re: my take on "art is arbitrary" vs. "art is based on nature" (Julia W. and all)

What follows are my own personal composer's thoughts on the "controversy"
This should probably be on metatuning, but since a lot of the folks
involved aren't on metatuning, here goes:

I still haven't read Julia's article, but some of the issues her article
seems to have been raising in our community here, I've seen/heard raised
elsewhere as well.

George Secour wrote:

>
>"Trouble is, even if one chooses to ignore the principles of musical
> acoustics and mathematical relationships, they are still there. So
> the pantonal composer is something like an architect designing a
> building, but ignoring the laws of physics.
>

I¹d like to quibble with the word "trouble".

Let us posit two "schools of thought" about composition, that I've seen
rearing their heads now and then in the various musical communities I run
around in (not just this list):

1)
"art is based nature" or "art should emulate nature" or "art should
be made following your intuition, and my theory, theory XX, models the
intuitive instincts of a musically sensitive individual, therefore you're
wasting your time if you don't follow it's dictates. Go ahead, and don¹t
follow them, but trust me: you're wasting your time.", and so on.

OR

2)
"All art is arbitrary": is "artificial", "un"-natural, based on
artificial cultural inheritances, which are not necessarily ingrained in
anyone's mind permanently, the mind is in many (most) ways a blank slate,
and can learn any algorithm, etc. If all musical systems are basically
artificial, why not invent or expand on more of the same, and get on with
composing cool music?

Rather than being hopelessly oppositional, I like to think of these two
schools of thought as intimately bound together in a fascinating way.

The first possibility is that the "arbitrary" school will conceptualize
or structure their compositions in ways, none of which seem to have any
relation to what the ear can realistically perceive, or what they
themselves (the composers) could perceive. But they "leave room" for
the operation of intuition, so that when these materials are deployed on
the surface, to make a piece of music happen, those "natural" instincts
come in to play, desperately attempting to deploy the recalcitrant,
cognitively/acoustically "disobedient" materials in some way that, if
only provisionally, locally, in different ways at different instants,
satisfies the desires of those instincts.

The result is a music where fragments of the "familiar"--- broken-off
chunks of familiar progressions, forgotten harmonic entities, tonal
chords, simple voice-leading progressions and so on---are juxtaposed in
twisted, novel fashion, warping and changing our perspective on those
"familiar" objects in unexpected ways.

Or, as in the case of "hard-core algorithmic" music, where, basically,
some kind of process or generating system is set up, seeded, and the
piece, as it were, writes itself. . . . . in this case, it is in OUR ears,
the ears of the listener, where this recognition of the familiar takes
place.

In either case, the way we parse through such pieces, looking for some
vague cognitive signposts. . . . gradually expanding registers,
step-wise "bass" lines, serendipitous fragments of tonality bridged by
walls of impenetrable chaos. . . .this ad hoc parsing is a fascinating
for me---to experience as a listener, and to try to facilitate in my
music, as a composer.

In a way, these kinds of pieces are written in a higher-level language (to
borrow a term from computer science), because these little "bursts" of
the familiar, these fragile "handholds" that we "grab onto" to "survive" as
listeners, are often like "signifiers", standing for whole passages of
music in more traditional musical environments.

Thus in any piece by Milton Babbitt, for example, I'm not listening for
rows, or serial structures at all. What I enjoy in this music is all the
sudden bursts of familiar objects popping out at me. Or, noticing the
way my mind takes note of what it's hearing. Thus, late in
the 2nd Piano Concerto, a swirling chaos of notes seems somehow to
magically coalesce into C# Major, so strongly that the passage seems to
me to be the "climax" (a very little hill in this very flat piece) of the
work.

At another point in this piano concerto, there is a series
of what sound like chromatically descending chords in the
brass, in the midst of other activity---but this chromatic descent, as
something vaguely familiar or simple to me, is what I "grab onto" in this
part of the piece. And I LIKE that feeling, while listening---of not
knowing quite what to do or how to grab onto, mentally and emotionally,
what I'm hearing.

These experiences were probably not intended by the composer (though his
music in particular is filled with triadic arpeggios and other tonal puns,
which are so numerous and ubiquitous that intention seems inevitable), but
they have been very suggestive to me as a composer.

This is why I continue to write [some of my] music serially or with other
"arbitrary" or "unnatural" systems or materials. Is it because I want to
write butt-ugly music that always avoids octaves
and tonal triads and other marks of the familiar? No, it's precisely
BECAUSE I DO want to use those elements, re-contextualized and juxtaposed
in odd, bizarre, and unexpected ways that shed new light on the objects
themselves.

