On composting, potting history et al.
Mario Taboada
Petit, a few things occurred to me:
1. Was the purpose of MMP to TELL COMPOSERS WHAT OR HOW TO COMPOSE?
This is ridiculous, and besides it will have no effect whatever. It DID
have the effect of raising the temperature by several degrees, which
maybe is not such a bad thing.
2. Was it a complaint of the "the Golden era is past, those were real
(wo)men, etc." type? This sounds to me like pretty hackneyed material; to
be more precise, it sounds like bitching of a rather unproductive kind.
3. Did it have the purpose of showing the audience (us) what a bunch of
ignoramuses we are? If it was, it did not succeed with me, since I find the
prolix messages written by MMP incomprehensible, partly because they do
not respect the old rule of introducing one idea per sentence. Strunk and
White has not been deleted, has it?
4. It has been strongly hinted that MMP might be somebody else using
another's e-mail account. I find it rather surprising that the person
sending these messages has said nothing regarding this (I know I would).
The last thing electronic communication on cultural matters needs is
anonymous messages. I urge everyone to sign their name.
Having said this, I will abstain from commenting on MMP's messages
until point 4 is clarified.
Best regards,
Mario Taboada
Department of Mathematics
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
>After following the various threads that can be traced to Margaret-Mary
>Petit, a few things occurred to me:
>
>1. Was the purpose of MMP to TELL COMPOSERS WHAT OR HOW TO COMPOSE?
>This is ridiculous, and besides it will have no effect whatever. It DID
>have the effect of raising the temperature by several degrees, which
>maybe is not such a bad thing.
the modernists, or saying that it was of a different aesthetic that
they "should not have written it". This has all the markings
of a smear campaign. Composers cannot get around the following things:
1. That there is aphysical process that
2. We perceive and interpret as sound
3. This perception has a sensation with it,
4. These sensations have associations within the mind.
As for composing new classical music, yes, if oyu go about composing
in a modernist mind set, with techniques laid out by modernists or
proto-modernists) you will probably compose modernist music, because
you are think about things that the aesthetic is interested
in and in a way that it proscribes.
>2. Was it a complaint of the "the Golden era is past, those were real
>(wo)men, etc." type? This sounds to me like pretty hackneyed material; to
>be more precise, it sounds like bitching of a rather unproductive kind.
I have said that this is not the case repeatedly. Many,many,many,many,many times. Music must
go forward, if the classical aethetic is to more than a marvel of taxidermy,
then new ideas must be brought in. The fact that
modernist music lost many of the key elements of classicm is
demonstrated by how small (if vocal) the number
of people who go from classicism to modernism in
orchestral composition is , and conversely how hihg the percentge
of followers of Pendereski and Glass etc that do not listen
to Beethoven or Berlioz is.
Your misquotations of my posts are sufficently common that I wonder what is going on in
your mind. Are you so conditioned to htink
does not like my music = retro
that you cannot see the words on the screen that contradict this?
You seem to be extremely willing to box me in that mold. I have said:
- that I have no wish to go back to any other
eraa (in posts about the tonal vs atonal)
- that I found what kodaly did in Hungary (imposing conservatism
through pedagogy and bullying) in pursuit of tonal music to
be as stupid as what Boulez did in france for dodecaphonic
- I have not gone after you with quotes form Casals or any other
of the romantics, in fact have stated that the romantic era
attempted to justify subjective oppions by
the creation of supposedly objective systems (and then proceded
to "prove" things such as the inferiority of the
other races etc.)
******************************** NONE ****************************************
of these statements or a host of others that I have posted tally with your explanation
that I just long for the "Good Old Days". And I would appreciate it
if you would keep sexist slurs out of the discussion.
>3. Did it have the purpose of showing the audience (us) what a bunch of
>ignoramuses we are? If it was, it did not succeed with me, since I find the
>prolix messages written by MMP incomprehensible, partly because they do
>not respect the old rule of introducing one idea per sentence. Strunk and
>White has not been deleted, has it?
Strunk and white is at the heart of modernist writing style. Use modernists methods, get
modernists results. Many writers, great and small have attempted to juxapose
mementary thoughts, or sensations against a larger context or truth.
That is the single "thought" of which you speak is at the core of our
aesthetic disagreement. You view almost everything in terms
of its mementary fragments built upward, to you a "thought" is
a distilled utterance which is formable through the very restrie grammar
of S&W.
To me a thought must not only explain a point, but atempt to associate that
point with others, so that it has not only description, but location, and
hence the reader can understand (with effort) not
only the thought,, but the relation
that the thought had to toehrs. An idea in
some sense of its context not a slogan "such as "long live sch!" or
some similar formulation.
What you have essentially said is
that you are an enthusiast of modernist music.
All well and good, go about trying to infomr people who want to
listen to your music, and argue for its merits. But I have read
post after post of yours that essential declares that
you regard the modernists composers as the successors to the classical
period composers. This is, observationally, no the case. While
you can argue for their:
1. aesthetic (what they are trying to do)
2. technique (how they do it)
3. quality (how well they do it)
4. importance (why we should pay attention to what they are doing.)
5. relevance (how what they are doing relates to that which is occuring in
other fields of art or science)
6. emotive power
You cannot argue that those of us who have heard, and rejected
this music simply don't understand. Many of us *do* understand and
have rejected it. Or are you of the "if you don't agree with me completely
obviously I have not made myself clear" school of thought?
It was *you* not I who told the asker of "an interesting question" that they were just "wrong".
