The leaky pen syndrome
Brudearg
On Aug 17, 1996 13:19:58 in article <Re: Hatred of Composers (was:
Mathematically organized music (Was: atonal))>,
'm_si...@postoffice.sandybay.utas.edu.au (Ben Sibson)' wrote:
>In article <4upnjk$a...@news1.t1.usa.pipeline.com>,
>aug...@nyc.pipeline.com(Brudearg) wrote:
>> The vast majority of people who like music hate atonal "music". Just
>> because something
>> is supposedly a "new idea" doesn't make it valid. It's ugly, expresses
>> nothing but chaos,
>> has absolutely no value at all. There are parallels in other arts to
>> this : witness the dead
>> end of nonrepresentational art (where all "new" art has to be
>> nonrepresentational or it isn't
>> considered "new" or "art") and the dead end of "modern" architecture
that
>> was responsible
>> for creating cities consisting of nothing more than cold glass boxes.
>>
>> Augie
>Yes, a lovely airing of completely unprovable statements and personal
>opinion that adds nothing whatsoever to the general discussion. Please:
You mean any statements of yours are both "provable" and *not* "personal
opinion"?
>1) define what *you* mean by atonal music.
Not based on the Western scales of music (any of them!) and sounding
seemingly arbitrary. It's like someone took a leaky pen and threw it at
the blank paper and where the dots of ink landed, that's where the
"composer"'s music lay ... after this, what do we do to improve upon it ?
We can't have melody, too old fashioned, and now for the future all there
can be is arbitrariness.
This is a dead end.
>2) provide evidence for the statement "The vast majority of people who
>like music hate atonal "music"", with particular justification for
>use of the term "hate".
Look it up : any dictionary is a good starting point ...
>3) While you are at it, define what you mean by "music".
Obviously, to you, any sound at all classifies as music ...
>4) I presume the statement "It's ugly, expresses nothing but chaos, has
>absolutely no value at all" is personal opinion and nothing more, and so
>have no problem with it at all. But realise that for other people, there
>is much (and I'm not saying all) music that does not subscribe to
>traditional western concepts of pitch heirarchy and harmonic structure
>which could be considered the antithesis of every part of this statement.
Yes, but just because it exists and some people profess to "appreciate" it
doesn't make it music. What we get with "pitch" and "harmonic structure"
can be melody, and traditionally in the West, it has been. Don't I have
the right to say that non-melodic "music" isn't music at all?
Ah, The Emperor's New Clothes ...
>5) explain how non-representational visual art and "modern" architecture
>relates to your definition of atonal music.
All arts relate to each other at any particular time. In a time of
meaningless chaos and low appreciation of the arts, then the "glass boxes"
we work in and the miserable blotches that "decorate" the walls of the
interiors of those boxes AND the noises that emanate from the radios on the
desks in those soulless glass boxes' interiors .. they all relate to each
other !!
In Anthropology we used to call that "a culture complex" ...
And these are more dead-ends : representational art is old fashioned and
there is nowhere to go but blotches and red stripes on a yellow background
or incised lines on blue (for example) and architecture has to be glassy
and square and squat and geometric ... it seems like we have come to the
end of art .. and even if you tell me that that's been said before in all
periods, maybe we have *actually* come to the end of art ..
>6) state what is required to attain validity in any art form.
Do YOU know the answer? It sounds like you think you do ...
>On a personal note, I actually do not like to listen to a lot of 20th
>Century music which would fall into the common perception category of
>"atonal music". I even think (note:personal opinion) that some of it is
>unmitigated crap.
*Anything* that anyone states is a personal opinion, and that's so obvious
I thought it never had to be restated on any newsgroup.
>And then there are other works in the "atonal" box which I find
>staggeringly beautiful, that speak in a very powerful and personal way to
>me, and that I hold very dear to my heart.
What about music that is the same to me, but has been roundly reviled by
"modernists"?
Among (many) other types of music, I find a lot of Viennese operetta
"staggeringly beautiful, speak(s) in a very powerful and personal way to
me, and I hold it very dear to my heart" -- sorry for my old fashioned "bad
taste" ....
>As a composer, if even one person came up to me after a performance of
>a new "atonal" work and said something even remotely approaching what I
>have said above, I would very much consider the work valid. And this has
happened.
You mean you can't judge value on your own, you need "outside" validation?
Ummmmm, that's very interesting ..... I have come to my conclusions without
any help from anyone else ..
>Note: the definition of "atonal" that I am using is " music that does not
>subscribe to traditional western concepts of pitch heirarchy and harmonic
>structure." It's a poor definition, but I'm sure somebody has a better
one.
See leaky pen above.
>M.B.Sibson, Composer and Percussionist
>c/o Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music
>GPO Box 252C Hobart Tasmania 7001 Australia
>email m_si...@postoffice.sandybay.utas.edu.au
Ah, percussion, how DO you stay on pitch (I know, I know, there's pitch in
percussion too, but I couldn't resist saying it !!)
