# Truth or entertainment?



## Mal

Is "serious" orchestral music anything more than entertainment, i.e., something that gives anything more than pleasure or stimulation, like a nice slice of cheesecake, or a sauna followed by an icy dip? Or does it also provide "truth", like one of Kant's critiques or Newton's Principia?

Background reading:

Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven By Mark Evan Bonds

“From the time of Plato through most of the eighteenth century ... purely instrumental music was almost universally perceived as incapable of conveying ideas, for without the aid of a sung text, it could not articulate concepts with any appreciable degree of specificity. Music without words provided a “language of the heart” or a “language of emotions,” but such a language was by its very nature inherently inferior to the language of reason. This age-old premise crumbled within the span of less than a decade at the end of the eighteenth century, opening the way … to hear symphonies and instrumental music in general in a fundamentally new manner. They no longer approached these works solely as a source of entertainment, but increasingly as a source of truth. For E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) and others of his time, the symphony could function as a mode of philosophy, as a way of knowing. In the span of less than a generation, the act of listening had become associated with the quest for truth.“


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## Barbebleu

Nice question Mal. Good luck getting anything like "truthful" answers but I suspect we will get a lot of "entertaining" ones!:lol:

I go for entertainment albeit of a very challenging nature on occasion.


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## Strange Magic

Put me down in the Entertainment camp as well. Though the "entertainment" can be of a very high order indeed. Brahms!


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## JACE

I think music most definitely expresses philosophical ideas. A few examples:

Think about the way that listeners' responded at the premiere of Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_. The ideas in his music represented a threat to society's pre-existing ideas about music -- but it also represented a perceived threat to the larger social order.

Think about Ives' music. A great deal of his music is informed by religious ideas and transcendentalist thinking. His revolutionary approach to composition reflected those ideas. The ideas and compositional process were integrally related.

Even when composers don't set out with an overtly philosophical agenda, they almost always reflect the _zeitgeist_. For example, Mozart and Haydn represent Enlightenment values. Ideas like order, proportion and balance are central to understanding their music. On the other hand, you can hear the influence of Romantic thinkers (like Goethe and Schiller) in composers like Beethoven and others who launched the Romantic movement in music. So it's not a coincidence that form becomes less important to them than expression, individuality, etc.

Jazz makes the philosophical assertion that the player is just as important -- and an some key regards MORE important -- than the composer. In this sense, you can easily make an argument that jazz represents the Aristotelian ideal (the particular is more important than the general) and that classical music is embodied by Platonic thinking (the universal, the ideal, are most central).

One clarification: I wouldn't assert that music MUST be philosophical -- from a listener's point of view. My daughter listens to pop music, and I'm sure she's not considering the philosophical implications when she sings along with One Direction! But I would assert that you could analyze even that music if you wished to do so, and you would discover underlying ideas that inform it and in some regards reflect a set of values & ideas.


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## pcnog11

The word "serious" need to be defined in order to answer this question. If this word is defined, it could imply some orchestra music is "not serious". I would think a lot of people (including myself) may have a problem with that.


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## Nate Miller

I think the ideas that music conveys are structural ideas. These are good ideas, its just that in the English speaking world at least, we have this rhetorical tradition that art is supposed to be conveying emotions and passions and all that.

Music, even when operating by the rules of function harmony which is rather arbitrary, is a good vehicle for structure. The German word for "musical composition" is "tone satz" isn't it? (I'm not a native German speaker). 

In fact, music is a much more direct way of communicating temporal structures than English is.

so rather than focus on these arbitrary emotional things, look at music itself as a language from describing a temporal structure

not quite as poetic as we'd probably like, but at least we have concrete ideas that we express in music


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## JACE

Nate Miller said:


> I think the ideas that music conveys are structural ideas. These are good ideas, its just that in the English speaking world at least, we have this rhetorical tradition that art is supposed to be conveying emotions and passions and all that.
> 
> Music, even when operating by the rules of function harmony which is rather arbitrary, is a good vehicle for structure. The German word for "musical composition" is "tone satz" isn't it? (I'm not a native German speaker).
> 
> In fact, music is a much more direct way of communicating temporal structures than English is.
> 
> so rather than focus on these arbitrary emotional things, look at music itself as a language from describing a temporal structure
> 
> not quite as poetic as we'd probably like, but at least we have concrete ideas that we express in music


Nate - I agree that music does a great job of expressing structural ideas. But I strongly disagree with idea that you can divorce structure from feeling.

Mozart feels different than Liszt because their compositions are built differently -- just like a manor house feels different than cathedral because they are built differently.

The structure informs the feeling. Consider this: Many people hate Schoenberg's music. They don't hate it because it's dodecaphonic. They hate it because it doesn't sound pleasing to them. Their _experience_ of the structure is what's most important -- not the structure itself.


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## Nate Miller

JACE said:


> Jazz makes the philosophical assertion that the player is just as important -- and an some key regards MORE important -- than the composer. In this sense, you can easily make an argument that jazz represents Aristotlean ideal (the particular is more important than the general) and that classical music is embodied by Platonic thinking (the universal, the ideal, are most central).


as a jazz player myself, this is sorta interesting. Naturally the player is more important than the composer. Most of the standard jazz repertoire comes from old movies and Broadway shows. I might know who composed the tune I'm playing, but honestly probably not, that's how little it matters. Even more than the player....EACH and every playing is different, so it is the moment that is important.

I never knew that was Aristotlean 

but you're right...the particular is more important than the general


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## Nate Miller

JACE said:


> Nate - I agree that music does a great job of expressing structural ideas. But I strongly disagree with idea that you can divorce structure from feeling.
> 
> Mozart feels different than Liszt because their compositions are built differently -- just like a manor house feels different than cathedral because they are built differently.
> 
> The structure informs the feeling. Consider this: Many people hate Schoenberg's music. They don't hate it because it's dodecaphonic. They hate it because it doesn't sound pleasing to them. Their _experience_ of the structure is what's most important -- not the structure itself.


good point. I guess it doesn't have to be devoid of feeling. I know when I see an old historic building I can have an emotional reaction to the beauty of the design and the details in the workmanship


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## JACE

Nate Miller said:


> as a jazz player myself, this is sorta interesting. Naturally the player is more important than the composer. Most of the standard jazz repertoire comes from old movies and Broadway shows. I might know who composed the tune I'm playing, but honestly probably not, that's how little it matters. Even more than the player....EACH and every playing is different, so it is the moment that is important.
> 
> I never knew that was Aristotlean
> 
> but you're right...the particular is more important than the general


Yes! It's not just "Body & Soul." It's Rollins' "Body & Soul"! Or Hawkins' "Body & Soul." Or Lockjaw's "Body & Soul."

The composition is just a skeleton, a framework for the performer. This is VERY different than classical music. Almost in opposition to classical music.

In this regard, jazz is more like ballet -- it happens in real time. The jazz composer is analogous to the choreographer; their work is never realized -- except in the act of performance.

Classical music, on the other hand, exists on the page. It's more like a play. I can read Shakespeare and have an experience of Shakespeare without seeing a play because it's all written down. And the same is true of Mozart, Beethoven, and all classical music.

EDIT:
I think this is why some people fail to understand Ellington's music. Jazz composition is contingent on the people performing it. Therefore, you could make an argument that Ellington's music is not really Ellington's music when it is performed by anyone outside of his band. You can't evaluate Ellington "as a composer" outside of the context of HIS orchestra -- like you could with Brahms or Bach or whoever. I'm not saying that we can't perform it or shouldn't perform it. Thank god we can! But I am saying that it's never going to be REALLY Ellington music -- unless Ellington is there in front of his band with Hodges and Cootie and Hodges and all those guys.


