Thanks for your interesting insights in to this topic, I stumbled on the board while reaserching for Mr Mcmanus’ term paper.

Yours; Shaman

Scientists are still unsure what whalesong is meant to communicate. Only male Humpbacks sing, so it was at first assumed that the songs were solely for courting.

So, we’re still back where we were in this way:

What are the ethical responsibilities of a person who genuinely DOES love the music, and whose musical self-development reflects that, in terms of how they participate in various kinds of musical endeavors?

I’m not sure that there are any “musico-ethical” responsibilities for a person whose primary reasons for being involved in music are extra-musical (includes most worship and “Christian” music, sadly), except not to lie about it.

There may be a few extra days in purgatory for relatively ignorant producers who abrasively pretend to know more than the expert musicians they hire. But I’ve learned to smile and take the money, though I seldom agree to work for such people again.

If you really don’t have the option of saying no, then you should just do the best you can in the circumstances. Better to work than not live up to your responsibilities to others.

Remind me to tell you about the naval base where I played piano in the officer’s club in the early 1970’s. The perfect audience… too drunk to be able to tell when you clammed, and always appreciative…. and they paid me every night at closing.

Sure, Mike probably got to where he got for a love of music. But reinforcement/recognition along the way doesn’t hurt either (whether it’s from his parents, friends, fellow musicians, or even the homecomming queen.)

I know plenty of talented famous musicians (I’m not going to name names like *cough* John Mayer, but trust me, these people exist) who love music, where geeks about music, maybe even geeks in high school because they wheren’t the jock, but when the girls found out they could play guitar and sing, we’ll let’s just say they practiced a little harder.

We all love to have our ego’s stroaked every once in awhile even if we don’t like to admit it. Even as musicians or engineers. Once again, you might be 75% love of music, 25% ego, but I think it’d be crazy to say 100% anything (money, chicks, OR love of music.) What percentage makes you up will change your ethics quite a bit in regards to music.

My main point: the ability to MAKE the choice to be involved as a musician is usually developed out of somewhat more focused motivations involving a love of music that leads to those hours of practice and learning. Sure, some kids are forced to learn music by parents… but I don’t think it takes off until they love it on their own.

The reason Mike is in the position where he has to grapple with ethical issues of participation is because he loved music enough to get really good at it. i’m just voting for not confusing the one with the other.

Hey Aly… you’ve been listening to some wierd music.

Anyway, as long as we’re dealing with ethical implications of lyrical content… what about Christian albums with crummy theology?

I’m just sayin’.

I’m just sayin’.

2 thoughts:

#1. A lot of these posts are philosophical in nature yes, but my opinion/main point was that people who subscribe to different philosophies will have a different set of ethics. Before you pick your ethics, it’s important to ask yourself what your philosophical principles are.

#2. Of course “No one lives in the practice room four hours per day or goes through the sweat of learning to do takedowns to get chicks. I don’t think they do it “just for the money”, either.”

First I’d like to point out I never said people create music “just for the money” or “for chicks” even though it was quoted as such. That’s why I brought up the whole point of percentages for reasons of doing what we do with music.

If we where musicians for the sole purpose of our love for music, then why ever leave the bedroom or leave the garage to play in front of an audience? Why sell records? Why do music videos? Why take PAID gigs as a session player? Why would you want a record deal? Why make T-shirts with your bands name/logo on them? Why does your band need a name or a logo to begin with? Why would Prince (an amazing musician) wear full body tight leather suits when he performs?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding Mike’s point, but my impression is that we are talking about ethics in terms of the music BUSINESS right? He wasn’t talking about his ethics in terms of locking himself in his bedroom in order to learn takedowns, he was talking about his ethics in relation to himself as a PAID session player.

At some point, a certain percentage of the reason for Mike taking a PAID gig as a session guy is because it’s making him money right? Might not be the only reason, might be 75% love of music 25% getting paid (depending on how high his mortgage is.) Mike’s job as a “hired gun” is to gauge his clients goals/intentions and behave accordingly. IF his client’s goals involve Mike lowering his own moral standards to a level he’s not willing to go, then he should quit the gig. Otherwise, do your job and don’t impose upon your client your own moral/ethical standards. Save that for when you make your own record.

