Baroque People and Music

I truly believe that deep within human nature people are people no matter what time era or geographical location. I think people are needy, humble, greedy, giving, caring, creative, selfish, destructive, scared and courageous all at the same time. People will test their limits and get by with what they can get by with given their limitations in terms of social life and home life.

For instance, the musicians of the Baroque period (whether they were Protestant in England or Catholic in Italy) wanted to express themselves with their work and musical abilities. However, they did this with limitations on composition and they were also basically musicians just to fill a need in their communities. The need for their community was for court, church, or some other form of occupation for their town or village. In order to be a musician in the Baroque period one had to learn it by either being a choir boy, an apprentice who did odd jobs or it was learned from father to son.

I feel that the roles and social attitudes of the musicians today are actually quite similar as in the Baroque period.

One could choose to equate The Beatles with Bach or even Handel with Garth Brooks. Certainly the music is completely different - the style, form, texture, etc... Though, the roles are the same. The role is filling a need for a particular niche. In the Baroque period, the niche was aristocracy or the church, and demand for music. Today the niche is millions of die hard fans, and an entertainment industry thirsty for money and music. And the contributing push to both roles is money - it was a job in the Baroque period, such as it is a job today. The role is still a job for the people who demand their style of entertainment.

The social attitudes are even similar. Certainly the social times were much different given the monetary situations, the fact that people were severely segregated on the basis of money for one example. And naturally the details of social attitude among humans are varied and wide, but the larger picture of social attitude is what people want or like at any given time. Musicians / composers in general in any era compose and play for favor or attention. They base their work from what they are interested in or in what they believe. In the Baroque period, Bach wrote for favor and attention, bands of today also write for attention and for favor of their fans. The social attitude of Bach favored the church. When he died, he was in possession of many different types of musical instruments and 52 church manuscripts / booklets. This shows his interest in the church, and therefore the church is for what his compositions were mainly composed. Today’s musicians compose for what they believe in as well. We have many different types of bands from classical to hard rap and they all write for what they are most interested. Social attitudes of musicians today reflect in their music, such as the social attitudes of musicians in the Baroque period are reflected in their works. It is, in a way, a simplified and remarkably similar version of supply and demand. The people of the Baroque period and the people of today all wanted the same thing – pleasing musical entertainment. If an item or thing (such as music) is widely appreciated and accepted it then becomes a social attitude. The only difference I can think of between the social attitudes of today’s musicians and the attitude of the Baroque musicians is based on liberation and censorship. Again, people test limits and in the Baroque period they got by with impressing kings and therefore were limited to trying to win favor. Today musicians get by with cuss words in the middle of the afternoon on satellite radio.

The economic situations are, however, not as similar between the Baroque period and today. There was much more economic pressure in the Baroque period than there is today on musicians. Today, struggling musicians are considered fancy-free in their thinking by a majority of people - usually people with absolutely no music appreciation, in my opinion. Good (“good” being defined here as the most popular on the Billboard Charts of any given genre) musicians are considered pop stars and make excessive amounts of money due to the entertainment business. In the Baroque period, music was an art form that children were conditioned for in order to procure employment. Once employed, these composers / musicians still had to be frugal with their money pending hard times. Our ruling systems are different now, without absolute and intolerant kings in the majority. This change has occurred through many years of different types of rebellion and reform. So this, in turn, has lightened the load on many musicians or composers of today’s time.

People are people no matter where they come from or where they end. People are conditioned by time, social reform and many different other elements in their society and, on another degree, their home life (upbringing). But if you take away religion and shoddy opinion, people are still people and we are still the same. I believe any changes that have occurred in economic pressure, role or social attitude are directly related to religion and the generalization of society becoming more socially liberated and liberal in their thinking due to social reform and education.