Music in life and Life in Music

This past chapter of Aesthetics & Music, has made me think about how music and life are interfused in not only by rhythmic activities but also the process of learning and performing music mirrors life.

The other day when I was practicing I began to think about the process of learning music is much like carrying out life goals. When you first get a piece it is intimidating, especially when it is outside your comfort zone. It seems impossible, and it may seem like you cannot do it but with patience and a calm approach you soon reach your goal. By slowing it down, viciously repeating it, chunking it together, and increasing the tempo gradually each day your impossible goal doesn't seem so impossible anymore. This relates to life. There is a great quote that I received in a fortune cookie one time it stated, "Every truly great accomplishment is at first impossible." Although fortune cookies are not a reliant source, I have to give the validity of this statement some credit. Like with learning a new piece, when we break down our goals into individual steps and take one step at a time, and take precision and care in each step we soon reach our goals. Of course not every goal is carried out this way, that would be unrealistic, yet a great deal are. Sometimes we may just wing it, but even that improvisation has somewhat of a plan involved, it there was not a plan how would you know if you carried out all of the steps.

Another relation between music and life is performing. The hardest thing for me, and the number one rule of performing is to keep going even if you make a mistake. Like music performance, life is spaced over time, time travel does not exist (at least yet anyways) there is no going back and fixing a mistake you made or taking back something that you said. In life you have to keep going.

Question: Other than rhythmic activities, performing, and practicing, how else is music intertwined with life and what other activities have musical qualities?

Re: Sean's 'Importance of sound origin'

In one of his posts Sean ended with the question, "Does sound origin play a significant role in music?"

Like Sean and Hamilton stated the acousmatic thesis states that when listening to music we should divorce tones from their source. Yet, Hamilton later subjected to the two fold thesis which states that the musical experience should include focusing on the physical, literal, holistic and individual properties of the tones while also realizing the origin of the sounds. (pg 110).

I think that the sound origin does play a significant role in music. Knowing what instrument the timbre is coming from and knowing things about that instrument like the range or the fact that it may squeak from time to time gives a new appreciation to the experience. Take for example you are listening to a trumpet concerto and you hear notes that you know are at the top of that instruments range, you then can associate that the trumpet player is talented and spent many hours practicing that piece. Knowing other qualities about instruments like the fact that clarinets squeak, can make it easier to dismiss the error when it occurs in a performance. Being able to distinguish instruments by their timbre while listening to an ensemble makes the experience more pleasurable because you can focus in on one or more specific instruments and make a mental score. Anything is more enjoyable when you can understand it better.

Let's turn to vocalists. Knowing what band is playing a song you have never heard before is easy for most people to do when they listen to the vocalist's timbre. It is important to know who is singing what because you do not want to give credit or discredit the wrong artist. Typically when songs are covered we prefer the original sound source to the 'stolen' or 'copied' versions. (of course there are exception to this.) This raises the question of why.

Question: Why do we prefer the original sound origin, to the redone version? Do we choose which sound origin we prefer based on which sounds better or something else?

Computer Music ... Again

In class on Monday Dr. Johnson asked if the intention in creating an artificial composing computer program is enough intention to constitute it as music?

We have defined music so far as organized sound with the intention to be aesthetically pleasing. We have also noted that if we are to create something not intending it to be music, and then work on it, it then becomes intentional. When we compose a song we are intentionally placing each note on a score and considering how it works together with the other notes that are being played at the same time as well as reflecting on what came before and what will come after. Composing is a strategic process embedded in intention. Creating a computer program that creates compositions does have intent, but the individual songs themselves do not have intent. The pieces that this program generates are bi-products of the original intent to create the program. The intent needs to be to the notes directly, like with human compositions to be considered music. The computer programs create more of a template of the general rise, falls, and resolutions that are typical in music. Yet, if one takes this template and works on it, changes chord progressions, tweaks rhythms, and adds in new voices/instruments, then I think it is safe to say that it is then music. (of course if it at least 80% original).

Question: Is it safe to say that computer generated music can become real music if someone changes it around and adds intention to it? How much intention must be added in order for it to be considered music?

Re: Wesley/ Peter "Contribution and Computer Generated Music"

An ongoing topic in blogging this semester is computer generated music. Wesley recently talked about a program from Hans Zimmer & Pharrell Williams which can turn any hum or whistle into a song. He ended with the question "How much contribution is needed to consider something music?" Peter then replied and ended with the question, "Does something with no contribution whatsoever have the right to be called music"?

Nowadays music producers do not write a single note of their own. They take tracks from older songs and replay a clip over and over again in the back ground. Or they take midi loops and organize them in their own sequence. I would consider that as sound art and not music. If you take loops and do not compose every single note yourself, then it is not truly yours, yet I may not goes as far to say that any contribution aside from ones self makes the piece not music or sound art. In writing articles, books, or any other publication, the rule of thumb for plagiarism is that it cannot be more than 20 percent of other works. Since composing is a type of writing, I think we should apply this principle. If a work is not at least 80% of the composer(s) then it is not their music. So if a composer took one loop and had four harmonies that he/she wrote themselves they are safe. Yet, if a composer took two loops and wrote three harmonies it would be sound art. I agree with Peter that computer generated music is at least sound art. These percentages are just a starting point, feel free to offer suggestions if you feel that they are too strict or not strict enough.

