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Everything posted by Hugowin
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The Proclamation of the Christ: Isaiah 53
Hugowin replied to Tokkemon's topic in Orchestral and Large Ensemble
While I'm downloading the first movement I might as well ask what you mean with this: What? -
why do we associate certain ideas with music?
Hugowin replied to josephwilliam's topic in Composers' Headquarters
One of the saddest songs I know, Naked as we came by Iron and Wine, is in a major key. I know the song is sad, and I feel the sorrow deeply and cry, and yet it makes me smile. Beck's Lost Cause, which is also in a major tonality, makes me cry and smile for other reasons; things deeply connected with my whole being, with all my thoughts. If you think that this is easily explainable, it might be. But the explanation does not matter, at least not for me, in my appreciation of the songs; I react the way I do because of something I see, hear, in the song itself, and that I could try to hint at. In the case of Naked as we came, I'd say something too wordy, perhaps about the sad fate of every loving human, the strength of meeting death bravely, and I could go on indefinitely. But whoever listens to the song can meet me halfway. And, whatever made this discernment possible, bless it - be it nature, culture, or God. -
Two possible uses of better in aesthetics. "Beethoven's first symphony is better than Brahm's; it makes me happy, I enjoy listening to it more, etc etc." - Here you can be wrong, of course, but that would mean misjudging yourself. This is the kind of use we learn from childhood up. An example of the second use: "Bach's 48 are better than Shostakovich's 24; the number is larger (to display the arbitrariness of deciding criteria) and so is the number of contrapuntal devices." This use is harder to learn, since you have to know facts about the music. A tone deaf person would not be able to learn this. (Or, in a sense, he could by learning notation as a kind of picture game.) Confusing the two can cause heated debate. "Coca Cola is better than milk, it is tastier." "But it is bad for you! It is made up of..." How do we settle this? We avoid misunderstanding each other by specifying what we mean. It is as if Gianluca wanted to exclude the first of these uses from our language. (Perhaps with the motive of making us aesthetically healthier, with a change in our musical diet.) What I am interested in is: What compels us (you Gianluca) to believe that there are objective criteria for judging all music? The idea is that we find, rather than invent, the criteria; and if we had truly searched, we would all have found the same. But why the search at all? Will God punish a false judgement of music?
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I'm asking, again, what does 'harsh' add that 'dissonance' lacks? What does "an entirely different category" mean about 'harsh'? I'm curious of the distinction you are trying to make. The interesting thing is not our little scruples, but that distinction.
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Or it could mean that the meaning of your words are passing each other by. But there is something damn important here. We can talk about colors as wave-lenghts of light. But can we talk about colors in any other sense? The same goes with sound and the technical terms of accoustic theory. I'm going to sleep (imagine someone perplexed, wondering how one actually "goes to" sleep. Gardener's criticism of my use of harsh is comparable to someone saying "but I don't feel the "going" in my "going to" sleep. The transition is neutral to me."). I hope someone takes a bite at this; we might all better understand music.
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The warmth of a person is not merely subjective. What makes you think it is? And what does 'harsh' add that 'dissonance' lacks?
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Now you are making the mistake I thought you made with 'harsh'. We say of people that they are cold and warm, or cool and "on fire," in a secondary sense. Your rebuttal of my calling an interval harsh is now comparable to someone taking the temperature to check if a person is really cold. Saying that a tritone is harsher than a major third means that it is more dissonant, and nothing else. And I think that it is a beautiful way to compare touch with sound, since a tritone has more of those jagged egdes on its waves (bah, I wish I knew the technical terms) than a third. Of course, a poetical genious might find a more suitable word for us to adopt.
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Hah, dictionary proved me wrong. You are right. Dissonant is the right word. For some reason I imagined harsh to mean merely "coarse and rough to the touch" without that added unpleasantness. But, actually, I think the dictionary may be at fault here. The gathered "data" for the use of words may be affected by the common philosophical error of associating psychological effect with the meaning of a word. Unpleasantness may have slinked in this way. And this is especially dangerous if any dead 18th century author wanted to actually mean merely "coarse and rough to the touch." This is damn interesting actually. How the methodology of lexicography can affect our understanding of scripture, for instance.
