issue11

EMUSIC-L Digest                                      Volume 61, Issue 11

This issue's topics:
	
	A quibble on the Balinese/Javanese "split" (2 messages)
	Anderson, Cage, and Zorn (3 messages)
	Anima Mundi (2 messages)
	ARCHETYPES
	ELEC. MUSIC & THE RENAISSANCE
	Emotional power of music -- a neurological perspective
	Glass on TV (was Anima Numdi)
	minimalism...minimalsim...minimalism...mini
	More Cage for you gilded birds... (2 messages)
	More Glass... (4 messages)
	Music and it's capabilities (6 messages)
	regarding Glass on TV (2 messages)
	Sarcasm? (was Re: Glass on TV)
	SUBJECTIVISM, ORIENTAL STYLE (4 messages)
	SUBJECTIVISM, ROMAN CATH. and GREEK STYLE ;-)

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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 23 Feb 1994 10:47:10 CST
From:         Gregory Taylor 
Subject:      A quibble on the Balinese/Javanese "split"

William Eldridge  writes:
True. An interesting case is the difference between Javanese and Balinese
gamelan music. The former is stately and somewhat static, while the latter is
loud and funky, creative and continuously evolving. As I understand it, with the
relatively late arrival of the Dutch, the social control exercised by the
Balinese ruling class broke down and "1,000 flowers bloomed".

I think you may have a problem with that, Bill: there's plenty of
evidence of regional variation outside of the court "orbits" of
central Javanese work. Besides, the "loud and funky" tradition
you're referring to is of quite recent vintage; Colin McPhee was
around to see enough of the development of early Kebyar stuff to
notate its beginnings in "Music in Bali." He places its origins
in the first decade or two of this century; one always has the
parallel traditions of Gong Gede stuff, which is the Balinese version
of the "stately and somewhat static" stuff. Too simplistic for my
tastes. Besides, if our sampaks are too stately, someone takes a tabuh
to our knuckles.

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 24 Feb 1994 17:47:00 PST
From:         Casey Dunn 
Subject:      A quibble on the Balinese/Javanese "split"

Gregory Taylor writes:
 > William Eldridge  writes:
 > True. An interesting case is the difference between Javanese and Balinese
[ deletions ]
 > around to see enough of the development of early Kebyar stuff to
 > notate its beginnings in "Music in Bali." He places its origins

is "Music in Bali" also "A House in Bali"? or did McPhee
write other books? also; any idea of where to get transcriptions
of his piano peices that were gamelan influnced?

MIDI files of gamelan music?

casey

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 01:35:25 -0400
From:         "Nicholas P. Traenkner" 
Subject:      Re: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn

        At Last! somebody brings up John Cage! I've been waiting to discuss
Cage for months!

        Besides being a highly experimental composer, I have found Cage a
wonderful author. Last summer, I picked up a copy of _Silence_, which
opened such a new way of thinking about music to me, I immediately began
searching for all I could of his. I experimented with some chance operations
methods for composing static radio signals (purely for my own curiosity)
and found the results interesting, but as many seem to point out, rather
difficult to sit down and listen to the results which I recorded onto four
track cassette, not to mention the task of learning to 'play' static radio
signals. I have to admit I went a bit overboard, taking an interest in
alternative 'manuscripts'. Also, (tsk, tsk) since patience is not one of
my greater disciplines, the chart I drew up for I-Ching hexagrams included
a lot less silence than probably should have been included. Listening back
to the tape, I see where more instances of silence on the recording (which
perhaps I should have considered Cage's philosphy on recorded vs. live
music) would have made it much more interesting. The important thing that
came from this whole experiment was that I learned a lot about sounds.

        I have a question on "Fontana Mix". I understand that the score is
a series of plastic overlays, including a gridded rectangle. However, In
reading of the arduous task Cage took upon himself, Tudor and Co. in
splicing and randomly mutilating the tape, how does one 'perform' a work
that consists of a strand of magnetic tape? Since I have only one recording
of "Fontana Mix", I haven't had the chance to hear any other 'versions'.
sic Cage's problem with recorded music.

        Also, being an avid fan of Finnegan's Wake, I have been foaming at
the mouth to hear the 'Roaratorio'. Is it available on (alas) recorded
media?

        In Cuyahoga Falls Ohio, I have been hearing rumors of a Cage 'tribute'
CD, supposedly containing a performance of 4'33" by the late Frank Zappa.
anyone else hear of this?

        Finnally, Objectification of the art form through chance operation,
although I'm not sure is he pioneered it or not, strikes me as being a major
utilization of 'modern' artistic theory. Cage's modernity was, I believe, a
breakthrough that reached decades beyond what some call postmodernism,
modernism, or whatever other catchwords we can find to define an artistic
'era'.

        Nicholas Traenkner
        engxt343@ksuvxa.kent.edu

        "                      "
        "


                              !"
                        -John Cage

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:28:28 -0500
From:         Mark G Simon 
Subject:      Re: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn

>         At Last! somebody brings up John Cage! I've been waiting to discuss
> Cage for months!
>
>         Besides being a highly experimental composer, I have found Cage a
> wonderful author. Last summer, I picked up a copy of _Silence_, which

Yes, "Silence" is certainly destined to be one of the important books
about music of the 20th century. It will be remembered long after his
compositions are long forgotten. I think Cage has made a profound
influence on the history of music, perhaps the most profound influence of
any musician this century.

