Music, Culture and Ideas

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Music, Culture and Ideas

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What is a good music?

• Leonard B. Meyer??, Music, the Arts, and Ideas,
  chapter two
• ("Some Remarks on Value and Greatness in Music"
  ??????????)

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What makes music great?

• What makes music great? In grappling with these
  perplexing problems I have changed my mind many
  times, testing first this view then that finding
  this objection then another to what I thought at
  first to be tenable positions.
• Nor have I as yet arrived at any fixed opinions
  or final conclusions.

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What makes music great?

• "What makes music great?" is one that anyone
  deeply concerned with his art must attempt at
  least to answer. We cannot nor can they for all
  their rationalizations-really escape from the
  problem of value.
• This is true in two senses.
• We are in fact continually making value judgments
  both for ourselves and others. I must choose
  between works, exercising value judgments.
• The second reason - a system or ordering of
  values is implicit in his account of how and what
  art communicates. Indeed, as soon as we say it
  communicates, we introduce values into the
  discussion. At one time I subscribed to I. A.
  Richard's statement that "the two pillars upon
  which a theory of criticism must rest are an
  account of value and an account of communication

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Good Work

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• Bach B minor Mass

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• FRANCESCO GEMINIANI Concerto grosso in E minor,
  Op. 3, No. 3 Allegro    0200

• J. S. Bach
• Fugue in G minor

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Both

• begin on the fifth degree of the scale, move
• to the tonic
• skip an octave, creates a structural gap, a sense
  of incompleteness.
• We expect that the empty space thus outlined will
  be filled-in, made complete.
• This melodic incompleteness is complemented by
  the rhythmic instability of this first musical
  shape. That is, the first separable musical
  events in both themes are up-beats which are
  oriented toward the stability of down-beats.

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Both

• In a sense the structural gap and the rhythmic
  up-beats have established
• musical goals to be reached. We expect the
  melodic line to descend and ultimately
• to come to rest on the tonic note, reaching a
  clear organizing accent in
• the course of this motion.

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Bach

• theme moves down slowly with delays and temporary
  diversions
• through related harmonic areas. It establishes
  various levels of
• melodic activity with various potentials to be
  realized.
• these delays are
• rhythmic as well as melodic

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Geminiani

• moves directly-or almost directly-to its goal.
• The second measure is chromatic and contains a
  potential for different modes of continuation. Of
  these the return to the B is certainly the most
  probable, but only slightly so.
• once the B is reached, the descent to E seems
  almost inevitable. And when the theme falls to
  this obvious consequent with neither
• delay nor diversion, it seems like a blatant
  platitude, a musical cliche

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Geminiani
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Bach
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Robert Penn Warren

• ". . . a poem, to be good, must
• earn itself. It is a motion toward a point of
  rest, but if it is not a resisted motion,
• it is a motion of no consequence.

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Information Theory ?????????

• Resistence - Value
• If we hear only
• a single tone, a great number of different tones
  could follow it with equal probability.
• If a sequence of two tones is heard the number of
  probable consequent tones is somewhat reduced

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Information Theory ?????????

• a situation is highly organized so that the
  possible consequents have a high degree of
  probability,
• then if the probable occurs, the information
  communicated by the message is minimal. If, on
  the other hand,
• the musical situation is less predictable so that
  the antecedent-consequent relationship does not
  have a high degree of probability, then the
  information contained in the musical message will
  be high.
• ". . .the more probable the message, the less its
  information. Clichés,
• for example, are less illuminating than great poem

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Information Theory ?????????

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• She is as tall as Bill is
• She is as tall as Blue
• She is as tall blue lilacs are

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Information Theory ?????????

