Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Christopher Smith]

On Feb 10, 2005, at 5:45 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
I could also change the grammar without changing the word order.  I 
could invent some arbitrary, artificial grammar that uses all the same 
English words but uses an Object-Verb-Subject order.  In that 
artificial grammar, "Man bites dog" would mean exactly the opposite of 
what it does in good old Subject-Verb-Object English.

Man bitten by dog?
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 10 Feb 2005 at 17:45, Darcy James Argue wrote:

> On 10 Feb 2005, at 5:21 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
> 
> > No, grammar *enables* meaning. The switch you are making is a switch
> > of meaning by changing the words. You've done nothing to change the
> > *grammar*,
> 
> Okay.  This may be a terminology problem. . . .

The grammatical structure of the utterance has not been change by 
swapping the nouns.

> . . . To me (and to linguists),
> "changing the grammar" means changing the *rules* of grammar -- for
> instance, changing from a Subject-Verb-Object grammar like English to
> a Subject-Object-Verb language like Japanese.  So there's a difference
> between "changing the grammar" -- which effectively means you're
> changing the language -- and making a grammatical change, like
> switching the subject and object in a sentence.

At other points in my reply I've explicitly used "grammatical 
structure" and that's what I've been discussing. You haven't altered 
the structure of the sentence by swapping the two nouns.

> Changing "Dog bites man" to "Man bites dog" involves making a 
> *grammatical change* (which is *not* the same thing as "changing the
> grammar").  Yes, the structure is the same -- subject-verb-object --
> because that's the kind of word order English has.  But I didn't
> change the content.  The content -- the words -- are exactly the same.
>  But they fill different grammatical roles because they have a
> different position in each sentence.

No, from my point of view you've radically altered the content, since 
I use "content" to refer to "meaning." You seem to use "content" to 
mean "the abstract collection of words used in the sentence."

> So, again: grammar determines meaning.

I simply disagree.

> > You are manipulating the content, not the structure.
> 
> Again, I'm not changing the content.  Content = words. . . . 

No, content = meaning.

> . . . The words are
> the same.  I'm changing the structure by modifying the grammatical
> function of the words "man" and "dog."

No, you're simply swapping the position of two nouns, utilizing 
exactly the same grammatical structure. It's the swap of denotative 
meaning that accomplishes the change of meaning (because the change 
of position moves the noun into a different grammatical function). 
You've done nothing to alter the structure of the sentence.

> I could also change the grammar without changing the word order.  I
> could invent some arbitrary, artificial grammar that uses all the same
> English words but uses an Object-Verb-Subject order.  In that
> artificial grammar, "Man bites dog" would mean exactly the opposite of
> what it does in good old Subject-Verb-Object English.
> 
> So, again: grammar determines meaning.

Well, in that sense, yes, it does.

But this just points out a problem with the analogy between music and 
language -- it quickly breaks down. 

We were talking about physics/acoustics and music. Grammar would be 
an analog of musical style, rather than of physics/acoustics, and you 
could contrast two "grammars" of music, such as tonality and 
modality, and you'd find that this "grammar" does, in fact, 
participate in the construction of musical meaning.

But physics/acoustics are neutral in regard to tonality vs. 
atonality, in the sense that the same elements are used to create 
different systems of interaction of tones (we'll leave aside, for the 
moment, whether or not atonality is a viable system psycho-
acoustically speaking; I can't see the argument against its viability 
as there's plenty of non-tonal music that makes perfect sense to me, 
despite whatever psycho-acoustic "prejudices" might be pre-wired into 
my brain). 

Certain things can be expressed in atonality that can't be expressed 
in tonality, and vice versa.

But both systems draw on the same pool of acoustic phenomena (though 
the two systems don't use all the same phenomena (atonality may avoid 
the octave, for instance), and they don't give them the same 
meaning). Physics does not determine what the perfect fifth means -- 
only the musical style (i.e., tonality or atonality) defines its 
meaning.

> > No, I'm not agreeing with you at all. Your example does not
> > demonstrate anything about grammatical structure, since your two
> > examples are structurally indistinguishable. It is only at the level
> > of denotative meaning that there is any difference, at the message
> > level, not at the grammatical level.
> 
> It is the Subject-Verb-Object word order of English that allows you to
> decode the denotative meaning of "Dog bites man" and "Man bites dog." 
> You can't determine the meaning without processing the grammar.

