Re: =Wu=
Noel Friesen
"rc" <nos...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:0001HW.C222037E...@news.wildblue.net...
> On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:10:23 -0500, Noel Friesen wrote
> (in article <3LKKh.27178$zU1.10174@pd7urf1no>):
>
>>
>> "rc" <nos...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:0001HW.C2206D29...@news.wildblue.net...
>>> On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:46:55 -0500, Keynes wrote
>>> (in article <3b6lv2lriu185eufj...@4ax.com>):
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:36:37 GMT, Robert Epstein <epste...@yahoo.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> rc wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 23:22:24 -0500, Robert Epstein wrote
>>>>>> (in article <4YoKh.13391$S06.12031@trndny08>):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> small tortoiseshell wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Mar 14, 5:02 am, Robert Epstein <epstein...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> noname wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I'm a really gud speler,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> directly translated from native lingua: god player. Do you play
>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> violin?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Robert
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> no, although I fooled around with one for a year, along with two
>>>>>>> years
>>>>>>> of trumpet, five years of piano, ten years of clarinet and about 10
>>>>>>> years of guitar. Guitar, piano, clarinets and saxaphones of various
>>>>>>> kinds stuck; unfortunately violin and trumpet dropped off.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If it turns out I really am a "God player" I will be very happy.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Robert
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> - - - - - - -
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well that's interesting. My experience has been that musicians are
>>>>>> very
>>>>>> passionate, and you seem a well studied musician. But I only have
>>>>>> experience
>>>>>> with musicians, not being a musician. Would you say you are
>>>>>> passionate
>>>>>> about
>>>>>> music? Or would you call it something else? I mean I tend to conflate
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> concept 'musician' and 'individuality'. How does this work for you? I
>>>>>> mean
>>>>>> with consideration to your philosophy on self being a generalized
>>>>>> sort
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> awareness and not an individual at all. Where you a musician before
>>>>>> adopting
>>>>>> or realizing this philosophy? If so, how has it changed your music?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Although I enjoy a lot of different kinds of music, my main
>>>>> orientation
>>>>> as a player has been jazz. Improvising on the saxaphone for many
>>>>> years
>>>>> influenced my sense of self a lot. Jazz improvisation follows some
>>>>> rules of structure, but the actual playing is very fluid and is always
>>>>> changing. It goes along nicely with having a "fluid, changing" self,
>>>>> rather than a fixed opaque one.
>>>>>
>>>>> On the other hand, I tend to be pretty uptight and controlling in
>>>>> other
>>>>> areas of life. The creative process is a form of salvation for me I
>>>>> guess. I haven't been able to indulge directly in the arts that
>>>>> interest me as much the last bunch of years, and that is kind of
>>>>> painful, though I am still involved in music as a listener and get a
>>>>> lot
>>>>> out of it.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would say that when I play I tend to be pretty passionate. In the
>>>>> past even moreso, and I am still a very interested listener though as
>>>>> a
>>>>> listener these days I am very interested in "hearing the structures"
>>>>> of
>>>>> the music. I'm interested in how it is put together, which is
>>>>> slightly
>>>>> different than passion I think. It's also different "hearing"
>>>>> structure
>>>>> than analyzing it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Robert
>>>>
>>>> For me, improvising looks like a meditative state.
>>>> It's another mode of mind that replaces the regular stream.
>>>> There is no thought of hearers, self, fingers or instrument in it.
>>>> There is delight in the musical structures that seem to come from
>>>> nowhere. (I suspect that sports and martial arts are similar.)
>>>
>>> I suspect they are similar also. But if this is the case, that is, that
>>> it
>>> comes from nowhere, how do you account for personal style. Led Zepplin
>>> sounds
>>> only like Led Zepplin.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jazz musicians are generally other-worldly people for whom
>>>> the music is the thing, while their ordinary life may appear
>>>> badly planned and executed. Some get bored, drunk,
>>>> addicted, promiscuous, and have little concern for anything
>>>> but the music.
>>>
>>> What other world are they from?
>>>
>>>>
>>>> There was a sufi school that taught by performing music.
>>>> And there was another school that forbid the playing and
>>>> listening of music. There are still dervish dancers, and the
>>>> long hypnotic hindu ragas.
>>>
>>> This makes me think of Wagnerian endless melody versus Beethoven and
>>> Bizet.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Group singing and dancing have always been popular
>>>> all over the world since prehistory. They are even sanctified
>>>> in voodoo, war dances, temple dances and music in south
>>>> asia, charismatic christianity, and sing sings in primitve out
>>>> of the way places all over the world.
>>>>
>>>> There may be something to it all that elevates people,
>>>> and takes them out of themselves, and they value it.
>>>> (Except for the uptight sects that fear any abandoning
>>>> of self-control and presumed descent into 'animality'.)
>>>
>>> This was Wagner's point with the endless melody. 'To take people out of
>>> themselves'. At the time Neitzsche was his biggest pusher. But then
>>> Nietzsche
>>> really began to value individuality and his preference became Bizet.
>>> Especially since it became understood that not only was Wagner 'taking
>>> people
>>> out of themselves', he was also a fierce anti-semite.
>>
>> While Nietzsche did have a problem w/ Wagner's anti-semitism I suspect
>> his
>> biggest problem was with Wagner continuing to use the Christian mythos in
>> Parsifal and thereby treating the experiences of christianity as if it
>> were
>> valuable. Nietzsche was very anti-christian and saw Wagner as
>> essentially a
>> closet decadent who acknowledges the values of christianity. A problem
>> worse than open christianity due to its insidious manifestation in
>> Wagner.
>
> Definitely. Religion aside, what reminded me was the comment that there is
> something to music that elevates people, except for the uptight sects that
> fear any abandoning of self control. I think Nietzsche saw the loss of
> self
> as a fundamental cause of decadence. In this regards endless melody,
> christianity, anti-semitism and other 'followings' were all the same
> element
> with a different face.
At the same time, Nietzsche knew a certain amount of decadence is necessary
for the overall health of an organism, race or culture. So he still loved
music.
In 'The Birth of Tragedy' he constrasts two types of art. There were the
Dionysian arts such as music which is very natural, rejects individuation
and subsumes you in the universal flow. On the other hand there were the
Apollonian arts like the plastic arts and poetry which were more artificial,
more concerned with *representation* and where the principle of
individuation was involved.
Nietzsche recognized the need for both types of art and saw a useful fusion
of the two perspectives in Greek Tragedy.
From a buddhist perspective these correspond pretty closely to an
absolute/relative type of perspective. My own personal opinion is that he
was working on many of the same issues that buddhism looks at only from a
more western, greek perspective. I know he was aware of buddhism because of
a few sections in The Antichrist and some references from Thus Spake
Zarathustra.
Towards the end of his life, Nietzsche went insane, or so the story
goes. I suspect that he spent a lot of energy looking into the causes of
his and others attitudes, instincts and desires that he actually had a very
deep realization that he couldn't recover from.
Have you read about Meher Baba and his work with 'masts'? People who have
enlightenment experiences but have difficulty coming back to regular life?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meher_Baba
I suspect that this is what happened to Nietzsche. Of course this is my own
opinion and I wouldn't even begin to know how to justify it. The other
explanations of his mental illness just don't seem to fit quite right to my
ears.
>
>>
>>>
>>> It's OK to abandon self I guess, but to what end? Like you said, war
>>> dances
>>> are not music for the sake of music, they are to rouse passion and
>>> direct
>>> people to a warlike mind state.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Then of course, there's sex, and drugs, and rock and roll. 8-)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>