Originally Posted by atsonicpark

very fact of a piano; they must question the tones of its keys, question the music on its rack, and, above all, they must question, constantly and eternally, what might be called the philosophies behind device, the philosophies that are really responsible for these things. Good grades in school are the result of a less commendable ability, and no aspect of the musical scene could be more depressing than the prospect that those with the ability to get good grades in school, to copy others, to absorb and apply traditions with facility, shall hold the fort of "good" music.
Music, "good" or not "good," has only two ingredients that might be called God-given: the capacity of a body to vibrate and produce sound and the mechanism of the human ear that registers it. These two ingredients can be studied and analyzed, but they cannot be changed; they are the comparative constants. All else in the art of music, which may also be studied and analyzed, was created by man or is implicit in human acts and is therefore subject to the fiercest scrutiny—and ultimately to apÂ*proval, indifference, or contempt. In other words, all else is subject to change.
Implicit in the man-made part of the musical art are (1) an attitude toward one's.fellow man and all his works; (2) a source scale and (3) a theory for its use; (4) more than occasionally a vocal design; (5) a complexity of organized tones which we call a composition; (6) a musical instruÂ*ment or instruments; (7) a powerful emotional reaction to the composition.
These disparate ingredients, which operate through various degrees of the conscious and premeditated and the unconscious and spontaneous, are listed above at random and for three reasons: (1) because twenty-four years of work in this musical field gives me no answer to the question of priority as regards chicken versus egg; (2) because, therefore, any rational sequence would require defense; and (3) because at this point of discussion sequence is unimportant and defense impertinent.
The creative individual, in developing the man-made ingredients and in examining the God-given, finds the way to a special kind of truth. This truth is the product of each new day, of each complex organism, its singular environment, experience, and emotional needs. It is the realization of the daimon.
Musical creators have been, and are, the exponents and the victims of system, philosophy, and attitude, determined for them by textbooks and classrooms, and by the atmosphere in which they grow; in short, by their milieu. Consequently the later history of Western music is of one system, one philosophy, one attitude, and it is characterized by successive bodies of practitioners made up of multitudes of innocent believers and sprinklings of individualists who are frequently unequal to the struggle—the struggle of fundamental dissent with the musical practicalities.
The canons of music do not comprise a corpus juris, common or codified, and the prevailing attitude is a symptom, a danger signal, of possible decay that no person imbued with a spirit of investigation can perceive without misgivings. Investigators and experimenters are at least as reverent toward our European heritage as the average music lover—probably more so, because they are acolytes of the creative spirit that has produced such phenomena as the past three hundred years of Western music. But it is a dynamic reverence.
In a healthy culture differing musical philosophies would be coexistent, not mutually exclusive; and they would build from Archean granite, and not, as our one musical system of today builds, from the frame of an inherited keyboard, and from the inherited forms and instruments of Europe's eighteenth century. And yet anyone who even toys with the idea of looking beyond these legacies for materials and insight is generally considered foolhardy if not actually a publicity-seeking mountebank. The door to further musical investigation and insight has been slammed shut by the inelastic and doctrinaire quality of our one system and its esthetic forms.
Under the circumstances it is not incumbent upon a composer to justify his investigation, his search. The burden of explanation for dissatisfaction rests elsewhere. It belongs to those who accept the forms of a past day without scrutinizing them in the light of new and ever-changing technological and sociological situations, in the light of the interests that stand to profit by the status quo, and in the light of their own individualities, this time and this place.
This time and this place offer today's composer an inestimable advantage over the composer of even a hundred years ago; for the agent that is able to free music from the incubus of an external body of interpreters is now actually with us. Having entered the age of musical recordings—and recordings constantly improving in fidelity—we have only to grasp the opportunity for a truly individualistic and creative music. Never before in the history of the art has the composer been able to hope for a situation at all similar to that of the visual artist, who paints a picture only once. Until recently the composer has had to gear his creative faculties to the traditions, comprehension, and practice of the only body capable of giving his work life—the body of interpretive musicians who alone had it in their power to paint and repaint his picture.
That time is past. The creative musician can now play his music for a record—once—and with a good performance and a good recording be content to end the effort right there. The record requires no body of inÂ*terpretive musicians to perpetuate it; hence it need not be of great concern to the composer that his theories are not widely understood, that his notaÂ*tion is a cryptogram to everyone but himself and his little group, that he has built instruments which perhaps may never be touched again. These were only his tools—his paints and brushes—and there the picture is, on the record. It might please his ego if he thought others would use his tools, but —fundamentally—what matter?
Twenty-four years ago, when I first began groping for answers to problems of intonation, I was a composer. I am still a composer, and my every musical act has been geared to that premise. Not a ratio of vibrational lengths has been put on paper nor one piece of wood glued to another which did not have as its ultimate objective the creation of music.
The music which is the result of this groping has been in the process of composition for seventeen years, and virtually every presentation of it has prompted numerous questions about its acoustical basis, its sociological postulates, its historic antecedents, and its compositional mechanics, the sum total of which cannot be treated adequately in less than a volume such as this.
The work is not offered as a basis for a substitute tyranny, the grooving of music and musical theory into another set of conventions. What I do hope for is to stimulate creative work by example, to encourage investigaÂ*tion of basic factors, and to leave all others to individual if not idiosyncratic choice. To influence, yes; to limit, no.
This is not to say that my attitude toward this work is objective. Objectivity would imply a lack of passion and a complete disinterest, which, if it is not an anomaly in any human being, is at least an anomaly in a composer faced with the subject of music. However I may have weighed the virtues and the shortcomings of the formulas and theories I propound, I expect—and welcome—just as intense a scrutiny of them as I have endeavored to project upon the work of some of my musical predecessors and contemporaries.
Since 1928, when a first draft of Monophonic principles was completed, the work has undergone many evolutions. In its original form it was compounded of a measure of experimentation on violins and violas and an even larger measure of intuition. In time greater knowledge of similar work by others led to several revisions in which history and the comparative aspects were stressed, although the basic principles remained unchanged. Now I have concluded, as with theses propped by the Bible, that any musical attitude can be justified by historical precedent, and that an individual experience in a given medium is by far the best substantiation conceivable. Consequently, what the book contains of history and comparative analyses is presented to clarify the bases of present-day practice and of possible expansion in the future, and not as a basic factor in the evolution of this theory and its application, except in the most general sense. The basic factors are still: experience, intuition.