I agree. It's the ether through which the message is transmitted.

But it doesn't play any significant part in the message, except as 
the encoding.

I could send the same message in German, using completely different 
words and grammar, but the meaning of the message would be identical.

> And, again, just because you don't 

Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Darcy James Argue]

On 10 Feb 2005, at 5:21 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
No, grammar *enables* meaning. The switch you are making is a switch
of meaning by changing the words. You've done nothing to change the
*grammar*,
Okay.  This may be a terminology problem.  To me (and to linguists), 
"changing the grammar" means changing the *rules* of grammar -- for 
instance, changing from a Subject-Verb-Object grammar like English to a 
Subject-Object-Verb language like Japanese.  So there's a difference 
between "changing the grammar" -- which effectively means you're 
changing the language -- and making a grammatical change, like 
switching the subject and object in a sentence.

Changing "Dog bites man" to "Man bites dog" involves making a 
*grammatical change* (which is *not* the same thing as "changing the 
grammar").  Yes, the structure is the same -- subject-verb-object -- 
because that's the kind of word order English has.  But I didn't change 
the content.  The content -- the words -- are exactly the same.  But 
they fill different grammatical roles because they have a different 
position in each sentence.

So, again: grammar determines meaning.
You are manipulating the content, not the structure.
Again, I'm not changing the content.  Content = words.  The words are 
the same.  I'm changing the structure by modifying the grammatical 
function of the words "man" and "dog."

I could also change the grammar without changing the word order.  I 
could invent some arbitrary, artificial grammar that uses all the same 
English words but uses an Object-Verb-Subject order.  In that 
artificial grammar, "Man bites dog" would mean exactly the opposite of 
what it does in good old Subject-Verb-Object English.

So, again: grammar determines meaning.
No, I'm not agreeing with you at all. Your example does not
demonstrate anything about grammatical structure, since your two
examples are structurally indistinguishable. It is only at the level
of denotative meaning that there is any difference, at the message
level, not at the grammatical level.
It is the Subject-Verb-Object word order of English that allows you to 
decode the denotative meaning of "Dog bites man" and "Man bites dog."  
You can't determine the meaning without processing the grammar.

And, again, just because you don't consciously think about English 
grammar and its word order rules when you speak, or read, or write, 
doesn't mean it "has no significance in the *meaning* of any particular 
speech or written utterance".  Quite the opposite.

And that's exactly what your example shows -- the same grammatical
structure can convey two entirely different meanings. Thus, the
grammatical structure itself is not a controlling aspect of the
communication -- it is the words itself that control the meaning.
As I have said, many times, words *cannot* control the meaning because 
the words in "Man bites dog" and "Dog bites man" are *exactly the 
same*.  In order to decode the meaning, you need to determine which 
word is the subject and which word is the object, and the words 
themselves don't reveal that information.  Only grammar can do that.

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 10 Feb 2005 at 5:22, Richard Yates wrote:

> > You seem to me to be arguing that acoustics are part of the musical
> > content of a work of music, where I'm saying that it is only the
> > mechanism by which the content is conveyed.
> 
> Can to define this elusive content without reference to physics? 

First, define physics.

In this discussion, the meaning of that word has been so broad as to 
include all operations within the physical world. By that definition, 
my task would be impossible.

Not that that is actually a problem -- most logical systems cannot be 
completely described in terms of themselves. I believe that was what 
Goedel's theorem was all about (though I'm not a mathematician).

In fact, the task would depend on the piece of music being described. 
It is only when you ask me to abstract "musical meaning" for all 
pieces of music that I might have to delve into non-musical materials 
to explain how meaning is conveyed.

To actually explicate the meaning of a particular piece, though, I 
doubt there'd be any requirement to make reference to physics, at 
least not in any meaningful sense of the term "physics."

Given that the deck is stacked against me in this forum by the 
insistence on a debased, all-inclusive definition of physics, I shall 
not take you up on an offer of discussing meaning in a particular 
piece of music.