For the past 200 years, at the very least, the history of music has been
the story of those who have stretched the language of music by breaking
the rules of what's permissible in music. Mozart's use of dissonance
seemed bold (String quartet K. 465, G minor symphony) Beethoven's was
even bolder (3rd symphony, Grosse Fuge), Wagner upped the ante with
continuous chromaticism until composers at the turn of the century (Max
Reger for instance) could hardly bear to write 2 consecutive measures in
the same key. Schoenberg introduced atonality and Stravinsky employed
mixed meters and polymeters, and then after World War II all hell broke
loose and any composer worthy of the name was expected to have his own
personal method of turning the rules of music on their head. It was Cage
who carried the trend to its logical conclusion and declared that all
rules in music are void, that absolutely anything can be music. I think
the implications of this have even today not yet been fully appreciated.
If everything is permissible, if there are no more forbidden boundaries
to be crossed, then there is no more point in searching for innovations.
New compositional techniques may be introduced but they can no longer be
automatically regarded occupying the vanguard of the historical
development of music. Music, of necessity will evolve in a different
direction. What that direction is or will be is anybody's guess, but it
is certain that the breaking or keeping of rules is now beside the point.
In this environment there is no reason not to adopt old rules formerly
thought outmoded. For instance the minimalists have succeeded in
reintroducing tonality. It is no coincidence that Terry Reilly, Phillip
Glass, and John Adams all started out from the aleatory camp. Reilly's
"In C" was a chance composition in which an undetermined number of
performers play unspecified instruments and proceed through a number of
notated musical fragments, repeating each an unspecified number of times.
So the influence of John Cage has already affected music in ways that
Cage himself could have never anticipated.

I have seen the Cage tribute CD with Zappa's rendition of 4'33" in a
record store in Ithaca. I didn't realize it was such a rarity.

Mark Simon
mgs2@cornell.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 1994 11:42:45 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn

>Oh, by the way, his equipment consists of a big stack of those old
>grade-school record players, a bunch of old disks which he buys in
>thrift shops, a great ear, and a lot of energy.

Sounds like Philip Jeck, a British-based musician who is currently getting
quite a bit of exposure in the UK contemporary dance scene, mainly because
of the work he does with Marisa Zanotti.

...who is currently a bit of an Arts Council Darling; the work she's doing
isn't bad, but she does get rather a lot of financial backing mostly
because she used to perform with the Cholmondleys.

...who, together with the Featherstonehaughs, are a high-profile
long-established dance group and a cornerstone of the London Dance Mafia.

...who are a collection (6) of dance companies based at the Place Theatre
complete with a Godfather who won the major commercial dance award last
year, the Digital.

...who make computers, but you knew that.

Where was I? Oh yes, Philip Jeck. Performs using two Dansette record
players, a couple of stomp boxes and a cheapo Casio sampler. He uses a pile
of old records which he marks up with sticky labels in order to
"pre-program" the loop points; the record loops are then swapped and mixed
during the performance (the first minute or two just being layered loops of
surface noise). It's very good stuff, beautifully rich and atmospheric.

Of all the musicians I've come across who are working in contemporary dance
right now, Jeck is closest to what I'm trying to do. Except that my
equipment is a couple of orders of magnitude more expensive than his (and
an order of magnitude less reliable, I reckon)...


                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 2 Feb 1994 09:17:58 GMT-0500
From:         JASON VANTOMME 
Subject:      Anima Mundi

Thanks for the answers about the film...I knew it was Glass.  In fact,
some parts sounded like they were straight out of Powaqaatsi.  I actually
ended up turning the channel too, not so much for the soundtrack, but more
because of the disjunct visual imagery.  Often the continuity of what
I was seeing was not exactly obvious.

jason

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 2 Feb 1994 13:16:17 -0600
From:         hinkle-turner elizabeth 
Subject:      Re: Anima Mundi

        Hey, I was watching CBS last night and saw this Bufferin commercial
with this background music that sounded unmistakably like Philip Glass.  Since
there weren't any credits in the commercial, I'm not sure whether it
REALLY WAS Glass' music or not?  Does anyone know?
                'nuff said.


                Signed,  Listening to Boulez in Iowa


******Remember:  Appearance is Everything.  Substance Means Nothing*******

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 18 Feb 1994 10:34:10 GMT
From:         JOEL STERN 
Subject:      ARCHETYPES

          Jason Geistweidt:
          >As a composer I can create forms which reference architypes in t
          >culture's thoughts.  But, we cannot ever guarantee that the audi
          >those architypes.  Again, I can only create forms which appeal t
          >audience is on its own.

          I think there's more certainty than  you admit  in  an audiences'
          ability to  share archetypes. It's really up  to  the composer to
          decide  whether  to reference widely  shared archetypes, narrowly
          focused ones, no archetypes at all, or try to create new(?) ones.
          This isn't really, as  you have said, a small point at  all.  The
          question of  the validity of subjectivism in artistic creation is
          a stuggle as old  as  the hills. It even relates to  the original
          patch creation topic, sort of. Sometimes I  get  the feeling that
          people  who adamantly insist  on creating their  own  sounds look
          upon  the  others  as insufficiently subjective. Some  electronic
          composers  are  impelled  to   set  themselves  apart  from   the
          commercial, mass-marketed drek that 90 per cent of the population
          listens to  -  a  worthy  goal-  and  also  from  the  stasis  of
          classicism that  the another 8  percent devote themselves to:  an
          equally worthy goal.  The  only pitfall I  see  in  this  is  the
          possibility of  falling into  a narcissistic mind  set. Yuk...who
          wants that???

          Joel Stern
          stern@mail.loc.gov
          j.stern11@genie.geis.com
          tel:301-588-8061  fax:301-585-7642

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 24 Feb 1994 19:45:19 GMT
From:         JOEL STERN 
Subject:      ELEC. MUSIC & THE RENAISSANCE

          >I thought that the Early Renaissance was
          >funded by the Roman Catholic Church (and its rich members)...