• desirable and undesirable uncertainty.
• Desirable uncertainty is that which arises as a
  result of the structured probabilities of a
  musical style. Information is a function of such
  uncertainty.
• Undesirable uncertainty arises when the
  probabilities are not known, either because
• the listener's habit responses are not relevant
  to the style or because external interference
  obscures the structure of the situation in
  question

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• ???????????
• ???? a smaller repertory of tones, that the
  distance of these notes from the tonic is
  smaller, that there is a great deal of
  repetition, though often slightly varied
  repetition, and so forth.
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• ????????
• The primitive seeks almost immediate
  gratification for his tendencies whether these be
  biological or musical. Nor can he tolerate
  uncertainty.
• Note, by the way, that popular music can be
  distinguished from real jazz on the same basis.

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• value refers to a quality of musical experience.
  It is inherent neither in the musical object per
  se nor in the mind of the listener per se.
  ??????????????, which takes place within an
  objective tradition, ??????????. ????,
  ???????????????? ?????????? (?????????)???????

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• ??? Sensuous
• ?????Associative-charactering
• ??? Syntactical
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• ??? Sensuous - ????immediate gratification of the
  sensuous and the exclamatory outburst of
  uncontrolled, pent-up energy
• ??? Syntactical ---????delayed gratification
  arising out of the perception of and response to
  the syntactic relationships which shape and mold
  musical experience, whether intellectual or
  emotional.

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• ???The associative may function with either. It
  may color our sensuous pleasures with the
  satisfactions of wish-fulfillment. Or it may
  shape our expectations as to the probabilities of
  musical progress by characterizing musical
  events.
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  ?????????????????. ????, ???????????, ???,
  ?????, ??????????????. ?????????-??????,
  ??????????????,

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• ????, ?????????????????
• ??- ??? vs. ??-???
• ????????? vs. Beethoven??9????
• Debussy ???? VS Beethoven??9
• ???? Relativism ?????????????, ?????.
• ???????, ??????. ?????????????

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• G. H. Mead
• ????????????, ???????, ???????,
  ????(self)??????(itself)???(self), ??????????,
  ?????, ??????????????. (self-realization????)

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• the evaluation of alternative probabilities and
  the retrospective understanding of the
  relationships among musical events as they
  actually occurred leads to??(self-awareness)????(i
  ndividualization) that the syntactical response
  is more valuable than those responses in which
  ?????, losing its identity in voluptuous
  sensation or in the reverie of day-dreams.
• works involving deviation and uncertainty are
  better than those offering more immediate
  satisfaction.
• other modes of enjoyment are not without value,
  but rather that they are of a lesser order of
  value.

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• aside from the most primitive forms of musical
  emotional outburst and the most blatant appeals
  to the sensuous such as one finds in the cheapest
  pop-arrangements,
• no musical works of art in which syntactical
  relationships do not play a significant role. Nor
  will it do to try to arrange musical works in
  order of their syntactical vs. their
  sensuous-associative appeals.
• Debussy????emphasizes the sensuous, is
  syntactically complex-as complex, Mozart's famous
  Piano Sonata in C Major

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• The sensuous-associative is of minor importance
  in the consideration of value
• Music must be evaluated syntactically
• which of two works has greater sensuous appeal or
  evokes more poignant associations ?
• the determinants of value from the syntactical
  viewpoint
• that complexity, size, and length are not in
  themselves virtues.
• the intricate and subtle interconnections of a
  complex work involve considerable resistance and
  uncertainty-and presumably information-value is
  thereby created.

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• This viewpoint seems more plausible
• as we become more familiar with a complex work
  and are therefore better able to comprehend the
  permutations and interrelations among musical
  events, our enjoyment is increased. For the
  information we get out of the work is increased.
• meaningful events
• must arise out of a set of probability
  relationships, a musical style
• the capacity of the human mind to perceive and
  relate patterns to one another and to remember
  them would appear to limit complexity.

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• complexity vs. value
• while complexity is not the sufficient cause of
  value, the implication that the two are in no way
  related is simply not true .
• a relatively simple but touching work
• Schubert's song, "Das Wandern"
• relatively simple pieces such as some of
  Schubert's songs or Chopin's Preludes are
  better-more rewarding than some large and complex
  works, such as, for instance, Strauss' Don
  Quixote. .