Do you play any "melody" instruments?
Augie
David Cleary
Brudearg (aug...@nyc.pipeline.com) wrote:
: On Aug 17, 1996 13:19:58 in article <Re: Hatred of Composers (was:
: Mathematically organized music (Was: atonal))>,
: 'm_si...@postoffice.sandybay.utas.edu.au (Ben Sibson)' wrote:
: >In article <4upnjk$a...@news1.t1.usa.pipeline.com>,
: >aug...@nyc.pipeline.com(Brudearg) wrote:
:
: >> The vast majority of people who like music hate atonal "music". Just
: >> because something
: >> is supposedly a "new idea" doesn't make it valid. It's ugly, expresses
: >> nothing but chaos,
: >> has absolutely no value at all. There are parallels in other arts to
: >> this : witness the dead
: >> end of nonrepresentational art (where all "new" art has to be
: >> nonrepresentational or it isn't
: >> considered "new" or "art") and the dead end of "modern" architecture
: that
: >> was responsible
: >> for creating cities consisting of nothing more than cold glass boxes.
: >>
: >> Augie
:
: >Yes, a lovely airing of completely unprovable statements and personal
: >opinion that adds nothing whatsoever to the general discussion. Please:
: You mean any statements of yours are both "provable" and *not* "personal
: opinion"?
From what I've seen so far, he's been asking you to prove *your*
statements. Judging from your reply, you haven't be able to do so.
You're the one who splayed a bunch of opinions on the newsgroup. Ben is
calling you on it. And so am I. Let's have the proof.
: >1) define what *you* mean by atonal music.
: Not based on the Western scales of music (any of them!) and sounding
: seemingly arbitrary.
Must all good music be based on Western scales? If so, why?
Some of the music you descibe controls pitches, rhythms, dynamics, and
other parameters more rigorously than tonal music does. There's little
"arbitrary" about these specific pieces.
This music might also sound "arbitrary" to you because you don't know
enough of it to form an intelligent opinion of it. How much of this music
have you heard, anyway? Give a list of pieces, please.
: It's like someone took a leaky pen and threw it at
: the blank paper and where the dots of ink landed, that's where the
: "composer"'s music lay ... after this, what do we do to improve upon it ?
Who composes music like this? No one I know does. Nor does any composer
whose music I've studied.
: We can't have melody, too old fashioned, and now for the future all there
: can be is arbitrariness.
Are you saying there's no melody in atonal music? I would disagree with
you. There are melodies in Schoenberg's "Book of the Hanging Gardens" and
in Berg's "Wozzeck," for example. I assume you would consider such pieces
to be "atonal."
Are you saying if there's no melody, there's only arbitrariness? If so,
why? For that matter, are you saying that melody is the only important
thing in music?
And who says melody is old-fashioned, anyway? None of the composers I know
say that.
: This is a dead end.
Why? Because you say so? Who has to take your word for it, anyway?
: >2) provide evidence for the statement "The vast majority of people who
: >like music hate atonal "music"", with particular justification for
: >use of the term "hate".
: Look it up : any dictionary is a good starting point ...
You haven't answered the question. If you're going to say that "the vast
majority of people who like music hate atonal music," then you have to
prove it. Take a poll of everyone who likes music and show the results.
And then, prove that this even means anything significant.
: >3) While you are at it, define what you mean by "music".
: Obviously, to you, any sound at all classifies as music ...
No, you assumed that from his question. And you haven't answered his
question, either. One wonders what else you are assuming.
: >4) I presume the statement "It's ugly, expresses nothing but chaos, has
: >absolutely no value at all" is personal opinion and nothing more, and so
: >have no problem with it at all. But realise that for other people, there
: >is much (and I'm not saying all) music that does not subscribe to
: >traditional western concepts of pitch heirarchy and harmonic structure
: >which could be considered the antithesis of every part of this statement.
: Yes, but just because it exists and some people profess to "appreciate" it
: doesn't make it music. What we get with "pitch" and "harmonic structure"
: can be melody, and traditionally in the West, it has been. Don't I have
: the right to say that non-melodic "music" isn't music at all?
No, you don't--at least not until you define "music" and show why atonal
music is "not music." And you haven't done so yet.
: Ah, The Emperor's New Clothes ...
Ah, chutzpah is on the menu this evening, eh? You have no right to accuse
anyone of "The Emperor's New Clothes" until you start showing us *your*
substantial arguments.
: >5) explain how non-representational visual art and "modern" architecture
: >relates to your definition of atonal music.
: All arts relate to each other at any particular time.
Do they? How do they do so? Do they always do so? Do the "Romantic
periods" of literature and music even coincide in time, let alone general
philosophy?
: In a time of
: meaningless chaos and low appreciation of the arts, then the "glass boxes"
: we work in and the miserable blotches that "decorate" the walls of the
: interiors of those boxes AND the noises that emanate from the radios on the
: desks in those soulless glass boxes' interiors .. they all relate to each
: other !!