          Yeah, I don't think these monolithic structures usually have much
          of  a  problem  with  expanding their  temporal  sphere,  through
          conquest, banking and commerce, or  other means, which  is   what
          the  early Renaissance was about. But  the  early Renaissance was
          not  a characteristic period  for  the  kind  of  monoliths we're
          talking about - that's why it was a renaissance. The boundries of
          music,  art,   and  thought,  under  the  influence  of  expanded
          geographical and  economic boundries pushed  out  far  enough  to
          cause a fracture of  the monolith, with the result that  to  this
          day  in  the  west nothing has really been able  to replicate the
          kind of domination of culture that the Church once exercised.

          Electronic music (-there-)

          Joel Stern
          stern@mail.loc.gov
          tel:301-588-8061  fax:301-585-7642

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 23 Feb 1994 23:33:04 -0400
From:         William Eldridge 
Subject:      Emotional power of music -- a neurological perspective

On the off chance this topic hasn't been beaten to death, here's Stravinsky in
his provocative, ornery mode:

"Music is powerless to express anything."

Although he later revised his thinking:

"Today I would put it the other way around. Music expresses itself....A composer
works in the embodiment of his feelings and, of course, it may be considered as
expressing or symbolizing them."

And for a neurological perspective, here's Howard Gardner, a cognitive scientist
and amateur pianist, whose theory of multiple intelligences -- linguistic,
musical, logical-mathematical, spatial (visual arts, design, etc.),
bodily-kinesthetic, and the personal intelligences, interpersonal (knowing
others) and intrapersonal (knowing oneself) -- has to some extent superceded the
outdated Stanford-Binet I.Q. model of intelligence:

"I have already noted the universally acknowledged connection between musical
performance and the feeling life of persons; and since feelings occupy a central
role in the personal intelligences, some further comments may be in order here.
Music can serve as a way of capturing feelings, knowledge about feelings, or
knowledge about the forms of feeling, communicating them from the performer or
the creator to the attentive listener. The neurology that permits or facilitates
this association has by no means been worked out. Still, it is perhaps worth
speculating that musical competence depends not upon cortical analytic
mechanisms alone, but also upon those subcortical structures deemed central to
feeling and to motivation. Individuals with damage to the subcortical areas, or
with disconnection between cortical and subcortical areas, are often described
as being flat and devoid of affect; and while it has not been commented upon in
the neurological literature, it is my observation that such individuals seem
rarely to have any interest in or attraction to music. Quite instructively, one
individual with extensive right hemisphere damage remained able to teach music
and even to write books about it, but lost the ability and desire to compose.
According to his own introspection, he could no longer retain the feeling of the
whole piece, nor a sense of what worked and what did not work. Another musician
with right hemisphere disease lost all aesthetic feelings associated with his
performances. Perhaps these feeling aspects of music prove especially brittle in
the instance of damage to the right hemisphere structures, whether they be
cortical or subcortical."

   -- Howard Gardner, *Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple
       Intelligences* (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 124
----------------------
William Eldridge
katzja@hugse1.harvard.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 2 Feb 1994 15:00:54 -0500
From:         Brian Good 
Subject:      Glass on TV (was Anima Numdi)

>
>         Hey, I was watching CBS last night and saw this Bufferin commercial
> with this background music that sounded unmistakably like Philip Glass.  Since
> there weren't any credits in the commercial, I'm not sure whether it
> REALLY WAS Glass' music or not?  Does anyone know?
>                 'nuff said.

...implying that somewhere there's a market survey that shows that if they
 broadcast
more Glass they'll sell more Bufferin?   :-)

brian good

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 1994 11:41:05 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: minimalism...minimalsim...minimalism...mini

>While we are all talking about Glass:
>On Dancepieces the 7th track is just beautiful:

Well, being into dance, I should probably check this one out. Is it a
single CD or is there a set of them? I have a feeling I've seen a
collection of dance pieces...

>Any fans of Akhnaten?

Dig the hats...


                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 2 Feb 1994 15:24:48 CST
From:         Gregory Taylor 
Subject:      More Cage for you gilded birds...

>Nicholas Traenkner (engxt343@ksuvxa.kent.edu):

>In Cuyahoga Falls Ohio, I have been hearing rumors of a Cage 'tribute'
>CD, supposedly containing a performance of 4'33" by the late Frank Zappa.
>anyone else hear of this?

The discs you're looking for are on the Koch label [they're a classical
distributor] the catalog number is KIC CD 7238

A Chance Operation: The John Cage Tribute

One of the more interesting features of these discs is that each
section is, in turn, divided into smaller indices - so that you
can do a Cageian runthrough of the disc by putting your player
on random shuffle. Interestingly, my player shows no "time
remaining" when the 4'33" sections are running. In light of FZ's
recent passing, the whole thing seems a trifle poignant in a way
that neither FZ nor Cage would have intended.

>Finally, Objectification of the art form through chance operation,
>although I'm not sure if he pioneered it or not, strikes me as being a major
>utilization of 'modern' artistic theory. Cage's modernity was, I believe, a
>breakthrough that reached decades beyond what some call postmodernism,
>modernism, or whatever other catchwords we can find to define an artistic
>'era'.

