Re: [microsound] hearing math

[Christopher Sorg <csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> all music is organized by rules and these rules can be mathematically
> represented...case in point: the Schillinger System

So I suppose that the "listening" part of Cage's quote would be the method
of organization in his case, that is, if the the music is "all
sound".  So, represent to me, mathematically, the rules and organization
of sound of one of the field recordings you mention.  Would you represent
the "listening" since, in this instance, it is the method of organization,
or would you represent the "music"?  It would be mathematically
challenging to be sure, and chaos patterns are poorly represented by our
current maths.  In any case, I think the math would fall quite short of
the experience.

> >is just something we find aesthetically
> >pleasing and has nothing to do with some "deeper" connection between math
> >and music.
> hmmm...on the one hand you mention how important causality is: "Because
> music doesn't exist by itself and would not exist if humans didn't create
> it." yet you seem to diminish its importance above...there is a connection
> between all of your senses and mathematics...
> as an aside: there was a funny cartoon in the New Yorker (or Harpers?) a
> while back that had a picture of a small wooden house that was haphazardly
> built: all cock-eyed, tilting on its frame, no right angles etc...the title
> read "a world without algebra"

Interesting to note that a world without algebra can be constructed
though.  It seems more that we (humans) are interested in organization,
and Western civilization, in particular, has been focused on the
mathematical organization of space and time.  The Diderot post you
made even had (1) presentation to that effect: "In Western
Civilization Mathematics and Music have a long and interesting history 
in common, with several interactions, traditionally associated with
the name of Pythagoras but also with a significant number of other
mathematicians, like Leibniz, for instance, to whom music was a
'hidden exercise of arithmetics'."  That does not meant there
aren't other universes that exist simultaneously as our world.  Certain
Native American languages, for instance, have no words for the time of the
past or the future.  The language is always in the "now", the sunset of
yesterday is the sunset of today, the conceits and errors of the
"past" are actually always present.  It is in part why the landscape of
the Native American is so important to their culture (for more on this,
read Keith Basso), and why the destruction of it has been so effective in
disrupting their culture.

There's more about this, an essay on maps (the name of which I can't
recall), which suggests, in part, that the abstractions we have created to
describe our world (such as math) are in part responsible for the crimes
and excesses of our culture.  Fascism was a success in regards to the grid
and time, numbers used to represent a faceless efficiency.  This seems to
ring true with the bottom lines of businesses today.  It's not a matter of
if they will cause damage or not, just how much damage can be
afforded.  Insurance is affordable only if the odds are in your 
favor.  Purely following the numbers can leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm not fascinated by the rigors
of the grid and the play of patterns.  In fact the moire patterns you
mentioned created in Terry Riley's piece have been something I have been
exploring further, with simple algorithms, in my own work.  I just find
that there seems to be an awfully rigid definition of "math is
music/sound", contradictory to everything I've been reading from Wishart,
and the anxiety doesn't come from the math, it stems from the rigidity.

> >And like I said earlier, you don't encounter sound organized as
> >"music" the way we organize it anywhere else in nature.
> how do you explain sound art made with "location recordings"? nature
> generates some wonderful patterns that can be viewed as art...and often
> times I hear some amazing "compositions" in certain locations...my wife and
> I went to see a movie in Japantown in SF and I heard the sound of an
> industrial air duct in the parking garage that could easily have been
> considered a composed piece if it were released...so I don't buy your
> observation becauee your definition is too narrow...also it flies in the
> face of the philosophy of John Cage: music is everywhere all you need to do
> is listen (excuse my bad paraphrase)...

I've always enjoyed his definition of sound and music.  It's a much more
useful definition to shake people up with than to actually put into
practice.  Location recordings are wonderful, I do quite a bit of
binaural recording myself, but I would be hesitant to call it
music.  And (as I mentioned) I don't really enjoy being rigorous about my
definition of music, but there is a difference between ambient sound, a
site recording and a more structured composition, just as there is a
difference between rocks sculpted by centuries of water erosion, a photograph 
of that site and a painting.  I'm not going to get all binary on your ass,
it's more, as you said before, about levels, gradations.  There certainly
is an art to the presence of recording just as there is to photography,
it's just not the same thing.  Certainly not the same process as
organizing sounds mathematically.

By the most common Western definition, music is an intentional
organization of sound by any number of methods, steeped in mathematical
roots for the organization of sound.  This is far too rigorous for most of
us, but certainly seems to agree with the Diderot forum post.  I think an
aleatoric composer like Cage would find it a struggle to define music and
sound in purely mathematical terms, as other sophisticated listeners like
Wishart are examining now.  I don't know, I find this discussion a
challenge, as I think of chaotic and fractal compositions as endlessly
fascinating conceptually but somewhat dry and tiresome to listen to.  

> >And you keep mentioning the receptor, but what about the sender ?
> >Can't the sender be sending messages through the music ?
> only via lyrics spoken in a language you can understand...what is the
> message in instrumental music? any message is constructed on the part of
> the listener based on cultural codes...
> what is the message in Merzbow's "A Taste Of..."?
> http://www.mego.at/mego040.html
> there is only the receptor in art...the sender's role is mainly that of a
> catalyst

So how are you responding to the afformentioned tonal music in Africa like
the talking drum?  What about the dial tones of telephones?  The sender is
sending a message via non-verbal sound.  I can even recognize certain
person's phone numbers being dialed just by the sound pattern.

Your definition of sender/receptor reminds me of the action painter's
response to criticism in the 50s.  I tend to agree with Joseph Kosuth's
view on this: "there is only the receptor in art" when the sender isn't
communicating anything.  That's probably a bit harsh, but the more vague
your art is the more active the receptor's role must become.  There's
probably a better balance between the two with the best (or just *my*
favorite work) leaving that space between the two.  Wittgenstein talks
about this, using the two real, representational things to create the
vibrating space between, the metaphor.  That indicates an understanding of
the representation (by both sender/receptor) without the total enclosure
of the message.  If this isn't happening, then I suppose you (via
Cage) are correct, that all sound is music.  Who needs the artist
(sender)?

They're too expensive anyway :)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Christopher Sorg
   Multimedia Artist/Instructor
 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
   http://csorg.cjb.net
     csorg@xxxxxxxxx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~