It was *you* and not I who has , as far as I can tell at this point,
systematically attempted to shove words in my mouth, and from the
straw man just created attack me.
>4. It has been strongly hinted that MMP might be somebody else using
>another's e-mail account. I find it rather surprising that the person
>sending these messages has said nothing regarding this (I know I would).
>The last thing electronic communication on cultural matters needs is
>anonymous messages. I urge everyone to sign their name.
>
> Having said this, I will abstain from commenting on MMP's messages
>until point 4 is clarified.
Since you only take my posts to feed your belief that there is some sort
of conspiracy to prevent people from liking the music that you like, and that everyone
who dislikes your music either does not know it, or is
some how a throw back to a previous age, there is no point to your responding.
You have not so far, you have been posting to your inner demons,
those that have shapped you to form the belief that you have, and those
that drive your decision to take your assumptions (such as strunk and white)
and put them forward as absolute postulates (postulare- to demand) for
discussion. You have been posting to the others who already agree with you. Who will
take each barb, each flame, each insult, each misquotation
as the deepest truth, and will cheer you for it.
I hope you feel good about this, because you are helping to do nothing
else.
>Best regards,
>
>Mario Taboada
>Department of Mathematics
>University of Southern California
>Los Angeles, CA 90089
>
Margaret-Mary Petit Internet: MP4...@uacsc1.albany.edu
Rockefeller College Bitnet: MP4...@albnyvms.bitnet
SUNY Albany, NY
----`---,---{@
Mario Taboada
to my ear. A little Strunk and White goes a long way when it comes
to avoiding the passive voice. Please replace "their" by "his" (I
mean his/her). Thanks for pointing out the error.
Incidentally, I didn't mean to sound like a jerk when I pointed
out MMP's obscurity. But I do think that editors are there to be
used, especially when writing long passages.
Best regards,
Mario Taboada
Steven Correll
Mario Taboada <tab...@mtha.usc.edu> wrote:
>...I find the
>prolix messages written by MMP incomprehensible, partly because they do
>not respect the old rule of introducing one idea per sentence. Strunk and
>White has not been deleted, has it?
>
>4. It has been strongly hinted that MMP might be somebody else using
Criticizing someone's grammar or writing style always seems cheap, but since
you invoked Strunk and White, I'll mention that they would abhor your using
the passive voice ("It has been strongly hinted"), and that they would
complain about the disagreement among the plural possessive "their", the
singular noun "name", and the singular pronoun "everyone".
(But I understand. I read MMP with difficulty for a while, and then gave up.)
--
Steven Correll == PO Box 66625, Scotts Valley, CA 95067 == s...@netcom.com
Mario Taboada
until your identity was made clear (and I notice you make no attempt
at identifying yourself), you address me directly, so I feel
compelled to answer.
1. I stand what I said in my previous message, with the possible
replacement of "bitching" by "complaining" (I think nowadays
"bitching" is applied to both men and women; in any case, I was
not commenting on your sex but on your ideas.)
2. You are wrong in saying that I told somebody that he was
mistaken. Somebody else, not me, must have said this.
3. It seems presumptuous of you to tell me how I think,
especially since you don't know me.
4. I do not participate in these discussions in order to "promote"
anything, or to cater to any "modernist clique", and I very
much doubt that such a clique exists. If it does exist, I am
not a member of it.
5. This is just an electronic cafe. It is not a symposium on the
future of music, let alone of humanity. If I try sometimes to
introduce a little humor (however misguided), I don't think
that's such a terrible sin (plus: I can't help it..).
6. I don't understand your criticism of Strunk and White;
in what way is a manual of style "modernist". Are you sure you
don't mean Schenker?
7. Are you comparing your prose to Plato's?
Very best regards,
Mario Taboada
Los Angeles
Chris Kapral
>...prolix messages written by MMP incomprehensible, partly because they do
>not respect the old rule of introducing one idea per sentence. Strunk and
>White has not been deleted, has it?
and mp responded:
>Strunk and white is at the heart of modernist writing style. Use modernists methods, get
>modernists results. Many writers, great and small have attempted to juxapose
>mementary thoughts, or sensations against a larger context or truth.
>That is the single "thought" of which you speak is at the core of our
>aesthetic disagreement. You view almost everything in terms
>of its mementary fragments built upward, to you a "thought" is
>a distilled utterance which is formable through the very restrie grammar
>of S&W.
>To me a thought must not only explain a point, but atempt to associate that
>point with others, so that it has not only description, but location, and
>hence the reader can understand (with effort) not
>only the thought,, but the relation
>that the thought had to toehrs. An idea in
>some sense of its context not a slogan "such as "long live sch!" or
>some similar formulation.
Now, wait a minute. This is getting out of hand. You're saying that your thoughts
can't be expressed in simpler sentences because points can't be associated with
other points except by combining them in a single sentence? That's nonsense.
Like others in this group, I have been patiently trying to follow your posts, but
if you think that the very idea of clarity in writing is antithetical to what you're
trying to say, I think it's hopeless for me to continue.
And another thing: Strunk and White don't propose a restricted grammar; they merely
suggest ways to express thoughts clearly.
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
>Although I said I would not comment on any further messages of yours
>until your identity was made clear (and I notice you make no attempt
>at identifying yourself), you address me directly, so I feel
>compelled to answer.