From your statement, it would seem that a number of people are playing
atonal music on their radios in their offices. Is that true? If so many
people are playing this music on their radios, wouldn't that suggest these
people *like* this music? Who's forcing these people to listen to this
music? Myself, I'm too busy working to listen to music at the office,
sorry to say. Do classical radio stations even play a lot of atonal music?
The ones in the Boston area don't seem to play much at all--in fact, I've
heard many complaints from friends of mine who say that they never play
any.
You also seem to be assuming that a lot of people are working in "glass
boxes" and that the companies that employ them are buying a lot of
abstract art. Is all this true?
And is it true we are living in a time of "meaningless chaos?"
: In Anthropology we used to call that "a culture complex" ...
: And these are more dead-ends : representational art is old fashioned and
: there is nowhere to go but blotches and red stripes on a yellow background
: or incised lines on blue (for example) and architecture has to be glassy
: and square and squat and geometric ... it seems like we have come to the
: end of art .. and even if you tell me that that's been said before in all
: periods, maybe we have *actually* come to the end of art ..
Who says all modern architecture is "glassy and square and squat and
geometric?" (and which architects say it has to be, anyway?) The visual
arts building at Harvard University by Le Corbusier is not glassy, squat,
or square (and whether it's "geometric" or not depends on how you're
defining this term). I would bet you'd consider it to be "modern
architecture," though.
Who said representational art is "old fashioned?" Many excellent painters
whose work I have seen at the arts colonies I've recently attended paint
representational art and do it damned well. Others paint abstract art.
Still others paint art somewhere between these extremes.
Why are these pieces of art, music, and architecture you don't like "dead
ends," anyway? And I really wish you'd get specific with examples within
these art forms--it's really hard to talk meaningfully in such vague
terms.
: >6) state what is required to attain validity in any art form.
: Do YOU know the answer? It sounds like you think you do ...
Whether he knows the answer or not isn't the point. The fact is, *you*
posted your rant and didn't back it up; as a result, the burden of proof
is on you, not him. When you try to wriggle out of getting specific, it
looks like you don't know what you're talking about.
: >On a personal note, I actually do not like to listen to a lot of 20th
: >Century music which would fall into the common perception category of
: >"atonal music". I even think (note:personal opinion) that some of it is
: >unmitigated crap.
: *Anything* that anyone states is a personal opinion, and that's so obvious
: I thought it never had to be restated on any newsgroup.
You just put a period after the word "newsgroup" in the sentence quoted
above. Is the statement I've just made opinion or fact? You tell me. If
it's a fact, then you can't rightly say that "*Anything* that anyone
states is a personal opinion," can you?
Personal opinions in a forum like this only mean anything when you can
back them up convincingly--and you haven't done so. And if you go around
spouting generalities with no proof, no one has to take you seriously.
: >And then there are other works in the "atonal" box which I find
: >staggeringly beautiful, that speak in a very powerful and personal way to
: >me, and that I hold very dear to my heart.
: What about music that is the same to me, but has been roundly reviled by
: "modernists"?
: Among (many) other types of music, I find a lot of Viennese operetta
: "staggeringly beautiful, speak(s) in a very powerful and personal way to
: me, and I hold it very dear to my heart" -- sorry for my old fashioned "bad
: taste" ....
So you're saying that "tit for tat" justifies your argument?
I myself will not take you to task for liking Viennese operetta. This is
not my favorite genre of operetta (there are other operettas I personally
prefer), but the best works in this genre, like Strauss's "Fleidermaus"
(sp?) are works well worth hearing, at least IMHO.
: >As a composer, if even one person came up to me after a performance of
: >a new "atonal" work and said something even remotely approaching what I
: >have said above, I would very much consider the work valid. And this has
: >happened.
: You mean you can't judge value on your own, you need "outside" validation?
: Ummmmm, that's very interesting ..... I have come to my conclusions without
: any help from anyone else ..
I can only speak for myself in this matter. I often hear "atonal" pieces
that I don't like (I also often hear such works that I do, a lot). But I'm
not so presumptuous that I assume my opinion is the only valid one. There
may be people out there who love the piece that I just hated. And that
potentially makes the piece valid for someone, if not for me.
People can also change their minds about music. I didn't "get" Webern's
music at one point. But when I did, it all made glorious sense to me. In a
way, I had to "grow up" to this wonderful music.
Nobody died and appointed me king of musical taste--nor, I'd guess, did
anyone do the same for you.
Dave
Ben Sibson
In article <4v4kdj$q...@news1.t1.usa.pipeline.com>,
aug...@nyc.pipeline.com(Brudearg) wrote:
> You mean any statements of yours are both "provable" and *not* "personal
> opinion"?
>
I like to make a distinction between researched fact and opinion -
thus, comments like "The vast majority of people who like music hate
atonal "music"" which appear to be given as a statemant of fact, should be
qualified as opinion if it is such. As to provable facts, there are a few
coming up later.
