# The Belief That Music Is Not A Fundamental Art



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Here are several quotes from an article that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly a little over 10 years ago:



> *1. Hardly anyone seems to remember that music stands fairly low on the traditional list of devices by which we try to understand human experience. It's a thin rather than an intellectually thick art form. Who ever learned anything from music except the emotional power of music?
> 
> 2. Plato was deeply suspicious of music for much the same reason Nietzsche celebrated it: in its direct appeal to the emotions, music seems to reach behind our rational faculties. "When a man abandons himself to music," Plato declared in the Republic, "he begins to melt and liquefy."
> 
> ...




RTWT here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/03/bottum.htm

It's a lengthy and discursive piece (and a bit reductionist) but I was wondering if anyone here agrees with the author's basic premises and conclusions?

I must say that deep down I probably agree with his main points (which are highly relevant) but what I also find interesting is that this article which basically dismisses the claims of music as a fundamental art -- was published in a major American magazine of ideas, and nobody objected (back then). If the _Atlantic Monthly_ had published a similar article dismissing the claims of, say, poetry or film, there would have been hell to pay I imagine.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

All non-literary arts probably tend towards the less obviously intellectual. It surely is rational though than chaotic, and it can certainly be more than just a mist. Music actively engages with you.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Xavier said:


> Here are several quotes from an article that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly a little over 10 years ago:
> 
> [/size][/b][/FONT]
> 
> ...


The reason that there was not much fuss because having just perused the thing I thought :Gobbledegook and ignored it as meaningless.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

These seem to me to be points arguing *for* music as a fundamental art. The so-called _intellectually thick_ arts are emergent; literature relies on man-made language, painting relies on man-made materials, film relies on various advanced industrial processes for the construction of its equipment, and so on. Music's sole material is vibration, something which is innate in all things. I will concede that music as a concept (which I define as "the contextualisation of vibrations") is emergent, but apply that concept to the universe and I think it becomes clear that what it describes is *everything*. By my reckoning you can't get more fundamental than that.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

article said:


> music is not a rational art and cannot express an actual idea.


rational art? I thought philosophy dealt with ideas and art with emotion.


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## Guest (May 22, 2013)

Philosophy deals with ideas and art deals with materials.

Humans are emotional* and are able to respond emotionally to practically anything, art or philosophy.


*I hope I don't get an infraction for saying this. Last time I said this, I did. Possibly not mentioning any names will allow this to slip by unregarded. 

(No, Krummhorn, I will never forget.:devil

((Oops. Just mentioned a name. Damn!))


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Crudblud said:


> These seem to me to be points arguing *for* music as a fundamental art. The so-called _intellectually thick_ arts are emergent; literature relies on man-made language, painting relies on man-made materials, film relies on various advanced industrial processes for the construction of its equipment, and so on. Music's sole material is vibration, something which is innate in all things. I will concede that music as a concept (which I define as "the contextualisation of vibrations") is emergent, but apply that concept to the universe and I think it becomes clear that what it describes is *everything*. By my reckoning you can't get more fundamental than that.


If music's sole material is vibration, that's a little like saying that literature is made up of ink and paper. (Yeah, there are other media that can transmit literature too, so it's an imperfect analogy.) I don't think those vibrations would matter much if not for the (mostly) culturally inherited structures and traditions behind that music.

Maybe you could also claim that visual arts are similarly fundamental in that they rely on the physiological perceptions of various wavelength of light. And the man-made materials of visual arts (paint, canvas, whatever) would be analogous to the various instruments used to create sound.


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Happened to post this yesterday on a 'what you reading?' thread:

This made me think of a lovely thing Richard Taruskin said about Vagn Holmboe. ".....Such music (sym 7) not only demands but also actively induces keen awareness in the listener. ... the analogy that comes to mind is academic discourse of a thrillingly high order. If you have never experienced or cannot imagine an academic thrill, this music may not be for you. But if you have ever left a lecture hall haunted and altered, this disc may offer a comparable cognitive adventure."


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I don't really understand what the point of this article is? What does it even mean by "fundamental art"? Does it refer to the most basic forms of artistic expressions?

Music is probably the most abstract artform there is, because any composition could be interpreted so many ways, but that doesn't mean its incapable of expressing things, its more that the artist doesn't have much control over what is expressed to a listener through they music they created. But what about any other artform? Even things that are very representative, or seem very concrete can be viewed in an infinite number of ways. I could express an idea of love in a piece of music, or in a painting, and somebody could hear the music and think "Adventure!" or see the painting and get the same sort of idea, completely unrelated to the emotional subject I tried to express.


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## TwoFourPianist (Mar 28, 2013)

Why did the great composers write music? To put a roof over thier head, yes. But also to convey the emotion and expression they felt every day. Music is just a set of pitches as paintings are a collection of brush-strokes, just as poetry is a jumble of words.