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## Nate Miller

so regarding the meaning in music....and if you believe a meaning can be communicated...

There are sounds that have their own intrinsic meaning....like the sound of breaking glass 

but then there are sounds like a plagal cadence that only have meaning because of the convention of functional harmony

so if you are trying to write outside the bounds of functional harmony, how do you associate meaning if you no longer have the convention of functional harmony?


...years ago I attended a lecture by Witold Lutoslawski where he talked about this topic. I'm going to stay mum for a bit about what he said in the interest of provoking discussion


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## JACE

Phew. HUGE questions! Fascinating stuff.

I'd point to a book by Anthony Storr called _Music and the Mind_.










From Publisher's Weekly review:

_Rejecting the Freudian notion that music is a form of infantile escapism, British psychologist Storr argues that music originates from the human brain, promotes order within the mind, exalts life and gives it meaning. In an engaging inquiry, Storr speculates on music's origins in preliterate societies and examines its therapeutic powers, even in people with neurological diseases that cause movement disorders. Focusing on Western classical music from Bach to Stravinsky, he rejects the view, expounded by Leonard Bernstein and others, that the Western tonal system is a universal scheme rooted in the natural order. Citing studies of physiological arousal, Storr updates Arthur Schopenhauer's thesis that music portrays the inner flow of life more directly than the other arts. He turns to Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher, pianist and composer, for an understanding of music as an affirmative medium that helps us transcend life's essential tragedy. _

Sounds like tough sledding, and it is dense at times. But it is the best book I've ever read about music from a _philosophical_ and _psychological_ point of view.


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## Mal

JACE said:


> I think music most definitely expresses philosophical ideas. A few examples:
> 
> Think about the way that listeners' responded at the premiere of Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_. The ideas in his music represented a threat to society's pre-existing ideas about music -- but it also represented a perceived threat to the larger social order.


I can't see how it can express philosophical ideas, it just doesn't have the words! When I first heard this work, as a teenager, not knowing the background, I just thought it was an exciting piece of music, something that you might imagine savage people dancing to. You being more knowledgeable than my teenage self (and probably my current self!) bring a lot of historical knowledge to bear, which you must have obtained from written texts. I cannot see that my teenage self could ever have deduced that the music "represented a threat to society's pre-existing ideas about music and a" threat to the larger social order" from the music alone.


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## Mal

Barbebleu said:


> I go for entertainment ...





Strange Magic said:


> Put me down in the Entertainment camp as well ...


Does this mean you are both Naturalists? Following, Mark Evan Bonds, I define Naturalism as the philosophy of the Enlightenment, the philosophy that placed instrumental music in a secondary position, well behind Opera, because it could never be specific about anything. But, after Beethoven, Hoffman put symphonic music at the top of all the art forms, but he could only do that through adopting Idealism (=Romanticism), by suggesting that symphonic music gave you access to the spiritual (noumenal) realm in a way that was beyond the power of words. So by being in the entertainment camp are you not in danger of trivialising the music of Beethoven and Brahms?


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## DavidA

I don't generally go to music (and opera) for enlightenment in the great issues of life, except for works like the great Bach Passions and Handel's Messiah. Music is for enjoyment, to enhance life but not to tell us the meaning of life. It is entertainment but of a high order.


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## hpowders

You folks analyze this stuff to death. Try listening to the music.

Being on TC is like being in a skeletal anatomy class. I didn't fall in love with over 100 bones in a skeleton; I fell in love with a nymphomaniac.

Relax and enjoy the music. Over-analyzing it "destroys the mood".


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## JACE

Mal said:


> I can't see how it can express philosophical ideas, it just doesn't have the words! When I first heard this work, as a teenager, not knowing the background, I just thought it was an exciting piece of music, something that you might imagine savage people dancing to. You being more knowledgeable than my teenage self (and probably my current self!) bring a lot of historical knowledge to bear, which you must have obtained from written texts. I cannot see that my teenage self could ever have deduced that the music "represented a threat to society's pre-existing ideas about music and a" threat to the larger social order" from the music alone.


Mal, I agree with you. As I said, music isn't _necessarily_ philosophical. It can be "just" sounds.

However, if you are aware of things like historical context or musical structures or various other kinds of info, then music can become a sort of philosophical discourse. Of course, music will never be as explicit or precise as words for explaining things like concepts. But I think music is very much akin to painting or other non-verbal forms of art.

Since I'm not particularly well-educated on the visual arts, when I walk through a museum I see "pictures." But my son and my wife, who are both much more attuned to visual arts, see more than I do. They have contextual knowledge, and that makes what they're seeing more meaningful from all sorts of points of view -- philosophical, historical, symbolic, etc., etc. Music is no different. There aren't any words, but there's still all kinds of meaning -- if we have _knowledge_ and _inclination_ to see or hear the art that way.


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## Becca

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment already exists so it is probably about time to form the Orchestra of the Age of Entertainment.


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## JACE

hpowders said:


> You folks analyze this stuff to death. Try listening to the music.
> 
> Being on TC is like being in a skeletal anatomy class. I didn't fall in love with over 100 bones in a skeleton; I fell in love with a nymphomaniac.
> 
> *Relax and enjoy the music. Over-analyzing it "destroys the mood".*


hp,

It sounds like thinking about music in this way isn't enjoyable for you. And that's fine.

But it _adds_ to my enjoyment. It doesn't lessen it.

I don't think there's any one "right way." We all hear things differently.

Isn't that's one of the glories of music?


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## starthrower

I don't know about specific ideas or concepts being conveyed through instumental music, but a good listener can gleam some truth and conviction from the performance and music. It's either sincere or it's a load of BS.


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## DavidA

JACE said:


> Nate - I agree that music does a great job of expressing structural ideas. But I strongly disagree with idea that you can divorce structure from feeling.
> 
> Mozart feels different than Liszt because their compositions are built differently -- just like a manor house feels different than cathedral because they are built differently.
> 
> The structure informs the feeling. Consider this: *Many people hate Schoenberg's music. They don't hate it because it's dodecaphonic. They hate it because it doesn't sound pleasing to them. * Their _experience_ of the structure is what's most important -- not the structure itself.


Like an architect looking at a building. it may seem ugly but he admires the structure. Afraid I tend just to look at the building.


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## Mal

starthrower said:


> I don't know about specific ideas or concepts being conveyed through instumental music, but a good listener can gleam some truth and conviction from the performance and music. It's either sincere or it's a load of BS.


Yes, a performance can try too hard to bring out the beauty and pleasure, and just sound insincere - like adding sugar to cheesecake. But, if the performance is good, just what is the beauty that is being represented? A beautiful woman, a sunset, a deer,...? With instrumental music it's impossible to say. Doesn't matter of course, as long as it sounds beautiful, and sincere.


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## starthrower

Mal said:


> if the performance is good, just what is the beauty that is being represented? A beautiful woman, a sunset, a deer,...? With instrumental music it's impossible to say. Doesn't matter of course, as long as it sounds beautiful, and sincere.


None of those concrete examples. Just the sound and beautiful feeling music brings to us. It's the ultimate abstract art form.


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## Barbebleu

Mal said:


> Does this mean you are both Naturalists? Following, Mark Evan Bonds, I define Naturalism as the philosophy of the Enlightenment, the philosophy that placed instrumental music in a secondary position, well behind Opera, because it could never be specific about anything. But, after Beethoven, Hoffman put symphonic music at the top of all the art forms, but he could only do that through adopting Idealism (=Romanticism), by suggesting that symphonic music gave you access to the spiritual (noumenal) realm in a way that was beyond the power of words. So by being in the entertainment camp are you not in danger of trivialising the music of Beethoven and Brahms?