> >1) define what *you* mean by atonal music.
> Not based on the Western scales of music (any of them!) and sounding
> seemingly arbitrary. It's like someone took a leaky pen and threw it at
> the blank paper and where the dots of ink landed, that's where the
> "composer"'s music lay ... after this, what do we do to improve upon it ?
> We can't have melody, too old fashioned, and now for the future all there
> can be is arbitrariness.
> This is a dead end.
Ah! Here is one of the problems. What you have described is *Aleatoric*
music, which is written by chance. While I will concede that some atonal
music can sound similar to aleatoric music, there is a great deal which
does have very recognisable structural elements. I'm pretty sure that the
common definition of atonal music is "music which does not have a tonal
centre", which encompasses a great deal more music than perhaps you are
thinking of. It could be argued that the 12 tone scale is now a recognised
western scale of music (but I think this is pedantic). It is also a
provable fact that melody does exist in some atonal music - recognisably
so. For my personal taste, I prefer music that does have this concept of
line in the compositional structure, and agree that music written to
arbitrary principles is a dead end. But even then there is some music,
particularly modern orchestral works, that I have heard which have no
tonal centre and no melody but unfold with a textural and timbral form - I
find some of these pieces beautiful too, but they need to be listened to
from a different perspective with different preconceptions.
>
> >2) provide evidence for the statement "The vast majority of people who
> >like music hate atonal "music"", with particular justification for
> >use of the term "hate".
> Look it up : any dictionary is a good starting point ...
You still didn't provide evidence - because you can't. If you could
convincingly argue that you didn't need to to support your arguments, then
I wouldn't be so pedantic. Nice sarcasm, though.
>
> >3) While you are at it, define what you mean by "music".
> Obviously, to you, any sound at all classifies as music ...
Why so obviously? While I concede that the human mind can construct a
semblance of order out of aurally perceived chaos (and so hear "music" of
a sort in the arbitrary sounds of nature) music *for me* is sound that has
been constructed and ordered in such a way as to make the constructive
elements in the music audible. (although if this is followed logically
then arbitrary compositions qualify, as the constructive element, i.e.
none, will most likely still be heard). There is an advantage in
considering all sound as music in that the next issue, that of what is
*good* music, can instantly be dismissed as personal taste and therefore
both unqualifiable and immune to contradiction.
By the way, I like your method of ignoring the question and turning it
back on me. Very classy. It would still be nice to have an answer though,
even if the answer is that you don't know (which is probably a far better
and more honest answer than mine).
>
> >4) I presume the statement "It's ugly, expresses nothing but chaos, has
> >absolutely no value at all" is personal opinion and nothing more, and so
> >have no problem with it at all. But realise that for other people, there
> >is much (and I'm not saying all) music that does not subscribe to
> >traditional western concepts of pitch heirarchy and harmonic structure
> >which could be considered the antithesis of every part of this statement.
> Yes, but just because it exists and some people profess to "appreciate" it
> doesn't make it music. What we get with "pitch" and "harmonic structure"
> can be melody, and traditionally in the West, it has been. Don't I have
> the right to say that non-melodic "music" isn't music at all?
> Ah, The Emperor's New Clothes ...
So you're saying that the people who profess to like, appreciate etc.
this music are only saying this so that they can boost their status and
appear more knowledgable and superior in taste than those who don't. The
other end of this is that people who don't like it are too stupid to see
the parameters within which the music is intended to be heard and that not
liking it is their own fault. Both veiws are extreme, flawed and probably
sometimes true.
I like what you said about inter-artistic relationships. I don't know
enough about the particulars of these art forms to make any further
comments.
>
> >6) state what is required to attain validity in any art form.
> Do YOU know the answer? It sounds like you think you do ...
To the contrary, I have no idea. And because I have no means of
quantifying validity (which I am taking to imply an *objective* validity)
I am not prepared to make any comments about the *invalidity* of any
music. You, on the other hand, seem to have very strong ideas on what is
valid or not, and thus would appear to have some concept of how to acheive
this. Again you turn the question you would rather not address onto me.
> >On a personal note, I actually do not like to listen to a lot of 20th
> >Century music which would fall into the common perception category of
> >"atonal music". I even think (note:personal opinion) that some of it is
> >unmitigated crap.
> *Anything* that anyone states is a personal opinion, and that's so obvious
> I thought it never had to be restated on any newsgroup.
In this case I think you are right, it is superfluous given that I say
"I even think." But there are many occasions where people do portray
personal opinions as absolute truths, (e.g. "The vast majority of people
who like music hate atonal "music"") and these occasions probably should
be determined as such to avoid confusion.
> >And then there are other works in the "atonal" box which I find
> >staggeringly beautiful, that speak in a very powerful and personal way to
> >me, and that I hold very dear to my heart.
> What about music that is the same to me, but has been roundly reviled by
> "modernists"?
