Iannis Xenakis- "Herma" Musique Symbolique [VIDEO]

[john11inc]

Not the best interpretation, and fairly sloppy in several places, but I was wondering, for those of you who have heard this piece before (if you've been here very long I'm sure you have, as it used to get discussed somewhat frequently) and did not like it, does seeing a performance of it in any way effect how you view the piece, or help you to appreciate it in any capacity?

[thalbergmad]

Looks like nobody wants to get "involved" old chap.

I'm glad I have heard it, and it makes a change for me to listen to 20th Century works. All i can say is it does not stimulate my senses.

Thal

[Derek]

Look, I found the second movement:

I think the baby is doing a musical spectral analysis of the color baby blue.

To answer your question in all honesty though, I am with thalbergmad. I just don't get it.

[thalbergmad]

I am almost certain that if that was just a sound recording, some twat would claim it to be a work of genius.

I feel kind of sad that John is unlikely to get the kind of discussion going on this forum that he deserves.

He sure as hell don't want comments from tossers like me.

Thal

[ahinton]

Look, I found the second movement:

I think the baby is doing a musical spectral analysis of the color baby blue.

To answer your question in all honesty though, I am with thalbergmad. I just don't get it.

OK, so you don'tr get it. Nothing wrong with that other, perhaps, than a possible rooted determination not even to try to do so. Has it not occurred to you to ask yourself why Xenakis wrote this work (or indeed any of his others) as he did, rather than merely respond in the tiresomely puerile and inane manner that you have done above? You don't have to be in sympathy with this music and no one is asking you to do so, but do please at least stop for a moment and think about the composer and his motivations for working as he did; you'd do yourself and the rest of us a favour if you did at least try to do this. Thank you.

Best,

Alistair

[Derek]

OK, so you don'tr get it. Nothing wrong with that other, perhaps, than a possible rooted determination not even to try to do so. Has it not occurred to you to ask yourself why Xenakis wrote this work (or indeed any of his others) as he did, rather than merely respond in the tiresomely puerile and inane manner that you have done above? You don't have to be in sympathy with this music and no one is asking you to do so, but do please at least stop for a moment and think about the composer and his motivations for working as he did; you'd do yourself and the rest of us a favour if you did at least try to do this. Thank you.

Best,

Alistair

Quite honestly I don't care why he wrote it. All I care about is if the sound moves me, and I really don't get it. At this point I know it isn't dissonance that is the problem; I used to be dogmatically against any and all modern sounding music that used dissonance. Quantum, of this forum, changed my mind however as his music is fascinating and enjoyable, even in some of his more heavily dissonant works. (late Scriabin also helped) But I still do not understand the music of Schoenberg or Xenakis (among others whose names I can't be bothered to remember or look up). however they wrote it, the music fails to move me.

I think one of the real problems I have with music like this is the absence of line. Or heck, any musical entity I can grab onto. There's nothing to grab onto! Maybe it is hidden there somehow in all the math he applied, I don't know. But I don't like to have to listen to music as an archaeologist finds fossils, I like it to affect me more or less immediately (within reason---I recall only later appreciating some tonal works I had previously found boring). Perhaps I'm just lazy.

[ahinton]

Quite honestly I don't care why he wrote it. All I care about is if the sound moves me, and I really don't get it. At this point I know it isn't dissonance that is the problem; I used to be dogmatically against any and all modern sounding music that used dissonance. Quantum, of this forum, changed my mind however as his music is fascinating and enjoyable, even in some of his more heavily dissonant works. (late Scriabin also helped) But I still do not understand the music of Schoenberg or Xenakis (among others whose names I can't be bothered to remember or look up). however they wrote it, the music fails to move me.

I think one of the real problems I have with music like this is the absence of line. Or heck, any musical entity I can grab onto. There's nothing to grab onto! Maybe it is hidden there somehow in all the math he applied, I don't know. But I don't like to have to listen to music as an archaeologist finds fossils, I like it to affect me more or less immediately (within reason---I recall only later appreciating some tonal works I had previously found boring). Perhaps I'm just lazy.

Refusing to care why IX wrote as he did may be your personal prerogative but it's not a very constructive attitude. No one's asking or expecting you to be moved by his or anyone else's music. Your remark about wanting to be be moved by music is, of course, fair enough. As to whether or not you're lazy, I cannot say; much would depend upon the amount of time you are prepared to devote to giving this music a chance and the extent to which you're prepared at least to try to concentrate on it and get into it while you're listening to it.

Best,

Alistair

[john11inc]

Quite honestly I don't care why he wrote it.

Fair enough, depending on in what capacity you're trying to evaluate it, but equally removed from your own point by the same merits.

Or heck, any musical entity I can grab onto. There's nothing to grab onto! Perhaps I'm just lazy.

If tonal music is English, then this is French.  Of course there's nothing for you to grab onto if you're trying to understand it in the same language as you try to understand Chopin.  It's an entirely different language; to say it is meaningless is . . . well . . . there's no nice word to attribute to that.  It's not the language's fault.  It's akin to you listening to someone speak in Japanese and then telling them that such is a poor example of German.  If you are too lazy, indeed, to try to learn the language then that's fine.  But then you're left with that being all that you can really say, which says nothing about the music itself.