>
>anything, or to cater to any "modernist clique", and I very
>much doubt that such a clique exists. If it does exist, I am
>not a member of it.
statemnt in negative terms: you quite clearly have enthusiams
for particular kinds of music, and promote them simply by
speaking well of them and offering directions for those who
are intrigued or find some of the pieces sympaticco but
do not know where to turn for further listening. Just as
people who like classical help classical music out by saying
"if you like .... then try ...".
One of the purposes that this forum is used in aid of is the
expansion of others range of experience.
>5. This is just an electronic cafe. It is not a symposium on the
>future of music, let alone of humanity. If I try sometimes to
>introduce a little humor (however misguided), I don't think
>that's such a terrible sin (plus: I can't help it..).
And you feel some sort of adversee reaction appearantly to
people who feel otherwise (that important issues can be discussed here.)
This is, in itself, a decision and a dicatate of what other people
can/cannot feel and should/should not do. I for one disagree
withthe "its only a game" theory of life. That is people who do
not act in a way congruent to "this is just an electronic cafe"
get the receiving end of your ire.
>6. I don't understand your criticism of Strunk and White;
>in what way is a manual of style "modernist". Are you sure you
>don't mean Schenker?
Satre, Camus... then ask yourself what are the unifiying elements
of the style of these authors, reread S&W, and most specifically
the sections by EB White, and ask yourself: are these rules
of grammar, or are they about hwo we should write? And if so,
what we can write about (CS Lewis ruminated about functionalism
in language.... this is not my idea, but I happen to accept it.
>7. Are you comparing your prose to Plato's
you should try the nomos or the writings of that contne free
hack aristotle who has a sentence with six seperate particle
clauses, which beings with a nother particle that relates it to
hte next senstence which is in a chapter that begins with a particle
whic is completed as the heading of the next chaper (huge men
de clause.).
Second this is a cheap net debating trick. You put forward a
principle of langauge. I refuted by counter example: it
can't be so. My counter example has to be a great writer, if I had
picked a hack, you would have said (well he's a hack) or
some vairent there on, but if I pick a grat writer I get accuesed
of hubris. For the record: no I am not a good net poster. I don't
have that turn for the vicious slur, the intentional misquote
or ham handed debating trick. Nor do I consider myself in general
a good writer, but the problem is aggravated by people such as you:
my sentences obviously offend your aesthetic of what a sentnce
ought to be, can't you see that much of the music that
you have such jubilant affection for does the same thing musically
to other people? Or are only you allowed to say this is inaccessible
but great, and this is inaccesible and needs to consult a basic
style manual?
Thi adherence (in your own mind) to strunk and white is an
example: you freely break the rules that are there in written,
and then go after people who don't follow the rules
that you consider important as if they were violating
a law of physics:
it is a cryin example of one of your problems mario, you have
been told certain things, and assume that they are eterl truths.
Strunk and white is a grammar manual that has a very particular slant
on the world (shakespea, milton, shaw, wj bryan, and a host of others would
flunk their grammar... who should I trust, some moderately good
essayisand author of childrens books (white) and a academic..
.. or the great writers of the langauge?)
(Poet's are the unacknowledged legistlators of the world.)
You are steeped in modernism mario, form te anti-heroicism of your
attitude of ths forum, (Poulenc had somethings to say about music
whichc orrespond, to your "one thought bite per space between periods"
attitude towards a sentence) to your subjectivist view of muisic.
Sorry how you think is clear from what you write, and your attitude
of "you haven;'t met me face to face so you can't know what I think or
how I think " is so retro in this net age...
>
>Very best regards,
>
>Mario Taboada
>Los Angeles
>
NB to the tired: I would be willing to bet that most people are as tired of this dead
horces as I am, I will *igore* any furhter comments on
spelling and grammar. Those of you who have really fast machines
connected to Framemaker with the OED on line and all the time in the
world as well as a direct hook up to a achine on the backbone
deddicated to your work can sneer all you like to those of us who have
to wait 5 or ten seconds for the cursor to go backwards one letter
and are hooked up by modem.
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
>
>Now, wait a minute. This is getting out of hand. You're saying that your thoughts
>can't be expressed in simpler sentences because points can't be associated with
>other points except by combining them in a single sentence? That's nonsense.
>
>Like others in this group, I have been patiently trying to follow your posts, but
>if you think that the very idea of clarity in writing is antithetical to what you're
>trying to say, I think it's hopeless for me to continue.
>
>And another thing: Strunk and White don't propose a restricted grammar; they merely
>suggest ways to express thoughts clearly.
of gramatical organization, white with "Style".
The original complaintent feels that it is necessary for his
aesthetic of english to have periods between everything that he defines
as a thought. He claims this is an old rule, which if 90 years is old
is correct. He cites S&W which is written around the turn of the century.
You seem to feel that anything that is not following hte rules of S&W is
not "clear" just as several extreme professors of music insist
that music which is not of their particular style (and the styles they
support varies) is not "serious".
Which brings me back to the point I made sometime ago. There are
basic definitions,basic signals and symbols to
an aesthetic. If you offend those rules (as I have
with you), one is opened to charges of "incomprhensibility","unclear",
"illiteracy","prolixxed","Babble" and the rest.
This touches on a basic idea. That the rules of an aesthetic
can seem eternal, basic, irrefutable ... until one has
understood an accepted the new ones. The same torrent of abuse
has been poured on my head that has met new composers
with new ideas, I am not claiming similar greatness for the
core ideas, but they have not really been discussed:
they have been dismissed out of hand because the "form" of
the work does not appeal to certain people's aestheric criterion
for posts. How is spelling related to content?
