eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/06/91)
;Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 11:27:16 SET ;From: Lelio Camilleri <CONSERVA@IT.CNR.FI.IFIIDG> ;Subject: 2nd European Conference on Music Analysis ;To: Music Digest Bulletin <music-research@prg> ;Analysis always presupposes a segmentation of the piece in ;question, but the criteria for this operations are problematic. Just whose concept of "analysis" is this anyway? I don't know of any post-adornoesque metacritique of analysis that asserts "presupposed segmentation." Of which music, for instance? ;The traditions of music analysis and psychology propose ;diverse solutions to the problem. "traditions" of music analysis? And of PSYCHOLOGY yet? And what "solutions"? Where's the "problem"? ;The comparison between the ;two traditions will enable one to consider a more general ;theme: that of the relationships between music theory and ;cognitive psychology. I can hardly wait. ; ;b) Analysing electro-acoustic music: towards a definition of the ; sound objects ; ;The problem of terminology is fundamental for the analysis of ;electro-acoustic music. Yes, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Why is it you dull oxen constantly insist that "terminology" is "fundamental"? I've read at least 3 papers by 10th-rate psychobabble hacks asserting that "we need TERMINOLOGY," can't you duds come up with anything more exciting? I mean, MAKE UP THE TERMINOLOGY, then let us all know what we should call the sounds you've analyzed, ok? Why's this a conference issue? ;Analysing analysis: are there relationships between the various ;analytical methods ? ; ;The codified methods, from Schenker to set theory, Obviously you've studied neither, else "codified" would never have crept in there. ;yeld ;analytical results which are always incomplete and sometimes ;mutually contradictory. This is just purest horsecrap. First of all, one wouldn't ordinarily try a "set" approach to tonal music: but contextualisms are suggested by Schenker, where standard harmony "analyses" propose none. Second, two LISTENINGS of the same piece of music might be contradictory. So why shouldn't various "readings" (forget "analysis") be contradictory?
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (01/06/91)
Eliot, once again I see that you have decided to wage a Holy War against music conferences in Europe. Readers familiar with this bulletin board probably still have fond recollections of your attack on last year's meeting in Marseilles. (You were probably the most talk-about non-participant there!) As always, I share your desire to criticize what may prove to be shaky foundations; but this time around I fear you might be stretching your position a bit. Most important, in my mind, it to try and sort out the difference between sensible and foolish approaches to GOALS from sensible and foolish approaches to SOLUTIONS. Let us consider your first volley. In article <5056@idunno.Princeton.EDU> you write: >;Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 11:27:16 SET >;From: Lelio Camilleri <CONSERVA@IT.CNR.FI.IFIIDG> >;Subject: 2nd European Conference on Music Analysis >;To: Music Digest Bulletin <music-research@prg> > >;Analysis always presupposes a segmentation of the piece in >;question, but the criteria for this operations are problematic. > > >Just whose concept of "analysis" is this anyway? I don't know >of any post-adornoesque metacritique of analysis that asserts >"presupposed segmentation." Of which music, for instance? > I'm not sure just whom or what you are trying to attack here. Do you wish to contest the premise of a tight coupling between analysis and perception? THAT, after all, is the premise behind the sentence you have chosen to attack. After all, there is no question that segmentation is a critical aspect of perception. Even if you reject the various schools of cognitive science and take Edelman's biological approach instead, you cannot give up the need to build upon a foundation of a capacity for PERCEPTUAL CATEGORIZATION. Even you can never get beyond an ability to establish the EXISTENCE and EXTENT of OBJECTS among the stimuli you receive, you can never begin to talk about either perception or analysis. >; >;The problem of terminology is fundamental for the analysis of >;electro-acoustic music. > >Yes, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Why is it you >dull oxen constantly insist that "terminology" is "fundamental"? >I've read at least 3 papers by 10th-rate psychobabble hacks asserting >that "we need TERMINOLOGY," can't you duds come up with anything >more exciting? Attempts to discuss issues of terminology are hardly confined to hack work. For better or worse, it is a perfectly reasonable position to accept from anyone who has decided to adopt Zenon Pylyshyn's COMPUTATION AND COGNITION as gospel. Pylyshyn's feet, in turn, are planed squarely upon the shoulders of Allen Newell and Jerry Fodor. None of these men are hacks (even if my personal point of view is that they never seem to take on any of the really critical questions of cognition). We should not be surprised to find whole schools of thought trying to follow in their footsteps, and those schools will probably continue to flourish until any loyal opposition can finally muster some convincing arguments. ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet
davisonj@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John M Davison) (01/07/91)
Eliot isn't the only person around whose eyebrows were raised (and not in enlightenment, to paraphrase D. Hilgenberg) by the announcement of the 2nd European Conference on Music Analysis. The topic that surprised me was that which follows: >b) 'Popular music': analyses of songs from the 1950s to the 90s > >Song-form, linked with means of mass communication, has been >radically transformed in recent decades. Generations of youth >have been brought up on this repertory. For the critical >understanding of it, it is essential to develop adequate >analytical methods. This is perhaps the most patronizing statement I have read in a conference announcement. Would someone please vindicate the above passage? -davisonj@medusa.cs.purdue.edu
eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/07/91)
In article <16244@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
;In article <5056@idunno.Princeton.EDU> I wrote:
;>;Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 11:27:16 SET
;>;From: Lelio Camilleri <CONSERVA@IT.CNR.FI.IFIIDG>
;>;Analysis always presupposes a segmentation of the piece in
;>;question, but the criteria for this operations are problematic.
;>Just whose concept of "analysis" is this anyway? I don't know
;>of any post-adornoesque metacritique of analysis that asserts
;>"presupposed segmentation." Of which music, for instance?
;I'm not sure just whom or what you are trying to attack here. Do you wish to
;contest the premise of a tight coupling between analysis and perception? THAT,
;after all, is the premise behind the sentence you have chosen to attack.
Yes/2 Steve: that's 1/2 of what's making me vomit. The other half is
the premise that "this is how analysis ALWAYS goes," suggesting that
"these dumb analysts don't seem to know any better. We will set them
straight."
