Saturday, August 23, 2003
04:58
Disclaimer: Here I present the disclaimer to an interesting (insofar as it is wildy generalized) way of looking at dynamism along the information production/consumption continuum as is manifest in the pop cultures of western and westernized (by the way, I wonder why don't we have the word "easternized") countries. This is rather perilous, so please bear with me. I only hope that the novelty of the analogy will prove enough to circumvent the need to beg for the forgiveness of both scholarly communities brazenly appropriated.
I suppose it was Xenakis who taught me how to disrespect music in a healthy way. Most of my friends might guess Cage, but his approach was always too reverential for my tastes (sorry John). Anyway, my main man Iannis was a great help in that he demonstrated in some of his more important works the idea that we can look at music in a "non-musical" way. His particular way was mathematical of course, but as anyone who has a basic overview of the field of mathematics might be able to ascertain, it wasn't exacty upper-echelon stuff.
Of course, this left the music-boys who new their numbers crying "foul" and the one's who didn't in the dark. The historical lines are drawn quite clearly here, but I won't do any muckraking here and name any names. It is of interest here to mention that the actual mathematicians seemed to have been pleased as punch to finally "hear" an algorithm translated into sound way before this was possible with any ease of rapidity in a real-time computational environment. They might have really gotten the big picture i think, since they didn't really have anything riding on it in the first place.
Now of course, we are (or you are, I don't have the time) free to haggle over the details when it comes to Xenakis, he certainly isn't around anymore to prevent you from doing so. Both in and without his presence, notable personages have taken up issue with such minutiae as: the solutions to some of his calculations, his "erratic" treatment of timbre (i.e. his theory's inability in the acoustic realm at least, to comprehensively treat such intangibles), and even (I'm kind of reaching here) the fact that glissandi are "illegal" in the eyes of some of the more stick-in-the-mud total serialists (the explanation here is too long and music theory-geeky to go into.) Needless to say, these claims are not without merit. What I'm saying is that any validity that these nitpickers (love that word) might have it completely overshadowed by the fact that they are missing the point. Again, I should iterate the fact that it sounded totally cool to listen at long last (who was waiting anyway) music that was constructed from non-musical principles. (Remember that algorithm thing?)
The main thing to keep in mind here is that since theories are usually constructed "around" the things that they describe, they tend to do their job in an overly efficacious manner, and most often only in terms (literal and figurative) of a reciprocity with the thing itself. Why is this? Well, theories are made-to-order phenomenon containers, and heaven forbid that limitations in the capacity of the container truncate the contents in any way. (Partitioning is acceptable, however.) William Barrett in his book Irrational Man (1958) states (I quote liberally here) that "The price one pays...is a deformation professionelle, as the French put it-a professional deformation. Doctors and engineers tend to see things from the viewpoint of their own specialty, and usually show a very marked blind spot to whatever falls outside this particular province. The more specialized a vision the sharper its focus; but also the more nearly total the blind spot towards all things that lie on the periphery of this focus."
So here we come to the crux of the matter; how to administer some sort of triage to the seemingly gouged out eyes of theoreticians legion? The ol' switcheroo! Yes, that's right. You heard right. It's really fun to mix n' match theories and the things that they were made to explain! Yippie! Well...OK, not only fun, but actually useful, eye-opening. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say "enlightening", but I may be getting ahead of myself. I'm sure you'd like to get right to it, yes?
OK, here is how it works: first just take two fields (naturally any will do), say for example music and sex (both of which are of interest to me at whatsoever, and therefore allow for total and lucid objectivity). Obviously each of these fields (here music and sex both meet this definition of "field" as they are subjects that people study or are involved in as part of their profession) contain various phenomenon (respectively, organized sounds and a variety of carnalities). They also have, each to their own, various theories in every sense of the word. From lofty and esoteric tomes and theories (I'm thinking here of the Stockhausen's "Superformula" and tantric yoga) to urban legends (rock journalism and the infallibility of "the rhythm method") surrounding them. The next step would be to divorce the theory parts from the phenomenon parts (or at least encourage it to sleep around) and then with a little magic, before you know it...bada bing bada boom...you've got the ol' switcheroo working for you too.
Now here is where the real fun begins! You are now forced to think of music in terms of sex, and of sex in terms of music. I know this might hurt a little bit at first, but please don't be shy! By all means, start gettin' jiggy wit it ASAP. It'll all come out in the wash later anyway, so what do you care? Show 'em how it's done Chef! Take it away! "You've gotta hold your [functional tonality] like you hold your lover. Gently, yet firmly. You gotta be both nuturing and clinging at the same time. Just like you're giving sweet love to the [functional tonality]. Naughty with the [functional tonality]! Spank it, ever so gently." Ahem...well, you get the picture. Or do you? Visions of symphonic expositions and foreplay, appoggiatura and nipple clips (sorry about that one), codas and afterglow, and all manner of devilment are now dancing throught my head. What kinds of strange and exciting new possibilities will open up thanks to your new way of looking at things? Will you develop some kind of grand unification theory that finally reveals that Sylvano Bussotti and Dirk Diggler are counterparts? Or will you simply never look at blowjob the same way every again? Well, that��s all up to you and your imagination I guess. By now, however, the benifits of this kind of free play should be more than obvious. Go ahead and try one by yourself next time. I double-dog-dare you.