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

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 10 Feb 2005 at 4:58, dhbailey wrote:

> Darcy James Argue wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> > 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?
> > 
> > Grammar.  Grammar controls meaning.
> 
> Actually, meaning controls grammar.

Yes! Grammar is a mere tool by which we convey meaning.

> We have the thought first, then we express it in a manner that we can
> be reasonably sure our listener/reader can understand.

Not sure about that, since grammar seems to be in some aspects hard-
wired into our brains (though it's not inherent -- it's something 
that gets hardwired in the process of learning).

But the point is: grammar is a system by which we communicate. It is 
not the message itself. It is not the meaning.

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

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 10 Feb 2005 at 0:36, Darcy James Argue wrote:

> On 10 Feb 2005, at 12:26 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:
> 
> > On 10 Feb 2005 at 0:09, Darcy James Argue wrote:
> >>
> >> 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.
> 
> Well, yes.  So, you are agreeing with what I wrote below:
> 
> >> Grammar.  Grammar controls meaning.

No, grammar *enables* meaning. The switch you are making is a switch 
of meaning by changing the words. You've done nothing to change the 
*grammar*, thus grammar is not part of the message you're trying to 
convey, just the substrate on which the message is carried.

> You wrote:
> 
> > And you're not changing the grammar
> 
> Uh, never said I was.

Then grammar is *not* part of the message, and thus, not significant 
to the meaning of the message (though a necessary prerequisite for 
there to be any possibility of conveying meaning in the first place).

> > -- you're just exchanging one 
> > noun for another in constructions that are grammatically identical.
> 
> Yes, I am exchanging subject and object -- that's a grammatical
> change. 
>   The content -- the words themselves -- are the same.

No, the grammatical construction remains the same.

You are manipulating the content, not the structure.

> > In other words, you've changed the content while retaining the same
> > grammatical structure.
> 
> Uh, yes.  So you're agreeing with me that it's the grammatical 
> structure, and not the content alone, that determines meaning --
> right?

No, I'm not agreeing with you at all. Your example does not 
demonstrate anything about grammatical structure, since your two 
examples are structurally indistinguishable. It is only at the level 
of denotative meaning that there is any difference, at the message 
level, not at the grammatical level.

> > Congratulations! You've just made my point!
> 
> David, you wrote, earlier today, that "grammar has no signficance in
> the *meaning* of any particular speech or written utterance."

And that's exactly what your example shows -- the same grammatical 
structure can convey two entirely different meanings. Thus, the 
grammatical structure itself is not a controlling aspect of the 
communication -- it is the words itself that control the meaning.

And that's what I've been arguing about music, that the foreground 
elements, not the background structural system, are the only non-
trivial (i.e., significant) part of the communication.

> I don't think anything I said supports that point.  Moreover, I don't
> think anything *you* said supports that point.

Then we are at loggerheads and have nothing more to say to each 
other. If you can't understand why your example does not show grammar 
altering meaning, then there is nothing further that we can say to 
each other!

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

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Johannes Gebauer]

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.

It's a sort of difficult point to argue against, but that is certainly 
not the way Mozart's contemporaries felt about the Magic Flute. Goethe 
actually planned on writing a second part of the Magic Flute, and 
already asked the composer Wranitzki to provide the music. One might 
argue with his choice of composer, but nonetheless he obviously thought 
the Magic Flute was successful as a Singspiel.

Personally I don't think you need to know anything about Masonic 
Symbolism to understand and enjoy the opera. I am saying this quite 
confidently as my parents took me to see the Magic Flute when I was very 
young, and I loved it. In fact me and my sister were so impressed we 
started replaying the opera.
One just has to understand that the audience for which this piece was 
written was not necessarily the upper class Viennese, but a less 
educated audience, and for that audience the opera was immensely 
successful. That doesn't mean that I don't see your point.

But then the Freischütz Libretto is really bad (much worse than the 
Magic Flute), and still that opera was easily the most successful 
opera/Singspiel written in the first half of the 19th  century.

