Towards a non-vehicular idea of music

[Sergeant Rock]

And I'm being ironic.

And I'm being dense...not an uncommon occurrence 

Sarge

[Brian]

And I'm being dense...not an uncommon occurrence 

Sarge

I for one am glad you're here because I don't feel smart enough to contribute to this. 

[EigenUser]

A thumbs up. I agree with your post.

Sarge

Really.

A thumbs-up.

As if you couldn't come up with anything better. Something, maybe, that can't be described by a series of letters, words, and phrases; all arranged in their proper hierarchy, of course.

A thumbs up. I agr

This says enough. By finishing your sentence and placing a period at the end you've made it sound like you have your mind made up. This is never a particularly nice sight. But then again, really, why should you even claim to agr? Even when you don't finish what you are trying to say it sounds like you already have. One might even say that it says more than enough. Maybe the best thing to do is just to say nothing.

Just a theory.

[Madiel]

 

[Sergeant Rock]

Maybe the best thing to do is just to say nothing.

My usual recourse in these kinds of thr... But no, I've said too much already.

Sarge

[some guy]

OK, me dears, here is the comment of COAG's that started me thinking:

"Being able to set words to music is a skill, something where careful attention to the notes and words on the page need to not necessarily detail the action, but be able to provide hints at what moods and atmosphere the story needs. The fact that words are there in cunjunction with the music provides a more concrete solution as to what moods and atmospheres the music may be conveying."

Notice the last word. That's the pre-existing "moods" and "atmospheres" being carried (conveyed) in both the music (less concrete) and the words (more concrete).

My remark, which went unnoticed, probably because of its cryptical qualities, was this "I think it may be time for a non-vehicular theory of music.

Of language, too, why not? "

Hence this thread, eh? Which is being hijacked ( ) by all these people who listen to music in their cars. I hate to mention this for fear () of being accused of wanting to get rid of everyone's cars, but I haven't had a car for over ten years. It's delightful!!

So anyway, there's this very common idea, that everyone has used at some point or other, about meaning being conveyed by language. That's the metaphor of meaning being an object and language being a cart of some kind or maybe a wheelbarrow (my favorite) that carries the meaning from one person to another.

It's a model that I find to be somewhat inutile for music--which means, apparently, that I want to come into your homes and forbid you from using that model, though how I'm to find out where you live and what exactly I'm going to do to force you to stop are a couple of details that haven't as yet been, um, detailed. It's also a model that I have some reservations about for language as well.

I say that as a poet and a novelist and a former writing instructor who had some exposure to linguistics many merry years ago and who has of course had a little bit of practical experience with what words and phrases can be made to do. orfeo, I'm sure, will not be impressed. But as impressing was far from my goal, his lack of satisfaction will affect me in no wise. Just that I've been thinking about language and meaning for, well, for ever since whenever, and before.

Anyway, now orfeo says that "some guy has told us words don't convey."

No, I have done nothing of the sort. I have simply suggested that the conveyance model is not necessarily the be-all and end-all of thinking about what kind of thing "meaning" is; that there are possibly other models which might reveal things that the vehicle model does not. Strange. All these people screaming at a strawman construct of me over there while all the while I'm actually over here. And that thing doesn't even look like me! The ears are all wrong, for one. And I would never wear that kind of shirt.

[Madiel]

orfeo, I'm sure, will not be impressed.

Well it turns out we agree on some things.

[Madiel]

The thing that irritates me about your vehicular / non-vehicular distinction is that you haven't made a distinction at all. You've taken two sides of the feedback loop that describes how languages both rely on common usage and also change and mutate and alter meaning, and set them up as a pair of opposites.

They're not. However many threads ago it was, I already challenged both opposite notions, that language was rigid or that language was infinitely flexible. It's neither. Language relies on common meaning, but those meanings still shift. Sometimes things shift so far that it's no longer the same language.

[Uhor]

If music is a vehicle then it always arrives late, when the movements it associates itself with are in their last stages.

[(poco) Sforzando]

If music is a vehicle then it always arrives late, when the movements it associates itself with are in their last stages.

What I like about Uhor is that I never have the slightest idea what he means, but he always says it so well.

[Madiel]

What I like about Uhor is that I never have the slightest idea what he means, but he always says it so well.

He must be a composer.

[EigenUser]

He must be a composer.

He must be Webern.

