Peter Principle III
Roger Lustig
>>>painting.
>>What a silly definition! Why should I consider it?
>Because it mirrors *your* definition of music.
I can hardly bring myself to comment on anything as witless as this.
Painting is, after all, only one of many visual arts. If you wished to
consider ALL forms of visual art as being defined that way, you might
have some sort of argument. But, just as music involves more than
singing, visual art inviolves more than painting, so I'd say your mirror
is, um, crack'd.
>>>It certainly refers to paintings, but as a definition it is too
>>>broad, because it could also refer to statues and buildings. With this
>>So add a word: "something PAINTED to look at for the looks of it."
>>Since we also paint houses, this is NOT a circular definition.
[How odd: I'd already explained what was wrong, but you don't seem to
have read this far before responding.]
>>>definition, you could not distinguish painting from sculpture and
>>>architecture. Nor could you distinguish it from a beautiful sunset or the
>>>Grand Canyon. These are beautiful to look at but they are not paintings.
>>Again, addition of one word knocks this problem down.
[Or this far.]
>>>The problem with this definition is that it doesn't take the subject
>>>matter into account.
>>Nonsense; it's that it doesn't take the MATERIALS into account. Unless
>>you've suddenly become an absolutist in the last few paragraphs! Why
>>would I have an emotional response to clay or stone? Surely I'd respond
>>to an art-work's reference or allusion or other pointing to a subject if
>>it were something about which one had emotions.
>>Your use of "Subject matter" is bizarre.
>>>Likewise, "something to listen to for the sounds of it", Roger's most
>>>coherent offering of a definition of music, does not refer to the subject
>>>matter of music.
>>Sure it does. Sound. Or, if you must, PLAYED sound.
>But that's still too broad. You're including all kinds of things that are
>artistically very different.
So does any definition of "visual arts." So what? Broad categories have
definitions, too.
>>>What is the subject matter of music? Look at the history of the art. Ask
>>WHEEEE! What kind of methodology is THAT?
>Induction.
Well, if you mean "materials," then you may have a point. In any case,
the materials of music are played sounds -- in some sense of "played."
>>Don't look at the history!
>>Look at the thing itself! After all, you can't have the history until
>>you've defined the thing that HAS a history.
>The "thing itself" is not some Platonic Form automatically planted in our
>brains.
Yet you go from the assumption that music in your definition IS based on
something planted in our brains, and define it from that principle.
>It is some class, in this case a class of behavior (we're talking
>about an art),
Nice to know. I was talking about ALL the world's musical behaviors,
not just Western art music. Why call all the rest of the world's music
non-music? Why not say "Western art music" when that's what you mean?
>that has something important in common that we give a name
>to in order to properly identify it.
Perhaps -- but "music" is NOT the appropriate name, because that
encompasses many other behaviors.
>In order to do this, we must
>investigate the concrete instances, i.e., look at examples that we have
>come to regard as music and ask why we did? What distinguishes it from
>other things? What is important about it?
Fine -- but if we're interested in more than ourselves, and wish to look
at the whole world, and wish to look at all the highly similar -- or not
sso highly similar -- behaviors in other communities, we have to take
into account that what we take for granted is NOT true elsewhere.
>>If we go history-first, what's to stop us from including a percussion
>>piece??????
No answer...
>>>what the "canvass" or "clay" has been for those practicing the art
>>>throughout. What have composers been writing, and performers playing?
>>>Musical notes. The very same musical notes having the same qualities that
>>>I described above. ou might describe music as the art of exploiting the
>>>possibilities inherent in pitch relationships.
>>You might -- but only if you limited yourself to Western art music of
>>a certain time period. Which begs the question: why are you doing
>>this?
>Because there was a distinguishable art being practiced during that period
>involving a whole world of practices that can only be understood by
>reference to pitch.
So? That's no justification for calling those practices, and only those
practices, music. You're going in tight little circles here.
>>Oh, and even if you DID limit yourself that way, you'd be wrong. MAny
>>interesting pieces from the time-period we both call "musical" don't
>>exploit many pitch-relationships at all, and focus on rhythm, timbre,
>>etc. There is indeed an interesting set of pitch-relationships in the
>>third of Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, for instance, yet
>>it's the fantastic play of timbres that makes the piece.
