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kkissinger
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 Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:48 pm Post subject:
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| seraph wrote: | few days before the final exam the teacher asks questions to see if we are ready for it. he asks a clarinet player which is the closest key to C major and he nonchalantly answers: "C# major" 
maybe these 2 things are both "common practice"  |
Jeez... how could he miss THAT question. Everyone knows the answer would be B# major. |
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bachus
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:49 pm Post subject:
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| kkissinger wrote: |
Jeez... how could he miss THAT question. Everyone knows the answer would be B# major. |
Oh good answer! 
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seraph
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:28 pm Post subject:
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| bachus wrote: |
For sure. it's called being a smart ass. |
gee...smart ass galore around here 
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| Quote: | | Don't die with your music still in you - Wayne Dyer |
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sebber
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:54 am Post subject:
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Sorry I sneaked out of this discussion after posting a semi-demi-flame. In I put Britten in his time frame and still the same result here  . And hey - how on earth can you link Adorno and Benjamin to the very first text? I think your argumentation took a full U-turn here, those guys would never subscribe to it.
Finally I just wanted to say that "intellectualism" is often used for music one doesn't like. But as you stated yourselves, some of the most sophisticated music is in concept and in the way it was composed (including Beethoven), totally intellectual. What I mean is: I think "intellectualism" is just the wrong word. If it doesn't appeal to you, I'd suppose "boring" would be a better word.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:54 am Post subject:
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| sebber wrote: | | And hey - how on earth can you link Adorno and Benjamin to the very first text? I think your argumentation took a full U-turn here, those guys would never subscribe to it. |
A challenge. Keep working on it.
Anyways, it is obvious that my own argumentation doesn´t directly build on Benjamin and Adorno.
I have mainly claimed that the "die you filthy highbrow 20th century noisemaking scum" argumentation in the quote way back in the first post in this thread isn´t quite valid. The tuning stuff is OK, I am simply not buying the marketing. Then I have suggested the need for context ( - you might say a modern take on the Jetztzeit ( Walter Benjamin ) when putting a price tag on art like the War Requiem. I tend to think it is not realistic to expect that all art is or should be universally accessible. Art is not Nescafé.
I do see time as an issue here. It is important to understand art within its own Jetztzeit, even though we can in many cases see that a piece ( here I am thinking music ) can be interpreted and performed better over time. Many of the more challenging pieces by Philip Glass are clearly being performed better now.
A diversion: I guess it can also be argued that performing/musically interpreting a piece is a totally different thing compared to actually listening to it.
Let us go back to Britten again. He is a good composer. The war requiem is OK. Personally I think something like Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg is a far more interesting piece musically, but then this is not what Britten wanted to make.
Another diversion: It is quite OK to dislike a piece of music, but at some point, when it becomes obvious that there is a system to the madness, why not try to approach the artwork as you would a novel or a painting? Ask: What is going on here and why? Who is this made for?
In some cases it soon becomes obvious that the audience the artist made the art for is as dead as the artist. That is why we have art museums.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:06 pm Post subject:
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OK.. well..
If a performance artist shoves this thing up his/hers ass, then we are looking at performance art.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:
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Anyways, not clearly stated but highly visible in my posts, both in this thread and the L'art pour l'art thread, is that I think a fairly solid understanding of the phenomenological outlook on things in the early 20th century as well as the real radicalism of all things romanticism ( which again leads to the psycho-physiology of Wilhelm Wundt , Ernst Machs and others ), as well the Freud and Marx influences are all pretty important. I could of course make a far longer list.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:54 pm Post subject:
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Also obvious is the fact that I am not arguing for an emotivist understanding of art. That said, I do think that it is important to understand emotivist theory in order to fully understand and appreciate some art. Some music and other art is brimful of the emotivist approach to arousal and expressiveness.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:01 pm Post subject:
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| seraph wrote: | | bachus wrote: |
For sure. it's called being a smart ass. |
gee...smart ass galore around here |
Well.. we better get back to the scientific outlook then
Art is a risky business.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:02 pm Post subject:
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OK, we can make yet another stab at this:
The quote yet again:
| Quote: | Initially, the effect of equal temperament on Western music was probably beneficial. Composers obtained the ability to modulate freely and to build complex chromatic harmonies that had been impossible under the meantone system. As a result, abstract instrumental music flourished as never before, yielding what is generally considered the "golden age" of Western music. Like a plant stimulated by chemical fertilizers and growth hormones, music based on equal temperament grew rapidly and luxuriously for a short period—then collapsed. If equal temperament played a prominent role in stimulating the growth of harmonic music in the common-practice era, it played an equally large part in its rapid demise as a vital compositional style. Twelve-tone equal temperament is a limited and closed system. Once you have modulated around the so-called circle of fifths, through its twelve major and twelve minor keys, and once you have stacked up every combination of tones that can reasonably be considered a chord, there is nowhere left to go in search of new resources.
