subject:"\[Finale\] Garritan and other stuff"

Christopher Smith wrote:
On Feb 8, 2005, at 7:52 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 I just pointed
out that if the music is incomprehensible without reference to
outside information that is not musical in nature, then it's not very
good music.

Well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree there. I don't know of 
very much art that DOESN'T require cartloads of outside information to 
understand or enjoy it.

I'm glad just the same to finally understand your point, even if I don't 
agree with it.

I agree with David Fenton here -- if a casual listener can't just hear a 
piece of music and enjoy it without any exposure to anything other than 
that piece of music, then it isn't very good music.  If a musical work 
requires a lecture to precede it, pointing out this aspect and that 
aspect, then it's more like a lecture that needs a musical example to 
make it's point than a work of music that should simply need to be heard.

Sure some works can be more deeply appreciated if one looks behind the 
score to the thoughts behind the music, just as a Maserati can be more 
deeply appreciated if one understands engineering and machining 
principles and aerodynamic designs and wheel rim materials and tire 
tread constructions. But I can't think of anybody who would buy a car in 
which they originally hated the test drive simply because they heard an 
explanation of how it was conceived and suddenly came to love it.  If it 
rides terribly, it doesn't matter how it was conceived.  Same thing for 
a work of music -- if the listener doesn't enjoy it, it doesn't matter 
what masonic symbolism is involved or what their compositional 
philosophy is.

To paraphrase Duke Ellington: If it sounds bad it IS bad (at least to 
the person who thinks it sounds bad).

I can hear the conversation concerning a musical work now:
Listener: Wow, that is horrible.  I think I'm going to get sick, it's so 
ugly!
Composer: But this is how I conceived it:  First, I thought of my long 
extramarital affair and how it allowed me to finally know love, then I 
thought of all my fellow countrymen who were killed in battles for 
freedom, finally I decided to throw off the weight of the harmonic 
expectations built up by the composers of the common harmonic practice 
period.
Listener:  Gee, I'm glad you told me -- that is one beautiful work of 
music, I love it!


--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

Mark D Lew wrote:
On Feb 8, 2005, at 4:52 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
. . . Is it important to know
that _The Magic Flute_ is full of Masonic symbolism? . . .

Perhaps, because otherwise, it's fairly incoherent. I would say that
proves that it's not a very good opera.

The fact that Flute has remained popular for centuries in spite of the 
fact that 90+% of listeners have no clue about the Masonic symbolism 
suggests to me that there is something very good about the opera, 
incoherent or not.


Which supports the contention that it isn't the least important to 
understand the background of how or why a composition was written in 
order for people to appreciate it, if it's a well-written piece of 
music.  Well-written music speaks for itself.

--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

David W. Fenton wrote:
On 8 Feb 2005 at 17:56, Mark D Lew wrote:

On Feb 8, 2005, at 4:52 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

. . . Is it important to know
that _The Magic Flute_ is full of Masonic symbolism? . . .
Perhaps, because otherwise, it's fairly incoherent. I would say that
proves that it's not a very good opera.
The fact that Flute has remained popular for centuries in spite of the
fact that 90+% of listeners have no clue about the Masonic symbolism
suggests to me that there is something very good about the opera,
incoherent or not.

No one is a bigger fan of Mozart than I am. But I have always felt 
that the Magic Flute is incoherent *as an opera* (or Singspiel, 
technically speaking, I guess). If it did not have some of the most 
glorious music ever written, it would be a failure. But so far as I 
can tell, it's really just a string of great tunes held together by a 
rather incomprehensible narrative. That's not great opera, though it 
may very well include some of the greatest music ever written.

Might not be great opera, but it sure is the formula that has helped 
many a composer to Broadway fame!  Mozart was just ahead of his time in 
this aspect.  :-)

--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

Darcy James Argue wrote:
[snip]
Both a human and a pool-playing robot (like, say, Deep Green -- 
http://www.ece.queensu.ca/hpages/faculty/greenspan/) have to solve 
exactly the same problem, which happens to be a problem of applied physics.

So one solves it with neurons and one solves it with silicon.  What 
makes you so sure the process is so fundamentally different?
Rather than simply calling it solving it with neurons, the human is 
really solving it with knowledge based on experience gained from long 
periods of practice and the robot solves it with equations and numbers, 
none of which it gained from experience.  That the result may be the 
same in no way guarantees that the principles in the solving of the 
problem are the same.

--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

 Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak?
 Is grammar significant to communication?
 - Darcy

 Can someone communicate effectively without having consciously learned
 the rules of grammar specifically (as opposed to picking up general
 concepts of communication)?  Certainly, children do it all the time!

Whether children 'consciously' learn grammar or 'pick it up' or have it
hardwired, the point is that grammar has significance in communication. It
does not mean that it is everything, but it is significant. Darcy's analogy
is pointing out the flaw in the position that physics has NO significance in
music. (By the way, children's speech is grammar-ridden from as soon as they
string enough words together to have a grammar).

Richard Yates



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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff - Magic Flute

2005-02-09 Thread Raymond Horton

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
Hey, I'm not ignoring it! I was just trying to resist the urge to make my
no-doubt-anticipated musico-politically incorrect two-finger mouth salute
over Mozart's incessantly repetitive noodling.
 

I feel for you, too, Dennis. 
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-09 Thread Darcy James Argue

On 09 Feb 2005, at 7:07 AM, dhbailey wrote:
Richard Yates wrote:
Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak?
Is grammar significant to communication?
- Darcy
Oooh, good one!
Can someone communicate effectively without having consciously learned 
the rules of grammar specifically (as opposed to picking up general 
concepts of communication)?  Certainly, children do it all the time!
That was kind of my point, David.
[Except that children don't pick up general concepts of communication 
-- they learn language by fitting the incoming linguistic data into 
their innate concept of grammatical strucutre.  Children notice and 
apply rules like the regular plural form in English adds an s to the 
end of the word long before they have the linguistic and cognitive 
tools to explain what they are doing.  If children had to start from 
zero and simply deduce the existence of language, then words, then 
combinatorial grammar, then nouns and verbs and modifiers, then the 
specific grammatical rules of their native language, they'd never learn 
to speak.]

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-09 Thread John Howell

At 10:33 AM -0500 2/9/05, dhbailey wrote:
Could you please explain what aspects of physics are in my conscious 
thought while I'm playing the trumpet?

Physics is the science which defines and describes in precise detail 
the actions and interactions.  I don't concede that we're discussing 
physics when I tell my student While holding the trumpet so the 
mouthpiece is centered on your lips, you blow with sufficient 
pressure to get your lips to vibrate.
Bernouli's law, actually, making the lips buzz like any other double 
(or single) reeds.  Same law that holds up both fixed-wing and 
rotary-wing aircraft.  The designer sure as heck needs to understand 
that aspect of physics, while the pilot just needs to know how to use 
it in practice and avoid stalling out.  Which is why the absolutist 
statements in this thread, especially as they relate to words that 
may mean one thing to one person and something else to someone else, 
are not helpful.  The only absolutist statement I accept is this one: 
It Depends!

John
--
John  Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-09 Thread Andrew Stiller

  Andrew suggested that history's verdict on Janacek is long since 
in.  I think it's way too soon to say that.  I can think of a dozen 
opera composers who were considered great 75 years after their death 
but were discarded by history 50 years later.  (Plus a few more who 
were great for a century, then discarded for a century, and then 
revived again.)  Maybe Janacek will join them, or maybe he won't. 
But I don't think history has had its final say on him yet.

mdl
First of all, Janacek is not an opera composer--he wrote important 
music in a wide variety of genres, and even were all his operas to be 
forgotten the remaining body of work would be more than sufficient to 
maintain his standing as a major composer.

As to your other point, From the late 18th c. on (that is, since the 
time when the idea took hold that great works of art have permanent 
value), I cannot think of a single composer, in any genre, who having 
been considered great at the age of 150, came to be considered 
insignificant, or even minor, at any later time.

Composers, living or dead, do tend to go out of fashion around age 
75. Formerly, this led inexorably to oblivion, but since ca. 1780, 
those of lasting merit get rehabilitated after a few decades in the 
doghouse. As far as I can see, this is a one-time, one-way process.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-09 Thread Christopher Smith

On Wednesday, February 9, 2005, at 03:02  PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
I cannot think of a single composer, in any genre, who having been 
considered great at the age of 150, came to be considered 
insignificant, or even minor, at any later time.

Composers, living or dead, do tend to go out of fashion around age 75. 
Formerly, this led inexorably to oblivion, but since ca. 1780, those 
of lasting merit get rehabilitated after a few decades in the 
doghouse. As far as I can see, this is a one-time, one-way process.

That is an astonishing concept! (And I don't mean that badly, I just 
had never heard it before!) It takes a musicologist with a huge amount 
of study and information to be able to see a trend like that and 
express it so clearly. Maybe I am so impressed because I can't do that, 
but I am impressed just the same.

