You have to have feeling and intellect. Without intellect it is amateurish. It might be full of love and feeling, but it is amateurish.
Each masterpiece is a personality. You have a certain amount of freedom within the personality, but if you step outside, you change the piece. This you shouldn't do.
If there is anything that can define music, it is its ability to simultaneously hold contradictory elements which in the real world cannot exist together.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Does that mean taste without feeling is mere intellect?
That is:
Intellect=Taste - feeling
and feeling is taste without intellect (I think that one almost works).
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
"If there is anything that can define music, it is its ability to simultaneously hold contradictory elements which in the real world cannot exist together."
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Harry
I think taste without either is probably bad taste. Very smart people, for instance, can have very bad taste. Same with people who are very emotional in the sense of feeling things deeply. Taste is the arbiter between the two.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Here's another good one:
"If I belong to any tradition, then it is the tradition which makes the masterpiece tell the performer what he should do. And not the performer telling the piece what it should be like. Or the performer telling the composer what he ought to have have composed.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
…which is an individual choice in taste by the performer, to follow the tradition closely. Ugh. Rough word choice there, just following your quote, Llig.
For, is taste not subjective? Certainly tradition reaches a consensus, but it is created and shared by the subjective tastes of individuals choosing to maintain a standard in taste, at least when discussing this music. What keeps it together are the individual choices in taste that members of the community make. They choose to follow what has come before, what the existing players are doing in their area, who have also individually chosen to do the same, and then they provide that same guidance, and so the circle continues. It’s done ultimately by individual choice in taste.
Intellect may not be, and feeling. You can tell when people are dumb and when people are doing things by rote, without emotion or feeling, that may not be subjective, but taste is.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
No, SWFL, taste in not subjective. Not really, taste is knowing exactly what to do, what to leave in, what to bring to the music/fiddle tune and even more importantly....what to leave out. Knowing exactly what is perfect (among many perfect and also imperfect choices) is the mark of true genius.
Take that 'simple' jig that Llig posted a while back of Molloy's.
Nothing needs to be added. Nothing needs to be taken away. That's the genius of Molloy's taste concretely displayed in his playing....ie, how he approached the music.
Maybe taste is also part instinct.
But I think taste can be learned. Irish music is a perfect example of it.
Who here hasn't understood their own errors in judgement in taste as displayed in their own playing and hopefully learned from that? That's how we get better!
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
In other words, [and I loved that bit in the video] it is indeed "the tradition which makes the masterpiece tell the performer what to do"....but he still has choice among (among the many possibilites that the tradition whispers in hs ear).
But surely here's the rub....you have to understand that tradition at a deep level, otherwise I'm sure you don't hear a great deal of what it's telling you. And I'm sure that takes much time *and* careful listening (intellectually and emotionally) to what's its saying --and to one's own playing too.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Ah mtodd, I would posit that seeing taste as an absolute is a subjective decision in itself!
Not to get all goofy about it, but here's what sticky wiki has to say:
‘Taste in the general sense is the same as preference.
Taste is also a sociological concept in that it is not just personal but subject to social pressures, and a particular taste can be judged "good" or "bad". This theory was first put forward towards the end of the twentieth century and ties in with the theory of aesthetic relativism. Before that, the notion of taste in aesthetics was associated with manners and good habits that are of innate nature, and also referred to one's appreciation for beauty.
[…]
The main critic of this idea is French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, whose main argument is based on the claim that individual tastes and preferences are socially produced. According to Bourdieu, individual tastes are shaped by certain aspects of social practices and position within society. People aspire towards "higher" cultural forms and produce their identities accordingly – they want to be associated with those who are considered to be more developed intellectually and artistically and therefore tend to consume corresponding cultural products. In this sense the notion of taste is closely linked to consumption and consumerism: the viewer or reader consumes various artistic products and then interprets them by the means of criticism that rests upon the idea of taste.
Defining good taste is difficult or impossible for most, and definitions can vary widely…’
Even here we grapple with this daily. New agey or not? Ensembles with keyboards and new agey proto-Celtic sounds or a just few melody instruments going it with no accompaniment? Flogging Molly or Danu? Etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad absurdum.