Johannes
--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[John Howell]

At 11:06 AM -0500 2/10/05, Andrew Stiller wrote:
On Feb 9, 2005, at 2:53 PM, John Howell wrote:
Bernouli's law, ...Same law that holds up both fixed-wing and 
rotary-wing aircraft.
Actually, that can't be the case, though everybody thinks it is. If 
Bernoulli's law were responsible for lift in aircraft, airplanes 
wouldn't be able to fly upside-down--and they can.
Yes, but not as efficiently, I believe, because the wings aren't 
designed to be optimum in that position.  The fluid (air) is still 
accelerated and its pressure still drops, which is what creates lift. 
At least that was the example my high school physics teacher used, 
and i've never seen it refuted.  Of course I've never observed a 
helicopter flying upside down, either!  (In theory it should be 
possible, but I wouldn't want to try 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

[Stu McIntire]

Regarding physics and music, can I walk out on the ice and suggest that a
distinction needs to be made between physics as a discipline of study, on
the one hand, and the term being used to refer to the actual forces, etc.,
that function in the universe?  After parsing through these interesting
emails I feel like this ambiguity is somehow at the root of the issue.  Kind
of one of those "the map is not the terrain" deals, the field of study being
the map.  

Having said that, would anyone argue that musical compositional practice
and/or performance techniques since Perotin, or the cave dwellers in Lascoux
for that matter, have ever been changed directly because of some
breakthrough in the field of physics?  The underlying principles, discovered
or not, not having changed much, I assume.  Can anyone show that some
specific parameter of musical composition or performance changed because of
the work of Kepler or Newton, for example?  I don't think so, so I think I'm
with David.  On the other hand, I expect it would be easy to find how
specific discoveries in the field of physics changed the way performance
halls were built, metals used to make instruments were, the construction and
design of instruments, etc.  I'm guessing that David would agree with that,
because these things are not THE MUSIC.  

However, the net effect of such changes has, I expect, opened the way for
actual changes in the music.  I can imagine one of James Burke's PBS
Connections series installments tracing a new way of composing for a
particular instrument back through an enhancement that made that new
expressivity possible that was, in turn, brought about by some discovery in
the natural sciences.  The composer taking advantage of the increased
flexibility and range of the pfosucophone is dealing with a real, physical
object, not thinking about physics.  However, that someone's thinking about
physics, mixed in with an assortment of fortuitous accidents, did eventually
lead to changes in the pfosucophone, and therefore the music written for it,
seems likely to me.  

Stu, not weighing in on The Magic Flute or Janacek, except to say that I get
a kick out of The Glagolitic Mass, without vouching for it's everlasting
greatness

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Andrew Stiller]

We have the thought first, then we express it in a manner that we can 
be reasonably sure our listener/reader can understand.

--
David H. Bailey
Actually, recent research suggests that we talk first, and find out 
from that what we meant.

Daniel Dennett quotes I forget wh. famous novelist: "How can I know 
what I think until I see what I say?"

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

[Andrew Stiller]

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.

Dennis
Fame--or rather, reputation, wh. is what I was really talking about.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Andrew Stiller]

On Feb 9, 2005, at 4:20 PM, Mark D Lew wrote:
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'...

*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.

People are taking this too literally. I only used the figure 150 
because that's how old Janacek is, this year. I meant merely that 
"having  sustained (and grown) a reputation for so long, a composer is 
unlikely subsequently to lose it." I stand by that assertion.

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

[Andrew Stiller]

On Feb 9, 2005, at 2:53 PM, John Howell wrote:
Bernouli's law, ...Same law that holds up both fixed-wing and 
rotary-wing aircraft.
Actually, that can't be the case, though everybody thinks it is. If 
Bernoulli's law were responsible for lift in aircraft, airplanes 
wouldn't be able to fly upside-down--and they can.

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

[Richard Yates]

In all of these words about words, it may be that the hangup is the word
'significant'. Perhaps all he is saying is that grammar is not the meaning
and the words themselves are not the meaning. If I am on the right track
then he would also say that sound (and hence any aspect of physics) is not
the musical expression.

I may be able agree with all of these if he defines what he means by
'meaning' and 'musical'. So far they have been defined only by what he says
they are not.

However, it is quite another matter, and the one being questioned here, to
say that physics is not significant to music and grammar is not significant
to meaning.

RY


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Raymond Horton]

And I very clearly wrote my reply before reading your second post, and I 
very clearly disagree with both. 

I agree with Salieri, who called it "grand opera," and it is one of my 
favorites.  

