Is anyone here familiar with the Fred Lerdahl's article "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems?" I've just read through it and I think it might be of interest to many theory hounds.
http://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~kov/lerdahl/
The primary argument that Lerdahl makes is directed at serialism in particular, and any method of composition that violates principles underlying human language and cognition in general. I find this idea fascinating, I always have. The core idea is that one can only really appreciate a piece of music if one understands the underlying language to some extent. Most people grasp the intuitive structure of a pop song perfectly well after hearing hundreds of hours of music, so it's not an argument that only people who are music theory heads appreciate music. But if there's a music based on a grammar that is completely unfamiliar, it will require some explanation or it will communicate nothing.
I came across this because I'm having a hell of a time making sense of Anton Webern's music. I don't get the system at all, and I'm feeling a little too impatient to wait for the logic to appear via immersion. It's a specific to Webern thing right now, but it's a feeling I've had before about a lot of algorithmic or experimental music, which is ironic because I do make music that is usually somewhat experimental in nature. On some days I think that someone who has to use a completely new language to express an idea is not as skilled as someone who can manipulate the language we already have, whereas on other days I think that someone who just operates in established grammars is timid and uninteresting. I have no answer to this dilemma, I should be agnostic by now since I've flipped back and forth so many times. As a point of consistency, I do always think that if a grammar is so idiosyncratic and obtuse that no one else can understand it, it's a failure. It seems that Lerdahl is arguing that some grammars are doomed to fail because they are too far from the natural cognitive way of organizing information.
Okay, enough rambling, back to my original question. Does anyone else have opinions about Lerdahl's work or have thoughts on the issue of music within or outside of grammar?
cognitive constraints on compositional systems
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- KVRAF
- 1585 posts since 13 Nov, 2005 from St. Paul
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- KVRAF
- 2545 posts since 22 Jun, 2004 from Paris. Well, not far.
Very interesting question.
Perhaps there's an analogy to make with painting. Most of us are equipped for appreciating (or not) classical, figurative painting because the codes are relatively obvious to us (faithfulness to/sublimation of/allegorization of reality.)
But many people react negatively to non-figurative, experimental painting. I used to be the same, but once took a painting history course at university;
and as the principles underlying these forms (think Pollock, Bacon, etc.) became clearer to me I started to develop an interest in non-figurative painting. And now even though I won't necessarily fawn over any old canvas with some spurts of paint on it, I'm more interested in abstract/modern painting than classical painting (say everything before the impressionists).
But perhaps it also has to do with the expectations that most of us form when confronted with any work of art. Most of the time we (unconsciously) expect works of art to conform to (hard to define) standards we're familiar with. And so if they don't, we're more or less disappointed. Hence I'd say you don't necessarily need to be educated about the specific grammar used by the artist in his/her creation but rather let go of expectation - and that's a difficult thing to do. Moreover the music industry tends to resort to familiar recipes for questions of profit, etc., which only strengthens our unconscious expectations.
At the end of the day the question I ask myself when confronted with a work of art I can't make sense of is: does it stand out somehow? Does intrigue me, does it give me pleasure or evoke things to me? If the answer is no, I turn away. Too little time
Perhaps there's an analogy to make with painting. Most of us are equipped for appreciating (or not) classical, figurative painting because the codes are relatively obvious to us (faithfulness to/sublimation of/allegorization of reality.)
But many people react negatively to non-figurative, experimental painting. I used to be the same, but once took a painting history course at university;
and as the principles underlying these forms (think Pollock, Bacon, etc.) became clearer to me I started to develop an interest in non-figurative painting. And now even though I won't necessarily fawn over any old canvas with some spurts of paint on it, I'm more interested in abstract/modern painting than classical painting (say everything before the impressionists).
But perhaps it also has to do with the expectations that most of us form when confronted with any work of art. Most of the time we (unconsciously) expect works of art to conform to (hard to define) standards we're familiar with. And so if they don't, we're more or less disappointed. Hence I'd say you don't necessarily need to be educated about the specific grammar used by the artist in his/her creation but rather let go of expectation - and that's a difficult thing to do. Moreover the music industry tends to resort to familiar recipes for questions of profit, etc., which only strengthens our unconscious expectations.