While I'm not sure that this is the place to quibble about this [ one
nearly always argues that conceptualists move away from objectification,
that Cage's work is important precisely *for* its placement in history,
and that Cage might well have found some strains of the nonmonolithic
PoMo beast not at all to his liking, etc. ], I *will* whet your taste
for an interesting new book on Cage's work from James Pritchett, which
is out from Cambridge Press. Here's a short excerpt from it that we
spent some time discussing in rec.music.classical. Jamey was kind enough
to shorten a paper he gave and pass it along [he taught here for a year
a while back]. Let's see what you think of entertaining the possibility
that - although Modernism specifically *allowed* the easement of the
strictures - 4'33" has its roots in the mysticism of another age and
of a different culture entirely....

________begin JP snippet_____________________
I'm sure most--if not all--of you have heard of 4' 33'', Cage's
"silent piece", the piece in which no sounds are made by the per-
former at all. It's probably his most famous creation, the one
mentioned in all the textbooks. I've had a rather uneasy rela-
tionship with this piece in my study of Cage's work. My disser-
tation, which was on the development of chance composition in his
music of the 1950's, should have included 4' 33'' (which was com-
posed in 1952), but I couldn't seem to find a place for it. I
was aware of the piece's reputation: that it represented the
"ultimate" chance piece, Cage's final renunciation of his own in-
tention in his composition. In this sense, it's most often
viewed as an anti-musical gesture, Cage's statement that, since
the accidental sounds of the environment are so interesting,
there's no need to compose anything at all. But in my disserta-
tion, I was concerned with Cage as a composer, with technical
matters of how he used chance to arrange his sounds. I couldn't
reconcile the image of the composer who was creating dozens of
works with the philosopher who was supposedly slamming the door
shut on music entirely. So, I did what any self-respecting doc-
toral student faced with a deadline would do: I declared that 4'
33'' was "not relevant to my thesis", and just ignored it.

As I began work on my new book, a survey of Cage's music, I real-
ized that I would have to deal with the silent piece. But the old
problems resurfaced; try as I might, I couldn't find a satisfac-
tory place for it in my book. This impasse was broken when it
came to my attention that, although Cage did not compose a silent
piece until 1952, he actually had the idea for one somewhat ear-
lier. In a lecture titled "A Composer's Confessions", delivered
at Vassar College in 1948 (and only recently rediscovered), Cage
first presented the idea for a silent piece as follows:

     I have, for instance, several new desires (two may seem
     absurd, but I am serious about them): first, to com-
     pose a piece of uninterrupted silence and sell it to
     the Muzak Co. It will be 4 1/2 minutes long--these being
     the standard lengths of "canned" music, and its title
     will be "Silent Prayer". It will open with a single
     idea which I will attempt to make as seductive as the
     color and shape or fragrance of a flower. The ending
     will approach imperceptibility.

(As an aside, the other "absurd" idea that Cage describes is to
compose a piece for 12 radios to be called Imaginary Landscape
No. 4--another piece that would have to wait until the 1950's.)
"Silent Prayer", as it was thus described in 1948, is clearly the
first glimmer of an idea that, four years later, would become 4'
33''; while "Silent Prayer" is not 4' 33'' itself, it is its
ancestor. My problem in reconciling 4' 33'' with Cage's work of
the 1950's was thus solved by realizing that the piece, in a
sense, belongs to an earlier period in Cage's career.

Placing the roots of 4' 33'' in the late 1940's casts an entirely
different light on the piece: while it has almost universally
been presented as a result of Cage's interest in chance, it actu-
ally predates his first use of chance. Equally important, his
famous anechoic chamber experience--in which he first realized that
there is no such thing as a true silence--was still three years
away when he conceived of a silent composition. That Cage first
contemplated a silent piece in 1948 suggests that those deep
changes in his thought that we have come to associate with his
adoption of chance procedures may have in fact begun much ear-
lier, and--even more importantly--may not be concerned with the con-
cept of chance at all. Rather than considering 4' 33'' as close-
ly related to chance-composed works such as Music of Changes, we
must instead reconcile it with pieces such as the String Quartet
in Four Parts and Sonatas and Interludes (both relatively tradi-
tional compositions).

-------------
After this, I take a long look at Cage's writings (particularly his
"Forerunners of Modern Music") to try to put together a picture of
his aesthetic position c. 1948. I find Cage to be heavily indebted
to the writings of Ananda Coomaraswamy (the Indian art historian/theorist),
and also to the writings of Meister Eckhart, the German Christian mystic
(whose work was probably brought to Cage's attention by Coomaraswamy).
Eckhart says things like this, for example:


     It is in the stillness, in the silence, that the word
     of God is to be heard. There is no better avenue of
     approach to this Work than through stillness, through
     silence.  It is to be heard there as it is . . . for
     when one is aware of nothing, that word is imparted to
     him and clearly revealed.

I portray 4' 33'' as a religious piece, a spiritual endeavor in the
sense of Eckhart's injunctions. I sum things up towards the end of
my paper, where I try to point out the glimmers of Eckhartian/Coomaraswamian
language in the 1948 "Vassar Lecture":

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

In it, for example, Cage objects to the materialism of contem-
porary Western music, lamenting that "our culture has its faith
not in the peaceful center of the spirit, but in an ever-hopeful
projection on to things." He contrasts this attachment to things
(which he identifies with the love of recordings, fame, master-
works, and so forth) with the true purpose of music, which is
"our becoming more integrated as personalities." Through the com-
position, performance, or experience of a piece of music, he
says, we can forget ourselves, and thus, "enraptured", gain our-
selves. The concluding paragraph of the lecture sums up these
ideas: Each one of us must now look to himself.  That which
     formerly held us together and gave meaning to our occu-
     pations was our belief in God.  When we transferred
     this belief first to heroes and then to things, we be-
     gan to walk our separate paths. That island, . . . to
     which we might have retreated to escape from the impact
     of the world, lies, as it ever did, within each one of
     our hearts. Towards that final tranquillity, which to-
     day we so desperately need, any integrating occupation--music
     is only one of them--rightly used can serve as a
     guide.