I hope not. Mind you, to answer your question I would have to understand it! All the music that I enjoy only needs to do one thing. It must reach me emotionally. That's all. If it does I am fulfilled and hopefully entertained in every sense of the term. I don't find any music I enjoy trivial. Jazz fulfils some of my emotional requirements but it doesn't reach the parts opera or lieder or chamber music reaches or the parts that Lucinda Williams or Joni Mitchell or Frank Zappa reaches. And for me that's entertainment.


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## Strange Magic

Mal said:


> Does this mean you are both Naturalists? Following, Mark Evan Bonds, I define Naturalism as the philosophy of the Enlightenment, the philosophy that placed instrumental music in a secondary position, well behind Opera, because it could never be specific about anything. But, after Beethoven, Hoffman put symphonic music at the top of all the art forms, but he could only do that through adopting Idealism (=Romanticism), by suggesting that symphonic music gave you access to the spiritual (noumenal) realm in a way that was beyond the power of words. So by being in the entertainment camp are you not in danger of trivialising the music of Beethoven and Brahms?


.

Not having read Bonds, and not being familiar with his particular use of the terms _Naturalism_ or _Naturalist_, all I can say is that I am indeed a Naturalist only in the sense that philosopher Ernest Nagel uses the term in his essay Naturalism Reconsidered. So I cannot comment on Hoffman's notions on music as being indicative of a proper Naturalist, though I have my suspicions about talk of spiritual/noumemal realms; as a rule, Naturalists are not keen on spiritual/noumenal realms, as being difficult to locate with any accuracy and even harder to recognize. No danger, therefore, of my trivializing the music of Beethoven, Brahms, or anybody else. I regard much music as wonderful, fulfilling, satisfying, pleasing entertainment, perhaps inducing euphoria or even ecstasy.


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## Lenny

Mal said:


> Does this mean you are both Naturalists? Following, Mark Evan Bonds, I define Naturalism as the philosophy of the Enlightenment, the philosophy that placed instrumental music in a secondary position, well behind Opera, because it could never be specific about anything. But, after Beethoven, Hoffman put symphonic music at the top of all the art forms, but he could only do that through adopting Idealism (=Romanticism), by suggesting that symphonic music gave you access to the spiritual (noumenal) realm in a way that was beyond the power of words. So by being in the entertainment camp are you not in danger of trivialising the music of Beethoven and Brahms?


One thing to keep in mind is this: these romantic era composers were completely brainwashed by the ideas of romantics thinkers like Goethe, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel... and also eastern philosophy, like Upanishads. For me it is obvious that it must somehow be present in the music as well, at least in a form of huge, fantastic delusions... And I think it is exactly that which makes the era so great. According to a known legend, even the great Ludvig Van was hugely influenced by indian philosophy.

Something happened in the 18th century... In my mind I like to think it as "2nd intellectual clash between the east and west" (first one was in the early antique).


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## Bettina

hpowders said:


> You folks analyze this stuff to death. Try listening to the music.
> 
> Being on TC is like being in a skeletal anatomy class. I didn't fall in love with over 100 bones in a skeleton; I fell in love with a nymphomaniac.
> 
> Relax and enjoy the music. Over-analyzing it "destroys the mood".


I don't feel that I'm doing violence to a musical work when I analyze it; I just don't see anything violent about the process of analysis. For me personally, analysis brings music to life.

I understand that analysis doesn't appeal to you, and I respect your opinion even though I don't share it. However, I still remain puzzled by your references to death and skeletons. I don't see analysis as an act of murder or dismemberment.

I certainly _hope _ that there's nothing murderous about analyzing music--otherwise, I'd be a serial killer!! :lol: With the number of sonatas that I've assassinated, I should be on America's Most Wanted! :lol:


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## znapschatz

JACE said:


> I think music most definitely expresses philosophical ideas. A few examples:
> 
> *Think about the way that listeners' responded at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The ideas in his music represented a threat to society's pre-existing ideas about music -- but it also represented a perceived threat to the larger social order.*
> 
> Think about Ives' music. A great deal of his music is informed by religious ideas and transcendentalist thinking. His revolutionary approach to composition reflected those ideas. The ideas and compositional process were integrally related.
> 
> Even when composers don't set out with an overtly philosophical agenda, they almost always reflect the _zeitgeist_. For example, Mozart and Haydn represent Enlightenment values. Ideas like order, proportion and balance are central to understanding their music. On the other hand, you can hear the influence of Romantic thinkers (like Goethe and Schiller) in composers like Beethoven and others who launched the Romantic movement in music. So it's not a coincidence that form becomes less important to them than expression, individuality, etc.
> 
> Jazz makes the philosophical assertion that the player is just as important -- and an some key regards MORE important -- than the composer. In this sense, you can easily make an argument that jazz represents the Aristotelian ideal (the particular is more important than the general) and that classical music is embodied by Platonic thinking (the universal, the ideal, are most central).
> 
> One clarification: I wouldn't assert that music MUST be philosophical -- from a listener's point of view. My daughter listens to pop music, and I'm sure she's not considering the philosophical implications when she sings along with One Direction! But I would assert that you could analyze even that music if you wished to do so, and you would discover underlying ideas that inform it and in some regards reflect a set of values & ideas.


I can't disagree with most of this, but it seems that we may have had it wrong about the audience reception to the *Rite of Spring*. Recent comments on that concert have asserted the audience was actually, in large part, receptive to the music, but the ballet was what provoked the noisy discord. That had been compounded when the disturbances made it hard for the dancers to follow the beat and so forth to debacle. Although there was a rear guard to deal with, audiences in in significant numbers were in process at the time of becoming quite receptive to new music.


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## znapschatz

hpowders said:


> You folks analyze this stuff to death. Try listening to the music.
> 
> Being on TC is like being in a skeletal anatomy class. I didn't fall in love with over 100 bones in a skeleton; I fell in love with a nymphomaniac.
> 
> Relax and enjoy the music. Over-analyzing it "destroys the mood".


Wise beyond your years.


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## hpowders

Bettina said:


> I don't feel that I'm doing violence to a musical work when I analyze it; I just don't see anything violent about the process of analysis. For me personally, analysis brings music to life.
> 
> I understand that analysis doesn't appeal to you, and I respect your opinion even though I don't share it. However, I still remain puzzled by your references to death and skeletons. I don't see analysis as an act of murder or dismemberment.
> 
> I certainly _hope _ that there's nothing murderous about analyzing music--otherwise, I'd be a serial killer!! :lol: With the number of sonatas that I've assassinated, I should be on America's Most Wanted! :lol:


Analysis can't appeal to me because I was a chemistry major and never took a music theory course.
I regret not doing so, since I am deeply into music at this time. My boner!

But my other qualities are good.


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## hpowders

znapschatz said:


> Wise beyond your years.


Thank you. I appreciate that, znapschatz.


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## hpowders

pcnog11 said:


> The word "serious" need to be defined in order to answer this question. If this word is defined, it could imply some orchestra music is "not serious". I would think a lot of people (including myself) may have a problem with that.


Are you serious?


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## Bettina

hpowders said:


> Analysis can't appeal to me because I was a chemistry major and never took a music theory course.
> I regret not doing so, since I am deeply into music at this time. My boner!
> 
> But my other qualities are good.