At the end of the day the question I ask myself when confronted with a work of art I can't make sense of is: does it stand out somehow? Does intrigue me, does it give me pleasure or evoke things to me? If the answer is no, I turn away. Too little time
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- KVRian
- 1002 posts since 1 Dec, 2004
Dunno, but if musical languages are anything like spoken languages, then some elements are universal. There's a lot of variety in the sounds of languages, yet they always turn out to be a variation of /p t k b d g f s h y w l r a e i o u/ - with some sounds added in (ch,dj,sh,th,th,v,z,plus a distinction between tense and lax consonants english) or taken out (no t,b,d,g,f,s,y,r in Hawaiian, though it has ' (glottal stop)), or some large expansion (some languages have upwards of 60 sounds, but they're mostly elaborations of the basic ones). It's also notable that _all_ languages have at least a version of the vowel /a/ (as in 100%). European languages are hardly exceptional among all this: phonetically, the only notable feature is some northwestern European languages with an unusually large number of different vowels. Grammar wise they don't stand out too much either (or maybe only by the degree of irregularity found in some languages).
Likewise, some elements evolve naturally in musical systems. They use some combination of periodical sounds (ie tones, from pitched music instruments and voice) and non periodical sounds (ie drums and other percussions mostly). They have scales which most typically have 5 or 7 tones (there's a lot of variation on this one though), and the most common systems are modes of the familiar pentatonic and diatonic scales (other systems tend to be built on 5ths and/or sometimes 7 tone equal temperament or similar systems with rather neutral 2nds/3rds/6ths/7ths). I think the most recurrent element though is the use of periodical rhythm. European music looks kinda like a cross between the endless melodical lines and numerous colored modes of Indian music and the relentless polyphony of African music - after all, it's described as "accompanied melody". It's one feature that stands out is by far it's very extensive chord repertory (comparable to the mode repertory of Arabic and Indian music).
I think one of the problems of serial music is that it goes too far not only from the European forms of music, but also from the natural, universal expression of music. I'm not sure I'd compare it with the many artificial languages you can find, because most of them still share the most important characteristics of natural languages (mostly common and easy sounds, plus basic subject+verb+object constructions). But what does serialism share with any musical tradition, not only European but from anywhere else? (aside from western classical instrumentation that was designed for everything but serial music)
Personally, what I get from the Webern/Marteau sans maître strain of music is that pitch doesn't count (it makes no sense), periodic rhythm doesn't count (idem), so the remaining musical language is the alternation between the timbres of the different instruments and the variations in density. This is why serial solo piano pieces are so dull - there's no meaningful pitch, rhythm or timbre change, so the only variation left is the density of events, which means that it's about as interesting to listen to as, well, a guy that turns a volume button up and down. I think that's what explains the core problem of that type of music, more than people not being used to it. Ordinary music can vary along multiple dimensions - density, tempo, metric, pitch range, mode, complexity, melodic phase length, chords, transpositions, intensity, number of musicians playing. It also has a very effective and varied harmonic/modal language.
The analogy I'd make is the Diablo 3 screenshot "drama". When the screenshots came out, people criticized them because many of them were green, blue, bright, etc. rather than the dark grey with some red they remembered from the previous games. It turned out that they did this because they tried doing all dark grey dungeons before, and the game became dull because nothing looks more like a dark grey dungeon than another dark grey dungeon. Also, a dark gloomy dungeon looks more dark and gloomy if you put a bright dungeon before it, and furthermore the preceding games were actually hardly monochromatic (Diablo 2 goes roughly from green to black to yellow to green to gray to brown). So, visually, color is very important in breaking up boredom, and I think that this is true musically too (which is why we have so many different chords).
