zanelmastozthnz

I'm sorry for any condescention in my previous post. . . By the way,
it was George Z. who wrote originally, I must say that I've liked the
mp3's 'n' stuff he's posted quite a bit, actually. . .

>> I try to keep abreast of different musical communities--computer
>> music, tuning, serial modernism, folk-rock-singer-songwriter
>> people, etc. etc.
>>[snip]
>> And yet they all use mathematical description to talk and think
>> about what they're doing.
>
>I don't agree with that last statement in the least. All? All with
>great world musics, from many cultures, discussing their music in
>mathematical terms? Great music from non-professionals? Folk musics?

I think so. What I was trying to say was that any time you're keeping
track of a beat, rhythmic patterns, or what scale-note you're singing, or
any number of seemingly simple musical tasks, I'm sure at least some of
these are thought of in a way that we would call "mathematical", even in
the most non-professional remotely located folk musician. And if these
simple tasks, than probably some more complex ones as well.

So that it seems that if one attacks "talking about math" in music, one is
really attacking simply "talking about new math," which, because it is
unfamiliar, naturally is discussed more than "math" that we know
well, like how to count or conduct in 4/4, and so on. Hence 4/4, or
7-scale degrees, or what-not, is labeled "intuition" or "gut"
But, just like 4/4, any new idea, which may appear at first as an
emotionless page of number-charts, might eventually be learned and become
part of our intuition, and acquire emotional significances, and so on.

(I remember when I was a kid, and scores looked like so many shopping
carts. though I wondered why some of them had 4 pairs of wheels.)

>I think the converse point is not about escaping. Where to you,
>George appears to want to "escape" from the tyranny of the numbers,
>I'd hazard a guess that to him and others, many people actively
>*hide* under a blanket of theorems, postulates, and measurements,
>hoping that being able to prove the piece of music will make it
>worthy.

Yah, I agree with that. I guess it seems like here we are, in the year
2001: Most of the music-world agrees with the fact that a piece is not
"proven" to be good by it's methodologies, techniques, or generative
scales, rows or what-not. So I was kind of assuming that as a common
opinion.

On the other hand, some (maybe even a lot of) music that moves me WAS
composed under some wacky, often extremely elaborately worked out, often
artificially constructed, discipline. I'm not saying the work is great
because of the discipline itself, but because of the combination of the
discipline AND the innate musical sensibility, and expressive sensibility
of the composer(s). Xenakis is a good example.

Because of these historical precedents, which sometimes consisted of
"systems" or "techniques" that took years to work out (the tuning list
itself is less than 10 yrs old, no?), and yet eventually bore fruit in
some cool music, I'm uncomfortable in knocking those who are nerding out
generating new materials, which at first blush seem to have little to do
with solid musical results.

***From: Christopher Bailey******************

http://music.columbia.edu/~chris

**********************************************

Chris,

--- In tuning@y..., Christopher Bailey <cb202@c...> wrote:
> I'm sorry for any condescention in my previous post. . .

I'm sure it wasn't intended, but everyone is very sensitive these
days; likewise, I hope people will point out if I've stepped on toes
or over the line.

> So that it seems that if one attacks "talking about math" in music,
> one is really attacking simply "talking about new math," which,
> because it is unfamiliar, naturally is discussed more than "math"
> that we know well, like how to count or conduct in 4/4, and so on.

This, with your illustration that followed, is a very good point. It
may be that once a mathematical or numerical structure becomes so
ingrained as to be 'un-talked-about', such as a simple 3/4 meter, it
becomes transparent and essentially _not_there_. When I referred to
world musics and similar, this is mainly how I see it, and while
there is much Balkan and eastern European music that is rhythmically
quite complex, I can't picture at any point in it's development
musicians sitting around and rumminating on the time signatures the
wat that numerical information is debated here.

It may be just degrees of all of these items that we are talking
about; I can certainly understand GZ's not wanting to bath in the
numbers, and I do believe that a lot of music has been made far more
intuitively than what comes down around here.

That said, what comes down around here is different, and is (for
those who are interested) fine in these respects.

> But, just like 4/4, any new idea, which may appear at first as an
> emotionless page of number-charts, might eventually be learned and
> become part of our intuition, and acquire emotional significances,
> and so on.

I agree to the possibility. I also believe that much music can be
made, not ignorant of these qualities (where the term "ignorance" is
applied negatively) but unaware. Or even uncaring.

> Most of the music-world agrees with the fact that a piece is not
> "proven" to be good by it's methodologies, techniques, or generative
> scales, rows or what-not. So I was kind of assuming that as a
> common opinion.

Curious! That actually makes me feel better, because I still get the
feeling around here that a lot of stuff has to pass a final exam
before it gets taken seriously...

> Xenakis is a good example.

Xenakis is a *great* example. But I confess that, unlike a lot of
other musics, I must take his in small batches. Which maybe is fine,
too.

> I'm uncomfortable in knocking those who are nerding out
> generating new materials, which at first blush seem to have little
> to do with solid musical results.

Yep, yep, yep. And while I'm completely with you on that, I want
those "nerding out" people to respect the serious and committed music
of people that don't proceed in a like manner, but find inspiration
and ingredients from less measurable elements.

Cheers,
Jon

P.S. What was with the subject line?