"Analysis" means almost nothing: the first question with analysis is
always "what is an analysis"? The word (certainly at the level of
an international music theory conference) carries with it no
assumptions. Adorno's metacritiques insist that there is no such thing,
and I tend to agree with him.
"Perception" is NOT and SHOULD NOT be "tightly coupled" to "analysis."
Partly this is because analysis can't pressupose its own purpose;
secondly, it's far too bound up in speculative attitudes discernible
in music of virtually any period, and has almost at all times been
"tightly coupled" to COMPOSITION, rather than to "perception." This
means that "foundations" of composition are themselves speculative,
rather than practical; and there are strong cultural/historical reasons
for safeguarding that particular foundation. In particular, it's probable
that music MIGHT be a mind-expanding experience, something which, at its
deepest level, can rewrite the rules of perception. As you know, this
is a point that I take very seriously. And if it can't -- well then,
fuck that music.
;After
;all, there is no question that segmentation is a critical aspect of perception.
;Even if you reject the various schools of cognitive science and take Edelman's
;biological approach instead, you cannot give up the need to build upon a
;foundation of a capacity for PERCEPTUAL CATEGORIZATION. Even you can never
;get beyond an ability to establish the EXISTENCE and EXTENT of OBJECTS among
;the stimuli you receive, you can never begin to talk about either perception
;or analysis.
Steve, this is one very boring approach to music. Go read your Cage,
for instance. Even if segmentation is a necessity -- that is, I positively
cannot avoid going out into the world and segmenting it, and whether
or not I really want to, when I listen to music, segmentation is
automatic and absolute -- then you must recognize that only VERY, VERY
SIMPLE music permits unambiguous segmentation AT ALL TIMES. How you
segment things is how you conceptualize music with your musical mind,
as Babbitt says: there are no a priori determinants ("foundations").
There is no "rule" whose "violation" is a priori ineffective because
it violates some established factor. There are no such established
factors. Let's just take one little example. If you have a bunch of
sounds, and then 40 seconds of silence, and then a bunch of sounds
again, how will it be segmented? What belongs to what? The most
boring music theorist I know will assert, "group 1, then silence, then
group 2." I need not give his name. Now it happens that the composer
intends the first 20 seconds of silence to be grouped with the
first group of sounds; and then the second group consists of the
second 20 seconds of silence, including the next group of sounds.
The composer is Stockhausen, the piece is Transit. He tries to establish
a context to permit the conceptualization of a segmentation across the
silence, rather than going with the more obvious arrangement. OPne could
argue: therefore the obvious arrangement is more intrinsic. It's an
obvious gestaltism. But the only foundation it provides is a desire
to escape this particular principle. What role for perception, then?
Something of an institution at the sidelines, rather than a foundation:
a dialectic, at worse, something to be ATTACKED, NEVER ASSUMED other
than as an attackable institution. Nattiez has also written something
along these lines, if all this sounds too eliotistic for your tastes.
Edelman is probably correct in asserting somewhere the primacy of
categorization, but again, only as an institution. Its role in
music is the categorization self/other, not "theme 1"/"theme 2".
As you'll be reading in a forthcoming non-net article by myself,
even this categorization is institutional, that is, posited only
as a premise to its attack in music.
;Attempts to discuss issues of terminology are hardly confined to hack work.
;For better or worse, it is a perfectly reasonable position to accept from
;anyone who has decided to adopt Zenon Pylyshyn's COMPUTATION AND COGNITION
;as gospel. Pylyshyn's feet, in turn, are planed squarely upon the shoulders
;of Allen Newell and Jerry Fodor. None of these men are hacks (even if my
;personal point of view is that they never seem to take on any of the really
;critical questions of cognition). We should not be surprised to find whole
;schools of thought trying to follow in their footsteps, and those schools will
;probably continue to flourish until any loyal opposition can finally muster
;some convincing arguments.
Mistake here, Steve. I don't give one good goddam for these midgets
(your expression, I believe). The best that can be said of "music and
cognition" is that its main question is "what should this field be
called"? Psychomusicology, Cognitive Musicology, Musical Engineering
AImusic, etc etc ad I puke? This game has been the single most discussed
matter in that whole pathetic non-field of psychobabble idiots for
about 20 years, and what do they have to show for it? Absolute
fucking zip. And ditto this utterly meaningless concern with "naming
elctro-acoustic" sounds. WELL ENOUGH ALREADY. GET A LIFE.
-handelman
music
princetoneliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/07/91)
In article <1991Jan6.195628.20624@en.ecn.purdue.edu> davisonj@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John M Davison) writes:
The 2nd-rate European Conference announces:
;>Song-form, linked with means of mass communication, has been
;>radically transformed in recent decades. Generations of youth
;>have been brought up on this repertory. For the critical
;>understanding of it, it is essential to develop adequate
;>analytical methods.
;
; This is perhaps the most patronizing statement I have read in
;a conference announcement. Would someone please vindicate the above
;passage?
He's saying that he can't find the perceptual constancies underlying
the Butthole Surfers, and thinks that the kid's minds have been altered
by the mass media, so maybe they're something like genetic mutants
who don't have the same rules as Fred Lerdahl.
