Brains Cannot Cope!

[canninator]

OK, utter nonsense then. Really, read it again. There's not a statement in there that's even close to right. (Probably because the main premise, that brains are all the same, is wrong. Probably because the minor premise, that what Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven wrote "followed strict musical formula to produce music that was easy on the ear." Yes. That's what made them all so different from each other, not to mention.

Your assessment of this article is incorrect. The article contains soundbites from prominent researchers in music cognition who give short and balanced summaries of active and interesting areas of research, or are you saying they are all 'wrong'. The article does not state or give the impression of a premise that all brains are the same. Indeed, contemporary analysis suggests that there is a strict musical formula (expressed mathematically) that underpins rhythm in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (I am not suggesting this formula was adhered to consciously or that there is not piece to piece variation) that goes some way towards its appeal (in addition to the 1/f power law determining pitch frequency in music).

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/10/3716.long

[Polednice]

Here's Steven Stucky:

"Trying to imagine how other people will react to music, and then tailoring your music to elicit these reactions, is equivalent to writing advertising jingles. It may be honest work; it may even have some value to society; but it's not art, it's business. (A recent counterexample should still be fresh in our memories. In many of the formerly Communist countries, officials spent 30 years pressuring composers to write music aimed deliberately at the common man, tunes that could be readily understood by every factory worker. The results were disastrous. We would do well to keep that experiment in mind.)"

The whole article is very good.

http://www.stevenstucky.com/ListeningtoComtempMusic.shtml

That may just be a quote of general interest, but I don't think Stucky's warning is relevant here. Writing for the common man, or in anticipation of how people will react, or anything remotely deliberately populist is worlds away from achieving an understanding of how the brain processes sound and therefore writing music that is likely to be processed easier. There are many reasons why a composer's aesthetic may hold such an ideal and not all of them need to be pandering or disastrous.

[snyprrr]

haha... the 'symphonies' of Schoenberg and Webern


WHO is writing this stuff TODAY anyway? Haven't all Composers been co-opted? See what happens if someone writes a 'Palestinian' Symphony. (obvious trolling, haha)

Well, I guess MOST brains can't cope with the music of High Modernism, but it wasn't for the masses to begin with.

nevermind

[eyeresist]

They're in there!

Yeah, why didn't they study the schematic?

Here's Steven Stucky:

"Trying to imagine how other people will react to music, and then tailoring your music to elicit these reactions, is equivalent to writing advertising jingles."

But this is bull, because it supposes the great artists were unaware of the effect their work would have on the audience. Considering the point of artistic creation is to create an experience for the audience, lack of awareness of their affect on the audience is the mark of an amateur.

[starrynight]

Agreed.  All music is written with some kind of audience in mind.  And the idea that just modern classical music requires more effort to understand is also surely weak.

[some guy]

Trying to imagine how other people will react to music, and then tailoring your music to elicit these reactions, is equivalent to writing advertising jingles.

But this is bull, because it supposes the great artists were unaware of the effect their work would have on the audience. Considering the point of artistic creation is to create an experience for the audience, lack of awareness of their affect on the audience is the mark of an amateur.

It does nothing of the sort. Although trying to predict how an audience will react to your music is a chump's game.

In any case, I do not consider that creating an experience for the audience is the point of artistic creation. But even if I did, I would not leap to "lack of awareness of... affect(sic)... is the mark of an amateur."

Stucky's point is not about awareness or unawareness but about making your awareness the principle that generates your work. And, as he points out, that's business not art.

[Elgarian]

Just thinking a little more about these problems of pattern perception in music ... [What? Oh ... why is everyone leaving the room?]

Anyway, to continue. There are close parallels between the difficulty in perceiving musical patterns and those experienced in looking at abstract painting. Some of the finest abstract paintings can appear to be just a random assortment of brush strokes if we can't perceive (not necessarily consciously) the underlying architecture. I've stood amazed by the structure of pictures that others around me were dismissing as junk; and I've equally stood, utterly baffled, by pictures that others are amazed by. This isn't just a matter of taste - it's largely governed by whether or not we can find a way of perceiving something of the architecture of the painting. If we can - if we make that breakthrough - then what we disliked before can be transformed into something that delights us.

The problem is that if we find it too difficult to perceive the architecture of the design, we (at least, I) tend to move on, since mainly I'm looking for an 'art' experience rather than a puzzle to unravel. I suspect that when people say they don't 'like' a generally acclaimed work of art or piece of music, it is indeed often as much a problem of pattern-perception, rather than one arising from a simple difference in taste. The structure is the backbone of the thing, and without some grasp of it (conscious or intuitive), we're all at sea in a mish-mash of jelly (and mixed metaphors).

[eyeresist]

In any case, I do not consider that creating an experience for the audience is the point of artistic creation. But even if I did, I would not leap to "lack of awareness of... affect(sic)... is the mark of an amateur."

Stucky's point is not about awareness or unawareness but about making your awareness the principle that generates your work. And, as he points out, that's business not art.

"Point" was the wrong word for me to use, indeed. "Job" is better (still not great).

The issue is whether art is created for mercenary reasons (to shift units) or ... what is art for? I was going to say "To satisfy the artist", but then remembered RVW saying of his 6th, "I don't know if I like it, but it's what I meant." Nor is it true to say that commercial considerations rule out art. If that were true, we'd have to rule out almost all the great art. Bye bye Shakespeare, sayonara Michaelangelo. When does aesthetic satisfaction become mere pandering?

