New study: Musical talent linked to "Open" personality

[stillshaded]

Rofl.. This is so rediculous. All it takes is actually listening to Mozart to realize that he was very deliberate in his compositions.

if anything, he created that dice game just to see if he could. Just another way to show how brilliant he was probably. Its almost like Richard D James joking in interviews about how he had to make a computer program to write his music so he would have more time to "shag his French model girlfriend".

I'm not the biggest Mozart fan, but he definitely had a crazy music computer brain.

[incubus]

Just try NOT to be a dumbass. Musicians are frequently the MOST NEUROTIC egotistical/me me me f**ks on the planet.

It's worse than HPC and the numbskulls that moan about crap that isn't even true. Serious propaganda.

Quit smoking strains that make you hallucinate, and get real.

???? What?

It was my crazy approach to a crazy idea. What can I say other than it's false with a capitol F.

[trimph1]

Openness... context sensitive and interest relative.

Depending on how it is used or misused can be a tricky one. I had people tell me that I was something completely different from what they said prior. So, I am very sceptical of that turn of expression.

[jancivil]

The minuet is absolutely a type, and the result your page described is a typical minuet. Full stop. You really want this to be something it isn't. It's a mistake to substitute this notion (which you evidently don't really grok) for the fact of the formal thing the minuet is and which type of thing Mozart as a professional, commercial composer (and not at all a John Cage) had to satisfy.

The resulting music may not be chaotic but the output is drawn from chaos, even if only 16 modules are used.

Pretend those modules are scale notes. Major scales only have 7 notes but if you assign one note per side of a 7-sided dice... I don't know the exact formula, but the result for permutations must be super-huge, about 14 million possibilities, I would guess. Lottery ticket odds.

Please stop talking now, this is utter bullshit. It's useless for me to explain, you have no use for meaningful use of terms, even. Such as the formal thing a minuet is.

Fulfilling the harmonic and compositional requirements of minuets of that time

But you want each of seven notes assigned a die. That's just nonsense. You won't even read that page, really.

[jancivil]

And who is to say that Mozart only applied dice use to Minuets, if he did use dice, that is.

Just, wow. Does this work for you as a tactic to make disappear what's been pointed out? The example was Minuets. I'm addressing the page you used to promote the notion. It states that the harmonic and formal requirements of that form were fulfilled. Do you imagine there is something of Mozart that is more free-form? You just do not understand the problem (or musical form apparently) at all. There's a link to a wiki, check out what a minuet is, you'd be acquiring information.

[harryupbabble]

Let me ask you this then, are you 100 percent sure that Mozart didn't use chaos in his compositions? And if you are... why would you be?

I just considered the possibility that he may have, that's all, given the possibility that he actually is the creator of that dice game. Dice is chaos. You can't change that.

I think all this shouldn't be confined to that link that I provided.

Sure, we can stop this discussion or whatever it is because I get the impression that it's making your blood boil (I could be wrong on that) and we can get back "on topic" of openness.

But hey I'm just being open to the ways beyond the basics and the tendencies. You can call it desire for the chaos way but at this point not really because I'm just a total beginner interested in "simple" pop music. Chaos may not be usable on tonal (as opposed to atonal) music, pop music to be specific? Or maybe it is? I aim to find out at some point.

I just get this "feeling" that a lot of today's composers may be using chaos to compose their music, which may not necessarily be pop music. I'm pretty sure a few DAWs have randomization options, same with a few VST Plugins. And I know there are a few algorithmic composing softwares. Why else would they exist?

Okay that's that. No hard feelings? Peace.

[fmr]

Let me ask you this then, are you 100 percent sure that Mozart didn't use chaos in his compositions? And if you are... why would you be?

I just considered the possibility that he may have, that's all, given the possibility that he actually is the creator of that dice game. Dice is chaos. You can't change that.

That game you referred to is just a technical exercise. Composers of that era (and earlier) were very technical, and very keen if their art and craftsmanship. For example, if you look at works like "The Art of Fugue" and the "Musical Offering", by Bach, you'll see two magnificent monuments in the art of composition (as were also already the two Well Tempered Clavier books, and before that the Inventions and Sinfonias - for Bach, composing was also a way of teaching his children, especially the eldest Wilhelm Friedemann, which was teached simultaneously to compose and to play with those works), especially polyphonic composition, where a man (that was very crafted and proud of his technique) showed how, respecting all the difficult rules of that art, he can still create music. Unfortunately, he died before achieving the greatest feat of all, which would be composing a quadruple fugue with three themes, where the last theme would be his signature (B A C H - In german nomenclature H is the letter for B natural, while B is for B flat). That fugue was left incomplete.

