USAR02: Music and Technology

Modernising the Orpheus Myth: Music's Power to Persuade and Control in Today's Technological Context.

Loh Chih Hui. USAR02 ["Music And Technology"], University Scholars Programme, National University Of Singapore.

Introduction: What Passions Cannot Music Raise Or Quell? Music is Propaganda

"For art is, among other things, the technique of effective communication...it is rather alarming that men with a gift for artistic expression should wield such enormous power over reputations, ideas, even facts. And what is more alarming is that the world's political and economic rulers should have realised that artists wield this power, and should systematically employ them (as was done in the late war) to make propaganda...we are only at the beginning of intellectual and emotional mass production. What will the end be like?"(Huxley, 79).

Writing in the dismal interwar years, Aldous Huxley observed with an astute perspicacity the intrinsic qualities of art (when Huxley meant 'art', this was not solely restricted to the visual arts and should be taken in a broader context that encompasses both literature and music as well) to serve much larger agendas other than simply existing as forms of aesthetic expression, of its ability as well as capacity to elicit certain desired responses. Indeed, the considerable number of musicological theories / analyses that have since emerged all manage to be consistent in their acknowledgement of how music plays with and manipulates listeners' basic emotions and wills, which often precedes our cognitive processes in understanding such musical discourse (even George Orwell's ultimate mind control in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four includes a necessary function for music) -- Huxley's commentary stands out, very appropriately, as a bridge between ancient thinkers such as Plato and Confucius who ascribed metaphysical and ethical functions to music, and the present world of mass media (and mass society) where technology has played a vital role in extending and deepening the reach of music over entire populations. The development and uses of music over various historical eras (especially when coupled with modern technology in more recent periods) that ranges from premodern views to the rise of totalitarian regimes to contemporary mass-consumer societies, all ultimately bear testimony to this idea of music being inextricably intertwined with propaganda, and speaks eloquently for how the progress of technology itself has represented an empowerment and broadening of the persuasion and control that emanates forth from music.

But surely this cannot be, for it is rather disturbing to think that the widely beloved art of music is intimately related to, or even exists as a tool, in facilitating deception and the communication of controlled information that intentionally misleads! It is, however, important to realise that the etymology of the term 'propaganda' can be traced back to its original Latin usage "congregation de propaganda fide" -- meaning congregation for propagating the faith of the Roman Catholic Church (as defined by Jowett & O'Donnell, p. 15). In the terms of such a definition then, music that is incorporated to enhance a religious service is certainly an apt device, and music is incontrovertibly propaganda. A more current definition of propaganda is "the spreading of ideas, information or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, cause or a person" (cited from the Merriam-Webster dictionary by Perris, p. 5), and when considered in this context, the utilisation of music for commercials in radio or television certainly qualifies as propaganda as well, belonging to a mode of persuasion, if not rumour. Thus, be it for praise or for scorn (such as in satirical / protest music), most forms of music would inevitably fall into the category of propaganda, and what was essentially a neutral term only attained its pejorative meaning in modern times after the deliberate and methodical attempts to reinforce and / or modify behaviour and attitudes through the mass media on a substantial scale during the First World War, as Aldous Huxley points out so succinctly. Messages, such as those present in music, when referred to as propaganda, ultimately imply something negative and dishonest -- but from a more objective point of view, this should not be associated with 'deceit' or 'manipulation', and one should think instead about it as the transmission of an ideology to achieve certain objectives, regardless of whether these provide beneficial or detrimental effects to the recipient of the propaganda.(The authors of Propaganda And Persuasion illustrate this in greater detail, of how "propaganda is associated with control and is regarded as a deliberate attempt to alter or maintain a balance of power that is advantageous to the propagandist...linked with a clear institutional ideology and objective...whether it is a government agency attempting to instil a massive wave of patriotism...or a corporation attempting to promote its image in order to maintain legitimacy among its clientele". Jowett & O'Donnell, p.15.) And while music (especially in its popular incarnations, such as rock or rap) does contain a lyrical element in which ideas can be conveyed explicitly, which seems to relate particularly to the effectiveness of propaganda, one should also focus on the musical discourse itself, which possesses the ability to either express or refer to extramusical events or ideas, and this has a significant bearing on the overall meaning and effect of any musical piece. Prior to the advent of technologies that made mass communication possible, as well as other associated developments that have enhanced the capability and reach of music as propaganda, philosophers already conceptualised about and musicians exploited this potent power of music, and examining these preludes to the modern application of music would provide a practical and invaluable background to gauge and assess the extent of technology's influence.