So yeah, I think serial music is disadvantaged in terms variety of expression that's vital to keeping up the interest for prolonged periods of time (over 2~10 minutes depending), compared to ordinary music. Sure, it can be apocalyptic (that Hiroshima bomb orchestra piece with the clusters) or mysterious (Webern, Le marteau sans maître), but can it be happy? Can it be neutral and sorta easy going? Can be slow and romantic? Can it be tragic? Decisive? Can it be upbeat and danceable? (bonus question: on how many different dances?) My guess is, unless it develops ways to express these, it will remain at best an also-ran with ordinary music, because it's expression range is too limited.
Likewise, some elements evolve naturally in musical systems. They use some combination of periodical sounds (ie tones, from pitched music instruments and voice) and non periodical sounds (ie drums and other percussions mostly). They have scales which most typically have 5 or 7 tones (there's a lot of variation on this one though), and the most common systems are modes of the familiar pentatonic and diatonic scales (other systems tend to be built on 5ths and/or sometimes 7 tone equal temperament or similar systems with rather neutral 2nds/3rds/6ths/7ths). I think the most recurrent element though is the use of periodical rhythm. European music looks kinda like a cross between the endless melodical lines and numerous colored modes of Indian music and the relentless polyphony of African music - after all, it's described as "accompanied melody". It's one feature that stands out is by far it's very extensive chord repertory (comparable to the mode repertory of Arabic and Indian music).
I think one of the problems of serial music is that it goes too far not only from the European forms of music, but also from the natural, universal expression of music. I'm not sure I'd compare it with the many artificial languages you can find, because most of them still share the most important characteristics of natural languages (mostly common and easy sounds, plus basic subject+verb+object constructions). But what does serialism share with any musical tradition, not only European but from anywhere else? (aside from western classical instrumentation that was designed for everything but serial music)
Personally, what I get from the Webern/Marteau sans maître strain of music is that pitch doesn't count (it makes no sense), periodic rhythm doesn't count (idem), so the remaining musical language is the alternation between the timbres of the different instruments and the variations in density. This is why serial solo piano pieces are so dull - there's no meaningful pitch, rhythm or timbre change, so the only variation left is the density of events, which means that it's about as interesting to listen to as, well, a guy that turns a volume button up and down. I think that's what explains the core problem of that type of music, more than people not being used to it. Ordinary music can vary along multiple dimensions - density, tempo, metric, pitch range, mode, complexity, melodic phase length, chords, transpositions, intensity, number of musicians playing. It also has a very effective and varied harmonic/modal language.
The analogy I'd make is the Diablo 3 screenshot "drama". When the screenshots came out, people criticized them because many of them were green, blue, bright, etc. rather than the dark grey with some red they remembered from the previous games. It turned out that they did this because they tried doing all dark grey dungeons before, and the game became dull because nothing looks more like a dark grey dungeon than another dark grey dungeon. Also, a dark gloomy dungeon looks more dark and gloomy if you put a bright dungeon before it, and furthermore the preceding games were actually hardly monochromatic (Diablo 2 goes roughly from green to black to yellow to green to gray to brown). So, visually, color is very important in breaking up boredom, and I think that this is true musically too (which is why we have so many different chords).
So yeah, I think serial music is disadvantaged in terms variety of expression that's vital to keeping up the interest for prolonged periods of time (over 2~10 minutes depending), compared to ordinary music. Sure, it can be apocalyptic (that Hiroshima bomb orchestra piece with the clusters) or mysterious (Webern, Le marteau sans maître), but can it be happy? Can it be neutral and sorta easy going? Can be slow and romantic? Can it be tragic? Decisive? Can it be upbeat and danceable? (bonus question: on how many different dances?) My guess is, unless it develops ways to express these, it will remain at best an also-ran with ordinary music, because it's expression range is too limited.
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- KVRAF
- 5948 posts since 19 Jun, 2008 from Melbourne, Australia
Of course, what follows is really just my own opinion 
I am technically *illiterate* when it comes to music - meaning I could not identify a single note by ear ... but I tend to know what sounds good and what does not - perhaps only relative to me of course! Friends know that I have a critical ear for "something" whatever that means. I can certainly write music using the tools available today, as long as I don't have to play an instrument (I am learning keys now!).