Then he says: in order to understand what's happened, we have to find
methods that will enable us to understand what's happening. Equivalently,
in order to have a brain, he first has to get a brain.smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (01/07/91)
In article <5064@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: >In article <16244@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) >writes: >;In article <5056@idunno.Princeton.EDU> I wrote: >;>;Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 11:27:16 SET >;>;From: Lelio Camilleri <CONSERVA@IT.CNR.FI.IFIIDG> > >;>;Analysis always presupposes a segmentation of the piece in >;>;question, but the criteria for this operations are problematic. > >;>Just whose concept of "analysis" is this anyway? I don't know >;>of any post-adornoesque metacritique of analysis that asserts >;>"presupposed segmentation." Of which music, for instance? > >;I'm not sure just whom or what you are trying to attack here. Do you wish to >;contest the premise of a tight coupling between analysis and perception? >;THAT, >;after all, is the premise behind the sentence you have chosen to attack. > >Yes/2 Steve: that's 1/2 of what's making me vomit. The other half is >the premise that "this is how analysis ALWAYS goes," suggesting that >"these dumb analysts don't seem to know any better. We will set them >straight." > Hold your horses, Eliot (while I saddle mine)! You may have intended your "whose concept" question to be rhetorical, but I felt it deserved a literal answer. All I wanted to do was lay out what seemed to be the premise behind that sentence that set you off. I make no claim to buying into that premise, but I certainly think it is worth debating. On the other hand, if you wish to reject that premise as violently as your prose would indicate, I wonder why you even bother wasting so much time to compose your diatribes. > GET A LIFE. > How about "GIVE IT A REST" instead? ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet
cpenrose@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Christopher Penrose) (01/08/91)
In article <16244@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >In article <5056@idunno.Princeton.EDU> you write: >>;Analysis always presupposes a segmentation of the piece in >>;question, but the criteria for this operations are problematic. >> >>Just whose concept of "analysis" is this anyway? I don't know >>of any post-adornoesque metacritique of analysis that asserts >>"presupposed segmentation." Of which music, for instance? > >I'm not sure just whom or what you are trying to attack here. Do you wish to >contest the premise of a tight coupling between analysis and perception? THAT, >after all, is the premise behind the sentence you have chosen to attack. After >all, there is no question that segmentation is a critical aspect of perception. >Even if you reject the various schools of cognitive science and take Edelman's >biological approach instead, you cannot give up the need to build upon a >foundation of a capacity for PERCEPTUAL CATEGORIZATION. Even you can never >get beyond an ability to establish the EXISTENCE and EXTENT of OBJECTS among >the stimuli you receive, you can never begin to talk about either perception >or analysis. I share Eliot's concern over "presupposed segmentation". Although I do recognize that percepts can be categorically discriminated, I find it to be dangerous to attempt to unify analysis through a homogenous analysis scheme. Different listeners/musics may have entirely different perceptual mechanisms/structures. Although, it may be possible to categorize "states of listening" or "paradigms of perception", I do not see these efforts being made. I am experimenting with the application of various segmentation models toward composition. These segmentation models employ quantizations of contour, rms, and instantaneous spectral state as elemental information. I view these selections as constrained choices that are designed to construct a unique idiom--their utility toward arbitrary analysis would be extremely provincial. The efforts of analysts should be as conscious as possible of the potentialities and dispositions of musical idioms and structures. Christopher Penrose jesus!penrose
eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/08/91)
In article <16247@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
;Hold your horses, Eliot (while I saddle mine)! You may have intended your
;"whose concept" question to be rhetorical, but I felt it deserved a literal
;answer. All I wanted to do was lay out what seemed to be the premise behind
;that sentence that set you off. I make no claim to buying into that premise,
;but I certainly think it is worth debating. On the other hand, if you wish to
;reject that premise as violently as your prose would indicate, I wonder why you
;even bother wasting so much time to compose your diatribes.
No, don't get away from the topic at hand, Steve. We're not talking
about your emotional response to my articles. We're talking about
the statement "analysis always presupposes segmentation." I don't
follow that the "premise" of this statement is that "analysis
should be coupled to perception." That's not my reading at all. That's your
reading. much less a "literal" answer to my query.
The only "premise" that I read there is an uncontestable
view of what analysis is. I don't read that "understanding the process
of segmentation" affects the overall character of the first dogma, for
instance. I certainly read nothing like an implicit critique of the
notion of "segmentation" but rather its assertion.
Regarding your reply, that "analysis is tightly coupled to perception,"
I'm wondering what exactly it is that "perception" is meant to
oppose? A messy case of unexplicated primitives here. If there is some
"non-perceptual" aspect of analysis, that oppose the "perceptual" part
of the "coupling," then clearly "perception" is NOT operating as
a "foundation" for "analysis." This makes no sense to me. Why is analysis
not "perceptual," inescapably so? Explain, and good luck.
If you think it's worth debating THEN DEBATE ALREADY. I presented
my case in the last article. Now it's your turn.
And just who ought to be "giving it up," Steve -- that we'll let the
kids decide.
=handelman
=princeton
=musiceliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/09/91)
In article <15268@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> cpenrose@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Christopher Penrose) writes:
; I find it to
;be dangerous to attempt to unify analysis through a homogenous analysis
;scheme. Different listeners/musics may have entirely different perceptual
;mechanisms/structures. Although, it may be possible to categorize "states
;of listening" or "paradigms of perception", I do not see these efforts
;being made.
Chris, I just don't know what this means. If I'm interested in a piece of
music, willing to get involved with it, then it's almost a given that
I'm NOT "perceptually" exhausting the piece: if I continue to be
interested in a piece of music it's because I sense that there's more there
than I'm taking in. As one goes deeper and deeper into a piece that's
offering something -- and that's a point where "analysis" could start
making some sense, where complex aspects of hearing suggest study, for
whatever reason -- because you like to study music, or because you're
digging for something that you, as a composer, want to get a clearer
hold on, or because you want to bring something into deeper focus -- as one
goes deeper into these matters, thngs tend to become particularized,
rather than generalized. The deeper I go into a piece of music the
less likely it is that I'm going to discover some "category of listening"
or "paradigm of perception" sitting there at its core. So, thinking
about analysis in that way, of a way of getting one's musical mind
ever more twisted in the convolutions of musical experience, what
I'm aiming at is UNDOING various "perceptual" prejudices and rebuilding
them in a manner expressive of those particularities that I most want
to focus on. And a good analysis of a piece of music is something
that makes just that undoing possible. In other words, DE-categorization
seems to me that aspect of listening most worth exploring analytically.
This may help to explain why I feel infuriated with the dull pedantry
of Camillieri's proposal, partly because it promotes everything about
analysis that isn't analysis, but more like recreational parsing.
And I hate esepcially seeing things like that getting around to the
non-music specialized world, announcing all sorts of prejudices which
come to be taken for granted. I've read just one too many "music
perception" paper to let these things sit.
