Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
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Monday, March 07, 2005
Sugar and Spice and All That's Nice
It seems to me that this question of the importance of context to meaning is largely a nature/nurture issue. Undeniably, certain musical sounds and gestures evoke certain emotions -- the art of film-score is based heavily on the knowledge of these tropes and the ability to deploy them. William Kimmel's "The Phrygian Inflection and the Appearances of Death in Music" catalogues many instances throughout western musical history of a particular descending half-step gesture signifying death. So, to take Kimmel's example, are we biologically programmed to associate the Phrygian Inflection with Death, or have we been culturally indoctrinated? Surely we have some biological dispositions, but I would suggest that the safe route is to assume that any given association is socialized until we have solid evidence to the contrary. Larry Summers, at Harvard, is not the first, nor will he be the last, to jump to the conclusion that nature dictates the scientific abilities of women as compared to men when scientists have determined that culture is the overriding factor. Let us be similarly cautious in our discussion.
The kinds of presentational context that Cary brings up are important as well. I agree completely with his observation that presentation is manipulated in order to exercise control over the product, and with his implication that as long as presentation is inevitable, we might as well use it to the best advantage we can.
posted by Galen H. Brown
10:22 PM
meaning
I seem to recall not long ago people decrying music without meaning.
posted by Rodney Lister
5:48 PM
Meaning and Context
Both Judith and Galen bring up an interesting point: context.
A spirited discussion the other night with another composer, a conductor, and a theorist/librettist, along with recent posts, indicates deep concerns with this issue.
Music has an affekt, whether intended or not. This can change radically, depending on the place, time, perspective, or background of an audience. Ensembles such as Kronos, eighth blackbird, and my own "band" are experimenting with the usual classical protocol (enter, bow, play, applause, bow, exit). This might include staging, lighting, drama, sound immersion that all take the place, the space, and the audience into account. Perhaps this is to gain greater control and impact over the final "product."
Delivery becomes as important as the music product to produce not just sound from us to them, but a memorable experience for all concerned. Actors and orators know that the rhetoric and delivery is as important at the content, and can change the meaning of words drastically, so why not in art and music as well?
So perhaps the meaning is in the context and the cultural baggage we bring to a piece. Contextual thoughts anyone?
posted by Cary Boyce
12:23 PM
Form over Function
The MacLeish quote offeredy by Judith helps me to fuse together two seperate thoughts I've had percolating for a while now. I'll try to present them as a single coherent thought.
In both music and literature, it seems to me that we make three seperate aesthetic judgements at the same time: the surface of the work (in literature the beauty of the prose; in music the beauty of the melody, harmony, texture, etc); the underlying structure of the work (in literature the structure of the plot; in music the "form"); and the Meaning.
The vast majority of literature has all three. I would argue that the vast majority of music doesn't "mean" anything, and that the works that do only convey any meaning through the context in which the music is presented -- but we are obsessed with using the language of "meaning" in evaluating great musical works. (Think, for example, of the bogus but widely accepted suggestion that the opening motif of Beethoven 5 is "fate knocking at the door.")
So where's the literature that has no meaning or structure? Some of James Joyce sounds like it has no meaning or plot, but actually the point of his style is to have meaning but bury it. And why can't composers and critics get comfortable with the idea that music need not have meaning?
Or, to be fair, am I full of it? Couldn't we argue that the meaning is literature is also always contingent on context, so it's unreasonable to use the argument I've used? Or that literature has no meaning either? What the heck do we mean by "meaning" anyway?
posted by Galen H. Brown
12:00 PM
Music is...
Archibald MacLeish wrote "A poem need not mean / Just be."
Ditto Music.
posted by Judith Lang Zaimont
10:34 AM
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