Music can never be abstract.

[l. ron hubbard]

Abstractions are functions of intellect. Music relates to the senses and are perceived by the them. Anyone that coins a particular music as "abstract" is just speaking from an intellectual point of view. The senses perceive, the intellect rationalizes. In that sense I think the music of Xenakis or such is no more abstract than the musical notes of Bach.

[prometheus]

Music can never be not abstract if you ask me.

[l. ron hubbard]

Music can never be not abstract if you ask me.

What do you mean? Is color abstract? Is love? Music is perceived by emotions and is recognized by emotions. Whatever meaning we prescribe to it will always be something abstract. We can ascribe philosophical charges to works of Scriabin for instance, but the music is simply music. You can have two people, one trained in philosophy and one ignorant of philosophy listen to the same work. One thing will always remain the same: the music.

[sr_ludwig]

Dear, l. ron hubbard

You've turned music into music and you completelly forgot that Music is an Art too. If you cannot see what abstract means to art, probably you will never understand what is a abstract music. like prometheus have said [even if he does not accept (look that accept is different from like)  abstract abstract music), music cannot  be not abstract, and abstract music is just an universe inside another one. It is just an infinite inside of another infinite.

Music is perceived by emotions and is recognized by emotions

It is just a romantic view of music. What is the problem about listen a music with the brain and not with the heart?

Abstract music worries to show what YOU cannot view inside your brain. the music that you probably listen is easy to understand cause you are listen to it since ever. Abstract is always new, so it is hard to accept like all the new things.

Note one more thing. there is a lot of kind of music that if you get a "ignorant" and a "smart"
to listen the same one, it would be have no sense for both.
There is no just European style of music =] go show your Bach to the Pygmy people. I bet that will sounds a bit of (ohhhhh) abstract to them.
Methaforizing, and always with my respect, you are just a Pygmy and Xenakis is an Eurepean. Better, you have an european mind and Xenakis has a Pygmy mind.

[l. ron hubbard]

Dear sr_ludwig,

I perfectly understand that music is an art and that all art is infinite in its scope. It is infinite because the smallest segments that compromise it can be transmuted in infinite ways and varieties. I am trying to make another point however. Abstractions are matters of intellect. The emotions have no capacity for it. Music is understood mainly by the senses. It is simply a matter of mood and taste. Is it happy, sad, quirky, etc. These descriptions are relegated only to the primitive, not the intellectual. The abstract in music is all of the superficial qualities we ascribe to it, be it philosophical, religious, or scientific in nature. The point is that emotions cannot be philosophical, they can only be primitive.


There is no problem with listening to music with the intellect. I do it everytime. Because I know harmony, I instantly hear such things as the dominant, secondary dominats, tonics, modulations, etc.

I listen to all music, be it a simple dance or sophisticated dodecaphonic rows. For clarity, lets compare the simple and the complicated. For instance, lets compare a child's waltz to the densest atonal works. What are they both made of? Notes, albeit in different order and quantity. All works are simply transformations of other works. The palette from which an artist draws from is the same. In this sense, all music ever made is the same. The intellect can make paterns, but it cannot feel.

[kay3087]

abstract
adjective |abˈstrakt; ˈabˌstrakt|
existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence :

Is this not music?

[l. ron hubbard]

Music is concrete in that it consists of tones sounding at various frequencies. What can never be concrete are the abstract qualities we ascribe to music. Say you have two listeners. One is learned of science, philosophy, etc and one is ignorant of those things. There is one thing they will experience both and that is the pure emotion. The first man may also propose that the music is reflecting some idea. The latter man simply says nothing. Who is right?

[kay3087]

Without "the abstract qualities we ascribe" to it, what is it then? Noise. "Music" is only the arrangement of sounds to express emotion, but whatever emotions are heard by the listener are absolutely individual (it doesn't matter how well read you are, music entices emotion). Is this not "existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence"?