I believe that sentiments such as these--and probably the poetic
idea of a totally silent piece--were most certainly derived from
Cage's reading of Coomaraswamy and Eckhart. The connection of
this inner tranquillity to >silence<, however, was not made until
later. Perhaps the most striking thing about the Vassar lecture
is that, when Cage explains why he uses musical structures based
on duration, he does not cite the nature of silence as a reason.
That he insisted upon this very point only a few months later (in
"Defense of Satie") suggests that the idea for "Silent Prayer"
may have acted as a catalyst for Cage's thinking about silence,
that his compositional and aesthetic ideas about silence probably
developed in tandem.  It may go against all the "common
knowledge" about Cage, but I firmly believe that the silent piece
did not follow from any particular theoretical or aesthetic
discovery, but rather was born of the imagery of silence in Meis-
ter Eckhart; Cage's ideas about silence developed as a conse-
quence of this compositional inspiration.
_______end Jamey snippet____________________________

I expect that perhaps this may interest some of you....

Gregory

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 1994 14:36:45 EST
From:         "Jason E. Geistweidt" 
Subject:      Re: More Cage for you gilded birds...

              
Gregory, where can I get my hands on the Vassar lecture your colleague writes
of?  Is is in Cage's _Silence_?

Jason E. Geistweidt     [  "Alas!  An ill fated philosophy leads to an
The American University [   ill fated religion!"  -- S. T. Coleridge
jg8602a@american.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 14:35:05 GMT-0500
From:         JASON VANTOMME 
Subject:      More Glass...

While we're on the Glass thread...  I was watching PBS the
other night and cut into a film called 'Anima Mundi' which
had a soundtrack that was pretty unmistakably Glass.
Unfortunately, the credits must have been at the beginning
(which I missed) and I didn't see if it was in fact Glass.

Anybody got an answer?

Jason Vantomme
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jason D. Vantomme
Faculty of Music, McGill University
Montreal, PQ            CANADA
email:   vantomme@music.mcgill.ca
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 16:06:21 EST
From:         David Lunney 
Subject:      Re: More Glass...

As for the sound track on "Anima Mundi": I found it so obnoxious
that I switched channels.

                                    --David Lunney

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 17:10:08 -0500
From:         "Jon Crystal (Jon Crystal)" 
Subject:      Re: More Glass...

>While we're on the Glass thread...  I was watching PBS the
>other night and cut into a film called 'Anima Mundi' which
>had a soundtrack that was pretty unmistakably Glass.
>Unfortunately, the credits must have been at the beginning
>(which I missed) and I didn't see if it was in fact Glass.
>
>Anybody got an answer?
>
YES, IT WAS

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 18:14:40 -0500
From:         Mike Clemens 
Subject:      Re: More Glass...

In article <19940201.170941.755518.NETNEWS@auvm.american.edu>,
JASON VANTOMME   wrote:
>While we're on the Glass thread...  I was watching PBS the
>other night and cut into a film called 'Anima Mundi' which
>had a soundtrack that was pretty unmistakably Glass.
>Unfortunately, the credits must have been at the beginning
>(which I missed) and I didn't see if it was in fact Glass.
>
>Anybody got an answer?

In fact, it *was* Glass... your ears didn't trick you... :-)

- Mike

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 17 Feb 1994 20:30:34 EST
From:         "Jason E. Geistweidt" 
Subject:      Music and it's capabilities

OK now.  Thanks for your feedback, it fed my thoughts.  But, on my theory that
(And this is not only my theory) my theory that music does nothing, I must stan
stand strong.  You see, as a composer, I feel that though my works are influenc
ed by my "sentimentalities", music is incapable of actually transmitting them.
As  a composer I can create forms which reference architypes in the system of a
culture's thoughts.  But, we cannot ever guarantee that the audience will see
those architypes.  Again, I can only create forms which appeal to me.  The
audience is on its own.  Thus, after I create a work and present it, it is no
longer mine.  The forms are "incapable" of transmitting my emotions.  The
organized sounds are only that, organized sounds.  We call that music, eh? But
my point is that the forms are only reflective of what the audience wants to

see.  Forms in music are not transitive of my feelings.  Forms do not have
emotions.  Sounds are highly complex vibrations, as Cage says "they have no
thought or ought or theory."    It is a small   point, but I beleive an import-
ant one.  If music is too idealistic, we become more concerned with the idea th
an the music.

If it isn't obvious, i just finished Cage's _Silence_.  Is my deconstructionism
showing?

Jason E. Geistweidt                               231 Nebraska Hall
The American University                           4400 Mass. Avenue, N.W.
jg8602a@american.edu                              Washington, D.C.  20016
(202) 885-6762                                    Dept. of Performing Arts
                     "Go ahead!  Shoot the messenger"

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 18 Feb 1994 10:33:40 -0500
From:         Mark G Simon 
Subject:      Re: Music and it's capabilities

> OK now.  Thanks for your feedback, it fed my thoughts.  But, on my theory that
> (And this is not only my theory) my theory that music does nothing, I must
 stan
> stand strong.  You see, as a composer, I feel that though my works are
 influenc
> ed by my "sentimentalities", music is incapable of actually transmitting them.
> As  a composer I can create forms which reference architypes in the system of
 a
> culture's thoughts.  But, we cannot ever guarantee that the audience will see
> those architypes.  Again, I can only create forms which appeal to me.  The
> audience is on its own.  Thus, after I create a work and present it, it is no
> longer mine.  The forms are "incapable" of transmitting my emotions.  The
> organized sounds are only that, organized sounds.  We call that music, eh? But
> my point is that the forms are only reflective of what the audience wants to
>
> see.  Forms in music are not transitive of my feelings.  Forms do not have
> emotions.  Sounds are highly complex vibrations, as Cage says "they have no
> thought or ought or theory."    It is a small   point, but I beleive an
 import-
> ant one.  If music is too idealistic, we become more concerned with the idea
 th
> an the music.