As far as "everything that can be said can be said in short sentences".
This is like "all melodies should be short to aid development" -
a rule a retro romantic expounded to me
on why the greatness of Beethoven and Brahms over Schubert and
Mahler (you can find echoes of this on
the insides of various record jackets such as the commnets on the
schuman works that are paired with the Brahms Piano Concertoes on
CBS Masterworks) and in many more scholarly works. It is almost
an article of faith for a certain generation. Somethings
require longer sentences, because several short noun
verb structures, several processes which they describe, must be held
in view simultaneously. And either one can make a running start and stop
list, which leads to a kind of advertising ese and the sentence becomes
no more than a very stiff comma, or you can take the definition that a sentence
is a unit of thought, and thus the entirey of it should be held in the sentences
length. I find my short sentences are misunderstood as much
as my long ones, so your idea that my long sentences are unclear does
not seem to be born out. They are harder to read. But aesthetic
is a hard thing to think about. Our personal preferences are
so welded to our understanding of it, that we must engage in very
penetrating thought, and hold in mind many different points at the same
time. Instead of merely flaming me for not meeting your aesthetic
of english (as Clark once flame baited people by posting how music
that did not meet his aesthetic was "noise") Start thinking of things
in a different way. That the individual reaction to music
is neither judgement or justification, since we cannot tell what within
one person's reaction is "personal" unique to their experiences,
"cultural" that is embeded in the web of contacts that are common to their time
based on communication received often ad in similar forms by many, and
that which is closer to "universal" based on things common to almost
all people, in fact even this catagorization is inadequqte, but a start
in the direction that I am pointing:
*********************
Aesthetic cna be understood by the habits of thought embodied by its
action and encouraged by its doing.
An Example is: in order to write harmony you must think of things in certain terms.
By writing harmony you begin to think in certain ways, becasue the brain
builds connections between places that are oft used.
********************
The process of making art is a simple one, one judges the state of the
work (this does not imply conscious, or analytical judgement, but
you know where you are: even if the judgement is that you don't need to care
where you are),compares it to the desired effect and brings the two closer
to gether (where you are, where you want to be)
AN example:
Let us say you believe that art is about simply the act of making it, and
that self -expression by attempting art is all that is importatn. The work of
art then is not you rfocus, but the making of it, and thus
at each instant you
are moving more and more to the feel of creating art,
towards that sense, and u modify what you are doing, or
add to the work of art based on this feeling.
The work of art becomes the sign, to you that art has taken place.
But the artistic experience was in the making of it, and
viewing the work an evocation of that experience, and
thus *for you* holds the meaning of art. Others can participate
to the extent that they share the symbols an aesthetic and can
recognized the appearant formlessness as the sign
of ex-static creation.
The view does the same process, the associate the wrok, to that which is
withing themselves, but the act of
associating itself can change that which is within, for now the work of art itself is
part of the web of associations upon which future judgements are to be made.
By this means the art can alter how you view art.
Painting can teach us how to see anew,
music to hear differently and think of time differently,
writing to change the way tha we perceive thwe way thoughts fit
together.
Richard Wang
Mario Taboada <tab...@mtha.usc.edu> wrote:
>Although I said I would not comment on any further messages of yours
>until your identity was made clear (and I notice you make no attempt
>at identifying yourself), you address me directly, so I feel
>compelled to answer.>
There is a forum for threads which have degenerated from discussions of
music into one-on-one sparring matches of no intellectual value. It's
called email, and I respectfully request that you and Margaret use it
from now on.
--
Richard Wang
rw...@husc.harvard.edu
"Eve was not the first to pluck and sample the apple. Adam was first and
he learned by this to put the blame on Eve."--Leto II,
_God_Emperor_of_Dune_, Frank Herbert
P. Fritz Cronheim
>>Which brings me back to the point I made sometime ago. There are
>>basic definitions,basic signals and symbols to
>>an aesthetic. If you offend those rules (as I have
>>with you), one is opened to charges of "incomprhensibility","unclear",
>>"illiteracy","prolixxed","Babble" and the rest.
NEWS FLASH! Mery-Margaret Petit admits to being a MODERNIST!
More at 11:00
:)
pfc
Chris Brewster
>6. I don't understand your criticism of Strunk and White;
>in what way is a manual of style "modernist". Are you sure you
>don't mean Schenker?
Read conrad,Hemmingway,EB White,Henry Miller,Ayn Rand,John Updike,
Satre, Camus... then ask yourself what are the unifiying elements
of the style of these authors, reread S&W, and most specifically
the sections by EB White, and ask yourself: are these rules
of grammar, or are they about hwo we should write? And if so,
what we can write about (CS Lewis ruminated about functionalism
in language.... this is not my idea, but I happen to accept it.
At the risk of straying too far from music, I agree with that critique
of White's style rules. White defines *a* style (his own style, in
fact), not style in general. For example, avoiding dialect and slang
are excellent ways to give writing a certain civilized tone that would
be acceptable to William Shawn, but good writing certainly can contain
dialect or slang. And as mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet argues, adherance to
the William Shawn style undoubtedly encourages a certain world view in a
writer.
--
Chris Brewster Cray Research, Inc.
Mario Taboada
was a satyrical remark on the lack of clarity of certain sentences.
I don't care what style a person uses, provided I can understand what
they are trying to communicate. In fact, I was kidding.