Revisiting the Orpheus Myth - Antecedents to Modern Dynamics of Persuasion and Control

The tragic figure of Orpheus from classical Greek mythology still echoes across the ages like a distant, ethereal song, and offers a fitting metaphor for expressing music's power to inspire and control. Orpheus, the son of Apollo and Calliope, sang and played his lyre with such excruciating sweetness and pathos, that through this irresistibly compelling music he managed to tame the Furies of Hades in order to bring his dead beloved Eurydice back to life. A more sinister variation of the Orpheus myth can also be found in the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who lured an entire city's children into captivity with his enchanting music. While these legends might stand out as highly fantastical and imaginative accounts, the music created for public worship across all the major world religions attests to the captivating qualities of music that Orpheus symbolises -- such music was designed to persuade and control, in arousing and heightening the desired emotional effect of the listener during prayer as well as emphasising a ritual text (especially certain significant words). Of course, religious leaders in the past also recognised and feared that the sensuous and exciting nature of music threatened equally to divert the listener away from the lesson, and that the seductive tune might 'swallow' the holy words. As St. Augustine admitted in his Confessions, his own senses, instead of "following patiently behind reason, strive even to run before and be her leader", and such was his indignation at these sensuous digressions that he considered that all music to which the psalms were chanted should be banished from the Church (cited in Perris, p.140). Apart from music intended for spiritual edification, the great corpus of classical music also proves that the art of music functioning as propaganda is absolutely not a modern phenomenon. Before the ascendancy of bourgeois music in the nineteenth century, Europe's composers and their aristocratic patrons were well aware of music's awesome powers, as evident in composer Christoph Willibald Gluck's appeal to the Orphic power of music when he sought the continued patronage of the French royalty when Louis XVI was installed as king in 1774: "When, following the example of the Greeks, Augustus, the Medicis and Louis XIV encouraged and supported the arts, they had a more important aim in view than that of providing further amusement and pleasure; they regarded that portion of human knowledge as one of the most precious links in the political chain; they knew that only the arts are capable of making men gentle without corrupting them and of rendering them prone to submission without debasing them"(cited by Kraus, 196). In contrast to this ideology of state patronage, Ludwig van Beethoven's solitary opera work, Fidelio, contains stirring musical scenes that render the emotional and dramatic thrust of the story all the more gripping, and is a powerful statement on autocratic tyranny, espousing social and political reform. Another opera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro [The Marriage of Figaro], with its delectable melodies and masterful (musical) characterisations, similarly expresses a call for social justice, albeit in a more comedic and satirical manner. And as a powerful nationalistic fervour swept across Europe in the nineteenth century, composers and musicians began incorporating nationalist elements or inferred nationalistic political protests in their music, such as in Frederic Chopin's Polonaises, Bedrich Smetana's Ma Vlast [My Country] or Peter Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, all highly sentimental, evocative expressions of patriotism and national sentiment.