RBH
David W. Fenton wrote:
On 9 Feb 2005 at 11:04, Raymond Horton wrote:
 

In regards to _The Magic Flute_, the background info is interesting,
but not necessary to enjoying the opera.  The opera is, start to
finish, some of the most divinely inspired music ever penned by a
human being, regardless of the story it is hung on.  (To see you
dismiss it as " a not very good opera" makes me sad for you, David. 
You should get to hear it from the opera pit like I do, waiting for
the priests to come onstage so the trombones finally play.  Wonderful
music to experience, every night.) 
   

I very clearly said:
Not very good opera.
Brilliant music.
In other words, as an opera, less than the sum of its parts.
 

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> > Grammar.  Grammar controls meaning.
> > 
> 
> Actually, meaning controls grammar.
> 
> We have the thought first, then we express it in a manner that we can be 
> reasonably sure our listener/reader can understand.

Thoughts have grammar. 



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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> You seem to me to be arguing that acoustics are part of the musical 
> content of a work of music, where I'm saying that it is only the 
> mechanism by which the content is conveyed.

Can to define this elusive content without reference to physics? 

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[dhbailey]

Darcy James Argue wrote:
[snip]
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?

Grammar.  Grammar controls meaning.
Actually, meaning controls grammar.
We have the thought first, then we express it in a manner that we can be 
reasonably sure our listener/reader can understand.


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

[Owain Sutton]

David W. Fenton wrote:
On 9 Feb 2005 at 6:40, dhbailey wrote:
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.

It's true that muscle memory is essential.  However, the only way it is 
acquired is, indeed, through repetitive and methodical (i.e. endless!) 
practice, where a 'good ear' is of prime importance.
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Darcy James Argue]

On 10 Feb 2005, at 12:26 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 10 Feb 2005 at 0:09, Darcy James Argue wrote:
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.
Well, yes.  So, you are agreeing with what I wrote below:
Grammar.  Grammar controls meaning.
You wrote:
And you're not changing the grammar
Uh, never said I was.
-- you're just exchanging one 
noun for another in constructions that are grammatically identical.
Yes, I am exchanging subject and object -- that's a grammatical change. 
 The content -- the words themselves -- are the same.

In other words, you've changed the content while retaining the same
grammatical structure.
Uh, yes.  So you're agreeing with me that it's the grammatical 
structure, and not the content alone, that determines meaning -- right?

Congratulations! You've just made my point!
David, you wrote, earlier today, that "grammar has no signficance in 
the *meaning* of any particular speech or written utterance."

I don't think anything I said supports that point.  Moreover, I don't 
think anything *you* said supports that point.

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

[A-NO-NE Music]

Darcy James Argue / 05.2.10 / 00:09 AM wrote:

>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?
>
>Grammar.  Grammar controls meaning.


Or may be the grammar style is the point.
Japanese and most other Asian languages place verb the last, while
subject is often omitted to avoid redundancy, i.e., "I" and "you" are
taken from the context.

So, in Japanese grammar, above would be:
"The man is, by dog, bitten."
Notice the articles :-)

By the way, this thread is too much reading for me (I usually need to
read a couple times to take in when reading English) and I think I am
totally lost here.  How is this thread relates to Garritan as in Finale?


-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
 


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 9 Feb 2005 at 21:14, Richard Yates wrote:

> > No, I'm not using any special meaning.
> >
> > Asterisks are not quotation marks.
> 
> I did not say or infer that they were. You use them for emphasis as if
> saying the same thing louder makes it clearer.
> 
> Which of the dictionary meanings that I quoted applies to your use of
> the term 'musical' in which you say physics has no significance?

None of them.

When I say "musical significance" I mean significance in regard to 
the musical content of a work of music, the musical meaning of the 
work.

You seem to me to be arguing that acoustics are part of the musical 
content of a work of music, where I'm saying that it is only the 
mechanism by which the content is conveyed.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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!

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> No, I'm not using any special meaning.
>
> Asterisks are not quotation marks.

I did not say or infer that they were. You use them for emphasis as if
saying the same thing louder makes it clearer.

Which of the dictionary meanings that I quoted applies to your use of the
term 'musical' in which you say physics has no significance?

