mrsmith@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Mr. P. H. Smith) (07/01/90)
In article <4307@milton.u.washington.edu> allyn@milton.u.washington.edu (Allyn Weaks) writes: >dts@quad.sialis.mn.org (David T. Sandberg) writes: >>In article <586@sdl.scs.com> dan@sdl.scs.com (Dan Adler) writes: >>: As a follow up to the discussions on semantics of music, I would suggest a >>:different angle for consideration. My claim is that to appreciate most forms >>:of music you actually have to be a musician, or at least have a very trained >>:musical ear and mind. > >I'm going to disagree partly via the words of Richard Feynman: > > I have a friend who's an artist and he's sometimes taken a view > which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and > say, "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree, I think. And > he says, "you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, > but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a > dull thing." And I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, > the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too, > I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically > as he is. But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the > same time, I can see much more about the flower than he sees. > I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside > which also have a beauty. I mean, it's not just beauty at this > dimension of one centimeter: there is also beauty at a smaller > dimension, the inner structure...also the processes. The fact > that the colors in the flower are evolved in order to attract > insects to pollinate it is interesting--it means that insects > can see the color. Yes, well I think there is quite a difference here between the "objects of appreciation." If one listens to music or looks at a flower without calling to mind certain kinds of "knowledge," then, I think, you leave yourself unfettered and open to perceive actually what is. If, on the other hand, when you look or listen you start poring over your vast amount of stored knowledge, you disconnect yourself from the present moment of experience. Your experience becomes one of your own mind (which of course is beautiful) and less one of the flower or music at hand. I'm not saying that this is bad or wrong. What I am trying to get at is this: When the object of one's focussed attention turns from what is given through perception to what is known and essentially remembered, one ceases to perceive the actuality of what is presented. At this point it no longer makes sense to speak of the beauty of the flower (or the music) because things like the following are not "of the flower" or "of the music." They are "of the subject" who is doing the looking or listening. ... >And when the artist says "I as an artist...", he's implying that he too, takes >apart the flower, but into colors, and textures and proportions, and he >probably thinks about how he'd paint it - whether to use oils or watercolor, >which brush technique; and I'll bet he thinks in terms of a fairly technical >vocabulary. How is this part of the beauty of a flower? Well, who knows? I cannot agree with the line of argument that essentially says that A is more beautiful when B looks at it then when C does -- only if B has more knowledge than C. To see how silly this realy is, just imagine going to a concert and really calling to mind as much knowledge as you possibly can: When you hear the first note, instantly you start scrolling through a list of facts which themselves suggest other facts or ideas or memories. You are reminded, since you have perfect pitch, that the flute is playing the same note your microwave plays when it's done cooking. This reminds you of the nachos you had an hour before the concert. You call to mind the especially hot salsa and the interesting taste you achieved by blending asiago, monterey jack, and cheddar cheese. (A blend not unlike the blend of flute, oboe, and bassoon, perhaps?) Then you are amused because these thoughts fit well with the title of the piece you're hearing: El Salon Mexico, by Aaron Copland! But wait ... wasn't your microwave made in Mexico? No, no, now you remember -- it was made in America, but assembled in Mexico. This is really interesting because it happens to be the inverse of El Salon Mexico. Its parts are "Mexican," but were assembled in America! Now it's time to listen to the next note of the piece. But you have to skip it because it already happened while you were thinking of nachos. Oh well, you are well versed in the techniques of western music, so you can fill in pretty well what must have happened. Yup, you're right, it was doing a step-wise descent from the 5th scale degree. You recognize that the music is now on the 2nd scale degree. Oh boy, this really gives you a lot to think about. Did you miss two notes? Is this one you're hearing now harmonized by the dominant? It is! How cool, because that's the same harmony that supported the flute note you just got finished thinking about. Now you start getting into the really beautiful because your experience is *unified* by the uncanny recurrence of the dominant. And you know, because you took so many music classes