Intuition Or Law?

I've been thinking a lot on this subject recently.  There are certain composers (say, for example, Toru Takemitsu) who's music doesn't lend itself to any kind of hard and fast analysis whatsoever.  When I look at scores of these composers, I am completely baffled as to how one can construct such beautiful music on pure intuition, and find it difficult to imitate them.  There are other composers (say, Webern) who compose with rigorous, almost austere, laws, where one can literally give every note a number.  I find much of this music beautiful as well.  How do you do it?  Are you guided by your ear and instinct, or do you rely heavily on theory and laws that composers have set out before you or that you have come up with yourself?  Which way do you think is most effective, and what do you think is the proper balance between the two?

I surely don't abide by any strict code when it comes to composition. I pay regard to and admire composers whose music does conform to "rigorous, almost austere laws" and comes out beautiful, but I don't apply that to my music. Perhaps that is to my detriment. But I never can force myself to do it even when I really try. I always want to just do whatever I feel is best. I think perhaps the ones who follow this approach and actually become great are the ones who have immersed themselves so deeply in great music that complex and beautiful composition becomes second nature to them. Maybe some people consciously follow these 'laws' and some people integrate these laws into their instinctive approach to composition just by being around it. I don't know the answer to this question but I sure can speculate!

I'm guided by ear and instinct but use music theory to fill in the gaps.

It just happens for me. I can force ideas and that's where my theory comes into play by helping me sort and weave through things that sound better then others. The intuition I feel is used more for melodic development and harmonic development whereas the theory is used more for structure and processes. You could use both or either one strictly, but I think that each composer has their own unique blend of intuition and theory that makes them who they are. 

I write things and then I figure out what it is later reading up on something unrelated…  "oh, it's melodic minor, huh…"  

In my case, it's almost purely intuition. Although at certain times a bit of rule following gives a framework for safety, if such a thing is actually possible in music.

Both. But I select my own rules in law.

Composers today, like Takemitsu, may not appear to be adhering to any "theory laws" on the surface, however that doesnt mean it is purely intuitive as well. The music theory you learn in your theory and counterpoint classes are not the end all be all of musical organization. Composers today can make their own rules and guidelines for themselves or for individual pieces. They are also free to break their own rules as they please. When analyzing scores of modern composers, one must keep this in mind and avoid looking at the score the same way they look at a score of Mozart or Bach. 

Most use rules but it may not be apparent.  ^^^Tyler said it best!

I had a theory class once which the professor assigned a Takemitsu piece as the final project analysis.

You can reduce any and all music down to numbers to some extent.

Out of curiosity, which piece?

"Blue M&M, red M&M... they all wind up the same color in the end."

You can reduce any and all music down to numbers to some extent.

Is that always significant, do you think?

Is that always significant, do you think?

Significange is a subjective concept. Something is significant if we deem it as such. You can ascertain patterns or the lack thereof by translating sound into something more easily manipulated by the mind, i.e. discrete numbers. What sort of meaning you attach to said results are up to the interpreter.

Sounds a bit like Humpty-Dumptyism. Postmodernism gone wild.

More like nihilism.

Everything is inherently meaningless, meaning is something that a person creates and attaches to their personal experiences. That is why different things mean different things to different people.

For instance, an American might look at a pristine mansion with all sorts of ornaments and decorations all neatly in their place as exalted beauty, while a buddhist monk would see it as an abhorent disgraceful sight and instead finds beauty in the dilapited remains of an unfinished barn in the wilderness.

I don't think that Buddhist monks are enthralled by unfinished barns... In fact I don't see what Buddhist monks and barns have to do with each other. But your ideas are interesting.

@U238: I at least agree with you in this: that most claims made about anything can be reduced to series of assumptions, the foundations of which may not be understood or knowable by us; and therefore most knowledge as we have it may not be objectively substantial, by any standard or method we devise. What we're left with, then, is likelihood or other products of memory - which may be more substantial to us, insofar that it's at least more practical to us, than truth. So some mode of skepticism or nihilism may be appropriate; and meaning may only be a subjective ascription.