RY


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> > > 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

[Darcy James Argue]

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?

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

[David W. Fenton]

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.

> Obviously,  we do not consciously think about grammar when we speak
> our native language, but that doesn't diminish its significance in the
> slightest.

But it is *still* insignificant, i.e., a background characteristic, 
of the thought being expressed.

That's what I mean by "physics has no musical significance" -- that 
physics has zilch to do with the foreground meaning of a musical 
utterance. It may *enable* the uttering of the thought, but the 
message itself is not "about" physics.

I'm done here.

This is so obvious to me that I don't know how to explain it to 
people who don't see it that way.

Maybe I should suggest that y'all read some Jakobsen (or maybe 
Scholes would be as better place to start).

-- 
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Darcy James Argue]

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."

Obviously,  we do not consciously think about grammar when we speak our 
native language, but that doesn't diminish its significance in the 
slightest.

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

[David W. Fenton]

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.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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?

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 9 Feb 2005 at 14:53, John Howell wrote:

> 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!

These facts still have no more musical signifcance than the law of 
gravity. Without it, we'd be hard pressed to make any music at all 
(just as with physics in general), but gravity has nothing to do with 
the musical content of any piece of music whatsoever.

This is so blazingly obvious to me that has left me wholly unable to 
explain the distinction in any way that makes sense to those who 
don't already see the point.

So, I'll just stop after I've finished tonight's messages.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 9 Feb 2005 at 11:19, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

> At 11:04 AM 2/9/05 -0500, Raymond Horton wrote:
> >(And if everyone ignores this post like they did my one about the
> >overtone series and the pentatonic scale, then I will delete all of
> >yours, too.  Hmmph!)
> 
> 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.

Oh, Dennis, based on that, I'd like to suggest a composer you'd just 
*love*:

Hoffmeister!

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 9 Feb 2005 at 11:04, Raymond Horton wrote:

> In regards to _The Magic Flute_, the background info is interesting,
> but not necessary to enjoying the opera.  The opera is, start to
> finish, some of the most divinely inspired music ever penned by a
> human being, regardless of the story it is hung on.  (To see you
> dismiss it as " a not very good opera" makes me sad for you, David. 
> You should get to hear it from the opera pit like I do, waiting for
> the priests to come onstage so the trombones finally play.  Wonderful
> music to experience, every night.) 

I very clearly said:

Not very good opera.

Brilliant music.

In other words, as an opera, less than the sum of its parts.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> 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! If you have been using the word 'musical'
in some narrow or obscure way, then it is incumbent on you to clarify your
usage when it seems you are being misunderstood. The dictionary says:

Musical:
1. Of, relating to, or capable of producing music.
2. Characteristic of or resembling music; melodious.
3. Set to or accompanied by music.
4. Devoted to or skilled in music.

If you mean something else by it then please set out your definition.

RY


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> 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

[David W. Fenton]

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.

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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

[David W. Fenton]

On 8 Feb 2005 at 20:37, Richard Yates wrote:

[quoting me replying to himself:]
> > > 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.

No, I have said physics has no *musical* significance.

The frame of the Mona Lisa does not alter its artistic significance 
(though it may certainly change our perceptions of it), but without 
the frame and framework behind the canvas, it couldn't exist (unless, 
of course, it's painted on a wood panel or some such, which doesn't 
really change my point). I would say it makes no significant 
contribution to the impact or meaning of the artwork, even though it 
is a necessary element of the work. It is just an element of no 
artistic 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?

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.

And I also would say that even when stripped down to what you are 
saying I've said, the significance of physics to music is rather 
axiomatic, rather like the importance of gravity to flying and 
airplane. Absent gravity, none of our airplanes would work, but 
that's axiomatic to the whole system on which the whole system we use 
for building airplanes is built. It's so basic as to be trivial. I 
could be an interesting study in and of itself, yet still have very 
little significance to an actual pilot.

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

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> 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

[Richard Yates]

> 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

[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

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 03:01 PM 2/9/05 -0800, Mark D Lew wrote:
>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.

[...]

He said:
>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.

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.

Dennis



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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[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

[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

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 03:48 PM 2/9/05 -0500, Christopher Smith wrote:
>
>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.