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-09 Thread Mark D Lew

On Feb 9, 2005, at 12:02 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
First of all, Janacek is not an opera composer--he wrote important 
music in a wide variety of genres, and even were all his operas to be 
forgotten the remaining body of work would be more than sufficient to 
maintain his standing as a major composer.
Thanks.  I gathered that from one of the other posts as well.  My 
background is overwhelmingly from the world of opera, and that's the 
only way I knew Janacek.

As to your other point, From the late 18th c. on (that is, since the 
time when the idea took hold that great works of art have permanent 
value), I cannot think of a single composer, in any genre, who having 
been considered great at the age of 150, came to be considered 
insignificant, or even minor, at any later time.

Composers, living or dead, do tend to go out of fashion around age 75. 
Formerly, this led inexorably to oblivion, but since ca. 1780, those 
of lasting merit get rehabilitated after a few decades in the 
doghouse. As far as I can see, this is a one-time, one-way process.
I assume that by age of 150 you mean 150 years after birth*.  When I 
wrote the first post I thought I had examples, but now that I do the 
math, I find the ones I had in mind went out of fashion around age 
75-100 and thus don't meet your test.  I'll ponder this a bit and let 
you know if I can think of any others.  If I can't, I'll assume you're 
right and I was wrong.

mdl
*At first I found it odd that you're counting age from the birth of the 
composer rather than the composition of the music, but now that I'm 
thinking of examples, the pattern does seem to work out that way, 
doesn't it?  I wonder why that is.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-09 Thread Mark D Lew

On Feb 9, 2005, at 1:01 PM, Owain Sutton wrote:
For composers of age of 150, the limiting date is 1855.  So your 
description actually focuses on a few decades of composition, and on 
those composers' current reputation.  It neither proves nor 
demonstrates anything.
How do you figure only a few decades?  As I understand it, he is 
saying:

- Any composer born in 1630 who was considered great in 1780 maintained 
his reputation 1780-2005.
- Any composer born in 1650 who was considered great in 1800 maintained 
his reputation 1800-2005.
- Any composer born in 1700 who was considered great in 1850 maintained 
his reputation 1850-2005.
- Any composer born in 1750 who was considered great in 1900 maintained 
his reputation 1900-2005.
- Any composer born in 1800 who was considered great in 1950 maintained 
his reputation 1950-2005.
- etc.

Based on that pattern, he feels safe in asserting that Janacek, who was 
born in 1854 and considered great in 2004, will maintain his 
reputation.

If Andrew's claim is true -- and so far no one has suggested a 
counterexample -- then it looks like a pretty significant trend to me.

mdl
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-09 Thread Mark D Lew

On Feb 9, 2005, at 3:16 PM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
Since he dangle his grammatical temporal dongle, I wonder if he'd 
clarify
if he meant the fame from the late 18th century on, or the composer 
from
the late 18th century on.
Ah, now I see the confusion.  I assumed he meant fame from the late 
18th century on.  The parenthetic seems to support that, since the idea 
of great works having permanent value would be relevant to perception 
of an artist's greatness, not to an artist's birth.

mdl
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

 Could you please explain what aspects of physics are in my conscious
 thought while I'm playing the trumpet?

You are calculating the air pressures necessary using Bernoulli's Principle
and the modulus of elasticity of skin as it relates to the natural
vibrational frequency of the air column from your larynx to your lips - and
don't you dare try to deny it!

Seriously, perhaps you could ask that question of either: 1) someone in the
vicinity at the time, say, yourself, for instance, or 2) someone who has
said that there are aspects of physics in your conscious thought then. I fit
neither of these categories.

Richard Yates


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

 Bernouli's law, actually, making the lips buzz like any other double
 (or single) reeds.  Same law that holds up both fixed-wing and
 rotary-wing aircraft.   John

I cannot believe that someone else also mentioned Bernoulli! By the way, I
heard somewhere recently that the relative force of Bernoulli effect is now
seen as less significant than the simple pressure on the underside of the
wing from the positive angle of attack.

But I digress. You aren't saying that physics actually has anything to do
with flying a plane are you?!?

Richard Yates


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 0:27, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 
 On 08 Feb 2005, at 7:30 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  On 8 Feb 2005 at 1:31, Darcy James Argue wrote:
 
  Please explain how you would build a pool-playing robot without
  including some sort of physics module in the AI.
 
  A human pool player is not a pool-playing robot.
 
  And that's the whole point.
 
 Both a human and a pool-playing robot (like, say, Deep Green -- 
 http://www.ece.queensu.ca/hpages/faculty/greenspan/) have to solve
 exactly the same problem, which happens to be a problem of applied
 physics.
 
 So one solves it with neurons and one solves it with silicon.  What
 makes you so sure the process is so fundamentally different?

Because either way, it has nothing to do with the *art* of the game.

  Your observation applies to *any* human action. I'm typing right
  now, which involves the physics of the design of my computer
  keyboard, as well as calculation of movements of my hands and arms
  and so forth.
 
  But that's trivial, and not a significant part of the act of typing.
 
  And if physics is not significant to typing, how can it be
  significant to art?
 
 Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak?
 
 Is grammar significant to communication?

It's axiomatic in that enables speech to carry information.

That doesn't means grammar has any significance to the meaning of any 
particular utterance (though it certainly *could*).

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 8 Feb 2005 at 22:07, Richard Yates wrote:

  Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak?
  Is grammar significant to communication?
  - Darcy
 
 Oooh, good one!

No, it's the same question as before, and the answer is that it is 
significant to *enabling* it, but does not necessarily 

In radio you have a carrier wave, which is like grammar in speech.

But the actual signal is the message.

In music, the acoustical underpinnings may very well be the carrier 
wave, the fundamental ether by which the communication is enabled, 
but it isn't the message itself.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

 That doesn't mean grammar has any significance to the meaning of any
 particular utterance (though it certainly *could*).

If you really believe this then I can only assume that you have a rather
nonstandard definition of 'grammar' in mind. Can you write some examples of
utterances in which you think grammar has no significance to the meaning?
Can you cite any such sentences in posts to this list?

RY


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 6:33, dhbailey wrote:

 Christopher Smith wrote:
 
  On Feb 8, 2005, at 7:52 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
  
   I just pointed
  out that if the music is incomprehensible without reference to
  outside information that is not musical in nature, then it's not
  very good music.
  
  Well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree there. I don't know
  of very much art that DOESN'T require cartloads of outside
  information to understand or enjoy it.
  
  I'm glad just the same to finally understand your point, even if I
  don't agree with it.
 
 I agree with David Fenton here -- if a casual listener can't just hear
 a piece of music and enjoy it without any exposure to anything other
 than that piece of music, then it isn't very good music. . . .

Er, that's not at all what I've been arguing.

That would be analogous to this situation:

1. you speak English but not German.

2. someone gives you a poem of Goethe to read.

3. you can't understand it, so you declare it a terrible poem, since 
you have to learn this bloody German language in order to understand 
it.

That's crazy, and I'm sure you'd agree.

Some music is written in styles that a listener is not familiar with 
and simply won't know how to listen to. It may take more than one 
listening, or, even, a *lecture* (HORRORS) before they start to 
understand and appreciate what the piece of music has to say.

But that's not the same thing as requiring external information to 
understand the work of art. It's simply a matter of learning the 
language in which the art work is created in order to have a hope 
of understanding it.

Now, if the person who speaks German very well and has read quite a 
bit of poetry reads the poem and finds it to be gibberish, or 
internally inconsistent, then *that's* like what I've been arguing 
about in regards to the consonance/dissonance argument. For a piece 
of music to convey meaning via consonance and dissonance, the 
differences between the two must be demonstrated within the piece of 
music itself.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 6:40, dhbailey wrote:

 Darcy James Argue wrote:
 
 [snip]
  
  Both a human and a pool-playing robot (like, say, Deep Green --
  http://www.ece.queensu.ca/hpages/faculty/greenspan/) have to solve
  exactly the same problem, which happens to be a problem of applied
  physics.
  
  So one solves it with neurons and one solves it with silicon.  What
  makes you so sure the process is so fundamentally different?
 
 Rather than simply calling it solving it with neurons, the human is
 really solving it with knowledge based on experience gained from long
 periods of practice and the robot solves it with equations and
 numbers, none of which it gained from experience.  That the result may
 be the same in no way guarantees that the principles in the solving of
 the problem are the same.

A friend of mine who is a professional violinist and violin teacher 
has explained to me the importance of physical memory for the solo 
violinist in regard to intonation as opposed to having a good ear. 
The point is that hitting those notes accurately in a high position 
is not something you do because you're using your ear to tune them -- 
it happens because you've developed the physical memory to hit them 
on the nose without any thought or any need to adjust after the fact.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 5:19, Richard Yates wrote:

  Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak?
  Is grammar significant to communication?
  - Darcy
 
  Can someone communicate effectively without having consciously
  learned the rules of grammar specifically (as opposed to picking up
  general concepts of communication)?  Certainly, children do it all
  the time!
 
 Whether children 'consciously' learn grammar or 'pick it up' or have
 it hardwired, the point is that grammar has significance in
 communication. It does not mean that it is everything, but it is
 significant. Darcy's analogy is pointing out the flaw in the position
 that physics has NO significance in music. (By the way, children's
 speech is grammar-ridden from as soon as they string enough words
 together to have a grammar).