As for
"conrad,Hemmingway,EB White,Henry Miller,Ayn Rand,John Updike,
Satre, Camus... then ask yourself what are the unifiying elements
of the style of these authors"
This one's easy: I have read them;there isn't any unifying thread in
their styles. If you so desire, we can engage in a structural analysis of
these authors' texts. Better, why don't YOU read them and then tell me
what the unifying elements are?
Frank Brickle
> Strunk and White is completely irrelevant to the comment I made, which
> was a satyrical remark on the lack of clarity of certain sentences.
> I don't care what style a person uses, provided I can understand what
> they are trying to communicate. In fact, I was kidding.
Roland Barthes -- in the essay on Ignatius Loyola? -- asserts that the
person who says "I write badly" is really saying "I think well!"
Richard Wang
> The original complaintent feels that it is necessary for his
>aesthetic of english to have periods between everything that he defines
>as a thought. He claims this is an old rule, which if 90 years is old
>is correct. He cites S&W which is written around the turn of the century.
>
>You seem to feel that anything that is not following hte rules of S&W is
>not "clear" just as several extreme professors of music insist
>that music which is not of their particular style (and the styles they
>support varies) is not "serious".
>for posts. How is spelling related to content?
?? Well, for one thing, iffe teh spellynge and grammer ar two distortd its
reely hard too unnerstand.
And before you accuse me of infringing on your personal freedom by
insisting upon the conformist and oppressive rules of the English
language, I'll remind you that speakers of other languages can be far
less forgiving. French people laugh if you conjugate wrong, Chinese are
offended if your pronunciation is off, and I've had my halting Korean cut
off by an indignant native who snarled, "You slaughter my language." And
I wasn't even coining new and incomprehensible words for their
edification.
>on why the greatness of Beethoven and Brahms over Schubert and
>Mahler (you can find echoes of this on
>the insides of various record jackets such as the commnets on the
>schuman works that are paired with the Brahms Piano Concertoes on
>CBS Masterworks) and in many more scholarly works. It is almost
?? Most musicologists I've read don't make value judgments like that;
they have better sense than to represent their personal preferences
as canon only the weight of their authority. *ahem*
>time. Instead of merely flaming me for not meeting your aesthetic
>of english (as Clark once flame baited people by posting how music
>that did not meet his aesthetic was "noise") Start thinking of things
>in a different way. That the individual reaction to music
Your posts don't offend against my aesthetic of English--it takes someone
like Hemingway to do that (and not because he's ungrammatical or
untalented, but because his style fails to please me). They do, however,
effectively obscure what you have to say.
Do you mean that modernism has simply perpetuated the stifling weight of
tradition inherent to Western music? And that we should cast aside all
preconceptions and cultural blinders and just listen to music? Assuming
I've understood your arguments correctly, I agree that Western music is
tradition-bound. New music often seems to be done for the sake of
newness more than anything else, and some of those experiments are bound
to fail. However, I'd find it rather dull if everyone today still
composed polyphonic vocal music. I suspect that experimenters in every
age were regarded with the same amount of popular disdain that we see in
the modern era. I also don't think *anyone* can evaluate music
completely objectively, free of cultural or even visceral influences.
Why bother, anyway? Ideally, music is readily available to a receptive
public, which samples everything but accepts selectively. Why force
everyone to acknowledge an objective standard?
If I've completely misunderstood your posts, I apologize. Hope to hear
your thoughts soon.
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
>NEWS FLASH! Mery-Margaret Petit admits to being a MODERNIST!
>
>More at 11:00
>
>:)
>
>pfc
It is difficult not to be one in this day and age, and simply
because I think that modernism is a dead aesthetic does not mean I think
it never had life.
Seth Tisue
>Strunk and white is at the heart of modernist writing style.
Let's name some prominent literary modernists: James Joyce, Gertrude
Stein, Ezra Pound... Not exactly a Strunk&White-conforming bunch.
Care to explain what you mean by this?
--
== Seth Tisue (s-t...@anl.gov OR s-t...@uchicago.edu)
Mark Gresham
>The view does the same process, the associate the wrok, to that which is
>withing themselves, but the act of
>associating itself can change that which is within, for now the work of art itself is
>part of the web of associations upon which future judgements are to be made.
>By this means the art can alter how you view art.
>
>Painting can teach us how to see anew,
>music to hear differently and think of time differently,
>writing to change the way tha we perceive thwe way thoughts fit
>together.
Much of this is beginning to sound a lot like John Cage. His
statement, though, included that music could actually serve as examples
(or models) for behavior and for society. (The perception as active
participation doing this in addition to the more traditional views
of active participation.)
This is related to why (in an earlier posting) I asked
Mary-Margaret for her world-view and desired direction of
aesthetic/ethical progress on a level beyond the narrow confines
of music.
(The occasional comments regarding "mental symbols" etc. makes me
wish Stephen Smoliar were participating in this discussion.)
Cheers,
Mark
=====
Mark Gresham
Norcross, Georgia
USA
mgre...@dscatl.atl.ga.us
dscatl!mgre...@gatech.edu
=====
Rhea Jacobs
In a previous article, bri...@ccr-p.ida.org (Frank Brickle) says:
>From article <2rk5a1$s...@mtha.usc.edu>, by tab...@mtha.usc.edu (Mario Taboada):
>> Strunk and White is completely irrelevant to the comment I made, which
>> was a satyrical remark on the lack of clarity of certain sentences.
>> I don't care what style a person uses, provided I can understand what
>> they are trying to communicate. In fact, I was kidding.
>
>Roland Barthes -- in the essay on Ignatius Loyola? -- asserts that the
>person who says "I write badly" is really saying "I think well!"