[l. ron hubbard]

Without any abstract attachments that music is often associated with music is simply music. It certainly hasn't lost anything. The human brain is capable of both emotion and reason. I am not saying that anything is at fault. I am just saying that music is complete even without artificial coloring. Because it caters to emotions first it is naturally free from the confines of logic. What matter is whether it is enjoyable or not. It is not science. Although music is based on science, it doesn't necessarily convey it. The only reason I hear a 4th is because I know of it. If I was ignorant of the fact that such an interval is called a 4th I would still appreciate it because it is emotional.

[sr_ludwig]

oh thats is cool that I'm not talking with a romantic one.
and sorry about my roughness.
and I really thhink that I get what you've said.
but,
what is the real music so, the logical or the emotional. look that you can have the same argument that are you using to defend that logical music is better than emotional music, look:
I am just saying that music is complete even without artificial coloring (logical stuff)
I am just saying that music is complete even without artificial coloring (emotional stuff)

it is just a point of view, and is not possible says that the emotional is right.
you are not being artistic, just letting the nature of your feelings controlling yourself.
but as like you say that the feelings are natural, I'm saying that it is natural as natural as the logical thinks.

[l. ron hubbard]

oh thats is cool that I'm not talking with a romantic one.
and sorry about my roughness.
and I really thhink that I get what you've said.
but,
what is the real music so, the logical or the emotional. look that you can have the same argument that are you using to defend that logical music is better than emotional music, look:
I am just saying that music is complete even without artificial coloring (logical stuff)
I am just saying that music is complete even without artificial coloring (emotional stuff)

it is just a point of view, and is not possible says that the emotional is right.
you are not being artistic, just letting the nature of your feelings controlling yourself.
but as like you say that the feelings are natural, I'm saying that it is natural as natural as the logical thinks.

No really I understand where you are coming from and you weren't being rude.  I think the most important thing is that one enjoys music however one wants to enjoy it.

[sr_ludwig]

you know, I got thinking about it for a long time today.
and probably I've changed my mind a little bit.

all the feelings that your talking about comes from the brain.
all the logical that I'm talking about also comes from the brain.
so, for me, both are the same thing.

why do I think that abstract music is so interesting in a artistic point of view?
Cause you need develop another kind of feelings that are not normal. You just don't know what are you gonna feel. it is completely new and what comes from an abstract art doesn't have to be judge by the other feelings that you already have obsolete in your brain, but it should be a new feeling.
Also I think that art is just a synonymous of to think. based on Kant words about art, I can say that art will not be art for who composed some art. Art is a scratch of all your new thinks.
Art is just art for who listen to it, or saw, readed, etc. not for who has created it. the composition is a mature think. And like I said, for me, art should be scratch for the new thinks.
This is my new concept of art. I thought it today, so I would like to know what do you think about it.
       

[gyzzzmo]

To me, 'abstract' is just that is different from normal.
So in music that means that music doesnt follow a certain line or pattern that we are used to, or often no pattern at all. In that way Bach's music is VERY stuffed with patterns, almost mathematical, so very different than Xenakis' music.

[tac-tics]

Music can be plenty abstract.

Abstract has many meanings. One of them is indirect. In engineering, a layer of abstraction is an indirection from the actual nature of the matter, usually bringing about some benefit such as uniformity or simplicity.

Abstraction in music which has elegance which is not readily noticed through the ear. Maybe the composer did something funny with the keys. Maybe they followed some rigorous progression of chords to achieve some horrid sound that has interesting properties from a mathematical standpoint. Abstract in music is usually reserved for this kind of phenomena.

[prometheus]

You claim music can never be abstract and then you ask me what I mean by 'abstract'?

You are claiming that music has to have property 'x'. How can you make that claim without defining 'x'?

[l. ron hubbard]

You claim music can never be abstract and then you ask me what I mean by 'abstract'?

No I meant for you to explain your thoughts. You said that you don't see music as not abstract and nothing else. It was just not enough to convince me.

You are claiming that music has to have property 'x'. How can you make that claim without defining 'x'?

No on the contrary I am claiming that music has no property "x." The property "x," where "x" is an abstract (nonmusical) concept is given to music by listeners by means of intellect, is artificial. The property given to music isn't bound to the music as far as music itself goes, but is a property of the intellect.