In my opinion, chemistry takes all the magic out of the natural world--breaking everything down into those annoying little abbreviations on the periodic table! :lol: Sorry, just kidding, it's actually just that I've never studied much chemistry, except the bare minimum that was required in high school. I was too busy dismembering symphonies! 

In any case, I think that I misunderstood your original post. I thought that you were criticizing people for "over-analyzing" music. Now I see that you didn't intend to convey that message. No hard feelings!


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## Lenny

JACE said:


> However, if you are aware of things like historical context or musical structures or various other kinds of info, then music can become a sort of philosophical discourse. Of course, music will never be as explicit or precise as words for explaining things like concepts. But I think music is very much akin to painting or other non-verbal forms of art.


I like to see music as a form of human expression, just like any expression, for example literature. Some kind of holistic approach to human culture. So for me there was no alternative for romantic music, it had to be that way, it was reflecting its time, just as much as modernism or post-modern, etc.

So in a way I agree with you - for me it is easier to analyze the history of human expression in terms of music, compared to for example generic literature or visual arts, or science.

Before the romantics, world was a controlled "machine", newtonian clockwork, so the music also reflected that sort of thinking with very strictly set rules etc. And now.... well... who knows what the world is. Stochaistic, chaotic, multiverse, maybe a virtual machine. And music? OTOH we have this really far-away avant garde music, but then some people like like Pärt are expressing themselves using very archaic music, some sort of post-medieval. Go figure..

So I'm kinda tempted to draw this sort of very rough lines, like:

Reneissance (Bach etc) - Enlightment, materialism (Newton)
Romantic (Wagner, Brahms) - Idealism (Hegel)
Modernism, serialism (Schoenberg) - relativity, quantum physics (Einstein, Bohr, ...)
Post-modern - plurality, chaos...

Then what happened.... World Wars, and after that I'm at least lost in the wilderness. But the beauty of post-modern is this: I can go to my Spotify library and spend my life researching reneissance music, or whatever moves me, and nobody really could care less. In a way, world lost its direction, but now we have all the directions we want, all at the same time.


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## Triplets

There is so much instrumental music that seems to be expressing ideas. Beethoven's last piano sonata, Mahler 5, to take just a few examples. Surely their creators we're aiming at more than just 'entertainment '


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## Strange Magic

Lenny said:


> But the beauty of post-modern is this: I can go to my Spotify library and spend my life researching reneissance music, or whatever moves me, and nobody really could care less. In a way, world lost its direction, but now we have all the directions we want, all at the same time.


This gives me an excuse to again bring up Leonard Meyer's _Music, the Arts, and Ideas_, University of Chicago Press, 1967. In Part II, As It Is, And Perhaps Will Be, Meyer formulated the idea that the arts were in a period of directionless Brownian motion; a new stasis perhaps, but one quite unlike the old periods of past stasis. In today's directionless stasis, all things indeed are possible, in all directions.....


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## Mal

Mahler and Beethoven were Idealists and were shooting for "the infinite" in the medium (orchestral music) they thought was likely to take human beings to the highest levels of spirituality. They were supported in this belief by leading cultural figures like E.T.A. Hoffmann and Schopenhauer. 

Mahler, of course, was famous unsure about himself, and about Idealism, and about the ability of music to put concepts across. Cooke suggests that in his first four symphonies he was trying to identify with four different kinds of Idealism (!) He was also incredibly unsure about the impact his music was having - initially giving the symphonies programmes, then taking them away, thinking the music should speak for itself, then putting them back in when he realised people weren't "getting it". 

Also, he had songs saying what he meant (e.g., the resurrection was meant to represent a literal Christian resurrection, which he was trying to believe in at the time. Of course, we moderns don't believe in such a thing, so can only view Mahler's attempt as "kidding himself", but we can still get a lot out of the symphony emotionally.)

To me, the first movement of #2 inspires the kind of feeling you get when you are walking toward one of the most important events in your life (e.g., a crucial examination.) That is, it need have nothing to do with a Christian death & resurrection. Indeed, thinking over such a programme while listening to the music (to me) just gets in the way. I prefer listening intently to the music itself, without generating the "cognitive fog" of a programme, so the structure of the music (alone) is (hopefully!) perceived, and the full emotional impact felt. Of course, being a great artist, Mahler greatly heightens and adds to the emotion lesser mortals like myself might feel, and he uses the medium (instrumental music) that can best do this.

So, although I don't think Mahler or Beethoven are "taking us to spiritual realms", I think they they are doing something very important: amplifying and heightening our emotions, and taking us to new realms of feeling. This is entertaining in the same way as watching the Berlin wall being torn down is entertaining, but calling such music just "entertaining" is to trivialise it, in the same way as saying "that was entertaining" on seeing the Berlin wall fall is a crass remark - unless used with proper irony and understatement (which I think "the entertainment camp followers" in this thread are using...)


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## hpowders

Bettina said:


> In my opinion, chemistry takes all the magic out of the natural world--breaking everything down into those annoying little abbreviations on the periodic table! :lol: Sorry, just kidding, it's actually just that I've never studied much chemistry, except the bare minimum that was required in high school. I was too busy dismembering symphonies!
> 
> In any case, I think that I misunderstood your original post. I thought that you were criticizing people for "over-analyzing" music. Now I see that you didn't intend to convey that message. No hard feelings!


I'm an innocent victim of circumstance. As my mom would say, "How could anyone not love him"?

Better symphonies than people. I'm serious!


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## Mal

Strange Magic said:


> This gives me an excuse to again bring up Leonard Meyer's _Music, the Arts, and Ideas_, University of Chicsgo Press, 1967. In Part II, As It Is, And Perhaps Will Be, Meyer formulated the idea that the arts were in a period of directionless Brownian motion; a new stasis perhaps, but one quite unlike the old periods of past stasis. In today's directionless stasis, all things indeed are possible, in all directions.....


Wikipedia, definition of formalism: Leonard B. Meyer, in Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956) distinguished "formalists" from "expressionists": "...formalists would contend that the meaning of music lies in the perception and understanding of the musical relationships set forth in the work of art and that meaning in music is primarily intellectual, while the expressionist would argue that these same relationships are in some sense capable of exciting feelings and emotions in the listener"

Is there any musician who has been purely formalist, developing a piece of music with absolutely no plan to have an emotional impact on the listener? Like a pure mathematician laying out a theory? If so, why? What would be the point?

Surely art must always have a direction, at least aiming to have a significant emotional impact on the person experiencing the work of art. If, like an average painted wall, it has little emotional impact, it is not an art work!


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## Nate Miller

Mal said:


> Is there any musician who has been purely formalist, developing a piece of music with absolutely no plan to have an emotional impact on the listener? Like a pure mathematician laying out a theory? If so, why? What would be the point?
> 
> Surely art must always have a direction, at least aiming to have a significant emotional impact on the person experiencing the work of art. If, like an average painted wall, it has little emotional impact, it is not an art work!


yes, that is EXACTLY how I play. I am developing musical ideas, and musical ideas are structural. Whatever you do with it on your end is your business.

I do not need to be sad to play a requiem. I don't have to be happy to play a lively waltz. I'm a musician, not a method actor

Consider this: you have complete control of your emotions. I cannot "make" you angry or sad or happy. That all comes from you. So if I base my performance on your emotional reaction, then I cannot guarantee that I will succeed. In fact, success is in your hands, not mine.

So for me as a trained musician, I am working with musical ideas, which means structural ideas. whether you are happy of sad is none of my business.

