Klarinet Archive - Posting 000964.txt from 2001/10

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] Yes We Have No Bananas vs. Beethoven 9
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 12:58:21 -0500

On Tue, 30 Oct 2001 17:10:36 -0600, LacyS@-----.org said:

> I know that there are some works that I do like much better than
> others. Of course, now that I'm being made to think of it (I don't
> normally categorize things like this, which is why I said that I
> didn't think of one being better than the other, but I see your
> point), I do think Beethoven's 9th is on a higher level than the
> banana song. But I state that as my opinion and not as a fact. But
> Dan's point is valid, I think. We could make similar arguments about
> almost anything using the proper reasoning.
>
> Does that answer the question? Sorry if I came off defensive.

I think that's fair. My point would only be that Dan and his
(fictional?) opponent just haven't between them come up with a
sufficiently rich theory of how music works. That's not surprising,
because *no-one* has come up with much of a theory about that. But
Dan's story, while funny, shouldn't be thought of as evidence for the
notion that it's in principle impossible to do better by being more
imaginative.

A theory of music would have at least to begin to explain the sorts of
thing that make different people have different responses to pieces, and
how the responses of just one person to a piece can change over time.
But it would also have to explain why we (surely) all want to say that
'Beethoven's 9th is on a higher level than the banana song'. Or, if you
have grand hopes for the banana song, that 'Beethoven's 9th is on a
higher level than the piece that my young nephew just hacked out on the
piano'.

To do this the theory would have to deal with the unconscious background
assumptions that are required for any listener to understand anything we
might want to call music. Some of those background assumptions are
hard-wired, to do with our innate ability to recognise patterns, and
some of them are learned. But the learned ones then become unconscious
like the hard-wired ones. That's why musicians have to practise. And
because all these assumptions are unconscious, it's unreasonable to
expect us to be able to explain immediately how they link up with the
other bits of us that are conscious, and how composers use both their
listeners' perceptions and their listeners' assumptions to cast their
spells.

Even the composers themselves can't explain that.

Compare how a shark clearly 'knows' how to swim very fast under water,
but they don't know how they do it. Even we don't know exactly how they
do it. If we did, we'd be able to build a machine that could do it too,
the same way. But we can't, yet.

So, it's just that I don't think 'Everything is subjective, and we can't
make any sensible assertions other than to say that' is a very good
theory of anything.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN artist: http://www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Oh, I couldn't afford a whole new brain.

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