To listen beyond the set of pitches - that is art.


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

The meanings and values we apply to music or art in general are culturally conditioned. Is it true to state that no one ever learned anything from music? Do tribal rituals, involving circulating sounds and voices are only meaningful in the sense of emotional value, or do they in part _teach_ the essence of being a part of a community, allow to reach mindfulness or peacefulness, working as any other art form - providing a frame to search within?

Any art form separated from the whole context is essentially a "foam", and not the "sea".


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I just finished reading it and I was wondering exactly what was defined as fundamental as well. It seems to focus on the non-fundamental aspects without addressing what is so great in poetry and philosophy which are said to be better. Interesting that other areas such as painting/drawing, sculpture, crafts, film aren't mentioned. Are they considered deficient too?

One assumption seems to be that emotion is somehow free of reason, we "imagine that we must be having a deep thought because we feel it so deeply". But this is later changed to acknowledging the "cathartic purpose to the emotion the music evokes".

This leaves what his actual problem seems to be and that is "the collapse of a common metaphysics that might have given them a purpose and an order". What he doesn't consider though is that this might actually give a freedom which liberates thought and enables a wide range of catharsis. And to say that society now had nothing to express would be surely wrong, and if it was right then surely it would affect all arts. Surely the very gap that he describes between the intent in something when it was originally produced and now would foster an intellectual/emotional interaction with a work rather than a passive engagement. Though he says there is always a gap between the purpose of music and its effect couldn't you say that about other arts anyway? You could argue that words put up even more barriers to meaning across time and cultures than musical notes. In that sense the emotive aspect of music might actually be an advantage in it's continued longevity and universality

And the criticism of lyrics without musical context might be the same as criticising a film script without the visuals or even some dramas which depend heavily on the theatrical action. Music of course is used in both theatre and film as well.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

It may have been printed in a 'major American magazine of ideas' but it reads little different from an angry blog post about loud music. It didn't cause any arguments because most of the readers probably nodded and thought "yes I don't like that noisy techno the young people play".

Name-dropping a few learned folk and their opinion of music doesn't really conceal the article's paucity of thought. This is characterized by first complaining that there's too much music everywhere before offering a clichéd snipe at _4'33"_, rather than seeing the work as having something to say about that musical abundance. He is critical of the unfocused eclecticism of various musicians and styles while being just as eclectic and random in his targets for criticism. He quotes philosophers way out of context and uses those quotes to support or condemn either side of his arguments. Ha! had to read further to when he criticises quotation dictionaries for being filled with lines to impress others with.

He is a poetry editor who recruits Plato to express his disdain for music, conveniently omitting the fact that Plato would have banned poets from his perfect republic. I think this is the root of his complaint: professional jealousy. Pop music became the poetry of the 20th century, its much more immediate, direct and universal appeal, compared to poetry, has upset him.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Art is visual thinking; geometry is visual logic; music is the geometry of sound. Idea? Is a circle an "idea?" Is "1" an idea? If relationship and proportion are rational (ratio), then rationality is about relationships between things, not "things" themselves. So the world becomes endless relationships, endless metaphor.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

If I wanted to be rational, learn something and read about "actual ideas" I would get into science. It seems this writer is confusing art with science. What art expresses is something intangible that cannot be rationalized.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Art is visual thinking; geometry is visual logic; music is the geometry of sound. Idea? Is a circle an "idea?" Is "1" an idea? If relationship and proportion are rational (ratio), then rationality is about relationships between things, not "things" themselves. So the world becomes endless relationships, endless metaphor.


You reminded me of this Youtube video, wherein Anthony Braxton calls composition "sonic geometry" (at about 0:10):


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DeepR said:


> If I wanted to be rational, learn something and read about "actual ideas" I would get into science. It seems this writer is confusing art with science. What art expresses is something intangible that cannot be rationalized.


What about "visual thinkers?" They're not scientists, but they don't deal with "actual ideas" like philosophers do, thoughts derived from thought; they deal with "ideas which exist in reality," and whisper to horses, too.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

apricissimus said:


> You reminded me of this Youtube video, wherein Anthony Braxton calls composition "sonic geometry"...


Groovy! I like Anthony Braxton. He should move on past chess, though...


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

silly article said:


> Hardly anyone seems to remember that music stands fairly low on the traditional list of devices by which we try to understand human experience. It's a thin rather than an intellectually thick art form. Who ever learned anything from music except the emotional power of music?


And how is it that the "emotional power of music" is not relevant for understanding "human experience"?!. 
I would have thought that it was essential!.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

"_Hardly anyone seems to remember that music stands fairly low on the traditional list of devices by which we try to understand human experience_. "

I didn't realise music was a device for understanding human experience. 
I'd say life was a device for understanding music.

If the writer of the article wants to understand human experience he first has to have one and then perhaps visit a shrink to help him understand it.