There's nothing astonishing about it. Considering that key phrase "since
ca. 1780, those of lasting merit get rehabilitated after a few decades in
the doghouse," that means nothing is especially provable as we're hardly
150 years past the rehabilitation of anybody, much less the wholesale
rehabilitation that came in the mid-19th century with the birth of musicology.

Plus, it's investment and recycling of the past, and you've already heard
my p.o.v. on that one -- the creeping "greatness" of the past.

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Owain Sutton]

Christopher Smith wrote:
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.


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.
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[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

[Andrew Stiller]

 >What modern composer IS known outside of academic circles?
Steve Reich, John Adams, and, in particular, Phillip Glass. 

Stu
To these I would add Crumb, Ligeti, and Riley, at the very least.
I would suggest further that any composer whose work has been 
featured on a national broadcast--especially a TV broadcast--or who 
has been programmed in a subscription concert of one of the big five 
orchestras can hardly be considered to be "unknown outside of 
academic circles." The names of such composers are legion.

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

[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

[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

[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 - Magic Flute

[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

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 11:04 AM 2/9/05 -0500, Raymond Horton wrote:
>(And if everyone ignores this post like they did my one about the 
>overtone series and the pentatonic scale, then I will delete all of 
>yours, too.  Hmmph!)

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.

That the response you were looking for? Bet not. :)

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Raymond Horton]

I have a good perspective on questions such as these, playing music of 
all kinds, and spending a fair amount of my career in opera and ballet 
pits.  Sometimes I have almost no knowledge of the story going on 
onstage (I can almost never see anything) so I experience the music 
only.  Sometimes I know a great deal about the music, story, background, 
etc. 

The answer to what you are discussing is quite simple - sometimes the 
background matters, sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes it helps a great 
deal, sometimes a little, sometimes not a bit.  It depends on the work 
and the background.

In regards to _The Magic Flute_, the background info is interesting, but 
not necessary to enjoying the opera.  The opera is, start to finish, 
some of the most divinely inspired music ever penned by a human being, 
regardless of the story it is hung on.  (To see you dismiss it as " a 
not very good opera" makes me sad for you, David.  You should get to 
hear it from the opera pit like I do, waiting for the priests to come 
onstage so the trombones finally play.  Wonderful music to experience, 
every night.)  The story, with or without the Masonic background, is 
just a simple tale of good and evil.  That opera we do in a small hall 
in which I CAN watch the singers, especially during the rehearsals.  
Last time we had a great cast, and it was a real treat every day.

If one has never seen the gorgeous Ingmar Bergman movie, that is a 
great way to experience it.  (It's on DVD.)  Masonic background not needed.

(And if everyone ignores this post like they did my one about the 
overtone series and the pentatonic scale, then I will delete all of 
yours, too.  Hmmph!)

Raymond Horton
Louisville Orchestra
David W. Fenton wrote:
On 8 Feb 2005 at 13:06, Andrew Stiller wrote:
 

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? . . .
   

To get the point? Absolutely not!
 

. . . 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.
 

...
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[dhbailey]

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

I know I'm not thinking about frequencies, nor the complex formula
needed to calculate the exact frequency I need to go to when I need to
leap a tritone and an octave.

Of course you are not. But that is a straw man argument. It is trivial to
select any aspect of physics sufficiently abstract to play no part in
consciousness. You probably do not think of quarks and hadrons, either. But
to say that you do not think about some aspect of physics when you make
music is not the same as saying that you think of no aspect of physics.
You could even try to take the same position about music theory. You could
easily select some aspect of music theory that plays no part in
consciousness when you make music, but wouldn't it seem odd to then claim
that music theory "is involved, but not at any significant level."?
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."

While with music theory, I will readily agree that I am consciously 
thinking about music theory all the time I am reading and playing music, 
since music theory is what tells me what I should do when I see those 
ink-splats on the page.