My music listening history encompasses just about every style that has ever been recorded, and I could almost say "every sound" too but that would be impossible. From Steve Reich to Bach to Acid Mother Temple to Sonic Youth, to Captain Beefheart to Leibach to pop music and gabba techno, from country to drum n bass to Debussy, jazz, folk music, latin, soca, dub, death metal, blues, bluegrass, experimental, ambient and glitch ... the list goes on ... and especially all the forms of "psychedelic" music that I have been able to lay my hands on.
Perhaps after such a journey it might be possible to appreciate the use of frequency and space rather than a specific musical "language" as such. Being a "non-musician" means I don't have any rules to cling on to when I appreciate a piece of musical art, but I can also be very aware of the "cultural space" or context to which a particular piece will fit. Of course, I can work with and enjoy repeating and evolving melodies, rhythms and harmonic structures even if I cannot identify them technically.
So ... I had to hear some of Anton Werbern - you got me interested. I downloaded some for free from the official website.
To my ears there is nothing strange or unlistenable about his style, or these days even revolutionary regarding the music itself. It's great - he creates a certain sense of space in the compositions and although it probably can't be defined (or boxed in!) with traditional "language" there's certainly something to it. It's very relaxing in many ways, and in a sense quite "psychedelic". I can only imagine what he would have produced with the tools available today!!!!!
Music like this serves a purpose in the sense that one must "let go" in order to appreciate it fully, and I believe that is most likely a major intent of the artist. Like a group of Tibetan monks playing their discordant sounds and rhythms, just sit back and enjoy the vibrations ... because that is all it is: vibration. Anything that the human mind uses to label specific vibrations is quite literally made up. It doesn't really mean anything at all and sometimes these made up rules interfere with the enjoyment of the moment.
Peace,
Andy.
I am technically *illiterate* when it comes to music - meaning I could not identify a single note by ear ... but I tend to know what sounds good and what does not - perhaps only relative to me of course! Friends know that I have a critical ear for "something" whatever that means. I can certainly write music using the tools available today, as long as I don't have to play an instrument
(I am learning keys now!).My music listening history encompasses just about every style that has ever been recorded, and I could almost say "every sound" too but that would be impossible. From Steve Reich to Bach to Acid Mother Temple to Sonic Youth, to Captain Beefheart to Leibach to pop music and gabba techno, from country to drum n bass to Debussy, jazz, folk music, latin, soca, dub, death metal, blues, bluegrass, experimental, ambient and glitch ... the list goes on ... and especially all the forms of "psychedelic" music that I have been able to lay my hands on.
Perhaps after such a journey it might be possible to appreciate the use of frequency and space rather than a specific musical "language" as such. Being a "non-musician" means I don't have any rules to cling on to when I appreciate a piece of musical art, but I can also be very aware of the "cultural space" or context to which a particular piece will fit. Of course, I can work with and enjoy repeating and evolving melodies, rhythms and harmonic structures even if I cannot identify them technically.
So ... I had to hear some of Anton Werbern - you got me interested. I downloaded some for free from the official website.
To my ears there is nothing strange or unlistenable about his style, or these days even revolutionary regarding the music itself. It's great - he creates a certain sense of space in the compositions and although it probably can't be defined (or boxed in!) with traditional "language" there's certainly something to it. It's very relaxing in many ways, and in a sense quite "psychedelic". I can only imagine what he would have produced with the tools available today!!!!!
Music like this serves a purpose in the sense that one must "let go" in order to appreciate it fully, and I believe that is most likely a major intent of the artist. Like a group of Tibetan monks playing their discordant sounds and rhythms, just sit back and enjoy the vibrations ... because that is all it is: vibration. Anything that the human mind uses to label specific vibrations is quite literally made up. It doesn't really mean anything at all and sometimes these made up rules interfere with the enjoyment of the moment.