Again, you're arguing against something I've never proposed. 

Physics has no necessary *musical* significance, just has grammar has 
no signficance in the *meaning* of any particular speech or written 
utterance. It may enable the encoding of meaning, and is therefore a 
prerequisite for the communication to be happening in the first 
place. But that is not the same kind of significance as I've been 
talking about. That kind of significance is, to me, trivial -- it's 
so basic as to be uninteresting in and of itself, and it doesn't have 
anything to do with the foreground meaning of the message being sent.

Of course, it *can* have foreground significance. Some poetry plays 
around with the rules of grammar at a foreground level, just as 
Andrew has pointed out at least one piece where he claims some 
acoustical rules have been foregrounded by the composer.

But that's only a choice a composer or writer can make, which it 
seems to me makes the medium into the message.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 6:48, Richard Yates wrote:

  I don't think anybody has said physics has no significance, just
  that it is not part of people's conscious thought processes while
  making music or playing pool.
 
 My part of this thread has been to respond to the post that said:
 Physics is involved, but not at any conscious level, and not at any
 significant level.

In context, I was not talking about music. If I had been, I would 
have said not at any significant *musical* level.

 This says that no aspect of physics is in consciousness when making
 music, and that physics is has no significant role in making music. . . 

No significant *musical* role.

You've taken one line out of its original context and applied it to 
an entirely different context, and that's why you're coming up with a 
nonsensical argument -- because it's one I've never made.

 . . . I
 think that this may have just been sloppy writing (rather than sloppy
 thinking) by the original postert, but people's continuing defense of
 it suggests otherwise.

The sloppiness is on your part for taking something from one context 
and arguing against it in a completely different context.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 19:28, Richard Yates wrote:

  That doesn't mean grammar has any significance to the meaning of any
  particular utterance (though it certainly *could*).
 
 If you really believe this then I can only assume that you have a
 rather nonstandard definition of 'grammar' in mind. Can you write some
 examples of utterances in which you think grammar has no significance
 to the meaning? Can you cite any such sentences in posts to this list?

Does the carrier wave of the FM signal on your favorite radio station 
have any significance to the programming of that radio station?

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 19:37, Richard Yates wrote:

  It seems to me that you are willfully re-reading everything I've
  written -- I'm talking about *musical* significance, and always have
  been, and quite clearly.
 
 There are those asterisks again! . . .

Asterisks are not equal to quotation marks. They are the email 
equivalent of BOLD or ITALICS, but since plain-text email is the only 
accepted format for email, we use *asterisks* as a substitute (just 
as on typewriters, you used underline for what would be in italics in 
a printed book).

 . . . If you have been using the word
 'musical' in some narrow or obscure way, . . .

No, I'm not using any special meaning.

Asterisks are not quotation marks.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

   That doesn't mean grammar has any significance to the meaning of any
   particular utterance (though it certainly *could*).
 
  If you really believe this then I can only assume that you have a
  rather nonstandard definition of 'grammar' in mind. Can you write some
  examples of utterances in which you think grammar has no significance
  to the meaning? Can you cite any such sentences in posts to this list?

 Does the carrier wave of the FM signal on your favorite radio station
 have any significance to the programming of that radio station?

Faulty analogy. A carrier wave is constant throughout a broadcast. It
carries no information except its frequency.

Grammar, by contrast, is one means by which meaning is embedded into and
extracted from sentences. One might even say that, in addition to the
meanings of the individual words (which in a random order would convey no
meaningful sentence), grammar is absolutely essential for meaning.

Perhaps you could choose another analogy, or answer the questions I asked to
try to ensure no misunderstanding of your use of terms as you say has
occurred recently.



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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 10 Feb 2005 at 0:09, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 10 Feb 2005, at 12:04 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  On 9 Feb 2005 at 23:58, Darcy James Argue wrote:
 
  On 09 Feb 2005, at 10:36 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  Physics has no necessary *musical* significance, just has grammar
  has no signficance in the *meaning* of any particular speech or
  written utterance.
 
  This is so patently, obviously, demonstrably false that if you
  continue to assert it, I don't think there's much point in
  continuing the conversation.  Grammar -- and I don't mean
  schoolmarm grammar, I mean combinatorial grammar -- is
  absolutely integral to meaning. Grammar is the *only* thing that
  distinguishes the meaning of Dog bites man vs. Man bites dog.
 
  Grammar enables the construction of message, yes.
 
  But it doesn't control the meaning conveyed.
 
 No, it absolutely does.  Let me try one last time:
 
 Dog bites man.
 
 Man bites dog.
 
 What's the difference?  Same three words.  Different meaning.  What
 accounts for the difference?

The fact that you've switched two nouns within precisely the same 
grammatical structure.

 Grammar.  Grammar controls meaning.

Grammar *encodes* meaning.

And you're not changing the grammar -- you're just exchanging one 
noun for another in constructions that are grammatically identical.

In other words, you've changed the content while retaining the same 
grammatical structure.

Congratulations! You've just made my point!

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 9 Feb 2005 at 21:11, Richard Yates wrote:

That doesn't mean grammar has any significance to the meaning of
any particular utterance (though it certainly *could*).
  
   If you really believe this then I can only assume that you have a
   rather nonstandard definition of 'grammar' in mind. Can you write
   some examples of utterances in which you think grammar has no
   significance to the meaning? Can you cite any such sentences in
   posts to this list?
 
  Does the carrier wave of the FM signal on your favorite radio
  station have any significance to the programming of that radio
  station?
 
 Faulty analogy. A carrier wave is constant throughout a broadcast. It
 carries no information except its frequency.

Grammar as a system of structuring communication is constant 
throughout the message, and it's that system that is used to convey 
information.

The grammatical system itself does not convey any information about 
the message.

 Grammar, by contrast, is one means by which meaning is embedded into
 and extracted from sentences. One might even say that, in addition to
 the meanings of the individual words (which in a random order would
 convey no meaningful sentence), grammar is absolutely essential for
 meaning.

Like the carrier wave.

 Perhaps you could choose another analogy, or answer the questions I
 asked to try to ensure no misunderstanding of your use of terms as you
 say has occurred recently.

When I say grammar I mean the entire system of grammar, the whole 
set of rules that control whether a collection of words has meaning 
or not.

Man bites dog has meaning because it is a grammatical construction.

Man dog bites is an ungrammatical construction, and, thus, has no 
meaning.

So, yes, the grammatical *system* is required to construct meaning.

But the system itself is not part of the meaning conveyed.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread John Howell

At 2:31 PM -0500 2/7/05, Christopher Smith wrote:
On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 12:34  PM, Phil Daley wrote:

The first question:  Was this (Cage's) music as successful 
(moving, exciting, attractive) as other musics?

I don't see how anyone can argue a yes answer to this question. 
The scientific proof would be that pretty much no one has ever 
heard of him (outside of academic music people).

Well, that's neither here nor there. What modern composer IS known 
outside of academic circles? Cage is at least as well-known as say, 
Takemitsu.
Well of course that's a trick question, because it all depends on 
your definition of modern composer.  Some people have, certainly 
with justification in their own minds, a rather narrow definition 
that almost REQUIRES failure to succeed in the marketplace.  As a 
trained (but not completed) musicologist, I would suggest two names 
that will be of great interest to scholars in 200 years because their 
music has touched so many people:  Paul McCartney (along with 
whatsizname), whose throwaway songs still won't go away 40 years 
later, and John Williams.  (Save the flames; I know you won't agree!)

John
--
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Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread Andrew Stiller

And to get the point of the music, do you need to know this about the
origins of the idea?
If not, then it's not very important musically, in my opinion.
If so, then it's probably not very good music to begin with.
--
David W. Fenton
Depends what you consider important to know about different 
composers' styles. Is is important to know that Beethoven was 
influenced by French revolutionary composers? Is it important to know 
that _The Magic Flute_ is full of Masonic symbolism? This is the same 
order of thing. If you want to just bask in Janacek's _Sinfonietta_, 
fine, but if you have any interest at all into why this composer's 
music sounds different from other composers, or how it achieves its 
effects, then yes, you do indeed need to know about his acoustic 
ideas, just as you also need to know about his insistence on 
naturalistic text setting, and even about his long, extramarital 
affair with Kamila Urvalkova.

And BTW, it's not up to you to decide whether J's music is very good 
or not. On that point, the verdict of history is in, long since.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread John Howell

At 4:22 PM -0500 2/7/05, David W. Fenton wrote:
The carpenter's tools are not the point of his work.
Unless, of course, you play that famous pre-Theramin instrument, the saw.
John
--
John  Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread Christopher Smith

On Tuesday, February 8, 2005, at 01:06  PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
And BTW, it's not up to you to decide whether J's music is very good 
or not. On that point, the verdict of history is in, long since.

