So, classical music, is it good?
Joni
I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
them. For example, it inspires them, or they can think clearer cos
they are relaxed, or it makes them feel all sorts of emotions.
My curiosity has got the better of me, and would like to try it out.
Can anyone recommend something. I know some famous names - Chopin,
Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Mozart - but that's about it.
Cheers
Martin Groenteman
popular music. Those names you mentioned are among the best composters.
You like piano? For a beginner-amateur you should not dive into
difficult pieces. Try these:
Chopin: The nocturnes are very relaxed and beautiful
Beethoven: Try some piano sonatas (Pathétique, Waldstein, Pastorale)
Bach: Try the Goldberg Variations (make sure it is on piano, not on
harpsichord argghh)
Liszt: Liszt is not for beginners, but listen to the Consolations and
the Liebesträume)
Mozart: Not my favorite, but give some piano concerts a try for instance
numbers 20 & 21
Get good recordings so you can listen the depths of the music.
"Joni" <w...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:6dsl8usm22fnljjtp...@4ax.com...
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
mike
4ax.com:
it's helped me to not have to have a 6 figure income. also, it's a good
listener.
the secret to classical music is actually in the names themselves. no one
who doesn't have one of the famous names of classical music is a famous
classical composer. it is enough to say the names as a mantra, particularly
to one of the musics in the cartoon Fantasia. sometimes you can wear a
sweatshirt with a famous face, though people might ask you why your
Einstein has too little hair.
finally, you should buy a big house in the country, and have a chamber
music festival every year. this would help compact your turf, except that
you would get people like me there who might pee on it by mistake. so,
maybe it's better to own a radio station. this is one of the dilemmas of
classical music which isn't talked about very much. others, here, will tell
you exactly what to listen to. aren't you lucky.
JR
> Classical music is great. It has a much higher musical density than
> popular music. Those names you mentioned are among the best composters.
> You like piano? For a beginner-amateur you should not dive into
> difficult pieces.
Yes, don't start with Bach (expect for the Air on the G String, Sheep
may safely graze and other well-known hits) and Mozart - they are the
best, but most difficult to appreciate at the same time (one seems too
complicated and the other too childish and minimal at first).
Chopin (waltzes etc) is really one of the guys to start from. Also,
don't ever listen to electronic classical - you'll get the wrong
impression.
If you don't want to waste money on classical recordings right away
(in case it turns out you hate them anyway:), a good choice is to get
the music on the internet. Audiogalaxy, if you're a bad boy, or
MP3.com (not the best performers in the world, but enough professional
musicians to start listening to classical music (when you get used to
them, it'll be easier for your to proceed to more serious music):
http://mp3.com/luxembourg (Orchestra Radio/TV Luxembourg - many easy
listening classical hits)
http://mp3.com/serebrier (Adelaide Symphony - many hits too)
http://mp3.com/RococoString (easy listening classical)
http://mp3.com/Roberto_Poli (a classy pianist but not easy tracks)
Juozas Rimas Jr (not the one playing)
http://mp3.com/juozasrimas (easy and hardcore classical music on oboe,
piano and strings)
Steve Hehr
reason that anyone listens to any kind of music -- because it is a
kind of music they like. *Why* someone prefers one type to another is
a whole other question, much debated both in this group and elsewhere.
I got started on classical music when one day, in high school, the
teacher in our German class played a recording of Beethoven's 5th
Symphony. I had never heard it before. I don't believe our family
even owned a phonograph at the time. But in listening to it the first
time I immediately knew I wanted to explore the music further. I
heard it, I liked it -- it was that simple.
Not all good classical music necessarily comes easily to a person.
Early on I found I had an affinity for most music from the late 18th
century through the early 20th, from Haydn/Mozart through Mahler and
Stravinsky, and most everything in between. But for a couple of years
I had a block against almost all Baroque music and was unable to
appreciate almost anything by Bach, till one day it all suddenly made
sense to me. The moral being: if at first you don't like works
generally acknowledged to be masterpieces, keep listening anyway --
the problem is with your understanding of the work and not with the
music. That's how it was for me.
So as for where to start, I think the best way is a shotgun approach,
sampling a little of many periods, styles and composers, and then
expanding outward from those points. Ways to do this:
1) If you have a classical music station broadcasting in your area,
listen to it, and when you hear something you really like, write down
the name of the piece and composer, and get a recording of it. Often
stations play only a part of a piece, and you may like the whole
thing. Or the CD may contain other pieces of a similar type which you
may like as well. If you want to know which recording of a particular
work to buy, ask in this group or, better, in
rec.music.classical.recordings. You will get many opinions, sometimes
conflicting, but at least they will be from others who know the music.
Or you can do a search in the Google newsgroup archives to find past
opinions.
2) Get some of those samplers such as "Greatest Hits of ..." or "100
Greatest Works of Classical Music" or some such title. These contain
parts of works, or excerpts -- sometimes not even a complete movement
-- but for sampling and determining where your interests lie, they can
be very valuable.
3) The works most immediately accessible to a newbie are often just
those works which have been recorded over and over to death, causing
comments such as "Do we need another Vivaldi 4 Seasons/ Beethoven's
Fifth/ Bach Brandenbug Concertos" etc. And while such a question is
certainly valid -- there is a lot of good music either unreleased or
unrecorded -- those over-recorded works are over-recorded because they
sell more copies; they sell more because they are purchased by a
broader group; and they sell to a broader group because (IMHO) the
works are more immediately accessible to those who do not already have
a strong background in classical music. So, if you go to your CD
store and find 6 or 8 different recordings of Beethoven's Moonlight
sonata, but only one (or none) of his Hammerklavier sonata, you could
correctly assume that the Moonlight is more popular and more easily
apprehended by most listeners (note that I don't say it's *better*).
4) There are some compilations of works considered basic, or at least
good starting points, for classical music. Others may provide some
links; here is one from my local classical FM station, WDAV:
http://www.wdav.org/nav1024.cfm?cat=14&subcat=57
In summary, I think the best rule is just to listen to various pieces,
and when you hear something you really like, follow it up by trying
other works of the same composer, same period, same types of works,
etc. Start from a point and expand outward.
Happy listening.
--
Steve Hehr
To send me email, replace the "out" in my address with its opposite.
James Kahn
>The people who listen to classical music listen to it for the same
>reason that anyone listens to any kind of music -- because it is a
>kind of music they like.
I disagree. Popular music tends to be either easy listening: simple,
and therefore with little staying power (it's popular for a few weeks
and then largely forgotten), or it's mind-numbing anaesthesia. I see
people listening to it on headphones in the subway here in NYC, eyes
glazed over, totally blank expressions. (And yes, I do know what
they're listening too, because often it's loud enough that I can
hear it from their headphones.) Classical, as the original poster
seems to understand, requires much more active effort and involvement to
be appreciated, and some of the greatest pieces can require many
listenings before real appreciation sets in.
But I would start with the "warhorses" and see what grabs you,
pick some different genres and styles, and venture out from there:
Piano: Chopin Waltzes, Schubert Impromptus, Beethoven (14), Mozart (K. 331,457)
Symphonies: Beethoven (5,6,7), Mozart (40)
Baroque Orchestra: Bach Orchestral Suites (2,3)
Baroque Concertos: Bach Brandenburgs, Vivaldi's Four Seasons
Classical/Romantic Concertos: Mozart (20,21), Beethoven Violin
The main thing is to sit and listen to these pieces, and then listen
to them a second and third time, don't play them in the background
like elevator music. And if you can, learn a little about musical
sructure (sonata form, etc.) and what to listen for.
--
Jim
New York, NY
(Please remove "nospam." to get my e-mail address)
http://www.panix.com/~kahn
Steve Hehr
what I said. Some people listen to certain types of popular music
because they like simpler music, or even "mind-numbing anaesthesia";
others prefer more complex structure requiring "more active
involvement". While this is of course a gross oversimplification in
differentiating between popular and classical -- some popular music
can be complex; and personally I would prefer mind-numbing anaesthesia
to the kind of complexity in John Cage's HPSCHD, for instance -- it is
at least a place to start in attempting to classify the two. But it
doesn't change the fact that the reason people choose one type or the
other (if they find it necessary to choose between the two) is that it
is the type which has the qualities they like. Again, WHY someone
prefers those particular qualities is another issue.
All of this does assume that one has at least made an attempt at
giving both styles a try, and not simply followed mass-marketing
advertising and peer pressure in determining their choice of music.
And I realize that for many this may be assuming far too much.
On 10 Mar 2002 09:31:49 -0500, ka...@nospam.panix.com (James Kahn)
wrote:
--
John Harrington
w...@bigfoot.com wrote on 3/9/02 9:41 PM:
> What does it do for you?
>
> I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
> I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
> appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
> them.
First of all, remove this myth from your mind. Intellect is not required to
appreciate beauty.
> For example, it inspires them, or they can think clearer cos
> they are relaxed,
Second, remove *this* myth from your mind. The point of good music is not
to "relax". That's some marketing whiz's ad copy.
> or it makes them feel all sorts of emotions.
Yes, this is what good music should do. There is no such thing as
"intellectual music" only emotional music.
> My curiosity has got the better of me, and would like to try it out.
> Can anyone recommend something. I know some famous names - Chopin,
> Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Mozart - but that's about it.
If you are running Windows 98 or 2000 (but *not* NT), or even if you're on a
Mac, OS 9+, go to www.naxos.com. There you will be able to listen to almost
their entire collection of recordings on the Windows Media Player (which is
freely downloadable from microsoft.com and comes in a version for Mac).
Libraries and radio stations, too.
John
Francois Desnoyers
John Harrington
fdesn...@micro-intel.com wrote on 3/10/02 9:17 AM:
> Finally making some sense, John! :-))
You are? Really? Where?!
John
Michael Lehrman
news:B8B0BC7A.3978%bear...@earthlink.net...
> in article 6dsl8usm22fnljjtp...@4ax.com, Joni at
> w...@bigfoot.com wrote on 3/9/02 9:41 PM:
>
> > What does it do for you?
> >
> > I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
> > I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
> > appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
> > them.
>
> First of all, remove this myth from your mind. Intellect is not required
to
> appreciate beauty.
>
It depends on a beauty's type.
> > For example, it inspires them, or they can think clearer cos
> > they are relaxed,
>
> Second, remove *this* myth from your mind. The point of good music is not
> to "relax". That's some marketing whiz's ad copy.
>
> > or it makes them feel all sorts of emotions.
>
> Yes, this is what good music should do. There is no such thing as
> "intellectual music" only emotional music.
>
What about emotions of a scientist making a discovery, or an architect
designing a building? I would categorize them as intellectual emotions, and
the very ability to touch this subtle link between the emotional and
intellectual is what makes classical music different from the other kinds,
IMHO.
[snip]
ML
mike
news:3c8bd...@news1.prserv.net:
it is a fallacy to consider rationality not an aesthetic decision. it's
always a question of "this seems good to me!"; the solution was found as
soon as you entered the "think about it" frame.
music invents emotion. deep emotion creation transcends genre. if you
aren't careful, you're going to end up falling in love with some Elvis tune
when you aren't looking.
Francois Desnoyers
Michael Lehrman wrote:
Emotion is an intellectual process.
>
> [snip]
>
> ML
John Harrington
mil...@attglobal.net wrote on 3/10/02 1:54 PM:
> "John Harrington" <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:B8B0BC7A.3978%bear...@earthlink.net...
>> in article 6dsl8usm22fnljjtp...@4ax.com, Joni at
>> w...@bigfoot.com wrote on 3/9/02 9:41 PM:
>>
>>> What does it do for you?
>>>
>>> I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
>>> I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
>>> appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
>>> them.
>>
>> First of all, remove this myth from your mind. Intellect is not required
> to
>> appreciate beauty.
>>
>
> It depends on a beauty's type.
Explain.
>
>>> For example, it inspires them, or they can think clearer cos
>>> they are relaxed,
>>
>> Second, remove *this* myth from your mind. The point of good music is not
>> to "relax". That's some marketing whiz's ad copy.
>>
>>> or it makes them feel all sorts of emotions.
>>
>> Yes, this is what good music should do. There is no such thing as
>> "intellectual music" only emotional music.
>>
>
> What about emotions of a scientist making a discovery, or an architect
> designing a building?
Neither of those is music.
> I would categorize them as intellectual emotions,
Okay. So what? Music differs from science and architecture in that it is
abstract. It can't be intellectual.
> and
> the very ability to touch this subtle link between the emotional and
> intellectual is what makes classical music different from the other kinds,
> IMHO.
Explain.
J
mike
news:3C8BDFB8...@micro-intel.com:
intellectual is an emotional process, a choosing for inclusion... unless
you think that god puts the thoughts in your head?
mike
voondershoon. what is this man or woman quoting from? the
intellect is an activity, not a reflex. where did he learn to
say "abstract"? abstraction is the operation, not the result.
even the slowest dummy can abstract the "i like this cause it
makes me...". that is an abstraction.
suppose an abstract music made from a graphic overlay. the
laying of the over is a conceptual problem: random or aligned?
the production of the music is a conceptual problem: brassy or
sweet. the recording of the music is a conceptual problem:
rich or transparent. you understand that these choices are all
abstractions? that there is no "sweet" or "random" outside a
closed set? opinionation seems abstract: capable of
objectivity, the opinion is thought to exist apart from any
restraint beyond the opinionator. but the opinion must be
formed from something. the music is the reference for any
opinion of the music. freezing the music into a moment of
opinionable factoid is an abstraction, therefore john's
presentation is a presentation of an abstraction, and john
should CELEBRATE that fact that abstraction allows him to
understand music.
let's have balloons.
