Klarinet Archive - Posting 000183.txt from 2004/09

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: [kl] Organic change
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 17:23:29 -0400

On 6 Sep, "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net> wrote:

> Although it's possible to label certain types of music as non-authentic (or
> hybrid or even fake) klezmer, I think it's also possible to recognize that
> music can be *good music* whether it altogether fits into a category or
> not. (Also, just because music is authentic doesn't mean it's good.) I'm
> uncomfortable with the whole idea that in order to earn respect, a musician
> must specialize, and then stick with that specialty in order to be accepted
> as "real," or that a person must be a native to belong. Music thrives
> between open borders.

It's always difficult to say clearly what is 'good' about *anything*.

But one way of looking at the problem involves the notion of 'organic
change'. Something is said to undergo organic change when some aspects of
that something change, whilst other aspects stay the same.

The idea is quite general: animals in motion exhibit organic change, as do
many convincing harmonic progressions in music. The process of evolution
itself involves organic change over long time-scales. And organic change can
be seen at various levels of abstraction: a horse can do something
surprising, without compromising its 'horsiness'; as can a cat, without
compromising its 'cattiness'.

This notion of the different 'graces' of different animals is suggestive: a
great composer can generate surprise and drama within their own style -- so
that what is 'different' in one sense in what they write is also in some
other sense, 'the same'. And a great writer can personally stretch whatever
language they are using without breaking its implicit rules -- as judged by
native speakers.

Because of this aspect of our world, it does seem that you need a deep
(though not necessarily conscious) understanding of the background style
(what doesn't change) of a work of art in order to be able to appreciate it
fully -- or more fully, at any rate, than just 'liking' the sound or look of
it.

That understanding may not necessarily be accessible to everyone. For
example, I have no chance of a full appreciation of Pushkin's 'Eugene
Onegin', because I am not, and can never be, a native Russian speaker.

With years of study, I could, of course, get much closer than I am now. If
I learnt Russian I would begin to have some feel for how Pushkin's mastery of
organic change allowed him to create meaningful structures. And the same is
true for music too. We can come to appreciate the subtleties of a great
composer more fully over time, because we become sensitive to how what they
write constitute 'organic-change-type' departures from what we sense is their
style.

Finally, I think that the notion of organic change can also help to explain
why it is a particular departure from an established style (such as Klezmer,
perhaps) may be justifiably criticisable. It could happen that the departure
is too radical, and that buying it 'blots out' important nuances used by
other practitioners. If the departure is 'organic', and made by a great
artist, that may be acceptable, and buildable upon -- then, it counts as an
extension of the language. But if it is done superficially, without
understanding, it may be worth killing off.

If you *can't* kill it off -- well, there is a suggestive ordinary language
analogy. It is that 'obviously' superficial codes like 'pidgin' languages --
languages that have nothing of the depth of a real language, being
artificially constructed by adults -- may be transformed into 'creoles' by
young children. (A creole is a new language that has all the power and
flexibility of a natural language, but that is built from transformations of
the elements of the original pidgin.)

Children develop creoles because of their inbuilt 'language instinct', that
operates only in a window of opportunity in early childhood that shuts on us
as we age. The children use the crude, pidgin material of their elders in
this window to construct their creole.

So, perhaps a 'childlike' great composer or performer may do the same with
the detritus of earlier failures.

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

... You can make it foolproof. But you can't make it damn foolproof!

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