Re: OT: Musical languistics

--- michael poxon <m.poxon@...> wrote:
> But is the purpose of music to be "interesting"? I
> thought it was meant to
> do something to the spirit/soul, make you want to
> get up and boogie, weep,
> or what have you.
Does music have only one purpose? Certainly it
influences the spirit/soul, and historically has a
long record of that. From Judeo-Christian history we
have the Psalms of David, Gregorian chant, Protestant
hymns and so on. I'm sure other religious traditions
have similar histories. The main purpose being to aid
the participants in drawing closer to their God, or
other spiritual fulfillment.

Your second point (what I am reading as a separate
point: 'make you want to get up and boogie...') falls
under a different purpose for me, that is, personal
enjoyment. Whether you believe that God gave us music
so that we can be joyful and express it, or that it
evolved from a cultural/sociological necessity, the
fact remains that music DOES facilitate the expression
of joy -- as well as pain, suffering, fear, etc.

> Do only musicologists find music
> interesting? For me, a
> lot of (though not all) modern classical music is
> like a lot of (though not
> all) modern art - just soulless gimmickry, with a
> great deal of the
> Emperor's new Clothes about it.
First, I am not a musicologist, I am a composer. (faux
pas forgiven :)) ) And no, not only musicologists (or
composers, performers, theorists, etc.) find music
interesting. But much of the *enjoyment* that I get
from music comes from it doing unexpected things -- or
being interesting in other words.

[snipping...]

John Cowan brought up an important point:

>When looking at the past, though,most of the crud has
already been filtered out for us: we keep the good
stuff, the bad stuff goes to oblivion.

My dissertation advisor, in his Freshman composition
class (for which I was a TA), makes a similar point.
He admits that what we enjoy as the 'classics' (Bach,
Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) have passed through the
'filter of time'. As we are still close historically
to the experimentalism of the mid-20th century, we can
not know what will survive the 'filter'. That does not
eliminate the necessity to study what was done, rather
it makes it more important so that we can understand
what they did and why. Then if their music does not
survive the filter of time, we can be more equipped to
understand why not.

I'll quit for now. But hey ... by all means enjoy the
music you enjoy :)). I do. And lets keep an open mind
about music that we are less familiar with. ;) (Even
me. ;))) )


=====
James Worlton
-----------------
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
                 -Unknown

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