-- handelman
-- music
-- princeton u.eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/10/91)
In article <1117@artsnet.UUCP> mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes:
2nd-rate european conference:
;>>Song-form, linked with means of mass communication, has been
;>>radically transformed in recent decades. Generations of youth
;>>have been brought up on this repertory. For the critical
;>>understanding of it, it is essential to develop adequate
;>>analytical methods.
;
;I can't vindicate it. I think it's nonsense. Pop song-form has
;essentially remained the same although a number of features of
;style have changed (though not radically, and mostly through
;matters of engineering). Probably the only *real* innovation was
;the 'concept album'. And in that situation, we really have
;nothing more unusual than the fact that the pop world finally
;recognized the long-time existence of the 'song cycle', and that
;individual numbers could have some kind of connective thread.
;Big damn deal.
Amazingly, Mark, your reading of this is even less generous than mine
was. When I read "song-form" I thought, not even Camillieri could
mean by 'song-form' something as obvious as -- 'song-form'? He doesn't
mean that ABA has been transformed, does he? But it's thinkable,
now that you mention it, that he means just that. Don't forget, that
when Camillieri listens to music, he doesn't actually hear the sound:
he just USES the sound to figure out what form he's in. He probably
learned about this from Lerdahl and Jackendoff.edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall) (01/10/91)
In article <5141@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: -In article <1117@artsnet.UUCP> mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes: - -2nd-rate european conference: - -;>>Song-form, linked with means of mass communication, has been -;>>radically transformed in recent decades. Generations of youth -;>>have been brought up on this repertory. For the critical -;>>understanding of it, it is essential to develop adequate -;>>analytical methods. - -; -;I can't vindicate it. I think it's nonsense. Pop song-form has -;essentially remained the same although a number of features of -;style have changed (though not radically, and mostly through -;matters of engineering). Probably the only *real* innovation was -;the 'concept album'. And in that situation, we really have -;nothing more unusual than the fact that the pop world finally -;recognized the long-time existence of the 'song cycle', and that -;individual numbers could have some kind of connective thread. -;Big damn deal. - -Amazingly, Mark, your reading of this is even less generous than mine -was. When I read "song-form" I thought, not even Camillieri could -mean by 'song-form' something as obvious as -- 'song-form'? He doesn't -mean that ABA has been transformed, does he? But it's thinkable, -now that you mention it, that he means just that. Don't forget, that -when Camillieri listens to music, he doesn't actually hear the sound: -he just USES the sound to figure out what form he's in. He probably -learned about this from Lerdahl and Jackendoff. Gosh, and here I thought the original complaint was that the abstract was condescending to pop music. If this is so, Messrs. Gresham and Handelman would seem to be adding insult to injury. If this is so, can I do it, too? :-) -Ed Hall edhall@rand.org
eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/10/91)
In article <1991Jan10.050843.11928@rand.org> edhall@rand.org writes: ;In article <5141@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: ;-In article <1117@artsnet.UUCP> mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes: ;-;Big damn deal. ;- He probably ;-learned about this from Lerdahl and Jackendoff. ;Gosh, and here I thought the original complaint was that the abstract ;was condescending to pop music. If this is so, Messrs. Gresham and ;Handelman would seem to be adding insult to injury. ;If this is so, can I do it, too? :-) Good grief, our man in Rand! Nothing of the sort intended: you see, only a complete idiot would characterize the complexities of all non-classical music as "a change in song form." That's the ironic fundamental.
mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) (01/11/91)
In article <5141@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: >In article <1117@artsnet.UUCP> mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes: >2nd-rate european conference: [...pop song form...] >;>>[...] For the critical >;>>understanding of it, it is essential to develop adequate >;>>analytical methods. > >;I can't vindicate it. I think it's nonsense. Pop song-form has >;essentially remained the same although a number of features of >;style have changed (though not radically, and mostly through >;matters of engineering). [...] > >Amazingly, Mark, your reading of this is even less generous than mine >was. When I read "song-form" I thought, not even Camillieri could >mean by 'song-form' something as obvious as -- 'song-form'? He doesn't >mean that ABA has been transformed, does he? But it's thinkable, >now that you mention it, that he means just that. Don't forget, that >when Camillieri listens to music, he doesn't actually hear the sound: >he just USES the sound to figure out what form he's in. He probably >learned about this from Lerdahl and Jackendoff. Well, it's this absurd implication that we don't have adequate analytical methods even if the analysis were of much damned value at all. The most *basic* freshman analytical methods suffice; in fact, a high-school student of mine with average abilities is doing it, and after 10 minutes of examining together a single current top-40 song (with irregular phrasing and dovetailings) exclaimed, "Oh, I see, that's easy." (And she self-admittedly has trouble with math.) Latched onto it like a duck to water. [The purpose of learning the analysis was to make it less time consuming for her to transcribe a song from tape on her own. Practical application, not self-congratulatory head-trip.] Cheers, --Mark ======================================== Mark Gresham ARTSNET Norcross, GA, USA E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu ========================================
davisonj@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John M Davison) (01/11/91)
In article <1991Jan10.050843.11928@rand.org> edhall@rand.org writes: >Gosh, and here I thought the original complaint was that the abstract >was condescending to pop music. If this is so, Messrs. Gresham and >Handelman would seem to be adding insult to injury. No, I (the author of the original complaint) felt that the paragraph was condescending toward the reader. -davisonj@ecn.purdue.edu
sandell@ferret.ils.nwu.edu (Greg Sandell) (01/12/91)
