From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V2 #208 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Tuesday, October 7 1997 Volume 02 : Number 208 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: I sweat in a suitcase [Lem Bingley ] Re: Alloy: Windpower: Interpretation [Sam Rauch ] Alloy: I live in a suitcase, starting a big debate, perhaps.......................... [Tim Dunn <113203.2623@c] Re: Alloy: I live in a suitcase, starting a big debate, perhaps................ [RThur] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 15:49:54 +0100 From: Lem Bingley Subject: Alloy: I sweat in a suitcase At 18:27 5/10/97 -0400, the_copse wrote: >How the hell does he do it so effortlessly? Ah, well, I seriously doubt that it is effortless. As I know only too well from my job as a writer, to come across as effortless requires plenty of thought, planning, concentration, hard work, practice, etc etc. Lem ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 14:55:51 -0500 From: Sam Rauch Subject: Re: Alloy: Windpower: Interpretation I've read and reread this post, and the more I read, the more I disagree. First of all, I think that electrix's philosophy on the creation of art as being an animate entity unto itself is flawed. An artist creates a work and it is their own. It is then presented to us for our enjoyment and/or interpretation. I think it's that simple. If it is in fact so beautiful in your interpretation, that it moves you physically, emotionally and stimulates your imagination, then in your opinion it's very good. However, it still is, and always will be the artist's creation. > Music is for feeling AND thinking in my books. Depending on the authors > intent. By thinking I mean --- an artistic view is presented so as to be > reflected upon. > So is there supposed to be a time when we mortals are "cued" into whether or not the author would like us to go deeper and root out the inner meaning of their creation? Are we supposed to pick up on this when we "detect" the author's intent? And when shall this detection take place? Would a footnote in the liner notes suffice? > In a sense, we live in a world where we perceive not only the conscious > events but a parallel alternative in our primal beigness. Also at this > level, we fall in love with the artistic work, which I believe the > Greeks named, uh... I forget, not Eros...maybe Gupi..(someone out ther > help me out). But we tend to mistakenly ascribe this love to the > composer since there is no tangible condition to grab a hold of. That > is why adulation becomes common towards the artist instead of praising > the "living" art piece FOR itself. If we perceive music and words as an > animate entity, our perception of life would alter significantly. We > would see that some words or music would instantly want to communicate > to us, others, would leave us at the wayside. Perhaps waiting to be > understood or looking for the willing "understandable" human listener. > Whoa! Words and music until put together in some sort of 'tangible' collection are nothing but tools at the disposal of an artist. And the artist exists to create with those tools. IMHO, again, it's the artist's creation that we adore, hence the adulation for the artist follows right behind. If you think it's talking to you personally, or you think it's 'alive' then that's your interpretation (although I may suggest that someone who believes a song to be living might want to lay off the philosophy tomes). Quite frankly, I don't see what's so mysterious about it. > Lyrics are the thinking vehicle. Melody, rhythm and harmony are the > emotive (feeling) vehicle. The underlying message of the lyric is the > glue to agreement or commonality. But the archetype OF the message > appeals to our deep subconscious where only that ether --- that parallel > universe --- exist to be ocassionally accessed by our consciousness as > realization. > > electrix The underlying message of the lyric is the glue to agreement? I thought all of this was about our own interpretations of the lyrics! Not how we all agree. FACT: we do not all agree. So in this theory of the archetype of a message, what happens to the rest of the message that we only partially "get" because the rest is lost in transit to the ether? Or are you accessing it all day if you're listening to music all day? Are you accessing it if you hear a commercial jingle? Or is that not deep enough? Methinks this discussion reeks of university coffeehouse psychostuff....sans the university and the coffeehouse. Sam ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 16:18:37 -0400 From: Tim Dunn <113203.2623@compuserve.com> Subject: Alloy: I live in a suitcase, starting a big debate, perhaps.......................... Monya, I think the point of all really great music is the effect on the emotions= caused by the combination of words and music. Of course instrumental musi= c can