Peace,
Andy.
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- KVRAF
- 1643 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
For me personally, as long as one doesn't get trapped into one way of doing things and is adventurous and open-minded, then there will be no danger of being constrained to ANYTHING. I agree that serialism, or even other more conventional musical styles, can be limiting when it comes to expressing certain emotions or ideas. There are very few musical styles that can actually cover the entire range of human emotions. For example, I've never heard jazz that can pull off the feeling of rage as well as industrial or metal, or punk that can be as serene and meditative as ambient. If musical styles/systems that aren't as restrictive as serialism are already limited by their own idiosyncratic conventions, then there's no way serialism can be that expressive.
The analogy to modern art is a good one, because it suffers the same restrictions. I've never seen a piece of modern art that can express the same kind of sensual beauty as a neoclassical painting from the 19th century by the likes of Waterhouse, Alma-Tadema, Bouguereau, Gerome...etc, because that visual style is simply not equipped to express such things--in fact it was invented to rebel against such conventions. Serialism I think was an attempt to get away from the traditional musical system and by doing so, it would have to do away with some of the beauty of a traditional system as well.
The analogy to modern art is a good one, because it suffers the same restrictions. I've never seen a piece of modern art that can express the same kind of sensual beauty as a neoclassical painting from the 19th century by the likes of Waterhouse, Alma-Tadema, Bouguereau, Gerome...etc, because that visual style is simply not equipped to express such things--in fact it was invented to rebel against such conventions. Serialism I think was an attempt to get away from the traditional musical system and by doing so, it would have to do away with some of the beauty of a traditional system as well.
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- KVRAF
- 5948 posts since 19 Jun, 2008 from Melbourne, Australia
You mean you never heard Tony Buck and John Zorn playing as Peril? Death Metal Jazz Improv at its finestLunatique wrote:For example, I've never heard jazz that can pull off the feeling of rage as well as industrial or metal
Peace,
Andy.
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- KVRist
- 350 posts since 11 May, 2008
I'm going to quote something I read that makes all sense to me:
«The problems are not merely of the absence of any sense of divisibility in the phrase into smaller units that can be grasped as such and of which any point is made, or of the absence of hierarchic functions lending any kind of tonal order. More basic still is the fact that in its disposition of pitch and rhythmic differentiation - the primary factors by which melodic form is perceived - contrasts are so extreme and so constant that the effect of contrast is, ironically, radically attenuated. There is a paradoxical feeling of randomness in the melody - paradoxical in view of the thorough predetermination of all its elements.»
BERRY, Wallace, 1987, Structural Functions in music, Dover Publications, New York, p. 98
Basically, the extremes touch each other: Total serialism music and Total random music sound almost the same. We have opposite intentions but the same result. One could almost refer to the love-hate... so opposite and so close at same time!
«The problems are not merely of the absence of any sense of divisibility in the phrase into smaller units that can be grasped as such and of which any point is made, or of the absence of hierarchic functions lending any kind of tonal order. More basic still is the fact that in its disposition of pitch and rhythmic differentiation - the primary factors by which melodic form is perceived - contrasts are so extreme and so constant that the effect of contrast is, ironically, radically attenuated. There is a paradoxical feeling of randomness in the melody - paradoxical in view of the thorough predetermination of all its elements.»
BERRY, Wallace, 1987, Structural Functions in music, Dover Publications, New York, p. 98
Basically, the extremes touch each other: Total serialism music and Total random music sound almost the same. We have opposite intentions but the same result. One could almost refer to the love-hate... so opposite and so close at same time!
Play fair and square!
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1585 posts since 13 Nov, 2005 from St. Paul
First, thanks all for responding, this has been a good learning experience. I feel like I've got a much better grasp on the meaning and form of serial music and the alternatives.
The relationship between total serialism and total randomness is interesting, especially when you contrast programmed randomness (e.g., based on chance operations or stochastic processes) against human randomness (e.g., aleatory or free improvisation based on performer intuition).
