Carsomnambula
Jerry L Young
Suzanne K. Langer (skla...@deadthinkers.radcliffe.edu) weighed in on whether
Dolores O'Riordan's hiccup is the direction in which all vocal arts will
proceed, but in a cryptic way that seems to sidestep the issue with
impressive but contextually irrelvant philisophizing.
> "A subject which has emotional meaning for the artist may thereby
>rivet his attention and cause him to see its form with a discerning,
>active eye, and keep that form present in his excited imagination
>until its highest reaches of significance are evident to him; then he
>will have, and will paint, an original conception of it...Not the
>importance of theme, nor the accuracy of its depiction, nor the
>fantasies stirred in the beholder, make a work of art significant,
>but the articulation of visual forms which Hoeslin would call its
>'melody.'...We cannot conceive significant form ex nihilo; we can
>only find it, and create something in its image; but because man has
>seen the 'significant form' of the thing he copies, he will copy it
>with that emphasis, not by measure, but by the selective,
>interpretive power of his intelligent eye." (page 251)
And Carson interjects
> She referrs to the "melody" of visual art because music is a
>purely abstract art,
So this is where Carson got that "customized-for-private-use" definition of
melody he threw around here as if it were common currency a couple of weeks
ago.
At least, Ms. Langer puts the word in quotes, and tells us "Hoeslin would
call its melody," instead of just using the word, not telling us of the
tooth-breaking semantic surprise she snuck inside -- and then telling us we
are stupid when we bite down into the word and find that it was used to mean
what Carson says Suzanne says Hoeslin used it to mean.
That aside, test your sentence. You are a smart guy. She doesn't really
_use_ the word melody in this way -- at least in this paragraph. She says
that someone else did, and when you say "She refers to the `melody' of visual
art because music is a purely abstract art" do you really think the word
"melody" is used in this way because "Music is an abstract art?" Even if you
want to assume that it truly is (and I will grant you that it is unable to
depict with as little effort as painting can) does music's arguable
"abstractness" necessarily motivate the use of the word melodic?
>as she says: music has very few natural models.
>Bird songs, cries, whistles, traditional cattle-calls...even the
>intonations of the human voice...are indefinite, elusive and hard to
>hold in memory as precise forms."
I strongly disagree with this statement. As regards intonation of speech:
Play in your head, if you will, the sound of John F. Kennedy advising us to
"Ask not what your country can do for you..." and you will find the
inflection, pauses, etc, of that quite intact. You can even take the words
away and recreate the inflection. You are a smart guy, so I know you can do
it -- pick you own favorite speech or limerick or haiku.
Of course there are a million examples, some of which are richer yet with
respect to form. Take for example the inflection of the CNN Headline
newscasters as the give outline the top stories, lead into a sotry, lead into
a commercial and end up the half hour.
Or take the stresses in the voice of a teacher, or minister, or the
stewardess who demonstrates the flotation devices and oxygen masks and tells
us to be sure that our trays are in the upright and locked position, or the
person who dish out the food at a cafeteria. All of these are very
distinctive and I would say that the intonation is quite memorable and in
many of these cases the intonation is subordinate to a much larger form, in
much the same way that you can spot where you are by the tonal relationships,
rhythms, dynamics contrapuntal density, etc. in a Haydn Symphony. And these
are certainly not forms at which we arrive _ex nihilo_.
Such use of intonation is quite distinctive and I would say quite easy to
bring to the mind. It just so happens that music is not generally made of
this in our cultures -- but it is in others. And these are things that you
wouldn't say that you "pay attention" to. But there they are -- forms, by
golly -- of a sort we don't often identify and articulate, but which
nevertheless we all to varying extents recognize and respond to. And
moreover can relate to forms from other artistic disciplines.
As to bird sounds I would say that there are many that people recognize (and
by that i don't necessarily mean to suggest that they can identify a
particular call as that of say turdus migratorius), but there are connections
of a great variety of strengths and richness. And I can name for you a goodly
number of pieces that exploit both the songs of the birds and the richness of
that varying perspective.
>Music has no subject, and
>therefore it is more elemental than visual art, among art's various
>realms. (all this on page 253)
Jackson Pollock, Rothko, Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann, and lots of ancient
non-western etcetras typically made no attempt to be representational either.
Does that then make their paintings less elemental say than Debussy's _La
Mer_, whose subject is the sea? Or Messiaen's _Oiseaux Exotiques_ a subject
of which is birdsong?
Carson Utz continued
> The meaning of a song would only apply to one that has words--the
>consideration goes further than that.
Firstly, I would say that when one says "song," conventions and language
would generally dictate that we mean a kind of sung music. Sing a song --
there is a connection there that should not be lost. I want to think that
this is an aside, but since it is a bit of confusion that lies cricitally
close to the heart of the matter, i felt it was worth clarifying.
