Re: [microsound] minimal anxiety

[Andrei <andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, anechoic wrote:

> >As mathematical as Reich's compositional methods may be, I don't think that
> >the intended effect is to "hear mathematics."  One could say the same of
> >Bach.
>
> a fugue is also a mathematical construct which can be heard that way if so
> desired...m

I dunno, I'm a supporter of the math and music connection but I think
saying that one can hear a piece of music as a mathematical construct is
nonsensical. What does that mean anyway ? That you're consciously thinking
of equations, calculations, etc. while listening to the music ?

Personally I don't take the connection between mathematics and music
beyond the underlying physics of sound. I mean that math is just a tool to
explain aspects of how sound works. And using mathematical concepts in
composing is purely a subjective and aesthetic choice just as much as
saying "I'm gonna write a (happy/fast/dense/etc.) piece".
And any pleasing result that comes out of it, such as the interlocking
patterns of Reich or whatever, is just something we find aesthetically
pleasing and has nothing to do with some "deeper" connection between math
and music.


> music has no ultimate goal...the receptor is programmed with these
> goals...there is no inherent message or meaning in music; only what the
> receptor brings to it based on their associations...

I think that's a bit absolute.
I think it's perhaps more accurate to say that *sound* has no ultimate
goal, not music.
Because music doesn't exist by itself and would not exist if humans didn't
create it. And like I said earlier, you don't encounter sound organized as
"music" the way we organize it anywhere else in nature.
And you keep mentioning the receptor, but what about the sender ?
Can't the sender be sending messages through the music ?

I guess music is sort of a protocol. The sender and the receptor agree on
how and what kind of messages are gonna be shared. And perhaps all human
beings are "hardcoded" to use the same protocol ?

Andrei