Klarinet Archive - Posting 000416.txt from 2004/05

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Hesitating to draw a musical parallel
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 05:32:36 -0400

On 21 May, ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya) wrote:

> Tony Pay wrote:

> > That *you* happen to 'like' something in isolation does no work at all.
>
> Point taken, Tony. Thank you.

OK. Thanks for listening.

Now, having argued against individual likes and dislikes as determinants of
musical value, I want to say that there is a sense in which you are right.

There are aesthetic preferences which the majority of human beings pretty
much all share. That's because we evolved perceptual mechanisms that enabled
us to survive; and those mechanisms necessarily play their part in our
artistic behaviour as well as in our normal behaviour.

So although there is a very wide spectrum of human behaviour, and although
quite often human beings behave in a way that is directly counterproductive
to their own well-being, we all have built into our responses particular
patterns: those that enabled us to survive in the past. And that's the sense
in which our preferences aren't 'merely' subjective.

For example, we are more likely to find attractive someone who exhibits
health and vigour, compared with someone who give the impression of being
weak and lethargic -- all other things being equal. Moreover, we tend to
choose examples of the former type both as prospective mates and as
prospective leaders -- again, all other things being equal. It's not
difficult to see the survival advantage of this predisposition, and therefore
not difficult to understand how it evolved.

One of the strongest indicators of health and vigour is quality of voice. A
strong, healthy person tends to have a rich and resonant voice, whilst
someone who is ill and debilitated usually sounds thin and quavery. So it's
not surprising that some sounds are more attractive to us than others, or
that when it comes to musical instruments, we prefer some general sorts of
sound over others.

But, not always; just as someone with a naturally resonant voice may easily
modulate that resonance it to expressive effect, even in extreme cases
actually imitating other sorts of voice, an instrumentalist needs to use a
variety of sounds that lie within a generally 'healthy' context, whilst
reserving the possibility of 'tentative', 'quavery' and 'desperate' on the
rare occasions that it's demanded by the music.

The fact that it's difficult to categorise these sorts of sound
scientifically doesn't destroy their reality in our world. After all, we are
exquisitely sensitive detectors of human characteristics, having evolved that
ability over millions of years.

And so, finally, although there are many different varieties of clarinet
sound, there is a sense in which some of them can be meaningfully said to be
'good' -- for us. They represent part of our natural positive response to
one aspect of 'beauty', even though there are many other aspects of beauty
that are appreciated by us at higher levels of sound organisation.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... I'm an absolute, off-the-wall fanatical moderate.

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