Klarinet Archive - Posting 000308.txt from 2000/05

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Tone & Sitar & 'emotion'
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 17:47:18 -0400

William Wright wrote:
>
> Dan's concern is whether "dark" conveys useful information. Others
> of us are more concerned with the relationship between tone and
> 'emotional content'.

Bill, we are not communicating very effectively on this matter. Perhaps
I am at fault, perhaps you are not understanding what I am trying in my
clumsy way to state. However, I suggest that absolutely nothing that I
said could possibly allow you to suggest that I am not concerned with
the relationship between tone and emotional content, and I cannot for
the life of me figure out how you came to the conclusion that I had
postulated that idea.

In reference to the example you gave of the concerto for Sitar and
Orchestra, you said that "The Concerto makes the point effectively that
emotional content is part of the music's fundamental structure..."

I am not really sure what you mean when you say the music's "fundamental
structure" because that is an extraordinarily complicated subject with
lots of nuance, and I am also uncertain what that has to do with what we
are talking about.

I have indicated on several occasions that the emotional part of music
performance exists, that I try to be attuned to it, and that I recognize
it's importance. But when I am placed in the position of communicating
those ideas verbally (as one is forced to do in order to explain
something to a person who is not as well trained), the vocabulary
available to me is worse than insufficient because it often provides a
meaningless image of what needs to be said. That's why "dark" as it
applies to a sound character is such a poor word. It does not describe
anything objectively and it is a poor verbal image of the thing it is
trying to describe precisely because whatever qualities "dark" has are
not, in my opinion, even vaguely relevant to the qualities that sound
has.

I don't know how else to say this without repeating myself and I think
that I am now making more heat than light. Somehow you feel that you
can use an emotional and not entirely clear word to describe an
emotional and subjective phenomenon and that doing so serves a useful
purpose. I don't.

Dan
***************************
** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
***************************

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