As a composer, then, I'm interested in systematic composition, like
serialism, but I'm not interested in serialism as a language in and of
itself, but rather, in using it as a fragmentor of the familiar.
(Likewise, to the person who asks, "Well, if you want to use triads, why
don't you just write tonal music?"---again, the point is that I want to
only *refer* to tonal syntax, in the midst of my joyful arbitrarity.)

Actually, I think it's more complex than that: I think the best serial
pieces from the old days, were written with this state of mind going on,
at least subconsciously---the composers back then insisted that they were
interested in serialism as a language in and of itself---but
sub-consciously, the reason that the best of those pieces work well, is
that the composers were thinking this way--i.e., desparately trying to
"fake" a familiar, "cognitively correct" syntax in the midst of this
other, artificial syntax that they were trying to be true to. And that
is the state of mind, as a composer, that I want to be in as I write
certain of my pieces: I'm literally interested in "pretending" that I
believe in the purity and goodness of artificial systems in and of
themselves, but behind my own back, I'm sneaking in their usage as
fragmenters of the familiar.

(This also rules out some system, such as one I glossed over in another
PNM article by Ciro Scotto, that tries to "marry" tonal syntax with
set-theory or some such idea. Rather than a marriage, that forms some
"official" system that "successfully integrates" the artificial with the
"natural" (i.e. tonal in this case) compositional languages, I want to
throw the two together in their pure states---and watch them fight,
make love, fix the house, milk the cows, and maybe enjoy an occasional
ice cream cone together. . . ))

I'm certainly not insisting that the approach I'm talking about is for
everyone, and I certainly do, as a listener, enjoy music from all of the
different schools of thought on the issue. It's just one composer's
response.

Thanks a lot Christopher,

Yours is an aesthetic I really feel comfortable with, and just the
kind of voice I think the list has not heard nearly enough from over
the years... great post!

take care,

--Dan Stearns

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Bailey" <cb202@columbia.edu>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 8:28 PM
Subject: [tuning] re: my take on "art is arbitrary" vs. "art is based
on nature" (Julia W. and all)

What follows are my own personal composer's thoughts on the
"controversy"
This should probably be on metatuning, but since a lot of the folks
involved aren't on metatuning, here goes:

I still haven't read Julia's article, but some of the issues her
article
seems to have been raising in our community here, I've seen/heard
raised
elsewhere as well.

George Secour wrote:

>
>"Trouble is, even if one chooses to ignore the principles of musical
> acoustics and mathematical relationships, they are still there.
So
> the pantonal composer is something like an architect designing a
> building, but ignoring the laws of physics.
>

I�d like to quibble with the word "trouble".

Let us posit two "schools of thought" about composition, that I've
seen
rearing their heads now and then in the various musical communities I
run
around in (not just this list):

1)
"art is based nature" or "art should emulate nature" or "art should
be made following your intuition, and my theory, theory XX, models
the
intuitive instincts of a musically sensitive individual, therefore
you're
wasting your time if you don't follow it's dictates. Go ahead, and
don�t
follow them, but trust me: you're wasting your time.", and so on.

OR

2)
"All art is arbitrary": is "artificial", "un"-natural, based on
artificial cultural inheritances, which are not necessarily ingrained
in
anyone's mind permanently, the mind is in many (most) ways a blank
slate,
and can learn any algorithm, etc. If all musical systems are
basically
artificial, why not invent or expand on more of the same, and get on
with
composing cool music?

Rather than being hopelessly oppositional, I like to think of these
two
schools of thought as intimately bound together in a fascinating way.

The first possibility is that the "arbitrary" school will
conceptualize
or structure their compositions in ways, none of which seem to have
any
relation to what the ear can realistically perceive, or what they
themselves (the composers) could perceive. But they "leave room"
for
the operation of intuition, so that when these materials are deployed
on
the surface, to make a piece of music happen, those "natural"
instincts
come in to play, desperately attempting to deploy the recalcitrant,
cognitively/acoustically "disobedient" materials in some way that, if
only provisionally, locally, in different ways at different instants,
satisfies the desires of those instincts.

The result is a music where fragments of the "familiar"--- broken-off
chunks of familiar progressions, forgotten harmonic entities, tonal
chords, simple voice-leading progressions and so on---are juxtaposed
in
twisted, novel fashion, warping and changing our perspective on
those
"familiar" objects in unexpected ways.

Or, as in the case of "hard-core algorithmic" music, where, basically,
some kind of process or generating system is set up, seeded, and the
piece, as it were, writes itself. . . . . in this case, it is in OUR
ears,
the ears of the listener, where this recognition of the familiar takes
place.