Mozart, with that game, showed that he could, by carefully choose the fragments of music to be combined, overpass chaos and randomness, and leave no space for "luck". He was a rationalist, a man of the enlightenment era (a maçon), and he believed, above all, in his mastery and craftsmanship. With that game, he simply showed that. That's how that "game" should be read and seen, IMO.

[fmr]

I just get this "feeling" that a lot of today's composers may be using chaos to compose their music, which may not necessarily be pop music. I'm pretty sure a few DAWs have randomization options, same with a few VST Plugins. And I know there are a few algorithmic composing softwares. Why else would they exist?

I don't know if there are "a lot of today's composers" using chaos and randomness. The most notable I know that used some chaos theories, and other mathematical laws related with statistical distribution and somehow algorithmic composition was Iannis Xenakis. Yet, not all of his works achieved a status of greatness, IMO. although there are some I like a lot (curiously, not the most emblematic). He was, perhaps, the most "scientific" of all contemporary composers.

[harryupbabble]

and he believed, above all, in his mastery and craftsmanship. With that game, he simply showed that. That's how that "game" should be read and seen, IMO.

I'm not disagreeing that Mozart knew the mathematical? "language" of music or his craft. He was a better than decent keyboard player? I'm just saying it's possible that when Mozart was alone... nobody really knew how he was creating his music. His sister said that Wolfgang was heavily into math as a boy and as an adult. It was said that he was even calculating the odds of winning lotteries. Anyways, the modules in that dice game are made of 272 music snippets that Mozart HIMSELF created but consider this... what's the chance that in a 16 bar minuet (using ONLY 16 of the 272 snippets) that Mozart would come up with this ONE example of randomized combination:

Bar 01 = Snippet 04
Bar 02 = Snippet 08
Bar 03 = Snippet 11
Bar 04 = Snippet 03
Bar 05 = Snippet 16
Bar 06 = Snippet 13
Bar 07 = Snippet 15
Bar 08 = Snippet 07
Bar 09 = Snippet 14
Bar 10 = Snippet 09
Bar 11 = Snippet 02
Bar 12 = Snippet 10
Bar 13 = Snippet 05
Bar 14 = Snippet 01
Bar 15 = Snippet 12
Bar 16 = Snippet 06

As stated before, the permutation possibilities for a 7 bar, 7 snippet minuet is about 14 million. You can see that Mozart couldn't possibly audition all the 14 million possibilities in a lifetime average of 40 years? But with the dice method he can at least end up with something he might never have run into.

It's like if you give someone a tool... let's say a hammer, that person might not just use it for pounding nails. They could use it as a paper weight, as a murder weapon, as a counterweight in an equilibrium device, etc. It's possible that Mozart, brilliant as he is at his craft already, used the dice method beyond what he presented in public. And not just on minuets. But, I admit, it's just all speculation. On the other hand, no one can look or listen to a Mozart piece and say "I know for sure he didn't use chaos to compose that". Or can they?

[harryupbabble]

Ooops. This is wrong "the permutation possibilities for a 7 bar, 7 snippet minuet is about 14 million."

It should be "the permutation possibilities for a 6 bar, 49 snippet minuet is about 14 million."

[fmr]

Better than average? He was already a "virtuoso" by the age of six.

And regarding "the chance that in a 16 bar minuet (using ONLY 16 of the 272 snippets) that Mozart would come up with this ONE example of randomized combination"... that's exactly the point - IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH COMBINATION YOU REACH. He was a master in the art of variation. Permutations of a theme is something that he was trained on since very early age. Actually, that was one of the basis of any composer toolbox. And when he reached maturity (in his late teens, early twenties) he was able to create several variations on a theme immediately by improvising - that's something that any trained keyboardist was able to do then, except that he was able to do that with special mastery.

Therefore, he didn't need to check all permutation possibilities because HE KNEW that, no matter what snippetts you would combine, they would work in the end, because he created them with that purpose. That's what differentiates a genius from a common mortal.

And he didn't need dice to come up with something new, since he was able to do that by simply sit at the piano and play. I'm sure you will agree that it's much faster and susceptible of producing much better results

I'm comfortable saying this since I am not even am unconditional fan of Mozart - there are several other composers that come first in my list

[jancivil]

Let me ask you this then, are you 100 percent sure that Mozart didn't use chaos in his compositions? And if you are... why would you be?