So I'm going to go with the Zoidberg response:


"One art please!"

[Karl Henning]

I was going to say "To satisfy the artist", but then remembered RVW saying of his 6th, "I don't know if I like it, but it's what I meant."

Doesn't materially alter your point, mate; but I believe he said that of the Fourth (and while rehearsing an orchestra in the piece).

[Karl Henning]

Yeah, why didn't they study the schematic?

You know this already, but of course my own music is for listening and enjoying, not (except incidentally, and by those specialists inclined to it) for studying.

More germane, I think, is the idea of absorption ("Santa! Pass us that bottle, will ya?") I certainly enjoy (and many a musical 'layman' likewise enjoys) music with an element of (grabbing a ready term just off the shelf) bafflement. One possible visual analogy is those busy 'patterns' which to the eye look no more than the product of a Spyro-Graph™ that's gone amok; but if you make a small effort (which some people perform quite readily, where others — I was one of them — find that initial effort something of a challenge) to refocus your eyes in a certain way, you see the 'actual' (and 3D-ish) image.

It's silly to fault the artist there for "requiring effort" on the part of the audience, and there is a perfectly sufficient population of audience who like that sort of thing, that talk of proscription were obvious tyranny. Where on music discussion boards (for instance) it is not uncommon to read an opinion which is no great distance from "composers who write music which I cannot more or less readily understand, deserve to be gaoled."

[Karl Henning]

Man, I didn't intend that smiley. Chalk it up to Tapatalk

[Lethevich]

Well, I had better be careful, then, not to write music which makes the audience feel 'stupid' for not 'understanding' it!

Friendly Atonal Honking!

It works with pop:

http://www.friendlynoise.se/label/friendly-people-making-noise/

[Karl Henning]

Just thinking a little more about these problems of pattern perception in music ... [What? Oh ... why is everyone leaving the room?]

Anyway, to continue. There are close parallels between the difficulty in perceiving musical patterns and those experienced in looking at abstract painting. Some of the finest abstract paintings can appear to be just a random assortment of brush strokes if we can't perceive (not necessarily consciously) the underlying architecture. I've stood amazed by the structure of pictures that others around me were dismissing as junk; and I've equally stood, utterly baffled, by pictures that others are amazed by. This isn't just a matter of taste - it's largely governed by whether or not we can find a way of perceiving something of the architecture of the painting. If we can - if we make that breakthrough - then what we disliked before can be transformed into something that delights us.

The problem is that if we find it too difficult to perceive the architecture of the design, we (at least, I) tend to move on, since mainly I'm looking for an 'art' experience rather than a puzzle to unravel. I suspect that when people say they don't 'like' a generally acclaimed work of art or piece of music, it is indeed often as much a problem of pattern-perception, rather than one arising from a simple difference in taste. The structure is the backbone of the thing, and without some grasp of it (conscious or intuitive), we're all at sea in a mish-mash of jelly (and mixed metaphors).

Fine post overall, and in particular: This isn't just a matter of taste - it's largely governed by whether or not we can find a way of perceiving something of the architecture of the painting.

Makes me think of your own efforts w/r/t mine own Nunc dimittis. And I am grateful anew for your patiente application.

[Elgarian]

Makes me think of your own efforts w/r/t mine own Nunc dimittis.

That's exactly so! Wish I'd thought to mention that, and glad you did!

[Josquin des Prez]

Western civilization has been on a path of decadence since the Renaissance. It is quite amusing to see modern individuals, who's intellect and sense of the true meaning of the universe have been subject to the most aberrant deviations discuss the meaning of an art derived from pure meaningless, in an age where "intellectuals" (yes, i'm being derisive here) use all their energies to convince the common man that the universe, life and everything came into being from absolute nothingness, only to be frustrated when the common man, despite his lack of imagination (and perhaps because of that precise lacuna in his psychological make up), actually isn't dumb enough to believe it. Where there is poverty of intelligence (and i'm not talking about the common man here), common sense has a way to set things straight one way or another.

Meanwhile modern intellectuals will continue to stick electrodes in their brains in an effort to understand things in which they no longer believe. Talk about a task doomed to failure from the outset.

[Josquin des Prez]

Some of the finest abstract paintings can appear to be just a random assortment of brush strokes if we can't perceive (not necessarily consciously) the underlying architecture.

If it has an underlying architecture then it is not an "abstract" painting. The question is whether what you believe to be an underlying architecture is actually there in the first place. It think the term "cognitive dissonance" applies here.

[Karl Henning]

Western civilization has been on a path of decadence since the Renaissance.

Well, there's an interesting opinion.

[Karl Henning]

If it has an underlying architecture then it is not an "abstract" painting.

You're making this easy, thanks! When the artist is not depicting an actual Subject, it is an Abstract painting.

[Josquin des Prez]

You're making this easy, thanks! When the artist is not depicting an actual Subject, it is an Abstract painting.

The underlying architecture IS the subject. If the painting has no subject, and the painter just brushes wildly at the canvas, then it can be truly said to be "abstract" in an actual sense. Actually, some people today might even argue that such an aleatory approach to painting might be taken to be the actual subject of the painting, but that's obviously an extreme opinion.

[Karl Henning]

The underlying architecture IS the subject.

No, sorry.  You're utterly out of your depth talking about the matter (or, you're being deliberately dense).  You've just made a remark equivelent to confusing a theme with the form.

What you tried to do earlier, as to "re-define" terms to align with your derision.  I know you entirely don't twig this, but, nope, you don't get to do that.