Wither polkas and slides? One may say they are in bad taste while others may love them dearly. Ultimately, there are standard sounds that have come into being via the Tradition, and individuals make those choices to follow these, and it becomes good ‘taste’, thought certainly if one brought a bouzouki to a Boston dance hall in the 40s or 50s you’d be in bad ‘taste’ though at a session post-70s no one would bat an eyelash. Wither these changes? Memes even, if you will; tastes changing over time, through an unofficial accepted consensus of individuals freely choosing to accept some things over others because of very nebulous sense of tasteful tradition.
I'm sure some folks would say I have lousy taste because I love and mimic the Sliabh Luachra style, and play a wide variety of tunes. "What's wrong with you? Why do you not play 95% reels and jigs? You have BAD taste!"
However, locally here the matriarch and patriarch of the 'clan' so to speak have that style, and find it in good 'taste' and naturally we all come along that road without much conscious thought.
…and then you have those that say damn the tastes of the consensus and go off on their own, and yet find people enjoying what they are doing and finding it in good ‘taste’ even if we don’t.
…and we up back at square one with the daily grapple of what is in good ‘taste’ for the tradition? I still maintain it’s based on what has come before and an unofficial consensus of people freely choosing to follow that tradition and what others in the tradition are doing at the time.
While intelligence can be measured and displayed, feeling can be easily seen, heard and felt; ‘taste’ is a bizarre and nebulous concept without a firm measuring stick. One cannot choose to be intelligent or choose to have a spontaneous deep feeling for the music; one can choose to follow what is considered ‘traditional’ and in good ‘taste’ or not, but it’s not an absolute like intelligence or a spontaneous emotional feeling.
Cripes man! What fun. Now I have work to do. Check in with you later.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
>"If there is anything that can define music, it is its ability to >simultaneously hold contradictory elements which in the real >world cannot exist together."
Contadictory things exist together everywhere in the real world, it is what drives change.
At zero degrees there is a tendency for ice to melt, yet a tendency for water to freeze.
Right now I'm using burning energy to type, adjust my glasses (which just slipped down my nose) yet simultaneously extracting energy from my lunch.
If you throw a stone up in the air it has a simultaneous force upwards from the throw plus a simultaneous force downwards from gravity. Initially the upwards force predomiantes, eventually gravity wins out and the direction of travel changes.
I'm attracted to the writings of Robert Aickman because of his superlative prose and imaginative powers. Yet I'm repelled by the reactionary antidemocratic outlook that underpins certain of his tales.
I find it harder to think of anything in real life that doesn't contain contradictory elements. I'm afraid the quote (above) is to my mind just a grand sounding phrase with very little meaning.
You may hold a contrary opinion however and indeed express it in the same thread as I'm posting to right now. Thus providing another example of the real world's ability simultaneously hold contradictory elements.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
SWFL/Pierre B. :
I'd say then that Tradition itself is a social construction -- made up of individual tastes and preferences. It is of the group, but, once created, is beyond any one individual of the group. Once created iTradition takes care of defining what it wants and needs to reproduce itself. A tradition is almost unconsious. But it's easy to recognize when one is outside a tradition -- it doesn't sound or look right.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Brendel is a witty and interesting chap. I saw him once at the Festival Hall in London playing a Beethoven concerto. He played a terrifically-long and intricate cadenza in the first movement - the showman was really out there on display. I don't care quite so much for his recordings somehow. I'm glad he quit whilst on top. Kempff was wheeled out to perform way past his sell-by date and it all went a bit sad.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Wow, that's like the Actor-Network-Theory definition of tradition.
As I really don't like ANT much, I'll suggest that a tradition is a social institution maintained through very active social and cognitive processes. Rules, or a "tradition," alone do not determine community actions and belief. Instead, the tradition is established through social conventions and through processes of socialization. How does this work? Well, the learners form associations through ostensive processes -- on the basis of examples given to them by a teacher (someone regarded as an expert or in a position of authority) you learn to make judgments of similarity and dissimilarity between the elements of the learning set. Obviously the learning set is finite - you can't be shown an infinite number of examples. This is where the community comes in: the community consensus determines which concept applications are right or wrong and even "right" and "wrong" are social institution-based rules. "It is negotiation within, and the consensus of, the relevant linguistic community that determines which similarities between exemplars and newly encountered entities are salient and constitute correct applications of the expression." (Kusch, "Rule-Scepticism and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: The Bloor-Lynch Debate Revisited ," Social Studies of Science, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Aug., 2004), pp. 571-591
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Love it! 'iTradition'
Ultimately, tradition itself is simply an imaginary concept. It's simply individuals choosing to do things in a certain way. Tradition can't be touched, or heard, but people playing music can and are. So people can choose to do things in a way that is held to be tasteful by those also on the community, and doing it in the same way that the others are doing it.