at a western university, that a *unified* experience is the best, highest, most aesthetic of all. How excited you now are. How good you feel about having come to the concert -- about having gone to college and learned "how to enjoy" music. Ah, bliss. But wait ... [the brain being unpredictable, you suddenly endanger the unity of your experience of supreme beauty] You begin to wonder: "Did I leave my car window open?" Oh, no. Fear and uncertainty come over you. It did look like rain. You do have a Walkman just sitting there on the front seat. What a pitty if it were to disappear. You hate the uncertainty of not knowing whether you rolled the window up. But, hey, isn't that just like the uncertainty expressed in the music now? Yessss! It's some kind of development section! Gee, that's the epitome of uncertainty for this genre, this time period, or at least for this composer. And how really fortunate for you that it happened to coincide with your feelings about the car window. Your unified experience of supreme beauty continues ... --- Of course, it is impossible to list all the associations, thoughts, ideas, musings, memories, etc. that a truly educated person would have to experience the *most* beauty possible. I guess that just goes to show you how rich the cultured mind is. So, are we to pitty the ignorant? What about the one who goes to the concert and thinks nothing? Do they miss the totality of music? >The best thing about music is how big that >totality is, and how many places it leads you to: harmony and form; history; >physics and acoustics; building an instrument; coordinating with other people >in an ensemble; typesetting; psychology and perception; snazzy synthesis >algorithms; semantics arguments :-) Even while I'm thinking about that stuff, >I have no trouble 'getting lost' in Monteverdi, or Ligeti. And it's all so >much more fun now. You see, my silly nacho example wasn't that far removed from what some people consider the "best thing" about music. I don't think the amount of extraneous cognitive activity has anything at all to do with the capability of enjoying music or perceiving its beauty -- even on the most profound level. Nor do I think, however, that you can get to the truly profound beauty of music by shutting down the brain and listening to music in a near comatose state. Instead there is a way to listen to music which does neither. One can focus most intensely on the sounds presented to you with a high degree of cognitive activity which, nevertheless, does not include associative, relational recollections and ramblings. Nor does it include the stupid application of nomenclature which some people suggest enhances one's experience of music (you know: "that's a five-four-two going to a one-six in the typical late baroque, north German keyboard style, heavily influenced by counterpoint and Palestrina, blah, blah, blah" [does anyone really listen to music this way?]) No, what I am thinking of is the experience of music which requires the elimination of that sort of thing in favor of direct perception of reality. This direct perception, of course, will be influenced by what you know about music. But the kind of knowledge, as well as its way of influencing your experience is very different from the mindless babble of naming everything and connecting it to "typesetting" or instrument making. It is similar to the kind of knowledge that lets you read these very words. To an illiterate person, these words are meaningless. They don't have the knowledge they need to see what they are. But you, on the other hand, do not read them and experience their significance by bringing to mind *everything* you know about writing, english grammar, typing, etc. Your reading knowledge operates "in the background." Allowing you to see what is. Likewise, the 'ignorant' listener does not *need* to be able to call to mind apsects of music theory, history, acoustics, vision, the workings of the cochlea. The listener who 'ignores' that kind of stuff will do much better at "appreciating" beauty in music than the one who tries to cram it into the experience. They only have to listen actively to what is, just as you only have to look at these marks to read them. Most of them (us) already have the knowledge we need to listen to what is happening at the moment. This kind of listening is unavailable to the one who crams knowledge of facts into their experience because their attention is directed at recollections of these facts and not at the sounds. So, in some sense they perceive less than the so-called ignorant listener. And the quality of their experience is less determined by the quality of the performance set before them -- meaning that the most out of tune, dull, insipid, rag-tag, ill-balanced performance could be perceived as great beauty just as easily as a 'perfect' one. Hey, wait a minute, maybe everyone really does engage their mind in associative fact finding while they listen to music. That might explain why no one seems to care that the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the NY Philharmonic, and countless other musicians can play horrendously out of tune without shocking anyone! Paul Smith Brandeis University mrsmith@ai.mit.edu