>> and
>> the very ability to touch this subtle link between the
emotional and
>> intellectual is what makes classical music different from
the other
>> kinds, IMHO.
>
> Explain.
>
>
> J
>
>
>
expand. how is he to know what you are capable of
understanding, john, if you never say anything about how sound
is actually rendered as music? the hype "music isn't abstract,
but architecture is" talks more about architecture than music.
give him a model of how dumb noise is rendered as Chopin
Prelude.
in the physical model, explain how a following sound is linked
with a prior sound: why are the notes in a composition not
considered random? -- because of the composer's name on top?
or because we are "listening for something"? what are we
listening for? sabretoothed tigers? the chirp of our tweety-
pie? [how outside the "survival of..." model are the symbols
which we interpret into music.]
but, suppose a hardwired music: every sound is heard as
emotive. suppose this to actually be the case, and that sounds
became associated in evolution-process with good and bad --
and that the classical-listener sloughs off the protective
jacket around the note, allowing it its Real significance.
suppose, in fact, that emotions are created from involvement
with art (any intellectual situation which is framed,
abstracted, out[side] of natural acts) -- supose that
emotions are created around, and because of, this revelation
of primary sensation? suppose that the music we listen to
creates a multitude of special emotions, numbering far more
than the few emotions we talk of in high school literature
class, reduced, as those are, to fit comfortably into a novel
for the creation of new emotion?
how much of this reduction into sentiment do i fall into too,
when i write music?
Marcello Penso
bear...@earthlink.net says...
Sure it can. It can be a progressive series of chords that speaks of
geometry, or it can be humorous, like Satie. Humor rotates on concepts,
and that's 'intellectual'.
The brain processes sound and vision through the mammalian brain and
lymph system. Emotions (generated in the lymph system with the amygdala,
hypothalamus, thalamus and a few other brain 'organs') are always
coloring our perception in some way, and one can be actively aware of
them or passive aware of them, or may only be 'passively' perceiving (in
the way one drives a car- and perceives the road and negotiates traffic-
but thinks and visualizies other things in 'his mind's eye').
Nevertheless, perception of any sort involves concepts, and those are, or
can be, intellectual. Strauss's Alpensinfonie clearly recalls a 'story'
about climbing an Alpine mountain, and the images the music can invoke
are as intellectual as they are emotional.
Nielsen's music has an even more 'intellectual' flavor.
Listening to an opera requires an understanding of the story and its
content, in order to best appreciate the value of the music, and if there
is 'a message' in it as well.
Marcello
Marcello Penso
bear...@earthlink.net says...
> in article 6dsl8usm22fnljjtp...@4ax.com, Joni at
> w...@bigfoot.com wrote on 3/9/02 9:41 PM:
>
> > What does it do for you?
> >
> > I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
> > I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
> > appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
> > them.
>
> First of all, remove this myth from your mind. Intellect is not required to
> appreciate beauty.
Kant would say you don't need to know the use of a thing in order for it
to be beautiful, because use and related concepts are about whether a
thing is good, and not about whether it's beautiful.
But, Kant also says that greatest perception of beauty, or the sublime,
comes about when a thing or event allows us the ability to see our own
interconnectedness with the universe, i.e. a transcendant experience. And
that requires understanding, and so intellect, though of a different
sort.
In other words, awe is not just an emotion; it also revolves around
understanding. And one can be in awe of say, Beethoven's 9th.
I don't think you can divide emotions from intellect so easily. Emotions
and knowledge yes, but not intellect, especially where intellect implies
using concepts. 'Red' is concept, and for those who know it well, so is
'A minor'. (I don't know my Do-re-mi's well enough to be able to tell
what scale a piece is written in, but I can sense when there is a change
in the scale... if scale is even the right word here...)
Marcello
Francois Desnoyers
mike wrote:
Yes, I could have said it the other way around, too. Thanx. Well put, by the
way!
Francois Desnoyers
John Harrington wrote:
> in article 3c8bd...@news1.prserv.net, Michael Lehrman at
> mil...@attglobal.net wrote on 3/10/02 1:54 PM:
>
> > "John Harrington" <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> > news:B8B0BC7A.3978%bear...@earthlink.net...
> >> in article 6dsl8usm22fnljjtp...@4ax.com, Joni at
> >> w...@bigfoot.com wrote on 3/9/02 9:41 PM:
> >>
> >>> What does it do for you?
> >>>
> >>> I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
> >>> I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
> >>> appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
> >>> them.
> >>
> >> First of all, remove this myth from your mind. Intellect is not required
> > to
> >> appreciate beauty.
> >>
> >
> > It depends on a beauty's type.
>
> Explain.
>
> >
> >>> For example, it inspires them, or they can think clearer cos
> >>> they are relaxed,
> >>
> >> Second, remove *this* myth from your mind. The point of good music is not
> >> to "relax". That's some marketing whiz's ad copy.
> >>
> >>> or it makes them feel all sorts of emotions.
> >>
> >> Yes, this is what good music should do. There is no such thing as
> >> "intellectual music" only emotional music.
Music is intellectual because it is a language or because it is an abstraction.
All emotions derived from listening to music are intellectual : it's the mental
activity that makes the difference between listening and hearing music.
But you do apreciate music created by intellectuals!, as oposed to those made by
some of those rock moron ;-) Sorry about this digression! Just teasing.
> >
> > What about emotions of a scientist making a discovery, or an architect
> > designing a building?
>
> Neither of those is music.
>
> > I would categorize them as intellectual emotions,
>
> Okay. So what? Music differs from science
Science is an abstraction from experience or of experimentation. Music is an
abstraction from experience but not of experimentation (although sometimes it
probably can be). Both are abstractions, therefore both are intellectual in
nature.
> and architecture in that it is
> abstract. It can't be intellectual.
Abstraction and emotion are an intellectual process.
Francois Desnoyers
Marcello Penso wrote:
> In article <B8B0BC7A.3978%bear...@earthlink.net>,
> bear...@earthlink.net says...
> > in article 6dsl8usm22fnljjtp...@4ax.com, Joni at
> > w...@bigfoot.com wrote on 3/9/02 9:41 PM:
> >
> > > What does it do for you?
> > >
> > > I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
> > > I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
> > > appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
> > > them.
> >
> > First of all, remove this myth from your mind. Intellect is not required to
> > appreciate beauty.
>
> Kant would say you don't need to know the use of a thing in order for it
> to be beautiful, because use and related concepts are about whether a
> thing is good, and not about whether it's beautiful.
>
> But, Kant also says that greatest perception of beauty, or the sublime,
> comes about when a thing or event allows us the ability to see our own
> interconnectedness with the universe, i.e. a transcendant experience. And
> that requires understanding, and so intellect, though of a different
> sort.
And you allways listen to music with your intelligence. If you listened with your
hart, you'd perceive only the vibrations and that could give you an hart attack!!
but never an art attack :-)
L.grohn
news:Xns91CB9D2F7E86A...@66.75.162.198...
> suppose an abstract music made from a graphic overlay. the
> laying of the over is a conceptual problem: random or aligned?
> the production of the music is a conceptual problem: brassy or
I wouldn't be so sure. I have listened many pieces of contemporary
music having a story made by the composer about what his/her
composition is about and results are often worthless. See many
examples here in Brussels attending Ars Musica 2002:
http://www.arsmusica.be/calendar.htm
A second matter is, of course, if the stories by composers or
critics describing the piece are at the right conceptual level
at all. Taking an analogy in painting: "Now you have
green #122 on the left..."
It all depends on the listener. Taking another anology:
We Finns like landscapes having trees. But people
in Iceland don't like forests at all. They feel unpleasant.
Please compare these:
http://users.skynet.be/belgia/midi/iceland.html
http://users.skynet.be/belgia/suomi1.html
--
Metacomposer GRÖHN http://users.skynet.be/belgia/musitives/2002.html
SYNESTESIA Open Source Java 2 code generates music from any pictures
Victor Eijkhout
> I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types.
And jazz fans all smoke cigarettes, and heavy metal fans work in a
factory if they haven't been laid off yet.
Seriously, ditch the preconceptions. A lot of classical music doesn't
need to take much brain power; it's simply beautiful to listen to, no
matter how much you can intelectualize about the structure.
--
Victor Eijkhout
"the time comes for everyone to do deliberately what
he used to do by mistake" [Quentin Crisp]
Marcello Penso
In fact, abstraction, intellect and emotion are all cerebral processes
(of the brain) and they are intimately intertwined. Separating
intellect from emotion is okay for broadscale discussions, but when
you get down to the nitty gritty, they are almost inseparable.
Emotions and ideas are intertwined in brain processing. While emotions
are generated by the mammalian brain (lymph system) and concepts are
'generated' in various brain locations, everything that we perceive,
whether by the ears, eyes, skin or taste (only the nose has a
different pathway) gets shunted through the lymph system before being
processed into its component parts. Recognition then always has some
emotional content, even though, like in the case of vision, just about
everything we perceive is 'discarded' and has little emotional impact.
But, if you concentrate on your vision and everything you see, even
simple colors and light and shadow can have an emotional impact.
That's what makes paintings 'moving'. Same thing applies to music,
though language is also involved to a degree because sound recognition
uses parts of the same 'neural circuitry' as language.
There's a UK philosopher, D.W. Hamlyn, who has written a lot about
perception from a philosophical point of view. His reading is quite
interesting.
Marcello
John Harrington
Penso at m.p...@worldnet.att.net wrote on 3/10/02 7:37 PM:
Marcello, think. Music is not about ideas. It is about beauty. It is not
about concrete concepts, but abstract ones (though, of course, it can be
combined with words). Of course *the brain* is involved! That's not what I
meant, and you know it. You would never have guessed the subject of
Strauss' Alpine Symphony had it not been told you. You could never guess
the subject of Verdi's Macbeth were the music arranged without the words.
Etc.
John
John Harrington
fdesn...@micro-intel.com wrote on 3/10/02 8:56 PM:
<many many snips>
>> Okay. So what? Music differs from science and architecture in that it is
>> abstract. It can't be intellectual.
>
Music is not an "abstraction". It is abstract, like a flower or a sunset is
abstract. It doesn't represent anything but itself, and itself is enough.
Your ideas about music are pretentious.
John
Markesten
You should steer clear of it. It's like a drug. Once you're involved, it's
going to cost you all kinds of time and money, ie: resources much better spent
on TV and McDonalds.
No, it's not good at all!
mike
@news.chello.be:
> "mike" <orang...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns91CB9D2F7E86A...@66.75.162.198...
>
>> suppose an abstract music made from a graphic overlay. the
>> laying of the over is a conceptual problem: random or aligned?
>> the production of the music is a conceptual problem: brassy or
>
> I wouldn't be so sure. I have listened many pieces of contemporary
> music having a story made by the composer about what his/her
> composition is about and results are often worthless. See many
> examples here in Brussels attending Ars Musica 2002:
> http://www.arsmusica.be/calendar.htm
>
that's the suggestion of "random/aligned". it's not yet an value judgement,
until someone like you listens to it. the you have a choice too:
react/listen.
Marcello Penso
Correction: that's limbic system, not lymph system.
Robert Briggs
> Joni wrote:
>
> > I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types.
> Seriously, ditch the preconceptions. A lot of classical music doesn't
> need to take much brain power; it's simply beautiful to listen to, no
> matter how much you can intellectualize about the structure.
Well said, sir.
Some years ago I had a real stinker of a day at work, and got home in no
fit state to do much at all, but I *did* manage to spin up a vinyl copy
of Beethoven 6 before collapsing in a heap.
At first, I pretty much let I wash over me, but by the end of the first
movement I was feeling a lot better and was listening more actively, but
not actively enough to reach for the Eulenberg to (try to) follow the
score *that* night.
If you've seen other recent posts of mine, you'll not be surprised to
learn that one of my favourite works is Brahms' "Haydn Variations", to
which I was introduced many years ago by a school music teacher.
At that time, I found it to be a pleasant piece, in which it was easily
possible to pick out *some* of the ways Brahms had varied the "St.
Anthony Chorale" theme.
Over the years, I have got to know it much better, and can now follow
the score without getting lost nearly as often as I used to do. Maybe
one of these days I'll make it all the way through the twenty minutes or
so ...
And, Joni, take Steve Hehr's advice.
Francois Desnoyers
John Harrington wrote:
abstraction : the act or process of abstracting ; the state of being abstracted
(Webster).
abstract : abstrahere, to draw (to pull) away (Wbster again).
A painting of a sunset represents a sunset. The sunset itself does not represent
anything. Even if it makes you think of other sunsets you have witnessed. It IS
a sunset.
>
> Your ideas about music are pretentious.
I am very demanding, that's true :-)
>
> John
Marcello Penso
Had I known what you meant, I would not have responded as I did.