> Among (many) other types of music, I find a lot of Viennese operetta
> "staggeringly beautiful, speak(s) in a very powerful and personal way to
> me, and I hold it very dear to my heart" -- sorry for my old fashioned "bad
> taste" ....
Please, no apologies. I cry every time I hear the finale of Beethovens
9th symphony, which I have seen people describe as purile, poorly written
crap. I love the timeless state of mind that can be acheived listening to
some minimalist music, which also gets a massive panning from all sides of
the music community. I also love to turn up Nine Inch Nails really loud
and feel morbidly psychotic, or listen to ethnic folksong or percussion
traditions. All of these have their own interpretative parameters which,
when applied, lead me to enjoyment of the art form. (Country music I draw
the line at.) I never set out to destroy the validity of the Western art
music tradition, or imply a superiority of taste because of my
appreciation of some modern music.
> >As a composer, if even one person came up to me after a performance of
> >a new "atonal" work and said something even remotely approaching what I
> >have said above, I would very much consider the work valid. And this has
> happened.
> You mean you can't judge value on your own, you need "outside" validation?
> Ummmmm, that's very interesting ..... I have come to my conclusions without
> any help from anyone else ..
Rubbish. You have come to your conclusions based on the listening
experiences you have had throughout your life, the accessability of which
has been based on what others deem valid. (BTW, this is obviously an
unprovable personal opinion, which I fully expect to get flamed for. But
it may have some truth in it nonetheless).
My personal preferences as a composer tend towards being "audience
inclusive", as I feel that the performance of music has a social function
that cannot be ignored - if I felt otherwise, and decided to still seek
public performances of my work, I would think of myself as an arrogant,
egocentric prick (maybe true anyway). I believe that there are elements of
music such as line and form which are interchangeable through many genres,
including atonality, and thus prefer the method of gently extending the
stylistic preconceptions that these elements exist within rather than
confronting with a new language which will be incomprehensible, while
never compromising my own artistic integrity. This may shed some light as
to my statement on validity.
>
> >Note: the definition of "atonal" that I am using is " music that does not
> >subscribe to traditional western concepts of pitch heirarchy and harmonic
> >structure." It's a poor definition, but I'm sure somebody has a better
> one.
> See leaky pen above.
So we are often not talking about the same thing. This confusion of
terminology is probably one of the things that causes argument to arise.
>
> >M.B.Sibson, Composer and Percussionist
> >c/o Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music
> >GPO Box 252C Hobart Tasmania 7001 Australia
> >email m_si...@postoffice.sandybay.utas.edu.au
> Ah, percussion, how DO you stay on pitch (I know, I know, there's pitch in
> percussion too, but I couldn't resist saying it !!)
> Do you play any "melody" instruments?
>
> Augie
Ever heard of Marimba? I was also trained as a classical pianist from
the age of five, and have been a Cathedral choirister and church organist.
Not that this validates any of my comments, and for all you know I could
have been lousy at all of them. Or lying.
David Cleary
Brudearg (aug...@nyc.pipeline.com) wrote:
: On Aug 17, 1996 13:19:58 in article <Re: Hatred of Composers (was:
: Mathematically organized music (Was: atonal))>,
: >aug...@nyc.pipeline.com(Brudearg) wrote:
:
: >> The vast majority of people who like music hate atonal "music".
How do you know that? Have you done a comprehensive poll on the subject?
And what is "atonal music," anyway? Give some examples of pieces and
composers.
: >> Just
: >> because something
: >> is supposedly a "new idea" doesn't make it valid.
True. But some "new ideas" pan out well. Such things as notated dynamics,
pizzicato strings, and valve horns turned out to be pretty darned "valid,"
didn't they? Not every "new idea" is wonderful, whether we're talking the
arts, science, technology, business, whatever. Does this mean we shouldn't
even try to do anything new?
: >> It's ugly, expresses
: >> nothing but chaos,
: >> has absolutely no value at all.
You may not like it, but does your taste supersede that of other people?
Do you have a right to deny others the opportunity to hear this music
because you don't like it?
How do you know this music "expresses nothing but chaos?" How well do you
even know this music?
If we're talking about the same pieces here, I can only say that I like
some "atonal music" a lot. And so do other people, musicians and
non-musicians alike (some of whom post regularly to this newsgroup). Thus
you cannot rightly say that this music "has absolutely no value at all."
It has value to me and these other listeners, no matter what you think of
it.
: >> There are parallels in other arts to
: >> this : witness the dead
: >> end of nonrepresentational art (where all "new" art has to be
: >> nonrepresentational or it isn't
: >> considered "new" or "art") and the dead end of "modern" architecture
: that
: >> was responsible
: >> for creating cities consisting of nothing more than cold glass boxes.
After you've defined "atonal music," show how specific examples of this
music relate clearly to examples of modern painting and modern
architecture. What do they all have in common--besides the fact that you
don't like them? And get a lot more specific and in-depth than you have so
far, please.