[iroveashe]

What do you mean? Is color abstract? Is love? Music is perceived by emotions and is recognized by emotions.

Yes, color and love are abstract, and so are emotions. Since music is recognized mainly by emotions as you yourself said, it's regarded as abstract. But of course music isn't an intellectual or emotional process, it's both at the same time, and when you listen with the rational mind you look for all those patterns, structures and conventions you see in Bach, shapes that are abstracted from other, new types of music.

[sr_ludwig]

if the music has a propety dominant, is not the same thing that a x property?

I completely aunderstand you, but like I said, art is no art for who did it, but for who take it.
art should be a scrath for the new thinks tha tyour mind can create. and a final art is a mature thinking. so, what xenakis did with xs and what bach did with dissonants, and what schoenberg did with serial,  is not art for all them, cause all they did it with the intelect, but us that listen all this kind of work, take it using our feelings, so becames art.
if you study all the xs dominats and serials, you will just became a boring person that comes to a forum showing his own thinkings.
it is like art works. thinking. 

[prometheus]

No I meant for you to explain your thoughts. You said that you don't see music as not abstract and nothing else. It was just not enough to convince me.

You wanted to initiate this discussion. You should have defined your definition of 'abstract' and then argue why you take the position you take.

I would use the same definition as used in visual art. It means art which is not representing anything. Something which does not work as art by calling up an association from the brain of the observer.

If you have a book filled with exquisite Chinese calligraphy then you can enjoy that work without being able to read it. And even if you can read it, it can still be abstract. But of course many Chinese characters are often abstractions. The character for 'mountain' still kind of represents the concept of a mountain.

In our alphabet the shape and form of the character 'e' does not represent it's sound. So it is abstract.

So music is not abstract when the music makes the sound of a marching army, or a burning fire, or singing birds and clattering waterfalls. This can all be tried and the result will be non-abstract music.

But music is fundamentally not something that represents certain things. Music is just what it is; organized sound. It doesn't need to be anything more.

But program music exists. I am not disputing it exists, of course. My point is that when someone listens to Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique the person will most likely hear merely music and nothing else even though the sound is supposed to play out a story. You can enjoy the music without knowing anything about this intention.

Wagner claimed that art without meaning could not exist and thus that absolute music had no right to exist. Personally I find it amazing for him to claim this. Music has no musical meaning?
He claimed that the word stands higher than the note. Sure, I can see that language is superior to music in convening ideas. But music has a different role. Music has to be music; organized sound for it's own sake. Surely there is tremendous beauty in that.

Hanslick argued that extra-musical ideas associated with music merely detract from the beauty of music itself. And I kind of agree. I ideally don't want to know about the shallow religious motivation Bach had when he wrote his pieces.
 

No on the contrary I am claiming that music has no property "x." The property "x," where "x" is an abstract (nonmusical) concept is given to music by listeners by means of intellect, is artificial.

Sure, but if music has no extra-musical meaning that means the music is abstract. But you claim it can never be abstract in the title? So what do you actually think? Im confused.

The property given to music isn't bound to the music as far as music itself goes, but is a property of the intellect.

People often claim certain music has 'emotion' and that certain other music does not. But clearly music has no emotion; the listener has. And yes because we are all humans some of these emotions can be universal to all humans. But still the emotion itself is not a property of the music.

Are you actually agreeing with me or not? It seems now you do and you mean something different by 'abstract'?


Are emotions abstract? Well, emotions isn't an artistic expression but a human experience and thus hard to define and understand. Emotions don't represent a flower. So in that sense they are not abstract. They have no real bearing in reality. So in that sense it is similar to music.

But regardless of what emotions really are it seems to me that both the emotional and intellectual way of experiencing music are both abstract. Sad music makes you sad, if it actually does that(which is doubtful) not because it somehow represents a person crying. Now I am sure you can find some linguists that try to dig really deep and claim otherwise. But I don't give the much credit. You can rationalize that sad music is sad because it is slow, like a sad person speaking, and has a low tone, like a sad person speaking. Or something like that. But even if this is true, this is merely an origin or explanation of why certain abstract music has certain emotional associations. It doesn't mean sad music is sad because it represents a sad person.