Re: [microsound] minimal anxiety

[ian stewart <artsonics@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrei:
> Because music doesn't exist by itself and would not exist if humans 
> didn'tcreate it.

Almost what I would say. Music exists as the relation between listener and 
sound. When David Fodel speaks of music created by the wind, this music 
would not exist were there not a listener to interpret it as such.

I mostly agree with what Andrei says about mathematical listening (when he 
says that it is "nonsensical" to hear equations and such in music). It's not 
entirely nonsense, but it's a very particular way of listening that few 
people practice (in a conscious way) and only suited to very specific 
musical works. I agree completely that the aesthetic rewards we get from 
music do not generally come from some underlying math.

As for the significance of mathematical compositional strategies (in 
minimalism, integral serialism, etc), this comes down to the production vs 
reception issue (or as Nattiez would have it, the poietic vs esthesic). If 
math is used to construct music, this does not make the music a priori 
mathematical. Since music exists as the relation between listener and sound, 
it is the listening strategy that determines whether mathematics is 
relevant. It is easy to use math in an entirely inaudible way (using 
inaudible frequencies , for example) and I would find it absurd to contend 
that such music is mathematical, in the absence of other mathematical 
relations.

A different question- is the idea of symmetry important to anyone making 
music? What does it mean in music?

Best,

Ian

PS

> Ian Stewart? As in Ian "Does God Play Dice: The Mathematics of 
> Chaos"Stewart???-Christian <

No... not from a hotmail account! Not Ian "pianist for the Rolling Stones" 
Stewart either...

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