Blog: March

Can't talk new music

Just returned from a public presentation of an analysis of a contemporary musical piece. Main observation? We do not have the tools or the language to describe or analyze certain types of music effectively. The musical tools we do have belong to an old and narrow musical tradition (the western pitch centric tradition) and do not lend themselves well to contemporary musical conceptions. We borrow the concepts and assumptions from this theoretical framework and force their application onto new music. A new music requires the development of a new language to describe it.

Posted on:
2008.03.26 -0500

Tags:
music

The poetry of the language

[...] But it is also possible to put patterns together in such a way that many many patterns overlap in the same physical space; the building is very dense; it has many meanings captured in a small space; and through this density, it becomes profound.

[...] In this place, these two patterns exist in the same space; they are identified; there is a compression of the two, which requires less space, and which is more profound than in a place where they are merely side by side. The compression illuminates each of the patterns, sheds light on its meaning;

[...] To some degree, there is compression in every single word we utter, just because each word carries the whisper of the meanings of the words it is connected to. [p. xli-xliii]

A Pattern Language
C. Alexander, S. Ishikawa, M. Silverstein

Posted on:
2008.03.17 -0500

Tags:
texts