I think the questions in life that are worthiest of discussion are the
ones that can never be answered, and this is one of them. Emotion and
music do seem to be mixed up with each other but the exact nature of the
relationship is elusive. As you say, the main determinant of what emotion
gets transmitted is cultural. If composer and audience share enough
assumptions about what music is supposed to mean then there's a pretty
strong chance that the emotion felt by the composer will be accurately
conveyed to the audience. The much-derided concept of "major = happy,
minor = sad" is, of course, grossly over-simplified, but it does have
some cultural relevance, or else the observation would have never been
made. It has been the great burden of the twentieth century to undergo a
total upheaval in cultural indicators. Every convention that would define
the emotional orientation of music for an audience has been taken away.
And here we have Cage, the last of the musical iconoclasts, smashing the
very last of the conventions that conferred meaning on music and then
proclaiming that music is meaningless. Kind of like the proverbial kid
who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy on the grounds that
he's an orphan.

Others have used more high-falutin' language to say this, but here goes:
the soul of music lies in cliches. That's right. It's those stereotyped
riffs that one picks up from god knows where and regurgitates at
strategic moments, its the little motivic snippets, the chord
progressions, sound patches, etc. that one steals consciously or
unconsciously, that's where the emotion in music is. Redundancy is an
essential component of music. A listener carries a large memory bank
consisting of all the other music he's ever heard and as he listens to a
new piece, he (or she) is constantly  comparing what he hears to what
he's heard before and when he senses a correlation, or a "hit", a
reaction goes off in his brain and he feels an emotion. Of course that
emotion might be "aw jeez haven't I heard that before?" but that's the
way it works. When the right buttons are pushed in a context that varies
significantly (but not too significantly) from the original context, a
positive emotional reaction occurs. All we composers are really searching
for (well, maybe I shouldn't speak for everybody) is the proper balance
between redundancy and originality. It would never do to have music that
was completely original, just as it wouldn't do to have music that was
completely redundant.

As I said in a previous posting, thanks to Cage, we are finally free of
the historical necessity to smash conventions to prove our originality.
Now we can safely pick up the pieces and hopefully put them back together
in new ways (but not too new, mind you).

I have a feeling I've wandered off the original topic. Perhaps it's too
much to expect a polished essay on a e-mail bulletin board.

Mark Simon
mgs2@cornell.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 18 Feb 1994 10:23:45 CST
From:         "Harry F.P. Haecker" 
Subject:      Re: Music and it's capabilities

Jason writes:
>...I feel that though my works are influenced by my "sentimentalities", music
>is incapable of actually transmitting them.

Bingo.  I think that this is the crux of our differences: I'm a "mystic" when it
comes to music.  I believe (and I'm not the only one) that not only is music
capable of transmitting feeling across cultural and temporal lines, that is one
of its functions!  It's the "universal language" that can be capable of
"soothing the savage beast" and all. I don't think these sayings just came out
of nowhere, but are rooted in this reality.

>As  a composer I can create forms which reference architypes in the system of a
>culture's thoughts.  But, we cannot ever guarantee that the audience will see
>those architypes.

Very true!  One has to be an inspired composer who has a receptive audience
before the communication works.  Pearls before swine ain't gonna cut it, nor
scat before royality. (How 'bout dem aphorisms?)

>Forms in music are not transitive of my feelings.

This is probably a self-fulfilling prophesy! IMHO, you get out of your
compositions what you put in: put in sincere, emotional/rational content and
your audience will hear it and it will endure. Make it out of hackneyed,
repititious motifs, and it will go straight to MTV...and you'll be famous for 15
minutes ;-)

>Forms do not have emotions.  Sounds are highly complex vibrations, as Cage says
>"they have no thought or ought or theory."

Again, true...as long as it's not heard or conceived by emotional humans.  It's
like the old falling tree in a forest story.

>If music is too idealistic, we become more concerned with the idea than the
>music.

I say: if music is too rational, using nothing but number theories (for
example), we become more concerned with the idea than the music.  In reality,
probably both forces are at work, inextricably entwined.

Anyway, I don't want to start a "Holy War": this debate really is as old as the
hills.  It's probably what has driven the Classical/Romantic yo-yo throughout
Western man's history (unfortunately, I don't know much about other culture's
artistic traditions...is there anyone out there who can speak of Oriental
artisitic philosopy?)

Harry Haecker (haeckerh@osprey.nwrc.gov)

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 18 Feb 1994 16:44:52 -0500
From:         Alper Kerman 
Subject:      Re: Music and it's capabilities

> OK now.  Thanks for your feedback, it fed my thoughts.  But, on my theory that
> (And this is not only my theory) my theory that music does nothing, I must
 stan
> stand strong.