I've rather well articulated why I would be. You clearly aren't reading what I write, which tends to be irritating to a person. Why don't you go through Mozart's repertoire and select for us which compositions you believe would have employed 'chaos', and why.

[jancivil]

I'm just saying it's possible that when Mozart was alone... nobody really knew how he was creating his music.

Sure, so now let's engage in magical thinking, and since you really want this 'music is maths' as an argument to win, let's reach for whatever. That's absurd, frankly. No, & I do not think I'm being unfair in assessing that you have no idea at all what we're dealing with. Mozart's music is conventional, he uses the harmonic language and the forms in currency. And by being one of the more gifted of that day's musicians, and curious and bright and all, advanced the language a little bit (such as harmonies that were novel, cf., his musical joke); and along with others, for instance the Minuet form gains a couple of new twists (In the wiki you'll see, should you venture to look, that his Don Giovanni contains an exemplar of 'The true Minuet'.).

He was creating his music like everyone else creates that kind of music. By working with musical materials. There is no magical process to look for. It strikes me that you want music to be like this, or more like scrabble, in lieu of what actually must happen, which takes years to obtain mastery.

[jancivil]

consider this... what's the chance that in a 16 bar minuet (using ONLY 16 of the 272 snippets) that Mozart would come up with this ONE example of randomized combination:

Who cares? This is your game, not Mozart's. If you really read the webpage you provided, you will have realized that the chances of success were 100%, that was his game according to that hypothesis. The 'chance' interest is more of an idle interest, towards a variety of things, modules he devised, prefabricated to work. That would "fulfill the harmonic and compositional (meaning formal) requirements" of a popular minuet. Why would such a composer want all of this chance of FAIL? Think it through. This isn't John Cage and music that may as well be aleatoric.

[harryupbabble]

Better than average? He was already a "virtuoso" by the age of six.

And regarding "the chance that in a 16 bar minuet (using ONLY 16 of the 272 snippets) that Mozart would come up with this ONE example of randomized combination"... that's exactly the point - IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH COMBINATION YOU REACH. He was a master in the art of variation. Permutations of a theme is something that he was trained on since very early age. Actually, that was one of the basis of any composer toolbox. And when he reached maturity (in his late teens, early twenties) he was able to create several variations on a theme immediately by improvising - that's something that any trained keyboardist was able to do then, except that he was able to do that with special mastery.

Therefore, he didn't need to check all permutation possibilities because HE KNEW that, no matter what snippetts you would combine, they would work in the end, because he created them with that purpose. That's what differentiates a genius from a common mortal.

And he didn't need dice to come up with something new, since he was able to do that by simply sit at the piano and play. I'm sure you will agree that it's much faster and susceptible of producing much better results

I'm comfortable saying this since I am not even am unconditional fan of Mozart - there are several other composers that come first in my list

My actual words were "He was a better than decent keyboard player?"
Decent is not the same as average, and I did use a question mark. There's articles that say that Mozart's fingers were a bit short even as an adult.

But I kind of agree with everything you stated except for this part: "And he didn't need dice to come up with something new, since he was able to do that by simply sit at the piano and play. I'm sure you will agree that it's much faster and susceptible of producing much better results". If you listen to guitarists, Carlos Santana, for example, you will notice that his playing is very distinctive and doesn't seem to vary. I think this is because guitarists tend to practice scales and riff runs day in day out and those scales and runs get imprinted in their brain and become muscle memory. Carlos Santana may say "I am okay with that" but his guitar playing will remain "signaturial". But if you listen to guitarist Robert Fripp's body of work there is variance there. This is probably because Robert is left-handed but for some reason he switched to the right-hand way of playing the guitar. He may have switched back to the left-hand way now. He may have alternated using both hands many times. My guess as to why he switched to the right-hand way of playing the guitar is that he knew or believed (perhaps wrongly) that the left-hemisphere of his brain is more mathy than the right-hemisphere and he was avoiding tendencies that can happen with staying with traditional ways of playing the guitar. This could apply to keyboard players and maybe even to Mozart. Surely, Mozart was aware of "muscle memory" forming from repetitive playing? This reply was done in haste and it could be full of errors and unchecked speculations and personal bias and plain ignorance. And lack of paragraph breaks. Pardon.

Aarrghh, I'm late for my daily "repetitive" but chaos-laden speed scrabble session. Nice conversing with you. Adios.