According to a Marxist analysis of the history of art, all art speaks for a class -- the ruling class in every period of history (Perris, 7), enunciating and mirroring the state ideology as well as the prevailing values of this dominant class (which would undoubtedly include the symphonies and songs mentioned above). While religious music and the rich heritage of classical orchestral or operatic works do vaguely reflect upon the socio-cultural and political milieu that their composers lived in, they did not actively enforce particular codes of moral behaviour and were definitely not created to fashion and mould an entire society through control and persuasion. The original systematic use of music for inculcating ethics and for the purposes of statecraft can be found in the political philosophies held by ancient thinkers from both Eastern and Western cultures: One of Plato's tenets in his Republic states that only appropriate songs in affirmative modes must be included in the education of the future elite (Perris, 68), and Aristotle comes to the conclusion in his Politics that "What we have said makes it clear that music possesses the power of producing an effect on the character of the soul" (cited by DeNora, p.21). The Confucian worldview similarly ascribed an ethical power to music, and considered 'good' music, properly performed, essential towards maintaining a stable society. In classical Chinese texts such as the Li Chi [Book of Rites], there are passages on music affirming society's values, such as "When the early rulers formed the li [rituals] and yue [music] their purpose was not to satisfy the mouth, stomach, ear and eye, but rather to teach the people to moderate their likes and hates, and bring them back to the correct direction in life" (cited in Perris, 103). Another classical text, the Shi Jing [Book of Odes], identifies 'Virtuous Songs', in addition to correct musical instruments, as antidotes against evil tendencies by both the ruler and his councillors (Perris, 104). This Shi Jing was used extensively in the Han dynasty (where Confucianism became the official state doctrine) for providing music in educating and civilising the Emperor's subjects, especially barbarians and the young. The Orpheus myth might have once been the West's standard clichés in the discussion of music and its power, but the vocabulary of composers like Gluck -- that of music as a political rite having an emotional link with the state, diminished accordingly in the growing personal and individualistic atmosphere of the bourgeois age of classical music, where the composer Hector Berlioz even mocked Confucian efforts in utilising music to spread morality, and commented that if his guitar was like that of the Chinese sage, "think of the benefits I might have brought, the heresies I might have rooted out, the truths instilled, the noble religion founded, and the happiness we might all be enjoying now" (cited in Kraus, 196). The central role of music to the state as delineated by the ancient philosophers was only resurrected with the development of technologies that made the emergence of mass audiences a historical phenomenon, and consequently, Orpheus truly descended into the underworld.

Marching into a Brave New World of Musical Propaganda

"The new tune which was to be the theme-song of Hate Week (the Hate Song, it was called) had already been composed and was being endlessly plugged on the tele-screens. It had a savage, barking rhythm which could not exactly be called music, but resembled the beating of a drum. Roared out by hundreds of voices to the tramp of marching feet, it was terrifying. The proles had taken a fancy to it..." (Orwell, 155).

In the world of this frightening dystopian future envisaged by writer George Orwell, music is wielded by an omnipotent totalitarian state as one of the central apparatus in its manipulation and control of the masses, where technology such as the ubiquitous 'telescreen' broadcasts political dogma ad nauseam and it is quite impossible to escape from the presence and reach of this device that pervades daily existence. The equally bleak prophecies of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World encompass the "Neo-Pavlovian" (Huxley, 14) conditioning of an entire futuristic society through the high-tech utilisation of music and other aural input, ultimately manufacturing a maxim-regurgitating, ultra-conformist population. While the world has, thankfully, yet to witness the manifestation of such horrific regimes where individual feeling and freedom is so ruthlessly and mechanically suppressed by propaganda, Orwell and Huxley's respective visions blossomed from their concern over the rise of totalitarianism in the earlier half of the twentieth century, when things were looking particularly ominous for the future of civilisation. This apprehension is particularly reflected in their references to the proliferation of technology and its augmenting the spread of propaganda, and what appears ostensibly as science-fiction fantasy is in actuality, closely related to the genesis of modern propaganda itself -- The extraordinary explosion in the field of communications technology during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had a corollary in the form of a great expansion of the mass media (that included print media, radio, motion pictures, and later television), which in turn led to the development of new mass audiences for propaganda, increasing both its use and effectiveness. It is important here to recognise that the mass media has the ability to establish direct contact with the public in a manner that bypasses traditional socialising institutions, which endows all these forms of communication with a unique and fearsome capacity for conveying propaganda. Indeed, the role of propaganda figured significantly in the rise of Communism and Fascism in the twentieth century, where the births of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the People's Republic of China are all representative of the dawn of a new era of propaganda that exploited these advances in technology to assert and reinforce state ideology as well as to exercise then unprecedented control over whole populations.