Eliot Handelman of Princeton writes: > I'm not in awe of the scientific community. I don't think we musicians > need busy ourselves with scientific-sounding agendas, or doing our > things in any way consistent with what we know or understand of the > sciences. This has the sound of techno-fear to it. Of all the work in musical acoustics, musical psychoacoustics, music cognition, all that Mr. Handelman seems to notice is that it "sounds scientific." This does not sound like the kind of reader who is really equipped to digest an article that might contain some statistics, or refer to some signal processing analysis methods. If he hates the intrusion of anything scientific in the musical community I cannot imagine why he chooses to read or post to comp.music. I see no use in regarding SCIENCE as some sort of monolith, insisting on some very pure usage of the word. When the word 'science' is bandied about among musical researchers, I believe it is used in different ways in different circumstances. Some of these ways are: 1) just an impressive sounding cognate for 'music theory'; 2) a metaphor for the kind of rigor of methodology associated with the sciences but not typically with music theory; and 3) borrowing the apparatus and methodology of the fields of auditory perception, physics, math, statistics,physiology, cognition (fields generally recognized as scientific) in the investigation of a musical question. There's alot of stuff out there in category 1 that gets lapped up by people who read a little of GODEL, ESCHER & BACH and like streamlining their old analytic notions with phrases like 'semantic network' and so on. The same people are enamored of work in category 3 without being able to critically understand it (unable to distinguish between good and bad work). It seems equally sloppy to dismiss such work as "busying itself with scientific-sounding agendas" prior to an adequate study of the work, and this Mr. Handelman has done in broad strokes, by dismissing all work in Music Perception and Cognition. The field of music research is certainly big enough to have topics that aren't of any interest at all to me. I've never cared much for the study of manuscript authentication, and in an unguarded moment I might say something disparaging about its aims and its practitioners. But who would care? -- **************************************************************** * Greg Sandell (sandell@ils.nwu.edu) Evanston, IL USA * * Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University * ****************************************************************
eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/13/91)
In article <616@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> sandell@ferret.ils.nwu.edu (Greg Sandell) writes: ;Eliot Handelman of Princeton writes: ; ;> I'm not in awe of the scientific community. I don't think we musicians ;> need busy ourselves with scientific-sounding agendas, or doing our ;> things in any way consistent with what we know or understand of the ;> sciences. ; ;This has the sound of techno-fear to it. This has the sound of eliot-fear to it. You're still upset about my criticisms of your "blending" paper (the last posting I recall that had statistics) aren't you? Go back and read my postings a bit more carefully. You've completely missed my point.
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (01/15/91)
In article <5121@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: > The deeper I go into a piece of music the >less likely it is that I'm going to discover some "category of listening" >or "paradigm of perception" sitting there at its core. So, thinking >about analysis in that way, of a way of getting one's musical mind >ever more twisted in the convolutions of musical experience, what >I'm aiming at is UNDOING various "perceptual" prejudices and rebuilding >them in a manner expressive of those particularities that I most want >to focus on. And a good analysis of a piece of music is something >that makes just that undoing possible. In other words, DE-categorization >seems to me that aspect of listening most worth exploring analytically. I'm glad you want to debate these matters, Eliot, because I am having about as much trouble with your texts as you claimed to be having with Chris'. I extracted the above passage because I feel it is a good case in point. The words all go very well together, so that my first impression is that you really have something there. However, further reflection as to WHAT that something is leads to puzzlement, as least on my part. Now perhaps one of your missions is to get me to chuck that further reflection. In other words you are encouraging a path of mysticism, perhaps along the sorts of lines that Cage pursued in his early writings. However, I find it quite interesting that, while Cage has certainly not rejected the use of indeterminacy in his old age, he is beginning to give in to observations of personal perception of judgment. Ultimately, my question is whether or not one car really get away from perception as you seem to advocate. On the other hand, perhaps it does not matter. Even if one is ultimately bound to perception, one can still THINK about trying to escape it (just as one can think of defying gravity). However, if the only objective of such a pursuit is going to be "major cortical damage" (your words, I think), I may be too much of a coward to follow through on it. ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet
eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/15/91)
In article <16384@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: ;In article <5121@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot ;Handelman) writes: ;> The deeper I go into a piece of music the ;>less likely it is that I'm going to discover some "category of listening" ;>or "paradigm of perception" sitting there at its core. So, thinking ;>about analysis in that way, of a way of getting one's musical mind ;>ever more twisted in the convolutions of musical experience, what ;>I'm aiming at is UNDOING various "perceptual" prejudices and rebuilding ;>them in a manner expressive of those particularities that I most want ;>to focus on. And a good analysis of a piece of music is something ;>that makes just that undoing possible. In other words, DE-categorization ;>seems to me that aspect of listening most worth exploring analytically. ; ;I'm glad you want to debate these matters, Eliot, because I am having about as ;much trouble with your texts as you claimed to be having with Chris'. I ;extracted the above passage because I feel it is a good case in point. ;The words all go very well together, so that my first impression is that ;you really have something there. However, further reflection as to WHAT ;that something is leads to puzzlement, as least on my part. ;Now perhaps one of your missions is to get me to chuck that further reflection. Not at all. ;In other words you are encouraging a path of mysticism, perhaps along the sorts ;of lines that Cage pursued in his early writings. I'm a musician (a very strange sort of musician, I admit, but for many years I was a less strange sort, though the strange sort kept trying to break away from the less strange sort, and now I've more or less dispensed with the less strange sort part of myself altogether). Let me expand that parenthesis a bit: part of what it is to be a musician, I think (since to me thinking and being a musician go hand in hand) involves very many degrees of freedom in deciding just what it is to be a musician. That's the heritage of the historical avant-garde, which certainly includes Cage. Being a musician extends to how you, the musician, listen to music; if you're going to assert your freedom in the way that you compose music, say, then clearly that freedom ought to come to bear on how you listen, how you analyze, how you do theory, and certainly also, as in my case, how you choose to talk about music, including how you talk to other people who talk about music -- that's also part of being a musician, I think. Basically this amounts to deciding where you're free and where you're unfree. Now I think of music as the art of mind, the art like no other art, and therefore what the musician does, according to me, is to invent, and extend, and to elaborate, individual mind. It really doesn't matter to me whether you hear music the way I do, or think music the way I do, or envisage music the way I do: that's my business. I'm not trying to write hits. I don't think the discourse of science is quite appropriate to the discourse of music, because I think science is more concerned with unfreedom than with freedom. Not: you can do science like this, but: you can't do science like THAT. "Scientific" discourse about music, in any case, tends to be prohibitive, rather than liberating. I am thinking of a paper that Fred Lerdahl wrote, published in Sloboda, called "cognitive constraints on composition," or something like that. He arrived at a bunch of unfreedoms, like "you can't do this or do that," "you can't redefine 8ves," etc. My downstairs neighbour is complaining about my typing, so I'll leave it there.
