I know what you are thinking; how did he find a good article in, of all places, the Globe and Mail! Easy, I looked. I know I kick around this newspaper a lot, because they usually deserve it. But it is only fair to recognize a good article. That's why I want to put up this link to an article on education and philosophy by Mark Kingwell. I know it is not directly music related, but it is full of such good sense that I wanted to link to it.
Latest Article Get our latest posts by subscribing this site
Relativism hasn't won--not completely
Posted by Unknown
Posted on 6:55 AM
with No comments
One of the things hampering criticism generally and music criticism in particular, is the assumption of relativism. The Latin maxim "de gustibus non est disputandum" meaning "there is no arguing about taste" is often used as a stopper to end any disagreements about taste. I dislike this kind of injunction on argument because, as one with some background in philosophy, I regard argument--the philosophical kind--as being the best way to uncover truths and untruths. The idea that all tastes are equivalent is an odd one. The perfect philosophical counter to the statement "everything is relative" is the rejoinder "is that an absolute truth?"
The idea of taste itself may seem a bit out of step with our times, but lots of valuable things are so that doesn't bother me in the least. Tastes do certainly vary from one person to another and, even more interesting, from one period in a person's life to another. I've just been reading in The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics (published in 2004 so reasonably up to date) and discovered a useful essay by Ted Cohen on "The Philosophy of Taste: Thoughts on the Idea". I won't recapitulate his discussion, but take it as a springboard for my own.
Just looking at a single person's history of taste, it is perfectly normal for it to change over time. Musically, for example, it is entirely usual for one's taste to change over time, especially if one is undertaking a course of study in music. With exposure to more and more different styles in music, different historical periods and with training in theory and audible recognition (ear-training), one's taste develops. It becomes possible to distinguish different kinds of music just as one might distinguish different varietals of grapes from going to organized wine-tastings. With the ability to distinguish French Baroque music from Italian or the lute fantasias of John Dowland from those of Francesco da Milano might also come the slightly different ability to distinguish greater from lesser quality--to be able to hear the difference between the counterpoint of Bach from that of, say, Telemann.
If one's taste can develop with exposure, training and study, then the only way to make sense of this is to assume something like a 'standard of taste'. One can only understand one's own improved taste over time in terms of being able to better distinguish the elements of a musical composition and comprehend better its structure and expression. To those for whom relativism is an 'absolute truth' this may well be anathema, but relativism exacts an enormous price: not only does it make it impossible to discuss disagreements over taste, it even makes it impossible to understand one's own improvement in taste over time.
I am always looking to improve my own musical taste because I believe there is a direct link between that and my compositional choices. It is of enormous benefit if I can look at something I just wrote and say, "hmm, well, that's not quite good enough..." If I can do that with my own music, then why can't I do that with the music of others? Assuming one has the necessary competence, of course.
The idea of taste itself may seem a bit out of step with our times, but lots of valuable things are so that doesn't bother me in the least. Tastes do certainly vary from one person to another and, even more interesting, from one period in a person's life to another. I've just been reading in The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics (published in 2004 so reasonably up to date) and discovered a useful essay by Ted Cohen on "The Philosophy of Taste: Thoughts on the Idea". I won't recapitulate his discussion, but take it as a springboard for my own.
Just looking at a single person's history of taste, it is perfectly normal for it to change over time. Musically, for example, it is entirely usual for one's taste to change over time, especially if one is undertaking a course of study in music. With exposure to more and more different styles in music, different historical periods and with training in theory and audible recognition (ear-training), one's taste develops. It becomes possible to distinguish different kinds of music just as one might distinguish different varietals of grapes from going to organized wine-tastings. With the ability to distinguish French Baroque music from Italian or the lute fantasias of John Dowland from those of Francesco da Milano might also come the slightly different ability to distinguish greater from lesser quality--to be able to hear the difference between the counterpoint of Bach from that of, say, Telemann.
If one's taste can develop with exposure, training and study, then the only way to make sense of this is to assume something like a 'standard of taste'. One can only understand one's own improved taste over time in terms of being able to better distinguish the elements of a musical composition and comprehend better its structure and expression. To those for whom relativism is an 'absolute truth' this may well be anathema, but relativism exacts an enormous price: not only does it make it impossible to discuss disagreements over taste, it even makes it impossible to understand one's own improvement in taste over time.
I am always looking to improve my own musical taste because I believe there is a direct link between that and my compositional choices. It is of enormous benefit if I can look at something I just wrote and say, "hmm, well, that's not quite good enough..." If I can do that with my own music, then why can't I do that with the music of others? Assuming one has the necessary competence, of course.