And who says "nonrepresentational art" was a "dead end?" Got some specific
examples of important writers of aesthetics who say that? Or is it just
you and your drinking buddies who think this? (And if so, what the heck
do you and them know about art, anyway?)
And why are these forms of art and architecture "dead ends," anyway?
That ought to keep you busy for a while. Unless of course you're trolling.
Dave
Brudearg
To Ben Sibson :
Ben, the fact that you prefer "listening" to Nine Inch Nails over country
music (which not only shows how prejudiced YOU are against what you don't
like but also shows you have no idea what country music really is (I
suppose you've never heard or heard of Mark O'Connor) just illustrates to
me that there is no reason to continue this argument. IMHO (there, you
like that qualification?), anyone who comes onto a classical music line and
champions ANY rock group is nutz .. OK ?
Rock is a teenager's congealed semen .. and basically that's all it is !!
The rockers may add to that, but you can have rock with just screechy noise
and, of course, "a beat" .. and that's pretty adolescent and congealed to
me ...
BTW, I actually *have* played the marimba, and a wonderful instrument it is
!!
Augie, the fiddler
Jose Oscar Marques
aug...@nyc.pipeline.com(Brudearg) wrote:
>>1) define what *you* mean by atonal music.
>Not based on the Western scales of music (any of them!) and sounding
>seemingly arbitrary. It's like someone took a leaky pen and threw it at
>the blank paper and where the dots of ink landed, that's where the
>"composer"'s music lay ... after this, what do we do to improve upon it ?
>We can't have melody, too old fashioned, and now for the future all there
>can be is arbitrariness.
>This is a dead end.
Your definition of atonal music is ridicule! Music based on non-Western
scales isn't atonal, because there are quite well-defined tonics in
Indian, Chinese, Arabian music, etc.
Atonal music isn't random music, and random music can be quite tonal.
Atonal music isn't arbitrary (where did you get that idea?), and it
definitely has melodies (although not tonal melodies).
In few lines you managed to show how abysmally ignorant you are of the
most rudimentary notions concerning atonal music. Please don't waste
your time and the time of the readers of these newsgroups writing about
it any more.
(I am absolutely tired of these threads about atonal and I must be a
complete masochist for going on reading them, in the hope of finding
anything interesting. The trouble is that when a troll like this
appears, everybody pays attention only to the troll. Anybody else who
might have presented a good point is quickly forgotten. Are we all
masochists here??)
--
Jose Oscar Marques
jmar...@super.zippo.com
Ben Sibson
In article <4v7401$d...@news1.t1.usa.pipeline.com>,
aug...@nyc.pipeline.com(Brudearg) wrote:
Are you trying to bait me? You have the appearance of attempting to
degenerate this discussion into a personal slanging match. I'm afraid I'm
not going to give you one, but your focus on the frivilous rather than the
interesting in the arguments that preceded this post illustrate to me that
you are retreating without backing up any of your previous arguments and
without addressing any of the points I raised.
If you really want to focus on my statement about country music, I
would like to qualify it to say that, while I recognise the parameters
within which it operates and can appreciate the crafting of it, I still
just don't like it. This is a fault that I consider to be my own, not the
musics. I have the same problem with Messiaen, incidentally. And your
reviling of my taste is hypocritical given your earlier defense of music
that *you* love that has been reviled by "modernists".
To me, refusing to continue an argument because somebody states a
personal preference for one sort of music and not another is blatantly
ridiculous. Does my personal taste diminish the validity and logic of my
previous arguments? And does it negate the fact that you have not answered
any of the questions that I raised, preferring instead to dismiss or
ignore them?
Your technique of defeating my arguments by personal discreditation on
the basis of my musical taste is interesting, but quite transparant. I
would rather see my arguments defeated by logic and intellect.
Seeing that you are a fiddle player makes me consider writing a duet
for marimba and violin based on these exchanges. It would delight me if it
could settle on common ground more often.
Matthew H. Fields
In article <4v4kdj$q...@news1.t1.usa.pipeline.com>,
Brudearg <aug...@nyc.pipeline.com> wrote:
>>Yes, a lovely airing of completely unprovable statements and personal
>>opinion that adds nothing whatsoever to the general discussion. Please:
>You mean any statements of yours are both "provable" and *not* "personal
>opinion"?
A) It's clearly his personal opinion, and I think his response to your
statements is rather provable.
>
>>1) define what *you* mean by atonal music.
>Not based on the Western scales of music (any of them!) and sounding
>seemingly arbitrary.
Wow, I haven't heard much of that. Can you show me at least one piece
not explicitly composed by Cage's ink-drip method that sounds arbitrary?
NB that I reserve the right to judge arbitrariness for myself.
NB also that I consider the first movement of Music for Strings,
Percussion, and Celeste to be both atonal and highly orderly.
It's like someone took a leaky pen and threw it at
>the blank paper and where the dots of ink landed, that's where the
>"composer"'s music lay ... after this, what do we do to improve upon it ?
