Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems

Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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* Aesthetic Claim 1: The best music utilizes the full potential of our cognitive resources.

* Aesthetic Claim 2: The best music arises from an alliance of a compositional grammar with the listening grammar.

To these ends he proposes the use of the terms "complexity" and "complicatedness", complexity positively being hierarchical structural richness, and complicatedness neutrally being musical surfaces which contain "numerous non-redundant events per unit time...All sorts of music satisfy these criteria - for example, Indian raga, Japanese koto, jazz, and most Western art music. Rock music fails on grounds of insufficient complexity. Much contemporary music pursues complicatedness as compensation for a lack of complexity. In short, these criteria allow for infinite variety but only along certain lines."

"I find this conclusion both exciting and - initially at least - alarming...the constraints are tighter than I bargained for."

"My second aesthetic claim in effect rejects this ['progressivist'] attitude in favour of the older view that music-making should be based on 'nature'. For the ancients, nature may have resided in the music of the spheres, but for us it lies in the musical mind." ]

-From the article

Just to put it out there,

Cool.

Here are my aesthetic claims:

Aesthetic Claim 1: The best music is the music that follows best the rules.

Aesthetic Claim 2: Since there are no rules, all music is best music - or no music is best music.

Aesthetic Claim 3: Don't eat scraggy. 6 billion people can't be wrong.

I always wonder if these people who wrote those types of things listen only to Bach and Beethoven.

Oh, and this is just based on an opinion piece by Fred Lerdahl and I have yet to see anything like it anywhere else (and this is from 1988.) Probably everyone that looked at it didn't give much of a scraggy and moved on as it had absolutely no consequence in anything.

PS:

Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre was widely hailed as a masterpiece of postwar serialism. Yet nobody could figure out, much less hear, how the piece was serial. (p. 97)

You must be kidding, though I don't mean to quote mine. Has anyone actually read what Lerdahl argues? No wonder nobody took him seriously.

PS2:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=6HGiEW33lucC&dq=Fred+Lerdahl&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=0rWuSfNNwcf4BvCsnNAG&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=12&ct=result#PPA239,M1

Yep.

Page 301 is particularly interesting. Stupid book is segmented though, ugh.

PS3:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=48hf06 Also interesting.

Why is it always the modernists that need aestheic claims to validate their aestheic eon? No other period has had too much bickering over what is "good" compared to everyone else. Would I be accurate in saying that SSC, Examinous, and Juji are all part of this group?

Haha, modernists? Us?

Grow up. And read a book.

Haha, modernists? Us?

You write like modernists. Juji, I could mistake you for John Cage, just not as profound.

Grow up. And read a book.

What book?

RULE THE FIRST!!!1!: Only compositions containing sufficient levels of both complicatedness and complexity are good.

RULE THE SECOND!!!: We define "complicatedness" by the ratio of hamsters to violists in the state of Illinois, and define "complexity" by the difference between the Earth's distance from the Sun as compared to Jupiter's second known moon.

Therefore, we can now see that Classic Chinese music adheres to the complexity factor, but is lacking a sufficient respect for complicatedness. Similarly, the works of J.S. Bach are virtual models of utilizing the hamster/violist in illinois ratio, but often neglects the Europa calculations.

"I find this conclusion both exciting and - initially at least - alarming...the constraints are tighter than I bargained for."

To Tokke: Ever heard of Korrespondierenden Soziet

Don't tell me what to think.

I can't believe people here ultimately cannot accept that we are all just machines with a high level of variation (around 1 percent? or less?). There are things that will work and things that will not. This is a simple fact. Go study science.

As I've tried my best, I'll stop here until the next time.

Don't tell me what to think.

I'm not telling you what to think, I'm telling you HOW you think. And yes, I can KNOW how you think. (Doesn't mean I do, though.)

So wait. You're drawing an analogy between us and a creation of ours?

I think your analogy of us being machines is as silly as saying that our memory functions like a computer hard disk.

And don't be so arrogant to say that you can KNOW what/how we think. People have been debating whether or not we can actually think and whether there is such a thing as the mind for quite a large amount of years for you to come up with a solution on an online forum. Can you really claim that it's possible to see how a schizophrenic person thinks? Or what he/she thinks?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and so is poor Fred Lehrdahl. And so are you. But that doesn't mean your opinion is any more true or false than any other opinion. Opinions are entitled to be different, and that's it.

I hate it when the western capitalist concept of progress and improvement get into a person's life so much that everything has to be compared according to some standards, and someone HAS to be better, something HAS to be true, something HAS to prevail, and if the "better" doesn't exist, then there is difficulty identifying with such a situation to the degree where denial takes place, and other people's opinions are either right (i.e. same as theirs) or wrong (i.e. different to theirs).

to Tokke - you can start with this book:

I can't believe people here ultimately cannot accept that we are all just machines with a high level of variation (around 1 percent? or less?). There are things that will work and things that will not. This is a simple fact. Go study science.