>
One would expect such a remark from Barthes, whose disciples were
responsible for the degeneration of academic French into an unreadable
pseudoscientific jargon. I'm with Boileau here: that which is clearly
thought out can be clearly expressed.
Sorry for straying off-topic, but I couldn't let that one go past!
--
##################################################
# Rhea Jacobs - The Dogtown Doggerel Factory #
# St. Louis, MO #
##################################################
Roger Lustig
>In article <2rc2sr$b...@mtha.usc.edu>, tab...@mtha.usc.edu (Mario Taboada) writes:
>>After following the various threads that can be traced to Margaret-Mary
>>Petit, a few things occurred to me:
>>1. Was the purpose of MMP to TELL COMPOSERS WHAT OR HOW TO COMPOSE?
>>This is ridiculous, and besides it will have no effect whatever. It DID
>>have the effect of raising the temperature by several degrees, which
>>maybe is not such a bad thing.
>No, not at all. Did I say, anywhere, even when condemnin the music of
>the modernists, or saying that it was of a different aesthetic that
>they "should not have written it". This has all the markings
>of a smear campaign.
No, you didn't say that.
Of course, you also haven't said what leads you to believe that you've
identified *the* "modernist aesthetic" (as though there were only
one) or that your attribution of ideas to composers such as
Schoenberg has any basis in fact.
>Composers cannot get around the following things:
>1. That there is aphysical process that
>2. We perceive and interpret as sound
>3. This perception has a sensation with it,
>4. These sensations have associations within the mind.
Which mind? All minds? Are the associations the same in every mind?
And which composers are trying to "get around" this?
> As for composing new classical music, yes, if oyu go about composing
>in a modernist mind set,
What's that?
>with techniques laid out by modernists or
> proto-modernists) you will probably compose modernist music, because
>you are think about things that the aesthetic is interested
>in and in a way that it proscribes.
Prescribes, perhaps? And what *is* that esthetic interested in?
So far we've gotten some pretty grandiose claims and little to
back them up.
>>2. Was it a complaint of the "the Golden era is past, those were real
>>(wo)men, etc." type? This sounds to me like pretty hackneyed material; to
>>be more precise, it sounds like bitching of a rather unproductive kind.
>I have said that this is not the case repeatedly. Many,many,many,many,many times. Music must
>go forward, if the classical aethetic is to more than a marvel of taxidermy,
>then new ideas must be brought in.
Actually, it would be nice if you could *identify* that "Classical aesthetic."
And tell us why it *should* apply.
>The fact that
>modernist music lost many of the key elements of classicm is
Fact? Lost? That's another strong statement. Which are the key
elements? And what *is* classicism? The Classical composers
certainly never used that term.
>demonstrated by how small (if vocal) the number
>of people who go from classicism to modernism in
>orchestral composition is , and conversely how hihg the percentge
>of followers of Pendereski and Glass etc that do not listen
>to Beethoven or Berlioz is.
So supply us with some numbers to prove your point. (And then tell
us why the founder of modernist thought in music--Berlioz--appears
in that position within your sentence...)
>Your misquotations of my posts are sufficently common that I wonder what is going on in
>your mind. Are you so conditioned to htink
> does not like my music = retro
>that you cannot see the words on the screen that contradict this?
Actually, it's your words on the screen that contradict all kinds of things
that have given us so much trouble.
>You seem to be extremely willing to box me in that mold. I have said:
>- that I have no wish to go back to any other
> eraa (in posts about the tonal vs atonal)
>- that I found what kodaly did in Hungary (imposing conservatism
> through pedagogy and bullying) in pursuit of tonal music to
> be as stupid as what Boulez did in france for dodecaphonic
>- I have not gone after you with quotes form Casals or any other
> of the romantics, in fact have stated that the romantic era
> attempted to justify subjective oppions by
> the creation of supposedly objective systems (and then proceded
> to "prove" things such as the inferiority of the
> other races etc.)
>******************************** NONE ****************************************
>of these statements or a host of others that I have posted tally with your explanation
>that I just long for the "Good Old Days". And I would appreciate it
>if you would keep sexist slurs out of the discussion.
It would seem as though you've been confused with Chris Clark, who
did say quite a few of those things.
>>3. Did it have the purpose of showing the audience (us) what a bunch of
>>ignoramuses we are? If it was, it did not succeed with me, since I find the
>>prolix messages written by MMP incomprehensible, partly because they do
>>not respect the old rule of introducing one idea per sentence. Strunk and
>>White has not been deleted, has it?
>Strunk and white is at the heart of modernist writing style. Use modernists methods, get
>modernists results.
Strunk as modernist? That's a pretty fascinating analysis. What makes
you say that?
>Many writers, great and small have attempted to juxapose
>mementary thoughts, or sensations against a larger context or truth.
>That is the single "thought" of which you speak is at the core of our
>aesthetic disagreement. You view almost everything in terms
>of its mementary fragments built upward, to you a "thought" is
>a distilled utterance which is formable through the very restrie grammar
>of S&W.
That S'n'W isn't much of a book on grammar goes without saying. But it's
still a fairly good guide (with notable lapses) for basic expository
writing, such as some of us have been seduced into expecting some of
your posts to be.
>To me a thought must not only explain a point, but atempt to associate that
>point with others, so that it has not only description, but location, and
>hence the reader can understand (with effort) not
>only the thought,, but the relation
>that the thought had to toehrs. An idea in
Don't worry, you're in no danger of accomplishing that. I still want to know
how you call Schoenberg a modernist if that involves a succession of moments.
he explicitly contradicted such a view.
