3 ms·

In that case, thank you for indulging me. I am not so serious about music though I do enjoy and appreciate it. Sounds like we agree about the ability of langu

In that case, thank you for indulging me. I am not so serious about music though I do enjoy and appreciate it. Sounds like we agree about the ability of language to distract from music and it sounds like you are far more interested in the tonal layer of music that I am. It sounds you get more joy from its raw material. I agree that language isn't required for communication. I also accept that music can be enjoyed without language and also in a language you don't understand. Where I think we might diverge is the depth of communicative capacity for both tones and language. I like the idea that there could be communicative depths in music that my attention defaults cause me to miss and are available to me with intention. I would accept that in some dimensions music can more deeply communicate than language, as I believe the converse. However, the "volume/area of" meaning that I was assign as more-or-less exclusively or best communicated with tones is smaller than that I would assign more-or-less exclusively to language (and more precisely to the invocation of the concepts referenced by language). Of course, my leaning is to believe that they can communicate even more effectively together in complement. I'm not sure where the "music as an ideal form of communication" comment came from. Perhaps this was you indulging in something dear to you or proactively defending/limiting to protect or increase understanding? Regardless, I agree that conceptual transmission can occur in many ways of varying bandwidth. There was a bit in my comment that you write adjacently to here about which I felt a little embarrassed. It was trying to summarize the communications and claim definite subjects. I was a bit embarrassed because I agree that many artists revel in the unfettered nature of their art. Claiming a particular topic can be seen as an attempt to limit and simplify which would be at least a little sad. There are definitely alternative concepts and summaries that I could have written and feel were covered just as plausibly. That flexibility is, I believe, often intentional and many songs invite the listener to explorations of the many possible dimensions and one can get lost into meta-narratives and their own dimensional possibilities. To briefly revisit the communication bandwidth topic, text has been found one of the least effective transmission forms. To any extent I seemed to be gatekeeping, I apologize and did not intend to (though talking about my internal confusion could be interpreted in such a way). To any extent you were concerned about gatekeeping, I didn't notice it. On the other hand, I could interpret that as a set up for the beautiful thesis you end with and with which I agree. I can think of other reasons than raising the collective consciousness, the mass transmission of messages meant to draw in a particular as yet unidentified individual for more proximal relationship (ignoring the intentional creation of parasocial feelings), to gather and/or organize communities for social experimentation or practice, or just collect capital. Still, the raising of consciousness, the sharing of perspectives, mutually supported growth, and so on is part of what I love in art most. Thank you for the discussion, it has enriched my weekend.

alisonatwork 2y ago
I don't have much more to add, but just to clarify where "music as an ideal form of communication" came from - it was in response to you saying "music is ... a form of compressed communication [and my favorite songs communicate] some pinnacle thought or understanding". Personally I do not think that that music is an efficient way to communicate specific ideas, exactly because it is so open to interpretation. I did not mean to imply that you specifically were gatekeeping, I was making more of a general comment on how people sometimes try to use "the artist's true intent" as some kind of post-hoc reasoning around how a piece of music should be appreciated. This comes across as silly to me because if listeners need a meta channel to understand what the artist was trying to say, then that just reinforces the point that music is not a very efficient means of communication and any serious communication should have occurred on the meta channel in the first place. That leads to my notion that music (and art more broadly) is just the contribution of new expressions into the sea of culture we all exist in as human beings, and there is no particular right or wrong way to experience that.
- erikerikson 2y ago
  Thank you for these clarifications. I appreciate your adjacent point RE gatekeeping. While I can understand passing through that limited mindset as part of a person's journey, we agree. Regarding my pinnacle statement, that's a reasonable interpretation and point. Yet, regarding: > it is so open to interpretation I expect some, if not most, artists are aware. Further, I expect that some of those who are aware revel in, embrace, and plan for that environment. Bjork and Mutual Core, for example... Can be interpreted as a discussion of global politics, geology, romance, and more; none more "correct" than any other. Yet the arrangement of the multi-interpretable dimensions (each of which can itself be interesting) forms a loose pattern across them (or, arguably, many patterns in their own diversity) that in a sense can apply to each of the possible perspectives and is meta-perspective building. An intellectually constructed environment in which to consider advanced, complex considerations about existence. But perhaps that's only the ways I "misuse" artist's work (I believe, as you seem to that artists give up that power, largely willingly). As art, it mostly isn't trying to tell you what to conclude but only painting a scene, an arrangement, if you so choose for consideration and potential mental expansion. The way in which I which I enjoyed PHM, for example, was an auto-reversing tape player that I pretty much filled every spare, at-least-semi-appropriate moment with as a teen so long as the batteries held out. I probably carry a partially unreasoned bias towards it because of that. While I reject the post-modernist, post-truth hypothesis/stance, so to do I reject any claims of perfect access to any objective fact even while some claims demonstrate better evidence and support while I would consider some things such as terminal values to be exist within a relative to constructed "relationships between" and "purposes for" environment. Even those can be expressed in a contingent to the constructs manner. An adjacent medium is comics and among my favorite examples is Promethea by Alan Moore who draws this hypothesis forth that one can consider ideas to exist more (and be "more real") than our concrete physical presences. There too, like Mutual Core and so many other works, there is an assemblage of ideas, given deeper meaning through narrative, and through the structure. I believe one of the purposes of some artists artist's creations are screams into the void, calling out for solutions finding in cooperation even where we reject solution as meaning singular configurations due to the variance of contexts and persons to which the solutions may be applied. The solutions there can rest upon assumptions made. Another is to just see what comes back in response. Regardless or any artist's purpose, intents, or frameworks while well structured philosophy might at times be more efficient and only less error prone, I would expect we agree that music is a fair bit more broadly appealing.