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Tonality could be dead in the sense that chess is dead in space. Or we could kill it by composing every possible piece (I can't even imagine what this means). If we compare music to other arts, it can die in a more important sense. Literature, for instance. The language naturally inspires (or forces) certain phrases, rhymes and rhythms that become overused with time; similes and metaphors loose their initial flare, become banal and boring outside the original context. If a cooking tradition has had a long and lively existence, any new disciple will risk making small variations or concoctions of various famous dishes. Your music may sound like a jumble of bits and pieces from famous composers. Nabokov writing brilliantly about his first attempts at versification: In this sense, Tonality's obituary could only be written by a true friend, someone that knew him (lol) inside and out. The distinction of intervals depends on the taste of the composer. I group intervals together in consonance/dissonance, not because of their structural significance, but because of their sound. A tritone sounds harsher than a major third. In this sense the intervals build two different families (and this is what Daniel's talk about the natural must mean). Questioning this is like attacking the use of "lighter/darker" in talk about colors. And what specific meaning do you imagine is bound up with the terms? Schoenberg didn't free the intervals from some old-fashioned tyrannic hierarchy (he was a musical, not philosophical, genious), but wanted to free counterpoint from the shackles of tonal harmony. This is not done by destroying or denying a useful (even in twelve-tone composition) distinction, by wordplay.
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Beautiful music and album name ("Nolita"); reminds me of Jane Birkin. And while I'm at it, here's an oddball perplexingly haunting marvel of hypnotism. I warn you, it may drive you insane with questions and questionable glee. Serge Gainsbourg - Elisa
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Old-school LuLz. Two songs by the greatest swedish poet. Birger Sj
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Three of the best bands you'll never find (consider yourself blessed). Gentle Giant is a musical revolution. Watch out for the drummer. He may unhinge your sense of reality more than the music itself. Gentle Giant - Cogs in Cogs
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May be the only bard still alive that can curse you with a song.
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Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
There is a debate on this. Our opinions differ radically. But lord Manossg, as the knower of worthwileness, as the spokesman of the people, says it's not worthwhile. And, since it is a fact, that when we write on this subject, the omnipotent lord cannot but read it, it is we that waste his time: we anger the lord! -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
You remind me of the shenanigans of Will Kirk. Posting in a thread only to remind everyone how pointless an argument is (when it's not), or complaining about where the thread is heading, etc etc. You don't like the rabble about colours? Well, don't read it! This is YC, threads never stay on topic. -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
Odd. Have you even read the posts in this thread? I think we have enough of those "serious" opinions in here. Read and enjoy. -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
Was that a scallopslap? :) The philosophical problem, and it certainly is one: Is music a language? Is it rightly compared with language? Can music communicate emotions? What is the purpouse of music? (and these are all in response to some odditities in Lord Skyes writing, the purpouse wasn't to impress you) Of course I'll have to bring up a picture of the sociological, psychological, biological to answer this. :) -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
Yes, when people actually think, it's not interesting. :) -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
That only means that we have had similiar training (we have learned to call the colours by the same names.) The name would be the same for someone seeing the red I see as blue. Or if he saw it as a colour I have never seen, he'd still call it "red". Imagine someone calling the colour you call red "blue": how would you settle this? Well, check with a few other people, and then correct the one that was wrong (and see... how this could be done, without ever "stepping into someone else's brain and eyeballs".) Why do I call this calling objective? Because norms are objective. That we call a certain colour red is objective. Yes, we could call it otherwise, but then the facts would change (and if one person was deviant, calling the colours by his own names: then we couldn't communicate with him without learning his language.) The idea that everyone experiences colours diffirently is just as rational as the opposite. But it's more philosophically wise to not assume anything. (As for music, it is the same thing with the distinction between dark and bright.) PS (not aimed towards you Derek) Any argument that begins with "I cannot imagine..." is a bad argument. You couldn't imagine that someone could be happy, hearing the Mozart Requiem? Well, many others could! I've felt happy, while listening to it, many times. -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