This is, of course, your own emotional response to perhaps some specific
piece of music.
>We can't have melody, too old fashioned, and now for the future all there
>can be is arbitrariness.
Interestingly enough, exactly the same flame was leveled against the
crowd-pleasers Transfigured Night and Gurrelieder, both by Schoenberg...
and against plenty of other folks. Perhaps you're using "arbitrariness"
in the sense of "not necessarily constrained to things familiar to me"
instead of "randomness"---if so, get over it: most of the universe is
not familiar to you or me! (By the way, be sure to check out Riccardo
Chailly's CD of Gurrelieder---I think you'll like it).
>This is a dead end.
Utter randomness not only is a dead end, it died 20 years ago. But
controlled randomness is a component of much of the music you like, I
wager, at various levels. For instance, at the acoustical level, true
physical chaos is part of what makes a violin sound "alive" and not
like an electric organ. Unspecified performance details---performance
"randomness"---is again part of what makes some performances exciting,
un-mechanical. And randomness is, in some ways, related to
improvisation, which is still constrained by the real-time imagination
and ability of the performers...
>>2) provide evidence for the statement "The vast majority of people who
>>like music hate atonal "music"", with particular justification for
>>use of the term "hate".
>Look it up : any dictionary is a good starting point ...
I'm not sure you are addressing his question here. Perhaps the
distinction between passively not liking something and actively hating
(seeking to push away, seeking to destroy, etc.) is relevant here.
>>3) While you are at it, define what you mean by "music".
>Obviously, to you, any sound at all classifies as music ...
This ad-hominem really does not tell us about your meaning at all. If
we can't understand your meaning, we're forced to rely upon our own
meanings for the word (mine's "sound shared between people for the fun
of sharing sound and stimulating imagination", and it's quite broad,
broad enough to encompass e.g. spoken prose---because I'm not willing
to narrow it down and risk losing e.g. all of song from music).
>
>>4) I presume the statement "It's ugly, expresses nothing but chaos, has
>>absolutely no value at all" is personal opinion and nothing more, and so
>>have no problem with it at all. But realise that for other people, there
>>is much (and I'm not saying all) music that does not subscribe to
>>traditional western concepts of pitch heirarchy and harmonic structure
>>which could be considered the antithesis of every part of this statement.
>Yes, but just because it exists and some people profess to "appreciate" it
>doesn't make it music. What we get with "pitch" and "harmonic structure"
Unless you express what you mean by "music", as distinct from, e.g.,
my usage of it, that statement may be pure nonsense.
>can be melody, and traditionally in the West, it has been. Don't I have
>the right to say that non-melodic "music" isn't music at all?
Well, you have the right to say that 1+1=3 and define your language
so that it's true, but beware of talking to others without explaining
yourself.
>Ah, The Emperor's New Clothes ...
Again, consider Gurrelieder. Consider Tove's song "Zur Erstenmal...".
Does it have a melody? (again, I recommend the Chailly performance
for starters...) We've heard the "no melody" flame applied to delightfully
melodic music so often it isn't funny. Have a look at Slonimsky's
Lexicon of Musical Invective and see if "unmelodic" appears in the index...
I reckon you'll find it applied to Beethoven, Chopin, Berlioz, etc.
Just because you say something is unmelodic doesn't make it so.
Furthermore, just because you say something should have melody to
be music doesn't make it so---Is the first 4 bars of Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata not music? (The Melody doesn't start there...) How
about the C-major prelude in Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier?
Or the C-minor prelude?
>
>>5) explain how non-representational visual art and "modern" architecture
>>relates to your definition of atonal music.
>All arts relate to each other at any particular time. In a time of
At this point I suggest you take a break and read up on Occam's
Razor and argumentative fallacies.
>meaningless chaos and low appreciation of the arts, then the "glass boxes"
>we work in and the miserable blotches that "decorate" the walls of the
>interiors of those boxes AND the noises that emanate from the radios on the
>desks in those soulless glass boxes' interiors .. they all relate to each
>other !!
So what you're saying is that you don't like rock and roll, and you
think it's related to a cultural decay, and you think modern home
architecture is part of that trend.
And you haven't even dealt with the fact that only rarely
has architecture itself been representational, though the possiblility
of making it representational has always existed (the Liberte in the
harbor of NYC is a good example of that---a tower in the shape of a
crowned woman carrying a book and a torch...).
>In Anthropology we used to call that "a culture complex" ...
>And these are more dead-ends : representational art is old fashioned and
I suggest you visit www.parnasse.com, promptly. And explore
representation and abstraction in quilting patterns, the decorations
of la Alhambra, the work of Georgia O'keefe, etc.
>there is nowhere to go but blotches and red stripes on a yellow background
>or incised lines on blue (for example) and architecture has to be glassy
>and square and squat and geometric ... it seems like we have come to the
>end of art .. and even if you tell me that that's been said before in all
>periods, maybe we have *actually* come to the end of art ..