Sometimes you comes across cryptically, or maybe I'm just too new still.
Whatever is the case, I say music can't be so cleanly 'cut off' from
'concrete' concepts, because perception involves concepts and emotions,
from the outset, whether we like it or not.
You would never have guessed the subject of
> Strauss' Alpine Symphony had it not been told you.
I guessed there was a section describing a storm without having any liner
notes. I think that descriptive passage comes across fairly clear.
You could never guess
> the subject of Verdi's Macbeth were the music arranged without the words.
> Etc.
>
In some cases, the story line would be difficult to guess, but I don't
think it would be so in all cases.
Nevertheless you have to admit that some music deals with ideas, and in
some works by Cage, even tests ideas about what is music.
There is another aspect too, that of knowing the music, of expectations,
and knowing when a piece is played well and when it's played poorly. That
involves notions of performance expectations, composer intent, use of
instruments, etc., all of which turn on concepts. And this kind of
knowledge can have a big impact on how the music is perceived and
appreciated.
Marcello
Marcello Penso
By the way, I wanted to let you know that... that's my name!
(Penso mean I think in Italian, though the surname doesn't actually
come from that verb 'pensare'. I've heard varying accounts that it's
either German in origin from 'bandolier' (flag carrier) or Spanish
Jewish in origin)
Marcello Penso
... though if I wrote it as Marcello, Penso in Italian would read like
Marcello, I believe... or Marcello, I think (i.e. with hesitation)...
John Harrington
Oh come on! You really thought I mean the brain wasn't involved at
all?!
> Whatever is the case, I say music can't be so cleanly 'cut off' from
> 'concrete' concepts, because perception involves concepts and emotions,
> from the outset, whether we like it or not.
Music can certainly "involve" concrete concepts, but when the listener
or the composer makes such associations, unless direct representation
of sound (see below) is involved or some agreed-upon convention (see
further below), he is making them utterly subjectively.
>
> You would never have guessed the subject of
> > Strauss' Alpine Symphony had it not been told you.
>
> I guessed there was a section describing a storm without having any liner
> notes. I think that descriptive passage comes across fairly clear.
Music can imitate sounds in nature, true. E.g., you don't need to be
told that those are birds in "The Scene by the Brook" in Beethoven's
6th symphony. And you probably don't need to be told that's a storm
in the "Thunderstorm" movement either. That's not a fair
counterargument. It's sound imitating sound.
> You could never guess
> > the subject of Verdi's Macbeth were the music arranged without the words.
> > Etc.
> >
> In some cases, the story line would be difficult to guess, but I don't
> think it would be so in all cases.
I do. There are conventions in music (minor=sad, a slowly falling
minor second=sorrow), a.k.a. "affecten" or "affects", but these are
just conventions. In other words, by common agreement, they mean
certain things, but they don't mean those things inherently. Unless
you are told about them, or know about them some other way (by
constant association in the movies, say), you will have no idea what
these things mean.
> Nevertheless you have to admit that some music deals with ideas,
Those ideas are exterior to the music. Composers usually repent of
their "programs" because they come to realize how subjective and silly
they are.
> and in
> some works by Cage, even tests ideas about what is music.
Music representing music is not concrete. That is the definition of
abstract (a thing that represents itself).
> There is another aspect too, that of knowing the music, of expectations,
> and knowing when a piece is played well and when it's played poorly. That
> involves notions of performance expectations, composer intent, use of
> instruments, etc., all of which turn on concepts. And this kind of
> knowledge can have a big impact on how the music is perceived and
> appreciated.
Same argument as above. These are *musical* concepts.
John
D Monte
> What does it do for you?
>
> I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
> I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types. They can see and
> appreciate the genius of these pieces and it has a profound affect on
> they are relaxed, or it makes them feel all sorts of emotions.
>
> My curiosity has got the better of me, and would like to try it out.
> Can anyone recommend something. I know some famous names - Chopin,
> Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Mozart - but that's about it.
>
Classical music could be an appropriation of some seeking to be
considered "intellectual and sophisticated types". For example, visit
the New York City Opera and look around, you will notice perhaps the
most moronic people sitting about posing as sophisticated cognoscenti.
Many will often whisper as the music unfolds about the vilest things,
for example once a person kept a lively chat going during the
performance the highlight of which was the fact that she had just paid
a thousand dollars to do her nails, or another time I recall a rather
obese lady chatting about the fact that she was suing her neighbor
for suggesting a plastic surgeon with a history of malpractice. When
I asked this rather ugly person to be quiet she responded with
"watch out cause my husband is a Harvard educated lawyer". When this
same woman pulled out a bag of Doritos and started munching I decided
that enough was enough and walked out. Indeed sitting amongst these
people often turns out to expose the fact that the emperor is naked
after all. Incidentally, this can not be said of audiences attending
performances of contemporary music; in those concerts there appears
to be a need for some intelligence. No wonder the performances are so
under-attended, and those attending more than often keep their passion
for serious music hidden to avoid persecution. In contrast, I hear
Mozart every time I visit my dentist's office.
You might find some of John Cage's work interesting, in particular his
pieces for prepaired piano. Or if you are up to it try listening to
Atlas Ecliptalis.
By the way, if you start will real serious music the music of older
composers will seem simpler and your ear will remain free from the
tonal straightjacket so seriously affecting those people that call
themselves "classical music lovers"
Best wishes.
Marcello Penso
No, I wasn't sure what you meant by 'music can't be intellectual'. Now
I see what you mean by 'intellectual' (concrete concepts). Music can
involve ideas, whether by the agreed context/convention, the program,
associations, as you say. But I see now that you mean that concrete
concepts are not the 'essence' of the musical experience... I think.
>
> > Whatever is the case, I say music can't be so cleanly 'cut off' from
> > 'concrete' concepts, because perception involves concepts and emotions,
> > from the outset, whether we like it or not.
>
> Music can certainly "involve" concrete concepts, but when the listener
> or the composer makes such associations, unless direct representation
> of sound (see below) is involved or some agreed-upon convention (see
> further below), he is making them utterly subjectively.
Yes, agreed.
>
> >
> > You would never have guessed the subject of
> > > Strauss' Alpine Symphony had it not been told you.
> >
> > I guessed there was a section describing a storm without having any liner
> > notes. I think that descriptive passage comes across fairly clear.
>
> Music can imitate sounds in nature, true. E.g., you don't need to be
> told that those are birds in "The Scene by the Brook" in Beethoven's
> 6th symphony. And you probably don't need to be told that's a storm
> in the "Thunderstorm" movement either. That's not a fair
> counterargument. It's sound imitating sound.
That's okay, but associations like these are based concepts... not
word type concepts, but memories of sounds, or perhaps images (like
the image of a thunderstorm), or associations via moods.
When I was little I remembering thinking that the music of the Rite of
Spring had to be about primordial mankind, and could envision dancing
around a fire or something like that. Perhaps I got this through an
association with a memory I can't recall anymore. (My dad listened to
it on an old tape machine- and the tape had no image, and title was in
French, which I did not know at that time, nor the composer's name,
etc.)
>
> > You could never guess
> > > the subject of Verdi's Macbeth were the music arranged without the words.
> > > Etc.
> > >
> > In some cases, the story line would be difficult to guess, but I don't
> > think it would be so in all cases.
>
> I do. There are conventions in music (minor=sad, a slowly falling
> minor second=sorrow), a.k.a. "affecten" or "affects", but these are
> just conventions. In other words, by common agreement, they mean
> certain things, but they don't mean those things inherently. Unless
> you are told about them, or know about them some other way (by
> constant association in the movies, say), you will have no idea what
> these things mean.
Okay, agreed. Now I see from your 'inherently' what you're driving at.
>
> > Nevertheless you have to admit that some music deals with ideas,
>
> Those ideas are exterior to the music. Composers usually repent of
> their "programs" because they come to realize how subjective and silly
> they are.
>
> > and in
> > some works by Cage, even tests ideas about what is music.
>
> Music representing music is not concrete. That is the definition of
> abstract (a thing that represents itself).
But this would be intellectual. After all a sitting through 4'33"
would clearly bring up notions about music, even if... there is none!
Question: What do you think of Satie? I've read somewhere that Cage
admitted being influenced by Satie.
>
> > There is another aspect too, that of knowing the music, of expectations,
> > and knowing when a piece is played well and when it's played poorly. That
> > involves notions of performance expectations, composer intent, use of
> > instruments, etc., all of which turn on concepts. And this kind of
> > knowledge can have a big impact on how the music is perceived and
> > appreciated.
>
> Same argument as above. These are *musical* concepts.
>
>
> John
I think I understand your point of view now...
What would you consider to be 'concrete' concepts? I'm assuming
concepts about objects or other 'physical' traits.
Marcello
mike
news:a3bcf635.02031...@posting.google.com:
> Marcello
>
ask him how "sounds of nature" became a-priori to our understanding. don't
you think the sounds were first head as "music" and then converted into
"nature", at the invention of "musical instrument"? so, imagine folks
around the fire "singing", but thinking, not that they were imitating
birds, but that they were making the chirp that "people" chirp.
we already know everything we have been taught. why not rethink the entire
problem from the root?
Marcello Penso
orang...@aol.com says...
> >> >
> >> > You would never have guessed the subject of
> >> > > Strauss' Alpine Symphony had it not been told you.
> >> >
> >> > I guessed there was a section describing a storm without having any
> >> > liner notes. I think that descriptive passage comes across fairly
> >> > clear.
> >>
> >> Music can imitate sounds in nature, true. E.g., you don't need to be
> >> told that those are birds in "The Scene by the Brook" in Beethoven's
> >> 6th symphony. And you probably don't need to be told that's a storm
> >> in the "Thunderstorm" movement either. That's not a fair
> >> counterargument. It's sound imitating sound.
> >
> > That's okay, but associations like these are based concepts... not
> > word type concepts, but memories of sounds, or perhaps images (like
> > the image of a thunderstorm), or associations via moods.
> >
> > Marcello
> >
> ask him how "sounds of nature" became a-priori to our understanding. don't
> you think the sounds were first head as "music" and then converted into
> "nature", at the invention of "musical instrument"? so, imagine folks
> around the fire "singing", but thinking, not that they were imitating
> birds, but that they were making the chirp that "people" chirp.
>
> we already know everything we have been taught. why not rethink the entire
> problem from the root?
>
Mmmm, I'm going to have to think about this one. I can almost see what
you mean, but I'll need to sort it around for a day or two.
Marcello
John Harrington
at mpe...@offler.com wrote on 3/12/02 2:41 PM:
<snips>
> Question: What do you think of Satie? I've read somewhere that Cage
> admitted being influenced by Satie.
A minor composer. I've enjoyed playing his Sports et Divertissements,
Gymnopedie, Embryons Desechees, etc., on piano, but I seldom sit down and
listen to him.
>>> There is another aspect too, that of knowing the music, of expectations,
>>> and knowing when a piece is played well and when it's played poorly. That
>>> involves notions of performance expectations, composer intent, use of
>>> instruments, etc., all of which turn on concepts. And this kind of
>>> knowledge can have a big impact on how the music is perceived and
>>> appreciated.
>>
>> Same argument as above. These are *musical* concepts.
>>
>>
>> John
>
> I think I understand your point of view now...
>
> What would you consider to be 'concrete' concepts? I'm assuming
> concepts about objects or other 'physical' traits.
Music is powerless to express anything *but* sound (the "convention"
exception heretofore discussed notwithstanding, but that doesn't really
count). I can't, say, write a piece of music about a daisy and expect you
to understand "daisy". This may seem obvious, but the idea that music is
expressive, that it is like a "universal language" is one of those lazy,
common things people say without knowing what they mean. It's like when
people claim Bach is "mathematical". One of my pet peeves.
Music is as close to a purely abstract art form as the world has yet seen.
With trivial exceptions, all of its beauty is abstract. In other words, it
is beautiful because it is beautiful. This is true of much of art, BTW.
What is beautiful in art is usually abstract, even in literature.
J
mike
well, i don't know that the image will hold, but conventional
associationism leads to music being associated with nothingness. so, i
think that it's up to us to show that "science" is really a music activity
stripped of sound... which is probably why so many scientists like to have
music with their strippers.
mike
sound is not an expression. sound is a product of physical activity married
to some vibratory medium. "expression" is an abstraction from the ability
to hear the continuum as disceet. "abstraction" is then analytic function
of language which allows re-combination into unity as "sound". the
recombining is done according to structure. structure sequence is
"language". music is language because it is sound heard as a unified
structure. speech is not language. speech is a production of vibrations
into shared space. the hearing of speech is in the analytic of language,
and the sounds are reduced to a special, limited, music.
it's a mistake to think that music isn't language, because we can't say
"daisy" with music. in fact, we can't "say" a daisy with words. what we
say, when we say "daisy" is a sound which must be interpreted as a
reference to "daisy". closer to "nature", daisy is a event of combination.
the combinations of daisy are orderly and can be mimiced by the combination
of sound or word as poetry and music. understand that we can't expect to
"see" a daisy from music because we don't really know how to hear a
"daisy"... nor or our descriptions of "daisy" much help. what we can do is
mimic the feeling we have about a daisy, since the feeling also develops
over time, is a structure. all we really do in speech language is correlate
motion with symbol. we don't actually involve ourselves with the object we
speak of either.
is the "mathematic" "abstract", by the way? wouldn't that allow Bach to be
'mathematical"? but, it's silly to think that the mathematical is more than
real.
