Klarinet Archive - Posting 000263.txt from 2002/05

From: w7wright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Describing tone
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 17:16:15 -0400

<><> Tim=A0Roberts wrote:
are there ANY adjectives that can transmit objective meaning [about
tone]?

The human response to a 'musical' sound is partly physical, measurable
and analyzable. But only partly so.

The human response -also- consists of learned associations. Since each
of us has experienced (and therefore has learned) different associations
during our lives, it's hard to imagine a completely 'objective'
description --- if "objective" means "constant for all people".

Another thought about 'tone':

When discussing a performance, as opposed to analyzing a laboratory
graph of a single constant tone, it seems to me that "tone" (in the
aesthetic sense) is not a quality of itself. Your response to a
sound is influenced --- or will be influenced, a fraction of a second
later --- by the other sounds that you hear at the same moment or a few
moments before or after.

This expands the list of possibilities so dramatically that you would
need a nearly infinite number of words or phrases in order to be
entirely "objective." And of course this defeats one of language's
purposes --- namely, to create commonalities where they don't exist by
any completely objective criterion.

That is, part of language's purpose is to create social unity by
convention, not by measurement. Example: is a minor key truly
"plaintive"? If not, what sound is -objectively- plaintive? Even
such standard concepts as "tonal center" and "12-tone scale" are not
accepted in all cultures or periods of history.

A 12-tone scale is essentially an agreement to ignore most of the
possible pitches.... except that perhaps we ought to temper some of them
a little bit.... depending on the instrument we want to play.... and the
character of the music that we want to create.... Drats, I'm running
out of names for all these possibilities.... Let's just lump all of it
under the name "MUSIC".... because surely we can agree on an objective
definition for what is or isn't "music"...... can't we?

Cheers,
Bill

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

If I had Stadler's mouthpiece, would I play better? Or do I need his
ligature also? Or perhaps he and I are different persons? If I had
Mozart's pen, would I compose better?

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