Questions: I'm going to change this around a little since it is such a recurring theme, let's talk about the ethics of these "composition machines". What if the creators of these computer programs never told anyone that they created it and they used it to generate compositions in their credit? Would it be plagiarism? If you never knew it was created by a machine would you call it music just the same? It is the conception that it is an artificial creation rather than the quality of the composition that makes us dislike it. Are we being racist towards computers? (Just kidding).

Nietzsche and Music

In our latest chapter in the text, Hamilton brings up Nietzsche and some of his philosophies. As many people in our class know, especially those who took The Ring Cycle with Dr. Dilthey, Nietzsche was involved with music since childhood and later did work with Richard Wagner, one of the most famous German opera composers. I will try to stray away from the compositions and the music that influenced him and focus on his philosophy of music.

I'll start by discussing what was said about Nietzsche in Aesthetics & Music. Nietzsche believed that the parts of music are meaningful and combine aesthetics of representation and form (pg70, Hamilton). My interpretation of this is that Nietzsche believes that you cannot separate representation and form from aesthetic perception because the meaning of a piece is inseparable the parts of the music. Another claim Nietzsche made was that great art must be created through Dionysian consciousness and "musical mood" rather than being exactly musical(pg 79). The Dionysian as we discussed in class, is the crazy, "alcoholic", and ecstasy driven side of the dichotomy; whereas Apollonian is the concept of dreams and organization. A literal interpretation would be that, when we are drunk and crazy, and in the mood to make music then it is great art. Yet, since Nietzsche is a translated philosopher room is needed for the lack of correct translatable terms. Perhaps this statement means that when we are drunk with inspiration and driven to create music we create the best art. Another statement from Nietzsche was that since poetry converges with music in a rhythmic, stress (of syllables/words), and dynamic sense, it offers insight to the "inner world" and allows it to act as a language of feeling(pg 80). This convergence allows us to associate specific parts of the music with certain feelings. Nietzsche is saying that the poetic aspects in music is what allows the music to speak to us and without these qualities it does not.

Putting these three statements together as well as Hamilton's claim that Nietzsche is a follower of radical aestheticism, I come to the conclusion. Nietzsche believed that you cannot separate representation and form from aesthetic perception because the meaning of a piece is inseparable the parts of the music, the direct translation would be that great art is made when someone is drunk and in the "musical mood", but perhaps there was a loss in translation, and finally poetic aspects of music allows music to speak to us. A follower in radical aestheticism believes that aesthetics is the highest value, above morals and all other values. That leads me to my question...

Question: How can aesthetic value be above moral value? What sort of other philosophies would someone have to adopt in order to not contradict themselves with this claim?

"Without music life would be a mistake"

- Nietzsche

(Twilight of the Idols)

Music and Cognition 1

I've been thinking a lot about the information that I have been reading about in my cognitive psychology class and how it relates to music. This might be a little discursive but it is honestly all I can think about.

One cognitive theory states that people with higher working memories actually mind wonder more than those with lower working memory abilities. This is because they have a cognitive capacity available that is beyond what is required for a certain task. My theory is that these are the people who can listen to music and do homework at the same time, and claim that it helps them concentrate. Music helps them concentrate because they cognitive capacity that otherwise would not have been fulfilled by the task and is fulfilled by the music, and hence they do not mind wonder as much -- they are more concentrated.
Another general theory is that of automaticity. When you do something over and over again it becomes second nature and when you think about it, it actually makes you do worse! (Totally what happened to me at my first trumpet recital). Anyone that plays an instrument can tell you that once you have something down, don't think about it, just do it.

In a study done by Scheider & Shiffrin their participants went through 2,100 detection trials (looking for the same visual targets in a display -- kind of like a word search). By the 600th trial the accuracy rates were over 80%. After the researchers then switched the targets and had them search for the targets that were the distraction targets in the previous trials. It took the participants 2,400 trials to match the accuracy level that before only took them 600 trials to achieve. This relates to music because when you learn and practice a note wrong or practice with a bad technique it takes even longer to relearn it the correct way.

Question: What does attention, automaticity, and relearning effects tell us about the philosophy of music?

Re: Kristina's "Personal music"

In Kristina's post, "Personal Music" she ends with the question "Does a personal connection to music speak to the aesthetics of that piece in anyway, or merely to the listener, or the performer?"

In order to answer this question accurately we must first determine if aesthetic qualities are merely perceptions or if they are physical manifestations that we perceive. The distinction being that the beauty is in our minds or in the aesthetic work itself.

If we are to go with the first idea, then yes a personal connection to a musical piece may change the aesthetics of it. People enjoy the music that they grew up listening to. Perhaps this serves as an explanation as to why we have a connection to the music that we have listened to throughout our lives -- because it symbolizes our life. Music seems as though it can have the same connection to memory as scents do. One "wiff" so to say, can send you back to another time. A song can remind you of a specific person or time in your life. My brother likes to make mixed CDs for his car, and whenever he makes a new one he titles it whatever the current month and year is, as if he is marking that CD with the time in his life. Does the music we listen to at any point in our lives say anything about us at that particular moment? We all have memories of childhood that deal with pop culture such as remembering that we used to collect Pokemon cards and Bennie Babies, or remembering when "Who Let the Dogs Out" was first played on the radio.

If we go with the second idea, that the aesthetic value is in the work itself, then no, the aesthetics of that piece will not change. With this theory, something's aesthetic value cannot increase or decrease if the external properties do not change. If a connection is made and there is an increase in its appeal to the listener, then it may be the memory that the song is tied to rather than the song itself that adds liking to the piece.

Question: Are aesthetics in our mind or physical properties?