Flat Fifth

The year is 1501. That was the fateful year that sealed the future of Music as the world knew it. Till 1501 to the present day, music was the last way of expression that was not commercialized, however the first printing and publishing of the first music work that year by Ottaviano de Petrucci is what commenced the commodification of Music. 

While Johannes Guttenberg invented the first Printing Press using movable type in Germany in 1440, Petrucci printed his book using the new technology of movable  type, using a music font he developed. His first book, Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A, was a collection of polyharmonic songs. 

Post this milestone in Human history, what Europe saw was a boom in creativity, inventions, further developments and improvements on older inventions exponentially- however what Europe also saw was fear. Fear that Music, literacy, wisdom and knowledge would spread among people and topple the feudalist royalist society. The ruling class realised that this would make information more available to the masses resulting in a spring of new ideas. The only way to control it was to contain and restrict it. We find this pattern throughout history where the strongest ruling power that has the majority of control over the society undertakes this essential role of being in charge of restriction, censoring and suppression. Back in 16th Century Europe and all the way till the mid 19th Century, this major power in Europe was the Roman Catholic Church. 

The purpose of this article is not only to elaborate about the ways the Church moderated music in this period of time, but rather looks at the commodification of music in different periods of time and under various types of administration. 

Since we already began with the Church, it does make sense to continue a bit more about it though. The church contained the spring of ideas and anti-Church line of thinking restricting the study of music to only a small section of the society. Let’s look at a few ways in which the Church did it from the 1500s up till the late 1700s:

The church was the major employer of musicians back then. There were no concert halls, no internet, no music recorders- the only way people made money was by being commissioned by the Church, both Protestant and Catholic. Composers like Bach, Vivaldi and Handel were employed by cathedrals or religious schools, rendering the music to be liturgical, composed for Masses, vespers, or feast days.

They excluded the lower classes from both learning and performing complex music- formal music education was often available only in religious institutions such as choir schools and seminaries. 

Music was expected to serve religious devotion, thus it was always restrained and formal, especially in the baroque era. 

Even though the Church’s influence did wane by the Classical era with the rise of secular patronage, the best paid jobs were always in the Church or in Court-service. 

After the Church, the next best employer of music the world saw was under the Capitalist system. This is where music’s commodification really picked up pace. 

The roots of Capitalism lie in the Industrial Revolution, which made mass production possible- especially of sheet music. And this played the most vital role in the history of Music by putting an end to the aristocratic patronage and giving rise to the market driven music industry. This is the stage from where music was officially ‘freelanced’. The best freelancer of music perhaps everyone is well aware of would be Beethoven, one of the first to break free from court employment and monetize his art via publishers and public performances. Scientific revolutions such as Edison’s phonograph revolutionised how people accessed music as music could now be bought and consumed repeatedly without needing a live performer. 

So we can conclude that after these milestones were achieved, everyone lived happily ever after. Music was free from control of the Church and all was well. Well, not exactly.

While Capitalism loves to call it the “Free” Market, it’s not exactly free. In fact, one might argue that it is hardly any different from the tight control of the religious institutions over music as it was before. 

Instead of the Church being the ‘gatekeepers’ of music, today that role is played by money. Money rules the world, money dictates what is done, what is enjoyed, what is performed and what is produced. 

The profit motive has become far more important than artistic innovation today. Similar to the Church forbidding dissonance and secular themes, the capitalist market rejects music that doesn’t fit commercially viable molds. Complex, experimental, or non-commercial genres are rarely promoted or funded in this market system. Literally every song produced today follows the business model perfect format- 3-minute love songs with predictable chord progressions. While other types of songs and music are also produced, record labels hardly invest in non-proven formulas. 

The free market is dominated by major labels, which act as modern gatekeepers of Music. Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner control over 70% of the global music market today. They decide which artists are signed, what genres are promoted, who get the radio time and PR budgets. Unless a music production or song gets “viral” which is designed by an algorithm that very few of us actually understand since its mostly curated by AI or the corporate staff, independent or ‘free’ voices get drowned in this ‘Free’ Market. Streaming services such as Spotify pay artists $0.003–$0.005 per stream, forcing artists to shorten songs and release singles instead of albums. 

Well, if the free market isn’t free, what is? If capitalism doesn’t work, surely socialism or communism does. Well, yes and no. In theory, leftism is perfect in every given way. But in practice, ah well. 

In theory under Marxism, music is not sold for profit but is created as a social good, freely shared and accessed by all. With Universal Access to Music Creation, everyone, regardless of class has instruments, recording tools, education and performance spaces. Music is a form of unalienated labour since work is no exploitative but fulfilling under marxism.

However the reality, as we saw in the Soviet Union and see in China, was far away from theory. The states both became centralized and authoritarian. China’s communism was less about the removal of class and more about a sense of hypernationalism through authoritarianism. While communism meant allocating the resources of the country equally such that all needs of the population were met and inequality was eliminated, the state took absolute control over all goods, services, land and property of the country. The state decided Who could compose or perform, what styles were allowed and what messages were permitted. I have discussed the Soviet censorship of music in Symphony of Censorship, do click on this link if you would like to read more. 

Thus Music was never free. In the Soviet ‘Communist’ model, we find no Marxist utopia being achieved. Artistic autonomy was absent and music was completely tied to state ideology and propaganda. While the Free market commodified version of music does seem much better to us, it really is not ‘free’ and nearly as expressive as we think it is. Moreover what we saw in the past, with the Church’s strict control over the music produced, shows us the clear pattern that music was and is always controlled and moderated. Never for the benefit of the masses, but only the few in charge. Ever since Music was commodified, it became a ‘tool’ for every form of institution or government or Monopoly/Oligopoly in charge to propagate their own ideology. Yes music has also been used as a form of rebellion but that has always been subdued because every authority is well aware of the incredible power held by this form of expression. While theoretically almost anything is possible and everything is perfect, reality is quite disappointing.