>some sense of its context not a slogan "such as "long live sch!" or
>some similar formulation.
Then you should avoid slogans such as "the modernist esthetic" and "classical
esthetic" and "Handel didn't compose tonal music" unless you can back them
up with cogent arguments and a context.
> What you have essentially said is
>that you are an enthusiast of modernist music.
What's wrong with "modern"? And why does an appreciation of concise writing
mean that one likes this or that music?
>All well and good, go about trying to infomr people who want to
>listen to your music, and argue for its merits. But I have read
>post after post of yours that essential declares that
>you regard the modernists composers as the successors to the classical
>period composers. This is, observationally, no the case. While
So who *is* the successor? And how are you defining "classical period"?
>you can argue for their:
>1. aesthetic (what they are trying to do)
>2. technique (how they do it)
>3. quality (how well they do it)
>4. importance (why we should pay attention to what they are doing.)
>5. relevance (how what they are doing relates to that which is occuring in
>other fields of art or science)
>6. emotive power
>You cannot argue that those of us who have heard, and rejected
>this music simply don't understand.
Sure we can. Especially if you demonstrate that you don't have your
facts straight.
>Many of us *do* understand and
>have rejected it. Or are you of the "if you don't agree with me completely
>obviously I have not made myself clear" school of thought?
Irrelevant. You *haven't* made yourself clear, from the "Subversive
history" posting to your claims about what "modernism" and "Classical"
and "tonal" mean, and how instruments were tuned in the early 18thC,
and on and on and on.
>It was *you* not I who told the asker of "an interesting question" that they were just "wrong".
>
>It was *you* and not I who has , as far as I can tell at this point,
>systematically attempted to shove words in my mouth, and from the
>straw man just created attack me.
As though your "modernism" weren't a straw man?
>>4. It has been strongly hinted that MMP might be somebody else using
>>another's e-mail account. I find it rather surprising that the person
>>sending these messages has said nothing regarding this (I know I would).
>>The last thing electronic communication on cultural matters needs is
>>anonymous messages. I urge everyone to sign their name.
>> Having said this, I will abstain from commenting on MMP's messages
>>until point 4 is clarified.
>Since you only take my posts to feed your belief that there is some sort
>of conspiracy to prevent people from liking the music that you like, and that everyone
>who dislikes your music either does not know it, or is
>some how a throw back to a previous age, there is no point to your responding.
>You have not so far, you have been posting to your inner demons,
>those that have shapped you to form the belief that you have, and those
>that drive your decision to take your assumptions (such as strunk and white)
>and put them forward as absolute postulates (postulare- to demand) for
>discussion. You have been posting to the others who already agree with you. Who will
>take each barb, each flame, each insult, each misquotation
>as the deepest truth, and will cheer you for it.
>I hope you feel good about this, because you are helping to do nothing
>else.
Does that mean that you *are* Margaret Mary, or that you're not?
Roger
ALVARO4
>NEWS FLASH! Mery-Margaret Petit admits to being a MODERNIST!
I've been following this thread for some time now, and like others, I'm
getting a bit frustrated with the pedantic references to MMP's spelling
and lack of punctuation.
In reference to the quote above, I have also noticed that this thread, and
I think
that MMP is not at fault here, has become a means of venting frustration
that
many uninformed music "lovers" feel towards academics who make the
slightest
attempt to understand the history of musical ideas. Although I disagree
with some
of MMP's assertions concerning Schoenberg and other "modernists", her/his
(does it really matter?) questions about the scope and intentions of
atonality are extremely relevant to music and musicology today. As a
composer, I have been
divided one the one hand by an impulse to create regardless of theory and
on the other hand by an impulse to "construct" something new that leaves
no trace of chance: in other words, a "modernist" piece. Being that a
composer cannot escape the influence of tradition (after Heidegger this
notion has been implicit in all our responses to art), my question to
those of you who are interested in such matters is: Is it possible to
construct a piece of music that lacks even the most remote reference to
other musical events (harmony, melody, rythm, etc)?
Regards, Vivaldo
Brandeis University
mp4...@albnyvms.bitnet
The question put to us is: can we make new music without
reference to anything any musical events in the past. I think that
there are three roads to look at:
1. Use context to declare an event musical, and then do
anything you want, asking the audience to interpret
this as music. This is the road of John Cage. While I
do not follow it, nor particularly care for the results.
It does meet your criterion, nothing is left to chance,
and there need be no refence to any musical idea previously
extant.
2. Decipher what produces natural punction and assemlbe a
sound set which breaks basically understood definitons of
harmony, rhythm etc. Of course the definitons will
expand to encompass your work, if you are at all
successful in reaching people.
3. Rephrase the question: exaclty what is it you
find about previous practice limiting. Sch did not
break all of the rules, but only those that he found restrictive
to his ends, and attempted to uncover new rules that
had previously been masked over. One can argue about
the success, validity or aesthetic value of the pieces,
but one cannot ignore the application of the idea that some
previous vision of what music is about, phrased in words
cannot be exactly congruent to the non-verbal, non-linguistic
musical mechanisms.