So what you're saying is that there's a lot of famous art that you
don't like, and there's a lot of famous music that you don't like,
and urban architecture gives you a sense of malaise. And you sense
a common factor among all these.
Of course there's a common factor among all of them: your dislike of
them. To jump from that to a universal definition seems to me
remarkably similar to the arguments I've heard advanced by some
vegetarians that meat is no closer to food than feces. It's a self-serving,
self-centered definition that may be useful for you, but will inevitably
give you grief when you project it on others.
>>6) state what is required to attain validity in any art form.
>Do YOU know the answer? It sounds like you think you do ...
This doesn't answer the question. Since you're talking at great
length about what is and is not valid art, I think it's quite fair
for us to ask you what you mean by that.
>>On a personal note, I actually do not like to listen to a lot of 20th
>>Century music which would fall into the common perception category of
>>"atonal music". I even think (note:personal opinion) that some of it is
>>unmitigated crap.
>*Anything* that anyone states is a personal opinion, and that's so obvious
>I thought it never had to be restated on any newsgroup.
1+1=2. If you claim that's personal opinion, we've got worse communication
problems than I thought.
>>And then there are other works in the "atonal" box which I find
>>staggeringly beautiful, that speak in a very powerful and personal way to
>>me, and that I hold very dear to my heart.
>What about music that is the same to me, but has been roundly reviled by
>"modernists"?
>Among (many) other types of music, I find a lot of Viennese operetta
>"staggeringly beautiful, speak(s) in a very powerful and personal way to
>me, and I hold it very dear to my heart" -- sorry for my old fashioned "bad
>taste" ....
And you've found "modernists" out there who revile Viennese operetta?
Are you sure they don't just enjoy it the way one would enjoy a good
joke, i.e. without the kind of careful attention they might reserve
for Milton or Sandburg or Beethoven or Boulez?
>>As a composer, if even one person came up to me after a performance of
>>a new "atonal" work and said something even remotely approaching what I
>>have said above, I would very much consider the work valid. And this has
>happened.
>You mean you can't judge value on your own, you need "outside" validation?
I'm not sure that's what he means, but in *my* case, I don't.
I'm sure Woody Allen didn't need outside validation when he made
Sleeper and critics tried to convince him it was pointless, and he was
even less impressed when he started making serious films like
Interiors and folks haggled him about how much they liked his old
"funny films" and they wished he'd go back to them.
Similarly, Schoenberg got a 30-minute standing ovation at the
premiere of Gurrelieder---12 years after he wrote it. When he
originally wrote it, folks who read the score told him how dry and
unmelodic it was---so he ignored them, rightly so (again, if you don't
know Gurrelieder, go put it on! You may find that you love it). He
was utterly unimpressed with their cries of "why can't you go back to
writing music like Transfigured night" when he was writing his later
music, because he remembered how members of the audience made the
premiere of Transfigured Night inaudible by shouting and punching each
other, and how the critics laid into it without having even attended
the concert, etc.
*This*, and experiences like it, is why many composers decide whether
their work is beautiful *without* consulting others: others can be
outrageously fickle.
>Ummmmm, that's very interesting ..... I have come to my conclusions without
>any help from anyone else ..
And you've phrased your conclusions as if they applied to everybody else.
That's where you got in hot water with some of the rest of folks.
>>Note: the definition of "atonal" that I am using is " music that does not
>>subscribe to traditional western concepts of pitch heirarchy and harmonic
>>structure." It's a poor definition, but I'm sure somebody has a better
>>one.
>See leaky pen above.
So you're saying that music that conforms to any *other* order is
necessarily, for everybody, as good as random, and folks who think
otherwise are just deluding themselves. Have I paraphrased you
accurately? I think you've written enough for me to claim that I
have. So I do. I claim that you've said, over and over again, that
only the music that you personally like *is* music, and all the rest
of it is random noise, and all folks who disagree with you are
deluding themselves (see Emperor's Clothes and leaky pen comments above).
At this point, I suggest you consider the philosophical concept of
solipsism, the psychological concept of projection, and the sociological
concept of bigotry.
--
_ || Composer and educator
/ \ * || URL:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields
* | * || URL:mailto:fie...@umich.edu
Dr. Matthew H. / ields || Phone 313-936-7579 days, 313-769-4836 eves.
Helen Ashman
> Unless you express what you mean by "music", as distinct from, e.g.,
> my usage of it, that statement may be pure nonsense.
>
<and someone else wrote...>
> >can be melody, and traditionally in the West, it has been. Don't I have
> >the right to say that non-melodic "music" isn't music at all?
>
> Well, you have the right to say that 1+1=3 and define your language
> so that it's true, but beware of talking to others without explaining
> yourself.
>
Are we going to start talking about context-free grammars now? :-)
Perhaps not...
"When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more
nor less".
Thus spake Lewis Carroll :-)
(I wrote from memory, might not be exactly correct)
Hooroo,
Helen.