Klarinet Archive - Posting 000028.txt from 2001/04

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Meta-music?
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 12:56:33 -0400

<><> Roger=A0Shilcock wrote:
But nobody is trying to describe music in terms of its own language -
are they??
For music, "natural" language - of whatever kind - *is* a metalanguage.

As always, comparison of music to language is a bed of quicksand
--- and so is any discussion of "good" or "bad". But ultimately, I
believe that music and language spring from the same roots. (Many
people on this list disagree with me, of course.)

That said, if music and language do share some basic structure in
common, cannot we make a case that "embouchure" and "breath support" and
"on the beat" and "intonation" and perhaps even "historical knowledge"
are all pieces of music's syntax and grammar? If so, then aren't they
part of the meta-language that describes the language of 'proper'
clarinet playing? And if so, isn't there room for logical error when
trying to use these same 'symbols' (words) for both levels of the
hierarchy?
You could end up with statements such as "This music is ugly" that
are logically equivalent to "This sentence is a lie." They sound
reasonable until you attempt to deal with the two levels of meaning.

I find this to be an interesting chain of thought about music
because it can deal with statements that, at first blush, seem to be
blatant statements of personal preference and yet simultaneously appear
to have some fundamental relevance to the proper defnition of 'good
music'.

Cheers,
Bill

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