Oisk17
(snip)> For example, visit
>the New York City Opera and look around, you will notice perhaps the
>most moronic people sitting about posing as sophisticated cognoscenti.
>Many will often whisper as the music unfolds about the vilest things,
>for example once a person kept a lively chat going during the
>performance the highlight of which was the fact that she had just paid
>a thousand dollars to do her nails, or another time I recall a rather
>obese lady chatting about the fact that she was suing her neighbor
>for suggesting a plastic surgeon with a history of malpractice. When
>I asked this rather ugly person to be quiet she responded with
>"watch out cause my husband is a Harvard educated lawyer". When this
>same woman pulled out a bag of Doritos and started munching I decided
>that enough was enough and walked out
I do not doubt that your recollections are accurate. However, for balance...I
have attended both the New York City Opera and the Met often, over the past 35
years. I have never seen or heard anyone munching Doritos or potato chips, or
anything similar. I have hardly ever been disturbed by members of the audience
chattering during a performance. In general, I have found little difference
between the behavior of opera audiences and the behavior of audiences at
concerts at Carnegie Hall or The NY Philharmonic. (Avery Fisher)
Regards,
Paul
Bill Baldwin
> My curiosity has got the better of me, and would like to try it out.
> Can anyone recommend something. I know some famous names - Chopin,
> Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Mozart - but that's about it.
One good way to start is with Beethoven's Symphonies. Go here
http://shopping.yahoo.com/shop?d=c&cf=0&id=191351&clink=dmmu-cks
and you can get all 9 for $12.85 plus shipping with Herbert Kegel
conducting the Dresden Philharmonic. It's a good set--great for the 7th
and the 9th--and it won't break you.
Start by listening to the 5th. You'll recognize the first movement. But
then listen to where it goes from there. Listen to it several times
until you "get it." (This happens when you know where the music is
going next and it seems right and inevitable that it should go there.)
Then go forward to the 7th and repeat the process. Backward to the 3rd
would be just as good, but Kegel's better in the 7th. So do the 3rd
after the 7th. Then try the 6th.
When you get these, move forward to the 9th.
--
Bill Baldwin
Si
"D Monte" <ialmon...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c0c6feba.02031...@posting.google.com...
> Classical music could be an appropriation of some seeking to be
> considered "intellectual and sophisticated types". For example, visit
> the New York City Opera and look around, you will notice perhaps the
> most moronic people sitting about posing as sophisticated cognoscenti.
> Many will often whisper as the music unfolds about the vilest things,
> for example once a person kept a lively chat going during the
> performance the highlight of which was the fact that she had just paid
> a thousand dollars to do her nails, or another time I recall a rather
> obese lady chatting about the fact that she was suing her neighbor
> for suggesting a plastic surgeon with a history of malpractice. When
> I asked this rather ugly person to be quiet she responded with
> "watch out cause my husband is a Harvard educated lawyer". When this
> same woman pulled out a bag of Doritos and started munching I decided
> that enough was enough and walked out.
God Almighty!! What disgusts me about all this is that these people think
*you* are the unreasonable one when you ask them to be quiet. And I thought
mobile phones at the cinema was bad. Recently I've spotted an alarming
number of people not only "forgetting" to turn off their phones in these
places, but then answering them and carrying on conversations when they
ring. Is there anywhere in the world where audiences are civilised? I'll
move there straight away if I can find it...!!
Si
James Kahn
>>From: ialmon...@yahoo.com (D Monte)
I do doubt the accuracy of this story. In fact, I think the poster
just made it up. Looking at his whole post, he seems to have a
rather large chip on his shoulder about something.
--
Jim
New York, NY
(Please remove "nospam." to get my e-mail address)
http://www.panix.com/~kahn
Peter T. Daniels
Thanks for saying that!
Now, if he had claimed his experiences took place at the Met ...
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
John Harrington
ka...@nospam.panix.com wrote on 3/13/02 5:12 AM:
I agree. Isn't it great that a report of people being merely rude at the
opera is so hard to believe? Speaks well for the genre and its fans.
J
D Monte
Hi. I know a guy that claims he never checks for coming cars when he
crosses the streets and he is age 45--go figure. Sorry, but I must
tell you that a large percentage of New York City audiences are
barbaric, and loud mouthed. Why do you think they placed cough drops
in one of the recital halls? The bottom line, classical music has
been appropriated by a bunch of imbeciles attempting to disguise
themselves as "sophisticated" and they are doing such a bad job at
imitation that when they are not sleeping or yawning in the concert
halls, they are, well, coughing or chatting about their portfolios
(before the tech burst). Frankly, being a New York native and having
lived in various European cities as well as North American and South
American cities (including Canada), I can honestly tell you that New
Yorkers comprise the most primitive audiences I have ever encountered
AROUND the world, except for the many tourists that attend live
performances in the city. Of course, as I stated earlier this is not
the case for all concerts. For example I recently attended a concert
where some pieces of Edgar Varese, were performed and the audience
struck me as highly intelligent and informed, but these were REAL
music lovers, not the "I was at the Met" loud mouthed café blabbers.
No offense intended, just the plain truth.
D Monte
Take your blinders off. Forget about the earplugs.
Now too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in the
eyes of their PEERS it was common for some to carry light uplifting
conversations during a performance. When hordes poured in to the
halls seeking what they thought mistakenly was cultural redemption,
the audiences went silent. As history goes, now these appropriators of
"taste" for the sake of an upper hand on subtle class issues are at it
again, but now instead of being uplifting and airy in their chatter,
they expose their vulgar core.
Indeed, if would be so nice if these imbeciles simply kept their mouth
shut and went to sleep, just like the famed Count Kayserling for
whose insomnia the Goldberg Variations were crafted.
Incidentally, I recently chatted with a known contemporary composer
who saw from his open window, perhaps 10 blocks away, the collapse of
the twin towers. He spoke of the horrors of seeing the towers
collapse. Then in shock, expecting to hear an account of the sound, I
asked him what it sounded like? He went silent and said: "I don't
recall any sound". This fool had in his hands the material of a life
time, but failed to hear it. I have poured over countless recordings
of that horror and stayed awake many hours trying to imagine the
layers of sounds and their penetrations, but nothing has satisfied me,
only the account of a now blind ex-painter, whom I chanced upon,
comes close.
The Anmerican Genius, John Cage, delivered a few lectures on silence.
Indeed some of you would do well by getting your hands on those
lectures; maybe after that you will be closer to hearing.
Ciao now or I will scream, Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings of
Sophia Goubaidulina beckons me. Care to Join me?
Peter T. Daniels
> Now too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
> the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in the
Anyone writing "petite bourgeois" is hoping to "appear[ ] 'sophisticated
and cultured'," but only appears foolish.
> eyes of their PEERS it was common for some to carry light uplifting
> conversations during a performance. When hordes poured in to the
> halls seeking what they thought mistakenly was cultural redemption,
> the audiences went silent. As history goes, now these appropriators of
> "taste" for the sake of an upper hand on subtle class issues are at it
> again, but now instead of being uplifting and airy in their chatter,
> they expose their vulgar core.
>
> Indeed, if would be so nice if these imbeciles simply kept their mouth
> shut and went to sleep, just like the famed Count Kayserling for
> whose insomnia the Goldberg Variations were crafted.
>
> Incidentally, I recently chatted with a known contemporary composer
> who saw from his open window, perhaps 10 blocks away, the collapse of
> the twin towers. He spoke of the horrors of seeing the towers
> collapse. Then in shock, expecting to hear an account of the sound, I
> asked him what it sounded like? He went silent and said: "I don't
> recall any sound". This fool had in his hands the material of a life
> time, but failed to hear it. I have poured over countless recordings
> of that horror and stayed awake many hours trying to imagine the
> layers of sounds and their penetrations, but nothing has satisfied me,
> only the account of a now blind ex-painter, whom I chanced upon,
> comes close.
I hope you're very, very young. If not, you've been very, very lucky (or
deprived): you have never experienced a powerful emotional moment.
> The Anmerican Genius, John Cage, delivered a few lectures on silence.
> Indeed some of you would do well by getting your hands on those
> lectures; maybe after that you will be closer to hearing.
>
> Ciao now or I will scream, Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings of
> Sophia Goubaidulina beckons me. Care to Join me?
I can't imagine anyone who seems a less appropriate companion for
listening to great music.
mike
> D Monte wrote:
>
>> Now too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
>> the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in the
>
> Anyone writing "petite bourgeois" is hoping to "appear[ ] 'sophisticated
> and cultured'," but only appears foolish.
not to me, peter. i was able to make sense out of what he wrote. he's foolish
because he's reducing an economic phenomenon into a touchy-feely cliché, not
because he converted a french sound into an english sound: that would make
him musical.
>
>
> I hope you're very, very young. If not, you've been very, very lucky (or
> deprived): you have never experienced a powerful emotional moment.
>
>> The Anmerican Genius, John Cage, delivered a few lectures on silence.
>> Indeed some of you would do well by getting your hands on those
>> lectures; maybe after that you will be closer to hearing.
>>
>> Ciao now or I will scream, Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings of
>> Sophia Goubaidulina beckons me. Care to Join me?
>
> I can't imagine anyone who seems a less appropriate companion for
> listening to great music.
i don't think i'd like to sit with you, peter. i'd be too intent on seeing if
you were still alive. :)
D Monte
> Music is as close to a purely abstract art form as the world has yet seen.
Have you read a proof of the fundamental theorem of Calculus? If
not, please do. Mathematics is the purest art form man has produced,
and I may add that it transcends man. Music is a humanly-universal art
form. Of course, I do not speak here of contemporary concert
music--that is closer to mathematics. No wonder so many modern
composers were also mathematicians.
> With trivial exceptions, all of its beauty is abstract.
Sorry, but music is not abstract. There is music that is abstract, but
most of what people listen to is immediate and palpable, including the
repertoire that most "classical music lovers" listen to--it is
precisely for this reason that music is so universal. When I listen to
some of the compositions of the Australian Aborigines, I am moved.
About, your bold assertion concerning all beauty being abstract with
trivial exceptions, I will simply give it the noble silence.
> In other words,
> is beautiful because it is beautiful. This is true of much of art, BTW.
> What is beautiful in art is usually abstract, even in literature.
Nonsense, music is not supposed to be beautiful. Neither should the
art of painting be beautiful. Music can be "beautiful". It however can
be anything. Music is an arrangement of sounds, or a chance
occurrence. There are many "ugly" sounds indeed, but their ugliness
needs not diminish the effectiveness of a composition. Compositions
are either effective or not. Effective compositions make great music,
ineffective ones produce mediocre music. Many listeners confuse what I
call "saccharine" music with "good" music.
Just because you can hum it does not make it good.
The Rites of Spring is not a beautiful composition, but it changed the
course of history, so did Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and God know
those women were time warped and ugly. Incidentally, it has been
claimed that the artist and his buddies use to hang out with Maurice
Princet, an amateur mathematician, when he/they conceived the idea of
collapsing the fourth dimension onto the plane---Cubism.
Regards.
Marcello Penso
> >> > > Strauss' Alpine Symphony had it not been told you.
> >> >
> >> > I guessed there was a section describing a storm without having any
> >> > liner notes. I think that descriptive passage comes across fairly
> >> > clear.
> >>
> >> Music can imitate sounds in nature, true. E.g., you don't need to be
> >> told that those are birds in "The Scene by the Brook" in Beethoven's
> >> 6th symphony. And you probably don't need to be told that's a storm
> >> in the "Thunderstorm" movement either. That's not a fair
> >> counterargument. It's sound imitating sound.
> >
> > That's okay, but associations like these are based concepts... not
> > word type concepts, but memories of sounds, or perhaps images (like
> > the image of a thunderstorm), or associations via moods.
> >
> > Marcello
> >
> ask him how "sounds of nature" became a-priori to our understanding. don't
> you think the sounds were first head as "music" and then converted into
> "nature", at the invention of "musical instrument"? so, imagine folks
> around the fire "singing", but thinking, not that they were imitating
> birds, but that they were making the chirp that "people" chirp.
>
> we already know everything we have been taught. why not rethink the entire
> problem from the root?
>
Thinking about animals, and how a monkey might hear bird sounds and other
monkey species sounds and his own tribe's (right word?) sounds, I'm not
sure if those tribe's sounds are embedded 'a-priori' (genetically).
But clearly a monkey, a dog, a bird, other animals learns to distinguish
sounds from different species. Also, I saw a documentary where they
showed that within a few days of birth, a new born is able to distinguish
the voice of the mother.
However, I'm not sure if we start off with these concepts, in the way
that we do start off with having a sense of 3 dimensional space (which
comes from the 3 rings of cochlea- and having had Meniere's syndrome,
I've personally seen how this works).
But I do know that musical instruments came about 30,000 years ago or
thereabouts, and it wouldn't surprise me if those instruments were first
created as language began to develop, since sound processing for either
music or language does go through a common pathway until it reaches the
temporal lobe(s) in the brain, where music and language have separate
'processing' centers.
