Stephen Heersink:
>I don't intend to beat the horse until it bleeds, but perhaps the following
>observations will bring my point of view in better relief.
That's OK. It bled long ago, and apparently gets regular transfusions.
>"The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous,
>unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm,
>and timbre" is the definition the American Heritage Dictionary gives for
>"music." I think this definition "fits" most people's conceptual scheme
>of what makes music "music" and which distinguishes music from noise.
The problem is that this doesn't get us any forwarder. It depends on
someone's perception of continuous, unified, and evocative.
Unfortunately, I have come more and more to the belief that music (or
any art) is not definable solely in terms of itself - that is, objectively
or internally definable. All art is an interaction between object and
audience. In that interaction arises context or what I've sometimes called
"frame." For example, the ambient soundtrack of our lives isn't necessarily
music unless we pay attention to it. I curse the birds that wake me up
each morning before I'm ready. Beethoven paid attention to birds and put
them in his Pastoral symphony. I've heard the song of a single mockingbird
and been transfixed. At that moment, it became music.
This can apply to any sound or group of sounds. Try playing the Beethoven
Ninth at top volume after 10 PM out the windows of your house. Neighbors
will complain about the "noise."
>Duodecaphonic compositions do not always have melody, harmony, or both,
>and therefore do not always fit the shared conceptual understanding of
>music.
Hell, tonal compositions don't necessarily have that either. I therefore
fail to see why atonality constitutes a special case, other than you and
people who agree with you don't like it.
>Simply ordering all twelve chromatic pitches, or the sharing of the use of
>similar instruments, aren't sufficient to merit duodecaphonic compositions
>with the appellation of "music."
Guess what? I would probably agree with you, at least if you mean "good"
or "interesting" music. So would every atonalist I know about. But that's
a straw man you've just knocked over. To turn it around, simply ordering
the notes of the diatonic scale or sharing the use of similar instruments
(I'm not sure what you mean here) isn't good or interesting music either.
Obviously, there's more to a composition than that.
>Duodecaphonic compositions that do not fit may still be interesting
>in their own right, independent of what is music, qua music. It is
>not inappropriate to identify duodecaphonic compositions by the name of
>"duodecaphonic compositions." And, of course, not all, perhaps even most,
>duodecaphonic compositions are not necessarily atonal. But certainly a
>fairer number of duodecaphonic compositions are atonal, and missing one
>or more criteria that would otherwise make them bona fide "music."
"Music" is, unfortunately, what somebody thinks it is. Therefore, the
music qua music is basically indefinable. Furthermore, if "you know it
when you hear it," you've simply said you think it's music. Again, this
doesn't get the argument any forwarder.
I'll ask the question: Would there be a line crossed universally that
would turn sound into non-music? Obviously, it isn't the presence or
absence of tonality, since I know that even professionals can't always
distinguish "atonal" music from highly chromatic music without recourse
to a score. Obviously, it isn't the use or avoidance of serial technique,
since serial technique goes all the way back to the Renaissance.
Steve Schwartz
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