Phil - When I wrote about “artist motivation,” I should have been clearer. I was thinking specifically about the ethics of participation in a creative enterprise, not the ethics of listening to an artist’s finished work. (Though there may be ethical considerations there, too.) To use an extreme example, let’s say Stick was contacted to mix the reunion album of Skrewdriver. (Like I said, it’s an extreme example.) It seems to me that there may be ethics for him to consider in his decision, however musically talented they may be. (And that’s quite open for debate.) Their motivation is to create music that promotes a white supremacist agenda…an agenda some might categorize as “unethical.” And for the sake of the example, let’s say if Stick doesn’t take the gig, he can’t make his mortgage. This is an ethical dilemma.

To be less extreme about it, there is a lot of music in the mainstream (esp. hip-hop, but definitely not exclusively) that’s misogynistic, a prejudice that some might categorize as unethical. If Corey is offered the guitar gig for a record that frequently refers to women as “bitches” or “hos” by an extraordinarily talented artist who has dedicated himself to his craft, should ethics play a part in Corey’s decision take the gig? What if taking the gig is the difference between feeding his kids and not?

I don’t think aesthetics is the highest consideration here. There are ethical dilemmas that are much more concrete than “the service of art” that arise in the life a musician.

Looking at the content of most of the thread, I can say with a level confidence that any ethics course offered (or mandated) to the APU music students, once “dumbed down” for average consumption would end up appearing like a class on music etiquette, which makes sense historically. If there exists a variable profound truth that impacts the behavior of those who partake of its understand, and it is decided that this truth is to be taught to the masses, eventually this profound truth will be dumbed down into a system of behavioral rules, traditions, etiquette, such things that potentially lose all profound connection with the truth that spurred them.

I would humbly propose that such a course a APU should be centered around the subjective philosophy of music. There students would not simply work hypothetical situations in the music industry where ethical issues may arise, and thus become detatched and even resentful of the course, but they could sincerily search and discuss the kind of questions proposed by Topherless regarding purpose/ faith role/individual role: the base from which all thier ethical decisions will be made in the composition/perfomance/replication of music.

Mike, great idea for a class by the way! I had to take the philosophy sen. sem. and write my paper on music in order to attain the kind of depth I needed to cornerstone my career. I’ll be praying for the endeavor.

Being a hack arranger (the second oldest profession…. remember that guy Jubal in the book of Genesis?), I’ve worked with my share of people who are utterly dependent on my skills (or someone like me), want nothing more than to please the audience in a BIG way, but also want me to tell them how great their music is and how inspired I am by them.

I am completely happy and joyful to use my skills to help someone produce a better musical product.

But, I got my skills by LOVING THE MUSIC FOR ITSELF, not by this percentage based approach to musical motivation. I suspect that’s true of most people who really develop their musical ability, if they’re honest about it. No one lives in the practice room four hours per day or goes through the sweat of learning to do takedowns to get chicks. I don’t think they do it “just for the money”, either.

There are lots of people who love to talk about how much they love music, but they don’t behave the way lovers of music behave in terms of self-development. I think most of those people loved CONSUMING music (so to speak), and thought it was a relatively short trip from there to a being a MUSICIAN. It isn’t, and I know of no shortcuts.

When people conflate their love of being a member of the commercial music/media industry with their love for music, the problem begins. It is stunning to me how many “commercial musicians” appear to exhibit pride in their ignorance. As in, “See how great I must be to be this rich and really know so little? Wow, what talent I must have!” Their appear to be very many verses to this song, and several bridges… but they all have the same refrain.

So I’d like to suggest a division of the discussion:

1) The ethics of participation in musical endeavors (Mike has already discussed this… we probably need to go back to that and continue it).

2) The ethics of personal musical development. What are the ethical commitments of a person who DOES claim to love the music?

Do some people create music for the purpose of art? Yes. Do some people create it as a from of self expression? Yes. Do some people create it in order to generate commerce? Yes. Do some people create it as a vehicle to achieve fame? Yes. Do some people create it to score extra points with hot chicks? We’ll, YES!!!

Are all of these reasons valid? YES (as long was we are honest with ourselves for our reasons.)