Umm, what IS history's verdict on Janacek's music? I really like it, 
but I'm not sure that counts for much. 8-)

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread Christopher Smith

On Tuesday, February 8, 2005, at 02:24  PM, Stu McIntire wrote:
What modern composer IS known outside of academic circles?
Steve Reich, John Adams, and, in particular, Phillip Glass.
Thank you, at least two of those will do nicely for illustrative 
purposes. Reich and Glass (and perhaps Adams, too, for all I know, but 
I am not as familiar with his music) both made extensive inroads in the 
same areas that Cage pioneered, and by many standards could be 
considered to be successful. (Famous? Rich? Historically important? 
Widely studied and admired by both those in the know and the lay 
public? Often-programmed on concerts? Sold a bunch of recordings or 
sheet music? On a lot of classical radio stations? Have their own PBS 
special (yay Dennis B-K!) Have their own name card in the classical 
section of the record store? Haven't got a good definition of 
successful yet.)

Christopher
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RE: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread Lee Actor



 [answering Andrew Stiller]

  And BTW, it's not up to you to decide whether J's music is very good
  or not. On that point, the verdict of history is in, long since.
 
  Umm, what IS history's verdict on Janacek's music? I really like it,
  but I'm not sure that counts for much. 8-)

 I'm not sure I share Andrew's faith in the permanence of history's
 verdict.  For about 30 years Janacek was an obscure nobody.  Then some
 time in the 1970s Mackerras championed him, and for the last 30 years
 he's been considered great.  Maybe that will stick, or maybe it will
 turn back.  Opera composers go in and out of fashion.

 mdl


I think you're overstating the case somewhat.  It is true that at the time
of his death in 1928, Janacek's reputation was far greater inside what was
then Czechoslovakia than outside it.  But after WWII his instrumental music
became much better known around the world, and of course now his operas are
considered among the most important of the 20th century.  Szell's first
recording on Columbia with the Cleveland Orchestra was a pairing of Bartok's
Concerto for Orchestra and Janacek's Sinfonietta, in 1965.  Mackerras was
hardly as responsible for singlehandedly resurrecting Janacek as you
suggest.

-Lee


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 8 Feb 2005 at 1:31, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 On 07 Feb 2005, at 8:40 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  You don't think basketball commentators (and coaches, and players)
  talk about angle, rebounds, arcs, etc?
 
  That's not physics, except using a rather debased definition of it
  that includes just about anything involving motion.
 
 David, that's just about the most ridiculous excuse for an argument
 I've ever heard.  Debased physics?  Because it includes just about
 anything involving motion?  David, what do you think Newtonian
 physics *is*??  And basketball/golf/pool players never think about
 physics  Fercrisskaes, pool is nothing *but* applied physics.
 
 Please explain how you would build a pool-playing robot without 
 including some sort of physics module in the AI.

A human pool player is not a pool-playing robot.

And that's the whole point.

Human beings do not think of equations and physics when they move -- 
they just move. Physics is involved, but not at any conscious level, 
and not at any significant level.

Your observation applies to *any* human action. I'm typing right now, 
which involves the physics of the design of my computer keyboard, as 
well as calculation of movements of my hands and arms and so forth.

But that's trivial, and not a significant part of the act of typing.

And if physics is not significant to typing, how can it be 
significant to art?

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread Mark D Lew

On Feb 8, 2005, at 4:52 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
. . . Is it important to know
that _The Magic Flute_ is full of Masonic symbolism? . . .
Perhaps, because otherwise, it's fairly incoherent. I would say that
proves that it's not a very good opera.
The fact that Flute has remained popular for centuries in spite of the 
fact that 90+% of listeners have no clue about the Masonic symbolism 
suggests to me that there is something very good about the opera, 
incoherent or not.

mdl
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

 As a
 trained (but not completed) musicologist, I would suggest two names
 that will be of great interest to scholars in 200 years because their
 music has touched so many people:  Paul McCartney (along with
 whatsizname), whose throwaway songs still won't go away 40 years
 later, and John Williams.  (Save the flames; I know you won't agree!)

No flames from me, John. The immense social and technological changes in the
'modern' era have meant that vastly more composers are heard by more people
than ever before and also that those with musical genius may be found
increasingly in what is now called popular music. These composers are the
ones who will be (correctly) remembered most prominently by history.

Richard Yates


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 8 Feb 2005 at 17:56, Mark D Lew wrote:

 On Feb 8, 2005, at 4:52 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  . . . Is it important to know
  that _The Magic Flute_ is full of Masonic symbolism? . . .
 
  Perhaps, because otherwise, it's fairly incoherent. I would say that
  proves that it's not a very good opera.
 
 The fact that Flute has remained popular for centuries in spite of the
 fact that 90+% of listeners have no clue about the Masonic symbolism
 suggests to me that there is something very good about the opera,
 incoherent or not.

No one is a bigger fan of Mozart than I am. But I have always felt 
that the Magic Flute is incoherent *as an opera* (or Singspiel, 
technically speaking, I guess). If it did not have some of the most 
glorious music ever written, it would be a failure. But so far as I 
can tell, it's really just a string of great tunes held together by a 
rather incomprehensible narrative. That's not great opera, though it 
may very well include some of the greatest music ever written.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread Mark D Lew

On Feb 8, 2005, at 3:52 PM, dhbailey wrote:
I don't think it has anything to do with faith -- history will be the 
final arbiter, regardless of how great we currently may think any 
composer (currently living or long dead) might be.
Sorry, I wasn't clear.  When I said the permanence of history's 
verdict, I didn't mean to challenge the authority of history 
generally, only of this particular verdict.  Andrew suggested that 
history's verdict on Janacek is long since in.  I think it's way too 
soon to say that.  I can think of a dozen opera composers who were 
considered great 75 years after their death but were discarded by 
history 50 years later.  (Plus a few more who were great for a century, 
then discarded for a century, and then revived again.)  Maybe Janacek 
will join them, or maybe he won't.  But I don't think history has had 
its final say on him yet.

--
On Feb 8, 2005, at 3:18 PM, Lee Actor wrote:
I think you're overstating the case somewhat. [...]
Yes, I think so too.  I meant only to give a short-hand version.
mdl
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread John Howell

At 9:05 PM -0500 2/8/05, David W. Fenton wrote:
No one is a bigger fan of Mozart than I am. But I have always felt
that the Magic Flute is incoherent *as an opera* (or Singspiel,
technically speaking, I guess). If it did not have some of the most
glorious music ever written, it would be a failure. But so far as I
can tell, it's really just a string of great tunes held together by a
rather incomprehensible narrative. That's not great opera, though it
may very well include some of the greatest music ever written.
And the Ring Cycle is coherent?  Not if you've ever laughed your way 
through Anna Russell's description!  All things considered I'll 
settle for some of the greatest music ever written, thanks.

John
--
John  Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

 Human beings do not think of equations and physics when they move -- 
 they just move. Physics is involved, but not at any conscious level,
 and not at any significant level.

On the contrary, the preparation for the precise movements in performing
music involves detailed conscious thought about movement. When I am
practicing I am consciously applying principles and solving problems in
physics such as conservation of momentum, distribution of forces, and
lengths and angles of of compund levers. Knowing those principles of physics
has helped make my learning of the movements more efficient. That all of
this eventually becomes unconscious (or at least out of present awareness)
through practice in no way negates the importance of physics.

Richard Yates




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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 8 Feb 2005 at 21:31, John Howell wrote:

 At 9:05 PM -0500 2/8/05, David W. Fenton wrote:
 No one is a bigger fan of Mozart than I am. But I have always felt
 that the Magic Flute is incoherent *as an opera* (or Singspiel,
 technically speaking, I guess). If it did not have some of the most
 glorious music ever written, it would be a failure. But so far as I
 can tell, it's really just a string of great tunes held together by a
 rather incomprehensible narrative. That's not great opera, though it
 may very well include some of the greatest music ever written.
 
 And the Ring Cycle is coherent? . . .

Yes, it is. The ideas may be ludicrous and laughable, but they are at 
least coherent, without reference to knowledge outside the plot as 
related in the libretto.

The Magic Flute is senseless without the Masonic information.

 . . . Not if you've ever laughed your way
 through Anna Russell's description!  All things considered I'll settle
 for some of the greatest music ever written, thanks.

No argument there, but as a work of musical drama, The Magic Flute is 
not really internally consistent or coherent. 

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 8 Feb 2005 at 18:18, Richard Yates wrote:

  Human beings do not think of equations and physics when they move --
  they just move. Physics is involved, but not at any conscious level,
  and not at any significant level.
 
 On the contrary, the preparation for the precise movements in
 performing music involves detailed conscious thought about movement.

But not about *physics*, except in the debased sense that I've been 
so heavily criticized for pointing out.

 When I am practicing I am consciously applying principles and solving
 problems in physics such as conservation of momentum, distribution of
 forces, and lengths and angles of of compund levers. Knowing those
 principles of physics has helped make my learning of the movements
 more efficient. That all of this eventually becomes unconscious (or at
 least out of present awareness) through practice in no way negates the
 importance of physics.

But it doesn't make them *signficant* to making music -- it's 
technique, not music. Yes, technique is essential to mastery of the 
music, but you can have all the technique in the world and produce 
nothing of musical significance.