[scottmcc]

but should not "good" music be sufficiently universal that anyone can listen to it and appreciate it?  I tried to listen to this piece, and I couldn't.  and yes, at least part of that was that it hurt my ears (I have a certain visceral reaction to dissonance which can't be helped).  but a bigger part was that I couldn't see the point of it.  maybe there's not a point, maybe it's buried beneath higher math (or maths, for our English colleagues), maybe I just don't understand the "language," but quite honestly, why should I be bothered to?  I don't try to understand the ramblings of the homeless schizophrenic on the streetcorner, nor do I sit on a factory floor banging pots and pans together and call it art.

anyway, I think that good music should be sufficiently transparent that the listener is capable of enjoying it without undue preparation.  great music becomes more so when the backstory is known, and when one studies all the little details that separate it from lesser works.  quite simply, I want to be able to sit down with the stereo, press play, and hear something that entertains me.  does this make me superficial?  possibly.  but honestly, why would anyone want anything different?  why would I want to be aurally assaulted every time i listen to music?

[Derek]

I think the simple and hard-to-swallow truth for some is that there are a small minority of intellectuals who enjoy feeling superior by creating puzzles for themselves that have no inherent value except that which they claim is there by virtue of having created the puzzle. So, composers have been creating intellectual puzzles since Bach. But at least in Bach's case, the puzzles were "orthogonal to" enjoyable sound. I can enjoy the Art of Fugue without being well versed in all the technical tricks of fugal writing. The same is not true for modern musical puzzles such as this Xenakis piece (for my ears). It is nothing but puzzle, translated arbitrarily into sound, with zero consideration for making it appealing.

I don't recall having to learn any language to be fascinated by my dad's boogie woogie or my sisters playing chopin when I was little. It did not require any effort on my part. It was just inherently fascinating. I know, I'm probably taking "learning the tonal language" for granted aren't I? Well at least there was something about that language that made me like it to begin with...there's nothing that is "seducing me" about Xenakis. Like I said, for a long time I thought it was the dissonance that is the problem. Now I know that is not the case. I've listened for open ears for many years now, and can enjoy music from Scarlatti to Stravinsky. But when you reach this strange world of "puzzles/math arbitrarily applied to music" I'm just lost.

Also, I think language is a bad metaphor in general. I'd say if you want to call "tonality" a language that I only really began learning it when I began learning to create it for myself. It takes a long time, there's a lot to learn! However, I can create sound that is indistinguishable from Xenakis without knowing the first thing about its "language." So can that baby, if he had bigger hands and arms. That being the case, why bother learning the "language?" I don't get it.

[ahinton]

I think the simple and hard-to-swallow truth for some is that there are a small minority of intellectuals who enjoy feeling superior by creating puzzles for themselves that have no inherent value except that which they claim is there by virtue of having created the puzzle.

Since Xenakis wasn't one of these people, it seems to me a kind of unwelcome and less than helpful mix of irrelevance and gratuituousness to raise this issue in the present context.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

much would depend upon the amount of time you are prepared to devote to giving this music a chance and the extent to which you're prepared at least to try to concentrate on it and get into it while you're listening to it.

Whilst this is not addressed to me, I feel I have given sufficient time to "music" like this, but now I simply cannot take any more.

It is impossible for me to concentrate on anything whilst listening to this.

Thal

[Derek]

Since Xenakis wasn't one of these people, it seems to me a kind of unwelcome and less than helkpful mix of irrelevance and gratuituousness to raise this issue in the present context.

Best,

Alistair

There is a such thing as passive aggression. Some people's entire lives center around either doing nothing, or doing something that they know will not be understood and then allowing their disciples to say: "Well that's your failing, not his!" The problem with such passive aggression is it is an infinite regression and makes counter-argument impossible.

It is all part of a larger disease of Western musical thought which seeks to hide in incomprehensibility to avoid comparison to the great masters of the past. Unwelcome? Maybe. But only because it's the truth.

What about the fact that anybody with two hands and two arms banging on a piano produces identical sounds? You might as well study the math behind Xenaki's music for the math itself, why put it to music?

[ahinton]

There is a such thing as passive aggression. Some people's entire lives center around either doing nothing, or doing something that they know will not be understood and then allowing their disciples to say: "Well that's your failing, not his!" The problem with such passive aggression is it is an infinite regression and makes counter-argument impossible.

Thee is indeed such a thing but, once again, I must ask why this is being mentioned in the contedxt of Xenakis who is not being, nor need be, accused of any such thing.

It is all part of a larger disease of Western musical thought which seeks to hide in incomprehensibility to avoid comparison to the great masters of the past. Unwelcome? Maybe. But only because it's the truth.