So, you think your “musical idea” is somehow better than the person who has the musical vision? In a technical sense you might be correct, but what if that part doesn’t represent or express what the person whose ultimately responsible for what’s being created is about or feels? It doesn’t matter if the rest of the entire world agrees that your idea is musically better (which in itself is debatable.) If the goal was to create the best possible music, why not always fire whoever your guitar player is and hire the best session guy ever all the time (same for singers, drumemrs, bass players, etc.)

Another point is let’s say your out on the golf course and Tiger Woods comes out and says, “here, let me play your round of golf for you because I will obvioulsy play it better.” It’s not always about the destination my friends, it’s about the journey.

Now, if you only want to be involved in the noble aspect of only working with people who are creating music as “art” then that’s cool. But if you sign up for a project where the goal is to sell records then don’t complain about art because that’s not what the PURPOSE of the project is.

What makes this more confusing is that typically no music is created for just one purpose. It might be 30% for ART, 40% for selling records and getting famous, and the last 30% to score more chicks. Your job as a session player is to have your feelers out to see what those percentages might be and then make your comments accordingly.

This brings me to my next point. Once you figure out the PURPOSE, the next step is to figure out YOUR ROLE in that PURPOSE.

Now, to make matters even more confusing and the reason why so many bands fail is because not only do the percentages of purpose for making the music change, but the percentage of what each person’s acceptable level of contribution (or role) clearly changes and is not always defined. The drummer might think his level in a 4 piece should be 25% and he makes music 20% for the money and 80% for the chicks whereas the singer thinks the drummer’s role should be minus 5% and the singer makes music because he was abused as a kid and want’s to express his anger and therefore his purpose has nothing to do with money or chicks.

I would also like to point out that myself personally, as a person who makes his living in the music business, I have no problem working on all kinds of music that’s being made for all of the above reasons and I don’t feel like I’m selling out for any of it. Whether it’s for sales, art, self-expression, or yes, to score chicks. I’m all in (granted, my favorite projects by far are when it’s for ART.) I also don’t care if someone’s a horrible musician and they are asking me to work my tail off to help them sound great. I see no problem with that.

I also can appreciate having the ROLE of engineer who has no opinion OR engineer whose asked about his opinion enough to where it’s even a production type level of contribution.

My personal grip/problem is when people are in denial about their own intentions. Nothing is more annoying than a person who claims to care about art but always makes decisions based on commerce. If someone wants to make an artistic record that will hopefully sell, that’s cool, just be honest about it.

People complain about Incubus, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake all the time. Me personally, I have no problem with any of them. However, if Britney said she had more talent as a singer than Billy Holiday, or if Justin Timberlake said he had more talent as a songwriter than John Lennon, or if Incubus said they where more groundbreaking than Black Sabbath then I’d have a problem. But my perception is that they are pretty honest with themselves about what their role in music and what their purpose for making music is.

Maybe ethics in music is actually more about finding your role and purpose for being involved in music and in order to be “ethically sound” you must be honest with yourself about what that purpose is and stick to that purpose (not taking pop gigs if you do it only for the “art.)”

I do love certain music, though. I’m not sure why. It makes me feel interested, alive, curious, expressive… it engages my perceptions and my intellect and frequently my feelings (not always in any verbalizable way… I couldn’t put a label on the feelings, mostly) and my physicality (i love words that begin with ph). It may engage me “spiritually”, but that’s even more slippery of definition than “aesthetic”, so I’ll just toss it out there without qualification for now.

I don’t much care about the “artist’s motivation”…. and I haven’t noticed that other musicians especially care about mine when they perform my music… they just respond to the music.

Face it…. we’re all prima donnas… or is that prima donni?

Christian faith (or upbringing) has shaped and colored the creation and execution of music for a great percentage of people here. I have often been insanely jealous of people who get to write whatever the hell comes into their brains. I have been sold (and have often bought) the line that no song or lyric is appropriate for church comsumption unless it’s completely theologically sound, or spiritually relavant. Too much anger, vulgarity, harshness, or anything else that can be read into as “worldly” is unacceptable in the church environment.

Even the song that I quoted a few weeks ago as my protest song began as something much more specific and much more personal and (let’s face facts here) much uglier. My Christian College blocking gnomes told me that there was no way it was ok to write the song about the topic I origianlly had in mind. It was a personal attack on someone. And man… was it justified.