The Music of Plants
Posted by Unknown
Posted on 7:15 AM
with No comments
In the local paper yesterday there was an article about an art installation at our botanical gardens. It began with this sentence: "Plants are capable of producing extraordinarily sweet and relaxing music." That does bring to mind a begonia I once knew that really had a way with Ravel... The article goes on to mention that the artist wants to "appeal to the free exercise of human spirit that searches to solve enigmas and mysteries through sensations and emotions." Well you might search for some explanation or description of these enigmas and mysteries, but I'm afraid the rest is just more of the same. I was sitting with an artist acquaintance when we ran across this and for some reason I went into my guerrilla musicologist mode where I hoist the black flag and start being provocative. I said that plants don't make music, she said, it's an art installation, I said, but it says it's 'music' so that puts it on my turf and so on. I ended up by claiming that I strove to have the narrowest, most closed-minded approach to music possible. At which point, everyone laughed.
Isn't it odd that if you say very radical and possibly true things in a certain tone of voice, everyone will chuckle and think you are charming? But if you say them in the voice of a jihadist fanatic, everyone will back away slowly. You see I do work to have a narrow, though I like to call it 'focused', approach to music. I think if you set out to "solve enigmas and mysteries through sensations and emotions" you just end up wallowing in confusion because you don't actually know what you are doing. Some people tend to use words for their color without actually knowing what they mean. What I try to do is look at the specifics. If you look over the posts on this blog, which range from discussions of John Cage, to gamelan, to U2, to Radiohead, to Bach, to Mozart and on and on--if you look at the list of posts you might think that I am very open-minded and diverse in my tastes. I'm really not. I only like good music. But you can find good music in a lot of surprising places. Unfortunately you also find bad music in those same places. There is a lot of very bad classical music. It won't cause you to bleed from your ears like some genres of pop music, but you will be regretting that part of your life you lost forever listening to it!
This brings to mind a principle that Karl Popper contributed to the philosophy of science: empirical falsification. This roughly means that any genuine scientific theory must, in principle, be falsifiable. It must be possible to make empirical observations that could confirm or deny the theory. I apply this to music criticism in this way: it must be possible to decide whether a piece of music is worth listening to or not. There must be qualities that the piece possesses that we can hear and enjoy--enjoy in the widest possible sense. That seems rather simple and obvious, but some kinds of music don't have these qualities. Music from plants (which is actually sounds produced by an artist installation), for example. Or music written so as to defy any aesthetic judgment by using chance procedures or just silences. If the composer has no aesthetic intentions, then one can hardly accuse him of failure! This was the point of my joking remark in a previous post on John Cage's Water Walk, when I accused him of making several mistakes in the performance. If you cannot make mistakes, if it cannot be a bad performance, then it certainly can't be a good performance. This is the principle of falsifiability...
Here is John Cage playing an amplified cactus and plant materials with a feather so you can hear for yourself:
Isn't it odd that if you say very radical and possibly true things in a certain tone of voice, everyone will chuckle and think you are charming? But if you say them in the voice of a jihadist fanatic, everyone will back away slowly. You see I do work to have a narrow, though I like to call it 'focused', approach to music. I think if you set out to "solve enigmas and mysteries through sensations and emotions" you just end up wallowing in confusion because you don't actually know what you are doing. Some people tend to use words for their color without actually knowing what they mean. What I try to do is look at the specifics. If you look over the posts on this blog, which range from discussions of John Cage, to gamelan, to U2, to Radiohead, to Bach, to Mozart and on and on--if you look at the list of posts you might think that I am very open-minded and diverse in my tastes. I'm really not. I only like good music. But you can find good music in a lot of surprising places. Unfortunately you also find bad music in those same places. There is a lot of very bad classical music. It won't cause you to bleed from your ears like some genres of pop music, but you will be regretting that part of your life you lost forever listening to it!
This brings to mind a principle that Karl Popper contributed to the philosophy of science: empirical falsification. This roughly means that any genuine scientific theory must, in principle, be falsifiable. It must be possible to make empirical observations that could confirm or deny the theory. I apply this to music criticism in this way: it must be possible to decide whether a piece of music is worth listening to or not. There must be qualities that the piece possesses that we can hear and enjoy--enjoy in the widest possible sense. That seems rather simple and obvious, but some kinds of music don't have these qualities. Music from plants (which is actually sounds produced by an artist installation), for example. Or music written so as to defy any aesthetic judgment by using chance procedures or just silences. If the composer has no aesthetic intentions, then one can hardly accuse him of failure! This was the point of my joking remark in a previous post on John Cage's Water Walk, when I accused him of making several mistakes in the performance. If you cannot make mistakes, if it cannot be a bad performance, then it certainly can't be a good performance. This is the principle of falsifiability...
