it's not my aesthetic! (was: it's not my job!)

Joseph L Monzo <monz@juno.com> wrote:

>My preoccupation with theory has pretty much
>completely devoured any time I used to set
>aside for composition. Wonder why it is
>that we theorists get so wrapped up in the
>theory ...?

Do you really not know?!!! Or are you just being coy here?

It's because science and particularly mathematics has its *own* kind of
beauty! I'm sure someone could write a good parody along the lines of:

"I look forward to the day when you *mere composers* stop fooling around
with those dry, boring, concrete sounds and start composing some decent
equations and diagrams. We prefer to let our souls soar in the abstract
platonic realms of mathematics, made all the more delicious by the power it
gives us to predict and explain the more mundane goings on in the everyday
world of music in which you poor souls choose to spend your days."

But I won't. Because some people just have not developed their sense of
mathematical aesthetics, or the spiritual and mental discipline of the
scientific method, and that's ok with me. I've never composed a piece of
music in my life, though I wish I could. Maybe one day I will.

Mathematics and spirituality are much closer than many people think. See
http://www.integralscience.org/tom/ for some interesting relationships
between the two.

By the way Monz. Thanks for all the work you put into showing those
approximations to higher harmonics on the smallest reasonable 5 limit
lattice. Beautiful! And that list of errors and matrices. What can I say! I
enjoyed it immensely and hope to compose some theoretical pieces of my own
some day, based on some of its themes. I hope it will all appear in higher
resolution and colour on your website soon.

Maybe us theory types *should* put out a CD ... of profound equations and
beautiful diagrams and wonderful arguments. But we don't really need to.
The WWWeb is all we need.

Regards,
-- Dave Keenan
http://dkeenan.com