So, my musical ethics (situational ethics as well) told me to channel that angst into something more nebulous, i.e. the media. It’s not that I don’t believe the content of the lyric as it stands (we all need a little more unplugged time… IMO) it’s just that the ethics of my life and experience naturally checked the full wrath of my lyrical abilities. Good interpersonally… perhaps bad artistically.

The cure for hero worship includes an alley in Burbank, a Drum Major routine, and a video camera.

In any case, that immediately moves us out of “musical ethics” and into “general ethics” since most human activities have purposes.

Other than blogging, of course.

“Music for a purpose” seems to quickly degenerate to distilled excrescence of bovine, unless the notion of purpose is very broadly defined.

Perhaps a better place to start is an examination of music’s purposes. Purposes can be ethical or unethical.

(HEY! Or we could have Dr. Alyeuss apply her craft to all this!…)

I’m putting the odds at 40/60 for.

This a great point. You’re absolutely right.

Mike: “The training only matters if it delivers the note. The training, if it is worthwhile at all, increases your odds of being able to consistently find the note. If not, then what the hell are we training for?”

I don’t disagree with you here. This is the exact reason why any musician woodsheds. But maybe as you were pointing at the moon, I was arguing about which finger you chose. I think it’s awfully presumptious to assume that your “trained, informed” perspective puts you, ethically, over a barrel if you keep it inside when you hear part of the tune that you’d prefer to hear differently.

And also, let me pause for station identification- Mike, you have to know how much I respect you as a musician. And if you don’t know how much I respect you as a musician, I’ll tell you that it almost crosses the line into Brokeback Respect- eclipsed only by how much I value you as a friend, also drifitng occasionally over into Brokeback territory. I wish I could quit you…

Taking it back to the top, I think there are ethics involved in music, but I think they’re more akin to the medical scenarios you presented. When the circumstances are more clearly outlined with right and wrong choices (socially or morally), then the ethical discussions come in. But just like we want to very clearly state church doctrinal beliefs to prevent the zealots from acting on inflated assumptions, I think it’s important to clearly distinguish between what is an ethical decision and what is a personal musical choice.

[/antagonist]

Corey: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, Mike, it’s that a “trained” musician holds far greater value in your mind than an untrained one. Two musicans can play the same notes with the same feel, but because the trained one can trace the musical ancestry of the harmonic or melodic content, he’s the one who deserves praise for his creative work. This is one place where we totally disagree.”

Corey, that’s utter horshit and you know it. Have you seen my Thelonious Monk T-Shirt? The note is the thing. The note is absolutely the thing.

The training only matters if it delivers the note. The training, if it is worthwhile at all, increases your odds of being able to consistently find the note. If not, then what the hell are we training for?

I feel like you’re trying to make me say things that I’m not at all saying.

What do you think the giant Prius battery is really for?

If you tailgate me, you may find out…..

Is it an ethical requirement of Christians to pray? To avoid calling down the devil’s curses on people in their minds? To avoid hatred? (Not merely to avoid hateful behavior…) To think about their relationships with God? To try to understand scripture, as opposed to just making socially acceptable noises about it?

These are facts of the “inner person” which may or may not have immediate social meaning, or repercussions, or even detectability, if a person is reasonably self-controlled.

To make all ethics social is to frame everything in terms of behavior. I suspect that perspective may have more in common with a materialistic view of ethics than a spiritual one… just off the cuff, anyway. Always willing to be educated.

Speaking of education: Corey, I think there are plenty of people in town who are more than willing to say that THEIR education makes them qualified to make musical pronouncements of all kinds… they just didn’t happen to get it in a college or university. I doubt Mike intends for the narrow “institutionally educated” view to be normative. Your “totally uninformed musician” seems like an oxymoron to me. How could such a creature exist?

I’m one of the point-headed intellectual class. It says so right here on my diplomas… all four of them. But I value the musical knowledge I gained the hard way (read, out of class… WAY out of class) far more than anything I learned “in school”. I suspect that’s true of Mike, too…. concerning which I suppose I should feel insulted…. oh well.

Having said all that: there is something to be said for knowing enough history to have some idea of what led to the current mess you’re in, and enough theory to allow you to learn the rudiments of the mess yet to come, even if you’re hip to the practical aspects of what you need to do clean up the mess today. (Shackleton’s Theory of Messes… not yet listed in the Wiki, but coming soon.)