After the Bolshevik revolutionaries came to power in 1917, they faced the colossal endeavour of transforming the thinking of a largely rural Russian population, many of whom were illiterate - And to accomplish this immense task, the Soviet rulers erected a massive network of propaganda that mobilised every available form of communication, which was vital to the establishment and survival of the new Communist state. While leaders like Lenin held a distinct contempt for music, such as European opera (Perris, 70), they also correctly recognised the role of music as an important instrument of propaganda for the necessary objectives of political education and instruction, and the mass media played a vital role in the dissemination of a revolutionary type of music that was conceived solely for imposing the 'correct' ideology. In the 1930s, Stalin adopted 'Socialist Realism' as the national cultural policy, and this heralded an era where the Soviets lived under the illusion of a constructed reality "in its revolutionary development"(Perris, 70) that was promulgated by all forms of totalitarian art, that of course, included music. The invention of the radio in the late nineteenth century changed forever the practice of propaganda, enabling it to transcend borders and long distances without requiring any physical presence. This use of technology in the Soviet example can be thought of essentially in terms of its sheer scale, but the rise of the Nazis in Germany presents a much more emphatic demonstration of how technology was utilised to create musical propaganda that instilled a rabid hysteria in its audience, for Hitler and his propaganda chief Josef Goebbels probably understood the propaganda potential of the mass media better than anyone else at the time. One of the most perfected forms of propaganda that the Nazis accomplished was in the creation of public spectacles such as the infamous Nuremberg Rallies, where dramatic lighting, controlled sound effects and martial music were employed to evoke outpourings of emotional fervour and support (Jowett & O'Donnell, 141), and this was something that modern technology made feasible. However, most of the principal Nazi propaganda successes can be attributed to the power of the radio, and it was used extensively as the principal medium of official propaganda, especially in communicating the almost religious dimensions of the Nazi spectacles. It was also the Germans who pioneered the utilisation of music as a means of attracting listeners, and as one of their radio experts commented, "Music must first bring the listener to the loudspeaker and relax him."(Jowett & O'Donnell, 84) The extent to which the centrality of radio figured in Nazi propaganda is evident in the state's production of a cheap, one-channel radio set for the masses (the Volksempfanger), as well as in the compulsory installation of radios with loudspeakers in most public places - and in the course of the Second World War, there even existed 'Radio Wardens' who ensured that people were listening to the correct stations!(Jowett & O'Donnell, 139) Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party similarly identified music as an effective means of political propaganda (as well as the application of technology to boost its effects), and their first foray into the realm of organised use of music for propaganda (in the conspicuous absence of mass media in the Yan'an countryside) is fittingly illustrated by their broadcasting of revolutionary songs and choruses over a 300-watt transmitter in 1940 (Perris, 99). Following the Communist victory and establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese populace was compelled to hear revolutionary 'model works' of music repeatedly on the stage, in films, in television, over the radio and via loudspeakers in public spaces until Mao's death in 1976 (Perris, 111). Beyond the initial propaganda successes of these totalitarian regimes, further advancements in communications technology such as television satellites and transistor radios during the years of the Cold War created a global audience for erstwhile limited and small-scale international propaganda operations. In the international area, almost every aspect of human activity could be appropriated as propaganda, especially innocuous cultural products like art, and music was once again deployed to communicate political messages.