The psychological reaction towards music is rightly called analogous to the reaction towards colour. There is no "this is how you should react, when seeing the colour blue, or hearing a minor chord", but the reaction could still be similiar with many people. The name (red, minor chord) is objective, the experience is not. People could, as a norm, be trained to react towards 'A Night on Bald Mountain' with happy feelings, and also to: But it is not this way with humans (but perhaps someone is, right now, experiencing just that.) -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
Why should music be useful? Not everyone wants to turn that natural forest into a golf course. The comparison is bad, because no music contains emotions, it does not have any feelings. People react with emotions when listening to a piece, and this reaction depends on biological makeup and psychological training. Therefore, the most simple minuet, might evoke the most powerful emotion, depending on who listens. If I'm trained to react in a specific way towards a minor chord, then I will most likely react that way. Now, everyone's training regime is diffirent, and there is no training whatever of how to react to specific, neverbeforeheard passages. Therefore, the communicative aspect of music is currently, at best, limited. The analogy between language and music works only if we consider music to be a very primitive type of language. It's as communicative as a lions roar (and yet, whatever the purpouse of the lion is, we cannot know if our reaction is right or wrong), or the moon of the night sky. To say that the purpouse of music is to communicate emotions, is like saying that the purpouse of the moon is to make us happy, give us light in the night. The ideal, in many composer's minds seems to be: minor chord (feel sad!) -> listener feels sad. If you want to reduce music to a primitive communicating system of ordering the person to feel emotions, or have specific associations, then you'll have to do ALOT of work outside of music. You'd have to teach your audience a new language. And if you think that this is a noble pursuit, then do it (I believe it to be impossible). Yes, it's bad having opinions, unless everyone agrees with them. Moralizing about music is always ugly. Thou shall not have fun writing a sonata! Thou shall always have fun, writing music! Thou shall not break the rule of the perfect fifths! When "should" and "music" go together in the same sentance, the results are often disasterous. Why should "half the fun" be trying to find new ways to express oneself? If one doesn't restrict oneself, there is no right and wrong. If I want to write an authentic piece of baroque music, I have to discipline myself, because if the piece ends up sounding like The Rite of Spring, I have done something wrong. I like to challange myself this way because it is an entirely diffirent intellectual experience. When I write freely, anything will do, there is nothing stopping me. Why shouldn't I restrict myself? The argument, that it takes away from my creative potential is bad, because you couldn't possibly know, there is no measurement of creative potential. Also: it's like saying that I am less creative if I don't always use all the colors, if I paint in black and white. Yes, ideas flow more freely in a free form, because there is nothing restricting them: you could keep any idea, and it would be right. Don't go brawling about this though, coming up with ideas is easy, throwing them away is hard. I respect Brahms more than a Jazz improviser (and yet, I improvise almost 2 hours daily.) Why obsess about originality? What you seem to be saying: a structured, planned-out novel is less original than one that is not. Yes, but if you are interested in sandwitches, or the making of sandwitches, then it might be a good idea to analyse them. I do what you described automatically, and it certainly doesn't mar the experience. Like: "Knowing that the next chapter begins, of a novel, mars the experience." You are, with all your current posts, making the common philosophical error of mistaking I for we. -
Why are "accepted" standards taken so seriously?
Hugowin replied to Lord Skye's topic in Composers' Headquarters
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What does it mean for a piece of music to be "predictable?"
Hugowin replied to Derek's topic in Composers' Headquarters
I agree! -
What does it mean for a piece of music to be "predictable?"
Hugowin replied to Derek's topic in Composers' Headquarters
I'm surprised! :) (I'm trying to prove things, yes.) PS I hope my ears do evolve, so that I can "get it": to better distinguish a man taking a crap from a violinist playing Bach. -
What does it mean for a piece of music to be "predictable?"
Hugowin replied to Derek's topic in Composers' Headquarters
It's a shame! I, and a hypothetical ghost-Beethoven, laugh at your exciting threnody. 2 genious avante-garde kids, doing what genious avante-garde kids do. - Oh, my gosh, I farted. - Hey! do it again, record it and call it "symphonic fart". 1 month later, on an internet forum. ... - Hey! That IS music! - A fart is NOT music!! - You guys don't get it. It's deep. Very philosophical: what is music? ... the composer wanted you to think! He's a genious. - No. He's not a composer, he's a sound engineer. A fart is sound. Mozart is music. - Shut up! You are so close-minded. If the composer calls it music, then it is music! Just listen to it man, it's about the experience. - I ought to call my foot "music". Would you listen to it? - Bah, ok. If someone makes a sound, and calls it music, then it is music. - If I write a swedish sentance, call it an english sentance, then it is an english sentance. - Precisely! It's entirely subjective! - ... subjective ... subjective ... - subjective! ... subjective... personal... subjective! - Yes... subjective! ... subjective! and so on. ...