My classes are full of 18-22 yr olds who think they’ll be cool forever, and who think their “opinion” is as good as anyone elses. It’s mostly not. Yet.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, Mike, it’s that a “trained” musician holds far greater value in your mind than an untrained one. Two musicans can play the same notes with the same feel, but because the trained one can trace the musical ancestry of the harmonic or melodic content, he’s the one who deserves praise for his creative work. This is one place where we totally disagree.

At the same time, I feel like it illustrates my point. I agree that having the ethics discussion in the context of musicianship is an important exercise for students. I don’t think anyone is poo-poo’ing the idea that ethics should be discussed in industry-specific scenarios. It makes them tangible. But I guess Aly’s right- to pose the ethical dilemma, we must first set the rules of engagement. Suppose the trained, informed musician could make a technically “smart” suggestion that feels like ass in the context of the song? Suppose the totally uninformed musician just happens to feel that the song needs something that can’t be found in graduate level music curriculum? These are opinions, and usually the person who makes it into a weighty (ethical) discussion is the one that has the education on his side. Of course you believe in the tangible, you paid for a degree in music. That tangibility cost you (or the scholarship fund) tens of thousands of dollars and put you in an elite and respected group of people with graduate degrees in music. It gives you grounds to talk about the philosophy and mechanics of music. It gives you grounds to TEACH about the philosophy and mechanics of music. I don’t think it places you at some ethical crossroads to somehow act as savior to the musical endeavor of a less-educated artist. The audacity of that last sentence is shocking.

I tried to see your point by applying this to my own education. If I was somehow hired to co-write or proof a paper that was written by someone uneducated in journalism, literature, or grammar- I believe you’re right. I DO see that there’s an ethical obligation to suggest spelling or grammatical changes to protect the author from looking stupid to the reader. But these are right and wrong, black and white scenarios. “Believe” is spelled with the “i” before the “e” and any difference is clearly wrong. Stick’s scenario with auto-tuning vocals is applicable, because western music still adheres (by and large) to a 12-tone musical framework and a vocal note 10 or 15 cents off sounds out of tune. He has an ethical obligation to at least mention that and to put it back on the artist to either get ready for the criticism or pony up the cash to fix it. But any obligations to recommend a better melodic or harmonic choice based on the fact that you hold a music degree is a stretch. When the choices are based on opinions (made stronger solely by the fact that you hold in high regard the educated musician) no ethical dilemma exists.

I think the point about “social ethics” vs. “musical ethics” is to distinguish between ethical problems that are distinctly musical vs. those that are common in other areas.

For example: if I am employed as an engineer, and I believe that a better design decision can be made than some detail of the current plan, should I speak up if I suspect the suggestion may not be well received? Assume no lives are at risk. (Although I’ve heard music that nearly killed me….)

I’m not sure the ethical question of suggesting a different piano part is substantially different. If it isn’t (let me know what you think), then the problem is not uniquely musical, and has existing solutions in other disciplines.

Back in the day, when I sang in hootenannies, the biggest ethical problem was whether to get stoned before or after the gig…

The question of whether or not it’s OK for me to buy your kidney for an organ transplant can be reduced down to “social ethics”, but it’s still fruitful to collect together a bunch of similar questions under the heading of “medical ethics”, and have future doctors and nurses thing about them before we fling them out into the world.

I think it’s also a good idea to do the same thing with musicians. Call it social ethics. That’s fine. Call it “Professional Ethics”. That’s OK too. I’m saying that there are unique situations that musicians regularly get placed in where competing values force them to make a decision, and that we should gather together these questions and ask them before the situations arise, and that we should gather them together under the heading of “music and ethics”, so that we can keep it particular to one type of profession.

I don’t want you to be confused by the first example that I gave - I know that there is additional weight added to a decision when you call it an “ethical” decision, and I know that weight can be abused. I’m not advocating that we throw ethical weight behind personal aesthetic decisions (at least, not in this example). The pianist is not saying, “This part that I want to play is the morally correct part, therefore we should play it.” In the example above, the ethical conflict is not between the two competing piano parts, it’s within the pianist, asking if he has an obligation to express his trained, informed musical ideas for consideration.