Perhaps in 30,000 years (650+ generations) it is possible that further
specialization of the brain has occurred to permit language and music to
be readily distinguished by the brain...
Marcello... thinking out loud.
John Harrington
ialmon...@yahoo.com wrote on 3/13/02 6:55 PM:
> John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:<B8B40144.3A8A%
>
>
>> Music is as close to a purely abstract art form as the world has yet seen.
>
> Have you read a proof of the fundamental theorem of Calculus? If
> not, please do. Mathematics is the purest art form man has produced,
No, that'd be music.
> and I may add that it transcends man. Music is a humanly-universal art
> form. Of course, I do not speak here of contemporary concert
> music--that is closer to mathematics. No wonder so many modern
> composers were also mathematicians.
No wonder. Burp.
>> With trivial exceptions, all of its beauty is abstract.
>
> Sorry, but music is not abstract.
But it is.
> There is music that is abstract, but
> most of what people listen to is immediate and palpable,
But that's not the opposite of abstract.
> including the
> repertoire that most "classical music lovers" listen to--it is
> precisely for this reason that music is so universal. When I listen to
> some of the compositions of the Australian Aborigines, I am moved.
> About, your bold assertion concerning all beauty being abstract with
> trivial exceptions, I will simply give it the noble silence.
This is an awfully wordy silence, isn't it?
>> In other words,
>> is beautiful because it is beautiful. This is true of much of art, BTW.
>> What is beautiful in art is usually abstract, even in literature.
>
> Nonsense,
Sense.
> music is not supposed to be beautiful.
Yes it is, or if it isn't, I'll have none of it.
> Neither should the
> art of painting be beautiful.
Should be? Neither?
> Music can be "beautiful".
Oh, yes.
> It however can
> be anything.
Sadly, yes.
> Music is an arrangement of sounds,
No! Really? That is a profound thought.
> or a chance
> occurrence. There are many "ugly" sounds indeed, but their ugliness
> needs not diminish the effectiveness of a composition. Compositions
> are either effective or not. Effective compositions make great music,
> ineffective ones produce mediocre music. Many listeners confuse what I
> call "saccharine" music with "good" music.
Ah, well all you have to do, then, is set them straight and all will be
well. If we could but have a list of compositions you consider
"saccharine", then we'll know what to avoid.
> Just because you can hum it does not make it good.
Do you only find music you can hum beautiful?
> The Rites of Spring
The *Rite* of Spring.
> is not a beautiful composition,
Yes it is.
> but it changed the
> course of history,
Not really.
> so did Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,
Gad.
> and God know
> those women were time warped and ugly. Incidentally, it has been
> claimed that the artist and his buddies use to hang out with Maurice
> Princet, an amateur mathematician, when he/they conceived the idea of
> collapsing the fourth dimension onto the plane---Cubism.
Hi, orangie!
J
Oisk17
>> don't you think the sounds were first head as "music" and then
>>> converted into "nature", at the invention of "musical instrument"? so,
>>> imagine folks around the fire "singing", but thinking, not that they
>>> were imitating birds, but that they were making the chirp that
>>> "people" chirp.
>>>
>>> we already know everything we have been taught. why not rethink the
>>> entire problem from the root?
>>>
Well done, Mike. Original and interesting. Thanks.
>well, i don't know that the image will hold, but conventional
>associationism leads to music being associated with nothingness. so, i
>think that it's up to us to show that "science" is really a music activity
>stripped of sound... which is probably why so many scientists like to have
>music with their strippers.
Now here, other than the play on the word "stripped," I have no idea what Mike
is talking about. Does anyone else?
More interesting stuff from Mike:
sound is not an expression. sound is a product of physical activity married
to some vibratory medium.
Yes, but music is also a product of physical activity married to some vibratory
medium. Since music is a subset of the larger category called "sound," we must
assume that what Mike means by "sound" is "non-musical sound."
"expression" is an abstraction from the ability to hear the continuum as
disceet. "abstraction" is then analytic function
of language which allows re-combination into unity as "sound". the
recombining is done according to structure. structure sequence is
"language". music is language because it is sound heard as a unified
structure.
Then would you consider poetry to be language? Is poetry sound heard as a
unified structure?
speech is not language. speech is a production of vibrations
into shared space.
So is music, but I understand what you mean.
the hearing of speech is in the analytic of language, and the sounds are
reduced to a special, limited, music.
I think you mean "analysis", when you write "analytic."
Regards,
Paul
mike
well, i think we probably learn 3d space. check out a beginning sculpture
class some time. it has to be taught, even though we've learnt to extend
into 2d space multilinearly. :)
>
> But I do know that musical instruments came about 30,000 years ago or
> thereabouts, and it wouldn't surprise me if those instruments were
> first created as language began to develop, since sound processing for
> either music or language does go through a common pathway until it
> reaches the temporal lobe(s) in the brain, where music and language
> have separate 'processing' centers.
>
> Perhaps in 30,000 years (650+ generations) it is possible that further
> specialization of the brain has occurred to permit language and music
> to be readily distinguished by the brain...
>
> Marcello... thinking out loud.
think louder! language is the toughest habit to see through.
mike
mike
news:20020314000831...@mb-de.aol.com:
>>From: mike orang...@aol.com
>
>>> don't you think the sounds were first head as "music" and then
>>>> converted into "nature", at the invention of "musical instrument"?
>>>> so, imagine folks around the fire "singing", but thinking, not that
>>>> they were imitating birds, but that they were making the chirp that
>>>> "people" chirp.
>>>>
>>>> we already know everything we have been taught. why not rethink the
>>>> entire problem from the root?
>>>>
>
> Well done, Mike. Original and interesting. Thanks.
>
>>well, i don't know that the image will hold, but conventional
>>associationism leads to music being associated with nothingness. so, i
>>think that it's up to us to show that "science" is really a music
>>activity stripped of sound... which is probably why so many scientists
>>like to have music with their strippers.
>
> Now here, other than the play on the word "stripped," I have no idea
> what Mike is talking about. Does anyone else?
this is the idea of associating one concept with another as a model of
mind? but, saying that there is no "meaning" to music is to associate music
with "nothing". as you know, i think that language and other forms of
creativity are structure dependent on certain primitive gestures; and that
science is a creative activity, with music being the most basic creative
activity. so, science is music. :)
>
> More interesting stuff from Mike:
>
> sound is not an expression. sound is a product of physical activity
> married to some vibratory medium.
>
> Yes, but music is also a product of physical activity married to some
> vibratory medium. Since music is a subset of the larger category called
> "sound," we must assume that what Mike means by "sound" is "non-musical
> sound."
yes, that's the point. that it doesn't become "music" until a certain
condition is reached. that's the point about not knowing how a note can be
thought to belong to another note.
>
> "expression" is an abstraction from the ability to hear the continuum
> as
> disceet. "abstraction" is then analytic function
> of language which allows re-combination into unity as "sound". the
> recombining is done according to structure. structure sequence is
> "language". music is language because it is sound heard as a unified
> structure.
>
> Then would you consider poetry to be language? Is poetry sound heard as
> a unified structure?
yes, poetry is a language, as is conversation. it is the rhythm which is
most important in poetry, and the rhythm marks and refers us to a series
empty spaces which must be filled with... whatever... sounds and colors.
>
> speech is not language. speech is a production of vibrations
> into shared space.
>
> So is music, but I understand what you mean.
yah, i'm just playing on the fact that people think the words are the
language and the notes are the music. they are of course, but, when we have
these pathologies where the words lose their meaning; the connection
between them is broken.
>
> the hearing of speech is in the analytic of language, and the sounds
> are
> reduced to a special, limited, music.
>
> I think you mean "analysis", when you write "analytic."
no, it's a special condition that we're faced with in the moment of
Confusion... we have to make a choice, and we make the choice by contrast
and comparison. "analysis" is a literary activity, maybe? even when you're
on the couch.
>
> Regards,
>
> Paul
>
chairs.
Margaret Mikulska
"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> D Monte wrote:
>
> > Now too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
> > the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in the
>
> Anyone writing "petite bourgeois" is hoping to "appear[ ] 'sophisticated
> and cultured'," but only appears foolish.
Not as foolish as he who hopes to pass for a translator but is
hopelessly puzzled by a plain and simple passé simple of "avoir" or by
other basics of French.
-Margaret
mike
news:3C904350...@silvertone.princeton.edu:
but, "hopelessly puzzled" is peter's charm! and he does seem to have real
feelings about music. you are never puzzled, but sometimes i wonder why you
know so much about music. i think i would have to see you dance to Chopin
in the moonlight before i'd believe you weren't an agent of some music
society's inquisition.
you met peter? he dances very well.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@att.net> wrote in news:3C9008...@att.net:
>
> > D Monte wrote:
> >
> >> Now too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
> >> the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in the
> >
> > Anyone writing "petite bourgeois" is hoping to "appear[ ] 'sophisticated
> > and cultured'," but only appears foolish.
>
> not to me, peter. i was able to make sense out of what he wrote. he's foolish
> because he's reducing an economic phenomenon into a touchy-feely cliché, not
> because he converted a french sound into an english sound: that would make
> him musical.
Make sense of it, sure. But he tried to use a French phrase and got it
wrong three different ways in two words.
> > I hope you're very, very young. If not, you've been very, very lucky (or
> > deprived): you have never experienced a powerful emotional moment.
>
> >
> >> The Anmerican Genius, John Cage, delivered a few lectures on silence.
> >> Indeed some of you would do well by getting your hands on those
> >> lectures; maybe after that you will be closer to hearing.
> >>
> >> Ciao now or I will scream, Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings of
> >> Sophia Goubaidulina beckons me. Care to Join me?
> >
> > I can't imagine anyone who seems a less appropriate companion for
> > listening to great music.
>
> i don't think i'd like to sit with you, peter. i'd be too intent on seeing if
> you were still alive. :)
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
mike
> mike wrote:
>>
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@att.net> wrote in
>> news:3C9008...@att.net:
>>
>> > D Monte wrote:
>> >
>> >> Now too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
>> >> the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in
>> >> the
>> >
>> > Anyone writing "petite bourgeois" is hoping to "appear[ ]
>> > 'sophisticated and cultured'," but only appears foolish.
>>
>> not to me, peter. i was able to make sense out of what he wrote. he's
>> foolish because he's reducing an economic phenomenon into a
>> touchy-feely cliché, not because he converted a french sound into an
>> english sound: that would make him musical.
>
> Make sense of it, sure. But he tried to use a French phrase and got it
> wrong three different ways in two words.
sawvay key poe. :) but, why not address his oh-pin-yawn? in 1066, the
Norman's normed: one mussen't speak french, unless French borned.
Marcello Penso
No, it's inate. It comes from our sense of balance, which is mediated
by the rings of cochlea. Each ring accounts for a plane in space. When
I had Meniere's (a condition where the inner ear fills with fluid,
usually in the cochlea, producing uncontrollable dizziness) I was able
to distinguish dizziness in three different axes, i.e. the world
spinning around me, the world spinnng up and over me, the world
spinning about my line of sight when looking forward, and variations
thereof.
The cochlea relays its pressure sensitivity signals to the brain,
which ties the sensation with eye movement, which is why the dizziness
occurs. Eyes always flicker back and forth, naturally, even when you
stare at something. But dizziness occurs when there's conflicting
information about what's going on, between the cochlea, the eyes and
the environment. Pressure in the cochlea makes the brain think it is
spinning, and the eyes are flickered automatically to counteract the
spinning stimuli from the ear. The brain does this, thinking that it
must move the eyes in order to keep the environment stable.
But, when you are not physically spinning, the flickering eye
movements produce dizziness because you are in fact NOT spinning, and
so visual stability goes to pieces. And the cochlea, sense its our
balance center, takes precedence over eye stimuli.
I wouldn't recommend Meniere's on my worst enemy. For me it lasted a
year and a half and was related to job stress. But my otolaryngolosits
told me of a case he had, of a mechanic who had a continuous dizzy
spell for 3 WEEKS. Naturally he had to be put on IV- otherwise, there
was no way he could keep the vomiting from stopping.
Can be a nasty thing, the cochlea - eye connection.
But cats, birds and probably even lizards have a sense of 3d space
(when lizards crawl upside down to catch insects, and can fall and
right themselves, as cats do.)
Marcello
mike
news:a3bcf635.0203...@posting.google.com:
>
> No, it's inate. It comes from our sense of balance, which is mediated
> by the rings of cochlea
ah, i diin't explain it well. the innate, in the balance, is only the
reaction to change of state, not an awareness of space. i can imagine
being displaced hearing a shlockstakovich polka after a Shubert quartet,
though not because i had fallen off my seat... but, perhaps that's
another sense of "innate"?
when we react to unbalance, isn't it that we are falling into some one
direction? -- not that we feel we are going to fall in all directions at
once: forwards and backwards. given the primitive of "off-balance", i
would think that an innate 3d sense (whatever that might be) would not
involve [give us] a sense of falling into a linear curve.
the inner ear can respond in several directions... perhaps even in
360o/3, but the inner ear bypasses the higher level of vision... the eyes
see, as a response to the inner ear sensation? or the eyes wander into 3
dimensionality and this alerts the innerear? or is it that the inner ear
is only one of several ways we understand the "other"? i think yes.
imagine as a child... you've never consciously moved your arm away from
your body. at some "Child's concept of space" moment, you move Into the
Other. you've extended your body person 100 per cent, and yet that has
only been in one direction. how do you learn to extrapolate from that
gesture the idea that something is in "back" of you? after poking into
several different directions? how experiments does it take before the
concept of unified and penitrable space is conceptualized?
isn't it that you "hear something behind you" first? that isn't an innate
3d at all. -- but, this might not be the case. you know all the balony
about how the pre-renaissance artists couldn't visualize 3 dimensional
space. and yet the gothik composers had a very nice sense of where to
place voices in a room to create the illusion of 3 Dimensional space.
mike
Marcello Penso
orang...@aol.com says...
