Re: Being and Sound Thought Experiment


"Charles Camilleri" <fraggy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:op.swypevvepbeli9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 02:12:20 +1000, Steve Latham <llatham@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Charles Camilleri" <fraggy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:op.swwnzvqipbeli9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>
>
>
>
>
>> This argument has been made many times over. If a child grows up in a
>> French
>> speaking household they will learn French. They will see Cantonese and
>> Inuit
>> as being equally difficult to comprehend (or understand). If you speak to
>> them in alternating words of Cantonese and Inuit then they will not be
>> able
>> to distinguish it from either of the "real" languages until they are
>> familiar with one or the other. If they grow up in silence, they will not
>> speak any language. If a child grows up in a household only playing
>> Gregorian Chants, Black Angels and No music (trad Japenese theater) will
>> be
>> equally difficult to comprehend and distinguish until the listener is
>> familiar with them. If they grow up in silence, they will not be able to
>> distinguish any music until familiar with them.
>>
>> There is no inherent incomprehensibility in Inuit, only a lack of
>> familiarity with the language. There is no inherent incomprehensibility
>> in
>> atonality, only a lack of familiarity with the language.
>>
>> Attempting to belittle, subjugate or exterminate the speakers of a
>> language
>> is called something else.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>
> Accept you are forgetting something very important ATONALITY was a concept
> that was devised before actual practise; it was deduced by a Composer who
> thought he could discern the progress musical language could take from
> looking at historical tradition.

Schoenberg did not invent Atonality. It was a term that was applied to his
music by a critic.

>
> Now this is very different to a language or a set of sound symbols
> developing organically from within the tradition.

Your argument seems to be that because atonality is "made up", it is somehow
"unnatural" and therefore not good.

>
> How many books on theory did Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms write?

Why does it matter?

>
> Do nomadic cultures develop the same relationship to language, or the
> sounds that fill their environment?
>
> Going from what my ears tell me, the answer is definitely no, so therefore
> if I introduce complex and dense harmonic progressions to a child from
> within a nomadic culture that is used to simple spaced out drones as in
> Australian aboriginal music, the relationship to these musical parameters
> would totally be inappropriate to the child's sense of physical space,
> this has nothing to do with evolution, the child will simply not respond.

Ummm, that's what I said.

>
> Now I have posited this question before, and again off course it is
> totally impossible to test, but if Mozart had been kidnapped from Austria
> at the height of his powers and transported to the Northern Territory in
> Australia in 1781 could he still have kept composing in the same musical
> language?

Of course.

>
> My answer would be no, because there would be no point to write that kind
> of music with the principles of tonality of the 18th century in a country
> with a totally different culture and tradition and a country that has a
> totally different relationship to physical space.

That's ridiculous. He could have kept doing what he was doing, or he could
have also chosen to accept influences and incorporate them into his own
style, or he could have switched into an aboriginal music if he wanted. It's
no different from his language. If you did the same thing, could he still
speak German. You say no, because there'd be no point. Well, he might need
to communicate, but he wouldn't be forced to leanr the language if he lived
as a hermit, or he may have learned enough to get by, or he may have learned
to speak fluently (withouth being able to write necessarily). It's another
non sequiter conclusion.

>
> Now what does evolution have to do with this, let us say Mozart married an
> aboriginal girl and had children, what would he teach his children, the
> culture of his wife, or the traditions of 18th century Europe?

Either ot both. It would be up to them. My gueds is, as much as I like
Mozart, that Western Europeans and their Bretheren have a tendency to force
their ideals and values on other cultures so the Aboriginal customs would
have been surpressed in favor of "culture".

>
> Obviously the harmonic and melodic language of Europe is totally out of
> place in Australia, I personally believe it is still out of place now, and
> I live in Australia.

In European descneded Australia, or Aboriginal Australia?

>
> So you see the concept that a child will be able to learn any language and
> that all is needed is the child to hear the language does not tell the
> full story.

What full story?

>
> Consciousness and mind and therefore the ear that is in relationship
> determines authenticity and not evolution

You're spouting out words again in sentences that have no coherence. What is
this thing authenticity that you're trying to prove. That there's only one
"authentic" music?

STeve


.

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