issue06

EMUSIC-L Digest                                      Volume 61, Issue 06

This issue's topics:
	
	Chance, science, research (7 messages)
	Pseudo-science or pseudo-opinion? (6 messages)

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Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 1994 13:35:16 EST
From:         Dan Schaaf 
Subject:      Chance, science, research

Gregory Taylor's talking about science and it's authority and music research,
etc.,  prompted these thoughts:

Artist who use fractals, chance, chaos (or whatever the latest Scientific
American fad is) are cloaking their own vacuity with pseudo-science. (It
probably began in earnest in music with tone-rows, etc.)

Face it.  The great achievements of the 20th century haven't been artistic, but
in the hard sciences.  Artists just want some of the glow to rub off. Some of
the greatest tragedies have been pseudo-sciences (Marxism, scientific cleansing
of certain races.)

So I say, let the pseudo-science continue and prosper in all fields of
(meaningless) endeavor. (We all need to make a living somehow.)

Dan Schaaf


PS: RE: Cage. Was there really Muzak back in 1948? That would explain a lot.

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 1994 14:41:20 -0500
From:         Mark G Simon 
Subject:      Re: Chance, science, research

>
>
> PS: RE: Cage. Was there really Muzak back in 1948? That would explain a lot.

The Muzak Corp. went into business in 1934. Read the article in the New
Grove Dictionary of American Music on "Environmental music", it's
interesting. It mentions an attempt in 1906 to send "music for
insomniacs" over telegraph wires, talks about Muzak and then mentions
Brian Eno's "Music for Airports". Cage's 4'33" is also singled out as an
example of environmental music.

I read elsewhere that the Muzak company employs a field of experts
(Muzakologists?) who listen to all the new arrangements. They make a note
of anything that sticks out in their mind while listening. All of those
passages are then edited out of the finished product.

The nature of muzak itself has changed over the past 25 years. When I was
a kid I'd go into a doctor's office and all the muzak would be these
oozingly smooth string arrangements supplemented with vibrato-laden
trombone sections. Today's muzak employs long-forgotten pop tunes from
the sixties with a subdued rock beat in the background. Many times I've
found myself in the store going "Hmm... I can almost hear the lyrics
here. Let's see... 'maybe it's the clothes she wear, or the way she combs
her hair...' that was Gary Lewis and the Playboys wasn't it? Oh, God, and
I thought I had successfully trashed that from my memory, argh!"

There's a "History of Western Muzak" just waiting to be written.

Mark Simon
mgs2@cornell.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 7 Feb 1994 09:00:13 EST
From:         Dan Schaaf 
Subject:      Chance, science, research

Dr. Kirk

Pseudo-science? Pseudo-opinion? Pseudo-crap?

Yeah.  I'm just a lowly consumer looking for the biggest bang for the buck,
and, in fact, it is less than an opinion.  It just a feeling of boredom with
the crap load of hype that surrounds the stuff.

Have fun!

Dan

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 9 Feb 1994 06:18:13 GMT
From:         "Roy M. Randall" 
Subject:      Re: Chance, science, research

Mark G Simon (mgs2@CRUX3.CIT.CORNELL.EDU) wrote:
:  Today's muzak employs long-forgotten pop tunes from
: the sixties with a subdued rock beat in the background. Many times I've

I don't know about anybody else, but I remember them.  I remember all of
them.  Most people tell me that they never even notice the muzak, but I
am cursed.  I hear every note!  My attention is drawn to environmental
music.  What I can't hear is conversation.  It seems wherever I go there
is some background music, some idiot whistling tunlessly to himself, and
someone trying to talk to me, all at once.  It drives me nuts that there
are three things vying for my attention and I want to scream, "Please!
One at a time!"

--
Roy M. Randall, FG             |
Inconsequential Systems, Inc.  |  MORONS!  I've got MORONS on my team!
zeroy@netcom.com               |

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 9 Feb 1994 13:20:11 GMT
From:         "Mr. J. Boyes" 
Subject:      Re: Chance, science, research

Roy M. Randall (zeroy@netcom.com) wrote:

: I don't know about anybody else, but I remember them.  I remember all of
: them.  Most people tell me that they never even notice the muzak, but I
: am cursed.  I hear every note!  My attention is drawn to environmental
: music.  What I can't hear is conversation.  It seems wherever I go there
: is some background music, some idiot whistling tunlessly to himself, and
: someone trying to talk to me, all at once.  It drives me nuts that there
: are three things vying for my attention and I want to scream, "Please!
: One at a time!"

