Sunday, February 13, 2011

Toward a Unified Music Theory

It is clear that an event you have attended has been a success when you leave with more questions than answers.  I have just spent well over 20 hours with a group of people madly passionate about the pursuit of meaning in sound and music- people who agree that the deeper one travels into music's inner workings, the more deftly it eludes one's grasp.  I find it akin to those strange star clusters that you can only see in the night sky if you avert your gaze.  Look slightly to the left and there it is; look at it directly and it vanishes into the deep black of the surrounding space.

I have chosen (or perhaps "it" has chosen me) to begin an exploration that might ground music in the field of philosophy in such a way that may grant entry, for the non-musician, into the vexing realms of modern composition, improvisation, sound design, etc. etc. etc.  These etc.'s are not simply lazy avoidance but truly reflect the infinite genres we face in modern music.  But why the infinite genres?  Why the uncontrollable urge to divide, to separate, to atomize the myriad expressions of the human experience through the medium of sound?  This is the problem to which I've been called to present possible solutions, possible integrations - a philosophy that unifies al music under one, highly complex yet beautifully simple, umbrella, whilst still respecting vast differences in approach. My multi-thousand dollar Phd and dissertation will most likely  cover but one messy slice of this great pie.  What I hope I might accomplish though, is creating a field of inquiry that unites rather than divides modes of musical expression.

{So the questions:
~How might we begin a definition of the "sound object"?  further can sound be objectified?  Its transitory nature seems to defy it.
~ Why, as Ken Hollings so beautifully put it, is it possible that "music is the mistake"?
~Why have composers, like Pierre Schaeffer, who have struggled to divest music of the imposed meaning of 500+ years of history, resorted in the end to imposing their own meaning on sound?
~Why have artists, dedicated to ultimate freedom of expression, chosen venues whose nature is ultimately restricting?  The Dada artists for instance in the cabaret, Varese in Corbusier's massive architecture?}

These questions may never be adequately answered, but they need to be posed, dialogued, explored.  Music may possibly be the least discussed of all forms of human expression.  By "discussion" I do not mean the vapid, subjective drivel that passes for most "reviews".  By "discussion" I mean a deeper exploration of what it means to be human, and what it means to express that humanness through the medium of sound.  The questions will surely lead to more questions, but perhaps we will be a bit closer to the truth - asymptotic and elusive, but the goal nonetheless.  Every attempt at an "answer" will inevitably be shot down, but questions are immortal.  Questions like, "Maybe music is the mistake", need to be asked.  Even though it will piss people off.  Even though it is dangerous.  Perhaps, because it is dangerous.