In our daily lives, music, from the most popular to the most esoteric, reflects, rocks, imagines, stimulates, sooths, swings, provokes, calms, informs, seduces and instigates, and much else. It is knitted into a broad range of common activities, as it is also developed in refined practices. Its social significance and political meaning are rich and varied. Starting today, we will consider music as it informs critical reflection. First, Daniel Goode on the status of new music, then, Lisa Aslanian on the politics of rap, and then more tomorrow and in future weeks. -Jeff

The Stone is a cramped, windowless, airless, former storefront on a Lower Eastside corner in New York without public transit nearby, secured for the new music community, by composer/entrepreneur, John Zorn. A piano (not always in top order), a polite young man to take your ten dollars, some unidentified jazz greats and others in 60 black and white photos on one wall, a john through the stage area, a committed audience of friends and associates of the artists, and recently: notice of some concerts by the New Yorker, The New York Times, and, I’ve been told, The Village Voice. The composer or performer does their own publicity with no mailing list from the Stone—though its website has the full schedule. The composer/performer takes the entire gate, which at ten dollars a pop multiplied by the randomness of attendance scarcely helps the composer/performer hire associate musicians, pay cartage, transportation or any of the usual New York costs for what one needs to put on a show.

Ah, remember those romantic former industrial spaces called lofts with their various but always capacious acoustics and interesting visual aspects? Remember how you could set up the seating from floor, cushion, or chair in interesting ways that made the space lively and part of the performance itself? Remember that some lofts were already galleries with an infrastructure suitable for concert use? And a mailing list of significant lovers of the arts? Or just lovers! Remember that one of these spaces was called “The Kitchen” on the second floor at 484 Broome Street, with poetic noises outside of trucks over potholes and over metal plates covering potholes? And with not only an elaborate printed schedule, press releases and printed programs and bios, but also a budget with money for yourself and to hire a reasonable number of other performers? And a recording engineer with a tape for YOU at the end of the run, which might be more than one day. And even sometimes a Times reviewer officially slumming; certainly a fabulous reviewer from the Voice (no longer such a reviewer, not even online).

And the music at the Stone? First rate, which only proves my point: We’ve been demoted.