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## Guest (May 22, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> I'd say life was a device for understanding music.


Petwhac and I do not often agree. But we do on this one. Boy howdy!!:tiphat:


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I'm speechless. That's a person who's just talking hear himself speak.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

GGluek said:


> I'm speechless. That's a person who's just talking hear himself speak.


Who? You didn't quote. Who is?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Petwhac said:


> I'd say life was a device for understanding music.


Yes. I would say that the implication works in both directions, i.e., human experience is a device for understanding music (as you say) and music can be a device for understanding human experience (as I said before).
At least for me, some music makes me more aware of certain things in life, for example.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

What the heck is "fundamental art ?"


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

superhorn said:


> What the heck is "fundamental art ?"


Well, "philosophical postmodernism" has imposed the sad standard in which one can talk about something without even taking the trouble of defining it. Curious that they call themselves "philosophers".


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## Whipsnade (Mar 17, 2011)

This piece reeks of some kind of artistic inferiority complex. Absolute idiocy.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

aleazk said:


> Well, "philosophical postmodernism" has imposed the sad standard in which one can talk about something without even taking the trouble of defining it. Curious that they call themselves "philosophers".


What is philosopher but a liminal exploration of the ongoing dialectic situated between those poles of human experience, bifurcated by the reasons, rationalities, and logics that we use to actualize ourselves into our world-perceptions?


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Who? You didn't quote. Who is?


The original writer.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> What is philosopher but a liminal exploration of the ongoing dialectic situated between those poles of human experience, bifurcated by the reasons, rationalities, and logics that we use to actualize ourselves into our world-perceptions?


Extra points for using "bifurcated."


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> What is philosopher but a liminal exploration of the ongoing dialectic situated between those poles of human experience, bifurcated by the reasons, rationalities, and logics that we use to actualize ourselves into our world-perceptions?


As the close friend of a philosopher, I feel obligated to point out that 1) not all of them talk like that, and 2) the ones that do generally refer to themselves as 'continental' rather than 'postmodern'.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ahammel said:


> As the close friend of a philosopher, I feel obligated to point out that 1) not all of them talk like that, and 2) the ones that do generally refer to themselves as 'continental' rather than 'postmodern'.


I associate that style with humanities academia in general, and have met people (not philosophers) who did refer to themselves as postmodern.

There are continental philosophers who have something to say, but bury it under mounds of the above verbiage, and then there are people who just have verbiage...


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

It seems like the writer of the article believes music is not a "fundamental art" (whatever that means) and is in some ways inferior to other arts because it is not directly representational, making it difficult translate music into other art forms and media. I disagree. The requirement of having to "learn something" that is rational and representational is more relevant to science than to art. Also, music CAN express "an actual idea". For me, the fact that music expresses musical ideas that can stand perfectly fine on their own is why it is truly fundamental art (but of course, I still don't really know what that even means to article's writer).


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Hey now I feel I need to defend postmodern philosophy here. Sure it is often painful nonsense written by lunatics but this article certainly isn't philosophy and if it was it wouldn't be postmodern anyway, just similarly obtuse.

Also, point of order, if you bifurcate with three different things (reasons, rationalities, and logics) then it would surely be quadfuricated.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

quack said:


> Hey now I feel I need to defend postmodern philosophy here. Sure it is often painful nonsense written by lunatics[...]


You're doing an excellent job!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

quack said:


> Also, point of order, if you bifurcate with three different things (reasons, rationalities, and logics) then it would surely be quadfuricated.


Actually, if you bifurcate three times in succession, you're left with eight parts....perhaps?


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, if you bifurcate three times in succession, you're left with eight parts....perhaps?


I count four parts.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Just ask yourself if your response to sound, any sound, is _fundamental_, and you can then skip even wondering what the linked article does or does not say... because it simply won't matter any more.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ahammel said:


> I count four parts.


Depends on whether you split the constituent parts with each new bifurcation....


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## Guest (May 23, 2013)

J Bottum makes some reasonable points, but overlays them with such think repetition about muzak that you tend to lose any sympathy or willingness to try and follow his argument.

Here's one which has been discussed here before...(and is worth consideration rather than summary dismissal)



> no matter how serious and elaborate, a musical composition cannot create its own metaphysical frame entirely from within the music


Here's one that can be summarily dismissed...



> The interesting thing is not that millions of Americans can laugh at the bad lyrics they know but that millions of Americans _know the bad lyrics._


So what. No one is going to make a serious claim that pop lyrics, good or bad, are the point of a song. If music's primary purpose is to 'move' the listener, objecting to its appeal to the emotions is rather like objecting to can-opener's mundane ability to open cans.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I have travelled all over the world and can say that music is pretty fundamental to mankind's nature. The guy decrying it is on his own. He's probably tone deaf as well. I think the article says more about him and his tunnel vision than anything else. Look around you! Music is a fundamental part of the human experience.