Is it? It is not so much "unwelcome" as misleading and it is certainly not the truth. Consider some of the reviews of the première of the young Chopin's E minor piano concerto, the incomprehensibility that greeted the later works of Beethoven and the slough into which much of the music of J S Bach fell in the immediate aftermath of his death (and these are only some of the more glaring of many such examples).

What about the fact that anybody with two hands and two arms banging on a piano produces identical sounds?

What about it? I couldn't do it! Could you?

You might as well study the math behind Xenaki's music for the math itself, why put it to music?

It's "Xenakis", not "Xenaki" and, in any case, it is far from mandatory to have carried out detailed study of the mathematical procedures that inform some of his scores in order to be able to respond meaningfully to them as a listener (which, once again, is not intended to suggest any kind of obligation upon you to do so).

Best,

Alistair

[viking]

What I like about this music is that it has the possibility of reflecting nature in some of the most sincere and representative means.  For example, waterfalls don't flow in B-flat major, nor does the tonal system have anything to do with the sounds that an astroid might make in crashing into the earth, or atoms bouncing off each other.  The world is seemingly infinite in many regards, so why then shouldn't art reflect, or at least attempt to reflect the perceived infinite?

It is entirely true that egos can be attached to this type of music in a very negative way, making it all the more difficult people to appreciate, furthermore to the common repulsion towards dissonance.  However, this is obviously less art for a commercial purpose than art for artistic purpose.

My one criticism of this performance is that the pianist has a habit of playing loud notes in a very banging percussive manor.  Having no knowledge of the score, or common techniques of performing this type of music, it is certainly not impossible that I am entirely wrong in this criticism.  However, beyond the ugly tone this produces, there is the added physical possibility and disadvantage of missing the note entirely if coming down from above, furthermore to a general sense of lost control.  I have yet to be convinced that pure speed of attack is insufficient, as there are really only about 4-5mm of actionable depth in a common piano key.  Weight is usually sloppy, imprecise, and a burden to the performer and the music itself.

 

[john11inc]

Personally disliking a piece of music is one thing; Thal and the lot of you are more than welcome to hate this, bitterly and to no end.  However, the differentiation between those who I see here and Thal is that he does not make some pseudointellectual attempt at vindicating what has been shown to be willful ignorance, as opposed to his personal preference.  Having a stupid reason to dislike it is just that: stupid.  Three stupid reasons:

Comparing this to "schizophrenic babbling" is painfully convenient, and only further solidifies my point.  Just because it sounds like schizophrenic babbling to you, as any new language would, does not mean it is devoid of meaning.  It simply means that you don't understand it, because you're still trying to hear it in the way you're more accustomed to.  Listening to this piece in the same way one listens to Chopin or Brahms, and expecting to relate to the music in a similar way, makes no statement about the music whatsoever, only your ridiculous expectations and how you were proven incorrect.  Major and minor fluctuation, chromatic vs. melodic, harmonic progressions, romantic gestures . . . these things are not how contemporary music is meant to be understood.  The language has expanded, and new dynamics are the basis of the language.  These dynamics are not necessarily more complex or subtle; in many cases, they can be far less subtle.  No longer is the word "counterpoint" appropriate, but instead you must use broader terms.  Timbre becomes one of the most important aspects of a work (particularly in the case of the Spectralists, who were heavily influenced by Xenakis); this was, in essence, one of the major ideals of the 2nd Viennese School.  Listing a swathe of examples is pointless, but if one cannot appreciate timbre for its own sake, then how one truly appreciates even the simplest music is beyond me.

The idea that music should be globally accessible is ludicrous.  If this were the case, then Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga would reign supreme over Beethoven and Ravel.  A slippery slope is also presented, not to mention the fact that such insinuates a temporal relationship to the quality of music vis-a-vis if it is accessible today, then it is good today, but if it was inaccessible yesterday, it was bad yesterday.  Intuitionistically we can see that such is idiotic.  As well, I seriously doubt anyone who would posit this as an argument against Herma would use its reverse to defend Fur Elise as being "better" (excuse me; if something can be "better," then have we lost all subjectivity?  If so, a paradoxical infinite regress appears when ones attempts to review whether the "better" or the "accessible" is the more base term) than the Op. 109 or 126, for instance.

Finally, the fact that this music is based on mathematical procedures is irrelevant.  If you did not know that fact and had no reason to assume such, would it effect your judgment?  Isn't all music based on mathematical figures?  The majority of Xenakis' works are actually much more simple than this and are based on four, core aspects of sound in and of itself.  In much a way, Xenakis' music is less complex than Chopin's or Schubert's.  As well, if a chance piece written by Cage happened to be identical to this, would the fact that it was not based on mathematics (it is based on Boolean algebra, something quite simple, just so we're clear) change its quality?  If you did understand the mathematics behind it, would you then like it?  There is simply no correlation.


Quit making excuses.



As a foot note, just because I find ignorance to be obnoxious:

a musical spectral analysis of the color baby blue.

A "spectral analysis" of a "color" makes absolutely no sense, regarding Spectral compositional techniques.  Perhaps you should at least know what you're talking about on a basic, factual level (or at least the definition of the words you write) before you deem yourself worthy of rendering an opinion that's worth expressing, much less believing yourself.