As I've tried my best, I'll stop here until the next time.

Some things are hardwired, others are not. In some things people have lots of choice, in others they don't.

You don't seem to grasp where the first ends and where the second begins. So, really instead of telling us to "go study science," how about you stop posting until you can actually defend your claims in reality?

Oh, BTW, I came up with much more material on the subject you posted by searching goddamn google. If you'll bother to do a topic on this, PLEASE DO research it more thoroughly and actually post more information than just a wikipedia article. Also, thread names probably shouldn't be an URL...

I'm not telling you what to think, I'm telling you HOW you think. And yes, I can KNOW how you think.

...

I can't believe people here ultimately cannot accept that we are all just machines ...

I can and do accept this. But, the article and your analysis is not regarding HOW or why I think... You (and this article) are trying to tell me what is and is not good music, yes? No?

Clarify please...because those little "Aesthetic Claims" specifically try and explain what "the best music is"...

There are things that will work and things that will not. This is a simple fact. Go study science.

Are you trying to talk musically or chemically? Either way, I think this is nonsense. This is not a FACT. I don't need to study science, I can figure this stuff out on my own...

* Aesthetic Claim 1: The best music utilizes the full potential of our cognitive resources.

* Aesthetic Claim 2: The best music arises from an alliance of a compositional grammar with the listening grammar.

What? Again, don't tell me what to think. I KNOW what good music is. I don't CARE what you or anyone else thinks it is.

To these ends he proposes the use of the terms "complexity" and "complicatedness"... hierarchical structural richness,...musical surfaces which contain "numerous non-redundant events ...Rock music fails on grounds of insufficient complexity. ...complicatedness as compensation for a lack of complexity. "

What a pile of pretentious academic nonsense.

I don't get what you're trying to say with this Exanimos? Is complexity the main goal of "good" music? Does complicatedness make music better?

Can you distill your position and reasons for posting this into a sentence or two?

Juji, I already read that book! :D

Oh dear Alex. Do stop before you get shot like a Moose in Alaska with Sarah Palin within 50 yards! :P

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and so is poor Fred Lehrdahl.

Well I think what he wrote deserves maybe more attention, he tried to remain objective and not make judgments beyond what he was trying to analyze. But, honestly, I'm still very, very skeptical.

I posted a piece of the book, and a specific section deals with contemporary music etc, but it's surprisingly neutral. I think the danger is making value judgments because science says X or Y.

And even so, it's exactly like studies on human morality. People can be conditioned to kill one another even if it goes against their moral instincts not to, it's exactly the same with a lot of things where we have control over and can influence.

You are the music while the music lasts.

Robin:

1) I didn't write what you're quoting. and

2) If you read the quote, he makes a difference between complexity and complicatedness, and how they are different. He actually brings up the point that complex music isn't bad, but music that doesn't use the full potential of our musical capacity will underwhelming to people whose temperaments require their musical attention to be fully engaged. If people are going to engage fully with a work in order to critique, I BELIEVE that works which are able to fully engage our musical senses will be more successful.

Juju: There is a difference between an opinion and a fact, right? Saying that everything is an opinion takes the form of stating a fact :-).

I am sure this is not what you were implying. Also, everyone here is obviously entitled to believe what they want to believe, but if their actions aren't compatible with the society in which one lives, or the species to which one belongs, there will be consequences.

This brings me to the argument about music... you CAN write dog whistle music accompanied by garbage can. But then it becomes conceptual art. Our attention becomes fixed on the horse whistle (which we cannot hear) and the garbage can. Musically, it is impossible to hear dog whistle music by merit of its acoustical properties and the internal structure of our ear. We can hear someone banging on a garbage can with a dog whistle and that could be extremely musical. But you know when I say use the dog whistle for practical purposes I mean to produce a pitch that a dog can hear.

It comes down to a choice then: do you want to write music that makes sense for dogs or music that makes sense for humans? This is essentially all I am saying.

I love how jazz is alright but rock isn't. Arbitrary rules are arbitrary.

It comes down to a choice then: do you want to write music that makes sense for dogs or music that makes sense for humans? This is essentially all I am saying.

Assuming that "making sense" means anything here. I rather my music not "make any sense" to anything/anyone sometimes. Cool thing about art is that it doesn't matter if it "makes sense" since all that scraggy is optional~

Unless you want to SELL a product and do market research, which is really all these "studies" are good for. If it ever comes down "scientists say that people like music written in X manner" and prove it and all that jazz, I bet that there'll be tons of people who will use that in exactly the inverse. After all, people have played with others' perception of music before; who cares if it's a social construct or a biological one, you can still overcome it (or break it) with conditioning or suggestion.

i accept that humans are machines, i don't accept the definition of a machine (that certain studies- or gaps in them - may imply) as a finite thing. if a machine is infinite, i see no problem in accepting the idea that there are 'things that we can never know'. for example, the end mechanics of creation and aesthetical judgement.

