 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: beejay
Date: 2003-06-11 10:11
A recent very interesting thread about which music contributors consider most emotional got me thinking about cause in effect in music. Some of the pieces listed in the thread (I won't say which) set my teeth jangling, although they are obviously very beatiful for the people who cited them. Chinese opera doesn't exactly turn me on, and phrases in Haydn or Mozart that were thought to be "dissonent" by their contemporaries strike me as being utterly harmonious. So what does create musical emotion? Do we learn it? Or is there some underlying rule of nature that says a certain combination of notes will have the same effect on everyone who hears it, provided they are familiar with the musical conventions?
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Author: beejay
Date: 2003-06-11 14:19
Thanks Mark. I have put it on my reading list. Nevertheless, although Dianna Deutsch may be the final word on the subject, fellow contributors to this board may have some illuminating insights also.
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Author: William
Date: 2003-06-11 14:34
Another interesting reading would be susanne K. Langer's "Philosophy in A New Key", a "study in the symbolism of reason, rite, and art." 1951
It seemed to make a lot of sense to me in grad school where we were coping with the very question you have posted--why do we like music?
(other questions involved wine, women and song--ah, for the "good old days")
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-06-11 16:02
Certainly a thought provoking subject for which I have no good answer. In my limited experience people I have encountered who have no appreciation of music had no musical training as children...so, I think part of it is learned.
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Author: ron b
Date: 2003-06-11 18:48
All I can offer is a subjective 'for what it's worth'.
To the best of my fading recollections, I was raised on mostly 'country western' type music - with a pretty good dose of 'gospel' sporadically edged in. Most of it, at best, pretty mediocre. California - central valley towns are all very similar... post-Grapes of Wrath era. I started playing clarinet in grammar school. During and after high school, I played a couple of seasons in a 'home town' philharmonic orchestra then went on to play in military concert/marching bands and after that night club combos and dixie-type outfits. Oh, yeah, there were a few 'country' aggregations along the way. I've by no means 'done it all' but I'd say my overall exposure is fairly broad. I like almost anything musically that's well played.
I believe we humans are by nature musical creatures. I know quite a few deaf folks who are by no means distanced from music, although, generally speaking, they aren't as keenly involved (for obvious reasons) as are hearing folks.
I've yet to meet someone, Any-one, who has No appreciation of music - deaf or hearing.
Though tastes and preferences may differ widely, everyone I know or have known has expressed some likes or dislikes for music to some degree. I don't know anyone who is totally neutral about music, whether they play or don't play an instrument.
Furthermore, if we're able to stretch our imaginations to include washboard, spoons, pencils and saws - I don't know anybody who Doesn't play an instrument.
- r![[cool]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/cool.gif) n b -
Post Edited (2003-06-11 18:53)
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-06-11 19:21
Perhaps what distinguishes us from other primates is our pursuit of novelty... if we are continually exposed to a piece of music, a need may develope to find a hidden wrinkle in the weave on further examination.
To the extreme, you develope music for musicians;
Technical, atonal and with shifting time signatures for all instruments.
At the simplest end;
'Ma-ma'
In between you find something that makes you 'Pat yer foot'.
As a brief student of Taiwan opera, I can tell you that crap is King and the really involved stuff flops.
Nothing wrong with having an actual audience, now is there?
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Author: Lisa_UK
Date: 2003-06-12 07:01
ron_b wrote:
>I've yet to meet someone, Any-one, who has No appreciation of music - deaf or hearing.
You ought to meet my father then Ron. I've never known anyone so indifferent to music.
I find this a really interesting discussion, because I was raised in a home where absolutely no music was played to me while I was growing up. I often hear musicians say "Oh my parents always had [x, y, or z] on the turntable, and I grew up listening to [etc]". We had a radio, but it was always tuned to the talk stations or the news, and never the music stations.
Beats me how I turned out so musical really. Whatever it was, it certainly didn't come from my "nurturing" environment. I'm inclined to lean more towards the nature option - my uncle plays clarinet, although he lives in America and I've only met him maybe 3 or 4 times, and my grandmother was a pianist, but I never met her either.
I'm digressing a little bit - but the point I'm trying very un-eloquently to make is that I have absolutely no idea where my preferences come from, given my parents total indifference to musical styles - but I believe that some kind of musical influence is inherant in my genes, somewhere, *possibly* because of the musical connections of other branches of my family that I don't know well.
I find all sorts of music affects me. I love big band swing, a-la Glenn Miller - I recently watched a youth jazz orchestra play and it moved me to tears - even the up-tempo numbers. I love brass and military band music, and some classical, although I'm not that familiar with most of it as a good deal of my musical playing experience was gained in a community band environment and not an orchestra of any kind.
I also have a huge passion for both jazz-funk and heavy metal - although I doubt I'm likely to be playing any of that on my clarinet!
The only genre that I really can't get on with is Country & Western - I've never been able to listen to it.
I'm just one of those people who loves music, full stop - I listen to and appreciate almost everything I hear. But I honestly believe that it's in my nature - as I was never really exposed to music in the in the home.
Post Edited (2003-06-12 07:05)
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Author: beejay
Date: 2003-06-12 07:30
My experience is like Lisa's. When I was growing up, we had no music or even a method of sound reproduction in my house, apart from the ubiquitous TV, and my only experience of making music was in the church choir, which detested. I remember bringing home from school one day a trombone and my father telling me to "take that noise out of the house."
I did play skiffle on a tea-chest base and later taught myself clarinet well enough to make a modest living out of playing New Orleans Jazz, but then I put the clarinet aside for work and family obligations. For one reason or another, I completely escaped the pop music scene. It was only a few years ago -- after more than 35 years of non-playing -- that I rediscovered the clarinet as a classical instrument, and it was somehow as though I had known the repertoire all my life. If I had the technique, I would happily play anything in the repertoire. I certainly never learned this, and my teacher still has to fill in appalling technical gaps in my "solfege" skills. So I also think music is naturally inherent, although I wish my genes had told me about the clarinet somewhat earlier in life.
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Author: Lisa_UK
Date: 2003-06-12 07:38
beejay wrote:
>For one reason or another, I completely escaped the pop music scene.
I didn't, although my experience was - I never followed "trends" - my preferences have always been for artists with real musical/songwriting ability, and heck, talent. A good example - when I was in school, my friends would all be raving about Duran Duran, Wham, A-ha, etc - while I was eagerly awaiting the new releases from Peter Gabriel, Level 42, Sting and the like - and I could never understand it when they didn't "get it" !
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2003-06-12 09:42
I was taught when I was studying at a certain extremely academic conservatorium, that music is ONLY (I repeat, ONLY) about tension and release. Tension, dissonance. Harmony, release. I don't believe this, of course.
I just think it's all a very personal experience, and that's the beauty - we play music, and each person who hears it has their own personal experience of it.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-06-12 17:00
The comments about dissonance caught my attention. I've thought that dissonance is a term that evolved only in Western music culture areas.
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