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## Guest (May 23, 2013)

> The tragedy we feel listening to a folk ballad, the grace we feel listening to a gospel song, the humor we feel listening to one of Haydn's symphonic jokes, and all the rest of the feelings we can use our vast knowledge of music to call upon: are these actually living emotions, or only their ghosts? Adrift on America's sea of sound -- washed by constant waves of the Monkees in a clothing store, Frank Sinatra in a café, the Cowboy Junkies in a bar -- we have to wonder whether Wallace Stevens and Theodor Adorno didn't have it exactly backwards: the promise of modern music to make us performers of the music of ourselves didn't stupefy us intellectually, it stunted us emotionally. After almost a hundred years of our being increasingly surrounded by music, the emotions of public America seem to have grown poorer and sadder, as though we were no longer fully capable of feeling what we feel -- as though our breadth of musical knowledge had been gained by sacrificing depth of musical emotion.


Actually, he has a point. Not, specifically about America (I wouldn't dare comment, despite the all-pervasive nature of America in the lives of us all, whether we live in the US or not) but about modern society.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

That's also a huge generalisation that he uses for effect. To say everyone is really shallow and just uses music for some background atmosphere or to look good can't be true.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Actually, he has a point. Not, specifically about America (I wouldn't dare comment, despite the all-pervasive nature of America in the lives of us all, whether we live in the US or not) but about modern society.


The passage you quoted in post #42 is wrong in so many ways!
The writer appears to have missed the point of music altogether! The supposed "tragedy", "grace" and "humor" that he claims "we" feel are to do with associations or lyric content or in the case of Haydn, received information.

As for the "emotions of public America" seeming to have grown poorer and sadder!! That is meaningless drivel. I'd love to see some data on that. When exactly did they start keeping records on the quality or character of the "emotions of public America".

What we do have a good body of reference material for is _music journalism_. I'll say no more.......:lol:


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

so it has to be thick now


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## Guest (May 24, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> The passage you quoted in post #42 is wrong in so many ways!
> The writer appears to have missed the point of music altogether! The supposed "tragedy", "grace" and "humor" that he claims "we" feel are to do with associations or lyric content or in the case of Haydn, received information.
> 
> As for the "emotions of public America" seeming to have grown poorer and sadder!! That is meaningless drivel. I'd love to see some data on that. When exactly did they start keeping records on the quality or character of the "emotions of public America".
> ...




I'm not sure he has missed 'the point' of music, but only because there is only 'the point' you and I and the composer might ascribe to it - and they are not necessarily the same points.

As for the emotions he claims we feel - whilst he may be mistaken in assuming that we feel what he feels, his point is precisely yours - they are not real, but 'ghosts'.

I would agree that measuring public emotions is not an easy matter, but i think there may be something in it, if only that, in the UK at least, we are much more exposed to everyone's emotions, and increasingly expected to expose our own. There has been, for example, a proliferation of commemorative flowers at the site of road deaths; microphones thrust into the neighbour's face to ask about the tragedy of the latest innocent to die a tragic death; reality TV that wants to record people's emotions at having the X Factor...

...and the music soundtrack to life that he despises might make its own contribution to our desensitising of emotions.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

The X Factor is not strictly reality TV it's simply a talent show and they've been around since the 60s.

It's true that we are exposed to more now, whether it be brutal documentaries, films that are very explicit, reality TV that exposes people's emotions, even TV news addressing things which before may not have been shown so graphically. But whether this has anything to do with our reactions to a work of art is another matter. Art is rarely as brutally direct as reality, there is often a certain distance through it's conventions (historical roots) that an audience has to negotiate to appreciate it more. This itself means that most art requires engagement and not the kind of immediate gratification that some attribute (sometimes wrongly perhaps) to some aspects of modern culture. 

Indeed maybe the exposing to greater emotion may make us more open to some of the more intense art or appreciate even more that which is more withdrawn and subtle. I'm not sure there is that much which is negative, there is a huge sea of choices out there for people seeking artistic engagement. Some want to see that as a negative as it makes it harder to get a full grasp of things, but others could see it as an opportunity for more variety and discovery than ever before.


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## Guest (May 25, 2013)

starry said:


> The X Factor is not strictly reality TV it's simply a talent show and they've been around since the 60s


I know what the X Factor is. I was deliberately conflating aspects of TV into one and using it as 'synecdoche'.

I think talent shows have been around as long as TV, and I don't recall Hughie Green stirring up the emotions on Opportunity Knocks in quite the same way that we see them stirred up on X Factor.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Oh dear - Hughie Green! Now you've spoiled my morning!


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

There is nothing more fundamental in art than music and visual arts. I would imagine that early music and cave paintings were the very first human expressions that intended to express something by cavemen.


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