Whereas I find programmed randomness and serial music challenging (though sometimes sublime!), aleatory or free improvisation (e.g., free jazz, Cowell) has always made an immediate connection for me. I think that might be because I can hear immediately the human or evocative aspect of the aleatory performance. That link to the natural, intuitive experience of music is never lost in free improvisation. Many free improv works tend to focus mostly on explosive emotions (like rage or angst), but that focus on that emotional domain isn't necessary, as anyone who's heard Paul Bley or Matthew Shipp's free performances can hear.
An additional note--I have found now after a few days that the biggest catch for getting Webern is, as mentioned above, taking it in small pieces. There's a reason he wrote in 3-20 minute chunks, even for his longest works. Beyond that it's just too hard to absorb the multiple grammars based solely on timbre, but within each individual piece he can produce a micro-world that is quite engaging. I'm too used to listen to CDs straight through from beginning to end.
The relationship between total serialism and total randomness is interesting, especially when you contrast programmed randomness (e.g., based on chance operations or stochastic processes) against human randomness (e.g., aleatory or free improvisation based on performer intuition).
Whereas I find programmed randomness and serial music challenging (though sometimes sublime!), aleatory or free improvisation (e.g., free jazz, Cowell) has always made an immediate connection for me. I think that might be because I can hear immediately the human or evocative aspect of the aleatory performance. That link to the natural, intuitive experience of music is never lost in free improvisation. Many free improv works tend to focus mostly on explosive emotions (like rage or angst), but that focus on that emotional domain isn't necessary, as anyone who's heard Paul Bley or Matthew Shipp's free performances can hear.
An additional note--I have found now after a few days that the biggest catch for getting Webern is, as mentioned above, taking it in small pieces. There's a reason he wrote in 3-20 minute chunks, even for his longest works. Beyond that it's just too hard to absorb the multiple grammars based solely on timbre, but within each individual piece he can produce a micro-world that is quite engaging. I'm too used to listen to CDs straight through from beginning to end.
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- KVRAF
- 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
the structure of Webern, has a grammar that's primarily mathematical, extended to a sort of concentrated architecture. It, to me, is a logical extension, the ONLY really logical extension of the materials of an octave artificially divided into twelve equidistant steps. It isn't a non-sequitur given the basics of musical grammar in the West.
It wouldn't make sense having happened in say Southern India at the time. But, that's to say that Russian Literature or something wouldn't have happened in Sanskrit, what?
First time I heard Arnold Schoenberg's 'early atonal' (IE: before he'd codified it into any system) sound, it wasn't that jarring. I was studying 'chromatic harmony', a lot of Wagner, Chopin, like that... By the time I was hipped to Anton Webern, it seemed like regular music to me.
And, I'm basically a blues musician.
But, given those 12 tones, dodecaphony seems pretty normal a step, to me.
It was pretty easy to suss, at least in a basic sense. I improvise more naturally in that (you couldn't tell the diff, let's just say) 'grammar' than in your constantly modulating souped-up jazz changes, which is a similarly artificial stylee that would only have derived from 12-ET. Couldn't tell you much of 'why' that'd be.
I would probably strenuously disagree with this guy's argument.
It wouldn't make sense having happened in say Southern India at the time. But, that's to say that Russian Literature or something wouldn't have happened in Sanskrit, what?
First time I heard Arnold Schoenberg's 'early atonal' (IE: before he'd codified it into any system) sound, it wasn't that jarring. I was studying 'chromatic harmony', a lot of Wagner, Chopin, like that... By the time I was hipped to Anton Webern, it seemed like regular music to me.
And, I'm basically a blues musician.
But, given those 12 tones, dodecaphony seems pretty normal a step, to me.
It was pretty easy to suss, at least in a basic sense. I improvise more naturally in that (you couldn't tell the diff, let's just say) 'grammar' than in your constantly modulating souped-up jazz changes, which is a similarly artificial stylee that would only have derived from 12-ET. Couldn't tell you much of 'why' that'd be.
I would probably strenuously disagree with this guy's argument.