Re: [microsound] math anxiety

[Beni Borja <beni.borja@xxxxxxxxxx>]

You caught my drift  perfectly well. I would like to propose exactly this
question:  How music is used at this pont in history?
In the last twenty years the ways/situations  on which music is
broadcast/performed and the state/ condition of the listener during the
reception of the music changed dramaticaly.

Most of my formative musical experiences where on a couch in the living room
in front of big stereo speakers. I don't know anyone who listens to music
regularly like that anymore. According to my research the car is the
favourite place of most people to hear music these days, this certanly has a
great impact on the way music is perceived. After the commoditization of
music through recording, came this infernal age that we live in where
sound/music in some bastard form is everywhere. How can we compete with this
poluted soundscape??

I think we musicians generaly overlook this aspect of the process.
Listening conditions change the very nature of the musical experience. Where
the music will be played? in which state the listener will be when hears the
music?? The effectiveness of musical composition as a comunication tool
depends a great deal on these issues.


Beni

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Sorg" <csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "microsound" <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Beni Borja"
<beni.borja@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 3:44 PM
Subject: RE: [microsound] math anxiety


> > From: Beni Borja [mailto:beni.borja@xxxxxxxxxx]
> >
> > Isn't math a language as well??  Mathematics is the language best
> > suited to
> > describe the physical phenomena , music being  "air sculpting" in it's
> > physical nature is therefore best described by math.
>
> I don't think there would be much dispute over math being a language.  In
> the case of music, I think it matters how you use and create it,
> mathematically, meme- or phonetically, or "other".  And that would bring
you
> to...
>
> > What's the purpose of music??  that is the question I supose
> > bothers me the
> > much these days..
>
> Isn't it just great!?  A hundred years ago, painters used music as an
> example of the "pure abstract", under the impression that music was a
direct
> line to emotional/spiritual experience.  Painters like Kandinsky were
> struggling with the concrete and representational forms of painting
> (certainly trying to repurpose painting after the challenge of
photography)
> and found abstraction partly through music.  And while music has a
cultural
> context which could be read as a concrete language, it also has something
> that painting can't really achieve as an object, that is it's ethereal
> nature.  Memory slips around sound even as it is experienced, while a
> painting exists in a rather concrete fashion, leaving it's viewer to
change.
> It does seem to me that in the past century music has gained this
> materiality of painting, primarily through the recording process.  Certain
> sounds can be repeated until memorized; pop songs can be memorized note
for
> note, becoming the "genuine" version of a song.  Advertisers use sound as
> part of their product's id, and can even hold copyrights for these samples
> if they can prove that they are identified with a product.  Music can
serve
> a highly-specific purpose as language, or it can retain it's ethereal
> quality and slip through the cracks of perception.  Which leaves the
purpose
> of music wide open to possibilities.
>
> It's also interesting to note that in describing the developing solidity
of
> music in the past century you can also observe the cultural creation of
that
> form of sound.  Sound was formerly used as part of the spiritual
experience,
> to create sublime/virtual experiences in cathedrals of the past.  Sound
now
> is an object, becomes commodity or relates to commodity...one of the prime
> uses of sound/music in contemporary Western culture.  We could consider
the
> use of a laptop to create improvisational/unpredictable/algorhithmic sound
> and music as a reaction to that objectification, which I do think is in
the
> mind of many musicians who are drawn to improvised performance.  Eric
> Leonardson, a Chicago musician, studied as a visual artist and said that
the
> immaterial qualities of sound brought him to music...I have had a similar
> reaction and it is one of the primary reasons I'm interested in the
> (non)form.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>      Christopher Sorg
>    Multimedia Artist/Instructor
>  The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
>    http://csorg.cjb.net
>      csorg@xxxxxxxxx
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
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