: --
: Roy M. Randall, FG             |
: Inconsequential Systems, Inc.  |  MORONS!  I've got MORONS on my team!
: zeroy@netcom.com               |

Roy, thats just how I feel too. Do you also find that in restaurants,
you feel obliged to EAT in time with the musak?

--
John Boyes    (em09@liverpool.ac.uk)
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Liverpool University    051-794-4861

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 9 Feb 1994 09:18:32 -0500
From:         Mark G Simon 
Subject:      Re: Chance, science, research

> them.  Most people tell me that they never even notice the muzak, but I
> am cursed.  I hear every note!  My attention is drawn to environmental
> music.  What I can't hear is conversation.  It seems wherever I go there
> is some background music, some idiot whistling tunlessly to himself, and
> someone trying to talk to me, all at once.  It drives me nuts that there
> are three things vying for my attention and I want to scream, "Please!
> One at a time!"

I know exactly what you mean. I'm just the same way. That's why I'm the
sworn enemy of Muzak, radios turned on casually in the background, mood
music of every description. There are stores where each department has
its own music blaring forth all jumbling together in one noisy mass. I
try to think of it as a Charles Ives-like experience and that proves
momentarily diverting, but eventually I forget what it was I came into
the store for. I get fidgity and soon I am compelled to flee. My dentist
plays classical music in his office, which on the one hand is great, I'd
rather listen to classical music than watered down pop tunes, but here's
the dentist telling me what he wants to do to my teeth and I can't follow
what he's saying, and the only response I can think of is "gee listen to
how he inverts the fugue subject at this point" which I manage to
suppress before it escapes my mouth. And then, having my teeth drilled to
tortured strains of Mahler's "hammerblows of fate" in his 6th symphony is
a surreal experience never to be forgotten. No, the only background music
I will accept is John Cage's 4'33", only I want the extended-play
version. I think it should be a mandatory selection in every juke box.

Mark Simon
mgs2@cornell.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 9 Feb 1994 11:17:32 -0500
From:         Biff Padiduwitz 
Subject:      Re: Chance, science, research

The effect Muzak has on you is not by chance. The MUZAK central office
will be glad to send you a bibliography of studies that have examined
their effects on all kinds of (commercially applicable) behavior.
I have a copy around here somewhere, but I feel compelled to get
back to work by the orchestral version of "Rocky Mountain High"
that is floating through my office door.

BIll Scott

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 4 Feb 1994 10:50:20 -0600
From:         "Dr. Kirk Corey" 
Subject:      Pseudo-science or pseudo-opinion?

On Fri, 4 Feb 1994, Dan Schaaf wrote:

> Gregory Taylor's talking about science and it's authority and music research,
> etc.,  prompted these thoughts:
>
> Artist who use fractals, chance, chaos (or whatever the latest Scientific
> American fad is) are cloaking their own vacuity with pseudo-science. (It
> probably began in earnest in music with tone-rows, etc.)
>
> Face it.  The great achievements of the 20th century haven't been artistic,
 but
> in the hard sciences.  Artists just want some of the glow to rub off. Some of
> the greatest tragedies have been pseudo-sciences (Marxism, scientific
 cleansing
> of certain races.)
>
> So I say, let the pseudo-science continue and prosper in all fields of
> (meaningless) endeavor. (We all need to make a living somehow.)
>
> Dan Schaaf

Ordinarily I don't engage in flamewars, but this is just too much.  Not
only do you fail to back up your opinions with fact ("The great
achievements..." Says who?  Which apples and oranges are you comparing
here?  The atomic bomb is superior to the music of Mahler?), but you
overlook some rather obvious paradoxes in your arguments.  Those Nazi
folks who embraced the pseudo-science of racial purity also rejected the
proponents of 12-tone music.  I'm not sure that I recall Schoenberg every
claiming that what he did was scientific.