Hey, its okay to stand strong by what you believe in!...
I just happen to stand strong by my theory (and perhaps also
the theory of most composers), that any type of musical style
infact DOES "something" for its audience.  There is always
"something" delivered from composer to his/her audience,
whether it is positive, negative, emotional, humorous, political,
or weirdness, etc.  Otherwise, why write music in the first place,
if you don't have anything to say?...Why do you think we each
appreciate only certain styles of music?  Because, the message
being delivered thru music (as being a tool) pleases us, whether
it is thru lyrics, and/or musical expression.  It's always composer
takes an action, and in turn, causes a reaction on the audience
side.  It's one way avenue in that sense!...Of course, there is
always that fullfilment of joy, when your audience appreciates
what you have delivered to them.  You see, its just like what
we are doing now; here I'm typing my thoughts in this mail and
using english as a tool trying to deliver a message across to
you.  Now, if I can only form my sentences in such way and use
the right words ( like using "right" sound pathes ), and deliver
the message I want to get across to you, then its great!, I've
done my job!...And of course, on the other hand, if I don't
do my job well, then you will receive a different interpretation
of the original message intended.

I wanted to reply to other comments you've made, but
I have to take my machine down for the weekend (for power
outage)!...So, I shall give you my comments next week,
starting Tuesday!...

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 18 Feb 1994 20:15:43 -0500
From:         Elissa Brill 
Subject:      Re: Music and it's capabilities

Mark Simon writes:

> ...All we composers are really searching for...is the proper balance
> between redundancy and originality.

This is true not only in terms of the large-scale musical elements
(general style, performance medium, tuning systems, etc), but also
in terms of the smaller-scale details within a piece.  And it's been
that way historically--After all, aren't most discussions of musical
form concerned with repetition/variation of old material and introduction
of new material?  It's the *balance between redundancy and originality*
that defines the way we hear the piece unfold.

Elissa Brill
ebrill@ecn.mass.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Sat, 19 Feb 1994 09:53:57 EST
From:         David Lunney 
Subject:      Re: Music and it's capabilities

I have a book somewhere that claims that some aspects of music are
universal: it wouldn't be surprising, given the universality of many
human behavior patterns. (Notice I didn't say "behaviors" (yecch), which
marks me as a literate human being and not a social scientist.)

Years ago anthropologists spouted the shibboleth "there is no such as
human nature." They were proved wrong by biologists, and now, their
tails between their legs, they are discovering, lo!, there ARE some
universals in human behavior, for example, the way that mothers talk to
their infants. Irrespective of the culture or language, the demeanor of
mothers toward their babies is very similar. (You know what that is, if
you have ever seen and heard a mother and her baby.)

Cut to the chase. The author claims that the following are universally
understood as "sad":

                  descending pitch (doesn't have to be on a scale)
                  ritardando
                  dimuendo.

The book has many other juicy pieces of information, and if anybody is
interested I can dig it out and post the title and author. It's been
quit a while since I read it, so I don't recall a lot of details.

David Lunney
Department of Chemistry and
Science Institute for the Disabled
East Carolina University
Greenvlle, NC 27858 USA
VOICE: 919-757-6713  919-758-6453
FAX: 919-757-6210
CHLUNNEY@ECUVM1.BITNET
CHLUNNEY@ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 2 Feb 1994 18:20:06 CST
From:         bq Mackintosh 
Subject:      regarding Glass on TV

Mmm.  A favorite marketing stratagy is to employ a composer who can
adaquately emulate any one composer without actually demanding the same
salary.  Witness the Enya-esque stuff in car commercials as well as the
endless quasi-Vangelis would-be Chariouts of Fire used in anything even
remotely athletic.


bq Mackintosh

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 1994 09:39:00 -0600
From:         Arne Claassen ISE 
Subject:      Re: regarding Glass on TV

> Mmm.  A favorite marketing stratagy is to employ a composer who can
> adaquately emulate any one composer without actually demanding the same
> salary.  Witness the Enya-esque stuff in car commercials as well as the
> endless quasi-Vangelis would-be Chariouts of Fire used in anything even
> remotely athletic.

Would you be refering to the Volkswagen commercial with the Enya-esque
remark? Because that was Clannard, who Enya used to belong to and who is
fronted by Enya's sister. Of course they weren't hired to do commercial
music, but one of their older songs was bought. I don't know what that
says about Clannard tho'.

--
Arne F. Claassen                 |"In cows we trust | EPS Classic * D4
     | E pluribus Moo"  | Mac Centris 650
              |                  |

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 1994 12:33:57 GMT-0500
From:         JASON VANTOMME 
Subject:      Sarcasm? (was Re: Glass on TV)

Elizabeth hinkle-turner  writes:
Subject: Re: Anima Mundi

>      Hey, I was watching CBS last night and saw this Bufferin
> commercial with this background music that sounded
> unmistakably like Philip Glass.  Since there weren't
> any credits in the commercial, I'm not sure whether it
> REALLY WAS Glass' music or not?  Does anyone know? 'nuff said.

I read just a tad o' sarcasm here - bad and ill-placed attempt at a
flame I think.  Heh - I just wanted to get my facts straight!  I hope
there's not a problem with *that*?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jason D. Vantomme
Faculty of Music, McGill University
Montreal, PQ            CANADA
email:   vantomme@music.mcgill.ca
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 18 Feb 1994 18:06:18 GMT
From:         JOEL STERN 
Subject:      SUBJECTIVISM, ORIENTAL STYLE

          Harry Haecker:
          >(unfortunately, I don't know much about other culture's
          >artistic traditions...is there anyone out there who can speak of

          I thought you'd never ask.  I  spent  my academic career (through
          the M.A.  )  and after, studying pre-modern China. Very different
          aesthetic  ,  indeed.  The  whole  Confucian influenced  cultural
          sphere  is  as obsessed (really I  should  say  was  as obsessed:
          things changed when the  West came swaggering in)  with emulation
          and conformity as  we  are with originality. I know I quoted this
          last time we had this discussion but here it is again: Confucious
          said, "Shu er  bu zuo", i.e., Copy, don't originate. You can  see
          it  in Chinese painting very clearly: the  most famous artists of
          later times (post 800 A.D.) were known for their masterful copies
          of  the  great  ancient  works.  In  music, painting, caligraphy,
          writing, etc.,  new styles were  new because they interpreted old
          styles in a slightly different way. With the mammoth ebb and flow
          peoples  and products in  mainland Asia  there  were  periods  of
          radical change - especially with the introduction of Buddhism
          from around  the  3rd century -  but cultural "legitimacy" always
          sprang back in somewhat modified form.