[cygnusdei]

I happen to like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Am I stupid?

[thalbergmad]

For example, waterfalls don't flow in B-flat major, nor does the tonal system have anything to do with the sounds that an astroid might make in crashing into the earth, or atoms bouncing off each other. 

My World is completely tonal. Cars rushing along the freeway are tonal, a farm full of different livestock is tonal and the queue at McDonalds is tonal.

I hear nothing in nature or life in general that reminds me of Xenakis.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

I happen to like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Am I stupid?

Quite possibly, but not because you like those two "artists". It just means that you succumb to popular fads.

[ahinton]

My World is completely tonal. Cars rushing along the freeway are tonal, a farm full of different livestock is tonal and the queue at McDonalds is tonal.

Whilst it might seem somewhat less than obvious how you might expect members here to interpret those remarks, I think it reasonable to ask you to explain them if your intention was that they be taken litearlly; in what way does the noise generated by "cars rushing along the freeway", farm livestock or queues at McDonalds (and do such queues sound any different to queues elsewhere?) relate directly to music cast within an harmonic language principally dependent upon major/minor/augmented/diminished triads and a melodic one reliant largely on diatonicism? I do not understand...

I hear nothing in nature or life in general that reminds me of Xenakis.

Nor do I, but why should you or I or anyone else actually expect to be able to do so? I hear nothing in "nature or life in general" that reminds me specifically and directly of the sounds made by the performance of the works of Beethoven either; what extra-musical aural experience am I likely to have today that will directly remind me of Op.109? Sorabji once wrote about a particular figure in Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé that might well have been sparked off in the composer's mind by the sound of a running stream, but he (Sorabji, tht is) was at pains to point out at the same time that no actual stream ever did or could sound like that; apart from specific exceptional examples of deliberate musical onomatopœia, therefore, any perceived relationships between the sound of music of any kind (tonal or otherwise) and sounds made by "nature or life in general" are - and indeed have by definition to be - in the minds and ears of the begetters and the beholders alone. I know that Nielsen said that "music is the sound of life", but I don't think that he meant quite what you're talking about here!

OK, you might then argue that Sorabji's example from Ravel at least illustrates the possibility of such a relationship, even though it is of necessity confined to the imagination rather than definable in terms of immutable scientific actuality and that, whilst you might accordingly find yourself able to relate to certain music by Ravel, you are unable to do so to any music by Xenakis (who admired Ravel's work immensely, by the way and even wrote a short piano piece in his memory), but all that this would tell us is that you are able to connect with Ravel but not with Xenakis; there's nothing wrong with that!

I admit that, having listened at one time or another to a substantial proportion of Xenakis's works at least once each, I remain unable to get particularly close to him and his ways of thinking either, but that in no wise dampens my acceptance that he was one of the most original and individual musical minds of his century.

Best,

Alistair

[brogers70]

Well, I didn't hate it or find it offensive or anything, or think that it was simply random notes. It has changes of atmosphere and suspense that are interesting. Seeing it performed at least makes you appreciate the work that goes into playing it.

I wouldn't say that difference between tonal and atonal music is like the difference between English and French. It's more like the difference between Rubens and Rothko. There's nothing recognizable to focus on in this piece, but that doesn't mean that it's not enjoyable to pay attention to the sounds, anymore than it's not enjoyable to run your eyes over a Rothko just because it's not a picture of anything.

I wouldn't bail on a concert just because there was some Xenakis programmed, but I wouldn't go to a Xenakis marathon either.

[thalbergmad]

I hear nothing in "nature or life in general" that reminds me specifically and directly of the sounds made by the performance of the works of Beethoven either

Then I suggest you get in your car, drive the short journey to the car park at the foot of Pen Y Fan, and walk through the trees and along the river.

If you don't hear the Pastoral Symphony, than indeed we are from completely different Worlds.

Thal

[ahinton]

Then I suggest you get in your car, drive the short journey to the car park at the foot of Pen Y Fan, and walk through the trees and along the river.

If you don't hear the Pastoral Symphony, than indeed we are from completely different Worlds.

How well you know the area in which I currently find myself! Were I to take up your suggestion, however, there is no guarantee that I would "hear the Pastoral Symphony". Why might you expect me to hear it in that particular spot as distinct from any other rural one with a river running through it? Why the Pastoral Symphony in particular rather than any other work? Whose Pastoral Symphony? (Vaughan Williams's was, after all, composed much nearer to that location than Beethoven's). In any case, were I to "hear" anything other than the sounds of nature in that location at the time (i.e. some music), I would hear it only in my head, which would of necessity and by definition be a separate experience from the physical hearing of the sounds of nature there.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Were I to take up your suggestion, however, there is no guarantee that I would "hear the Pastoral Symphony".

If your heart is not tonal, you would not.

Thal

[ahinton]

If your heart is not tonal, you would not.

