Sunday, February 9, 2020

Blog Index Organized by Topic – Feb 2020

This list includes most of my blog posts so far, organized loosely by topic.

Entries relating to class business – reminders of deadlines, concert congratulations, order of class presentation, etc. – are not included because they are likely boring to anyone who wasn't in the classes to which they were targeted.

The listed blogs below, however, are intended to be relevant to students of music composition or others interested in composition.
→ Exploring the Creative Process; Struggles and Solutions ←
Strike While the Iron is Hot! (includes section on "writer's block")
→ Planning ←
→ Playing With Expectations; Musical Dichotomies ←
→ Composition Techniques (General) ←
→ Composition Techniques Associated with Specific Composers ←
→ Form in Post-Tonal Music ←
→ Atonality; What's in a Name? ←
→ Winning and Losing; Judging and Being Judged; Reference Letter Do's and Don'ts ←
→ Audience Response to Contemporary Classical Music and Marketing ←
→ Composition Issues (10-part series that started this blog) ←
1.1. The quality of ideas may not matter very much in assessing compositions that emerge from them; and
1.2. The degree to which these ideas are original may not matter very much.
2.1. Study the music of others.
2.2. Compose as much as you can.
2.3. Invite criticism from others.
3.1. Live with it for a while.
3.2. What is it about?
3.3. Does it change character?
3.4. What is its function within the context of the piece?
3.5. Structural Analysis.
3.6. Harmonic (or Pitch, Scale, etc.) Analysis.
7.1. Less is more / More is more
7.2. Always leave them wanting more / Give them what they want
7.3. Don't treat the listener like an idiot / There's a sucker born every minute
7.4. There can be too much of a good thing / If you have a good idea, then stick with it!
7.5. The George Costanza approach.
8.1. Three models for the role of a composer
8.2. Mastery or Mystery?
8.3. The value of a plan
8.4. Getting stuck, and possible workarounds
8.5. Don't obsess
8.6. Challenges = Opportunities
→ Composition Projects ←
Posted by Clark Ross at 9:27 PM 0 comments

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Beyond Words – 2

My previous post began with several quotes by authors and poets suggesting that music has the capacity to express meaning beyond what is possible with words. Today I will delve a little further into this idea. But first, here are the quoted statements again:

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”
― Victor Hugo

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
 ― Aldous Huxley

“Where words leave off, music begins.”
– Heinrich Heine

“Where words fail, music speaks.”
― Hans Christian Andersen (the actual quote is: “Where words fail, sounds can often speak”)

These quotes are poetic, which makes sense since the writers all wrote poetry, but are they valid?

The question of whether music expresses emotions or triggers them has been debated for centuries. Similarly, many have explored the effect music has on us. How do we react to music, and why do we react in the way we do? Plato wrote, “more than anything else, rhythm and harmony find their way into the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it” (Republic, III, 40Id-e).

Indeed!

 On the one hand, there seems little doubt that many people respond emotionally to music. I sometimes find myself moved either to tears when listening to music, not because the music is "sad," but because it is beautiful. Music can trigger in me a myriad of other emotions as well, such as joy, a sense of calm, a sense of excitement that can lead to a desire to move, or even dance (don't worry; I do not do this in public), feelings of wonder, curiosity, religiosity, etc.

I have never really understood why I react in these ways, but I can say with certainty that I often feel profoundly moved by music; this was probably the main motivator that led me to become a composer./musician

On the other hand, some people argue that while music can trigger emotional responses, it doesn't actually communicate anything.

One such person was Igor Stravinsky, who, in An Autobiography (1935), wrote:

“For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being.”
I took an aesthetics course during my undergraduate studies (which were not in music; I began studying music after I had finished my first degree), and I remember learning about the nineteenth century music critic Eduard Hanslick, who argued that musical beauty “is self-contained and in no need of content from outside itself.” It “consists simply and solely of tones and their artistic combination” (Hanslick, On the Musically Beautiful, (8th ed., 1891)).