So for the sake of the point I wish to make, let's assume that by retaining
your word "song" that we are referring to more than just say Mendelssohn's
"Songs Without Words," and that song could include other things, such as say
instrumental favorites such as "Tijuana Taxi," "Linus and Lucy," "Pipeline"
and Bruckner's 7th Symphony.
There is plenty of instrumental music that is charged with little symbols --
some of which are fairly inscrutable (take the personal allusions in Berg's
Violin Concerto), some are generally identifiable -- if not known to us
before they are defined by the composer (take Wagner's leitmotiv's
[pleased]), some gain meaning after the fact (Beethoven's "Fate Knocking
theme, which also came to mean V for victory), and some of them are designed
for that purpose (bugle calls) and some some of those bits of musical code
accumulate even greater significance (Taps). And there are some pieces that
take advantage of the meaning that we as a culture have assigned to these
musical ideas -- some of which are as small as Taps and some of which are as
large and encompassing as a form itself (a great deal of music by Ives and
Luciano Berio for example).
And what about when a song with words is played with an instrument rather
than a singer? This is done all the time in movies, in opera, and just out on
the street. The full significance of "Sheep May Safely Graze" played at the
OK City Memorial service would have not been apparent to those who might have
been unfamiliar with it and heard it played, not sung, but that makes the
significance no less real than a word for which one does not know the
definition.
>It's not a question of
>discovering the meaning, it's a question of whether the meaning has
>"significant form." And you don't have to analyze, if you are
>struck by a piece of art, then its probably done its job.
This statement seems that you have snuck out through a trap door. People are
struck by all sorts of things in the arts, you are saying here that after
all, if the listener finds beauty in something, then art, having done its job
-probably-, can just pack its valise and go slurp down a few Miller Lites.
Art needs only to "strike" us -- treading mighty close to Langer's 3rd
fallacy.
> Philosophical analysis of music has nothing to do with the words.
Are you saying, Herr Doktor Utz, that the words and the music live in
parallel
worlds? To say that philosophical analysis of music has nothing to do with
the
words sound like, as you said once wrt to melody, "a stupid thing to say,
especially on a music list." The words drive the music in so much music (Take
a
Schubert or Schumann song cycle or a Monteverdi madrigal or a Puccini opera.
or Wagner -- just at the tip of the iceberg. If you ignore the roots that
music has in words, then your philsophizing tool is apt to fail to detect
some pretty critical evidence..
>Artistic philosophy _can_ apply to the words, but you pursue them
>more in the way you would pursue poetry, and then secondarily in the
>way that they relate to the music.
There are too many examples of the sound of the poetry being a part of the
music to make such a generalization. Especially pieces where the text is
narrated -- Debussy's _Chansons de Bilitis_ for an example.
But I'd love for you to provide an example of how you do this. Especially
with something where the music and words are so tightly bound. Or in a
musical work that has signifying elements that are not words -- for example
pieces in which form itself carries a meaning beyond itself (take the role of
the fugue in the hurricane scene Kurt Weill's Mahagonny, or in Ives' Fourth
Symphony, or in lots of late Beethoven.)
>Instrumental music is of primary
>concern in the significant form analysis as it is abstract and pure
>in that sense.
More or less abstract and pure than say a painting by Helen Frankenthaler or
a
sculpture by Arp?
Carson quotes an earlier post by S Langer.
> Which leads me to the next issue, which is the 3 errors in
>judging art over which I got myself in a lot of trouble earlier. So
>I'll let Langer speak there as well:
>
> 1) "The first naive comment is always apt to be that the picture
> is, or is not, quite accurate..." This "first demands that
> the artist be primarily interested in the object - as a
> storekeeper might be, who was interested in his stock."
>
> 2) "Next, that the subject is or is not worthy of being
> represented...." This "concerns the object, not in relation
> to the picture...but in relation to everything else in the
> world but the picture."
>
> 3) "The third treats the picture in what is really an "aesthetic"
> capacity - its ability to exite or smooth our senses, to
> effect either annoyance or repose, as the colours of the
> living room do; or if the pleasure derives from the theme
> of the picture...it is expected to stimulate the imagination
> in agreeable ways."
I would say, man, that there is a more fundamiental fallacy to which these
statements fall prey -- and that is that the paintings need to be explicitly
representational. And yet another when you say that only the third applies
to music, because music is nonrepresentational. Some is and some isn't. And
surely, if there is a doorway between music and visual art through which you
let such words as "melody" pass to support a notion regarding visual forms,
that same doorway can stand the traffic that allows us to recognize that
music can be representational.
> If you told Michaelangelo that you you gained
>pleasure from looking at all of those souls being tortured in Hell, I
>willing to bet he'd either laugh at you or (knowing him) sandblast
>the thing and start over.