Sorry, but what if anything might that mean and, if it indeed means anything at all, what's it got to do with anything here? Je ne comprends pas.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Je ne comprends pas.

Evidently.

I'm signing off now to listen to me Devreese CD, in order to assist my journey into 20th Century.

I leave Xenakis for another couple of years.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

I'm signing off now to listen to me Devreese CD, in order to assist my journey into 20th Century.

Which one? I quite like his bright style of composition. Fun music.

[cygnusdei]

I didn't know that enjoying contemporary music = "succumbing to popular fads". I think Lady Gaga is cool and her art and appeal works in her favor in the context of music in the (gasp!) 21st century. That you "don't get" her and even feel the need to belittle her artistry ..... doesn't bother me at all.  Strange, isn't it? 

[retrouvailles]

I didn't know that enjoying contemporary music = "succumbing to popular fads". I think Lady Gaga is cool and her art and appeal works in her favor in the context of music in the (gasp!) 21st century. That you "don't get" her and even feel the need to belittle her artistry ..... doesn't bother me at all.  Strange, isn't it? 

She shouldn't even be mentioned in a thread about Xenakis. Xenakis, even though most people don't get his music, was a man that worked very hard as a composer to develop a complex style of composition that is both academic and communicative. I personally don't like Herma much (its an early work, anyways), but he has some works that are very likable for anyone, such as Keqrops. Lady Gaga just panders to common tastes and hasn't done anything even remotely groundbreaking. She's just another popular act that will fade with time. Xenakis may be a pariah in the popular eye of classical music, but his music has survived for more than 50 years and will live on through committed performers and his groundbreaking work.

Oh, and I completely get Lady Gaga, which is why I can see why she is terrible. Go ahead and like her if you want, though. I'm not stopping you.

[thalbergmad]

Which one? I quite like his bright style of composition. Fun music.

It was PC No.1 old chap.

It had no effect on me.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

It was PC No.1 old chap.

It had no effect on me.

Thal

That is the only one I have not heard. I quite like the second one, though.

[djealnla]

Not the best interpretation, and fairly sloppy in several places, but I was wondering, for those of you who have heard this piece before (if you've been here very long I'm sure you have, as it used to get discussed somewhat frequently) and did not like it, does seeing a performance of it in any way effect how you view the piece, or help you to appreciate it in any capacity?

If you did not know that fact and had no reason to assume such, would it effect your judgment?

I know your English is far superior to mine, but "effect" should be replaced with "affect". I thought you knew that.

More on topic, Herma is one of my least favorite works by Xenakis.

[cygnusdei]

The idea that music should be globally accessible is ludicrous.  If this were the case, then Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga would reign supreme over Beethoven and Ravel.  

I agree with both statements.

[ahinton]

I agree with both statements.

I'm not so sure in principle (except that I am, depending on the particular way that anyone might happen to feel dispoed to view this); the idea of music being "globally accessible" is not, I feel, "ludicrous" in and of itself, but at the same time the actuality of it being accessed globally and appreciated accordingly is a massive improbability - and this is where and how I find myself broadly in agreement with john11inch. Far more music is technically "accessible" now in many formats than was the case only a generation or so ago, but that fact does not and cannot of itself of necessity make its actual content any more "accessible" than it would otherwise have been - indeed, how could it possibly do so?

Best,

Alistair

[ramseytheii]

Personally disliking a piece of music is one thing; Thal and the lot of you are more than welcome to hate this, bitterly and to no end.  However, the differentiation between those who I see here and Thal is that he does not make some pseudointellectual attempt at vindicating what has been shown to be willful ignorance, as opposed to his personal preference.  Having a stupid reason to dislike it is just that: stupid.  Three stupid reasons:

I think that is a good point!  We don't need to justify our likes or dislikes.  I have a very wide range of tastes, and have always loved a whole hosts of musics that are not considered tonal, but I have never found X's music compelling in any fashion!  However the music exists and doesn't need to be justified...

Comparing this to "schizophrenic babbling" is painfully convenient, and only further solidifies my point.  Just because it sounds like schizophrenic babbling to you, as any new language would, does not mean it is devoid of meaning.  It simply means that you don't understand it, because you're still trying to hear it in the way you're more accustomed to.  Listening to this piece in the same way one listens to Chopin or Brahms, and expecting to relate to the music in a similar way, makes no statement about the music whatsoever, only your ridiculous expectations and how you were proven incorrect.  Major and minor fluctuation, chromatic vs. melodic, harmonic progressions, romantic gestures . . . these things are not how contemporary music is meant to be understood.  The language has expanded, and new dynamics are the basis of the language.  These dynamics are not necessarily more complex or subtle; in many cases, they can be far less subtle.  No longer is the word "counterpoint" appropriate, but instead you must use broader terms.  Timbre becomes one of the most important aspects of a work (particularly in the case of the Spectralists, who were heavily influenced by Xenakis); this was, in essence, one of the major ideals of the 2nd Viennese School.  Listing a swathe of examples is pointless, but if one cannot appreciate timbre for its own sake, then how one truly appreciates even the simplest music is beyond me.

