My goodness! (Lasto or Cottage?)

[solicitr]

Openly stolen from an anonymous forum posting:

Historically, neo-liberal sadists and masochists altered aesthetic harmonic treatment nearly a century ago by denying any tonal center. The field-trip through dissonance as the new consonance began through the initial mannerism that equates the tonal function of semi-tones as synonymous. That augmentation of harmonic parameter functioned so far as tonal relativity remained intact. But beyond their expressionism, revising relativity into the denial of tonal relationships hardly led the way to illuminate life’s purpose beyond futility. When all was said and done promoting the 20th-century excursion through the Serial Briar Patch of mechanical reproductions, finally it was officially declared a dead-end. Those who imposed their “will” to destroy structural tonality demanded to be recognized as heirs of musical prophecy. They were officially declared dead, though that announcement took decades after the fact to be made. We exist today in that dead-end socially conscious prophecy of ambivalent antagonism.

(Context: serialism as an anogue of morality and social policy)

[Pearly Di]

I really don't think I'm a stupid person, but I have no idea what this is referring to.

[solicitr]

Sorry, PD. Yes, it is written in academic gobbledegook, but (unusually) it's comprehensible- at least to the extent that, say, untranslated Chaucer is comprehensible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_concrete

[Primula Baggins]

It's about a tiny subsection of the music world, written by someone who evidently believes that critics have preemptive power and that their consensus is the strongest influence on musical aesthetics.

That's my guess, anyway. It's very badly written.

[Pearly Di]

Untranslated Chaucer? -- yep, that, and these articles, are way over my head because I'm not at all familiar with any of these composers.

Except Ravel and Debussy. Both of which I like.

Where does Philip Glass fit into this?

Cuz I saw a Philip Glass opera, with Jewelsong, in spring of 2007, and ... er, we left after the second act because we could take no more.

[Primula Baggins]

I like a lot of what I've heard of Philip Glass. But my tastes are frankly archaic, so I don't seek it out.

I learned from playing in orchestras, though, that music of this kind can be beautiful, once it's familiar. I enjoyed performing it, because by then I could understand it as a whole. It may seem ugly because it's strange.

In college we played Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, in which he pulls the noses of the commissars right under their noses, and I still listen to that for pleasure.

[Frelga]

Oh, I thought it was off the Postmodern text generator.

Although I am not even capable of understanding what Di and Prim are talking about.

[River]

It looked like English but made no sense.

I'm still a bit confused. Someone doesn't like modern classical (good lord, what a construction!) music and thinks no one else should either?

Phillip Glass is fine if you aren't expecting the music to go anywhere or the pieces to sound different from each other.

[solicitr]

What this writer (whose prose faculty has unfortunately been crippled by prolonged exposure to academia) is attempting to get across in a foreign tongue (English) is not specifically an attack on serialism (which hardly needs attacking)- but rather an analogue or even allegory. Reread with 'tonal center' = 'moral center.'

[Primula Baggins]

That's too forced an analogy to be useful, I think, soli. What's the moral equivalent of twelve-tone music?

[narya]

I have no idea what this has to do with a blog on Israeli politics, which is where I found this comment.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

That's too forced an analogy to be useful, I think, soli. What's the moral equivalent of twelve-tone music?

If I were to venture a metaphorical guess, I would say that the moral equivalent is an arbitrary morality.

Ordinary "tonal" music has an inherent logic and a natural center; this engenders natural boundaries and expectations, and natural harmonies that correspond to the tonal structure.

Twelve-tone music is arbitrarily constructed and the boundaries are not natural.

Of course, some would say that tonal music is also arbitrarily constructed in the limited sense that one has to choose, a major mode, or a minor mode, of the many possible modes. Outside of the major and minor modes, there are other modes, which represent modal music, e.g. Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue".

Modal music might metaphorically represent the moral equivalent of a heterodox view of morality.


BrianIs AtYou

[Frelga]

Ah, I found an article that explains all of that here:

If one examines neodialectic sublimation, one is faced with a choice: either reject the capitalist paradigm of context or conclude that the State is part of the dialectic of truth, but only if consciousness is distinct from truth; otherwise, the goal of the observer is significant form. Many theories concerning the role of the artist as observer exist.

In the works of Eco, a predominant concept is the distinction between feminine and masculine. But Finnis[1] suggests that we have to choose between neodialectic sublimation and postdeconstructivist narrative. A number of discourses concerning socialist realism may be discovered.

It could be said that Bataille suggests the use of Foucaultist power relations to deconstruct class divisions. The characteristic theme of the works of Eco is the common ground between sexual identity and class.

[Primula Baggins]

Brian, although I'm sure you're onto something I didn't have the education or perhaps the patience to winkle out for myself, I have to say I think it's all stuff.

[yovargas]

But Finnis[1] suggests that we have to choose between neodialectic sublimation and postdeconstructivist narrative.

Funny you mention that, I was just thinking about starting a thread about that very thing.

[sauronsfinger]

Frelga has cleared it all up for us. Thank you.

Any article that begins with the terms "neo-liberal sadists and masochists..." is pretty much worthless after that unless it discusses the current recreational activities of the devotees of the Marquis de Sade.

[narya]

Frelga, I loved Eco's "Focault's Pendulum" but had no idea it was about sexual identity.

[Padme]

What's a pair of dimes have to do with anything?

[solicitr]

I have to say I think it's all stuff.

Then try this one, which actually is written in English mostly untainted by the Groves:

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cf ... ivism-3981

Excerpt:

It is often said that relativism is the conviction that, when it comes to morals, there are no such things as absolute values and, when it comes to knowledge, there is no such thing as absolute truth. It is worth meditating on the use of the word “absolute” here. If there were a law against abusing innocent words, we would be justified in contacting OSHA about this unfair exploitation of “absolute.”.....

-----------------

Shostakovich' marvellous Tenth isn't remotely serialist, or atonal. The most that can be said is that it makes good use of dissonance and tonal ambiguity within an overall tonal context....but then that's also true of Beethoven's late quartets.

The condescending response of the serialists, those superior, enlightened ones, was therefore to be expected: Pierre Boulez dismissed it as "the second, or even third pressing of Mahler."

Sorry, Pierre. Guess who now is a marble bust, and whose scores gathering dust?

[River]

I read Anathem (Neal Stephenson's newest) over the holidays. In the world he created, people who misbehave get The Book thrown at them. They have to memorize chapters and be orally examined. Each chapter is worse than the previous one; it starts out with nonsense rhymes and proceeds to digits of pi and then takes off into whole chapters of stuff that I guess looks like the subject of this thread. It's an effective tool as it clogs up and even breaks minds. And no one wants that to happen.

Anyway, I think the whole point of this entire thread is more whining about how the whole world and everything in it used be wonderful and sparkly and now it all sucks. In other words, the same thing people have been complaining about since recorded history started happening (and probably even before).