penrose@skuld.css.gov (Christopher Penrose) (01/16/91)
In article <5376@idunno.Princeton.EDU>, eliot@phoenix (Eliot Handelman) writes: > >I don't think the discourse of science is quite appropriate to the discourse >of music, because I think science is more concerned with unfreedom than >with freedom. Not: you can do science like this, but: you can't do science >like THAT. "Scientific" discourse about music, in any case, tends to be >prohibitive, rather than liberating. I am thinking of a paper that Fred >Lerdahl wrote, published in Sloboda, called "cognitive constraints on >composition," or something like that. He arrived at a bunch of unfreedoms, >like "you can't do this or do that," "you can't redefine 8ves," etc. I share your perceptions with respect to the dialectic tendencies of scientists: their discourse tends to be concerned with the discovery and communication of "truths". Like yourself, Dr. Handleman :), I also seek compositional freedom. I do not find, however, scientific pursuit or discourse to be inappropriate for the application or discourse of music. First, to deny the discourse of music the pursuit of absolutes or truths is certainly a denial of freedom. To base your repression of scientific discourse upon "freedom" is bogus as you are denying freedom yourself. You didn't mention a scheme of graduation either; it is possible that you were attempting to maximize dialectic freedom through the qualitative repression of undesired dialectic tendencies. Second, the compositional application of scientific "truths" or constraints can be extremely useful. It is helpful for the composer to be conscious of musical tendencies, "you can't redefine 8ves" et al. Also, completely ridiculous musical truths that a community has proclaimed are still viable compositional context delimiters, or constraints. You don't have to share the scientist's mental disposition to use her work. Isn't this great? Scientific pursuit may discover provincial analytic paradigms, yet, their lack of universality is not dangerous unless they are labeled and implemented as being universally conscious. My reaction to the conference announcement was protective; I was attempting to communicate my perception of a lack of consideration for musical universality in the conference paper abstracts. I consider the process and dialectic of science to be useful and important; however, I am not sure how many scientists understand their imposition upon creative possibility in systems where their disposition dominates. I do not seek to curb science with respect to music or any other pursuit as long as its existence does not hinder creativity and freedom. Christopher Penrose jesus!penrose
penrose@edda.css.gov (Christopher Penrose) (01/17/91)
in article <5419@idunno.princeton.edu>, eliot@phoenix (eliot handelman) writes: >i take it you're concerned that music will always be nothing more than >taste or esthetics or entertainment unless it has some claims on >omething like "truth." i share that concern, partly because taste >etc. seem less important than ever, and so i want to demonstrate that >music has legitimate claims to something like "truth," only i'm >at odds with the implications of legitimation in some sense compatible >with scientific discourse. i think i can do this through an appeal >to the imagination, and if not i'm stuck, because there are too few >facts to go on (8ves and the like). i'll never convince anyone that >music is worthwhile except for purposes of entertainment, if i >need to base my discourse around facts. ther are no appreciable facts >concerning experience, for instance: that's still a private domain. Are you trying to appeal to my imagination, or are you trying to communicate your own? I have always had great difficulty with the concept of "claims to truth". Disposition is variable. An instance can be true. I have not encountered any concept that could be true for all instances and all times. My concern is simply one of freedom: although I deny the existence of absolute truth, I find the teleological side-effects of its pursuit to be potentially useful. The search for truth, can fill up the catalog of dispositions (instances). Is my abstraction annoying? Your mention of entertainment is interesting. What is experience more than entertainment? Existence? Being? In themselves, these are empty generalizations. as variables, they are powerful. I do not feel that I am diverging from our concern of music's potentialities. In the past, you have denied that music can communicate. Xenakis asserts that music is an exhibition of intelligence. Without external explanation and context, I agree, music can not consistently communicate, nor does every listener conceptualize an intelligence from a piece of music. You have also mentioned that experience is a private domain; this further complicates an explication of music. >;freedom yourself. you didn't mention a scheme of graduation either; >;it is possible that you were attempting to maximize dialectic freedom >;through the qualitative repression of undesired dialectic tendencies. > >rewrite and submit. Sorry, I originally had a sentence after this passage to the effect: "am i attempting to communicate too much context in this sentence? Let me know." I figured that you would let me know, as you have, without such a indicator. The intent of this text was to ask you if you were making qualitative distinctions between the freedoms afforded by scientific discourse, and freedoms afforded by its absense. If qualitative distinctions are being made, then you have constructed a scheme of graduation. >i think that the "scientific" approach has failed miserably. i'm >neutralizing this discourse. you are clearly categorizing all scientific dialectic applied toward music as "failing". i agree with you that many of the claims of music researchers that are couched in scientific method are ridiculous. does this indicate their failure? their research clearly still can be utilized and applied toward some musical end. if anything, a composer can mock their analysis with a piece of music that humiliates their claims. >The neuroscientist Llinas says that "music is the machine language of >the brain." That's a completely deculturized view of what music is, >but I think there's something to it: that is, I think that music might >one day become the de facto machine language of the brain (and I'm >working on it). However Llinas' statement is not an instance of >scientific discourse in any sense in which I understand the phrase, >yet it's about as absolute as one can get in talking about music, >much more absolute than any "informed" statement about music would care >to be. That statement is useful. I do prefer, "music is an experiential