In either case, the way we parse through such pieces, looking for some
vague cognitive signposts. . . . gradually expanding registers,
step-wise "bass" lines, serendipitous fragments of tonality
bridged by
walls of impenetrable chaos. . . .this ad hoc parsing is a
fascinating
for me---to experience as a listener, and to try to facilitate in my
music, as a composer.

In a way, these kinds of pieces are written in a higher-level language
(to
borrow a term from computer science), because these little "bursts"
of
the familiar, these fragile "handholds" that we "grab onto" to
"survive" as
listeners, are often like "signifiers", standing for whole passages of
music in more traditional musical environments.

Thus in any piece by Milton Babbitt, for example, I'm not listening
for
rows, or serial structures at all. What I enjoy in this music is all
the
sudden bursts of familiar objects popping out at me. Or, noticing
the
way my mind takes note of what it's hearing. Thus, late in
the 2nd Piano Concerto, a swirling chaos of notes seems somehow to
magically coalesce into C# Major, so strongly that the passage seems
to
me to be the "climax" (a very little hill in this very flat piece) of
the
work.

At another point in this piano concerto, there is a series
of what sound like chromatically descending chords in the
brass, in the midst of other activity---but this chromatic descent, as
something vaguely familiar or simple to me, is what I "grab onto" in
this
part of the piece. And I LIKE that feeling, while listening---of not
knowing quite what to do or how to grab onto, mentally and
emotionally,
what I'm hearing.

These experiences were probably not intended by the composer (though
his
music in particular is filled with triadic arpeggios and other tonal
puns,
which are so numerous and ubiquitous that intention seems inevitable),
but
they have been very suggestive to me as a composer.

This is why I continue to write [some of my] music serially or with
other
"arbitrary" or "unnatural" systems or materials. Is it because I
want to
write butt-ugly music that always avoids octaves
and tonal triads and other marks of the familiar? No, it's precisely
BECAUSE I DO want to use those elements, re-contextualized and
juxtaposed
in odd, bizarre, and unexpected ways that shed new light on the
objects
themselves.

As a composer, then, I'm interested in systematic composition, like
serialism, but I'm not interested in serialism as a language in and of
itself, but rather, in using it as a fragmentor of the familiar.
(Likewise, to the person who asks, "Well, if you want to use triads,
why
don't you just write tonal music?"---again, the point is that I want
to
only *refer* to tonal syntax, in the midst of my joyful arbitrarity.)

Actually, I think it's more complex than that: I think the best
serial
pieces from the old days, were written with this state of mind going
on,
at least subconsciously---the composers back then insisted that they
were
interested in serialism as a language in and of itself---but
sub-consciously, the reason that the best of those pieces work well,
is
that the composers were thinking this way--i.e., desparately trying to
"fake" a familiar, "cognitively correct" syntax in the midst of this
other, artificial syntax that they were trying to be true to. And
that
is the state of mind, as a composer, that I want to be in as I write
certain of my pieces: I'm literally interested in "pretending" that I
believe in the purity and goodness of artificial systems in and of
themselves, but behind my own back, I'm sneaking in their usage as
fragmenters of the familiar.

(This also rules out some system, such as one I glossed over in
another
PNM article by Ciro Scotto, that tries to "marry" tonal syntax with
set-theory or some such idea. Rather than a marriage, that forms
some
"official" system that "successfully integrates" the artificial with
the
"natural" (i.e. tonal in this case) compositional languages, I want
to
throw the two together in their pure states---and watch them fight,
make love, fix the house, milk the cows, and maybe enjoy an
occasional
ice cream cone together. . . ))

I'm certainly not insisting that the approach I'm talking about is for
everyone, and I certainly do, as a listener, enjoy music from all of
the
different schools of thought on the issue. It's just one composer's
response.

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--- In tuning@y..., Christopher Bailey <cb202@c...> wrote:

> I'm certainly not insisting that the approach I'm talking about is
for
> everyone,

it's a great one, nonetheless!

> and I certainly do, as a listener, enjoy music from all of the
> different schools of thought on the issue.

as do i. i lean closer to #2 "art is arbitrary" (believe it or not).
the only problem with #2 is that its theorists often focus too
closely on how the music looks on the page rather than how it sounds
to the ear (the latter being where a little psychoacoustics can come
into play), so that the dimensions being surveyed by those creating
their intentionally arbitrary systems are very distorted relative to
their perceptual correlates . . .

> It's just one composer's
> response.

and a very enjoyable one too -- thanks for sharing!