This is essentially where Western composers found themselves at the beginning of the twentieth century. Everything that could be done with the equally tempered scale and the principles of tonal harmony had been tried, and the system was breaking down. This situation led many composers to the erroneous conclusion that consonance, tonality, and even pitch had been exhausted as organizing principles. What was really exhausted was merely the very limited resources of the tempered scale. By substituting twelve equally spaced tones for a vast universe of subtle intervallic relationships, the composers and theorists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries effectively painted Western music into a corner from which it has not, as yet, extricated itself. Twentieth century composers have tried in vain to invent or discover new organizing principles as powerful as the common-practice tonal system. Instead, they have created a variety of essentially arbitrary systems, which, although they may seem reasonable in the minds of their creators, fail to take into account the capabilities and limitations of the human auditory system. These systems have resulted in music that the great majority of the population find incomprehensible and unlistenable. |
I stated:
| Quote: | | ..this is yet again a discussion of aestethics and a critique of the naugthy noisemakers of the 20th century |
And it is.
The text pretty much dismisses a whole chunk of art, or meaningful content if you will, for the absolutely wrong reasons.
Consider the same mindset applied on various early 20th century art movements and artworks ( not music this time).
Does it seriously make any sense at all to understand something like Red Square by Malevich using the same reasoning? Of course it doesn´t. As for Malevich, keep in mind his entertaining On New Systems in Art.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:13 pm Post subject:
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yeah yeah... I know..
Here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevich
A challenge: You better find his cute text yourself
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:30 pm Post subject:
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It should also be obvious that the reason I am discussing this is that we, as musicians and composers, should not in any way accept such silly restraints as those put forward in this text. We are not art critics or mindless curators. We are supposed to be the ones who set the agenda.
Just for the record, the tuning stuff itself is just fine with me.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:56 pm Post subject:
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I gotta have my fuses checked. To be fair, the full text at http://www.justintonation.net/primer2.html is interesting and it is indeed recommended reading.
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bachus
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:35 pm Post subject:
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| elektro80 wrote: | | ...as musicians and composers, should not in any way accept such silly restraints as those put forward in this text. We are not art critics or mindless curators. We are supposed to be the ones who set the agenda. ... . |
At last, something I can understand Right on!
As for the rest I tried to make a studied trail,
Nunc Stans to Jetztzeit
Emotivism, to Malevich,
But to no avail all ended at the Donkey's Tail,
No wiser I sir,
just more confused.
Apologies to all.
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bachus
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:48 pm Post subject:
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| sebber wrote: | | some of the most sophisticated music is in concept and in the way it was composed (including Beethoven), totally intellectual. |
And sure no semi-demi-hemi flame intended but I truly do not understand what you mean by that and wonder what your meaning might imply about the role of salience in the composers thinking.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:58 pm Post subject:
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| bachus wrote: | As for the rest I tried to make a studied trail,
Nunc Stans to Jetztzeit
Emotivism, to Malevich,
But to no avail all ended at the Donkey's Tail,
No wiser I sir,
just more confused.
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Well, I guess this is a bit like math. You gotta break the "code" and discover what it really is about. Surfing a textbook at random won´t be of much help.
If you are not familiar with the basics in modern art history and philosophy then all this is not really making much sense. I can see that. It is complex.