impetus for a mind." Although, the essence of music may infact be abstract from its medium, vision, sound, etc., my statement maintains a distinction between the structure of mind and its experiences. I'd like to continue to believe that mental structure is independent of experience; although it is possible that: mind is music--music is mind. >That's what Lerdahl thinks. His music is sterile. Anyhow I'm not >at all interested in "how useful" x y or z is for a "composer." >As far as I'm concerned, "composition" -- I mean the "serious modern >music" jive -- has run its course and is completely uninteresting. >It should be much HARDER to compose, rather than easier. Proof: Forte. I do not understand your proof. Also, I do not think it to be essential for composition to be resolutely difficult or easy. I will be predictible and say that a composer should have access to facility and impediment; both should be employed by choice. Unfortunately, reality does not accomodate people with such freedom. I do not understand your aversion to tools; I am very fond of them. By conceptually and aesthetically accepting them, I can use computers to compose music. >That's not my position at all. I'm saying something like, the conference >had nothing to with science, period: the announcement was a bunch of >empty, muddled crap, indicative of woozy and 10th rate thinking. I'm >not concerned with curbing science: quote the contrary, I want it to >adavance as speedily as possible. I don't think that scientific >discourse is consistent with this goal. As I said, I want to find out >what it means to "do science" from a musical perspective: imitating >the standards of the APS doesn't do it for me. I feel that I can make progress toward this same goal by conceptualizing research efforts and perceptions as tools subordinate to instance localized aesthetic goals. I'd like more information however. Can you explain what this "musical perspective" is? Christopher Penrose jesus!penrose
eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/17/91)
In article <650@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> sandell@ils.nwu.edu (Greg Sandell) writes: ;> ;In article <5121@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot ;> ;Handelman) writes: ;> ;> The deeper I go into a piece of music the ;> ;>less likely it is that I'm going to discover some "category of listening" ;> ;>or "paradigm of perception" sitting there at its core. So, thinking ;> ;>about analysis in that way, of a way of getting one's musical mind ;> ;>ever more twisted in the convolutions of musical experience, what ;> ;>I'm aiming at is UNDOING various "perceptual" prejudices and rebuilding ;> ;>them in a manner expressive of those particularities that I most want ;> ;>to focus on. And a good analysis of a piece of music is something ;> ;>that makes just that undoing possible. In other words, DE-categorization ;> ;>seems to me that aspect of listening most worth exploring analytically. ;I'm pleased to see that EH admits the existence of categories since in ;my world view, one of the objectives of music theory to discover and ;characterize those categories (or perceptual prejudices if you will). Where does Sid Vicious figure in this objective of yours, Greg? I ask because I'm reading Greil Marcus' "Lipstick Traces," and I'm beginning to see the historical avant-garde in a somewhat different light. I think I may make it required reading. ;The question is, when you've done that, what have you discovered...have ;you modelled music perception or simply musical habit? I like to think ;of any rule that you propose as the outcome of empirical study as a ;baseline of musical listening habit which the listener may adhere to ;or discard as he navigates through the piece. So how WOULD you listen to Sid Vicious back when? ;Such rules or musical ;primitives may be used by composers as well, although the events in ;their compositions may form a counterpoint to such primitives, rather ;than overtly ;suggesting them on the surface. Was this true of, say, Sid Vicious? What were the rules that the events in his compositions formed counterpoints to? ;Or they become a source of new idea when a ;composer applies them in new ways or tries to turn them upside down. Now this does seem true in, say, Sid Vicious' case. What about Nancy, though? Was that a new way of applying a rule? ;It's interesting that the word "particularities" creeps in there. Numerous ;theorists were inflamed when Douglas Dempster and Mathew Brown coined a ;similar term, "particularism" in their "The Scientific Image of Music ;Theory" (JOURNAL OF MUSIC THEORY 33/2, I think). "Particularists," in their ;view, are musicians who cry, "don't try to form rules and categories that ;attempt to address groups of pieces or a group of pieces by an individual ;composer; every piece is a unique entity, each of which implies its own ;system as it unfolds." That view is certainly at war with the philosophy ;(at least mine) of music perception. Does Sid Vicious sound exactly the same way now that he did back then? ;Okay, suppose we say this: "every listening is a unique experience, shaped ;by the individual's personal musical framework; rules and categories cannot ;apply to more than one individual's listening." (Although I don't propose ;that this is a paraphrase of EH's view.) My question is, what role ;can music theory play in this context: is a music theory article nothing ;more than stating "this is the way I hear this piece; get to know me, won't ;you?" That's what Sid Vicious is about, no? ;a generation or two ago, sometimes the results are ludicrous. Give me ;an article that says: "I think that a listener will tend to hear a passage ;this way; here's the evidence." I think Christopher Hasty's "Segmentation ;and Process in Post-Tonal Music" is a good example of that (MUSIC THEORY ;SPECTRUM, early 80's). Was he thinking of Sid Vicious? It's good, though, because that way you can tell what the listener will hear. Call me up when Hasy gets onto the charts. ;I think Fred gets in trouble with the way he chooses to say things, but ;I don't think he means to be prohibitive. Fred had never heard of Slayer. I seriously doubt that he ever listened to Sid Vicious. ;But in any case, ;one of my favorite sayings: "Talking about music is like dancing about ;architecture." (I can't remember who said that.) Like talking about fucking, right? Don't look at me, I talk about fucking all the time. In fact, even WHILE fucking I like to talk about fucking. ;Using ;scientific discourse is useful just as a method for finding regularities ;and expressing them carefully. You can do it well, and you can do it poorly. And which of the two do you consider is true of you?
eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (01/19/91)
In article <16410@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@venera.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: ;In article <5419@idunno.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot ;Handelman) writes: ;> A "scientific" ;>statement about music tends to be of the order "8ves run through all ;>musical cultures," and that's the sort of thing that Lerdahl gets away ;>with (I'd give my money to Llinas). ;I assume you are using quote marks around "scientific" because it is most ;unclear whether or not the candidate statement you have posed is falsifiable. It's most clear that such a statement can indeed be falsified, all you need is a counterexample. I was contrasting it to the statement "music is the machine-language of the brain," which is not a scientific statement, though it was made by an eminent neuroscientist. The 8ve biz has been observed over and over again, and no one can say what its consequences are; the machine-language statement is an untestable hypothesis, more a challenge to inquiry, a hot chestnut that begs to be fleshed out, that begs to be taken up by someone to see whether it can be recast in a manner acceptable to the scientific community, and which rests on an obvious prejudice about the effectiveness of music. It conveys the sense that the explanation is deep, and possibly not even possible with our current knowledge, and that a proper explanation might have to include a neuroscientific dimension. It also captures the idea that music might somehow "operate" on the listener, in the same way that one is "moved" BY music: one is being somehow run as a computer. Right there you could bring in Sid Vicious, if you wanted to. It seems to me quite clear that this aspect of control is a component of a lot of musical experience: whereas the emasculated "music pereception" theories turn music into something that one is educated to, something that you learn to appreciate, and that is meaningless until you do. When people want to talk about music, they ought to stick to the music they feel excited by, rather than the music they consider it proper to discuss in polite circles. Whan I was 8 years old Back for me was a chaotic abyss that drew me into its vortex, but for some other people their basic experience may have been with Elvis or the Stones. I want to feel that getting into their heads is worthwhile, that there's something going on there. Probably it does matter when you get to this music, but only because many of us are riddled with prejudices and categories, and at that point you can't hear anything anymore: all you hear are "prejudices and categories," and that, to me, is a very unlikely theory of what music is. So you have to go back to your pre-category times, unless you're a good listener with open ears, which most people aren't, and try to remember what music once sounded like. The music can sometimes help you along. Steve, for instance, thinks that music is a bunch of rehashed remembering, and I can't doubt that that's how he hears: he remembers what music once sounded like, and so he concludes that all music is but remembrance. That's at best a theory of what kind of wax is in Steve's ears. It's not a theory of music. There was supposed to be a tie-in with "scientific discourse," but I'm out of steam. Let me just say that statements like Llinas' seem much more suggestive and therefore valuable, especially as they come from someone who ought to know better, than statements that manage to fit the falsification pattern, especially as these tend to come from people who obviously don't know any better.
mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) (01/19/91)
In article <650@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> sandell@ils.nwu.edu (Greg Sandell) writes: >I'm pleased to see that EH admits the existence of categories since in >my world view, one of the objectives of music theory to discover and >characterize those categories (or perceptual prejudices if you will). >The question is, when you've done that, what have you discovered...have >you modelled music perception or simply musical habit? I think you've modelled the modelling means. Cheers, --Mark ======================================== Mark Gresham ARTSNET Norcross, GA, USA E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu ========================================
smoliar@isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (01/23/91)
In article <1150@artsnet.UUCP> mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes: > As somewhere else rattling about 'experience' vs. 'intelligence' >has been going on, I now throw in my two cents worth: > 'Intelligence' about an 'object of art' is precisely that, and >does have to do with notions of 'structure', though what is >analysed is as much the 'yardstick' as the object we attempt to >analyse ("Measurements measure the measuring means.") > 'Experience' of an 'object of art' is epistomologically quite >different, experience being a diffrerent 'kind' of knowledge from >intelligence. It is not about the structure of the object, but >involve rather 'encounter', what memories we bring to that >encounter (can't avoid that), and the change of 'intellectual >state' to some place other than where it was (i.e., we are 'moved' >by the experience). > Mark, while I appreciate your efforts to try to make sense out of a philosophical debate which seems to get more clouded with every contribution, I must confess to being concerned that there are two many highly-charged words in your above text. I do not mean this as a personal attack so much as a wail of frustration that we all keep getting slammed back against these words like "intelligence" and "knowledge," when each of us is stuck with some naive and idiosyncratic attempt at "understanding" (there goes another one) those words, often with little hope that any two of us can ever bring those idiosyncrasies into alignment. Suppose, for the sake of argument, we wipe the slate clean and put of a rule that we shall not let the word "intelligence" sneak into our discourse. ("For the sake of argument" means "as an intellectual exercise." We cannot prevent the word from coming back to us sooner or later. I just want to try to hold it off at arm's length while trying to get a better handle on what we think we are talking about here.) The reason I suggested trying to push the discussion back to Tinbergen is that what we REALLY want to be concerned with is behavior and how it is manifested. Now in my last article, I talked about trying "to identify those instincts which kick in to modulate musical behavior;" and I liked your amendment to the effect that we cannot, so to speak, build a fence around musical concerns. I agree with this. Behavior is "whole cloth;" and whether or not we choose to call it musical may have more to do with societal conventions than anything else. (There is the old McLuhan joke about Bali: "We have no art. We do everything as best as we can.") If we begin, then, by focusing our attention on behavior, we can start to ask some of the usual reductionist questions which we tend to associate with both scientific and philosophical inquiry. Given a "musical situation," why does an agent behave in a particular way? That situation may be one of composition, performance, or listening (not to mention some combination of these alternatives). However, before we launch into THOSE questions with too much enthusiasm, perhaps we have to remember that cautionary note of Wittgenstein's about philosophy and first worry about how we can DESCRIBE such instances of behavior. If we get too involved with explanation too quickly, we may end up developing a vocabulary for effects which is nothing more than a re-wording of a vocabulary for causes, which might leave us in the same situation as that Magritte painting of a fortress built upon an enormous boulder hovering in the air! I do not, as of this writing, have any "good" answers about how we can describe such behavior. However, I am beginning to develop some rather strong convictions about dangers we should try to avoid. Most important seems to be a need to fall back on what are essentially static and passive artifacts as a foundation for our discourse. I worry that you are using the phrase "object of art" to stand for just such a static and passive artifact. Whether or not I buy all the details of Gibson's "ecological" approach to perception, I do feel rather strongly that we cannot talk about perception in terms of a transformation from some given static data structure of sensory input (like the way we tend to view visual input as a two-dimensional array which corresponds to the retina) into some other, equally static, "semantic" data structure. Life is far more dynamic than that . . . not just to the extent that we are always dealing with new input as time passes but also in that there is far more INTERACTION among mind, the organs of sensation, and the environment being sensed than can be captured by such trivial metaphors of transformation. Thus, any attempt at description which does not show due respect to such dynamics will probably ultimately founder on its own inadequacy. -- USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@venera.isi.edu