Re: [microsound] being 'political' in non-verbal music

[aleks vasic <bvasic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jun 27, 2005, at 4:21 PM, Kassen wrote:

> aleks vasic;
>
> > The use of music on the battle field had a finite set of purposes
> > throughout military history.  Communication, psychological
> > intimidation, morale booster.
>
> Yes, I agree. What I was trying to say was that such factors also come
> in
> play in conventional music, in adition to the IMHO comparable element
> of
> impressing prospective mates and the afiliation with a certain social
> tribe.
> That last factor may also play a role in military use of sound and
> music.
> What I intended as the core of my message but which may have been
> pushed to
> the back by other points is that when those factors play a role in
> civilian
> music then the influence they have is taken to be caused by aestetic
> concerns while very comparable influences in military use are often
> asumed
> to be purely practical or admitted to signal the kind of thing we´d
> rather
> not admit to signalling in day to day life on a personal scale.
>
> I think this muddies that way in which we evaluate the material,
> particularly because it would mean multiple levels of comunication
> within
> music.

I can be pretty dense sometimes, also afflicted with tunnel vision here
and there.  Rereading your initial post as well as your explanation in
this post, i do not know how i missed the gist of it.  Sorry i am sick
and i have a fever, maybe i should refrain from discourse that requires
my brain to function past the thrid grade level!


> > To the best of my knowledge we are addressing the use of Music and
> > instruments on the battlefield as a form of communication , at least
> > thats what i responded too from a previous microsounders post.
>
> Yes, I might have digressed from that a little, back to the
> comunicative
> sides of sounds and music.
> Sorry if that confused.
>
> I jumped on your discussion of military comunication more to try to
> use it
> to illustrate sides of non-military music then to engage in a detailed
> discussion on battlefield comunication, interesting as that may be
> currently
> with the word "friendly fire" becoming common.
>
> > Im sure some personal choice may go into it.  But in the spirit of the
> > Military tradition, functionality is king.  You can play all the
> > beatiful songs you want after your enemies are crushed under foot.  To
> > crush them you need an efficient way to communicate on the field of
> > battle.  Hence the topic matter.  Remember my original opinion was
> > that
> > using music on the battlefield is not a form of literal communication
> > IMO, or a better description would be complex communication.  Using
> > your rationale the lights on a stop light, red, yellow, and green are
> > a
> > language of sorts.
>
> Yes. It is debatable indeed wether that is a language. When push comes
> to
> shove I think I believe those things to be a very limited language
> with just
> a few words and hardly any gramar. To me, within the larger context of
> comunicating ideas (possibly political ones) through the use of
> non-verbal
> sound the concept of comunication and the transfer of information are
> much
> more interesting then wether something is a actual language, should we
> be
> able to find a definition of "language" that everybody finds
> satisfactory..
>
> Hope that helps.
Yes it does, but many of your thoughts and opinions open up other cans
of worms such as point of reference of an individual, of a culture,
context, point of reference of said context.  All points you addressed
directly or indirectly.  As is said i was afflicted with tunnel vision
inregards to all non military matter within the topic, again my
delerium must be to blame for this!


aLEKs


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