My head hurts now.

Some history:

No one spoke of “art” and music in the same breath until about 250 years ago, and then only gradually did the notion of music as “aesthetic” begin to creep into western discussion on art, pretty much in, uh, unison with the rise of Romanticism. Suspiciously, the notion coincides reasonably well with the Enlightenment, which obviously invalidates the whole idea. ;-)

It pretty much never happened at all anywhere else. Most cultures have connected it to religion in some way.

In any case, since you probably can’t define the word “aesthetic” without using the word “art” (or vice versa), I don’t see how the reference clarifies anything.

In other words: most people, for most of history, don’t/didn’t see the connection between art and music.

Of COURSE 57 chevy’s are art. But when the definition of art is so broad that it includes practically any human artifact that displays design and decoration (which is to say, nearly everything), then the term has lost most of its ability to discriminate this from that.

I’m willing to contend that music is a unique human activity, and that other disciplines may be analogous to music, but music is not analogous to them, except in very limited ways. Here’s all I mean be that: a great many activities/perceptions can be compared to musical activity/perception without losing much of their essence, but when music is compared to anything else, it virtually always loses something critical in the bargain.

Tell me the next time you hear of a cello duet described as “playing beautiful basketball together”.

I’m completely unsure of the ethical implications of all this. The more I think about it, the more lost I get, outside of the general social ethics involved in working with people to make music, already ably described above. Being a hack arranger, I’m an harmonic whore by definition… hardly a suitable foundation for musico-ethical discussion. (Hey… a new phrase… musico-ethical… just give credit when you use it.)

And now: I wouldn’t want anyone to be disappointed in me.

In Iran, “…women are prohibited from singing in public, except to a segregated female-only audience. Hard-liners were afraid the voice of a woman soloist might arouse impure thoughts in men.”

I coulda told ‘em that.

I’m not sure if I can agree that there are “good” or “bad” musical choices. I think if I had free reign, I would’ve put a lot more telecaster and banjo on some of the dailies stuff (Chad just crapped his pants, by the way). I like the sound of rock mixed with bluegrass instruments. I like the sound of stripped down roots-rock music. It works for Nickel Creek. Hell, it worked for the Eagles and they’re one of the (if not THE) best selling acts of all time. Everyone at Eldorado would’ve called that a “bad” musical direction for the Dailies. I would disagree on the grounds that it would’ve tickled my coconut to hear dramatically different arrangements of some of those tunes.

Having started with that, I think a more applicable ethical dilemma is on the part of the hired party to bow out when he knows for certain that his choices are going to be considered “bad” by the employer or when he feels he is incapable of aligning his “good” with their “good”.

We just might be saying the same thing, but Postmodernism Schoenberg = anything goes and everything works in music. Not everyone wants to listen to the result of that marriage, but I can’t claim that anything musical is intrinsically right or wrong.

I think the ethics of the situation revolve more around the social interaction than the rhythmic or harmonic choices. Music is just the context for social ethics here. I did a session last Spring where the artist called in as many “Hey Buddy” favors as possible, and then openly hired out when the free friends didn’t deliver. Adding to that, it was made very clear that the artist intended to use this as a money-making effort. Is there something unethical about asking those close to me to work for free in contribution to my wealth and well-being, knowing that if they don’t do (for free) what I expect of them, THEN I’ll break out the checkbook? This dilemma and all of the ones Stick posed are social ethical dilemmas. How do we interact with the people around us? Do we allow our financial needs to compromise our opinons?

I just submitted 7 magazine ads for Roland/ BOSS Corp. for their line of Loop Station pedals. I submitted those to the ad agency that contracted me to build them. After submission, the art director cleaned them up and moved some of the body copy around (namely because he’s done 10 million dollars worth of advertising in the last 5 years and knows way more than me). He chose to email me to tell me what he was doing to my creations, as a professional courtesy. I don’t think this situation differs too much from the original blog post. The interaction here is on a social level. The ads themselves, the concepts, the delivery, the degree to which I did the work assigned to me have no ethical ground in my mind. The ethical application is only in the social interaction and that (as Aly pointed out in comment 2 or 3) is almost universal.

No wonder no one’s written a book.