Here is John Cage playing an amplified cactus and plant materials with a feather so you can hear for yourself:
Music and Emotion
Posted by Unknown
Posted on 9:23 AM
with No comments
Philosophers talk about emotions as having objects. If you are angry, you are angry about something or at someone. If you are sad, you are sad about something, the same with happy. They contrast object-directed emotions with moods, which don't have an object. Moods are things like cheerful or gloomy feelings that do not relate to anything in particular. This is a simplification, of course. Here is an article with more detail--see especially section 3 on emotions and intentional objects.
What does this have to do with music? We sometimes talk about music as being sad or happy. There is an anecdote about Schubert that applies. He had played at a salon in Vienna and afterwards someone came up and asked him why his music was always sad. He replied that all music is sad. Perhaps true of Romantic music, but certainly not of Classical or Baroque music. I want to propose that music is neither happy nor sad, nor does it really depict other ordinary emotions. The reason is those objects: music has no object. If there is a piece of music that is slow, languorous, gloomy, we may well talk about it as being 'sad', but it is sadness without an object, therefore a mood, not an emotion. Wagner called the first movement of Beethoven's string quartet in C# minor, op 131, the saddest thing in all music. Here it is:
If it is truly sad, then why do we enjoy listening to this and similar music? I think the answer is that it is only 'sad' by metaphor. This, and all music without any text, is really only 'about' musical beauty. We enjoy beauty in music. Sometimes that beauty comes in slow, languorous forms and sometimes it comes in bright, sparkling forms. Here is the very next movement of the quartet:
Similarly, there is no such thing as 'angry' music: music doesn't make us angry and composers are not angry when they write it. This is why I am always a little leery of attaching much importance to biographical details as a guide to what a piece of music 'means'. Music, again, music without text or lyrics, doesn't mean anything in the usual sense. Perhaps I should say "most music" because there are some interesting exceptions. Sometimes composers have been known to code meaning into a piece through the use of either notes that refer to someone or something, or to construct music with some numerological significance. This is interesting, of course, but it is essentially an extra-musical ploy or reference.
One famous example is Shostakovich's coding of his own initials into several pieces. When speaking the names of the notes in German, E flat is 'es' and B natural is 'h'. Therefore DSCH stands for Dmitri Shostakovich and corresponds to the notes D, E flat, C and B natural. Here is the opening of his Eighth String Quartet, which is permeated with this figure:
Bach did the same at the end of the Art of Fugue with a new subject using the notes BACH. Another example from Bach is the first fugue, in C major, from the Well-Tempered Clavier that uses a subject of exactly 14 notes. B = 2, A = 1, C = 3 and H = 8 for a total of 14. One musicologist claims that the Mass in B minor, also by Bach, uses numerology as well. There are, apparently 2345 measures in the whole piece and the only repeated music, the Dona nobis pacem, is based on a theme that begins with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th scale degrees. Well, maybe... In any case, these coded references are essentially non-musical and while they may be significant, it is something apart from the fundamental musical structure.
But music can have a dramatic effect on us, making us tap our foot, move our head, breath more heavily, even tingle with goose-bumps. How does it do this? I don't think we really know, though in a neurological lab at McGill University, they are looking at the brain to see if they can find out. I think I prefer to think of it as a mystery: how mere vibrations in the air, impinging on our ears, can have such a profound effect.
What does this have to do with music? We sometimes talk about music as being sad or happy. There is an anecdote about Schubert that applies. He had played at a salon in Vienna and afterwards someone came up and asked him why his music was always sad. He replied that all music is sad. Perhaps true of Romantic music, but certainly not of Classical or Baroque music. I want to propose that music is neither happy nor sad, nor does it really depict other ordinary emotions. The reason is those objects: music has no object. If there is a piece of music that is slow, languorous, gloomy, we may well talk about it as being 'sad', but it is sadness without an object, therefore a mood, not an emotion. Wagner called the first movement of Beethoven's string quartet in C# minor, op 131, the saddest thing in all music. Here it is:
If it is truly sad, then why do we enjoy listening to this and similar music? I think the answer is that it is only 'sad' by metaphor. This, and all music without any text, is really only 'about' musical beauty. We enjoy beauty in music. Sometimes that beauty comes in slow, languorous forms and sometimes it comes in bright, sparkling forms. Here is the very next movement of the quartet:
Similarly, there is no such thing as 'angry' music: music doesn't make us angry and composers are not angry when they write it. This is why I am always a little leery of attaching much importance to biographical details as a guide to what a piece of music 'means'. Music, again, music without text or lyrics, doesn't mean anything in the usual sense. Perhaps I should say "most music" because there are some interesting exceptions. Sometimes composers have been known to code meaning into a piece through the use of either notes that refer to someone or something, or to construct music with some numerological significance. This is interesting, of course, but it is essentially an extra-musical ploy or reference.