Well, as I see it, if we were machines, then I don't think we would be able to recognise ourselves as such unless we were somehow pre-programmed and again that would merely be the "self-recognition" of an automaton...

Alexandros

Lets see if I get the gist of this thread so far, humans are machines (incapable of any emotion, incapable of personal associations, etc). Also, I suppose science has made far more strides in associating the human species than I previously though - has science really advanced that far in the last 6 months? And finally, the question:

It comes down to a choice then: do you want to write music that makes sense for dogs or music that makes sense for humans? This is essentially all I am saying.

If that was your argument, Ex, I don't see why you referenced an article from wiki or even made the statement that we are cold machines. In reference to your question, I write the music that I want to write and the way I want to write it. If at a moment I want to write an etude for a pile of scraggy and decomposing chicken carcass - I'll do so. If at another I want to write a sonata for tuba which utilizes randomization. If yet at another moment I want to compose a full unaccompanied choral chant, I will. It's all to the composers tastes first and foremost - everything else is a second thought (and I'm quite sure if you read the journals and private correspondence of many composers living and dead - they will all share in this same philosophy, with maybe a few exceptions.)

How would/could music ever possibly make sense?

Quoted from John Henry Mueller's "The American Symphony Orchestra", a sociological study on the symphony orchestra in America from 1850 - 1950.

If a composition is actually unique...it is...alien to the stream of human thought, its language is not understood; it would evoke bewilderment rather than curiosity and aestheic intrest. The composer who flouts the current folkways of taste [the audience's tendencies and preferences in taste], and disregards the norms of consonance and form prevalent at the time, incurs the same risks of rejection as any other innovator...Not even the greatest inovators who have survived, have been so indiscreet. The deviant modern composers who rationalize thier frequent failures to capture the approbation of public and critics by the complacent cliche that "all music was once new" and that the audience is "always about twenty-five years in lag behind the composer" do not take the penetrating view of history which would have warned them that not all good music of the past was equally new, and that the audiences of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and even Wagner, were not a generation behind the composer.

Another excerpt:

If the social necessity of norms in general has been demonstrated, one may still inquire how any particular norms, e.g., current musical standards, arise. By far the major portion of a given musical taste is culturally inherited from the past, as are also the folkways in religion, government, language, and other realms of social affairs. Even scientific inventions and works of art which are presumed to be "new" consist of a relatively small supplement to what has already accumulated in the past. Ninety per cent of the electric light and ninety per cent of Beethoven's First Symphony existed before Edison and Beethoven were even born. In fact, so small may be this increment that the transistion, for example, between the "London" Bach and Mozart is almost imperceptible today, and the Jena symphony attributed to Beethoven "could have been written by one of his contemporaries." Beethoven is quoted as having told his friend Ferdinand Riess that "although I have taken lessons from Haydn, I have learned nothing from him." Wholly aside from the question of personal and professional honesty in this comment, sociologically it is, of course, untenable that Beethoven should have "learned nothing" from Haydn and from all his other numerous musical forebears. No artisit is free, creative spirit he sometimes concieves himself to be. There obtains a "principal of continuity" in cultural as well as biological heredity which suggests many damaging reservations to the "great man theory" which alleges that "history is but the lengthened shadow of the genius." The genius is much more the creation of history than he is the creator of it. He is as much the product of pervious ages as of his own.

First of all, find an opinion of your own.

Secondly, you quoted "If a composition is actually unique...it is...alien to the stream of human thought, its language is not understood; it would evoke bewilderment rather than curiosity and aestheic intrest."

Well, I've heard compositions which were "actually unique" to me (i.e. never having heard anything similar before in the past - and that occured many times, in the instances of listening to Xenakis, Stockhausen, Nono, Feldman, Cage for the first time, among many others), and yes, bewilderment exists but I've also found these pieces I'm hearing for the first time very beautiful indeed. So what am I? Am I a monster in Mueller's little world?

Furthermore, he claims that "[that new music's] language is not understood;", which I don't really agree with.

Here's what Oliver Sacks says in his introduction to his book Musicophilia:

"This thing called music, [...] has no concepts, makes no propositions, it lacks images, symbols, the stuff of language. It has no power of representation. It has no necessary relation to the world.[/i']"

And I don't understand Xenakis' "language", nor do I know how he composed his pieces. Does this mean I cannot appreciate them artistically/aesthetically or I cannot find them beautiful?