I guess I think about music in an entirely different fashion than 
most people do. That might explain why I find much of what I hear 
produced by musicians so incredibly lacking in basic musicianship. 
Maybe they're all thinking about angular momentum, levers and 
distribution of forces instead of thinking about phrasing and 
expression and dynamics and balance and agogics.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

   Human beings do not think of equations and physics when they move --
   they just move. Physics is involved, but not at any conscious level,
   and not at any significant level.
 
  On the contrary, the preparation for the precise movements in
  performing music involves detailed conscious thought about movement.

 But not about *physics*, except in the debased sense that I've been
 so heavily criticized for pointing out.

I do not know how putting asterisks around the word changes what you mean by
it.

  When I am practicing I am consciously applying principles and solving
  problems in physics such as conservation of momentum, distribution of
  forces, and lengths and angles of of compund levers. Knowing those
  principles of physics has helped make my learning of the movements
  more efficient. That all of this eventually becomes unconscious (or at
  least out of present awareness) through practice in no way negates the
  importance of physics.

 But it doesn't make them *signficant* to making music -- it's
 technique, not music. Yes, technique is essential to mastery of the
 music, but you can have all the technique in the world and produce
 nothing of musical significance.

A weak rhetorical dodge because, conversely, with no technique at all you
produce no music at all. The difference in our positions is not so
symmetrical, however. You have been claiming that physics has NO
significance while I say that it has SOME significance.

 I guess I think about music in an entirely different fashion than
 most people do. That might explain why I find much of what I hear
 produced by musicians so incredibly lacking in basic musicianship.
 Maybe they're all thinking about angular momentum, levers and
 distribution of forces instead of thinking about phrasing and
 expression and dynamics and balance and agogics.

We have all heard them, too. But it is not logical to conclude that, because
they think only of physics, that physics has no significance in music. Do
you also think that, because there are uninspiring recipe-bound cooks,
chemistry has no significance in cooking?

Richard Yates


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-08 Thread Darcy James Argue

On 08 Feb 2005, at 7:30 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 8 Feb 2005 at 1:31, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Please explain how you would build a pool-playing robot without
including some sort of physics module in the AI.
A human pool player is not a pool-playing robot.
And that's the whole point.
Both a human and a pool-playing robot (like, say, Deep Green -- 
http://www.ece.queensu.ca/hpages/faculty/greenspan/) have to solve 
exactly the same problem, which happens to be a problem of applied 
physics.

So one solves it with neurons and one solves it with silicon.  What 
makes you so sure the process is so fundamentally different?

Your observation applies to *any* human action. I'm typing right now,
which involves the physics of the design of my computer keyboard, as
well as calculation of movements of my hands and arms and so forth.
But that's trivial, and not a significant part of the act of typing.
And if physics is not significant to typing, how can it be
significant to art?
Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak?
Is grammar significant to communication?
- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

 Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak?
 Is grammar significant to communication?
 - Darcy

Oooh, good one!

Richard 

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Gerald Berg

But of course this very thing produced Cage himself.  Cage didn't posit 
an alternate but an inverse.  His way was never free but rather, full 
enslavement.  Without the legacy of culture we would be as every other 
living thing -- in perpetual present.  His early stuff  was great!   
Less intellect-- more intuition.  Maybe sometime in the future we will 
need the opposite formula-- but not today.

Jerry
On 6-Feb-05, at 6:41 PM, Owain Sutton wrote:

David W. Fenton wrote:
To those who assert that music is a purely cultural phenomenon, I
would point out that this idea has been put to the test, quite
rigorously, by John Cage, who insisted that any sounds or combination
of sounds could be construed as music if one merely had the will to 
do
so, and spent 40 years of his life composing music on precisely that
principle. Was this music as successful (moving, exciting, 
attractive)
as other musics? Could other music, composed on the same principle, 
be
more successful?

No, and no.
You have scientific proof that Cage was wrong?
I think there's been a thorough misunderstanding of Cage, here (and 
not on David's part) - we are indoctrinated into tonality virtually 
from birth.  We are surrounded by one type of music, to the almost 
complete exclusion of others.  What we go through from our earliest 
experiences parallels what Cage describes.
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Andrew Stiller

ere is nothing important in music that comes from science.
--
David W. Fenton
You've really got to stop blurting out things like that w.o thinking. 
Valved brasses? Boehm-system woodwinds? Electric and electronic 
instruments? MIDI? Nylon strings? Computer composition? Computer 
sound synthesis? Sound recording?

Are these things not important? not musical? not from science?
Beyond that, there is the less measurable by very important influence 
of acoustic and music-psychological theories upon compositional 
styles, going back at least to Berlioz.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

At 12:34 PM 2/7/05 -0500, Phil Daley wrote:
The first question:  Was this (Cage's) music as successful (moving, 
exciting, attractive) as other musics?
I don't see how anyone can argue a yes answer to this question.  The 
scientific proof would be that pretty much no one has ever heard of him 
(outside of academic music people).

I'll argue yes, and easily. I'm not an academic, and never have been. But I
have lived through the era when Cage's works fit in beautifully with the
temper of the times. His performances were filled with energetic people who
loved the sounds and intimately understood this music. HPSCHD on recording
was an inspiration to me with its lustrous mix. And even up here, the
Yellow Barn Festival was sold out to hear one of Cage's brand new pieces
for two dozen strings. Captivating, beautiful, spectacular recordings that
may change your definition of success include the choral pieces by Ars
Nova, Christina Fong's violin renderings, the Stephen Drury keyboard
interpretations (the fantastic In a Landscape CD), and the untouchable
Singing Through recording in which Joan LaBarbara just plain knocks 'em
dead. 

If by 'other musics' you mean the bulk of music people listen to and buy,
then Mozart can't hold a candle in this argument either. But there are many
measures of success that include both Mozart and Cage as 'moving, exciting,
attractive' -- and I'll take the latter any day of the week.

If the second question had been:  Has other music, composed on the same 
principle, been more successful?

The answer would be NO.

There's a world of them out there. But I can only sputter at such a statement.

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Phil Daley

At 2/7/2005 01:31 PM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
I'll argue yes, and easily. I'm not an academic, and never have been. But I

If by 'other musics' you mean the bulk of music people listen to and buy,
then Mozart can't hold a candle in this argument either. But there are many
measures of success that include both Mozart and Cage as 'moving, exciting,
attractive' -- and I'll take the latter any day of the week.
Exactly, if Mozart is not successful, then Cage is certainly far behind him.
If the second question had been:  Has other music, composed on the same
principle, been more successful?

The answer would be NO.

There's a world of them out there. But I can only sputter at such a 
statement.

Perhaps you could enlighten us.  I have never heard of anyone following in 
Cage's footsteps.  And he/they certainly never even reached the 
successfulness of Mozart.

I would doubt that they reached the successfulness of Cage, but then, I 
don't know who they are.

Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread A-NO-NE Music

Phil Daley / 05.2.7 / 00:34 PM wrote:

The first question:  Was this (Cage's) music as successful (moving, 
exciting, attractive) as other musics?

Woa.  Never expected this to come.

I was very, very lucky to play his music under his direction one year
before he past away.  His percussion pieces are of course exciting, and
other texture pieces are moving if directed properly.


-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Christopher Smith

On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 12:34  PM, Phil Daley wrote:

The first question:  Was this (Cage's) music as successful (moving, 
exciting, attractive) as other musics?

I don't see how anyone can argue a yes answer to this question.  The 
scientific proof would be that pretty much no one has ever heard of 
him (outside of academic music people).

Well, that's neither here nor there. What modern composer IS known 
outside of academic circles? Cage is at least as well-known as say, 
Takemitsu.

Furthermore, have you heard his percussion music? Granted, it was his 
earlier work, before his conceptual stuff that put him on the map, but 
I maintain that it contains the seeds of that conceptual music, and it 
is very successful.


The second question:  Could other music, composed on the same 
principle, be more successful?

I suppose no is a little hypothetical.
If the second question had been:  Has other music, composed on the 
same principle, been more successful?

The answer would be NO.
Again, I point you to other percussion music, including African 
drumming, which embraces many of these principles. Also techno dance 
music, which although it has a function (if a piece of art can be used 
to clean the oven, is it still art? Woody Allen) is still WILDLY 
successful, AND popular.

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 7 Feb 2005 at 11:32, Andrew Stiller wrote:

 ere is nothing important in music that comes from science.
 
 --
 David W. Fenton
 
 You've really got to stop blurting out things like that w.o thinking.
 Valved brasses? Boehm-system woodwinds? Electric and electronic
 instruments? MIDI? Nylon strings? Computer composition? Computer sound
 synthesis? Sound recording?

None of those things is MUSIC.

 Are these things not important? not musical? not from science?

The carpenter's tools are not the point of his work.

 Beyond that, there is the less measurable by very important influence
 of acoustic and music-psychological theories upon compositional
 styles, going back at least to Berlioz.

I would be interested to see specific examples in pieces of music 
where these things produced events in the musical foreground that are 
traceable back to these theories.

Musical meaning has *nothing* to do with acoustics, any more than 
meaning in language has anything to do with phonemes.

