Eurhythmics Assignment - "My Own 'Musical Experience'"

I'll provide the text I read (or at least the names of them) later...I thought I'd share this, though :). Drink and Enjoy!

David Sepulveda

September 18' date=' 2008

Eurhythmics III

Dr. Annabelle Joseph

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My Own

So no one cares?

Tigger -

THis is a great excerpt and people do care but there are a few question -

1) Eurythmics - how does this differ from Delacroze, Kodaly, Orff and other music -movement pedagogical techniques?

2) Much of what you write is self-evident by the people who bvisit this site. What people seek here is varied - from notational issues such as proper notation of key change to writing a symphonic work. So despite that the author found hos own way, eventually composers try more established ways because they work and save alot of time on trail and error. Therefore, the lack of response because most agree tot he sentiment but there is little add EXCEPT -

3) Music is "intrinsic" to humans. Very vague. I'd rather say that noise is intrinsic to the human experience and that we find ways of organizing it just by choosing what to focus on.

4) Is there a need for music? Not in the Western art sense. As the American Indians said to a teacher of mine - you anglos are the ones who put the music in the concert hall, dance and drama on the stage, and storytelling into books. What was meant that all of these things are just part of the daily life and culture. INterestingly, the religious metaphor with composer-performer-listener is apt as in many cultures the more respectable musicians are the ones involved in sacred functions -- but even there their position is lowly.

My last 2 cents -- there are days when I do think Cage's 4' 33" is truly the only piece of real music ever done in the Western canon. AS it gets to the core of music - it is sound organized which may be done by a composer, performer or the listener with the catch that only one of these individuals is intentionally organizing the sound.

That is why I prefer, at times, the clatter of starlings on their little branches in the height of summer --- warding off others to keep their little place in the summer sun --- to a Bach fugue, Schubert lieder, Lassus psalms, Miles Davis or some R&B tune.

1) Eurythmics - how does this differ from Delacroze, Kodaly, Orff and other music -movement pedagogical techniques?

4) Is there a need for music? Not in the Western art sense. As the American Indians said to a teacher of mine - you anglos are the ones who put the music in the concert hall, dance and drama on the stage, and storytelling into books. What was meant that all of these things are just part of the daily life and culture. INterestingly, the religious metaphor with composer-performer-listener is apt as in many cultures the more respectable musicians are the ones involved in sacred functions -- but even there their position is lowly.

Native music would be in his sacrificing stage -- the lack of capitalism in native cultures prohibits the kind of musical formation seen in Europe.

He also has the same ambiguity on the social value of the musician.

You use far too many parenthetical remarks in your writing, it's extremely jarring...and your use of punctuation could be a bit more precise. Oh, and there are some run-on sentences and a general lack of sentence structure but especially length variations. Makes for more pedantic writing.commentary>

Er, yeah. Otherwise I have no real comments :P

Ferk -

Attili - I have to say some of the things he writes I concur with wholeheartedly -- especially as music presages changes in the structure of human society.

Thanks so much - great resource.

4) Is there a need for music? Not in the Western art sense. As the American Indians said to a teacher of mine - you anglos are the ones who put the music in the concert hall, dance and drama on the stage, and storytelling into books. What was meant that all of these things are just part of the daily life and culture. INterestingly, the religious metaphor with composer-performer-listener is apt as in many cultures the more respectable musicians are the ones involved in sacred functions -- but even there their position is lowly.

My last 2 cents -- there are days when I do think Cage's 4' 33" is truly the only piece of real music ever done in the Western canon. AS it gets to the core of music - it is sound organized which may be done by a composer, performer or the listener with the catch that only one of these individuals is intentionally organizing the sound.

That is why I prefer, at times, the clatter of starlings on their little branches in the height of summer --- warding off others to keep their little place in the summer sun --- to a Bach fugue, Schubert lieder, Lassus psalms, Miles Davis or some R&B tune.

I like you.

My view on all this is already obvious to most who have read threads such as http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/evolutionary-musicology-15946.html

Music can be any sound or set of sounds. It's even the absence of sound (silence is a musical element just the same.) All that changes is the person's perspective, as it could really be anything. CO said there what I've said multiple times, there's no difference between a garbage truck or a violin in terms of what produces "music." Both do and are both virtually equal.

I don't enjoy romanticizing/mystifying something such as art and music when they're all real phenomena that happen and can be explained at a neurological/etc level as can anything dealing with perception. So, I don't really care if the sound of traffic is really objectively just as music as any Beethoven composition, it only means I pay attention to more sources for "music" than what is sold to me by culture/tradition/? as what music "should" be.

Which was explored already in the music concrete movement back in the 60s-70s, etc. Coincidentally, it's some of my most favourite music ever. There's something to be said about the realization that a composer's playing field is limited only by the their own taste, as any sound can be used in any way. It's therefore implied by this broad scope of options that "personal voice" and so on is a rather naive concept, one which stays in the realm of idealism and opinion rather than something which is objectively a "goal" in a composer's life or work.

In this respect, I'm not sure if I can really agree with something like Eurhythmics because while it may push learning in a specific direction (whatever it defines as "basics") you can't help but wonder if this is inadequate as a teaching method when it comes to the question of what a composer may need or want. Since the curriculum for modern composition is so incredibly difficult to define, the effectiveness of such teaching method is brought into question when the very values it attempts to teach are completely brought into question.

Obviously, Eurhythmics is not directed AT composers probably because composers are in a position to redefine the musical world according to them and as they see fit, including what they consider (and therefore IS) "basic" or "music" what so ever. No surprise there that composition education is an individual process and there really is no other way as the needs between students of composition can vary greatly and in such wild ways as to render any "system" completely inadequate if not applied with a good measure of objective guidance (including abandoning systems which are deemed useless for a particular student) on the behalf of the teacher.

For further reading on this issue, I already posted a rather interesting article written about composition education: http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/extract-translantion-theo-brandm-llers-article-composition-13134.html which was ignored when I posted it, pretty much. So, check it out if you haven't because it addresses some of this in more detail. It's not entirely translated but the important bit is.

God, I hate you people.

:rolleyes:

More comments to come later...like when I don't have class :pinch:.

One real quick, though:

Yes, I'm talking about Western Music. This is "My Own 'Musical Experience'", after all, so I speak of what I know, which is Western Music. Dalcroze Eurhythmics is the basics of Western rhythm/notation, of course. It'd probably be good for me to supply the articles I read...the assignment, by the way, was for me to post my reaction/response to the articles. Or one of them...the other was actually for second semester, and I didn't know that :P.

Tigger - thanks for the calrification. And I should say that my first point was more the role music is placed in society (but this does affect what music is produced and what is considered "music") -- the Attali's noise really gets it right in my opinion. I will also say i was being a little hyperbolic about the Cage piece but it is true that to me ther are times the music you hear in the forest (an for others the city)can be even more overpowering and beautiful than a man made symphony.

Now I am going to read SSC 's article as it seems really interesting.

Thanks again for provoking all these great thoughts.