[jochanaan]

If we discard the idea of music as conveyance--and that might be a good thing--what remains appears a shared experience.  Not that what a listener experiences is necessarily the same as what the composers experienced when they wrote, or what the performers experience when they play.  And both character and previous experience will color one's perceptions.  But--you come into a room in which I am ready to play a "piece of music."  You hear the same frequencies of sounds I do, with minor adjustments based on where you are in the room.  In that much, we share the experience.  But your feelings about it will not necessarily be the same as mine, just as our political beliefs may differ; and it's very very unlikely that either of us will feel in all respects what the composer felt, or didn't feel, as s/he wrote.  Still, we share the same sounds, with a slightly different viewpoint...

The trouble with the conveyance analogy is that it assumes that what "arrives" in the listeners' minds is exactly what the composer packed into the vehicle.  And we know "It ain't necessarily so." But the "shared experience" paradigm allows for the difference between what musicians feel and what listeners feel...

[Madiel]

Words are no different in that respect. It is assuredly not true that what is in the mind of the listener/reader is exactly what was in the mind of the speaker/writer.

But that just tells you that the conveyance method is imperfect. It doesn't deny what the speaker/writer was trying to do.

Also, I'm afraid I don't see how "shared experience" is any different, in that your point is actually that the experience isn't all that "shared". You are in fact arguing that composer and listener might be having quite different experiences.

[Madiel]

Well, now I know why talk about music this way. It's my pianist brain.

http://mic.com/articles/91329/science-shows-how-piano-players-brains-are-actually-different-from-everybody-elses#.geA8LopBG

[some guy]

Well, whatever helps you sleep at night.

And what would help conversation is for the conversers to respond to the things that are actually said. That is, to not make something up and then respond to that. But that's a wide-spread and ubiquitous and omnipresent thing, online and off.

But whatever. The sun is shining again. The sky is a brilliant blue, and my camera wants to go out and play. Oops, too late. The wind has already brought more clouds. OK, long, slow breakfast it is, then, woo hoo!!

[Madiel]

And what would help conversation is for the conversers to respond to the things that are actually said. That is, to not make something up and then respond to that. But that's a wide-spread and ubiquitous and omnipresent thing, online and off.

What do you expect when there's no conveyance going on? If we're not receiving anything from you, the only thing we can do is make stuff up.

[some guy]

What do you expect when there's no conveyance going on? If we're not receiving anything from you, the only thing we can do is make stuff up.

Tee hee.

Actually this was kinda clever. But seriously, before I take my ball and go home, let's look at an example and then maybe try to explain the situation as plainly as possible.

orfeo: "You've taken two sides of the feedback loop that describes how languages both rely on common usage and also change and mutate and alter meaning, and set them up as a pair of opposites."

Well, no. I haven't. I have tried to suggest some shortcomings of one model of how language works and then suggest that some other models might not have those shortcomings. (They may, indeed, turn out to have other shortcomings, but that's only to say that they are models.)

So there's this idea of language as a vehicle, right? With meaning as an object of some sort that the vehicle carries or conveys from one mind to another. OK. That's a model of how language works. But it is only a model. (Sh.)* And it has in common with other models that it does not account for everything. There's an argument for using more than one model right there, eh? Anyway, the primary danger of a model is that it can come to be taken literally, not as a model but as an actual fact. Hey! Two arguments for using more than one model. This is easier than I thought.

OK, so I proposed something, not another model, not a wholesale scrapping of the vehicular model, but that we consider the possibility and perhaps even the advantage of different models, thus setting off a firestorm of vituperation, in the midst of which, in a delightful twist of irony, one of the conversants uses a non-vehicular model to attack (and utterly destroy) a version of my proposal made from dried stalks of grain, to wit, "the feedback loop."

So other models can be useful. Yes. My point.

And, just to make sure, let me say that my principal reason for starting this was to promote the idea that in music, at least, "meaning" is not a thing that pre-exists before the sounds but is a word that describes the result of sounds sounding. I probably shouldn't have done that. "Meaning" is a concept that no one ever in the whole history of thought has ever been able to satisfactorily describe or explain or account for. And the philosophers who have tried, while perhaps presumptuous (or inept) for even trying, were all way more intelligent than I am. (I'm just barely intelligent enough to sense that. )

I am also just intelligent enough to see the limits of the claim that composers write music in order to express things, but evidently not intelligent enough to avoid trying to argue the point.

*Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[Mirror Image]

Thankfully, I don't subscribe to any particular musical POV but my own for better or for worse.

[jochanaan]

...Also, I'm afraid I don't see how "shared experience" is any different, in that your point is actually that the experience isn't all that "shared". You are in fact arguing that composer and listener might be having quite different experiences.

Not at all.  The experience is in fact shared--they hear the same notes, tones, etc.--but viewpoints differ, and perceptions differ, just as a theologian's view of the word "saved" is very different from a computer programmer's.