Re: [microsound] Further (rambling) thoughts on stuff

[Øivind Idsø <plateaux@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Michal Seta wrote:

> Don't get me wrong, it is OK to break rules.  But usually you can tell
> when the rules are broken on purpose, with the full knowledge or said
> rules or when they're broken as a pure mistake because the 'composer' in
> question isn't aware of any rules.

How can you tell? That he isn´t "aware of any rules", I mean? Isn´t this
simply the ol´ metaphysics of authorial intention, whereby the critic
claims to somehow have/gain access to the writer/composer/painter and his
intentions? ("He tried to do X, but failed"? "He wanted to write a novel
concerning the X, but instead ended up with the (lesser/greater/whatever)
Y"?)

How is it at all possible to know that the "composer" in question
unintentionally or intentionally breaks the rules? Wouldn´t you have to
know this person´s background and/or explicit intentions before making such
a judgment (and getting all freudian: does the author even know his own
intentions?) Or perhaps the "composer" intended for an eventual mistake to
sound like a mistake? Or perhaps he "fails" (how, and according to what,
does he fail?) to do even this successfully? What would this mean for the
external gaze that compares it to one History?

I can see that pastiche or parody would be possible within a formalized
tradition such as classical music, but how would one make an ironic or
parodic comment on, say, Merzbow? Mouse On Mars? aleatoric music?

I would like to think that we judge music on the basis of our own, "local"
traditions, and no one possesses the entire Tradition (there isn´t one, of
course). In these postmodern times this is all very obvious, but... Someone
failed to recognize Händel in the Mathieu piece(s) at Mutek. Does it
matter? Would a "valid" criticism .have. to know this? One music professor
knows everything (of course he doesn´t) about classical music or jazz from
the 30s or whatever. But does he know the/a h/History of glitch? Of
INA-GRM? Will he judge Francois Bayle according to Wagner? Schaeffer to
Bach? How about the other way around?

Borges´ view on the "retroactive influence" suits me better: a great author
not only creates successors and imitators in the future, he also creates
successors in the past. It´s possible to say that Kafka was influenced by
Borges or that Descartes is (now) influenced by Beckett. And that Beethoven
is (now) influenced by Bayle. Bearing this in mind, who makes which
"mistake"?

Borges´ "Pierre Menard" is a brilliant example of how one can maximize
difference through a word-for-word sampling/repetition of Don Quixote, of
how the future leaks into the past and vice-versa ("The text of Cervantes
and that of Menard are verbally identical, but the second is almost
infinitely richer...").

For me, this changes everything.

/Øivind/