RE: [microsound] emotions in music

[Christopher Sorg <csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I shudder when considering a discussion about emotion in music; it's an
> murky, endless quagmire.  The emotion, or lack thereof, lies with the
> listener, not the music.

I'm sorry, but I have to respectively disagree.  The activity and decision
of sitting and listening to anything, any sound, certainly comes from the
listener.  The organization, medium and methods chosen to create are
decisions made by the composer as well.  Making any decision is an
inherently emotional one ("The Man Who Tasted Shapes", Richard Cytowic,
"Emotional Decisions", Barnes and Thagard).  I believe that you are correct
in saying (to paraphrase) that choosing to ascribe a feeling to that sound
is a decision, which is inherently emotional.  However, regardless of what
any person would like to say about the "lack of emotional content" in
anyone's work, the decision has been made to call attention to something.
In fact, it is necessary for us to use emotion to come to conclusions.  If
we did not, we would likely come to no conclusions at all.  For example,
Barnes and Thagard suggest that during decision-making, "The computations
involved are so cumbersome that they cannot yield a final decision. In
short, emotions dictate and constrain which bits of information are used."
(Barnes and Thagard)  While it may vary a great degree from culture to
culture, there are certainly sounds and groups of sounds which we have
learned that elicit certain emotional responses.  The ways in which Western
music divides the scale (Pythagoras) does imply and communicate a
world-view, an aesthetic attitude and emotion.  As some list members already
suggested, even the rigorous logic of Calculus can imply certain fairly
specific emotional states.  It can terrify, frustrate, organize, order and
control sound and the listener to a great extent.  Emotions relevant to a
cultural experience.

Prior and aside from the emotional decision-making process, there have
already been many people writing about politics in music and other art
forms.  And I can't think of anything more emotional than politics.
Religion, I would guess.  Either way, an artist can be completely overt and
didactic about their emotional and political intentions, or they can deny
the existence of (what I believe is) the innate emotional and political
character of any person.  Certainly choosing to create something is in
itself a political move.  And just to be clear, when I talk of politics, I
mean to imply the ways in which a person or group relates to society.

Regardless, I don't think we are really talking about emotion in music.  I
think we are discussing drama, or lack thereof, in composition.

Anyhow, I think I've said enough about this.

___________________________
Christopher Sorg
Multimedia Artist/Instructor
http://www.enteract.com/~csorg
csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release