Try look at this another way; it is about people ( or donkeys if you will )
I have mentioned Benjamin a couple of times already. This is the life of Walter Benjamin: http://www.iwbg.uni-duesseldorf.de/Walter_Benjamin_English
There is something called the Internationale Walter Benjamin Gesellschaft. It is supposed to:
to elicit interdisciplinary dialog on Benjamin’s works, their reception and their validity today
to trace the changing role of the individual in society, especially the intellectual, in order to reflect critically on future concepts
to research the interrelationship of history, memory and cultural traditions as mirrored in their social and political evolution
the shed light upon the past and present of exile and emigration, including the social and political function of old and new borders
to analyze the development of art and culture within the global media network
to document the social and economic effects of differing access to information flow and information technology
to foster discussion on basic political questions.
Much on this list is actually also a list of hints of what to look for when reading his texts.
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bachus
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 6:43 pm Post subject:
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| elektro80 wrote: | Well, I guess this is a bit like math. You gotta break the "code" and discover what it really is about. Surfing a textbook at random won´t be of much help.
...
Try look at this another way; it is about people |
Yea lack of exposure is one problem for sure, the second is more serious, I’m severely misanthropic. I have no understanding of people and in general terms I don’t like ‘em or even like to read about ‘em—really and truly. I just can’t relate except through music.
Look at it this way, everyone can’t be well balanced, someone’s got to out on the fringe of the bell curve. And that’s my job.
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seraph
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:40 pm Post subject:
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| elektro80 wrote: |
The quote yet again
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I posted it once, you twice are you trying to steal my show  
the reason I posted it, on the first place (not second or third  ), was to see the reactions to this controversial statement and they came copiously. so, I am glad I posted it (and Stein too, I guess).
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seraph
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:42 pm Post subject:
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I'm glad you read it
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seraph
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:46 pm Post subject:
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| bachus wrote: | I just can’t relate except through music.
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who wrote all your messages I'm sorry to disappoint you but if you spend time with us you can't possibly be too misanthropic
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elektro80
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| Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:05 am Post subject:
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| seraph wrote: |
I'm glad you read it |
yeah yeah, I always read stuff.
It was a nice choice you made when quoting from the text. We picked up the scent too.
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seraph
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| Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:08 am Post subject:
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| elektro80 wrote: |
It was a nice choice you made when quoting from the text. We picked up the scent too. |
it was the portion that could more easily get attention, and it did
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sebber
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| Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:51 am Post subject:
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| bachus wrote: | | sebber wrote: | | some of the most sophisticated music is in concept and in the way it was composed (including Beethoven), totally intellectual. |
but I truly do not understand what you mean by that and wonder what your meaning might imply about the role of salience in the composers thinking. |
You might want to find out how classical and most modern composers work. They don't sit on a piano and improvise and when they have a good idea they write it down and bang - a 40 minute piece is done. Most of the time a composer sits at a desk with a pencil, not imagining but simply working, because he/she outlined the piece and probably found a good beginning and then the next five minutes of music (that might well be about a month of scribbling notes if we talk about a big and dense orchestra score) are "logically evolving" from that outline and that start. Since you quoted Beethoven: he's the master of making whole symphonies out of a little 3-5 tone nutshell (that's not even the whole thema, that's just tahtahtah-dah). And since you mentioned Bach: well, you can hear the theme he made the whole "Art of the fugue" of. That's ourely intellectual work, on a desk, with a pencil or a pen and has nothing to with the romantic picture of a composer scribbling wildly away at a piano. Writing music is just too slow to work that way.
electro, I get your point. Time doesn't allow me to delve deeper, so let me say "Thanks" for a good conversation.
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elektro80
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| Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:56 am Post subject:
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| sebber wrote: | | Writing music is just too slow to work that way. |
Aha! This is the smoking gun!
I guess we should tell Henry Ford to figure out a smarter way.
Wait, Henry Ford is dead!
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seraph
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| Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 5:08 am Post subject:
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| elektro80 wrote: |
Wait, Henry Ford is dead! |
Henry Mancini too 
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