Also, in life if you try and make everyone happy you drive yourself nuts, and art is no different. So again, why would I want to worry about your emotions? I have serious work to do. I am a musician


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## Barbebleu

All art should at the very least stimulate either the heart or the intellect, or, if you are very lucky, both. Above all it should be enjoyed by the listener or viewer or reader. I am always wary of composers, artists and writers who say that they are not doing their thing for any other reason than the need to express themselves in their chosen medium. If that's the case then why put it out there for public approval? All Art needs a public to appreciate it and if people aren't, and I use the word advisedly, "entertained" in some fashion by it, then what's the point of creating it. I'm not saying that everyone needs approval or appreciation but if an artist doesn't require those things then they don't need to put their art in the public domain. Entertainment needn't always be jolly and uplifting but it should mean something to somebody somewhere.


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## pcnog11

DavidA said:


> I don't generally go to music (and opera) for enlightenment in the great issues of life, except for works like the great Bach Passions and Handel's Messiah. Music is for enjoyment, to enhance life but not to tell us the meaning of life. It is entertainment but of a high order.


Meaning of life is subjective. Life is 10% that happen to you and 90% how you react to it.


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## Barbebleu

To borrow and adapt an original quote - In the ongoing and seemingly interminable battle of musical opinion the first casualty is the truth!


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## Nate Miller

Barbebleu said:


> All art should at the very least stimulate either the heart or the intellect, or, if you are very lucky, both. Above all it should be enjoyed by the listener or viewer or reader. I am always wary of composers, artists and writers who say that they are not doing their thing for any other reason than the need to express themselves in their chosen medium. If that's the case then why put it out there for public approval? All Art needs a public to appreciate it and if people aren't, and I use the word advisedly, "entertained" in some fashion by it, then what's the point of creating it. I'm not saying that everyone needs approval or appreciation but if an artist doesn't require those things then they don't need to put their art in the public domain. Entertainment needn't always be jolly and uplifting but it should mean something to somebody somewhere.


I agree that art cannot exist in a vacuum. You have to have other people engage in the aesthetic experience to complete the work as a work of art.

But as a player, I do not need to be emotionally involved. In fact, if I am, I have probably just lost concentration and am about to botch this next phrase coming up.

Now when I am preparing, that is when I think about what sort of things I want to bring out...but I'm thinking in purely musical terms. I don't think "hold that note and play a lot of vibrato because this is supposed to be sad"

I only think about the execution. The holding the note and the vibrato. After the many times I've played that section in preparation for the performance, I am not practicing the emotional content. Like I said, I'm a musician, not a method actor.

and so the emotional content is all on the listener's end

I think about the technical execution. If I want this part to be sad...well, what would make it sad? suspend time and play rubato? use a big vibrato? bring out the clashing dissonance in the middle voices? all of the above? that is how I think about it. Then I execute the phrase in performance. My personal emotions during the performance are, ideally, very quiet like a deep meditation.

So my point is that as a listener, you can talk about emotion. You should talk about emotion. But for me as a player, talking about emotion is silly. I might as well go talk to somebody's cat about the price of coffee for as much good as it will do me.

and that makes sense because the listener and the player are on opposite ends of the aesthetic experience.


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## Lenny

Mal said:


> So, although I don't think Mahler or Beethoven are "taking us to spiritual realms", I think they they are doing something very important: amplifying and heightening our emotions, and taking us to new realms of feeling. This is entertaining in the same way as watching the Berlin wall being torn down is entertaining, but calling such music just "entertaining" is to trivialise it, in the same way as saying "that was entertaining" on seeing the Berlin wall fall is a crass remark - unless used with proper irony and understatement (which I think "the entertainment camp followers" in this thread are using...)


I like this way of thinking. It somehow reminds me of finnish philosopher Pauli Pylkkö who wrote in one his Wagner essays something along these lines: if you take very seriously what Wagner has to say, you will be destroyed, cease being a modern, egoistic, busy person consuming this and that, always busy with everyday nothingness. I'm not there yet, but I like the serious tone in his thinking. Art is not for entertainment. Real art is something that will burn you, or change your life.

I'm not signing that - fully - but I like the idea. Pauli Pylkkö makes a clear distinction between "art" music and "entertainment" music (popular music etc). Art is not for fun, or entertainment (although it might of course amuse us, no problem in that). Popular music OTOH is purely for making our life a bit nicer, for pure entertainment. There's nothing wrong in that, all music has its place.


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## Nate Miller

I can see I am a minority. Can I ask, do you all also play? Do you perform regularly?

because if I were to actually play trying to communicate emotional content, in the course of an evening's practice I could be at the heights of joy, the depths of despair, in the space of an hour be both laughing and crying, but more importantly....I would be a stark raving schizophrenic

music is a language more than it is an art


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## JACE

Nate Miller said:


> I can see I am a minority. Can I ask, do you all also play? Do you perform regularly?
> 
> because if I were to actually play trying to communicate emotional content, in the course of an evening's practice I could be at the heights of joy, the depths of despair, in the space of an hour be both laughing and crying, but more importantly....I would be a stark raving schizophrenic
> 
> music is a language more than it is an art


I think you're spot on, Nate.

I can only imagine that your perspective as a performer is VERY different than that of a listener.

EDIT:
I remember reading an interview with Sonny Rollins, where he said that when he's performing at his very best he's NOT THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL, the music almost comes "automatically." I thought that was very interesting. Of course, this only comes after years and years and years of playing & practice. And it doesn't hurt to be musically gifted beyond belief either!


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## Mal

Nate Miller said:


> yes, that is EXACTLY how I play. I am developing musical ideas, and musical ideas are structural. Whatever you do with it on your end is your business.


I should have said

"Is there any *composer *who has been purely formalist, developing a piece of music with absolutely no plan to have an emotional impact on the listener?"



Nate Miller said:


> I do not need to be sad to play a requiem. I don't have to be happy to play a lively waltz. I'm a musician, not a method actor


Fair enough, but doesn't playing a requiem make you experience a feeling of sadness? In the book I quoted at the start of the thread the author made the interesting point that symphonic music (unlike chamber music) is aimed at the listener; the symphonic player is not entertained by the music while he is in the thick of playing it! (Is that why you need the conductor? Is he an emotional tuning fork, making sure the music generates the emotions in him that's (hopefully) also passed on to the listener.)



Nate Miller said:


> Consider this: you have complete control of your emotions. I cannot "make" you angry or sad or happy. That all comes from you. So if I base my performance on your emotional reaction, then I cannot guarantee that I will succeed. In fact, success is in your hands, not mine.


How do I have complete control of my emotions? I'm not Spock. Things make me angry or sad. If a close relative dies, don't you just feel sad? Or do you, in full control of your emotions, make yourself feel sad? The composer and conductor are human beings like me, one can expect similar things make them happy or sad. We all laugh at Charlie Chaplin, we all feel sad when a close relative dies, we all feel sad when a requiem plays.

I can see as a musician in the orchestra you need to concentrate on playing the notes, and if you say to the conductor "that didn't make me feel sad", you are a likely to get something thrown at you  But, surely, the composer and conductor have to work together to produce a strong emotional reaction in themselves and, thereby, hopefully, in the listener. Doesn't always work, I guess that's why there are so many different recordings!


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## Mal

Lenny said:


> I like this way of thinking. It somehow reminds me of finnish philosopher Pauli Pylkkö who wrote in one his Wagner essays something along these lines: if you take very seriously what Wagner has to say, you will be destroyed, cease being a modern, egoistic, busy person consuming this and that, always busy with everyday nothingness. I'm not there yet, but I like the serious tone in his thinking. Art is not for entertainment. Real art is something that will burn you, or change your life.
> 
> I'm not signing that - fully - but I like the idea. Pauli Pylkkö makes a clear distinction between "art" music and "entertainment" music (popular music etc). Art is not for fun, or entertainment (although it might of course amuse us, no problem in that). Popular music OTOH is purely for making our life a bit nicer, for pure entertainment. There's nothing wrong in that, all music has its place.