In How Music Grabs the Emotions (2014 article by Dr. Jenefer Robinson, Department of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati), the author writes:
“Hanslick was very concerned to establish that music has no “extra-musical” content, and that, in particular, it does not express or represent emotions. One of Hanslick’s contemporary devotees goes so far as to say that “it is not essential to music to possess emotion, arouse emotion, express emotion, or represent emotion. Music, in itself, has nothing to do with emotion” (Zangwill 2004: 29). In other words, music in itself is nothing but complex structures of tones, a bit like the moves in a game of chess.”
But despair not, those of you who may be wondering what childhood traumas motivated Hanslick, Stravinsky, and others, to churlishly suggest that music is incapable of expressing emotions! There are many scholarly articles in support of the opposite point of view as well, including Robinson (quoted above), PN Juslin, and Malcolm Budd (1989).

Zangwill's notion that music “has nothing to do with emotion” seems absurd to me. I don't know that I would go as far as suggesting that music has everything to do with emotion – music exists on multiple plains, one of which is intellectual (wherein we analyze music, and marvel at clever and  often unexpected things that great music-makers do/did), but for me at least, the main reason I want to explore the intellectual aspects of music is because it moves me, and I'd love to learn learn why and how this happens.

Do you have any thoughts on the question of whether music actually communicates emotion, or does it trigger emotion? Or do you agree with Zangwill that music has nothing to do with emotion?

I lean slightly more to the idea that music triggers emotions, rather than communicates them, but my view on this could change next week. Perhaps it can both trigger emotions and communicate them?

On a related point, we sometimes hear people proclaim that music is a universal language, but I disagree.

Language can be defined as "a form of communication," so, if music is a language, it is extraordinarily imprecise. Even if it does communicate emotions, which is debatable, it does so in an extremely nebulous way, and it is useless at communicating the multitude of specific things we expect language to do.

The "universal" part is also problematic, because we have moved to a point in history in which we acknowledge and embrace the validity and variety of all musical cultures in the world, with none having any superiority to any of the others. Only a cultural imperialist would suggest that the music of any single culture will "speak" to or be understood by all other cultures.

–––––––
Nick Zangwill, “Against Emotion: Hanslick was Right about Music” British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (2004). 29-43.
Posted by Clark Ross at 4:11 PM 23 comments

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Beyond Words – 1

Here are some quotes on the relationship between music and words:
“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”
― Victor Hugo (1802-1885), in “William Shakespeare,” (essay; 1864)
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
 ― Aldous Huxley, “The Rest is Silence,” in “Music at Night” (essay collection, 1931)
“Where words leave off, music begins.”
 ― Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) [attributed; I could find no source listed for this quote, so possibly it is not actually Heine’s. However, Heine had dozens of his songs set to music by great composers such as Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and others, so it seems likely that he would feel this way. It also happens to be very similar to the next quote.]
“Where words fail, music speaks.”
 ― Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), in “What The Moon Saw” (from “What The Moon Saw: And Other Tales”). For what it's worth, the actual quote is: “Where words fail, sounds can often speak,” so music is not mentioned. However, this quote is taken from a passage that references a variety of sounds, such as “the wind (that) blew stormy and cold,” the crack of a whip, and galloping horses, as well as a “death-hymn,” and “glad notes of joy.” 
What are your thoughts on any of these quotes?
  • Does music express things that cannot be put into words? If so, try to explain your answer, using – yup – words!
  • Does music inhabit a realm that can go beyond, or is at least on a different plane, than words?
  • If you feel that music “speaks,” or inhabits a realm beyond words, might this apply to other sounds as well? Consider, in particular, sounds in nature such as a bird singing, a donkey braying or cattle lowing, the wind buffeting your house in a winter storm, a babbling brook, a waterfall, rain hitting a tin roof, etc.; do these “speak?” 
  • Can you think of any other sounds that “speak,” or communicate something that is difficult or impossible to express in words? If so, how to they do this?
  • Music often triggers emotions; to what degree is this due to something in the music that has a communicative function, versus the emotional state you happen to be in when you hear the music?
  • Some people use the term, "musical language;" is music a language? How?
I will chime in with my thoughts on this in my next post.
Posted by Clark Ross at 10:51 PM 32 comments
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