Anyway, as stated above, right now I��m playing around with an interesting way of looking at dynamism along the information production/consumption continuum as is manifest in the pop cultures of western and westernized countries. I have taken as my contemplative foil the field of agriculture (randomly chosen), and will let you know what happens when the smoke clears.
I suppose it was Xenakis who taught me how to disrespect music in a healthy way. Most of my friends might guess Cage, but his approach was always too reverential for my tastes (sorry John). Anyway, my main man Iannis was a great help in that he demonstrated in some of his more important works the idea that we can look at music in a "non-musical" way. His particular way was mathematical of course, but as anyone who has a basic overview of the field of mathematics might be able to ascertain, it wasn't exacty upper-echelon stuff.
Of course, this left the music-boys who new their numbers crying "foul" and the one's who didn't in the dark. The historical lines are drawn quite clearly here, but I won't do any muckraking here and name any names. It is of interest here to mention that the actual mathematicians seemed to have been pleased as punch to finally "hear" an algorithm translated into sound way before this was possible with any ease of rapidity in a real-time computational environment. They might have really gotten the big picture i think, since they didn't really have anything riding on it in the first place.
Now of course, we are (or you are, I don't have the time) free to haggle over the details when it comes to Xenakis, he certainly isn't around anymore to prevent you from doing so. Both in and without his presence, notable personages have taken up issue with such minutiae as: the solutions to some of his calculations, his "erratic" treatment of timbre (i.e. his theory's inability in the acoustic realm at least, to comprehensively treat such intangibles), and even (I'm kind of reaching here) the fact that glissandi are "illegal" in the eyes of some of the more stick-in-the-mud total serialists (the explanation here is too long and music theory-geeky to go into.) Needless to say, these claims are not without merit. What I'm saying is that any validity that these nitpickers (love that word) might have it completely overshadowed by the fact that they are missing the point. Again, I should iterate the fact that it sounded totally cool to listen at long last (who was waiting anyway) music that was constructed from non-musical principles. (Remember that algorithm thing?)
The main thing to keep in mind here is that since theories are usually constructed "around" the things that they describe, they tend to do their job in an overly efficacious manner, and most often only in terms (literal and figurative) of a reciprocity with the thing itself. Why is this? Well, theories are made-to-order phenomenon containers, and heaven forbid that limitations in the capacity of the container truncate the contents in any way. (Partitioning is acceptable, however.) William Barrett in his book Irrational Man (1958) states (I quote liberally here) that "The price one pays...is a deformation professionelle, as the French put it-a professional deformation. Doctors and engineers tend to see things from the viewpoint of their own specialty, and usually show a very marked blind spot to whatever falls outside this particular province. The more specialized a vision the sharper its focus; but also the more nearly total the blind spot towards all things that lie on the periphery of this focus."
So here we come to the crux of the matter; how to administer some sort of triage to the seemingly gouged out eyes of theoreticians legion? The ol' switcheroo! Yes, that's right. You heard right. It's really fun to mix n' match theories and the things that they were made to explain! Yippie! Well...OK, not only fun, but actually useful, eye-opening. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say "enlightening", but I may be getting ahead of myself. I'm sure you'd like to get right to it, yes?
OK, here is how it works: first just take two fields (naturally any will do), say for example music and sex (both of which are of interest to me at whatsoever, and therefore allow for total and lucid objectivity). Obviously each of these fields (here music and sex both meet this definition of "field" as they are subjects that people study or are involved in as part of their profession) contain various phenomenon (respectively, organized sounds and a variety of carnalities). They also have, each to their own, various theories in every sense of the word. From lofty and esoteric tomes and theories (I'm thinking here of the Stockhausen's "Superformula" and tantric yoga) to urban legends (rock journalism and the infallibility of "the rhythm method") surrounding them. The next step would be to divorce the theory parts from the phenomenon parts (or at least encourage it to sleep around) and then with a little magic, before you know it...bada bing bada boom...you've got the ol' switcheroo working for you too.
Now here is where the real fun begins! You are now forced to think of music in terms of sex, and of sex in terms of music. I know this might hurt a little bit at first, but please don't be shy! By all means, start gettin' jiggy wit it ASAP. It'll all come out in the wash later anyway, so what do you care? Show 'em how it's done Chef! Take it away! "You've gotta hold your [functional tonality] like you hold your lover. Gently, yet firmly. You gotta be both nuturing and clinging at the same time. Just like you're giving sweet love to the [functional tonality]. Naughty with the [functional tonality]! Spank it, ever so gently." Ahem...well, you get the picture. Or do you? Visions of symphonic expositions and foreplay, appoggiatura and nipple clips (sorry about that one), codas and afterglow, and all manner of devilment are now dancing throught my head. What kinds of strange and exciting new possibilities will open up thanks to your new way of looking at things? Will you develop some kind of grand unification theory that finally reveals that Sylvano Bussotti and Dirk Diggler are counterparts? Or will you simply never look at blowjob the same way every again? Well, that��s all up to you and your imagination I guess. By now, however, the benifits of this kind of free play should be more than obvious. Go ahead and try one by yourself next time. I double-dog-dare you.
Anyway, as stated above, right now I��m playing around with an interesting way of looking at dynamism along the information production/consumption continuum as is manifest in the pop cultures of western and westernized countries. I have taken as my contemplative foil the field of agriculture (randomly chosen), and will let you know what happens when the smoke clears.