I wish you would expand on what you consider the strong points of the music.  I am someone who can appreciate that it has nothing in common with the majority of things we listen to in classical music world... how can timbre be a defining feature in a piece written for solo piano? 

Finally, the fact that this music is based on mathematical procedures is irrelevant.  If you did not know that fact and had no reason to assume such, would it effect your judgment?  Isn't all music based on mathematical figures?

Definitely not!

 
The majority of Xenakis' works are actually much more simple than this and are based on four, core aspects of sound in and of itself.  In much a way, Xenakis' music is less complex than Chopin's or Schubert's.  As well, if a chance piece written by Cage happened to be identical to this, would the fact that it was not based on mathematics (it is based on Boolean algebra, something quite simple, just so we're clear) change its quality?  If you did understand the mathematics behind it, would you then like it?  There is simply no correlation.

Please expand on the four core aspects of sound!  What are they?

Walter Ramsey

[djealnla]

Please expand on the four core aspects of sound!  What are they?

Unless I managed to misunderstand John, I'm pretty sure you could find them in any book dealing with the basics of music.

[scottmcc]

yeah...the fundamental characteristics of music as i know it are:

dynamics (volume, amplitude)
pitch (frequency)
timbre (sound quality)
duration
rhythm
harmony

so clearly my definition is different than that of john, and presumably of others as well.

what say you john, what are these supposed core characteristics?

[djealnla]

yeah...the fundamental characteristics of music as i know it are:

dynamics (volume, amplitude)
pitch (frequency)
timbre (sound quality)
duration
rhythm
harmony

so clearly my definition is different than that of john, and presumably of others as well.

what say you john, what are these supposed core characteristics?

He said sound, not music, which leaves you with the first four things and without the last two.

[scottmcc]

but wouldn't the last two still be part, even for sounds?  for instance, if one superimposes the sound of a duck being strangled with that of a dying giraffe, it still creates a harmony of sorts.  and even mechanical sounds such as those of manufacturing equipment have a rhythm to them.

but really, the question is, is a sound worth hearing?  I don't listen to a modem screech, nor would I consider it musical, but it's every bit as math-based as listening to the mandelbrot set or any similar math-based composition.  and I posit that just because the math is elegant, it doesn't make the resultant sound worth hearing.  likewise, some of the most beautiful music probably can't be boiled down to a neat and tidy equation.  try to describe a circle using standard (not polar) coordinates.  gets a bit messy, no?

[john11inc]

I didn't say my definition of sound.  I said Xenakis'.  The vast majority of his works deal with mathematically and stochastically derived sequences of dynamics between the parameters of pitch, volume, duration and timbre, which he considered to be the four primary elements of sound.  I suggest anyone who lives near a library to ILL his book Formalized Music, which explains his philosophy in much greater detail than I'm interested in giving for this crowd, no offense.

[Derek]

from Formalized Music:

"This article served as a bridge to my introduction of mathematics in music. For if, thanks to complexity, the strict, deterministic causality which the neo-serialists postulated was lost, then it was necessary to replace it by a more general causality, by a probabilistic logic which would contain strict serial causality as a particular case. This is the function of stochastic science. "Stochastics" studies and formulates the law of large numbers, which has already been mentioned, and the laws of rare events, the different aleatory procedures, etc. As a result of the impasse in serial music, as well as other causes, I originated in 1954 a music constructed from the principle of indeterminism; two years later I named it "Stochastic Music." the laws of the calculus of probabilities entered composition through musical necessity."

I don't really understand this---it seems to me if serialism failed because of how deterministic it was, that we could have just gone back to creating music by trying out different sounds and keeping ones we enjoyed. I don't quite understand how using math as Xenakis did became a "necessity" unless he had some sort of problem or issue with choosing sounds that he liked based on their sound, rather than having sounds chosen by formulae which have little or no relation to whether the composer enjoys the sound or not. I haven't yet found something in this which states whether he's interested in finding sounds he likes...just endless rambling about mathematics that somehow ends up generating compositions. If anything, it sounds like a rather lazy way to write music! But, at least while you're reading and thinking about Xenakis' theories, you might feel really intelligent!

Whoa...I was right! Here's something from the preface:

"...the qualification "beautiful or "ugly" makes no sense for sound, nor the music that derives from it; the quantity of intelligence carried by the sounds must be the true criterion of the validity of a particular music."

I think I get it...using math means you're smart right? So if you put a lot if it in your music....you're smart? And therefore your music is valid? Or something...

Sorry john---looks like "this crowd" is just too stupid for you. I for one do not understand what Xenakis is writing. Guess you'll have to find a greater quantity of intelligence somewhere else!

[scottmcc]

derek, that's a lot of words to not say a lot!  but then again, this music uses a lot of notes to not say a lot musically.

if "this crowd" doesn't possess the required intellect to be able to listen to this blather, I ask then what is the cut-off point?  I think there are a number of very intelligent and learned members of this forum, and if they aren't smart enough to "get it," then who is?