I don't like this separation of art from entertainment. If you go to see a performance of Hamlet, surely it's OK to say you found it entertaining, but you might also add that it gave significant insight into the human condition. You might separate out the fight sequences (entertaining though shallow) and Hamlet's speeches (the language is entertaining, as well as deep and meaningful... something you can't say about Kant... which is why Kant isn't an artist... )

Surely art should be entertaining, but it should also be a lot more than that. My concise OED defines entertainment simply and very generally as, "public performance or show".


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## Nate Miller

Mal said:


> How do I have complete control of my emotions? I'm not Spock. Things make me angry or sad. If a close relative dies, don't you just feel sad? Or do you, in full control of your emotions, make yourself feel sad? The composer and conductor are human beings like me, one can expect similar things make them happy or sad. We all laugh at Charlie Chaplin, we all feel sad when a close relative dies, we all feel sad when a requiem plays.


this may be a generational thing. I was taught that I have to take full responsibility for my emotions, therefore, I cannot punch you out because "you made me mad". You didn't make me do anything. I made the choice to get mad and then punch you out.

And this is actually the case. You chose to feel how you feel, always.

For example, I don't think Chaplin is funny at all, and actually when a close friend or relative dies I'm happy for them because they have passed to a better place (without getting into my religious beliefs)

and so what I'm getting at is people are different, and so what they bring to the aesthetic experience is different. This is why I don't concern myself with emotions. there's no telling who is out there on any given night.

I see music as a language. I have had the experience of improvising with a group of musicians and communicating musical ideas directly in the language of music. If you haven't had that opportunity, I can see where the emotional content would have to have the priority. But be aware that there exists purely musical ideas, and many composers have written directly from musical ideas and not concerned themselves with emotion.

As I'm presently working on the Bach Cello suites, I think you can make the case that Bach wrote that set of suites from purely music ideas. I'd have to sit down with you with the scores to demonstrate that, but I can't imagine what emotional content any of those dances are supposed to have, yet there are motivic ideas woven through the entire suite in each one of the six.


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## Nate Miller

Mal said:


> I don't like this separation of art from entertainment.


I agree with that 100%


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## Lenny

Mal said:


> I don't like this separation of art from entertainment. If you go to see a performance of Hamlet, surely it's OK to say you found it entertaining, but you might also add that it gave significant insight into the human condition. You might separate out the fight sequences (entertaining though shallow) and Hamlet's speeches (the language is entertaining, as well as deep and meaningful... something you can't say about Kant... which is why Kant isn't an artist... )
> 
> Surely art should be entertaining, but it should also be a lot more than that. My concise OED defines entertainment simply and very generally as, "public performance or show".


I also find it a bit problematic. But on Kant, at least his anecdotal machine-like punctuality is highly entertaining and "artistic"


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## Heck148

Mal said:


> Is "serious" orchestral music anything more than entertainment, i.e., something that gives anything more than pleasure or stimulation, like a nice slice of cheesecake, or a sauna followed by an icy dip? Or does it also provide "truth", like one of Kant's critiques or Newton's Principia?


It can be both Both.


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## Barelytenor

Do cats think?

:tiphat:

Kind regards,

George


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## Nate Miller

JACE said:


> I remember reading an interview with Sonny Rollins, where he said that when he's performing at his very best he's NOT THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL, the music almost comes "automatically."


this is true. This is what I experience, and what all of my friends describe as well. you feel more like a conduit for the music to flow through. When I play jazz, I'm listening to everything going on around me and reacting to whatever the best idea is at the moment. There are no thoughts because they get in the way. I just play.

this is also the same sort of frame of mind I am in when I perform solo classical guitar. I don't want to be thinking about ANYTHING. It is like a deep meditation. All of the thinking was done during my preparation, and now I just want to let the music flow through me.

If I actually start thinking, it means my mind is wandering and a lot of bad stuff is about to happen :lol:


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## tdc

I think it could be looked at as a bit of both, and also neither. It is a two-way thing so depends both on the performer (ie - is the performer(s) trying to convey some kind of "truth" or just entertain?) and the listener (is the listener seeking some kind of "truth" or just entertainment?).

Some people consider music "food for the soul", which doesn't necessarily imply truth or entertainment.

I don't think music can be adequately summed up by any verbal description.


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## Pugg

Barelytenor said:


> Do cats think?
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> George


They eat and sleep that's for sure.


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## Mal

tdc said:


> Some people consider music "food for the soul", which doesn't necessarily imply truth or entertainment.


Stephen Pinker (in)famously called music "cheesecake for the mind" when giving a key speech to a conference of musicologists. He was belittling great music by equating it with a "fun" food that's not very nutritious. Also, he was taking it right out of the spiritual world by suggesting it was a simple pleasure for the mind, rather than complex spiritual nourishment for the soul.

Naturalist accounts, like Pinker's, have this tendency to trivialise music, but the Idealist/Romantic approach, while not belittling music, gets rather vague, and the "God and soul" talk puts many people off. I think naturalists should accept the importance of music like that of Beethoven and Mahler, which stimulates all the emotions and feelings to be found in the well lived life of a genius. Their symphonies generate the most complex emotions, and feelings, not just the simple pleasure that you get from cheesecake.


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## Barelytenor

I ask "do cats think?" seriously. If they think, they think without words, as far as we know. Do they have feelings? They certainly seem to, but those feelings are wordless. I think that humans are overly smug about their having language when so many other members of the animal kingdom do not. Perhaps all those other species process thoughts and feelings equally well using other means of which we are unaware. We really do not know if cats or other animals can process thoughts and feelings without language or not. Does this mean that music has no meaning if it lacks words? Or does it merely have meanings that are extraverbal? I believe that music expresses meanings and feelings that are too profound for words.

:tiphat:

Kind regards,

George


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## Nate Miller

Barelytenor said:


> I ask "do cats think?" seriously. If they think, they think without words, as far as we know. Do they have feelings? They certainly seem to, but those feelings are wordless. I think that humans are overly smug about their having language when so many other members of the animal kingdom do not. Perhaps all those other species process thoughts and feelings equally well using other means of which we are unaware. We really do not know if cats or other animals can process thoughts and feelings without language or not. Does this mean that music has no meaning if it lacks words? Or does it merely have meanings that are extraverbal? I believe that music expresses meanings and feelings that are too profound for words.
> 
> :tiphat:
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> George


interesting thought. You know, my day job is writing software. I've found that I have a gift that lets me work about twice as fast as everybody else. I've never been diagnosed or anything, but I think I might be a touch autistic. when I am really thinking, I am thinking in an abstract sort of "language" (for lack of other term) of my own. I think directly in the logical structure. I often have a hard time describing ideas to coworkers because I didn't arrive at the idea with English. Its like I have to "translate" the idea into English to be able to explain it.

I think this is why I gravitated to music at a young age. I have a bit of social anxiety, and for me playing music was a sort of social enabler. Also explains why all my friends are musicians.

but your ideas about the process of thinking and thinking without the benefit of language is interesting.

I'm glad you cycled back and expanded on your first post...which I thought was pretty good on its own, BTW.


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## tdc

Nate Miller said:


> I often have a hard time describing ideas to coworkers because I didn't arrive at the idea with English. Its like I have to "translate" the idea into English to be able to explain it.


