From: Lucian Mogosanu Date: Sat, 17 May 2014 15:31:32 +0000 (+0300) Subject: posts: 020 X-Git-Tag: v0.4~23 X-Git-Url: https://git.mogosanu.ro/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=4abd2a95b9febd94755de551df0f516e3f5a8454;p=thetarpit.git posts: 020 --- diff --git a/posts/y00/020-on-the-difficulty-of-discussing-musical-works.markdown b/posts/y00/020-on-the-difficulty-of-discussing-musical-works.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25fc646 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/y00/020-on-the-difficulty-of-discussing-musical-works.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +--- +postid: 020 +title: On the difficulty of discussing musical works +date: May 17, 2014 +author: Lucian Mogoșanu +tags: asphalt +--- + +Back in the day when I was writing in Romanian, and this is something of which +the post-spyked-bricks-in-the-wall readers might be completely unaware of, +I was, like any melomaniac, discussing music on the blog. [Everything][1] from +[jazz][2] to [progressive rock][3] had a place there, and for a while I had +felt that I just *had* to put my musical experiences into words. +Uncoincidentally, my music intake was gigantic for something like six years in +a row, so maintaining some sort of journal on the matter was actually quite +inspired, and somehow inspiring. + +But I must admit that at some point the whole thing started bothering me. + +In the last couple of years I started listening to fewer musical works, partly +due to a lack of the capacity to focus derived from my increasingly busy +schedule, and partly due to my desire to grasp the depth of the music I was +consuming. As you might know, progressive rock and jazz aren't particularly +easy genres, and I've started complementing them with classical works, as well +as whatever new "releases" I found interesting[^1]. + +This being said, I found (and still do) that keeping a musical journal +continues to make sense. However, my latest journal entries failed to cover +the actual depth of the music I'm involving myself with. Admittedly, this +might partly account for my lack of formal musical background, although I have +composed music in the past and I'm able to understand the underlying +complexity of various musical works. What is more confusing is that while +looking into "more professional" writings such as those supposedly made by +[Prog Archives'][4] reviewers, I tend to see the same shallow approach to +music analysis that plagues my own. And this is what made it even *more* +bothersome. + +I therefore postulate that discussing music is inherently hard, as hard as +discussing love or beauty, or virtues or good, or even existence itself. +Indeed, we seldom think of the nature of love while we become attached to +someone, yet this doesn't make it any less dumbfounding; and that is, after +all, what makes love so hard to put into words. The same goes for music. + +From a purely mechanical point of view, music is but a sequence of sound waves +which occur in such a way that they are processed by our auditory system to be +interpreted as "likeable". This definition may be considered by some to be too +broad, since then I would consider mere words spoken by a woman to be music; +this is, in fact, not too far from the truth, given the expression "music to +my ears". The hard fact is that humans grow to develop an affinity for certain +sound patterns, with the possibility of cultural relativism: what I find to be +music, you might find to be noise and vice-versa. + +But then we could approach music from an abstract point of view; it, as many +other (physical or otherwise) phenomena occuring in nature, can be described in +mathematical terms, or, to quote Leibniz: + +> The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting +> unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. + +Any person with basic musical training can confirm this: scales, modes and the +circle of fifths are all part of a mathematical framework used to make sense +of how musical "notes" happen, and all this without even discussing rhythm. +Furthermore, musical notation is a purely formal construct, not unlike +standard mathematical notation, which leads us to the possibility of +describing music as algebra. It is very much a miracle, if you will, and [one +that matters][5]. + +There is, however, a third point of view, which the reader might have failed +to consider, but which I notice daily in the spring when I open my window: +music is a language, or rather a set of languages considered by many musicians +to be universal[^2], despite the aforementioned cultural relativism. We often +tell ourselves that birds "sing" when in fact they communicate, but it's not +so often that we tell ourselves that we communicate through music, when we in +fact do precisely that. The proof is trivial: music has an alphabet and, oh, +so many grammars which send some kind of message, or tell a story, like B.B. +King likes to say; one which we understand only subconsciously. + +And therein lies the difficulty: describing a song's deep(ly) musical message +would require us to translate that message into English or some other human +language, and that is, I argue, impossible, since we don't, and can't, because +we have no means to understand deep(ly) musical messages in terms of human +language. + +Let's take Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" as an example. The suite +gives a detailed musical account of an exhibition of Viktor Hartmann's +paintings, being split into sections accordingly. Now, our greatest luck as +listeners is that the author has annotated his work, while the [extra +commentary][6] describes the meaning of each movement. On the other hand, if +we were to give the raw suite to a child without providing them with any extra +information about the song[^3], their own unadulterated interpretation would +be nothing close to that. + +Generalizing, I am arguing that the author's subjective interpretation of +a musical piece has, in fact, no relationship whatsoever with the public's +interpretation, or, more exactly, with the billions possible interpretations. +Thus we can't naïvely assume that there is in fact a one-to-one mapping +between the language of a song and human language, let alone a mapping between +the language(s) of many songs and the latter. In fact we can't assume that +there is any mapping at all. + +Having said that, I find it extremely difficult to write about my own musical +experiences anymore, although they are now as rich as ever, if not richer. +Granted, I'm not sure they were ever useful to anyone except myself, but all +I can do is hope that I'll get to explore some new (or old!) music in writing +in the future. + +[^1]: Looking at things in perspective, I observe that "albums" are a stupid +format to release to the public. One would have thought that Internet would +free us from the need to have $x$ songs in $n$ minutes, but alas, old habits +die hard. + +[^2]: Not unlike mathematics, by the way. + +[^3]: This is bound to happen when you're in a bar or a pub and you hear "that +song" and then you have no idea how to find it afterwards. If it weren't for +Shazam and whatnot... + +[1]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/bricks/tag/music/ +[2]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/bricks/tag/jazz/ +[3]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/bricks/tag/progressive-rock/ +[4]: http://www.progarchives.com/ +[5]: /posts/y00/01d-on-numbers-structure-and-induction.html +[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_at_an_Exhibition#Movements