Wow! We have had folks drop names of people they knew on this list (I myself
rode on Crash Corrigan's horse), but we have never had anyone who knew
Michelangelo. I've always heard that he appears a lot taller when you see him
up close (but that his legs are less exaggerated than his head and
shoulders).
I have a friend who as a teenager checked out a book of Michelangelo. His
grandfather asked him what this stuff was, and he explained that it was
paintings and sculptures by the Italian master, Michelangelo. His grandfather
offered to pay for my friend to go to Italy to study with him. he should have
done it.
Or maybe the Michelangelo you know is a different one -- maybe you are
talking about some guy you met in a turtle outfit who told you his name is
Michelangelo He's not really -- he is just an actor.
> 30s and 40s swing is not real serious jazz, but it can be fun to
>listen to, and I know a number of singers who love it--I think it was
>a genre that singers could really get into.
Well, I differ with you once again -- are you surprised? I think some of the
richest form we find in jazz came in these three-minute wonders of Duke
Ellington and Count Basie and others that fit onto one side of a 10-inch 78.
Serious jazz -- absolutely. But quite a different thing certainly from the
modern gods -- like John Coltrane and Al DiMeola.
> What about Gershwin, anyone like him? I like Gershwin a lot,
>he's a fantasticly melodic jazz writer.
Fantasitcally melodic? Yes. Jazz? I'm not so comfortable calling it that,
because his broadway tunes, operas, the Three preludes, concertos, etc, are
so much of other traditions as well. -- although that doesn't matter much to
me if you want to call it jazz. But it is interesting to note that his
melodic inspiration, as has been pointed out, comes very much from the Jewish
tradition.
But after this thanksgiving feast, I'm stuffed -- but I still want to hear
how Ms. Langer liked the cranberries.
Jerry
"Rockin' turdus migratorius
Tweet
Deedly dee
Rockin' turdus migratorius"
CUTZ
> > "A subject which has emotional meaning for the artist may thereby
> >rivet his attention and cause him to see its form with a discerning,
> >active eye, and keep that form present in his excited imagination
> >until its highest reaches of significance are evident to him; then he
> >will have, and will paint, an original conception of it...Not the
> >importance of theme, nor the accuracy of its depiction, nor the
> >fantasies stirred in the beholder, make a work of art significant,
> >but the articulation of visual forms which Hoeslin would call its
> >'melody.'...We cannot conceive significant form ex nihilo; we can
> >only find it, and create something in its image; but because man has
> >seen the 'significant form' of the thing he copies, he will copy it
> >with that emphasis, not by measure, but by the selective,
> >interpretive power of his intelligent eye." (page 251)
>
> And Carson interjects
>
> > She referrs to the "melody" of visual art because music is a
> >purely abstract art,
> So this is where Carson got that "customized-for-private-use" definition of
> melody he threw around here as if it were common currency a couple of weeks
> ago.
Now, you must realize that your post is 13, THIRTEEN pages long.
I'm sure that when _you_ have something to say, that's fine. But
I am not keen on inflicting THIRTEEN pages of dense philosophical
material to people. My explanation of how Langer uses melody refers
back to earlier chapters in the book; being that I don't have
THIRTEEN pages to provide you with that background, I summarized.
You know, when you _could_ talk for THIRTEEN pages but you instead say
it in a line or two.
Now, you're a "smart person," how is it that you manage to
comment on my reading of Langer? I guess you must have read the
book. Yes, you must have.
>as she says: music has very few natural models.
> >Bird songs, cries, whistles, traditional cattle-calls...even the
> >intonations of the human voice...are indefinite, elusive and hard to
> >hold in memory as precise forms."
And so you go on for a couple of pages on this. That's all well
and good, but when's the last time you heard a cow burp out a piano
concerto in E minor. You just blasted me for the fact that I should
have known how Langer was using "melody," (which is how I _know_
you've read the book). Now _YOU_ think about what she is talking
about before you inflict us with 5 pages on the matter--reminds me of
that fellow who gets pressed to death in _The Crucible_: "Say you're
a witch, or we'll keep putting fifty pound weights on your chest."
or, in your case: "agree with me or I'll write about nothing for 5
more pages!"
> >Music has no subject, and
> >therefore it is more elemental than visual art, among art's various
> >realms. (all this on page 253)
>
> Jackson Pollock, Rothko, Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann, and lots of ancient
> non-western etcetras typically made no attempt to be representational either.
> Does that then make their paintings less elemental say than Debussy's _La
> Mer_, whose subject is the sea? Or Messiaen's _Oiseaux Exotiques_ a subject
> of which is birdsong?
Indeed. Abstract visual art has many similarities to music. But
in the whole realm of visual art we include representational art, so
visual art as an entity, as a whole, is less elemental as music. I
don't believe I disaggreed, did I? Gee, you should have gotten that
when you read Langer, *which I know you have*.