"Artists just want some of the glow to rub off"?  Maybe you've never heard
scientists talk about the "beauty" of what they do.  Looks like maybe
this street runs both ways.  Hmmmm.

If you don't like music based on fractals and chaos, that's fine.  But
blowing up straw men is not only uninteresting, but a waste of bandwidth.
If you have a _real_ case, state it.

Perhaps if one of the pioneers of algorithmic composition, Lejaren Hiller,
had not passed away last week, I wouldn't be so touchy about this.  In the
meantime, before accusing others of vacuity, think about fleshing-out your
own opinions, okay?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dr. Kirk Corey                 [insert       Electronic Systems Administrator
kirk-corey@uiowa.edu          disclaimer                      School of Music
                                here]                  The University of Iowa
    "Msdos?  MSDOS? I've seen CALCULATORS with a better operating system!"

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 4 Feb 1994 14:49:31 -0500
From:         Mark G Simon 
Subject:      Re: Pseudo-science or pseudo-opinion?

> >
> > Face it.  The great achievements of the 20th century haven't been artistic,
>  but
> > in the hard sciences.  Artists just want some of the glow to rub off. Some
 of
> > the greatest tragedies have been pseudo-sciences (Marxism, scientific
>  cleansing
> > of certain races.)
> >
> > Dan Schaaf
>
> Ordinarily I don't engage in flamewars, but this is just too much.  Not
> only do you fail to back up your opinions with fact ("The great
> achievements..." Says who?  Which apples and oranges are you comparing

> here?  The atomic bomb is superior to the music of Mahler?), but you

I think that what Dan was trying to say is that when historians look back
at the 20th century they'll remember its scientific achievements before
anything that happened in music. This may or may not be true, but I think
trying to back up a statement like that would require more words than I'd
care to read.

> overlook some rather obvious paradoxes in your arguments.  Those Nazi
> folks who embraced the pseudo-science of racial purity also rejected the
> proponents of 12-tone music.  I'm not sure that I recall Schoenberg every
> claiming that what he did was scientific.

I think Dan was refering to the Milton Babbitt school of thought. There's
certainly no lack of pseudo-science in the world of pitch-class set theory.

>
> If you don't like music based on fractals and chaos, that's fine.  But

This reminds me of a discussion we had several months ago about music
based on radiation from space. So how does fractal music compare with
space-radiation music?

Mark Simon
mgs2@cornell.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 4 Feb 1994 18:01:22 -0500
From:         "Joseph D. McMahon" 
Subject:      Re: Pseudo-science or pseudo-opinion?

Mark G Simon writes:
>
> This reminds me of a discussion we had several months ago about music
> based on radiation from space. So how does fractal music compare with
> space-radiation music?
>
Well, let me come at this from another angle. I've been using an IFS
fractal-generating program to produce starting pictures which I process
further to produce potential artwork. Now, If I simply took each one,
sent it through the production line (so to speak) and looked at the
results at the other end, I would have something which might or might
not be considered "art".

However, what I am doing is winnowing out potential keepers first and then
trying the process I'm using on them. My keep-to-discard ratio is running
about 3 or 4 out of 50. That's what I personally see "fractal" art of
any kind as being: a starting point from which one moves onward to produce
something which is uniquely one's own. Otherwise, it becomes very easy to
see the "edges", so to speak, of the parameter space; what happens after
that becomes boring because it is patterned and predictable (within limits).

I've sadly never gotten to hear the "Illiac Suite", the first computer-
generated string quartet; I would like to, sometime, simply to say that
I had done so.

 --- Joe M.

------------------------------
Date:         Sat, 5 Feb 1994 13:37:55 GMT
From:         Stephen David Beck 
Subject:      Re: Pseudo-science or pseudo-opinion?

Joseph D. McMahon (xrjdm@CALVIN.GSFC.NASA.GOV) wrote:
: I've sadly never gotten to hear the "Illiac Suite", the first computer-
: generated string quartet; I would like to, sometime, simply to say that
: I had done so.