But technology is a perilous two-edged sword, and while it was employed to empower the exercise of ideological domination and state control in various societies, advancements in technology also enabled music to become oppositional discourse to political hegemony as well as evolve into a potent and ardent voice for social protest, especially from the 1960s onwards. The very transformations that technology wrought on perceptions of sound, melody, harmony and noise undermined expectations based on traditional musical forms, and electrified, amplified rock music (where its loudness is in itself significant as a form of rebellion or dissent) became a leading form of counter-cultural expression. Another aspect of technology that has been crucial to the emergence of strong musical counterpropaganda can be found in its facility to disseminate content on a widespread (and rapid) basis. In the past, protest music spread slowly and was restricted to a limited audience, but the potential of the mass media was of overwhelming power, and a song heard on the radio or television became a message delivered to millions -- indeed, with the cheap and speedy distribution of electronic media, these messages reached an audience far vaster than before. Technology has even assisted in the subversion of state monopoly over the mass media, where the reproducibility and ease of transport of electronic media such as the cassette tape (or more recently, the compact disc) has frustrated governmental attempts all over the world in the control of distribution and content, and the proliferation of portable music players and radios has decidedly raised the accessibility of recorded music. The China of today provides a clear case for this rise in the anti-hegemonic function of technology, where the majority of popular music is heard via cassette decks or other forms of communication that exist outside of the state mass media, and governmental control has ultimately been further compromised by the empowerment of the individual listener to record and / or dub as he or she pleases (Brace & Friedlander, 125). If music in the modern age has such power to 'compose' situations as well as influence people conducting themselves, what then, does this speak of daily life in the mass-consumer societies that most people find themselves in nowadays?

Music as a Paradigm for Social Ordering in Contemporary Society

Theodor Adorno's work in musicology has represented the most significant development in the twentieth century of the concept that music is a 'force' in social life that constructs consciousness and social structure. Despite the rejection of this approach by musicologists of the late 1970s and 1980s for its inability to offer a grounded theory on music's effects, his provocative claim towards drawing forth a greater social significance from purely music itself remains something that is worth considering in the reality that people are increasingly being surrounded by music in nearly all aspects of daily existence, to the extent that they are not even conscious of its pervasive presence. If Adorno is right, then this is surely an age where music operates fundamentally to train "the unconscious for conditioned reflexes"(DeNora, 1), which thus produces (and perpetuates) perceptual and emotional habits, that reinforce, as a matter of reflex, relations of power and administration in ways that make these relations seem natural, inevitable and real. Be it in public spaces like shopping malls or in offices and other institutions, the experience of modern living certainly seems to suggest that the spectre of a neo-Orwellian form of manipulation is looming over unsuspecting individuals and entire societies: For music's agency has interested and been practiced by employers concerned with 'worker satisfaction', motivation and 'fatigue', manufacturers concerned with 'purchase behaviour', political parties and their desire to win over voters, nations and regimes concerned with fostering belief in their legitimacy, churches, cults and sects seeking to inspire and reinforce 'devotion', and municipalities wishing to suppress 'hooligan' forms of behaviour and crime (DeNora, 130) -- and modern technology has unquestionably and inevitably facilitated and expedited this construction of social reality. When composer John Cage stated that "Sounds...when allowed to be themselves do not require that those who hear them do so unfeelingly" (DeNora, 148), he was suggesting that music in daily life has certainly been planned and programmed for specific organisational ends. With the commercial invasion of the public sonic sphere in contemporary society, perhaps now it is all the more clearer that music does indeed act as a form of 'soundtrack' to social action and behaviour.

Conclusion: The Machinations of Music and Technology Versus the Question of Consciousness

With the framework that music has always existed as propaganda firmly in mind, and having established that propaganda is not necessarily a totally negative force or practice, and also understanding that technology will continue to move relentlessly on, what exactly then is the issue facing people today and future generations? Some musicologists have even ventured as far as to propose that the global mass media has introduced a subtler pattern of neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism through the dissemination of music in a modern, mass-consumer context. Individuals and groups are and will continue to be bombarded on a daily basis by one persuasive communication after another through the envelopment of music around modern existence. This is an age of propaganda, and with the continued growth of communications technology (such as in the current upsurge of the internet), the flow of persuasive messages has been dramatically accelerated, and these messages and very mediums through which they are conveyed will become even more sophisticated in time to come. The crux of the matter then, possibly lies in what Adorno and the ancient philosophers have all attempted to unlock -- the fundamental relationship between the individual, society and ultimately the configuration of human consciousness within the unfathomable powers of music. In mythology, Orpheus may have been dismembered by the angry horde of Thracian maidens, but his spirit still continues to haunt us today.

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• Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1989.
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• Sexton, James. (Ed.) Aldous Huxley's Hearst Essays. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1994.