In this way, with our actions, we make something that is simply a word a reality. We choose to select to do things in a tasteful way.
After we internalize this, then you get your instinctual reactions to what doesn't sound right. In the case of children, that sort of internalization happens at an early age, being surrounded by the music, so it may seem instinctual, but it's a subconsciously learned process, and there is an actual choice made (or not!) to maintain this.
…or I could just be talking out of my posterior. [shrug]
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
“If you throw a stone up in the air it has a simultaneous force upwards from the throw plus a simultaneous force downwards from gravity. Initially the upwards force predominates, eventually gravity wins out and the direction of travel changes.”
Oh, boy! A trivial nit I can pounce upon, since I have nothing germane to add to the conversation: Once the stone has left the hand, there is no longer any upward force acting on it. It travels upward because of its inertia, which is a property of matter, not a force. Sorry for the interruption.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Coming in late with the quibble here, but what Brendel said (right at the start of part v) was
"even if the feeling is the origin and the goal there is the intellect as the controlling and filtering factor and it is the intellect which makes the work of art possible. Without the intellect [pause] what one does is amateurish. It may be full and love and passion but its amateurish"
So mtodd's succinct summary should be
"feeling+intellect = art "
not
"feeling+intellect=taste?"
Re: "Too difficult for artists, too easy for children"
chris, Brendel didn't say that in general, contradictory elements cannot exist together in the real world. He said that music consists of specific contradictory elements that cannot exist in the real world.
I think that the discussion about what constitutes taste to be largely misleading and irrelevant. I agree with SWFL: "While intelligence can be measured and displayed, feeling can be easily seen, heard and felt; ‘taste’ is a bizarre and nebulous concept without a firm measuring stick." To play music well, you need to go beyond mere taste. You have to look further into yourself and the music than mere predilections, no matter how they were formed.
But what of:
"Too difficult for artists, too easy for children"?
I love that as a description of diddley music. It's so easy a child can play it. It's too easy. And yet an artist finds it fiendishly difficult because they struggle to find anything of substance to work with.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Indeed Llig, back on the posted thread topic...
I was watching Geantrai last night, the March 3rd episode. Seamus Creagh and Jackie Daly were playing. They played Oh The Britches Full of Stitches at one point, perhaps a classic case of 'too difficult for artists, too easy for children'.
Well, they made art out of it, that's for sure, but then, they're who they are. [shrug]
Later in the program, a gang of auld fiddlers tore into some slides, ending up with Denis Murphy's, another tune 'too easy for children' perhaps, but they also made art with it.
Or, perhaps I'm simply being subjective in viewing what they did as art. Subjective taste, perhaps?
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
HA! Ineffin'. Ineffin' enough? Never!
Also, it was Paddy Cronin. He was leading the gang of old fiddling fellers. It was a pack of them, it was great to see. Must have been four or five them playing those slides, no accompaniment. Great episode.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
llig,
For me one perfect example of perhaps a slightly different take on your thesis is my listening to John Carty playing a tune that I play. You don't have to guess whose the child in that comparison!
I play the notes fine maybe, even vary a bit, but his variations and lift are organic. Also he has pushed through all the difficulties until they sound "easy." Each time through he mines new gold, yet seems always ready to do more digging. I am sure he would say it is difficult (except he seems quite modest to me) and never finished.
Of course any other master of the music you play will do.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
he talks about how the art of the [so-called primitive...see his new guinea ancestor figure in his apartment] and that of the insane and children thta have "determined the course of the art of this century"....making it much more direct...making it modern in other words or post modern maybe.
but then he says "making it a more direct expression of the unconscious"
i think his riddle/paradox could be in part explained by that, ie, children are by and large unconscious [at least mine were when young]...they express directly what they are feeling...as we see in their drawing from pre-school years...., but when we're adults we filter that....Soooo.....that's the challenge then for the musician....how to be "direct and unconscious" with the music while unfortunately trapped in the body and mind of the adult "artist".