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

[Gerald Berg]

With luck history will never have the final say on anything we do!  
Otherwise we are toast.  Of course Janacek is great --just listen to 
him.  What's not great about it?  That he was unknown in his time (I'd 
kill for a career as unknown as this) sez nothing about his artistic 
merit -- it is political.  Small country -- small art -- who cares -- 
kind of thing.  I mean people may not go for 'his kind of thing' at 
some point -- but likewise Mozart.  Will that suddenly make Mozart not 
great?
I remember when it was fashionable to call Richard Strauss second 
rate-- often his is not my kind of thing -- but second rate?
At this point it just comes down to fashion.
Jerry

On 8-Feb-05, at 9:05 PM, Mark D Lew wrote:
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

[Richard Yates]

> 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".

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

> I know I'm not thinking about frequencies, nor the complex formula
> needed to calculate the exact frequency I need to go to when I need to
> leap a tritone and an octave.

Of course you are not. But that is a straw man argument. It is trivial to
select any aspect of physics sufficiently abstract to play no part in
consciousness. You probably do not think of quarks and hadrons, either. But
to say that you do not think about some aspect of physics when you make
music is not the same as saying that you think of no aspect of physics.

You could even try to take the same position about music theory. You could
easily select some aspect of music theory that plays no part in
consciousness when you make music, but wouldn't it seem odd to then claim
that music theory "is involved, but not at any significant level."?

Richard Yates


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[dhbailey]

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).
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.

I know I'm not thinking about frequencies, nor the complex formula 
needed to calculate the exact frequency I need to go to when I need to 
leap a tritone and an octave.  I know how to play one pitch, I know how 
to play the next pitch and I make whatever alterations are necessary to 
change the pitch.  And when I arrive there, if I'm out of tune a bit, I 
certainly don't calculate the number of cents I am out, nor the change 
in tension necessary for my lips to alter the pitch to be in tune, I 
simply get the pitch to sound in tune.

yes, physics are certainly important, but my knowledge of physics as 
physics isn't the least important to my playing the trumpet well, any 
more than knowledge of the grammar as grammar is important to children's 
oral communication.

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

[Richard Yates]

> >>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

[dhbailey]

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!

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

[dhbailey]

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!

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

[dhbailey]

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

[dhbailey]

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

[dhbailey]

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

[dhbailey]

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
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Richard Yates]

> 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

[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

[Richard Yates]

> > > 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

[David W. Fenton]

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

[David W. Fenton]

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

[Richard Yates]

> 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

[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

[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

[David W. Fenton]

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

[Richard Yates]

> 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

[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

[Richard Yates]

> >What modern composer IS known outside of academic circles?
>
> Steve Reich, John Adams, and, in particular, Phillip Glass.

"Who?", "Huh?" and "Oh yeah, the guy who wrote the score for Koyaaniskatsi".

Richard Yates


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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[Christopher Smith]

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.

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

On 8 Feb 2005 at 13:06, Andrew Stiller wrote:

> >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? . . .

To get the point? Absolutely not!

> . . . 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.

> . . .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.

Well, now you're in a whole different set of issues, none of which 
are fundamental to the meaning and comprehensibility of music.

> 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.

I never claimed the right to make any such decision. 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. It's up to you to decide the degree to which this is the 
case with Janacek -- I made no claim either way, since I don't know 
the piece except in passing.

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

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[David W. Fenton]

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

[dhbailey]

Mark D Lew wrote:
[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.

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.

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

[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

[Mark D Lew]

[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
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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[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

[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

[Stu McIntire]

>What modern composer IS known outside of academic circles? 

Steve Reich, John Adams, and, in particular, Phillip Glass.  

Stu

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[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

[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

[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
--
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

[John Howell]

At 4:31 PM -0500 2/6/05, Andrew Stiller wrote:
  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.
That's a book that I need to have, but with a list price of $175 and 
an Amazon.com price of $143 it isn't exactly priced for musicians!! 
Or college teachers.  I guess I'll have to wait for the movie.

Andrew, thanks so much for your comments.  I'm sharing them with my 
music history class.

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

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

[David W. Fenton]

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

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Feb 2005 at 17:04, Darcy James Argue wrote:

> 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?

I think he doesn't give any thought to physics at all while playing.

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

I don't think he gives a thought to physics while hitting the golf 
ball.

> 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?

I doubt they think anything about physics while playing.

> > 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?

That's not physics, except using a rather debased definition of it 
that includes just about anything involving motion.

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

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Re: [Finale] Garritan and other stuff

[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

[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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