>Schoenberg is a horrible example.
I think he's an *excellent* example. One of the finest musical minds of
our century, and a composer of some of the most expressive music I know.
>He disregarded the knowledge gained
>over the centuries of how pitches interact with one another and replaced
>it with arbitrary constructs which have nothing to do with the way people
>actually hear pitches.
Utter nonsense. You clearly know nothing of Schoenberg. (Either that,
or what you know is via William Thomson.)
Schoenberg was more aware of pitch-interactions than just about any
other musician. His _Harmonielehre_ of 1911, written just as he was
composing his revolutionary pieces incl. Op. 16, makes this clear. And
he was highly aware of how the music of HIS time, and not only his
music, was taking a different approach to harmony from the music of the
previous centuries. He did some extreme things in continuing this
trend, but his music is hardly written in disregard of knowledge of
pitch-relationships. In fact, it intentionally produces new ones -- and
guess what? People actually hear those too. Most of Schoenberg's music
sounds good to lots of people -- especially those who have studied the
music that came before it.
>Thus he must necessarily rely on other elements to
>"make the piece" if you can consider the piece "made", which I do not.
Fine. Now you've conceded that your definition of a piece of music is
entirely arbitrary, entirely based on your own tastes. (And thus,
entirely uninteresting.)
Also, that you have no clue of the pitch-structures in Op.16 or any
other piece by Schoenberg. They are crucial to "making the piece" --
Schoenberg was quite obsessed with matters of pitch, among other things.
>>>It is only very recently that anyone has "written" pieces dealing with
>>>other kinds of noises and claimed that they were practicing the same art
>>>as Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak and Rachmaninoff.
>>Why the scare quotes? Were pen and ink not used?
>>>They are not.
>>Sez you. Of course, Bach would not have said that Rachmaninoff was
>>practicing the same art as he was, so whom should I believe?
>I can't say that I know Bach personally, but I think that if he were to
>have the opportunity to hear Rachmaninoff's music, he would find it very
>different but would consider it music nonetheless.
Not by a definition as strict as yours and acceptable to him. He'd
probably consider it an unconscionable racket, a travesty of music,
improperly modulating, full of wrong notes in chords, and on and on.
Just the way you don't call Schoenberg's music "music."
>However, if he were to hear a Cage composition ...
Doesn't matter. You would disagree with him on many things being
"music" or not.
>>You've again begged the question: why do we define that set of people
>>as "practicing the same art"?
>You think it's begging the question because you refuse to draw the
>abstraction for which I've given ample evidence: that manipulating pitch
>relationships, i.e., writing musical notes, is different in so many
>important respects from other kinds of activities, including banging out
>rhythms, that it must be considered a unique art.
a) What does writing have to do with it?
b) You have given no evidence whatever that the difference between
manipulating pitch relationships is, of necessity, an art in the first
place, let alone a unique one. Why do you consider music only in the
context of art? Most musical activity -- including much that has to do
with pitches -- is NOT art.
c) If you wish to talk about art-music, you're STILL stuck with the
pieces that the artists themselves consider to be music, and which you
don't.
>>Finally, many of the composers you can't bear to recognize as such would
>>emphatically DENY that they were "practicing the same art." But they
>>would not hesitate to call their music music.
No answer.
>>>Their "art" involves different media, different skills,
>>>different terminology, different everything.
>>Do tell! What new terminology is needed for "Ionisation"? The only new
>>instrument, and the only one requiring new notation, is the *pitched*
>>one: the siren. The skills of percussionists are age-old.
No answer.
>>>The only thing in common is
>>>that they are creating sounds, but as I pointed out above, this is too
>>>broad a category to delineate a specific art.
>>You pointed out nothing of the sort. You simply made a bald-faced
>>assertion regarding the materials of music, and didn't examine it. The
>>materials are not the important thing, beyond their being sonic ones: as
>>long as there's sound, and it's played, it's music. Care to argue that
>>some played sound is NOT music?
>What do you think I've been doing?
Babbling. Next question?
What you've been doing is insisting on a definition of ALL music based
on the properties of Western art music -- and only a subset of that, and
an inept take on what the key properties are to begin with. Now, unless
you also have a second definition of music that handles all the musical
activities that have nothing to do with Western art music, you have a
lot of explaining to do.
Roger