I think verbal language is a crude form of communication and what you are describing here is what I am talking about. I do believe humans can continue to expand our mental capacities in order to communicate those abstract ideas telepathically in a more clear and efficient way. Music stimulates things in the mind that are difficult to translate into verbal language which is very limited.



Mal said:


> I think naturalists should accept the importance of music like that of Beethoven and Mahler, which stimulates all the emotions and feelings to be found in the well lived life of a genius. Their symphonies generate the most complex emotions, and feelings, not just the simple pleasure that you get from cheesecake.


I agree with the gist of this, (that music is complex nourishment, not trivial) but I'm not sure I agree with the statement that the music of Beethoven and Mahler "stimulates all the emotions and feelings to be found in the well lived life of a genius". I think you have found a poetic way of pointing to something profound that can be found in the music of those composers. It might shed some light on their music but I think it is still unfortunately inaccurate (yet still insightful and not without merit).


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## Strange Magic

Mal said:


> Stephen Pinker (in)famously called music "cheesecake for the mind" when giving a key speech to a conference of musicologists. He was belittling great music by equating it with a "fun" food that's not very nutritious. Also, he was taking it right out of the spiritual world by suggesting it was a simple pleasure for the mind, rather than complex spiritual nourishment for the soul.
> 
> Naturalist accounts, like Pinker's, have this tendency to trivialise music, but the Idealist/Romantic approach, while not belittling music, gets rather vague, and the "God and soul" talk puts many people off. I think naturalists should accept the importance of music like that of Beethoven and Mahler, which stimulates all the emotions and feelings to be found in the well lived life of a genius. Their symphonies generate the most complex emotions, and feelings, not just the simple pleasure that you get from cheesecake.


I know that one can recognize and celebrate the music of Beethoven, Mahler, and whatever other composers you choose to name, and retain a larger group of those who agree, by simply substituting the words "complex emotional nourishment for the mind" for "complex spiritual nourishment for the soul".


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## Lenny

Nate Miller said:


> interesting thought. You know, my day job is writing software. I've found that I have a gift that lets me work about twice as fast as everybody else. I've never been diagnosed or anything, but I think I might be a touch autistic. when I am really thinking, I am thinking in an abstract sort of "language" (for lack of other term) of my own. I think directly in the logical structure. I often have a hard time describing ideas to coworkers because I didn't arrive at the idea with English. Its like I have to "translate" the idea into English to be able to explain it.


Interesting! I also work with software, and I'm pretty good at it. If someone asks me what I'm thinking when I'm writing, I wouldn't know what to say. I feel like thinking nothing, but in reality it is somehow iterative, intuitive process of thinking, but I cannot explain it any further. I just "know" what to do. Sometimes this knowledge leads me to wrong direction though... I'd say my ways of working are not really economic, I waste a lot of energy if something goes wrong.

I also used to create electronic music and I'd describe the process of creation exactly the same - no idea. But feeling certainly, hectic, almost ecstatic rush. I know this is strange thing to say, but my biggest and best achievents in the software world have a lot of feeling put into them. Not to much rational, logical or intelligent thinking (at least not on the concious level). I hear a lot my creations are "out of the box", which is to say, good.

I'm afraid this is a bit off topic now, but I'm interested in how do you see the difference in creating SW and music?


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## Barelytenor

Nate Miller said:


> interesting thought. You know, my day job is writing software. I've found that I have a gift that lets me work about twice as fast as everybody else. I've never been diagnosed or anything, but I think I might be a touch autistic. when I am really thinking, I am thinking in an abstract sort of "language" (for lack of other term) of my own. I think directly in the logical structure. I often have a hard time describing ideas to coworkers because I didn't arrive at the idea with English. Its like I have to "translate" the idea into English to be able to explain it.
> 
> I think this is why I gravitated to music at a young age. I have a bit of social anxiety, and for me playing music was a sort of social enabler. Also explains why all my friends are musicians.
> 
> but your ideas about the process of thinking and thinking without the benefit of language is interesting.
> 
> I'm glad you cycled back and expanded on your first post...which I thought was pretty good on its own, BTW.


Thank you. I suffered from social anxiety when I was an awkward adolescent and was a 'human calculator"/obsessive back then. But performing, e.g. being able to act the part of someone other than myself, brought me out of that and into loving music. So now I am still obsessive about numbers, languages, and music (this could be a great different thread as well).

Since I have sung in so many different languages during my career and tried to learn them all as best as I can, I am well aware that there are words in one language that do not have a precise translation into another. Разгул in Russian is the first one that pops to mind. (It requires a small paragraph.)

I tend to think of meaning as a vast cloud of information or a giant mathematical set. Some languages (draw a circle) intersect with these bits, other languages (draw partially overlapping circles) intersect with some of those same bits and some new ones. And some bits remain outside of each circle's language. Music captures some of those.

Now I'm going to go back to my prime factorizations and listen to some more of Siegfried. My goodness, that opera is overlong.

:tiphat:

Kind regards,

George


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## Mal

I used to develop software for a living, but prefer to listen to music, or read novels. All these activities can get you into a flow state, where you are using all your mind through performance of some task, which (as happiness gurus remind us...) can be very satisfying. But in listening to great music, and reading great novels, you have a great artist 'on your side', generating complex emotions in your mind, as well as just occupying it, so (all being well!) there's greater satisfaction in artistic pursuits then there is in programming or playing computer games.


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## Barbebleu

I'm not at all sure that all professional musicians gain any more understanding of the music they perform simply because they have technical knowledge. Many years ago I was leaving a performance of Rosenkavalier in Edinburgh and I saw walking ahead of me a member of the orchestra carrying his violin case. You might think you can leave a theatre quickly but you have to be fleet of foot to beat a member of the orchestra out the door. 

I had only recently discovered the delights of Richard Strauss and was full of the joys of discovery of something great and new. I complimented the guy on a great performance and he gave me a grunt of acknowledgement. I said that it must be wonderful to be playing music like Rosenkavalier on a regular basis but his response kind of deflated the evening for me. Basically he didn't really like Strauss or opera at all for that matter and evenings like this were really "just a job" to him and he was keen to get home to his bed etc. etc. 

So, I thought, if he isn't really engaging emotionally with the music then what in the music is engaging emotionally with me? It must be the combination of notes and their arrangement and structure that are connecting with me if the performer is doing nothing more than playing the notes as written on the page. What are anyone else's thoughts on this. I realise that the conductor is doing his best to get something out of the orchestra and singers too but if some of the performers don't really care what is it that we are really hearing?


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## Nate Miller

well, I know that when you play a lot, not every night is a good night. You'll have bad nights, too. In fact, among musicians, it is consistency that we admire in a player because we all know how hard that is to do night in and night out.

Also, when you play for a living, I can guarantee you that a player is not going to be emotionally engaged in every single piece that is played. Sometimes you have to play pieces you don't even like. That's why you are getting paid.

but more than that...I've said before that I'm a musician, not a method actor. If I were emotionally engaged in everything I played every time, I would need to practice that way. That just isn't how it's done because we would all be stark raving schizophrenics by the middle of the week, and we still have 3 shows to do this Saturday.

what players work on is exactly this "connecting of the dots". these are musical ideas. Some ideas only have meaning in the context of that one piece, but that is what we have to bring out of the work. When I am playing a Bach piece and I have an inner line moving within the interval of a 10th, my margin of error is probably less than a millimeter or I dampen the strings that are carrying the line. I can't be emotional about something like that. But if I can play it and bring that line out, then the listener might be able to feel the emotion and passion that is part of their aesthetic experience. But me? no, I'm trying to keep my emotions and my inner monologue (inner dialog if I'm playing a fugue) quiet so that it doesn't get in the way of the playing.


