Re: Music and Math (was: Lobian Machine)

From: Kim Jones <kimjones.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2006 10:04:12 +1100

On 01/01/2006, at 6:36 AM, John M wrote:

>
> Besides: music (as we know the western artform) is
> decaying to nonexistence after its 3-4 centuries in
> the European culture.


No disagreement on that point. I have not heard a convincing new
musical statement in decades. Everything has come to resemble
everything else in music. A kind of entropic loss of structure and
meaning if you will. Perhaps the decay of the musical artform is a
precursor of the decay of all art? Where art has sunk to mere
(repetitive) entertainment we are encoding only the most
uninteresting qualia, which is the low-quality (safe) approach of
today's world.



> Would you include the African drums, the Oriental
> 1/4-tone tunes, the "native American" hummings etc. in
> your term of "music"?


Of course. All cultures have some form of music. I am not
discriminatory in the least about that. If we set aside the mechanics
which, as you say, can be captured or emulated by machines, why is it
so often that people feel that a musical experience rated as
successful is *like* the description of a physical (whatever that
means) object? A lousy piece conjures no such impression. By its very
nature then, music seems to demonstrate that physicality can be
conjured from nothing. In this case the physical presence of the
perceived musical object would be located - where? Couldn't music, on
this basis, emulate a universe?

Kim Jones

  
Received on Sat Dec 31 2005 - 18:10:47 PST