> mpe...@offler.com (Marcello Penso) wrote in
> news:a3bcf635.0203...@posting.google.com:
>
> >
> > No, it's inate. It comes from our sense of balance, which is mediated
> > by the rings of cochlea
>
> ah, i diin't explain it well. the innate, in the balance, is only the
> reaction to change of state, not an awareness of space. i can imagine
> being displaced hearing a shlockstakovich polka after a Shubert quartet,
> though not because i had fallen off my seat... but, perhaps that's
> another sense of "innate"?
The sense of balance is a fundamental part for your sense of space, which
the eyes confirm (particularly two eyes which gives you sense of depth
(binocular vision), though this can be almost achieved with one eye after
some experience). Balance gives you a sense of what's right side up and
up side down, without needing visual confirmation. People blind from
birth have a sense of space even though they don't have binocular vision.
>
> when we react to unbalance, isn't it that we are falling into some one
> direction?
Yes, and it's this sense of 'direction' that allows us to conceptualize
living in a 3D world. It would be interesting to find scientific
literature on people with damaged cochleas. I would bet their sense of
space is quite 'messed up'.
-- not that we feel we are going to fall in all directions at
> once: forwards and backwards. given the primitive of "off-balance", i
> would think that an innate 3d sense (whatever that might be) would not
> involve [give us] a sense of falling into a linear curve.
No, you don't need to go that far. Just like space can be geometrically
plotted in 3 planes, I think the cochlea, sense of balance and visual
confirmation gives the brain that sense of space. And with the eyes come
perspective and depth, which can also be sensed via reflected sound,
or Doppler sound... or in the case of bats, radar!
>
> the inner ear can respond in several directions... perhaps even in
> 360o/3, but the inner ear bypasses the higher level of vision... the eyes
> see, as a response to the inner ear sensation? or the eyes wander into 3
> dimensionality and this alerts the innerear? or is it that the inner ear
> is only one of several ways we understand the "other"? i think yes.
Yes, it's a combination, but as I said if there is pressure in the inner
ear, it automatically triggers eye movement and therefore dizziness. I
don't know of any case of the reverse happening, i.e. where the eyes
flicker spontaneously and force the inner ear (sense of balance) to react
in a conflicting sort of way.
The brain allows the pressure stimuli of the inner ear to take precedence
over eye sight, and this was most likely an evolutionary adaptation...
There are times when you feel uneasy from what seems like only visual
stimuli- a classic example is in a train or subway, with another adjacent
train and for that brief moment not knowing which one is moving. But as
you move, or do not move, the inner ear's pressure, or lack of, aids to
the brain to coordinate the input with the eyes. Remember that the inner
ear is very sensitive to movement, and you can sense movement even with
your eyes closed (moving in car, when the car turns right/ left etc.)
>
> imagine as a child... you've never consciously moved your arm away from
> your body. at some "Child's concept of space" moment, you move Into the
> Other. you've extended your body person 100 per cent, and yet that has
> only been in one direction. how do you learn to extrapolate from that
> gesture the idea that something is in "back" of you? after poking into
> several different directions? how experiments does it take before the
> concept of unified and penitrable space is conceptualized?
I think no experiments are needed. I think you've got the notion even
before birth, because of the sense of balance- in different directions-
because of link between the inner ear and eyes. Kant believed it was like
this, though I'm not sure if he based it on any scientific conjectures.
Vision helps to confirm and give the child a more accurate sense of
distance.
In the same documentary about newborns recognizing a mother's voice, they
showed that at 6 months, or thereabouts, babies were capable of reach for
moving balls. However they showed this was a kind of automatic reaction.
The reaching for balls, apparently, stops for a period of about 8-9
months and comes back at a year and a half or two year, and this time
with much greater accuracy, i.e. the baby can grasp balls at varying
distances. In other words, the brain is wiring up his hand-eyes
coordination for better precision.
Interesting, the brain's neurons continue make a lot of connections and
then in later childhood, it begins discarding connections and building
more frequently used owns. Neuronal connections stop at about 21 or 22
thereabouts, and until recently they thought neurons didn't regrow if
they died. But now they've found out that some neuron cell types do
regrow.
The brain!....
>
> isn't it that you "hear something behind you" first?
It's probably that you feel something on your back, especially while
lying down.
> that isn't an innate
> 3d at all. -- but, this might not be the case. you know all the balony
> about how the pre-renaissance artists couldn't visualize 3 dimensional
> space. and yet the gothik composers had a very nice sense of where to
> place voices in a room to create the illusion of 3 Dimensional space.
>
> mike
>
Techniques of perspective drawing were lost after the collapse of the
Roman empire. But, Byzantine Gothic artists knew isometric and
axonometrics very well. Alberti/Brunelleschi reintroduced the technique,
and who knows, maybe they got it from a long lost Roman tablet, papyrus
or monument...
Marcello
mike
> In article <Xns91CF913989CAE...@66.75.162.196>,
> orang...@aol.com says...
>> mpe...@offler.com (Marcello Penso) wrote in
>> news:a3bcf635.0203...@posting.google.com:
>>
>> >
>> > No, it's inate. It comes from our sense of balance, which is
>> > mediated by the rings of cochlea
>>
>> ah, i diin't explain it well. the innate, in the balance, is only the
>> reaction to change of state, not an awareness of space. i can imagine
>> being displaced hearing a shlockstakovich polka after a Shubert
>> quartet, though not because i had fallen off my seat... but, perhaps
>> that's another sense of "innate"?
>
> The sense of balance is a fundamental part for your sense of space,
> which the eyes confirm (particularly two eyes which gives you sense of
> depth (binocular vision), though this can be almost achieved with one
> eye after some experience). Balance gives you a sense of what's right
> side up and up side down, without needing visual confirmation. People
> blind from birth have a sense of space even though they don't have
> binocular vision.
>
>>
>> when we react to unbalance, isn't it that we are falling into some one
>> direction?
>
> Yes, and it's this sense of 'direction' that allows us to conceptualize
> living in a 3D world. It would be interesting to find scientific
> literature on people with damaged cochleas. I would bet their sense of
> space is quite 'messed up'.
simply put, "conceptualization" is the opposite of innate :)
the space is an artificial concept: we conceptualize that there is a
possibility of movement into space. it is very like our hearing notes as
being connected to one another. our binocular vision might be a suggestion
that there is a spacial necessity, which might be an innate function... but
i can't see the need for it, since we cannot physically expand into
otherness, like a puffer fish, say, even though we can poke into it with
our limbs. i would want to see us having three eyes on a stalk before i'd
think that 3D reality was a necessity (in spite of all the evidence for an
evolutionary necessity to survive From the resources and threats of the
other, and to survive from the nourishment from the other.
ditto for 3 ears.
>
> -- not that we feel we are going to fall in all directions at
>> once: forwards and backwards. given the primitive of "off-balance", i
>> would think that an innate 3d sense (whatever that might be) would not
>> involve [give us] a sense of falling into a linear curve.
>
> No, you don't need to go that far. Just like space can be geometrically
> plotted in 3 planes, I think the cochlea, sense of balance and visual
> confirmation gives the brain that sense of space. And with the eyes
> come perspective and depth, which can also be sensed via reflected
> sound, or Doppler sound... or in the case of bats, radar!
the plotting of planes is a conceptual game. it isn't a necessity: no more
than plotting in 5 planes would allow us to possess innate truth of 5
dimensions.
is it "innate" which is the problem here? because, this is like the problem
of the innate perfection of classical music, when there really doesn't seem
to be any real thing called classical music. would a neanderthal perk up to
mozart at first hearing? :)
>
>>
>> the inner ear can respond in several directions... perhaps even in
>> 360o/3, but the inner ear bypasses the higher level of vision... the
>> eyes see, as a response to the inner ear sensation? or the eyes wander
>> into 3 dimensionality and this alerts the innerear? or is it that the
>> inner ear is only one of several ways we understand the "other"? i
>> think yes.
>
> Yes, it's a combination, but as I said if there is pressure in the
> inner ear, it automatically triggers eye movement
i think the eyes tend to shut down at first, to roll into the head.
> and therefore
> dizziness. I don't know of any case of the reverse happening, i.e.
> where the eyes flicker spontaneously and force the inner ear (sense of
> balance) to react in a conflicting sort of way.
> The brain allows the pressure stimuli of the inner ear to take
> precedence over eye sight, and this was most likely an evolutionary
> adaptation...
>
> There are times when you feel uneasy from what seems like only visual
> stimuli- a classic example is in a train or subway, with another
> adjacent train and for that brief moment not knowing which one is
> moving. But as you move, or do not move, the inner ear's pressure, or
> lack of, aids to the brain to coordinate the input with the eyes.
> Remember that the inner ear is very sensitive to movement, and you can
> sense movement even with your eyes closed (moving in car, when the car
> turns right/ left etc.)
>
>>
>> imagine as a child... you've never consciously moved your arm away
>> from your body. at some "Child's concept of space" moment, you move
>> Into the Other. you've extended your body person 100 per cent, and yet
>> that has only been in one direction. how do you learn to extrapolate
>> from that gesture the idea that something is in "back" of you? after
>> poking into several different directions? how experiments does it take
>> before the concept of unified and penitrable space is conceptualized?
>
> I think no experiments are needed. I think you've got the notion even
> before birth,
well, that's what you are saying. and some people are born with a superior
sense of space.
but, some others only have a superior sense of hearing and cannot visualize
or function well in a 3 dimensionally active space... even though they have
the gift of talking to stringbass players.
> because of the sense of balance- in different directions-
> because of link between the inner ear and eyes. Kant believed it was
> like this, though I'm not sure if he based it on any scientific
> conjectures. Vision helps to confirm and give the child a more accurate
> sense of distance.
> In the same documentary about newborns recognizing a mother's voice,
> they showed that at 6 months, or thereabouts, babies were capable of
> reach for moving balls. However they showed this was a kind of
> automatic reaction. The reaching for balls, apparently, stops for a
> period of about 8-9 months and comes back at a year and a half or two
> year, and this time with much greater accuracy, i.e. the baby can grasp
> balls at varying distances. In other words, the brain is wiring up his
> hand-eyes coordination for better precision.
>
> Interesting, the brain's neurons continue make a lot of connections and
> then in later childhood, it begins discarding connections and building
> more frequently used owns. Neuronal connections stop at about 21 or 22
> thereabouts, and until recently they thought neurons didn't regrow if
> they died. But now they've found out that some neuron cell types do
> regrow.
>
> The brain!....
>
>>
>> isn't it that you "hear something behind you" first?
>
> It's probably that you feel something on your back, especially while
> lying down.
is that what you feel, even now, when you awaken? when all of your skin
feels like one? and, if the kid feels something on his back, why does he
think that it's "in back"? i don't think that happens for a while with
kids.
>
>> that isn't an innate
>> 3d at all. -- but, this might not be the case. you know all the balony
>> about how the pre-renaissance artists couldn't visualize 3 dimensional
>> space. and yet the gothik composers had a very nice sense of where to
>> place voices in a room to create the illusion of 3 Dimensional space.
>>
>> mike
>>
> Techniques of perspective drawing were lost after the collapse of the
> Roman empire. But, Byzantine Gothic artists knew isometric and
> axonometrics very well. Alberti/Brunelleschi reintroduced the
> technique, and who knows, maybe they got it from a long lost Roman
> tablet, papyrus or monument...
well, they learnt some mathematical games, you know, and they mapped images
with math onto a plane... first as 2d pattern, then as 3d shapes. they were
all kind of punk kids showing off. there's no reason to think that they
showed us a better way of seeing... in fact, i like Duccio very much. and,
isn't it the case that we learn about our space through our parents and our
own experiments? in much the same way as these rude dudes learnt space?
>
> Marcello
>
backwards and forwards.
mike
D Monte
> D Monte wrote:
> > Not too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
> > the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in the
>
> Anyone writing "petite bourgeois" is hoping to "appear[ ] 'sophisticated
> and cultured'," but only appears foolish.
I am sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. You are PROBABLY a
serious music lover. I have nothing against the petite bourgeois. Of
course, I was simply interested in getting the message across. And
since I assumed that intelligent people would understand I felt
comfortable with it.
> I hope you're very, very young. If not, you've been very, very lucky (or
> deprived): you have never experienced a powerful emotional moment.
Actually no. For example, I witnessed a terminally ill loved one die.
