Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Yin and Yang Revisited
In comments to the Masculine/Feminine post, Steve Layton -- do check out the very striking images on his homepage, as he’s a fine artist as well as musician -- made a comment about masculine/feminine being but a single aspect of the yin and yang in music.
This is an interesting and I think viable approach to attaching human personality characteristics to a sonic phenomenon that has theorists trying to “explain” music in terms they may interpret within some cultural context.
It points up something else, though, that has to do with the narrative aspect, or the lack thereof, in musical works. To take one example, Beethoven pretty much invariably takes a narrative approach, a “journey” of a sort, driven by harmonic progression, rhythm, and the other musical parameters that drive a piece forward.
This may derive from a literary model of tension and release, another aspect of the yin and yang perceptions that Mr. Layton relates. My wonderful teacher Martin Mailman once said, “If you write music without direction when you get out of here, it should be because it’s your choice, but not because you can’t.” He would then go on to explain ways to give a piece direction, moving a work forward along the arrow of time.
Layton’s idea that these tensions are inherent in the art itself rings true -- but that may be my own bias.
posted by Cary Boyce
10:42 AM
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