Music composition is mathematical
inasmuch mathematics (remember that the Greek root of the word is related to
knowledge) represents basic epistemological actions of the living beings (not
only humans), as Changeaux and Dehaene have shown through neuroscientific
experimentation. Music composition, like math, is an epistemological action
which establishes spatio-temporal relationships among objects, a cognitive
multidimensional process which creates life experiences, ordering life accordingly.
As any syntactic algebra, it can be interpreted (modelized) in many different
reference frames, assigning object-values to its constructions, whether sounds,
colors, space-extensions, emotions, poetic meanings, etc. In this sense, music
composition goes beyond not only mathematics but also beyond what our
traditions (including the avant-garde) have passed down to us as art of sounds.
I remember, quite some time ago, a conversation with Iannis Xenakis at the
Viitasaari New Music Festival (August, 8th, 1986) in which I
objected to his Parmenidean exposition the importance of aesthetic decisions in
composing, not as much in terms of the choice of beautiful sound objects as in
terms of the role played by freedom in the determination of a piece, which an
exclusively mathematical orientation in composing seemed to deny. His answer
was that he valuated music in terms of the intelligence used to manufacture a
piece, understanding intelligence in mathematical terms, i.e., according to a
mythology of the universal law in which there is a unique truth and a right way
to express it, in his case, an interpretation of the Markovian algebra for complexity. But intelligence is not just a question of syntactical complexity
reducible to the algebra of thermodynamics, for there is an emergent semantical
complexity in life which in fact does not fit very well into the traditional
mathematical thinking, whether stochastic or not: the complexity of bio-social
phenomena defy the simplicity of our formalized conceptual models. Music
composition is a social phenomenon and can only be understood encompassing a
wider realm of symbolic constructions, which are also the frame for mathematics
(despite the vehement denial of the recalcitrant Platonists) and for any human
action.
At the same time, the
acknowledgement of the socio-epistemological dimension of music frees composition
of the conditionings of music industry, the concert hall, or the world of art,
which today tame creative action under the whip of old social inertias (the genius religions), for the epistemological value of composition, its
applicability in many different reference frames, makes it a tool for the
general symbolical development of the human being. The extraordinary vitality
of the music composition of the XX century grew in part out of the daring of
the avant-garde movement, but also out of its uncompromising attitude in
relation to its social status (sometimes too messianically expressed) as a
realm for free aesthetical action, a play proposal to break social and
individual ancient shackles.
Instead of the fact that taking the "Harmony of the Spheres" as a truhtful reality or not -so it is appearantly a kind of subtle ancient myth- the impacts on the music until the end of the renaissance indicates the epistemological basis of the Western Music tradition. But at that point, there is important problem. There was, I strongly believe, an obscurity in the basis of the this tradition that comes from "Harmony of the Spheres" that the music should be subordinated under the text and this fact makes important the text and verbal semantics instead of the music. However, as the new modern myth that comes from the mechanical reproduction is not less dangerous than the ideologies of the Harmony of the Spheres, because as a medium it represents the subconscience symbols of the ideologic hegemony. In the new ages, instead of the meaning of the context, "Medium is the Message". In these days, what are the medium in the avant garde music may be important question.
ReplyDeleteHi Oguzhan. Sorry for the delay answering and posting your comment. First of all, thank you for expressing your thoughts. I definitely agree with you in the fact that the music of the spheres points out clearly to the origin of the Western Tradition. Furthermore, I would say that some equivalent notion of a divine origin of music is present in many other traditions, the OM of the Vedas. I have written somewhere else about these questions. The Pythagorean tradition that Plato treats in the Timeus, which is the foundation for the later development of the music of the spheres doctrine, does not particularly favor the semantics of sacred text against the mathematical (syntactic) order of the universe, in fact, I think that it is implied that the syntax and the semantics of number are one thing that can be interpreted in multiple ways in the musica mundana level. It was under the Pythagorean revision of Platonism made by Saint Augustine that the discussion of text vs. melody began to take place, as a question of indoctrination and against the private (mystical) religious experience that music so easily produces.
DeleteDespite the fact of the importance of mechanical reproduction in our world, I would only subscribe partially to Benjamin thesis in relation to the reproducibility of the work of art. Mechanization is a natural tendency of all life processes: it is mechanization at one level what liberates the energies of a system at another to produce further action. The problem with today’s scientific myths is the tendency that science (as inheritor of myths of a universal law) shows to become the dominant major religion, suspending the humanist projects for the construction of societies based on human laws.
I share your concern for the tyranny that the media industry imposes on the avant-garde, the tyranny of majority, as Aristotle expressed in his Politics, as the main defect of democracy. But what worries me most is the fact that the media are reproducing precisely the old myths, and we are forced to endure the whip of the markets, whose hand is not invisible -as classical economics pretended- but a mere exercise of human domination.
Cordially.
Hi Oscar, thanks for your response, in the trajectories of the impacts of Harmony of the Spheres, it can be observed, as you know, Harmony of the spheres is not just relevant with the music, it takes the music as a metaphor and via this metaphor explain the what the divine origins of the cosmos. I see there are very similar characteristic Platonic ideas, musica mundane is the inaudible music, just as happen in the general notion of the objects that is the truthful and real features of the objects places in the world of ideas. Then, the Musica Humana, how this inaudible music can be represented by individual with his capability and in the objects world, how the abstract and tangible objects are perceived by individuals, finally in the Musica instrumentalis, the sound that are perceived by individual musician, How he represents it with the audible ways, and in the art or customary area, it means how a artisan make visible his thoughts that comes from musica humana that are implied by musica mundana and creates his abstract and tangible objects and works.
DeleteI think in this process, by using new medias that are the basis of the new kind of electronics that also are the main objects of the avant-garde at time, destroys the spontaneous and simultaneous act in the music performance. Because of this characteristic, it can be observed some mechanization in the musica humana level At the same time, the instrumental profession displaces with the engineer profession, just like happen in the a lots of industries area that represents the modern thoughts and epocs signifiers. So this signifiers turns into signified as the new representation and symbol of the tyranny also as a message. In this process I think it is important to get it is not important what the art works says, because the medium which they used is their essential message. When I say that "Medium is the Message" at the same time, I try to allude to being destroyed of these tripartite that comes from Boethius.
Please publish this too, it is not ethic that you have not publish the comment friend (((-:, I had a comment for this post and I have not seen it for about 5 hours, I advise to you discuss your topics and mentions immediately you take comments, otherwise this is not ethic what you have been doing.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Oscar, Although I think it had better not to be a approval barrier-Because I think this implies a kind of censorship- I am sorry for the next to last message..
ReplyDeleteBest Wishes,
There is no need to apologize. I do not censor any thoughts or worldviews in this blog, I just make sure that the comments are related to the subject matters of composition and music theory. Cordially.
Delete