I remember every little detail, from the sounds of the birds outside
the window to the cracking of the boards as he took his last steps to
a night chair. Then the sound of afixiation feeling the apartment.
> I can't imagine anyone who seems a less appropriate companion for
> listening to great music.
Your are certainly entitled to express your feelings as long as you
realize that they are YOUR feelings. Indeed it sounds like you became
too emotionally involved in what I said.
Marcello Penso
Yes. Sense of direction, and so sense of space is innate, hardwired
because of the brain's being able to interpret signals from the
cochlea. From here we conceptualize living in a 3d world, meaning we
refine our concepts of distance,
of how to maneuver in a cluttered room, of learning wh'at right side
up when flying, etc. But direction and space are innate, because we
have those structures already built in... I'm not too sure if lizards
have a cochlear like structure, but it would be interesting to find
out.
...Minor correction. Strictly speaking the 3 rings I'm talking about
are actually called semicircular canals, and they are at 90 degrees to
each other, but they do connect up with the cochlea.
>
> the space is an artificial concept: we conceptualize that there is a
> possibility of movement into space. it is very like our hearing notes as
> being connected to one another. our binocular vision might be a suggestion
> that there is a spacial necessity, which might be an innate function... but
> i can't see the need for it, since we cannot physically expand into
> otherness, like a puffer fish, say, even though we can poke into it with
> our limbs. i would want to see us having three eyes on a stalk before i'd
> think that 3D reality was a necessity (in spite of all the evidence for an
> evolutionary necessity to survive From the resources and threats of the
> other, and to survive from the nourishment from the other.
>
> ditto for 3 ears.
It's one thing to have a sense of space, and another to move in it,
and another do judge distances so that you don't trip over things. One
can have the first and still not be able to do the latter two.
>
> >
> > -- not that we feel we are going to fall in all directions at
> >> once: forwards and backwards. given the primitive of "off-balance", i
> >> would think that an innate 3d sense (whatever that might be) would not
> >> involve [give us] a sense of falling into a linear curve.
> >
> > No, you don't need to go that far. Just like space can be geometrically
> > plotted in 3 planes, I think the cochlea, sense of balance and visual
> > confirmation gives the brain that sense of space. And with the eyes
> > come perspective and depth, which can also be sensed via reflected
> > sound, or Doppler sound... or in the case of bats, radar!
>
> the plotting of planes is a conceptual game. it isn't a necessity: no more
> than plotting in 5 planes would allow us to possess innate truth of 5
> dimensions.
I was using geometry to show how the brain might be able to interpret
the information it gets from the cochlea, without having to rely on
any learned concepts.
>
> is it "innate" which is the problem here? because, this is like the problem
> of the innate perfection of classical music, when there really doesn't seem
> to be any real thing called classical music. would a neanderthal perk up to
> mozart at first hearing? :)
He/she probably would!
> >
> >>
> >> the inner ear can respond in several directions... perhaps even in
> >> 360o/3, but the inner ear bypasses the higher level of vision... the
> >> eyes see, as a response to the inner ear sensation? or the eyes wander
> >> into 3 dimensionality and this alerts the innerear? or is it that the
> >> inner ear is only one of several ways we understand the "other"? i
> >> think yes.
> >
> > Yes, it's a combination, but as I said if there is pressure in the
> > inner ear, it automatically triggers eye movement
>
> i think the eyes tend to shut down at first, to roll into the head.
No, its involuntary flicker. Believe me, I've had it happen to me
every time I had a vertigo attack from Meniere's. I also saw this
happen very clearly when I was tested for Meniere's syndrome. The
cochlea pressure-eye flicker even has a medical term attached to it,
but I don't remember what it is now.
But function in space is about balance, body movement and judging
distances, which is different from just having a sense of space.
Imagining 3d space is also a more difficult and involves more 'brain
power' and definitely more concepts that just having a sense of space.
The brain knows through sensations where a touch stimulus is.
Conscious recognition of where it is another matter.
>
> >
> >> that isn't an innate
> >> 3d at all. -- but, this might not be the case. you know all the balony
> >> about how the pre-renaissance artists couldn't visualize 3 dimensional
> >> space. and yet the gothik composers had a very nice sense of where to
> >> place voices in a room to create the illusion of 3 Dimensional space.
> >>
> >> mike
> >>
> > Techniques of perspective drawing were lost after the collapse of the
> > Roman empire. But, Byzantine Gothic artists knew isometric and
> > axonometrics very well. Alberti/Brunelleschi reintroduced the
> > technique, and who knows, maybe they got it from a long lost Roman
> > tablet, papyrus or monument...
>
> well, they learnt some mathematical games, you know, and they mapped images
> with math onto a plane... first as 2d pattern, then as 3d shapes.
Yes, and there's debate aobut whether it was Alberti or Brunelleschi.
I believe they collaborated.
> they were
> all kind of punk kids showing off. there's no reason to think that they
> showed us a better way of seeing... in fact, i like Duccio very much. and,
> isn't it the case that we learn about our space through our parents and our
> own experiments? in much the same way as these rude dudes learnt space?
> >
> > Marcello
> >
>
> backwards and forwards.
>
> mike
Marcello
D Monte
> in article 3C8C3911...@micro-intel.com, Francois Desnoyers at
> fdesn...@micro-intel.com wrote on 3/10/02 8:56 PM:
> <many many snips>
> >> Okay. So what? Music differs from science and architecture in that it is
> >> abstract. It can't be intellectual.
> >
> > Abstraction [is] an intellectual process.
>
> Music is not an "abstraction". It is abstract, like a flower or a sunset is
> abstract. It doesn't represent anything but itself, and itself is enough.
Sorry John, but why not do away with the word abstract altogether? Or
are you using this word to confuse the reader into thinking that you
are a deep person? I do wonder why an (intelligent?) person would try
to do that?
The flower is the flower. A flower is not abstract.
The sunset is the sunset.
A suggestion: Try ZEN. This did wonders for
The Greatest American composer, John Cage.
If Zen is too "abstract" for you, try reading some of Ludwig
Wittgenstein, (I loved, "Philosophical Investigations")
D Monte
you bother?
I found some things worth responding to.
> > There is music that is abstract, but
> > most of what people listen to is immediate and palpable,
>
> But that's not the opposite of abstract.
Indeed you are playing with language here. I guess one can say that
speech is
is also abstract and that roses are abstract, but that is an
unnecessary cover up. Abstract in my understanding is something not
directly accessible. Any imbecile can readily enjoy most of classical
music. Try to teach that same person Galois Theory, or try to get
him/her to listen to some pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen, or to
understand a proof of The Fundamental Thoerom of Calculus, and you
will hit a rather impenetrable wall. For that kind of stuff
intelligence in needed.
> > music is not supposed to be beautiful.
>
> Yes it is, or if it isn't, I'll have none of it.
Okay, now I get your level of music appreciation.
> > Just because you can hum it does not make it good.
>
> Do you only find music you can hum beautiful?
Obviously you have limitations in your ability to keep a line of
thought straight. I made no comment connecting beauty and humming. I
suspect I know now why you call something so accessible as the kind of
music you SEEM to like ABSTRACT.
>
> > The Rites of Spring (Rite of Spring)
> > is not a beautiful composition,
>
> Yes it is.
It is an elegant composition. It is a smart composition, dispite
Igor's claim to the opposite. It is a barbaric composition. It is a
disturbing composition. Your are stuck in the word "beauty". Indeed I
feel like I am communicating with an ostritch.
> > but it changed the
> > course of history,
>
> Not really.
Yes. It changed human consciousness. All great works change human
consciousness. The discovery of ZERO changed human consciousness. "Le
Sacre du printemps" opened up new musical dimensions and subsequently
this brought historical change. I do get the feeling that you are
stuck in "beautiful" and "abstract".
Regards.
mike
>> >
>> > Marcello
>
> Marcello
i have to go to a seminar today, but, quickly, i want to refocus this
discussion onto music -- the philosopy discussion isn't fair to the rest of
the group, since we have to refine our terms beyond dictionary definitions.
so:
is "meter" in music a space marker? and, if it is -- linked to some "innate"
sense of 3d space -- what is it that we do to "meter" when we listen to a
classical piece, as opposed to a "dance" piece?
do we surpress our "natural 3D space sense"?
mike
Randy Poe
>
> What does it do for you?
>
> I've always been intrigued by it, but never really listened to it.
> I've noticed how the fans are intellectual types.
You don't have to be intellectual to appreciate it. It's just
that it's gotten this stigma that you have to be some kind of
snob to like it. A lot of people who say they "hate classical
music" will end up really enjoying some classical theme that
sneaks up on them via popular media. Zillions of people
decided they liked Ravel's "Bolero" after what's-her-name
said in the movie "10" that she liked to make love to it.
Personally, I don't think much of it.
> My curiosity has got the better of me, and would like to try it out.
> Can anyone recommend something. I know some famous names - Chopin,
> Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Mozart - but that's about it.
It's a huge category, which is why it's so silly to dismiss
all of classical music in general. Some is quiet, some is
passionate, some is fast, some is slow. Some is melodic and
sweet, some is fiery and aggressive. You've no doubt heard
a lot as background to TV commercials. Off the top of my
head, Aaron Copland's "Rodeo" for beef, and George Gershwin's
"Rhapsody in Blue" for some airline (United?).
Then there's the question of instruments. Many people focus
on symphonic orchestras when they talk about "classical music"
but I'm personally fonder of smaller groups and solo instruments.
Classical guitar is a uniquely beautiful sound for instance.
Try some stuff with small groups and with orchestras and see
what you like.
- Randy
John Harrington
> John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<B8B21652.39F1%bear...@earthlink.net>...
> > in article 3C8C3911...@micro-intel.com, Francois Desnoyers at
> > fdesn...@micro-intel.com wrote on 3/10/02 8:56 PM:
> > <many many snips>
> > >> Okay. So what? Music differs from science and architecture in that it is
> > >> abstract. It can't be intellectual.
> > >
> > > Abstraction [is] an intellectual process.
> >
> > Music is not an "abstraction". It is abstract, like a flower or a sunset is
> > abstract. It doesn't represent anything but itself, and itself is enough.
>
>
> Sorry John, but why not do away with the word abstract altogether?
Because it is a perfectly good word in the English language, and
because, in this case, it is accurate.
> Or
> are you using this word to confuse the reader into thinking that you
> are a deep person? I do wonder why an (intelligent?) person would try
> to do that?
Why would the word serve to do that? It is a common word, not
particularly heady or intellectual.
> The flower is the flower.
Yes.
> A flower is not abstract.
No.
> The sunset is the sunset.
Yes.
You are apparently unaware of the aesthetic sense of the word
"abstract" (as in "abstract painting"). Try looking the word up.
> A suggestion: Try ZEN. This did wonders for
> The Greatest American composer, John Cage.
>
> If Zen is too "abstract" for you, try reading some of Ludwig
> Wittgenstein, (I loved, "Philosophical Investigations")
Thanks for the suggestions.
John
Randy Poe
> >(snip)> For example, visit
> >>the New York City Opera and look around, you will notice perhaps the
> >>most moronic people sitting about posing as sophisticated cognoscenti.
> >>Many will often whisper as the music unfolds about the vilest things,
> >>for example once a person kept a lively chat going during the
> >>performance the highlight of which was the fact that she had just paid
> >>a thousand dollars to do her nails, or another time I recall a rather
> >>obese lady chatting about the fact that she was suing her neighbor
> >>for suggesting a plastic surgeon with a history of malpractice. When
> >>I asked this rather ugly person to be quiet she responded with
> >>"watch out cause my husband is a Harvard educated lawyer". When this
> >>same woman pulled out a bag of Doritos and started munching I decided
> >>that enough was enough and walked out
>
> >I do not doubt that your recollections are accurate. However, for balance...I
> >have attended both the New York City Opera and the Met often, over the past 35
> >years. I have never seen or heard anyone munching Doritos or potato chips, or
> >anything similar. I have hardly ever been disturbed by members of the audience
> >chattering during a performance. In general, I have found little difference
> >between the behavior of opera audiences and the behavior of audiences at
> >concerts at Carnegie Hall or The NY Philharmonic. (Avery Fisher)
>
> I do doubt the accuracy of this story. In fact, I think the poster
> just made it up. Looking at his whole post, he seems to have a
> rather large chip on his shoulder about something.
But aren't the historical roots of opera in Italy actually
as this sort of entertainment for the masses rather than
something elitist?
- Randy
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@att.net> wrote in message news:<3C9008...@att.net>...
> > D Monte wrote:
>
> > > Not too long ago, before the petite bourgeois began its forays into
> > > the opera as a medium of appearing "sophisticated and cultured" in the
> >
> > Anyone writing "petite bourgeois" is hoping to "appear[ ] 'sophisticated
> > and cultured'," but only appears foolish.
>
> I am sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. You are PROBABLY a
> serious music lover. I have nothing against the petite bourgeois. Of
"petite bourgeois" is _still_ wrong three different ways.
Peter T. Daniels
> But aren't the historical roots of opera in Italy actually
> as this sort of entertainment for the masses rather than
> something elitist?
They were court entertainments at weddings and such. Grew out of masques
and such.