Yes, patterns of phonemes produce patterns that convey meaning, but 
the phonemes themselves MEAN NOTHING.

A perfect fifth is one of the phonemens of music.

And it's just as meaningless.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 7 Feb 2005 at 11:34, Andrew Stiller wrote:

   You prove *your* assertion that, in
 effect, consonance can exist in music in which dissonance is
 never resolved.
 
 Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. Last chord. QED

A schoolmarmish definition of unresolved you have here, as lots of
dissonances *before* the last chord (probably most of them) are, in
fact, resolved.

 I've no interest in playing your childish debating games.
 
 Oh dear.

Your example was *very* childish, as it has nothing to do with 
internal structure, any more than final chords always tell you what
key a piece is in.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 7 Feb 2005 at 12:06, Andrew Stiller wrote:

 whether other critters can be said to 
 make music depends a lot on how music is defined.

Ah, finally a statement that shows that you *do* actually understand 
the topic of discussion.

Speech uses sound to convey meaning (the prose of sound).

Music uses sound to convey meaning (the poetry of sound).

But no one would confuse everyday speech with music (though some 
might find a certain kind of metaphorical music in speech).

Prose vs. poetry -- non-human animals may very well be using the 
prose of sound, but they aren't producing poetry in sound.

Well, I'll qualify that somewhat: whales and porpoises may very well 
have enough intelligence to manipulate sounds for esthetic purposes 
(i.e., composing music). That is, they are intelligent enough to have 
an esthetic sense.

But I know of no other non-human animals whose intelligence level is 
high enough to suggest the possibility of that level of abstraction.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Andrew Stiller

Phil Daley:
I don't see how anyone can argue a yes answer to this question.  The 
scientific proof would be that pretty much no one has ever heard 
of [Cage] (outside of academic music people).

Now, *that's* not true. There's a major Hollywood actor who's taken 
Cage's name as his own, and I imagine a great many of Nicholas Cage's 
fans know that.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Allen Fisher

David--

You went to Oberlin? I went to school right down the road in Ashland. When
were you there?


On 2/7/05 3:31 PM, David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] saith:

 When he visited Oberlin while I was a student, his visit was actually
 sponsored by the dance department.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Andrew Stiller

  Beyond that, there is the less measurable by very important influence
 of acoustic and music-psychological theories upon compositional
 styles, going back at least to Berlioz.
I would be interested to see specific examples in pieces of music
where these things produced events in the musical foreground that are
traceable back to these theories.
Here's one, then I'll quit: Janacek drew deliberately upon the notion 
(discussed by acousticians of his day) that sounds continue to echo 
briefly after they have ceased being produced, writing both fleeting 
polychords in imitation of the supposed overlap of adjacent chords, 
and quasi-arpeggiations where two successive chords were meant to be 
heard as if played simultaneously.

It is very thoroughly and unambiguously documented both that he got 
the idea from acoustic theory, and that he consciously applied it in 
his own work.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Darcy James Argue

On 07 Feb 2005, at 4:17 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 6 Feb 2005 at 23:39, Darcy James Argue wrote:
That's like saying There is nothing important in basketball that
comes from physics.
On the one hand, Lebron Lames doesn't actually need to know the first
thing about Isaac Newton or his theories in order to reliably put the
ball in the hoop.
On the other hand...
The laws of physics apply equally to all basketball players. Some are
brilliant, some less so. Clearly, fine playing has nothing to do with
physics, and everything to do with individual talent and skill.
You don't think Lebron James has a better intuitive understanding of 
the physics of basketball than the average person?

You don't think Tiger Woods has a better intuitive understanding of the 
physics of golf than his competitors?

You don't think world-class pool players have a better intuitive 
understanding of the physics of pool than the two-bit shark at the dive 
down the street?

And how often is Newton discussed by the broadcasters calling a
basketball game? I would say probably NEVER.
You don't think basketball commentators (and coaches, and players) talk 
about angle, rebounds, arcs, etc?

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Allen Fisher

Sorry All--

Didn't mean for this to go to the list...


On 2/7/05 3:56 PM, Allen Fisher [EMAIL PROTECTED] saith:

 David--
 
 You went to Oberlin? I went to school right down the road in Ashland. When
 were you there?
 
 
 On 2/7/05 3:31 PM, David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] saith:
 
 When he visited Oberlin while I was a student, his visit was actually
 sponsored by the dance department.
 
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 7 Feb 2005 at 17:08, Andrew Stiller wrote:

Beyond that, there is the less measurable by very important
influence
   of acoustic and music-psychological theories upon compositional
   styles, going back at least to Berlioz.
 
 I would be interested to see specific examples in pieces of music
 where these things produced events in the musical foreground that are
 traceable back to these theories.
 
 Here's one, then I'll quit: Janacek drew deliberately upon the notion
 (discussed by acousticians of his day) that sounds continue to echo
 briefly after they have ceased being produced, writing both fleeting
 polychords in imitation of the supposed overlap of adjacent chords,
 and quasi-arpeggiations where two successive chords were meant to be
 heard as if played simultaneously.
 
 It is very thoroughly and unambiguously documented both that he got
 the idea from acoustic theory, and that he consciously applied it in
 his own work.

And to get the point of the music, do you need to know this about the 
origins of the idea?

If not, then it's not very important musically, in my opinion.

If so, then it's probably not very good music to begin with.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-07 Thread Darcy James Argue

On 07 Feb 2005, at 8:40 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
You don't think basketball commentators (and coaches, and players)
talk about angle, rebounds, arcs, etc?
That's not physics, except using a rather debased definition of it
that includes just about anything involving motion.
David, that's just about the most ridiculous excuse for an argument 
I've ever heard.  Debased physics?  Because it includes just about 
anything involving motion?  David, what do you think Newtonian physics 
*is*??  And basketball/golf/pool players never think about physics  
Fercrisskaes, pool is nothing *but* applied physics.

Please explain how you would build a pool-playing robot without 
including some sort of physics module in the AI.

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-06 Thread Christopher Smith

On Feb 5, 2005, at 8:34 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
Hi Chuck,
Well, clearly, we cannot perceive frequencies beyond those that our 
hardware is capable of conveying to our brains.  Other animals with 
different hardware perceive a different range of frequencies.  Some 
animals (e.g., bats) even have auditory perceptual abilities we can 
only replicate with the aid of advanced technology.

Depends on what you mean by percieve. Bass frequencies below what we 
are supposed to be able to hear raise our blood pressure, pulse, and 
adrenaline levels, kind of like a scary movie would.


I don't know if that's quite what you meant, though.
- Darcy
He might be referring to the studies that found that hearing perfect 
intervals raised endorphin levels by a miniscule amount in the 
subjects, which supports the theory that we are hard-wired to 
perceive music in a certain way.

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text
(i.e., the dissonances are never resolved),
--
David W. Fenton
I'm sorry, but this literally makes no sense as formulated, and there 
have clearly been several logical steps omitted.

Let's do it this way: I deny what you say. Now prove it.
--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

Jerry:
  Birds don't make music -- they use sound for function.
Music has no function?
Bird song is not produced for joy but for vigilance.
You are making the common error of confusing the function of a 
behavior with the subjective experience of the one behaving. If you 
accept that birdsong is a conscious act, then birds do it because 
they enjoy doing so. This has the *effect* of attracting a mate or 
warning off rivals or alarming the flock or alerting them to a food 
supply (far more than mere vigilance, NB), but the bird does not 
consciously sing *for those purposes.* Similarly, a cat doesn't chase 
mice because it needs to kill one for food--it chases them because 
(as any cat owner will have observed) cats have a passion for chasing 
(and grabbing, and mauling) small, erratically moving objects 
regardless of edibility. The passion was naturally selected in them, 
because the most enthusiastic hunters eat best and are thererfore 
more likely to survive and reproduce--but the cat doesn't know that!

I don't think that any thoughtful person can deny any longer that 
huge chunks of human behavior (conventional wisdom says ~50%) are 
biologically determined. The question of whether, and to what extent, 
musical response is to be considered part of our biological heritage 
clearly has a number of folks on this list quite exercised--to the 
point of constructing straw men and intuition pumps.

To those who assert that music is a purely cultural phenomenon, I 
would point out that this idea has been put to the test, quite 
rigorously, by John Cage, who insisted that any sounds or combination 
of sounds could be construed as music if one merely had the will to 
do so, and spent 40 years of his life composing music on precisely 
that principle. Was this music as successful (moving, exciting, 
attractive) as other musics? Could other music, composed on the same 
principle, be more successful?

No, and no.
--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

Maybe an interesting hypothetical question: does our hardware 
(inner ear bones etc.) react to outside stimuli that bear some 
relationship to the physical laws that govern the resonant behavior 
of the bones themselves?  Just an idle thought.  I'm in no position 
to explore this.

