daemon@bartok.Sun.COM (02/25/90)
Music-Research Digest Sun, 25 Feb 90 Volume 5 : Issue 20
Today's Topics:
Laske (was: Re: Music Research Digest Vol. 5, #18)
PNM address and information
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Date: 24 Feb 90 22:04:14 GMT
From: Eliot Handelman <eliot%phoenix@edu.princeton>
Subject: Laske (was: Re: Music Research Digest Vol. 5, #18)
To: music-research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
;Date: Tue, 20 Feb 90 08:12:18 EST
;From: Otto Laske <laske@edu.bu.cs>
;Subject: Subject: KA
;To: music-research <music-research%uk.ac.oxford.prg@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay>
;Feb 20, 90
;
; The discussion on knowledge acquisition in composition has shown
;itself to be an emotional topic (as evidenced by Stephen Pope's latest
;remarks, among others). This is understandable, but should not hide the
;fact that a community of inquiry is coming into being here which needs
;some solidarity.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Otto, what is being said here is that your views
of knowledge engineering, your concept of how to do music and your
concept of how to do anything else are far less interesting than you
make them out to be. You can cite articles by yourself dating back three
hundred years, and it wouldn't make any difference. You can write
articles about your other articles, as you did in Perspectives of New
Music V. 27 N. 2, in which you refer to yourself as "Laske," so that
readers who have forgotten who wrote this article in the first place
can think to themselves, "gee, the writer of this article has a high
opinion of Otto Laske." You can claim, as you do in a previous Music
Research digest, that the AI and Music workshop emphasizes knowledge
engineering, but that's because you are the chairman of these damnably
dull conferences and you decide which papers will be read, and you
make sure that the overall picture supports your contentions about the
existence of interest in your ideas. You can point to the dissertation
of a lone computer science grad student whom you advised. You can point
to Ron Roozendaal, who happened to send me the paper he wrote for the
class he took with you when you taught in Utrecht. But the weight of
opinion is that knowledge engineering is not a good approach to the
study of music.
; My general feeling is that it would be beneficial to let the
;pressure off "KA in composition" and broaden one's views by getting
;to know other fields of design, such as architecture, and try to cut
;out this romantic notion of the composer that is so European. My goal
;has always been to de-mystify composition, or art generally, because
;I thought that only by making it transparent scientifically as much
;as one can, one can point to what cannot be grasped scientifically.
;This is different from proclaiming composition to be untouchable by
;scientific understanding.
; Otto Laske
It's most unclear to me what Laske means in asserting that "art" should be
"de-mystified." It's equally unclear what Laske means by "scientific
understanding." And it's completely unclear who Laske thinks he's
adressing in recommending that "this romantic notion of the composer that
is so European" ought to be cut out, or why these people should study
architecture.
I would argue this out here if I thought it worthwhile. Let me merely
indicate that I take this all to be vacuous gibberish, the results of
associations forged in the early 60's during the heyday of serial music,
when one or two reputable european composers did think that the dilettante
perusal of architecture manuals would pay off compositionally, that
composition should be rationalized, and that scientific understanding
should be brought to bear on matters musical and compositional. The period
is historically interesting, but the importation of its dogma has be regarded
as suspect. There can be no "definition" of the scope, ambitions and limitations
of "art" that need have much validity over and beyond whichever products
grew up under the sign of that definition. As a man who claims for himself the
title of musicologist, Laske shows himself to be impervious to the historical
context of the lean and vitamin-starved ideas he advocates.
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Date: Sat, 24 Feb 90 14:46:20 -0800
From: John Rahn <pnm@edu.washington.u.milton>
Subject: PNM address and information
To: music-research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
in re: James Symon's query
to: symon@cs.unc.edu and Oxford network
The email address for Perspectives of New Music is
pnm@milton.u.washington.edu
(As remarked earlier, English email scrambles the order.)
The paper mail address is:
Perspectives of New Music
School of Music DN-10
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
USA
phone: (206) 543-0196
An individual subscription for one year is US$30. This includes two issues
plus a Compact Disc. For overseas postage, add US$2. Checks should be made
out to Perspectives of New Music at the above address.
The student rate is $20, and the institutional rate is $60.
John Rahn, Editor
Jerome Kohl, Managing Editor
pnm@milton.u.washington.edu
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End of Music-Research Digest