> Firstly, I would say that when one says "song," conventions and language
> would generally dictate that we mean a kind of sung music. Sing a song --
> there is a connection there that should not be lost. I want to think that
> this is an aside, but since it is a bit of confusion that lies cricitally
> close to the heart of the matter, i felt it was worth clarifying.
> There is plenty of instrumental music that is charged with little symbols --
> some of which are fairly inscrutable (take the personal allusions in Berg's
> Violin Concerto), some are generally identifiable -- if not known to us
> before they are defined by the composer (take Wagner's leitmotiv's
> [pleased]), some gain meaning after the fact (Beethoven's "Fate Knocking
> theme, which also came to mean V for victory), and some of them are designed
> for that purpose (bugle calls) and some some of those bits of musical code
> accumulate even greater significance (Taps). And there are some pieces that
> take advantage of the meaning that we as a culture have assigned to these
> musical ideas -- some of which are as small as Taps and some of which are as
> large and encompassing as a form itself (a great deal of music by Ives and
> Luciano Berio for example).
Bingo. There you have it. Lots of music has symbolic
association applied to it. We all see helicopters when we hear
"Flight of the Valkyrie," but before until _Apocalypse Now_. You can
write a piece about Spring, but it isn't going to sound like Spring.
There is no representation, my friend.
And darn it, you got me on the definition of song. I should have
said "composition" or something. Sorry, I deserved 8 pages for that,
you're right.
> I would say, man, that there is a more fundamiental fallacy to which these
> statements fall prey -- and that is that the paintings need to be explicitly
> representational. And yet another when you say that only the third applies
> to music, because music is nonrepresentational. Some is and some isn't. And
You could probably put a buch of bird calls or sychronized burps
together and call it music, but I'm afraid it's not representational.
That's just not valid.
> surely, if there is a doorway between music and visual art through which you
> let such words as "melody" pass to support a notion regarding visual forms,
> that same doorway can stand the traffic that allows us to recognize that
> music can be representational.
> Wow! We have had folks drop names of people they knew on this list (I myself
> rode on Crash Corrigan's horse), but we have never had anyone who knew
> Michelangelo. I've always heard that he appears a lot taller when you see him
> up close (but that his legs are less exaggerated than his head and
> shoulders).
Now you're making sense. And being constructive. What a guy!
If anyone else knows what the hell that all means, please tell me.
> > What about Gershwin, anyone like him? I like Gershwin a lot,
> >he's a fantasticly melodic jazz writer.
> Fantasitcally melodic? Yes. Jazz? I'm not so comfortable calling it that,
> because his broadway tunes, operas, the Three preludes, concertos, etc, are
> so much of other traditions as well. -- although that doesn't matter much to
> me if you want to call it jazz. But it is interesting to note that his
> melodic inspiration, as has been pointed out, comes very much from the Jewish
> tradition.
And now we're on to Gershwin. I think it's great how you brought
him up. I don't know though, maybe fifty pages of "All work and no
play makes Jack a dull boy" would have made better bondo for the
cracks your filling. 'Course, we don't need you streaking though a
hotel with a splitting maul, so I guess Gershwin works as well as
anything else.
And the Cranberries, I love how you keep bringing up the
Cranberries. I love them, oh, yes I do. But I don't see where they
or Gershwin have anything to do with the Langer manifesto. This post
has evolved a wee bit past that, in case you hadn't noticed.
You've officially redifined my own concept of how brave a person
can be. You've publically farted for THIRTEEN pages about nothing.
If you like, we could get you on the air maybe. Live via satelite
complaining about how David Hasselhoff said "I have acting inbred in
me" when he meant "inborn." You must have started all of those Dan
Quale Potato(e) jokes too, huh.
How old are you anyway? You fart a lot like a college freshman.
Are you? I swear I heard something similar to this from one of the
freshmen for whom I do remedial English tutoring.
I wasn't expecting too many arguements against the Langer quotes,
because she's got her arguement walled in well. But I forget
how people around have to make extremely witty cracks and jokes over
everything they read on this list. You can't argue with Langer so
you go for me! You even bring up old quotes of mine and thinks I've
said on other strains. That Gershwin thing was a riot. That was the
icing on the cake--the copper jacket on the bullet.
I thank you for your attention. I don't generally read the name
of who made a post, I just respond. But you should start the fan
club on me! You called up a quote from several weeks ago. You know
my work so well! I feel great to be loved. You must have an
archives going.
I complained about how rude folks are on here a while back. But
I'm starting to understand. Some people, such as this bloke, are so
absurd that they are their own counter-arguement. But it's hard not
to get ticked off at the root you stub your toe on:
It's mindless but you kick back it anyway.
Carson