I actually found a certain fascination with trying to decipher the paragraphs you presented, and didn't get very far.  but it made the associated music seem new and exciting, which was such a let-down when I realized that it bore no correlation to the piece at hand. 

I took physical chemistry in college.  hardest class I ever took.  got a C, lowest grade I ever received, and I worked harder for that stupid C than most of my grades.  most of that class was quantum physics and statistical mechanics, both of which are the underlying math that xenakis is referencing here.  yet for all the elegance of that math (once the equations are solved that is), I don't see how it sounds good at all, or even could sound good.  schroedinger's cat is dead, and when it died, it sounded terrible.

[thalbergmad]

schroedinger's cat is dead, and when it died, it sounded terrible.

Are not the Kittens still alive??

Amazing book.

Thal

[ahinton]

It is at least good that Derek has taken the trouble to seek out Formalised Music and quote from it here, but I rather think that, notwithstanding what may be the best intentions, he is at least partially missing the point.

As I have already observed both here and elsewhere, it is not mandatory for Xenakis's listeners to be able to share either his particular thoughts about musical creation or indeed his technical understanding of certain mathematical concepts and precepts in order to be able to derive something of value from the listening experience; one may as well suggest that a listener would require a detailed knowledge and understanding not only of certain aspects of early- to middle-period Soviet history in Russia but also the extent or otherwise to which Shostakovich made any kinds of direct responses to them in his music in order to appreciate his works - or that one would need to be an English Roman Catholic in order to be moved by Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.

Consider, for example, this dissertation on just one cycle of works by Brian Ferneyhough at https://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/583/ (introduction) and https://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/583/pdf/Dissertation_hochaufloesend.pdf (main text), which amounts to not far short of 500 pages of fairly heavy detailed and penetrating intellectual analysis; is it necessary - and, for that matter, would Ferneyhough himself consider it necessary - for all listeners to any or all of that cycle of pieces to have read and understood such a dissertation first in order to be able to appreciate the listening experience?

The real point here is that one might arguably have good reason to develop some suspicion of music that presupposes a commanding ability to to read a Ferneyhough score and/or grasp and identify wholly with Xenakis's observations on his own craft and creative aspirations were it not for the fact that no such music does in fact presuppose any such facilities.

Whilst John is, of course, entirely correct is pointing out the sheer folly and pointlessness of listening to Xenakis, Barrett, Ferneyhough et al with expectations of the kind that one might bring to the experience of listening to Chopin and Schubert, he does not (unless I misunderstand him) appear to go as far as to suggest that one should, let alone must, adopt wholly different parameters for these different kinds of listening experience; in other words, listening to music is listening to music, whoever its composer may be and, after all, we've all had to experience listening to Xenakis, Chopin, Barrett, Schubert and Ferneyhough for the first time at some point and, on such occasions, we've been able to bring to those experiences no presuppositions or expectations of any kind but only an innocent and inexperienced pair of ears.

Best,

Alistair

[lelle]

[ahinton]

And the specific and direct connection between this and the thread topic is...?

Best,

Alistair

[ongaku_oniko]

ROFL.... dude that guy is awesome.

tyvm lelle you made my day



on topic: so this is the famed Xenakis that derek was ranting about...

I personally find fluffy bunnies to be better sounding, lol... nothing against Xenakis though.

[ahinton]

ROFL.... dude that guy is awesome.

tyvm lelle you made my day



on topic: so this is the famed Xenakis that derek was ranting about...

No, in any of those three cases; it's not on topic, it's not Xenakis and Derek was not ranting.

Best,

Alistair

[ramseytheii]

The real point here is that one might arguably have good reason to develop some suspicion of music that presupposes a commanding ability to to read a Ferneyhough score and/or grasp and identify wholly with Xenakis's observations on his own craft and creative aspirations were it not for the fact that no such music does in fact presuppose any such facilities.

That's a wonderfully fair-minded insight.  The fact is, that charges of elitism and close-mindedness go both ways.  Those who complain of people who "make some pseudointellectual attempt at vindicating what has been shown to be willful ignorance" are often those who are the first to accuse others of not being able to understand...

Walter Ramsey

[john11inc]

I don't really understand this---

Correct.  You don't.  Hence why the massive paragraphs you wrote after it where you make conjecture (which is almost completely incorrect not at merely an argumentative level, but at a purely factual level, by the way), as opposed to asking questions, is a wonderful exhibit of what I referred to: willful ignorance.

it seems to me if serialism failed because of how deterministic it was,

Did Serialism fail, was the time in which this work was written suggest a past tense, whose opinion is it that Serialism failed (subsequently, this opinion is important because?), and most importantly, is it Xenakis' opinion, and is that opinion necessary to what he continues on to say in this brief preface that you have already admitted to not understanding?  In order: no, no, not Xenakis', no and no.  PS- it says the determinism of the non-Serialists.  Pro tip: read things more carefully when they're above your head.  You might miss . . . I don't know . . . entire prefixes, and subsequently form "arguments" based on the exact opposite of what you've (mis)read.

that we could have just gone back to creating music by trying out different sounds and keeping ones we enjoyed.

