Re: grabbing people by the balls

[david turgeon <david.t@xxxxxxxx>]

ah, that old stating the obvious.

From: "---------------- ---------------" <blove666@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sound has no meaning.  It just is.  We may want to dress it up in any
> infinite possibilties but that doesnt make it so.  [...]
> If you have a message or statement words are alot more
> efficient.   Is it possible to appreciate sounds for what they are, not as
> some vessel for my self-expression or ideas?

not to fuel an old debate with contrarian arguments, i will first agree 
with you that sound doesn't seem to be a very precise signifier.  it is 
very hard to "mean" the word "tree", for example, with a melody; however, 
this is a limiting view of it.  let's say i shape my song according to the 
shape of a tree; we can say it has something of the meaning of the tree in 
it, although in a way which is less clear than if i just went up & said 
"tree".  likewise, you may hear something like branches being moved by 
wind; this also brings to mind a tree.  these are just simple random 
examples anyone can make up.

as for the more "abstract" concepts, they are, oddly enough, perhaps more 
stable in music than they are in text.  there are certain qualities in 
music which spread over generations & eventually become accepted as 
"meaning".  you will always recognize a "sad song".  of course, this 
meaning is not intrinsic to the music itself.  sound has no meaning per se, 
but we attach meanings to it all the time.  if people hear divinity in 
bach, for example, other composers may be tempted to follow bach in some 
way in order to mean "divinity", & likewise will listeners comprehend the 
imitations in the same way.  this of course can be taken the other way 
around, which is why many bach-negating experimentists (for example, 
composers doing something as simple as rejecting the tonal system) are 
usually seen by the blokes, consciously or not (& sometimes correctly!) as 
"godless."

the point being that music can be understood as language, albeit a vague 
language which cannot connote anything very precise.  but it's false to 
think that there is no possibility to convey meaning with music.  in fact i 
think we should do it more!  but only in ways where it conveys complex, 
changing things.  there is definitely no sense in music meaning one thing 
for everyone as is expected with words.

> Many artists present
> their work with so much talk that I wonder what would happen if the talk
> wasnt there.  Would the work hold itself up?

so far as conceptual art goes, you are also right in that the meaning, or 
theory, or talk, is usually being pushed at the forefront, in order to mark 
the opposition with "aesthetic art", an art which is interesting purely 
because of the effect.  although i think extremes are interesting, i also 
think they are not necessary & that most succesful art is both aesthetic & 
conceptual to some degree.  i'm always very interested in song titles for 
this reason, & i like to think it's not purely by caprice.  :)

> Sometimes I feel there is a
> definite amount of over intellectualization in the arts fields.  It is
> almost masturbatory.

another thing i like to think is that people are free to do whatever they 
want with art, including devising endless theories.  even as we destroy art 
we find out that there's always more!

of course that's just me, & i don't use MAX/MSP nor have i read derrida, 
though my girlfriend has.  & i groove to slavoj zizek & oeuf korreckt yo.

have a nice day
~ david