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• information is judged not in absolute, but in
  relative terms.
• For we evaluate not only the amount of
  information in a work but also the relationship
  between the stimulus "input" and the actual
  informational "output.
• "principle of psychic economy"
• two pieces - the same amount of information - not
  be equally good - one is less elegant and
  economical than the other.
• a piece which is deficient in elegance may be
  better than a more economical piece because it
  contains substantially more information provides
  a richer musical experience.

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Greatness??

• The content of musical experience is also an
  important aspect of its quality
• the essence of tragedy springs from the fact of
  human dignity
• it is by our power to suffer, that we are of more
  value than the sparrows.
• it is because tragic suffering, arising out of
  the ultimate uncertainties of human existence, is
  able to individualize and purify our wills that
  we are of more value than the sparrows.

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Greatness??

• Evil war, poverty, disease, old age, and all
  other forms of suffering
• they lead to the degradation and dissolution of
  the self.
• The individual will is lost in the primordial
  impulses of the group
• Freud has pointed out
• group "cannot tolerate any delay between its
  desires and the fulfillment of what it desires.
• it brings about a regression toward the
  immaturity of primitivism.

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Greatness??

• However in instances where the individual is able
  to master it through understanding, as Job did,
  suffering may ultimately be good. For though,
  like medical treatment, it is painful, suffering
  may lead to a higher level of consciousness and a
  more sensitive, realistic awareness of the nature
  and meaning of existence. Indeed all maturation,
  all self-discovery, is in the last analysis more
  or less painful.

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Greatness??

• the wonder of great art is this that through it
  we can approach this highest level of
  consciousness and understanding without paying
  the painful price exacted in real life and
  without risking the dissolution of the self which
  real suffering might bring.

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• moral values and
• Moral values deal with what will probably be good
  or bad for men taken as a group
• a normative, relativistic view in which values
  change from culture to culture and from group to
  group within the culture
• individual values.
• Individual values are concerned with experience
  as it relates to particular men and women
• a universal view of value, though recognizing
  that ultimate value goals may be reached by
  somewhat different means in different cultures.
  Indeed it is because the individual dimension of
  value is universal that, where translation is
  possible (as it is not in music), one is able to
  enjoy and value art

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?????????

• moral values and
• Moral values deal with what will probably be good
  or bad for men taken as a group
• a normative, relativistic view in which values
  change from culture to culture and from group to
  group within the culture
• individual values.
• Individual values are concerned with experience
  as it relates to particular men and women
• a universal view of value, though recognizing
  that ultimate value goals may be reached by
  somewhat different means in different cultures.
  Indeed it is because the individual dimension of
  value is universal that, where translation is
  possible (as it is not in music), one is able to
  enjoy and value art
• aesthetic value a part of moral value ???

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John Keats

• Man is originally a poor forked creature subject
  to the same mischances as the beasts of the
  forest, destined to hardships and disquietude of
  some kind or other.. . . The common cognomen of
  this world among the misguided and superstitious
  is "a vale of tears" from which we are to be
  redeemed by a certain arbitrary interposition of
  God and taken to heaven. What a little
  circumscribed straightened notion I Call the
  world if you please "the vale of Soul-making."
  Then you will find out the use of the world.. . .
  I say "soul making1'-Soul as distinguished from
  Intelligence. There may be intelligences or
  sparks of the divinity in millions--but they are
  not souls till they acquire identities, till each
  one is personally itself.. . . How then are Souls
  made?. . . . How but by the medium of a world
  like this?. . . . I will call the world a School
  instituted for the purpose of teaching little
  children how to read-I will call the human heart
  the horn book read in that school-and I will call
  the Child able to read, the Soul made from that
  School and its horn book. Do you not see how
  necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to
  school an Intelligence and make it a soul? A
  place where the heart must feel and suffer in a
  thousand diverse ways.. . . As various as the
  Lives of Men are-so various become their souls,
  and thus does God make individual beings.. . ."