Chuck
The auditory ossicles transmit incoming sounds, more or less 
unmodified, from the eardrum to the cochlea. The cochlea is lined 
with hair cells of different sizes, neatly lined up in size order. 
Hair cells of different sizes vibrate in response to different 
frequencies. When a cell is triggered, it sends an impulse up the 
auditory branch of the VIII cranial nerve, which impulse is 
eventually processed by the brain. Everything we have been arguing 
about here has to do with what the brain does--the rest is simple 
physics.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

  Why was musical education considered (apparently) so important for 
the girls and young women who studied with Vivaldi at the Ospedali? 
One presumes that since orphans don't have dowries, they were being 
prepared for employment.  Was music a positive factor in that? 
Never have seen anything written about it.

John
This is discussed at length in the wonderful new book _The Birth of 
the Orchestra_ by Neal Zaslaw and John Spitzer.

1) They weren't all orphans. The ospedali were such prestigious 
institutions that many girls from intact families were sent 
there--and paid tuition. A girl could also get in by audition. The 
ospedali, that is to say, were more conservatories than orphanages.

2) There were more ospedali in Venice than just Vivaldi's. I think 
there were four? Six? Anyway, some of them admitted boys as well as 
girls--but only the girls got music training!

3) There were similar institutions in other Italian cities as well, 
but those of Venice were the most famous.

4) The ospedali were a major tourist attraction, and the Venetians knew it.
5) Part of the attraction was sexual. Jokes about Tony Vivaldi and 
his All Girl Orchestra are not far off the mark.

6) The girls were definitely *not* being prepared for employment. 
Women orchestra musicians were extremely rare throughout Europe at 
the time, and would have enjoyed about the same reputation as 
actresses--i.e., little above prostitutes. I believe graduates were 
provided with dowries by the ospedale--they certainly were considered 
eminently marriageable.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-06 Thread Chuck Israels

Of course, Andrew. I do know that. I must not have couched my hypothetical question in the best way.

What I meant to consider may be better expressed this way: since the human hardware is subject to the same principles of physics that govern the resonant behavior of those materials that produce musical sound, might we not be more inclined to respond in an analogous way to stimuli which excite our hardware/software receivers. In other words, if the stimulating vibrations and resonances line up in ways that reinforce each other, might we not be programmed to respond to those stimuli differently than those that set up interfering resonances? I don't, for a moment, discount the role of cultural acclimatization in changing and expanding human response to outside stimuli. I am just trying to consider whether or not there might be something to be gained by examining the fact that our hardware too, is constrained by observable physical behavior.

Beyond that - the whole consonance/dissonance issue, and its effect on the perception of musical drama and movement through time is a big question and is clearly subject to cultural biases. There are those who perceive Phillip Glass's music as moving and dramatic in some way. I don't, but that's because of deeply ingrained Western expectations. I like my expectations, and believe in them for me. Others clearly differ.

I speak and hear a certain kind of musical language - with a fairly broad range of possibilities, but I don't respond equally to all music. I don't know many who claim that they do. A lot of that is cultural, but I wonder about the long term durability of systems which eschew commonly perceived musical responses - those which purposely avoid them. In my experience, they miss things which have a kind of normal (to me) communicative power, and are therefore in some way less effective. Strict 12 tone music seems to me to be an intellectual construction that discounts (purposefully, I understand) some basic elements of the way I perceive and process music. It's a choice, but it is one that does not arise from the same impulses and social processes (loosely controlled, or perhaps even uncontrolled consensus) that create and govern verbal language. Esperanto is a similarly controlled language environment. Where are the Esperanto poets?

Anyway - my 2c.

Chuck

On Feb 6, 2005, at 1:19 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:

Maybe an interesting hypothetical question: does our hardware (inner ear bones etc.) react to outside stimuli that bear some relationship to the physical laws that govern the resonant behavior of the bones themselves? Just an idle thought. I'm in no position to explore this.

Chuck

The auditory ossicles transmit incoming sounds, more or less unmodified, from the eardrum to the cochlea. The cochlea is lined with hair cells of different sizes, neatly lined up in size order. Hair cells of different sizes vibrate in response to different frequencies. When a cell is triggered, it sends an impulse up the auditory branch of the VIII cranial nerve, which impulse is eventually processed by the brain. Everything we have been arguing about here has to do with what the brain does--the rest is simple physics.

--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press

http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-06 Thread David W. Fenton

On 6 Feb 2005 at 13:17, Don B. Robertson wrote:

 Owain Sutton wrote:
 This is a good explanation of the situation - unfortunately it's
 beyond the distance that even musicians are prepared to go to question
 whether their understanding of music is inate or acquired.  I do find
 is scary, that people can react so vociferously against any suggestion
 that the major/minor tonality that *feels* natural to them is actually
 not something inherent or natural.  They wouldn't react the same way
 if I told them that English wasn't the 'natural' language, or that
 base-10 wasn't 'natural' maths (assuming we got that far in the maths
 class :p ) 
But I find the defensiveness that surrounds western tonality quite
 scary, and very puzzling.
 
 Me: The Western musical scale, be it tempered, pathagorian, mean or
 whatever, closely follows a VERY natural phenomena, and similarities
 in musical scales can be found in all major musical cultures. . . .

Scales are not music. Scales are not tonality.

Many radically different pieces are built from the same collection of 
basic notes, so pointing out that many musical traditions may boil 
down to a reduction of notes that happens to be the same says more 
about the boiling down process than it does about the content of 
the music that is being represented by the scale.

 . . . The
 octave and the overtone series IS what music and sound is all about.

I'll bet Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and any number of non-Western 
musical geniuses (whose names I don't know) would vehemently disagree 
with you. These things are the *least* important part of *music*.

 . . . Schoenberg's idea was
 simply a product of his own personal agenda; his own studies in
 harmonic theory should have shown him that. . . .

Do you know Schoenberg's theories of tonality? They are actually 
pretty sound.

But he was trying to invent a different kind of tonality, 12-tone 
tonality. Thus, whatever psycho-acoustic underpinnings traditional 
tonality might have were irrelevant to his endeavor.

 . . . I think it is time we
 start to realize that there is something besides culture and tradition
 involved in musical harmony/concordance. It's called science. . . 

There is nothing important in music that comes from science.

 . . . If
 people are defensive, what is so scary about that? If that is scarry,
 then perhaps it could be considered equally scary that people have
 swallowed Shoenberg's theory of the equality of intervals.

I think those who continually harp on the importance of acoustics as 
fundamental to music are missing all the music. As Schoenberg in 
effect said of Schencker's analysis but all my favorite parts are in 
the little notes, the ones that get left out.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-06 Thread David W. Fenton

On 6 Feb 2005 at 15:26, Andrew Stiller wrote:

 And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text
 (i.e., the dissonances are never resolved), --
 David W. Fenton
 
 I'm sorry, but this literally makes no sense as formulated, and there
 have clearly been several logical steps omitted.
 
 Let's do it this way: I deny what you say. Now prove it.

That's a standard debating tactic when you have no argument: to 
pretend that someone *else* has introduced the conflict to the 
discussion.

*You* started this, not me. You prove *your* assertion that, in 
effect, consonance can exist in music in which dissonance is never 
resolved.

I've no interest in playing your childish debating games.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-06 Thread Owain Sutton


David W. Fenton wrote:
To those who assert that music is a purely cultural phenomenon, I
would point out that this idea has been put to the test, quite
rigorously, by John Cage, who insisted that any sounds or combination
of sounds could be construed as music if one merely had the will to do
so, and spent 40 years of his life composing music on precisely that
principle. Was this music as successful (moving, exciting, attractive)
as other musics? Could other music, composed on the same principle, be
more successful?
No, and no.

You have scientific proof that Cage was wrong?
I think there's been a thorough misunderstanding of Cage, here (and not 
on David's part) - we are indoctrinated into tonality virtually from 
birth.  We are surrounded by one type of music, to the almost complete 
exclusion of others.  What we go through from our earliest experiences 
parallels what Cage describes.
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-05 Thread dhbailey

Owain Sutton wrote:

There have been some pretty intense commentaries about this
tension-release technique being sexually analogous and
gender-specific, and that in recent years, women composers have
emancipated their writing from the build-to-climax model implicit in
harmonic and architectural tension-release, and that women listeners
are drawn to the sound of the newer paradigm.


I'm just hoping that this whole description is a joke.  If it's not, 
then God help us.
God can't help us -- she's laughing way too hard at this discussion to 
be of any assistance.  :-)

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 5 Feb 2005 at 9:56, Christopher Smith wrote:

 On Feb 4, 2005, at 7:06 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  On 4 Feb 2005 at 8:23, Christopher Smith wrote:
 
  Right. No dissonance, no consonance. It's not about that any more.
 
  You have correctly understood, grasshopper!
 
  Well, then, you disagree with Andrew, who said (still included in
  the quotes above):
 
  On 3 Feb 2005 at 12:07, Andrew Stiller wrote:
  In any event, emancipation of the dissonance certainly does
  not imply elimination of the consonant.
 
  I was disagreeing with that, as not resolving dissonance means it's
  no different from consonance, which means there is no longer a
  distinction that can be maintained except by external reference to
  rules that are not themselves demonstrated in the way the music
  itself behaves.
 
 It looks like all of us are in agreement from where I'm sitting.
 Harmonic dissonance and consonance may be quantifiable and measurable
 (ratios of frequencies and all that) but there are other factors
 affecting how we react to it, such as culture, experience, and
 context.