be affective, but everyone since the theory was first verbalised by Monteverdi and his Mantuan and Florentine cronies has agreed that the moving of the emotion is the primary raison d'etre of all art. And the summit of this ability is to bypass any intellectual and critical faculti= es the listener may have, and go straight for the heart. The reason we liste= n to Thomas is that, being by and large very discerning and cultured, and with alot of us being musicians on the list too, is that Thomas is so far= ahead of the field that he can do this to us very regularly. Those less versed in the arts and music and poetry do not have the ability to recognise 'high' art as such, which explains the existence of Bon Jovi et= al, but those whose senses are more finely tuned , and therefore more demanding, and critical of BJ's sledgehammer sensibilities, seek out a higher level of achievement, and I believe - a greater level of fulfilmen= t. Before anyone starts jumping on me for proposing what sounds like a Hitle= r Youth version of critical appreciation, a crime of which I am regularly accused, it's really worthwhile to sit down and think for a moment about the pathetic and feeble music which people listen to every day. I know fr= om the FES that we do have incredibly broad-ranging taste on this list, and = I firmly believes that that is both a cause, and a symptom, of something mu= ch more fundamental. An appreciation of the high arts is absolutely critical= for a greater appreciation and comprehension of the world around us. Ever= y object for me is imbued with resonances of fine songs, books, articles an= d so on. I really do try to understand the way most people look at music, a= nd interrogate them at great length about it, but am regularly astonished by= the way people reply: 'I just listen to, you know, chart stuff.' = Music to most people means very little, which, I do not apologise for saying, means that they are culturally and spiritually impoverished. Art = is life's finest and most expressive manifestation. It teaches us how to think, but more importantly, how to feel, to understand, and to emote. Those who have no experience of correct, emotive and powerful use of language will not be able to express themselves, not only in situations where language is of practical and functional use, but more importantly i= n putting across profound emotions. A man who chokes on 'I love you' has obviously little knowledge of Ovid, Keats, or Ella Fitzgerald. And that's= just an obvious example. If art broadens the horizons, how little does the average Bj listener, oblivious of the world outside Radio 1have the ability to understand thos= e from abroad, those from an older generation, those who are unhappy? Niche marketing, whose crimes in the strangulation and marginalisation of= fine art are a matter of record, has a much deeper effect on the psyche o= f the Western World. As Jung, Freud, Fromm etc so rightly say, what we fear= most is isolation, and thus with the increasingly limited resources available for young people especially to listen to, our formerly cultural= life is turning us inwards, into ourselves, where our minds, without the need to broaden and live and experience, shrink and shrivel, and become a= weak and porous sponge which is only big enough to absorb one drop of pul= p culture at a time, before leaking away even that to replace it cravenly with the next one off the conveyor belt. And we are poorer, less fulfille= d people for it. the_copse ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 19:01:45 -0400 (EDT) From: RThurF@aol.com Subject: Re: Alloy: I live in a suitcase, starting a big debate, perhaps................ copse, I loved your analysis! I work firsthand with young violinists & cellists in the Boston area, and I am happy to be able to report that local music programs seem to be revving up again after years of budget-cutting. Much of this is thanks to private & start-up schools, and parents who realise the irreplaceable importance of arts education. The main thing I wish to see in my lifetime is a change in people's attitudes about what artists are typically like. People involved in fine and performing arts are all too often seen as illogical, self-absorbed, pretentious, impractical and irresponsible beings. (Unfortunately, some artists themselves choose to perpetrate this image, using whatever talent or reputation they may possess as an artist to excuse their own pathetic childish behavior.) But there are in fact so many working artists who are also quite intelligent and resourceful, sometimes brilliantly so! The public should be made more aware of artists as intellectuals, not just the tabloid-quality garbage some of the less cerebral of our colleagues like to churn out for mere shock value - or the regurgitated pap of pop culture. Robin ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V2 #208 ***************************