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
No, he quite clearly states that while you have to be direct and unconscious, you must never loose the interlectual side of it. To create great art, both are required. It is your interlect that can both hold you back and make it work
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
And.....As he says, it's schizophrenic. You are two people....listening for what you want to do, and for what you have just done with the music. You are in some senses almost crazy, but you are sane. Witness the Messerschmidt sculptures that Brendel extols...noting he did his best work after he lost his mind, but his attention to proportion in the heads is amazing....compared to the boring cameos he did for the Court at the time. Where intellect had won, while when he's slightly nuts, he's much more interesting. but still in control.
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
What Brendel said has a meaning without over-interpreting it.
In the "even if the feeling is the origin and the goal there is the intellect as the controlling and filtering factor..." part the "work of art" could be understood as "an excellent job", not "amateurish". The message would be "feeling and thought required for excellence". The many things in parallel part (what you want to do, what you have just done) is, for his music, a massively upgraded equivalent of what has been talked about here for playing diddley tunes (the tune in your head etc).
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
The great pianist Horowitz was attending the finals of a prestigious international piano competition, listening to a young lion of the keyboard performing incredible technical feats in a Rachmaninov piano concerto. Horowitz turned to his companion and said quietly, "Very impressive ... but can he play Scarlatti?"
"Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
"Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
It's Alfred Brendel talking about Mozart piano sonatas. But it strikes me as very pertinent to diddley music.
He has lots of great things to say about music in this documentary I've just watched.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2WRzmSf_PA&feature=related
Some examples:
You have to have feeling and intellect. Without intellect it is amateurish. It might be full of love and feeling, but it is amateurish.
Each masterpiece is a personality. You have a certain amount of freedom within the personality, but if you step outside, you change the piece. This you shouldn't do.
If there is anything that can define music, it is its ability to simultaneously hold contradictory elements which in the real world cannot exist together.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
feeling+intellect=taste
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Does that mean taste without feeling is mere intellect?
That is:
Intellect=Taste - feeling
and feeling is taste without intellect (I think that one almost works).
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by greg n'sheils
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
"If there is anything that can define music, it is its ability to simultaneously hold contradictory elements which in the real world cannot exist together."
Like llig and bodhrans?
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by RockyRoader
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Harry
I think taste without either is probably bad taste. Very smart people, for instance, can have very bad taste. Same with people who are very emotional in the sense of feeling things deeply. Taste is the arbiter between the two.
Now....how that translates to the tunes...
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Here's another good one:
"If I belong to any tradition, then it is the tradition which makes the masterpiece tell the performer what he should do. And not the performer telling the piece what it should be like. Or the performer telling the composer what he ought to have have composed.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
…which is an individual choice in taste by the performer, to follow the tradition closely. Ugh. Rough word choice there, just following your quote, Llig.
For, is taste not subjective? Certainly tradition reaches a consensus, but it is created and shared by the subjective tastes of individuals choosing to maintain a standard in taste, at least when discussing this music. What keeps it together are the individual choices in taste that members of the community make. They choose to follow what has come before, what the existing players are doing in their area, who have also individually chosen to do the same, and then they provide that same guidance, and so the circle continues. It’s done ultimately by individual choice in taste.
Intellect may not be, and feeling. You can tell when people are dumb and when people are doing things by rote, without emotion or feeling, that may not be subjective, but taste is.
Ah, semantic tossery. What fun!
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Ha @ 'tossery'. I had typed 'w*a*n*k*e*r*y'.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
No, SWFL, taste in not subjective. Not really, taste is knowing exactly what to do, what to leave in, what to bring to the music/fiddle tune and even more importantly....what to leave out. Knowing exactly what is perfect (among many perfect and also imperfect choices) is the mark of true genius.
Take that 'simple' jig that Llig posted a while back of Molloy's.
Nothing needs to be added. Nothing needs to be taken away. That's the genius of Molloy's taste concretely displayed in his playing....ie, how he approached the music.
Maybe taste is also part instinct.
But I think taste can be learned. Irish music is a perfect example of it.
Who here hasn't understood their own errors in judgement in taste as displayed in their own playing and hopefully learned from that? That's how we get better!
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
In other words, [and I loved that bit in the video] it is indeed "the tradition which makes the masterpiece tell the performer what to do"....but he still has choice among (among the many possibilites that the tradition whispers in hs ear).