Originally Posted by DeadDiscoDildo

Your words are too much for me my friend/rival. Im sick as hell right now and I can't fake being intelligent.

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

I find it odd that the Robes stuff is less composed cause it seems to have a more linear direction than the Shocks.

Originally Posted by Lurker

I was once told in the comments I was given on an essay I had done that I had been "too harsh" on Barthes and that this was a flaw with the essay. But it should have nothing to do with whether it's harsh but whether it's wrong or right or well argued!! This is the problem when you have literary critics, some will actually be able to think about what they're reading and be able to criticise, but those people are few and far between.

Originally Posted by Glice

I actually have the Death of an Author in my lap as we speak.

And, while I kind of share your reservations, I think the more important skill in Humanities Undergraduates is to be able to assimilate and explain their ideas. I once thought I'd come up with a peerless criticism of Adorno; in retrospect, I was just a jumped-up twat. The problem is that the immediate temptation is to be a giant-killer, but that comes later - or, more likely, not at all, seeing as most academics never seriously confront the people to whom they are opposed. Get your lecturers down the pub, then see how they feel...

Also, Barthes is beyond criticism. People fall in love with him. It's like slagging off the Beatles - no matter how strongly you feel, just keep your trap shut.

Edit: to Lurker.

Originally Posted by terminal pharmacy

ASP, I'm just gonna pull you up on this, if you are going to post a big slab of text that is not your; which this isn't; at least reference it 'cos people may want to read the authors work in context outside of a few paragraphs.

Originally Posted by pbradley

Being "too harsh" can be poorly argued if you're uncharitably setting up a straw man to beat around for a whole paper. I've read some pretty odorous intellectual masturbation done in that style and it's boring.

Originally Posted by Glice

I think he's a gorgeous writer. By which I mean his style is lovely to read. I've spent the whole with very dry semiotics and Barthes seems like a reading blowjob right now.

I'm never to sure where I stand on his ideas though. I think part of the problem with approaching this sort of thing is that you have to disconnect yourself from the notion of canonical interpretations; intertexuality is irrefutable if Saussure is irrefutable, and you're an idiot if you're refuting Saussure.

If you seriously don't agree with post-Saussurian linguistics (and I'd by no means suggest you should agree) then it's important to look upon it as the dominant paradigm of crit theory. I personally would happily see a cap on the proliferation of polysemic [sic] readings, but this is more to do with the failings of the academic community at large than it is specific theorists.

Sorry, I've dribbled a bit there - in essence, my feeling is that Barthes is necessary not just because the art becomes autonomous but because the author becomes a more passive part of the artform; you don't really get an expansion of an artform without ideas the destabalise the norms.

Have you read Barthes' mythologies? I read the one about wine earlier. Amazing.

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Those who can do, Those who cannot, teach. This is an erroneous statement.


Those who can, Do. Those who cannot, philosophize.

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

I got into an arguement with a friend the other day about her approach to making music, she's got skills but to my mind it seems like she went off to do her masters and came back bedazzled by critical theory and hack tutors who use deleuze and his ilk to obfuscate their lack of imagination. Plus most academics seem to me to be totally clueless about what happens outside of their own little academic scene, which seems bizarre to me.

What do you lot think about people who go off to do an arts course and then come back like they've come off the production line? do you think it is possible to show these people the error of their ways, or do you think i'd be beating my head against a brick wall?

Originally Posted by looking glass spectacle

well... i had the good fortune to share pizza, soda and several hours of conversation with hal foster and six other graduate students last week, and he says "i'm not really sure what's going on in the art world right now... and i'm not sure anyone else is either."

that evening he proceeded to give a lecture on the revival of modernist approaches to architecture (which he calls a Second Modernity) , basically rehashing what terence riley wrote ten years ago in "Light Architecture," when this new modernist stuff started getting built by people like peter zumthor. for q&a he said he'd field questions on any topic - not just the lecture - but it came across like he didn't want to talk about the paper he'd just delivered. i was a little underwhelmed.

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

fuck the aliterate.