I was working with a drummer (that I was dictating parts to… see above) the other day who told me he was working for some hip-hop guys who had him playing stuff he thought was ridiculous. But, I bet it was just what they thought was cool.

However, I think that if you got hired for the gig, the person hiring you probably knew what you bring to the table, and expect you to “bring it” so to speak. Though, if I hired you for your jazz piano skillz, and you questioned my choice of bassoon implementation in the track (assuming I didn’t know you knew anything about bassoon), I might get a little edgy. (BTW, can you blow over rhythm changes on bassoon?)

To say that “Art should be free from moral entanglement” is a moral claim. It calls for ethical decision making.

Corey, we both know that there is such a thing as good and bad musical choices. Let me clear away the language that has baggage tied to it for you, and ask the question this way: do I have an obligation as a professional in a creative endeavor to advocate for better musical choices?

Zack, it might help if you understand that I’m not trying to create a “Musicians Code of Ethics” that everyone has to sign before they get let into the club - not even close. What I’m advocating for is giving musicians the tools to thoughtfully, reflectively make their own ethical decisions using tools that are appropriate for the task. There are ethical conflicts tangled up in the creation and performance of music that musicians have either learned to cope with pragmatically or economically, because they have never been invited to stop and consider them as questions with moral significance.

Those things that Stick rattled off are ethical dilemmas, not just functional or economic questions.

I’m the songwriter. The label is telling me “they don’t have the single” for artist “A”. Annoyed, I sit and write a beautiful worship song out of spite that I’d never write unless I was trying to “sell it”.

I’m the producer (i.e. it’s my vision we’re after here) that’s telling the session guy I hired to forget everything he’s ever learned about playing the drums, and replay my chopped up and edited together demo drum programming, and yet, “make it feel like a real player”. (Though, generally I’ll get them to understand what I was going for in my program, and have them play a pass or two “the way you would do it”.)

Then, I’m the mixer taking a bunch of poorly recorded, badly executed playing and singing and Beat Detective-ing and Auto-tuning it into something that I can ALMOST stand to listen to. (Note: I didn’t record these… I was just hired to mix. And no, the Dailies mix doesn’t fall in this category. That was good stuff.) What’s ethical or artistic about that?

And maybe the worst… you’ve got a singer in the booth that can’t sing. Now what? They’re paying you to record them and tell them how great they are, not to mention having to somehow coax a credible performance out of them. You can’t tell them what you really think. You shouldn’t probably tell them “oh yeah, it took twice as long (this after 18 hours on the lead vocal part) when I worked with “______” (insert famous artist they think is cool).

This is the tip of the iceberg. I don’t have the energy at the moment to go into the whole “pure art” aspects of it (or why I think that’s kind of a silly notion)… but I probably should. If nothing else, I can represent the least artistic “artist” in your survey. But, in me, creativity and artistry are very different things.

Better yet, you could have a panel discussion a la Maury Povich and before class starts, encourage the musicians to drive home their personal views to the other panelists in as physical a manner as possible. Can you even imagine how great your scores on ratemyprofessor.com would be after Cerise jumped on Phil’s back and started pulling his beard while screaming “Music IS art! Music IS art!”

If not, then, well…

He has no answer, but he has 50 years of trying to understand the question.

I yield the floor to the man with the gun-rack on his Prius.

The vibe I’m getting from the comments and the thoughts buzzing in my own head is that perhaps we need a philosophy of music before we have an ethics of music. It seems like we can’t even agree on what music is, so of course it’s pert-near impossible to agree on how to do whatever it is or isn’t ethically.

Is it math? Is it acoustics? Is it entertainment? Is it an aural interpretation of surrounding culture? Is it an effort to put the artist’s thoughts or feelings into sound? And while we’re at it…are we talking about the ethics of playing? Writing? Performing? Arranging? Not all the same thing, but all fall under “music.”

I submit that the ethics for each of the above may not always be the same, and may even contradict each other at times.

But that’s OK, you probably drive a Ford Taurus, and have no idea what I’m talking about. (Relax, I’m just poking…)

But seriously, your comment worries me. Why not widen the general definition of “art” to include material things that have had an undeniable influence on culture? I don’t see what’s wrong with it. If anything, it brings a level of appreciation to things that would otherwise be forgotten.