But surely here's the rub....you have to understand that tradition at a deep level, otherwise I'm sure you don't hear a great deal of what it's telling you. And I'm sure that takes much time *and* careful listening (intellectually and emotionally) to what's its saying --and to one's own playing too.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Ah mtodd, I would posit that seeing taste as an absolute is a subjective decision in itself!
Not to get all goofy about it, but here's what sticky wiki has to say:
‘Taste in the general sense is the same as preference.
Taste is also a sociological concept in that it is not just personal but subject to social pressures, and a particular taste can be judged "good" or "bad". This theory was first put forward towards the end of the twentieth century and ties in with the theory of aesthetic relativism. Before that, the notion of taste in aesthetics was associated with manners and good habits that are of innate nature, and also referred to one's appreciation for beauty.
[…]
The main critic of this idea is French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, whose main argument is based on the claim that individual tastes and preferences are socially produced. According to Bourdieu, individual tastes are shaped by certain aspects of social practices and position within society. People aspire towards "higher" cultural forms and produce their identities accordingly – they want to be associated with those who are considered to be more developed intellectually and artistically and therefore tend to consume corresponding cultural products. In this sense the notion of taste is closely linked to consumption and consumerism: the viewer or reader consumes various artistic products and then interprets them by the means of criticism that rests upon the idea of taste.
Defining good taste is difficult or impossible for most, and definitions can vary widely…’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_(sociology)
Even here we grapple with this daily. New agey or not? Ensembles with keyboards and new agey proto-Celtic sounds or a just few melody instruments going it with no accompaniment? Flogging Molly or Danu? Etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad absurdum.
Wither polkas and slides? One may say they are in bad taste while others may love them dearly. Ultimately, there are standard sounds that have come into being via the Tradition, and individuals make those choices to follow these, and it becomes good ‘taste’, thought certainly if one brought a bouzouki to a Boston dance hall in the 40s or 50s you’d be in bad ‘taste’ though at a session post-70s no one would bat an eyelash. Wither these changes? Memes even, if you will; tastes changing over time, through an unofficial accepted consensus of individuals freely choosing to accept some things over others because of very nebulous sense of tasteful tradition.
I'm sure some folks would say I have lousy taste because I love and mimic the Sliabh Luachra style, and play a wide variety of tunes. "What's wrong with you? Why do you not play 95% reels and jigs? You have BAD taste!"
However, locally here the matriarch and patriarch of the 'clan' so to speak have that style, and find it in good 'taste' and naturally we all come along that road without much conscious thought.
…and then you have those that say damn the tastes of the consensus and go off on their own, and yet find people enjoying what they are doing and finding it in good ‘taste’ even if we don’t.
…and we up back at square one with the daily grapple of what is in good ‘taste’ for the tradition? I still maintain it’s based on what has come before and an unofficial consensus of people freely choosing to follow that tradition and what others in the tradition are doing at the time.
While intelligence can be measured and displayed, feeling can be easily seen, heard and felt; ‘taste’ is a bizarre and nebulous concept without a firm measuring stick. One cannot choose to be intelligent or choose to have a spontaneous deep feeling for the music; one can choose to follow what is considered ‘traditional’ and in good ‘taste’ or not, but it’s not an absolute like intelligence or a spontaneous emotional feeling.
Cripes man! What fun. Now I have work to do. Check in with you later.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
>"If there is anything that can define music, it is its ability to >simultaneously hold contradictory elements which in the real >world cannot exist together."
Contadictory things exist together everywhere in the real world, it is what drives change.
At zero degrees there is a tendency for ice to melt, yet a tendency for water to freeze.
Right now I'm using burning energy to type, adjust my glasses (which just slipped down my nose) yet simultaneously extracting energy from my lunch.
If you throw a stone up in the air it has a simultaneous force upwards from the throw plus a simultaneous force downwards from gravity. Initially the upwards force predomiantes, eventually gravity wins out and the direction of travel changes.
I'm attracted to the writings of Robert Aickman because of his superlative prose and imaginative powers. Yet I'm repelled by the reactionary antidemocratic outlook that underpins certain of his tales.
I find it harder to think of anything in real life that doesn't contain contradictory elements. I'm afraid the quote (above) is to my mind just a grand sounding phrase with very little meaning.