          I  don't think this stems  from  an 'oriental' mindset, since  it
          really characterizes all traditional cultures  -  especially ones
          with  towering (stifling) religious/state apparati: the  Catholic
          Church, for one.

          Joel Stern
          stern@mail.loc.gov
          tel:301-588-8061  fax:301-585-7642

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 21 Feb 1994 16:24:32 -0400
From:         William Eldridge 
Subject:      Re: SUBJECTIVISM, ORIENTAL STYLE

Joel  Stern writes of post-800 AD China:

> . ..In  music, painting, caligraphy writing, etc.,  new styles were
> new because they interpreted old styles in a slightly different way.
> With the mammoth ebb and flow of peoples  and products in
> mainland Asia  there  were  periods  of radical change --
> especially with the introduction of Buddhism from
> around  the  3rd century -  but cultural "legitimacy" always
> sprang back in somewhat modified form.


> I  don't think this stems  from  an 'oriental' mindset, since  it
> really characterizes all traditional cultures  -  especially ones
> with  towering (stifling) religious/state apparati: the  Catholic
> Church, for one.

True. An interesting case is the difference between Javanese and Balinese
gamelan music. The former is stately and somewhat static, while the latter is
loud and funky, creative and continuously evolving. As I understand it, with the
relatively late arrival of the Dutch, the social control exercised by the
Balinese ruling class broke down and "1,000 flowers bloomed".


Here is some of what Leonard B. Meyer has to say about cultural stasis:

The presumption that social-cultural development is a necessary condition of
human existence is just not tenable. The history of China up to the nineteenth
century, the stasis in ancient Egypt, and the lack of cumulative change in
countless other civilizations and cultures make it apparent that stability and
conservation, not change, have been the rule in the history of mankind
generally. Once this is recognized, theories which postulate necessary cycles,
developments, dialectics, or progressions become suspect. If the history of
Western civilization has been conspicuously characterized by change, then one
must look to the peculiarities of the culture and its ideologies for reasons and
explanations.
                               [*Music, the Arts and Ideas* (1967), p.134]



-- William Eldridge

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 22 Feb 1994 13:15:05 EST
From:         Bill Fox 
Subject:      Re: SUBJECTIVISM, ORIENTAL STYLE

William Eldridge quotes Leonard B. Meyer on cultural stasis as part of
his response to a Joel Stern post on how cultural change affected the
arts in China.  Please let me reccommend a TV show!  "How the Universe
Changed; a Personal View by James Burke" is currently being run on the
Learning Channel (TLC) on cable.  This was originally shown (in the US)
on PBS (and probably on the BBC, I'll wager) and shows how what we know
shapes how we view things.  As what we know changes, so does our
perception of the Universe.  I've probably said this poorly but the show
is definitely worth viewing.  With some of the conversations on EMUSIC-L,
my universe has changed measurably!

Bill Fox        wbf@aloft.att.com

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 23 Feb 1994 11:03:42 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: SUBJECTIVISM, ORIENTAL STYLE

>Please let me reccommend a TV show!  "How the Universe
>Changed; a Personal View by James Burke" is currently being run on the
>Learning Channel (TLC) on cable.  This was originally shown (in the US)
>on PBS (and probably on the BBC, I'll wager)

Indeed, ten years ago, which is when I saw it, and bought the book (and
caught the flu off James Burke).


                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 22 Feb 1994 14:01:15 CST
From:         "Harry F.P. Haecker" 
Subject:      SUBJECTIVISM, ROMAN CATH. and GREEK STYLE ;-)

>I don't think this stems from an 'oriental' mindset, since it
>really characterizes all traditional cultures - especially ones
>with towering (stifling) religious/state apparati: the  Catholic
>Church, for one.

     You got dat right; although, I thought that the Early Renaissance was
funded by the Roman Catholic Church (and its rich members), so ironically,
although the music and form of the Mass stayed virtually the same for 1800
years, the secular forms were able to flourish and change relatively
quickly. The freer thinking actually caused the loosening of the iron grip
of the Church and caused the rise of Protestantism.  Please correct me if
my ignorance is showing: cause and effect can certainly become muddy!

     Also, from what I remember about the ancient Greeks, Plato also argued
strongly against new forms, scales, and what I guess we'd call freeform
jazz (improv).  He said that music can have such strong emotional content
that it could be effectively used against the State.  We certainly see that
in our (USA) brief history as a nation; for example, in "gangsta" rap,
sample-based collage (Negativland), 30 years ago with Dylan and Peter,
Paul, and Mary...and 220 years ago with the propaganda song, "Yankee
Doodle"!

     Boy, wouldn't Plato be shocked that so many strong governments in the
world allow nearly unlimited freedom in this area! Mass marketing seems to
be limited mainly to $$$-muzik, though.  Although this freedom is great, it
carries >much responsibility...and I don't think many people fully
understand that music can truly be not only a POWERFUL mirror of social
upheaval, but also a catalyst and primary mover of change.


Harry Haecker (haeckerh@osprey.nwrc.gov)

------------------------------
End of the EMUSIC-L Digest
******************************