One famous example is Shostakovich's coding of his own initials into several pieces. When speaking the names of the notes in German, E flat is 'es' and B natural is 'h'. Therefore DSCH stands for Dmitri Shostakovich and corresponds to the notes D, E flat, C and B natural. Here is the opening of his Eighth String Quartet, which is permeated with this figure:
Bach did the same at the end of the Art of Fugue with a new subject using the notes BACH. Another example from Bach is the first fugue, in C major, from the Well-Tempered Clavier that uses a subject of exactly 14 notes. B = 2, A = 1, C = 3 and H = 8 for a total of 14. One musicologist claims that the Mass in B minor, also by Bach, uses numerology as well. There are, apparently 2345 measures in the whole piece and the only repeated music, the Dona nobis pacem, is based on a theme that begins with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th scale degrees. Well, maybe... In any case, these coded references are essentially non-musical and while they may be significant, it is something apart from the fundamental musical structure.
But music can have a dramatic effect on us, making us tap our foot, move our head, breath more heavily, even tingle with goose-bumps. How does it do this? I don't think we really know, though in a neurological lab at McGill University, they are looking at the brain to see if they can find out. I think I prefer to think of it as a mystery: how mere vibrations in the air, impinging on our ears, can have such a profound effect.
Music and Philosophy
Posted by Unknown
Posted on 6:57 AM
with No comments
In the header to this blog I mention classical music, popular culture and philosophy, but I haven't given you any philosophy yet, right? Well, not so. Due to a youthful exposure to philosophy (at one point I seriously considered switching my major) a bit of it permeates all my thinking.
I recently read a book, Understanding Music: Philosophy and Interpretation by Roger Scruton. While I find some of his ideas a bit puzzling, he really hits the nail on the head sometimes. He points out some interesting consequences of the criticism of Theodor Adorno, the critical theorist and composition student of Alban Berg. Adorno was vehemently dismissive of all popular music. In this blanket condemnation he opened the door for a later generation of musicologists to the inverse proposition that popular music must be accepted in its entirety. As Scruton says,
Ironically, Lennon was sued by Chuck Berry for plagiarism because one line of the lyrics references a Chuck Berry lyric. I pretty much chose these two songs at random, though after picking the U2 song, I did try and find a Beatles tune that was not in a wildly different style. Listen to them and see if you think that Scruton had a point. Is the U2 song cliched and lifeless compared to the Lennon song?
I recently read a book, Understanding Music: Philosophy and Interpretation by Roger Scruton. While I find some of his ideas a bit puzzling, he really hits the nail on the head sometimes. He points out some interesting consequences of the criticism of Theodor Adorno, the critical theorist and composition student of Alban Berg. Adorno was vehemently dismissive of all popular music. In this blanket condemnation he opened the door for a later generation of musicologists to the inverse proposition that popular music must be accepted in its entirety. As Scruton says,
A blanket criticism is no criticism at all. Hence, when pop dawned on the world of musicology it was as a field of study in which the critic was denied a voice. It is precisely in this way that Adorno has been useful to the postmodern musicologist. By presenting judgment as a form of total condemnation, Adorno consigned judgement to the dustheap. He presented the musicological world with a dichotomy that facilitated the very view that he abhorred. Either total condemnation, or 'anything goes'. It is only by making discriminations within the realm of popular music that we can encourage young people to recognize the difference between genuine musical sentiment and kitsch, between beauty and ugliness, between the life-affirming and the life-denying, the inspired and the routine--in short between The Beatles and U2.Heh. I love the last, throw-away, smear of U2 and I wish he had gone on to some specifics. In this blog, I very much believe in valid criticism as you may have noticed. In fact, it's all about criticism and I try my best to show that it is ultimately a positive force. We are inundated with music of all kinds, from all cultures and all times. Only some of it is really worth our time. How do we sort it out?
Ironically, Lennon was sued by Chuck Berry for plagiarism because one line of the lyrics references a Chuck Berry lyric. I pretty much chose these two songs at random, though after picking the U2 song, I did try and find a Beatles tune that was not in a wildly different style. Listen to them and see if you think that Scruton had a point. Is the U2 song cliched and lifeless compared to the Lennon song?