Could we have, should we have, did Xenakis comment on this in the first place, does this correlate to Xenakis' music, and does it correlate to the definition of sound that Xenakis used, the actual topic, at the moment?

I don't quite understand

Then you are talking why?

how using math as Xenakis did became a "necessity" unless he had some sort of problem or issue with choosing sounds that he liked based on their sound

Didn't you quote another tiny, uncontextualized snippet of the work which answers this (rhetorical and baiting) question?  You misunderstand his writing at a fundamental level.  I suggest you read more of the work before you try to speak about it.  It is not necessary to do this or that; to actualize music in the way that Xenakis intended to, such procedures are necessary, in order for otherwise-inconceivable events (gestalts, in his words, and conversely what Stockhausen might very much have closely referred to as points, if you're more familiar with Stockhausen's middle period theory [I doubt it . . .]) to be produced, and as a way to discover and organize such gestalts.

rather than having sounds chosen by formulae which have little or no relation to whether the composer enjoys the sound or not.

Your basic misunderstanding of both Xenakis' ideology and his compositional technique/output shines here.  Xenakis would run huge numbers of permutations through systems to achieve a "preferred" piece, scrapping much more than he published.  He did not just plug numbers onto graph paper and say "done."  The mathematical and scientific procedures were tools, not the final say.

I haven't yet found something in this which states whether he's interested in finding sounds he likes...

Try reading past the preface.  The book speaks plenty on the subject of his own selectivity.  But you wouldn't know, because you're not interested in anything other than exuding minimal effort to find something you can then misinterpret and subsequently use to defend your pre-established, juvenile theories.  I'm sorry, but unlike Alistair, my tolerance for your pollution of a thread consisting of what was otherwise a genuine question and which you have already answered is at its end.

just endless rambling about mathematics that somehow ends up generating compositions. If anything, it sounds like a rather lazy way to write music! But, at least while you're reading and thinking about Xenakis' theories, you might feel really intelligent!

Regardless of the fact that you certainly seem to be an expert on rambling (not that I really get the impression that you're aware of how incoherent and contradictory your statements are, but I suppose not everyone cares if what they say has any validity or worth; a sad state of affairs that you have a mouth [in this case, fingers]), I can guarantee you that the "rambling" from the architect and mathematician is probably not rambling, but simply that which you cannot understand.  Or does your understanding of mathematics supersede Xenakis'?  And is it that you read into the work deep enough to come across the more specific examples of his mathematical applications and managed to miss what is the vast majority of the book in that it answered all of your "questions" and proved you incorrect (i.e. reading the first paragraph, then quickly flipping through and finding the pretty typesets of scary-looking equations), that you only read the first snippets and thus actually don't know what you're talking about given that you did not actually read this "rambling," or that you are actually more skilled in mathematics than Xenakis and can justify the statement that he is often rambling when speaking of mathematics?  One of these must necessarily be the case; given that we all know it's not the third, we can subsequently derive that the value of your opinion is suspect at best.

Whoa...I was right!

That would have been a first, if only it were actually the case.

I think I get it...using math means you're smart right? So if you put a lot if it in your music....you're smart? And therefore your music is valid? Or something...

No.  Just . . . I mean, how do you think you're smart?  You're dumb.  You don't understand anything he writes.  Yet you think that you are smart.  You are reading one of the most respected and studied composers of the 20th century, and a mathematician on top of that, yet with such impunity and with a completely, utterly, miserably fallacious interpretation of all that you have attempted to analyze you come off as far more arrogant than I could possibly be in simply stating the fact that you are dumb, or at least dumb compared to those with whom you are attempting to argue.  It literally makes me just a little bit sick, ya know?  That people like you exist, and will continue to exist, and will continue to think that they are smart.

Xenakis is speaking of the qualifications that discern music from noise.  The more organized the noise that comprises the music is (i.e. the more 'intelligence' implemented in the construction of the music) the more distinctly it becomes music, as opposed to noise.  Mathematical procedures are one of many ways in which to organize noise, and in essence all composition is mathematics, from Bach to Chopin to Brahms to Rachmaninov.  It is, specifically, the most prime aspects of these forms of mathematical organization that Xenakis wishes to use as dynamics for his composition.  The complexity of these procedures is irrelevant, and in no way does he attempt to correlate complexity to quality.  He uses different procedures that will result in different sonic events.  Extremely simple procedures and extremely complex procedures produce music which is least distinct from noise, whereas moderately complex procedures result in music which is most distinct from noise when analyzed on the basic dynamics with which Xenakis used as terms in his equations.  The music is not more "intelligent," nor is Xenakis more "intelligent," nor are the listeners of his music more "intelligent."  "Intelligent" is simply a word referring to the amount of human manipulation.

Sorry john---looks like "this crowd" is just too stupid for you.

Do not insult those who may have a legitimate interest in learning by lumping them in with you to attempt to make yourself feel better.  If they have any sense, they will take quite a bit of offense.