I'm not sure that I agree with you, however, that 'Everything [!] is inherently meaningless'. If we believe meaning to be a subjective phenomenon, which doesn't exist without the subject; and if we believe meaning to be something that only occurs when a subject is congruous or otherwise aware of something other than himself (which may be objects); and if we believe that the conception of meaning is at least an occurrence in something, which may be the human mind, and which mayn't be anything or everything else, and which is at least existent insofar that that is the case - then we may infer at least that meaning exists, and that it exists where there is congruousness between the perceiving subject and the objects of his perception (which may even be the subject himself). We may believe further that meaning may exist in proportion to the number of subjects who perceive meaning; and that, therefore, meaning compasses everything applicable within human perception (including but not exclusive to the subject himself), insofar that meaning is therein ascribed. We may even believe this: that if there aren't subjects as such, but only intersubjects; if difference is false, and everything is unified, including humans and their perception of meaning; and, in this way, if humans are therefore innately congruous with what is unified, while being a part of a unity, and are even thereby variably aware of what is unified - then, if a person believed that everything as such had meaning, everything may well have meaning.

But this is a line of reasoning, like any other line of reasoning, that is founded on something that may not be knowable, and it may even be formed as a falsehood by the void of our knowledge. One of the difficulties of nihilism, is that it's somewhat self-defeating: if everything is subjective, and difference and whatever else is only discernible by the subject, then the claim 'everything is subjective' only may or may not be true. There are no claims that may be known in a strict way; nor is there any possible way to verify claims to show whether they are or aren't true - including claims about itself. This may, however, be the most honest thing to say about anything, which may be taken from nihilism: that what is true may not be discernible through human experience (that being the sum of its perception and its critical faculties, and so on).

I don't, however, know what to make or take from this kind of problem. It seems to me that there is a deficit of knowledge with which to properly decide it, and so it may not be soluble from any angle; logic itself is only a relevant means of knowledge insofar that it makes inferences from the world that are decidedly true. I'm too much a skeptic at the moment to say what claims are true or are not true. Meaning may be an innate part of existence, or it may not be an innate part of existence; to what degree it may be part or may not be part, I don't know, nor do I believe that we could begin to say.

The problem with skepticism, or the belief that everything is doubtable, is that it produces nothing: it makes no claims, besides itself, but only reduces claims. Knowledge thereafter is only inferred by our knowledge-producing edifices; knowledge in this way may be thought to be prejudiced, and maybe positively, toward what produced it. And so I'm in a muddle. In an important way, the only things that may be spoken of are the things that we perceive; and we may only claim things about what we perceive insofar that we're able to. What is at least useful to us, we may believe, is to discover utility: what may not be true may at least be good for or useful to us.

This reminds me of Nietzsche: 'Happiness and virtue are no arguments. But people like to forget... that making unhappy and evil are no counterarguments. Something might be true while being harmful and dangerous in the highest degree [!]. Indeed, it might be a characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the "truth" one could still barely endure - or, to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified' (Beyond Good and Evil, s 39, pg 239, BW).

But I'm reminded elsewise that everything known is at least the product of our prejudices, more than that everything is subjective. This makes the most sense to me.   

You can reduce any and all music down to numbers to some extent.

to rephrase: "you can reduce any and all composed music down to numbers...."

As far as any musical theory rules go.

I've been drowning in teaching metaphors recently, so allow me these few thoughts...
I follow specific musical rules closely, hopefully in-keeping with my intended style, and this is rather like paying attention to spelling and grammatical rules when writing. However, I use my intuition when 'writing / designing the sentence as a whole', so for certain larger choices which are either structural or melodic, for example.

I don't think that Buddhist monks are enthralled by unfinished barns... In fact I don't see what Buddhist monks and barns have to do with each other. But your ideas are interesting.

I am referring to the traditional eastern ideology of beauty being intrinsically tied to perishability and incompleteness. I.E. Something is beautiful specifically because it is temporary, and thus rare and deserving to be cherished in the moment. And that something incomplete is more attractive than something complete because being incomplete gives the sense of room left to grow and become something greater, while once something is complete it is stagnant and almost dead. In a sense these ideas are tied into an overarching appreciation for life in the moment.

I'm not versed in Eastern ideologies so forgive my failure to grasp the point the first time around. I'm intrigued by that idea though. It sounds sweet.

I'm not versed in Eastern ideologies so forgive my failure to grasp the point the first time around. I'm intrigued by that idea though. It sounds sweet.

I'll admit my knowledge of this is based on a single text that I recently read, The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko, translated roughly meaning Essays in Idleness. That is, essays written in idleness not essays about idleness.

Everything is inherently meaningless, meaning is something that a person creates and attaches to their personal experiences. That is why different things mean different things to different people.

 

For instance, an American might look at a pristine mansion with all sorts of ornaments and decorations all neatly in their place as exalted beauty, while a buddhist monk would see it as an abhorent disgraceful sight and instead finds beauty in the dilapited remains of an unfinished barn in the wilderness.

Yes!  I agree.