I would ask a simple question of you: what is it you wish to
convey? (Or are you interested in "composing about composers
who composed about composers who composed about h music
should only be about composition..."). What in that idea or
set of ideas *requires* new expression, where does the current
vocabulary fall short, or the current modes of thinking about
that vocabulary or the ways of thinking in general. In order
to teach us to hear anew, which is what innovative music must, in the
end do if it is to be more than a doctoral thesis about integrating
of tape splicing and carefully controlled spilling of coffee on
school equipment, you must have an idea of what it
is you want to explore. "Doing anything you want" means nothing if
you change nothing. If no one is any different as a person for
having heard your piece, why not just listen to seagulls
crying in the distance?
This does not mean you need a verbal idea, or even one
that *can* be expressed in words. You say you want something "new"
what does newness feel to you? What are its signs, how do you
*feel* when you have broken ground, what sounds can you use
to show us this feeling and make us participants in it?
Form may follow function, and shape may be an expression
of the senses, but that which is not beautiful is not functional.
Bruce Quaglia
>
> The question put to us is: can we make new music without
>reference to anything any musical events in the past. I think that
>there are three roads to look at:
>
Speaking purely for myself: no you can't. Musical culture
is about tradition: it is a living tradition when it is
frequently honored in the breach. (There's an interesting
quote of Adorno's regarding how composers are much more
honest servants of Bach's music than the various "source"
scholars who at one time "owned" Bach's music as their
exclusive province.
I'm hard pressed to think of any contemporary
composers whom I admire who are not, at some level, trying
to reconcile their practice and aesthetic with music history.
Most of them, incidentally, are not doing that by merely
recylcling old idioms and writing in a neo-X style, but are
trying to figure out what can be salvalged from the older
languages and how it can be adapted to suit the ends of
a contemporary practise. (I highly reccomend Seymour Shifrin's
very brief manifesto "A note from the underground" as exemplary
of this concern.)
On the other hand, I personally find most of the
efforts from those composers who would present us with
works "from out of the blue", (that is, entirely new and
without any relationship of any kind to the traditional
canon: and this determination is surely a very tricky
business- ) to be ultimately dull and amateurish. Music is
always about music, and when it is "trying" to be about
something else (and therefore ever so modern and "revolutionary"),
it is usually the case that the composer is poorly trained
and is trying to make the music be about something that
they *are* trained in. (Whether it's literary theory, electrical
engineering, or number theory). This is obviously a gross
generaliztion and I am speaking here largely of my own tastes
and values. I am, nonetheless, amazed that music (and some
of the other arts to a limited extent) is now subject to the
idea that "anything" is music and "anybody" is a composer
without regard as to whether they have attained the requisite
skills and craftsmanship which used to obtain. It's as though
pieces nowadays are merely philosophical objects and, as we
all know, every man (sic) is a philosopher. It's a very curious
matter.
>
> 2. Decipher what produces natural punction and assemlbe a
> sound set which breaks basically understood definitons of
> harmony, rhythm etc. Of course the definitons will
> expand to encompass your work, if you are at all
> successful in reaching people.
>
I still don't know what the hell "punction" is or how
you're using it. Please explain.
> 3. Rephrase the question: exaclty what is it you
> find about previous practice limiting. Sch did not
> break all of the rules, but only those that he found restrictive
> to his ends, and attempted to uncover new rules that
> had previously been masked over. One can argue about
> the success, validity or aesthetic value of the pieces,
> but one cannot ignore the application of the idea that some
> previous vision of what music is about, phrased in words
> cannot be exactly congruent to the non-verbal, non-linguistic
> musical mechanisms.
>
I reject the notion that "rules" are at issue here.
Rules, as such, are almost always formulated after the
fact and usually by non-practioners. AS certainly never
concerned himeself, (especially as an autodictat), with
any rules either by honoring or breaking them. I find the
whole concept of constructing musical syntax by the term
"rules" fairly disturbing.
> I would ask a simple question of you: what is it you wish to
>convey? (Or are you interested in "composing about composers
>who composed about composers who composed about h music
>should only be about composition..."). What in that idea or
>set of ideas *requires* new expression, where does the current
>vocabulary fall short, or the current modes of thinking about
>that vocabulary or the ways of thinking in general. In order
>to teach us to hear anew, which is what innovative music must, in the
>end do if it is to be more than a doctoral thesis about integrating
>of tape splicing and carefully controlled spilling of coffee on
>school equipment, you must have an idea of what it
>is you want to explore. "Doing anything you want" means nothing if
>you change nothing. If no one is any different as a person for
>having heard your piece, why not just listen to seagulls
>crying in the distance?
You want to change people's lives? Maybe you should be in
politics instead. I'm puzzled by your enamourment with
the ideas of innovation and novelty. If every person is
unique (and I think we all are), then an expressive piece
of music that shows sufficient skill in demonstrating what
ever "self" that is inherrant in our creative efforts is
novel enough for my tastes (provided your "self" is interesting
and thereby hangs the tale...). However a lack of either
craft or imagination s never going to be compensated for by
any amount of "innovation".
> This does not mean you need a verbal idea, or even one
>that *can* be expressed in words. You say you want something "new"
>what does newness feel to you? What are its signs, how do you
>*feel* when you have broken ground, what sounds can you use
>to show us this feeling and make us participants in it?
>
>Form may follow function, and shape may be an expression
>of the senses, but that which is not beautiful is not functional.
Oh? That's some kind of odd aesthetic position. I find
the average household toilet tremendously functional,
though not especially beautiful. Conversely, most of
the art/music/ literature that I love and find beautiful
seems hardly functional for any pragmatic purpose. Perhaps
you meant to say something else but couldn't resist such
a glib turn of phrase?