My point is simply that we can explain why consonant intervals (Q: 
why do these discussions always ignore chords of 3, 4, 5, 6 notes? A: 
because the simplistic explanation breaks down when you get away from 
pure 2-note intervals) differ from dissonant (more shared lower 
harmonics), but what happens after that is culturally (and 
contextually) defined. That is, different musical cultures respond to 
the acoustic characteristics of the dyads differently.

And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text 
(i.e., the dissonances are never resolved), then you no longer have a 
distinction between the two types of intervals beyond the culturally 
defined meanings the listeners bring to the table.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 5 Feb 2005 at 10:33, John Howell wrote:

 Since male musicians were trained in the church's choir schools--no
 girls need apply--the girls who did get a musical education usually
 got it in the home, from parents who were musicians.

Females were also trained in music in convents, but were often 
cloisterd, so their music making never went outside its original 
context. Bob Kendrick has done substantial work on this subject.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-05 Thread Owain Sutton


David W. Fenton wrote:
And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text 
(i.e., the dissonances are never resolved), then you no longer have a 
distinction between the two types of intervals beyond the culturally 
defined meanings the listeners bring to the table.

This is a good explanation of the situation - unfortunately it's beyond 
the distance that even musicians are prepared to go to question whether 
their understanding of music is inate or acquired.  I do find is scary, 
that people can react so vociferously against any suggestion that the 
major/minor tonality that *feels* natural to them is actually not 
something inherent or natural.  They wouldn't react the same way if I 
told them that English wasn't the 'natural' language, or that base-10 
wasn't 'natural' maths (assuming we got that far in the maths class :p ) 
  But I find the defensiveness that surrounds western tonality quite 
scary, and very puzzling.
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-05 Thread Christopher Smith

On Feb 5, 2005, at 7:02 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 5 Feb 2005 at 9:56, Christopher Smith wrote:
On Feb 4, 2005, at 7:06 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 4 Feb 2005 at 8:23, Christopher Smith wrote:
Right. No dissonance, no consonance. It's not about that any more.
You have correctly understood, grasshopper!
Well, then, you disagree with Andrew, who said (still included in
the quotes above):
On 3 Feb 2005 at 12:07, Andrew Stiller wrote:
In any event, emancipation of the dissonance certainly does
not imply elimination of the consonant.
I was disagreeing with that, as not resolving dissonance means it's
no different from consonance, which means there is no longer a
distinction that can be maintained except by external reference to
rules that are not themselves demonstrated in the way the music
itself behaves.
It looks like all of us are in agreement from where I'm sitting.
Harmonic dissonance and consonance may be quantifiable and measurable
(ratios of frequencies and all that) but there are other factors
affecting how we react to it, such as culture, experience, and
context.
My point is simply that we can explain why consonant intervals (Q:
why do these discussions always ignore chords of 3, 4, 5, 6 notes? A:
because the simplistic explanation breaks down when you get away from
pure 2-note intervals)

That's just wrong. I'm sorry, but the reason we (I, that is to say) are 
confining the discussion to dyads is because it's easier to explain. 
Nothing breaks down at all when you add notes, and there is plenty of 
support for formulas calculating harmonic dissonance according to 
interval content, taking octaves and inversions into account, starting 
with Hindemith. I have my own (simplified) methods, because I find 
dicking around with spreadsheets, calculators, and the like contrary to 
the frame of mind I need to compose well, and the human ear (mine 
anyway) is not discerning enough to be bothered by the hair-splitting 
decisions made that way.


differ from dissonant (more shared lower
harmonics), but what happens after that is culturally (and
contextually) defined. That is, different musical cultures respond to
the acoustic characteristics of the dyads differently.
Of course I agree with you there. I just said that. For example, my 
world feels comfortable when the harmony contains at least 4 notes. I 
learned that, at the expense of a lot of time and critical listening.


And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text
(i.e., the dissonances are never resolved), then you no longer have a
distinction between the two types of intervals beyond the culturally
defined meanings the listeners bring to the table.
That's the point of atonalism, to remove the gravitational tendencies 
associated with the intervals. Everyone who comes to atonal music from 
tonal music has to check their tonal baggage at the door, or else they 
concentrate on the wrong things and miss enormous parts of the music, 
or are just confused.

Sure, it happened to me at first. Listening to Webern's piano music 
(can't remember the opus number) I kept hearing three-note jazz grips 
(a common way of voicing jazz chords) that indicated dominant 13th 
chord and minor 13th chords (for the serial guys, they were 0,1,6 cells 
in various inversions, voiced as tritone-fourth and fourth-tritone). I 
couldn't get away from that at first, and the music just confused me. 
Once I was able to hear them as divorced from a key (in tonal 
free-fall) it sounded a lot more settled and normal to me.

Chrisotpher
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-05 Thread John Howell

At 7:13 PM -0500 2/5/05, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 5 Feb 2005 at 10:33, John Howell wrote:
 Since male musicians were trained in the church's choir schools--no
 girls need apply--the girls who did get a musical education usually
 got it in the home, from parents who were musicians.
Females were also trained in music in convents, but were often
cloisterd, so their music making never went outside its original
context. Bob Kendrick has done substantial work on this subject.
Any insight on a question that has puzzled me?  Why was musical 
education considered (apparently) so important for the girls and 
young women who studied with Vivaldi at the Ospedali?  One presumes 
that since orphans don't have dowries, they were being prepared for 
employment.  Was music a positive factor in that?  Never have seen 
anything written about it.

John
--
John  Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

On 5 Feb 2005 at 19:48, John Howell wrote:

 At 7:13 PM -0500 2/5/05, David W. Fenton wrote:
 On 5 Feb 2005 at 10:33, John Howell wrote:
 
   Since male musicians were trained in the church's choir
   schools--no girls need apply--the girls who did get a musical
   education usually got it in the home, from parents who were
   musicians.
 
 Females were also trained in music in convents, but were often
 cloisterd, so their music making never went outside its original
 context. Bob Kendrick has done substantial work on this subject.
 
 Any insight on a question that has puzzled me?  Why was musical 
 education considered (apparently) so important for the girls and young
 women who studied with Vivaldi at the Ospedali?  One presumes that
 since orphans don't have dowries, they were being prepared for
 employment.  Was music a positive factor in that?  Never have seen
 anything written about it.

Something to keep them busy?

I really have no idea!

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-05 Thread Christopher Smith

On Feb 5, 2005, at 7:20 PM, Owain Sutton wrote:

David W. Fenton wrote:
And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text 
(i.e., the dissonances are never resolved), then you no longer have a 
distinction between the two types of intervals beyond the culturally 
defined meanings the listeners bring to the table.
This is a good explanation of the situation - unfortunately it's 
beyond the distance that even musicians are prepared to go to question 
whether their understanding of music is inate or acquired.  I do find 
is scary, that people can react so vociferously against any suggestion 
that the major/minor tonality that *feels* natural to them is actually 
not something inherent or natural.  They wouldn't react the same way 
if I told them that English wasn't the 'natural' language, or that 
base-10 wasn't 'natural' maths (assuming we got that far in the maths 
class :p )   But I find the defensiveness that surrounds western 
tonality quite scary, and very puzzling.

There IS a certain part of music, language, AND base ten math that IS 
natural. Base ten is natural to beings with ten fingers (why else would 
the concept have sprung up independently in many different cultures?) 
In English, like many other languages, ma sounds are associated with 
parents, being among the first sounds that babies make naturally (those 
with lips and septums, anyway!) And of course, in music, perfect fifths 
tend to dominate, even among cultures that DON'T have the means to 
count the frequencies. Now, just because those are easy and common ways 
of doing those things, it does NOT mean that they are universal, not by 
any means! But there is more and more evidence pointing to a 
combination of nature and nurture, rather than just one of those 
things, to explain more and more of human culture.

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

2005-02-05 Thread Darcy James Argue

That's a straw man, Owain.  Of course English isn't natural (read: 
innate), but the common fundamental grammar (Chomsky's universal 
grammar) that makes human language possible in the first place is 
clearly innate, and, like the man says, universal.

No one is arguing that the Western system of functional harmony is 
natural or innate.  Only that there might well be some innateness to 
more general concepts of consonance and dissonance.

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
On 05 Feb 2005, at 7:20 PM, Owain Sutton wrote:

David W. Fenton wrote:
And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text 
(i.e., the dissonances are never resolved), then you no longer have a 
distinction between the two types of intervals beyond the culturally 
defined meanings the listeners bring to the table.
This is a good explanation of the situation - unfortunately it's 
beyond the distance that even musicians are prepared to go to question 
whether their understanding of music is inate or acquired.  I do find 
is scary, that people can react so vociferously against any suggestion 
that the major/minor tonality that *feels* natural to them is actually 
not something inherent or natural.  They wouldn't react the same way 
if I told them that English wasn't the 'natural' language, or that 
base-10 wasn't 'natural' maths (assuming we got that far in the maths 
class :p )   But I find the defensiveness that surrounds western 
tonality quite scary, and very puzzling.
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff