Re: [microsound] maths science and electronic music

[Scott Carver <fscthaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 12, 2005, at 4:15 PM, David Powers wrote:

> Yes, but sometimes certain mathematical processes create aesthetically
> interesting sounds.  There are plenty of serial pieces that sound good
> to my ears, and I don't have to be aware of the math, as a listener.
> However, the math does matter in a sense, if the composer did not use
> that mathematical process, the piece wouldn't sound that way, and thus 
> I
> as a listener would never have the pleasure of experiencing that
> particular sound.  The math does not JUSTIFY the piece as being
> aesthetically pleasing, but it is a necessary moment in creating that
> piece.

That's a tough one... I think that, in the right context, math /could/ 
enhance the aesthetic value of a piece (phrases like 'aesthetic value' 
and 'aesthetically pleasing' are loaded, and difficult to get a handle 
on, but lets pretend for the moment they're not...). It's not a 
particularly foreign idea that extra-musical meaning can enhance, 
alter, or even fundamentally make up the experience of music. 
Historically, one can think of programmatic works of music that are 
heavily dependent on, for example, a text, story, painting, etc. Good 
knowledge of this text/story/painting/etc. is going to change our 
aesthetic engagement with the work, potentially at a very deep level. 
Can we consider, for example, a Xenakis piece somehow programmatic, 
insofar as it might be about some kind of mathematical expression or 
process? Will a good grasp of the mathematics in use, at an intuitive 
level, enhance/change out experience of the piece? This certainly 
seemed to be the case with some serial music... the aesthetic value 
didn't lie in the sounds produced, or the notes, but somewhere in 
between these and the system being used to produce them. I'm sure 
plenty of serialist composers had plenty of powerful experiences with 
other serial works (even if they sounded like shit to the layperson). 
I'm certainly not advocating any kind of /reliance/ on extra-musical 
meaning to justify or complete the piece, but it happens all the time, 
and is probably, in some sense, unavoidable. Am I making sense?


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