Fear not, Joe.  The "Illiac Suite" is available on a CD of computer
music by Lejaren Hiller.  It was released by Wergo and is generally
available in most stores.  I think you would find the works interesting
because he (Hiller) also windowed what he kept from what he threw out.
He kept algorithm runs which he liked and then pieced them together to
create the larger work.  He even wrote that these should be listened
with that in mind.

Stephen David Beck
Louisiana State University

------------------------------
Date:         Sat, 5 Feb 1994 12:28:52 -0800
From:         David Chandler 
Subject:      Re: Pseudo-science or pseudo-opinion?

On Fri, 4 Feb 1994, Joseph D. McMahon wrote:

> Mark G Simon writes:
> >
> > This reminds me of a discussion we had several months ago about music
> > based on radiation from space. So how does fractal music compare with
> > space-radiation music?
> >
> Well, let me come at this from another angle. I've been using an IFS
> fractal-generating program to produce starting pictures which I process
> further to produce potential artwork. Now, If I simply took each one,
> sent it through the production line (so to speak) and looked at the
> results at the other end, I would have something which might or might
> not be considered "art".
A point from which the BFA(painting) part of me bursts out:  Robert
Rauschenberg once said that there is so much information and so many
sources for imagery, both because of changes in society as well as a
loosening of western traditional acceptable "subject matter", that it is
completely valid (and no less *creative*) for an artist to express himself
solely through EDITING.

Photography was not considered an "art" for a long time (is it accepted
now?), yet it contains endless parameters for editing. I think that
choosing a good fractal is an artistic decision, but choosing well is as
hard as drawing well, it's just it is less obvious because it involves
fewer *recorded* decisions (i.e. every point of a drawn line is a decision
of direction and speed and emphasis vs. criteria for good vs bad fractal
is maybe only available through a *series* of chosen fractal images and
not *in* the image itself (but in patterned characteristics of the series)

Maybe some people feel insecure about considering their *editing*--their
TASTE as valid as there rote memorization skills, eye-hand coordination,
technical proficiencies, thus reject more purely mental creative processes.

Ironically, I paint in oils, not because I want to show my
refined drawing skills (they're there), but because I have to limit my
materials, because two years ago I had so much collage material
(interesting/inspiring imagery/objects) that I ran out of space.
Plus I explore the line between the physical presence of
*paint*on*surface*object with *illusion*of*other*reality.

In many galleries, I see people hiding their uncritical "eye" behind a lot
of technical ability.  The majority is very uninspired, as in any media--any
art!  I could paint portraits til the cows come home and probably get
plenty of compliments, but *I* wouldn't have helped *myself* one bit...!

>
> However, what I am doing is winnowing out potential keepers first and then
> trying the process I'm using on them. My keep-to-discard ratio is running
> about 3 or 4 out of 50. That's what I personally see "fractal" art of
> anykind as being: a starting point from which one moves onward to produce
> something which is uniquely one's own. Otherwise, it becomes very easy to
> see the "edges", so to speak, of the parameter space; what happens after
> that becomes boring because it is patterned and predictable (within limits).
>
> I've sadly never gotten to hear the "Illiac Suite", the first computer-
> generated string quartet; I would like to, sometime, simply to say that
> I had done so.
>
>  --- Joe M.
here ye'     - sorry to go off the subject... then again, it's not really
off the subject...

(001)System message: Tirade port disabled.

David Chandler  -  chandler@nethost.multnomah.lib.or.us  (503)241-2949

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 7 Feb 1994 16:37:16 GMT
From:         "Bill Purvis, ext 3357" 
Subject:      Re: Pseudo-science or pseudo-opinion?

Joe wrote:
: I've sadly never gotten to hear the "Illiac Suite", the first computer-
: generated string quartet; I would like to, sometime, simply to say that
: I had done so.

I started to wonder about this - when was it written? I remember hearing a
computer composed
string quartet, played live, at IFIP Congress, 1968 in Edinburgh. It was not a
spectacular
piece, but it was interesting. I still have the score for it, unfortunately in
paper only
form - maybe one day I'll get around to playing it in on my keayboard and
hearing it again!

Bill Purvis

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End of the EMUSIC-L Digest
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