Klarinet Archive - Posting 000075.txt from 2007/06

From: "Keith Bowen" <bowenk@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Thought some of you might enjoy this article
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:57:51 -0400

Hmmmph. No I don't know him, and don't find this type of semi-philosophical
speculation very useful. He is not really saying any more than that music
and language are qualitatively different, and I think we knew that already.

The question of what is the meaning of music, or of a piece of music, does
seem to me to generate the second most impenetrable language usage in
musicology, and some of the silliest ideas.

I think the clearest and most useful discussion of the meaning of music in a
highly limited case, is Nicholas Cook's discussion of the meaning of music
in advertisements (in his book on Analysing Multimedia). This is a case
where we know exactly what the music is there for (BUY!).

The most impenetrable language is undoubtedly that used in the
"musicological" discussion of popular music. I have a totally cynical view
of this. People have made successful academic careers out of it, and seem to
feel it necessary to clothe the emperor in as many obscure syllables as
possible. I wonder why ... Even the normally highly readable Nicholas Cook
goes all obscure, hermeneutic and semiotic when he talks about Madonna.

Keith Bowen

-----Original Message-----
From: klarinet-return-90988-bowenk=compuserve.com@-----.org
[mailto:klarinet-return-90988-bowenk=compuserve.com@-----.org] On Behalf
Of Forest Aten
Sent: 12 June 2007 15:08
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Thought some of you might enjoy this article

This article is tediously written....but the content, I felt, was
interesting.

Perhaps Tony Pay or Keith Bowen or others on the list from the UK know the
author?

http://wordmusicstudies.org/forum1.htm
Title: On Articulation and Truth in Music

Forest

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