev did with his “Classical Symphony”), or vice versa. Or, different formulas may be fused so that, for instance, the structure follows one formula while the texture and/or harmonies follow another. Or, the piece may simply be a high-energy, high-quality pastiche. The only requirement is that the music does not allow the formula to drag it into redundancy. The more traditional the formula, the more “spark” is required to deliver it from pedestrianism.
Ardent Formulism is an idea that is still being developed. I will document new insights into this meta-genre on my blog as they come to me. Any feedback on this subject will be greatly appreciated.
–John Reese
Composer and Ardent Formulist
I like your logic here, and sometime down the road all of us musicians might have to embrace your idea of ardent formulism. It is a fearful thought, though, that form could not be innovated beyond what our predecessors have done.
Comment by Alex — May 11, 2010 @ 3:38 am
You don’t appear to write wind band music so I’d like to say that wind music is still very committed to form in most ways. While every composer is looking for their own turn on that (the Prokofiev example you give pretty much takes care of the explanation for wind music). This is one of the reasons why so many composers write for bands: they can do almost anything they want but they still have to have something in it for the listener and performer (who are also one in the same). Eventually, the ear comes back to the familiar and that which has patterns. Music has done this time and again, even as it has been “forced” away from it during certain periods by a few composers (who still contribute to the development of music nonetheless).
The “modern musical establishment” you deride is but a small faction of the musical world. In fact, I would say that pop music appears to be AF in the way you describe it. Pop celebrates and revels in its formulaic morass, in it’s ability to appeal to so many people instantly. Almost all pop/rock/hip-hop/country, etc. is a variation on a theme that has been playing for quite some time.
Comment by Zane — May 5, 2011 @ 4:08 pm