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## Barbebleu

I imagine it is different for musicians who do a lot of improvising e.g. jazz musicians, where without emotion and engagement with what they are playing it is going to be pretty soulless which will impact on the listener. Archie Shepp just going through the motions would be an extremely joyless experience.


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## Heck148

Barbebleu said:


> So, I thought, if he isn't really engaging emotionally with the music then what in the music is engaging emotionally with me? It must be the combination of notes and their arrangement and structure that are connecting with me if the performer is doing nothing more than playing the notes as written on the page. What are anyone else's thoughts on this. I realise that the conductor is doing his best to get something out of the orchestra and singers too but if some of the performers don't really care what is it that we are really hearing?


Professional musicians can be emotionally detached, and may not even like the music they are playing, but they will play it convincingly, expressively because they are professionals. You witnessed a musician leaving post-performance, with a disinterested, inexpressive shrug. But that's verylikely not how that musician played on stage. Musicians are paid to play expressively, accurately, convincingly, and that's what we do.
I've never much enjoyed playing Rachmaninoff - way too thick, jillions of notes, most all of which are covered up and obscured by the sonic murk or over-orchestration. Still, I will always play as expressively as I can, and try to project that expression to the audience. 
Musicians may being having off-days, may not fell well, car just died, the furnace crapped out in the middle of winter, same hassles with which everyone deals...still you play your best...even if you go on automatic pilot. That does not mean just playing the notes, it means, at the very least - playing the phrases expressively and being attentive to ensemble.


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## Nate Miller

Barbebleu said:


> I imagine it is different for musicians who do a lot of improvising e.g. jazz musicians, where without emotion and engagement with what they are playing it is going to be pretty soulless which will impact on the listener. Archie Shepp just going through the motions would be an extremely joyless experience.


even there...I cut my teeth playing jazz, and when you are at your best you are in the flow state where you really aren't thinking about anything.

this is hard to describe. Heck148 says it pretty well. But when I'm engaged in playing I am emotionally detached. That's different than being like a robot. Its a state of mind that I want to be at when I perform. But I don't "put on" different emotions to fit different tunes. that would be like being an actor.


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## Heck148

Nate Miller said:


> ...when you are at your best you are in the flow state where you really aren't thinking about anything..... ......when I'm engaged in playing I am emotionally detached. But That's different than being like a robot. Its a state of mind that I want to be at when I perform.


Yes, when everything is going well, you just play, and it seems relatively effortless...for me [bassoonist] the reeds are working great, the response and pitch are right on, very dependable...you just get in the groove and play.
other times, it's much harder "work". but you still must sound your best, so you do what you have to do to make it happen.

The audience should never be able to tell whether you like that particular music or not...it should sound the best you can make it, regardless of your personal preference.


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## EdwardBast

Truth or entertainment? This is a false dichotomy with an enormous excluded middle. Aesthetic pleasure and contemplation, the central reactions of people with an ounce of sensitivity to great art, musical or otherwise, have no necessary connection to truth and are not captured by the word entertainment either. So my answer is neither. 

Sequences of moods or states of being with obvious metaphorical resonance in human experience, like, for example, musical progressions from instability and chaos to stability and order, certainly have the ring of truth, since when those kind of sequences occur in mental life they tend to be tied to important life events. But I think it would be just as accurate to say composers use such resonant sequences to make music sound coherent as it would be to say they organize music in such ways in order to embody universal "truths." The simulation of psychological truth is a technique for imposing musical order.


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## MarkW

Emotional disengagement . . .
I remember reading an interview with, I believe, Beverly Sills in a Sunday magazine many years (decades) ago. In it, she admitted that there were times onstage when she thought she was emoting like crazy, when by acclamation afterwards her performance was derided. Other times people raved about a particular aria, when she recalled she was trying to remember a recipe at the time.


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## JAS

tdc said:


> I think verbal language is a crude form of communication and what you are describing here is what I am talking about. I do believe humans can continue to expand our mental capacities in order to communicate those abstract ideas telepathically in a more clear and efficient way. Music stimulates things in the mind that are difficult to translate into verbal language which is very limited.


Well, at least here in the US, I think the recent elections put a damper on the idea that we are intellectually evolving. (In any case, while the idea of telepathy makes for good science fiction, I don't think there is any good evidence to suggest that it actually exists. And I have often thought that one of the best ideas in the design of our reality, such as it is, is that we cannot read each others minds. If we could, I doubt that the human race would have lasted for more than one generation.)


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## JAS

Nate Miller said:


> interesting thought. You know, my day job is writing software. I've found that I have a gift that lets me work about twice as fast as everybody else. I've never been diagnosed or anything, but I think I might be a touch autistic. when I am really thinking, I am thinking in an abstract sort of "language" (for lack of other term) of my own. I think directly in the logical structure. I often have a hard time describing ideas to coworkers because I didn't arrive at the idea with English. Its like I have to "translate" the idea into English to be able to explain it.


I have often been aware of the fact that I had an idea, but had to exert a good deal of effort to wrestle that idea out of whatever less-verbal part of my brain had the idea. It is a very strange sensation when it happens. This situation has most often occurred when I was dealing with a particularly troublesome problem, and the solution was complicated and/or very much out of whatever path I was pursing in attempting to solve it. I suppose something of this sort has often been misattributed (at least I think it would be a misattribution) to divine inspiration.

I have often heard or read, in science-oriented stories or articles, that mathematics is some kind of universal language (and music and mathematics have often been associated in some ways). What I have wondered is how one would communicate in such a language. It seems to me that it is limited to certain kinds of concepts, and there would still be a considerable problem in agreeing on the symbols and patters of expression if we were to encounter a completely different species that had also developed a mathematical understanding.


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## JAS

EdwardBast said:


> Truth or entertainment? This is a false dichotomy with an enormous excluded middle. Aesthetic pleasure and contemplation, the central reactions of people with an ounce of sensitivity to great art, musical or otherwise, have no necessary connection to truth and are not captured by the word entertainment either. So my answer is neither.
> 
> Sequences of moods or states of being with obvious metaphorical resonance in human experience, like, for example, musical progressions from instability and chaos to stability and order, certainly have the ring of truth, since when those kind of sequences occur in mental life they tend to be tied to important life events. But I think it would be just as accurate to say composers use such resonant sequences to make music sound coherent as it would be to say they organize music in such ways in order to embody universal "truths." The simulation of psychological truth is a technique for imposing musical order.


I think I like these statements very much (which presumably means that I agree with them). There is a considerable kind of pleasure in anticipating and in "getting" the pattern of a musical piece. When I hear a piece that is new to me, a piece that connects to me in some way, the sensation is never quite recaptured in a subsequent hearing although something approaching it may last through several hearings. (I can sometimes get at least some of that sensation back if I avoid hearing a piece for long enough that I mostly forget the details.) For me, and I fully realize that this is a matter of personal taste, it is when this pattern recognition is connected to what I must abstractly refer to as beauty (harmony, melody, lyricism, etc.) that makes me gravitate to a piece. (And it may also be why I don't have any special appreciation for much modern, or what I usually call "academic" music. In many cases, I never get a sense of the pattern, and even if I do get that sense, the overall effect is away from rather than towards beauty, again using the term in a general and perhaps personal sense.) There must be some additional mysterious element that makes some melodies, for me, more appealing than others.


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