alisonatwork 2y ago

I don't have much more to add, but just to clarify where "music as an ideal form of communication" came from - it was in response to you saying "music is ... a form of compressed communication [and my favorite songs communicate] some pinnacle thought or understanding". Personally I do not think that that music is an efficient way to communicate specific ideas, exactly because it is so open to interpretation. I did not mean to imply that you specifically were gatekeeping, I was making more of a general comment on how people sometimes try to use "the artist's true intent" as some kind of post-hoc reasoning around how a piece of music should be appreciated. This comes across as silly to me because if listeners need a meta channel to understand what the artist was trying to say, then that just reinforces the point that music is not a very efficient means of communication and any serious communication should have occurred on the meta channel in the first place. That leads to my notion that music (and art more broadly) is just the contribution of new expressions into the sea of culture we all exist in as human beings, and there is no particular right or wrong way to experience that.

erikerikson 2y ago
Thank you for these clarifications. I appreciate your adjacent point RE gatekeeping. While I can understand passing through that limited mindset as part of a person's journey, we agree. Regarding my pinnacle statement, that's a reasonable interpretation and point. Yet, regarding: > it is so open to interpretation I expect some, if not most, artists are aware. Further, I expect that some of those who are aware revel in, embrace, and plan for that environment. Bjork and Mutual Core, for example... Can be interpreted as a discussion of global politics, geology, romance, and more; none more "correct" than any other. Yet the arrangement of the multi-interpretable dimensions (each of which can itself be interesting) forms a loose pattern across them (or, arguably, many patterns in their own diversity) that in a sense can apply to each of the possible perspectives and is meta-perspective building. An intellectually constructed environment in which to consider advanced, complex considerations about existence. But perhaps that's only the ways I "misuse" artist's work (I believe, as you seem to that artists give up that power, largely willingly). As art, it mostly isn't trying to tell you what to conclude but only painting a scene, an arrangement, if you so choose for consideration and potential mental expansion. The way in which I which I enjoyed PHM, for example, was an auto-reversing tape player that I pretty much filled every spare, at-least-semi-appropriate moment with as a teen so long as the batteries held out. I probably carry a partially unreasoned bias towards it because of that. While I reject the post-modernist, post-truth hypothesis/stance, so to do I reject any claims of perfect access to any objective fact even while some claims demonstrate better evidence and support while I would consider some things such as terminal values to be exist within a relative to constructed "relationships between" and "purposes for" environment. Even those can be expressed in a contingent to the constructs manner. An adjacent medium is comics and among my favorite examples is Promethea by Alan Moore who draws this hypothesis forth that one can consider ideas to exist more (and be "more real") than our concrete physical presences. There too, like Mutual Core and so many other works, there is an assemblage of ideas, given deeper meaning through narrative, and through the structure. I believe one of the purposes of some artists artist's creations are screams into the void, calling out for solutions finding in cooperation even where we reject solution as meaning singular configurations due to the variance of contexts and persons to which the solutions may be applied. The solutions there can rest upon assumptions made. Another is to just see what comes back in response. Regardless or any artist's purpose, intents, or frameworks while well structured philosophy might at times be more efficient and only less error prone, I would expect we agree that music is a fair bit more broadly appealing.