BenHeneghan
<orang...@aol.com> writes:
>It's a mistake to think that music isn't language, because we can't say
>"daisy" with music. In fact, we can't "say" a daisy with words. What we
>say, when we say "daisy" is a sound which must be interpreted as a
>reference to "daisy". Closer to "nature", daisy is a event of combination.
>The combinations of daisy are orderly and can be mimiced by the combination
>of sound or word as poetry and music. Understand that we can't expect to
>"see" a daisy from music because we don't really know how to hear a
>"daisy"... nor or our descriptions of "daisy" much help.
If most listeners to music agreed on the "meaning" of certain combinations of
musical elements, it would approach language. There is not total fragmentation
of agreement, but rather a certain percentage *of* agreement. So for some
people music is more like a language than it is for other people.
The sounds you refer to (i.e., words) have a lot more agreement about them.
Hence, a lot more people think of those sounds as language.
you made a good point there. i'm going to have to rethink all those thinks i
thought about you.
bst wshs
Ben Heneghan
See some of my scores at http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/
Remove poser to email
BenHeneghan
ialmon...@yahoo.com (D Monte) writes:
>Have you read a proof of the fundamental theorem of Calculus? If
>not, please do. Mathematics is the purest art form man has produced,
>and I may add that it transcends man.
How do you know?
>Music is a humanly-universal art
>form. Of course, I do not speak here of contemporary concert
>music--that is closer to mathematics. No wonder so many modern
>composers were also mathematicians.
Which ones?
>Nonsense, music is not supposed to be beautiful. Neither should the
>art of painting be beautiful. Music can be "beautiful".
You don't know what you mean by "beautiful", do you.
>It however can
>be anything. Music is an arrangement of sounds, or a chance
>occurrence. There are many "ugly" sounds indeed, but their ugliness
>needs not diminish the effectiveness of a composition. Compositions
>are either effective or not. Effective compositions make great music,
>ineffective ones produce mediocre music.
How do you know if a piece of music is "effective" or if it's "mediocre"?
>Many listeners confuse what I
>call "saccharine" music with "good" music.
What do *you* confuse with good music?
>The Rites of Spring is not a beautiful composition, but it changed the
>course of history, so did Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and God know
>those women were time warped and ugly.
If you want to talk about The Rite of Spring, why not make a tiny bit of effort
and actually get the name right. If you don't, you just undermine yourself.
>Incidentally, it has been
>claimed that the artist and his buddies use to hang out with Maurice
>Princet, an amateur mathematician, when he/they conceived the idea of
>collapsing the fourth dimension onto the plane---Cubism.
So what if this has been claimed. How do you know it's either true or relevant
to your own claims?
best wishes
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <c0c6feba.02031...@posting.google.com>,
> ialmon...@yahoo.com (D Monte) writes:
> >The Rites of Spring is not a beautiful composition, but it changed the
> >course of history, so did Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and God know
> >those women were time warped and ugly.
>
> If you want to talk about The Rite of Spring, why not make a tiny bit of effort
> and actually get the name right. If you don't, you just undermine yourself.
He has enough trouble with "petit bourgeois" (or did he mean "petite
bourgeoisie") -- you think he can handle "Le Sacre du printemps"?
renee
"greatest" c.d. as a gift for my father. I was interested in
something with a diverse selection of composers
thanks,
Renee
John Harrington
benhe...@aol.composer wrote on 3/15/02 4:58 PM:
Very good, Ben. I've taught you well.
John
John Harrington
ialmon...@yahoo.com wrote on 3/15/02 8:30 AM:
> If I may say so, most of your response was outright stupid. Why did
> you bother?
You're so much smarter than me I couldn't help myself.
> I found some things worth responding to.
Oh joy.
>
>
>>> There is music that is abstract, but
>>> most of what people listen to is immediate and palpable,
>>
>> But that's not the opposite of abstract.
>
>
> Indeed you are playing with language here. I guess one can say that
> speech is
> is also abstract
No one can't.
> and that roses are abstract, but that is an
> unnecessary cover up. Abstract in my understanding is something not
> directly accessible.
Your understanding could be augmented by a dictionary, I guess.
> Any imbecile can readily enjoy most of classical
> music.
You're living proof of that.
> Try to teach that same person Galois Theory, or try to get
> him/her to listen to some pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen, or to
> understand a proof of The Fundamental Thoerom of Calculus, and you
> will hit a rather impenetrable wall. For that kind of stuff
> intelligence in needed.
Wait. Could you repeat that in small words?
>>> music is not supposed to be beautiful.
>>
>> Yes it is, or if it isn't, I'll have none of it.
>
> Okay, now I get your level of music appreciation.
What level is that?
>>> Just because you can hum it does not make it good.
>>
>> Do you only find music you can hum beautiful?
>
> Obviously you have limitations in your ability to keep a line of
> thought straight. I made no comment connecting beauty and humming. I
> suspect I know now why you call something so accessible as the kind of
> music you SEEM to like ABSTRACT.
What kind of music is that?
>>
>>> The Rites of Spring (Rite of Spring)
>
>>> is not a beautiful composition,
>>
>> Yes it is.
>
> It is an elegant composition. It is a smart composition,
What is a "smart composition"?
> dispite
> Igor's claim to the opposite. It is a barbaric composition. It is a
> disturbing composition. Your are stuck in the word "beauty".
Stuck *on* beauty, I hope you mean. If so, guilty.
> Indeed I
> feel like I am communicating with an ostritch.
I can disembowel you with a single kick, I hope you realize.
>
>
>>> but it changed the
>>> course of history,
>>
>> Not really.
>
> Yes. It changed human consciousness.
How did it change human consciousness more than rice crispies have?
> All great works change human
> consciousness.
No they don't.
> The discovery of ZERO changed human consciousness.
Zero is not a great work.
> "Le
> Sacre du printemps" opened up new musical dimensions and subsequently
> this brought historical change. I do get the feeling that you are
> stuck in "beautiful" and "abstract".
I get that feeling, too.
John
mike
news:20020315194254...@mb-bk.aol.com:
hi, Ben! yes, and the "agreed upon" is a tricky thing, and seems to place
music back into an activity depending on language as a medium, rather
than being a language itself. for this forum, i think it's best to think
of music as an activity within a language setting... much as most of the
posters think of classical music as a craft of sound reproduction. my
personal alternative, though, is that "agree on" is an aesthetic
operation, not a operation external to the human.
as to the mee... well, you see how i un-spelled "are" as "or" up there.
so, what can you expect from a musical frootloop like me?
mike
(what are you writing these days? i'm doing a piano concerto.)
EHpianist
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@att.net> escribió en el mensaje
news:3C926F...@att.net...
I believe that what Peter is repeatedly referring to is the technicality
that it is written as "petit bourgeois", the word "bourgeois" being a
masculine noun. If you are referring to a group of people it should be
"petits bourgeois". But your meaning was certainly understood.
Peter T. Daniels
Or "petite bourgeoisie."
_My_ point was that he was complaining about something like affectation,
while trying but _failing_ to use a foreign expression, i.e. engaging in
false affectation.
Peter T. Daniels
Still an impossible question. Does he already have a classical
collection? Does he regularly go to concerts and/or operas? If Yes to
either of these questions, then you can't simply get a "greatest hits"
album.
If, however, you want to "educate" him, to introduce him (but why, if
you're not knowledgeable yourself?), then there are "samplers" by the
major labels, usually two-disk compilations that come with a small
encyclopedia devoting a page or so to each major composer, and giving
you the catalog numbers of the albums the selections are extracted from.
mike
ah... "true affectation"... that's like Shostakovich, yes? but, really,
OP's entire post was a salon music protected by his magic powers.
and, if it brings out the ferns in us?
mike
yah, so which one? i've had this problem for years with my wife's
relatives. is it better to give one real piece, or to give the greatest
hits?
i vote for one real piece, and i vote the Beethoven 5th Symphony for the
semi-uninterested... because of its recognition value and music.
mike
Francois Desnoyers
Or :petites bourgeoises"
Et les gros, alors? et les grands bourgeois, eux?
:-)
Bill Baldwin
Try this one:
http://www.towerrecords.com/product.asp?pfid=1188532
Adrian Boult - "Concert Favorites"
1 . Pomp and Circumstance Marches (5), Op. 39: no 1 in D major
Composer: Sir Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934)
2 . Hebrides Overture, in B minor Op. 26 "Fingal's Cave"
Composer: Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)
3 . Night on Bare Mountain
Composer: Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881)
4 . Overture di ballo
Composer: Arthur Sullivan (1842 - 1900)
5 . Les preludes, S 97
Composer: Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)
6 . Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a
Composer: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893)
All for $13.98 plus shipping.
I'm interested in the disc myself. But I wish they'd thrown in 4
different pieces in place of the Nutcracker.
--
Bill Baldwin
Bill Baldwin
> He has enough trouble with "petit bourgeois" (or did he mean "petite
> bourgeoisie") -- you think he can handle "Le Sacre du printemps"?
Ha! He probably wouldn't even get the capitalization right.
--
Bill Baldwin
Bill Baldwin
> It's a huge category, which is why it's so silly to dismiss
> all of classical music in general. Some is quiet, some is
> passionate, some is fast, some is slow. Some is melodic and
> sweet, some is fiery and aggressive. You've no doubt heard
> a lot as background to TV commercials. Off the top of my
> head, Aaron Copland's "Rodeo" for beef, and George Gershwin's
> "Rhapsody in Blue" for some airline (United?).
And my personal favorite, a Cingular (wireless telephone) ad featuring
a cowboy singing "La Donna E Mobile," complete with broad cowboy
accent.
--
Bill Baldwin
Peter T. Daniels
-- elles sont calquées du français -- mais non pas celles avec "gros" ou
"grands."
Francois Desnoyers
"petite", the "moyenne" and the "grande bourgeoisie". The "petit bourgeois" is
someone who will love established order as much as himself. "bourgeois" is
contrary to : anarchist, bohemian, revolutionary, proletarian, pesant, artist...
BenHeneghan
<orang...@aol.com> writes:
>(what are you writing these days? i'm doing a piano concerto.)
At the moment, would-be commercial pop songs aimed at various chart acts. It's
a long shot, I know. It's also quite a discipline. Everything must be simple,
but right.
best wishes
Marcello Penso
orang...@aol.com says...
played?
Either way, I don't see how meter involves any sense of space... Maybe
the brain ignores pressure signals from the semicircular canals when it
is aware of listening- otherwise we'd be getting dizzying at every
concerto(!)
Marcello
Peter T. Daniels
sort of person who loves Lloyd Webber and Ch*rl*tt* Ch*rch"; "petit
bourgeois"/"petite bourgeoisie" are more terms of art in history,
economics, etc.
Francois Desnoyers wrote:
>
> I have the impression that "bourgeois" is enough in that case. But you have the
> "petite", the "moyenne" and the "grande bourgeoisie". The "petit bourgeois" is
> someone who will love established order as much as himself. "bourgeois" is
> contrary to : anarchist, bohemian, revolutionary, proletarian, pesant, artist...
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> > Mes deux expressions se trouvent en dictionnaires de la langue anglaise
> > -- elles sont calquées du français -- mais non pas celles avec "gros" ou
> > "grands."
> >
> > Francois Desnoyers wrote:
> > >
> > > Or "petite bourgeoise"
> > >
> > > Or :petites bourgeoises"
> > >
> > > Et les gros, alors? et les grands bourgeois, eux?
Peter T. Daniels
> Is meter the time markings or the actual tempo at which the piece is
> played?
Meter is the time markings -- 3/4, 4/4, 5/8, etc. (meaning you feel the
music in groups of three or four quarter notes [quavers], five eighth
notes [semiquavers], etc.
Any meter can go at any tempo, but conventionally you wouldn't notate,
say, a march in 4/1.
> Either way, I don't see how meter involves any sense of space... Maybe
> the brain ignores pressure signals from the semicircular canals when it
> is aware of listening- otherwise we'd be getting dizzying at every
> concerto(!)
But you're always surrounded by sound; even at a party full of chatter,
if your own name is spoken across the room, somehow you'll hear it and
pay attention.
Francois Desnoyers
"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
> "Bourgeois" is a sort of general insult meaning "lower middle class,
Not quite. Because of their love of security, they are people with money who live a
sheltered life. By extention, "bourgeois" also reffers to people who do not work with
their hands, as oposed to the working class, although they are not nobility.
The "bourgeoisie " is the dominant class in a capitalist regime. The "petite",
"moyenne" and "grande bourgeoisie" all belong to the "bourgeois" class.
> the
> sort of person who loves Lloyd Webber and Ch*rl*tt* Ch*rch";
They do not have the reputation of being people who like to take risks ; they are in
love with the establishment.
mike
news:MPG.16fd75609...@netnews.worldnet.att.net:
tempo is tempo, but written meters are objects overlaid on our sustaining
rhythm. to respond to the musical meter, our natural meter is either
surpressed or restructured with an added dimension. that's, if there is
such a thing as our natural meter at this high a level.
mike
mike
that's it, and "feeling" is maybe the clue... because a feeling is a space
unity of the disparate parts of sensation, yes? parts unfocused just
because they have to be free to organize into a response. and, if the
trigger is a clever confusion of pulse against pulse, then the resulting
meter will be a curiosity or fascinatin', even.