You may hold a contrary opinion however and indeed express it in the same thread as I'm posting to right now. Thus providing another example of the real world's ability simultaneously hold contradictory elements.
- chris
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
SWFL/Pierre B. :
I'd say then that Tradition itself is a social construction -- made up of individual tastes and preferences. It is of the group, but, once created, is beyond any one individual of the group. Once created iTradition takes care of defining what it wants and needs to reproduce itself. A tradition is almost unconsious. But it's easy to recognize when one is outside a tradition -- it doesn't sound or look right.
Which brings us back to taste.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Brendel is a witty and interesting chap. I saw him once at the Festival Hall in London playing a Beethoven concerto. He played a terrifically-long and intricate cadenza in the first movement - the showman was really out there on display. I don't care quite so much for his recordings somehow. I'm glad he quit whilst on top. Kempff was wheeled out to perform way past his sell-by date and it all went a bit sad.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by Steve Shaw
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Wow, that's like the Actor-Network-Theory definition of tradition.
As I really don't like ANT much, I'll suggest that a tradition is a social institution maintained through very active social and cognitive processes. Rules, or a "tradition," alone do not determine community actions and belief. Instead, the tradition is established through social conventions and through processes of socialization. How does this work? Well, the learners form associations through ostensive processes -- on the basis of examples given to them by a teacher (someone regarded as an expert or in a position of authority) you learn to make judgments of similarity and dissimilarity between the elements of the learning set. Obviously the learning set is finite - you can't be shown an infinite number of examples. This is where the community comes in: the community consensus determines which concept applications are right or wrong and even "right" and "wrong" are social institution-based rules. "It is negotiation within, and the consensus of, the relevant linguistic community that determines which similarities between exemplars and newly encountered entities are salient and constitute correct applications of the expression." (Kusch, "Rule-Scepticism and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: The Bloor-Lynch Debate Revisited ," Social Studies of Science, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Aug., 2004), pp. 571-591
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Love it! 'iTradition'
Ultimately, tradition itself is simply an imaginary concept. It's simply individuals choosing to do things in a certain way. Tradition can't be touched, or heard, but people playing music can and are. So people can choose to do things in a way that is held to be tasteful by those also on the community, and doing it in the same way that the others are doing it.
In this way, with our actions, we make something that is simply a word a reality. We choose to select to do things in a tasteful way.
After we internalize this, then you get your instinctual reactions to what doesn't sound right. In the case of children, that sort of internalization happens at an early age, being surrounded by the music, so it may seem instinctual, but it's a subconsciously learned process, and there is an actual choice made (or not!) to maintain this.
…or I could just be talking out of my posterior. [shrug]
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
“If you throw a stone up in the air it has a simultaneous force upwards from the throw plus a simultaneous force downwards from gravity. Initially the upwards force predominates, eventually gravity wins out and the direction of travel changes.”
Oh, boy! A trivial nit I can pounce upon, since I have nothing germane to add to the conversation: Once the stone has left the hand, there is no longer any upward force acting on it. It travels upward because of its inertia, which is a property of matter, not a force. Sorry for the interruption.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Coming in late with the quibble here, but what Brendel said (right at the start of part v) was
"even if the feeling is the origin and the goal there is the intellect as the controlling and filtering factor and it is the intellect which makes the work of art possible. Without the intellect [pause] what one does is amateurish. It may be full and love and passion but its amateurish"
So mtodd's succinct summary should be
"feeling+intellect = art "
not
"feeling+intellect=taste?"
is that a different academic discussion ?
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by david_h
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Interesting conversation, though. I love effing about the effing ineffable. I just have nothing to eff at the moment.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
typo: "full of love and passion"
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by david_h
Re: "Too difficult for artists, too easy for children"
chris, Brendel didn't say that in general, contradictory elements cannot exist together in the real world. He said that music consists of specific contradictory elements that cannot exist in the real world.
I think that the discussion about what constitutes taste to be largely misleading and irrelevant. I agree with SWFL: "While intelligence can be measured and displayed, feeling can be easily seen, heard and felt; ‘taste’ is a bizarre and nebulous concept without a firm measuring stick." To play music well, you need to go beyond mere taste. You have to look further into yourself and the music than mere predilections, no matter how they were formed.
But what of:
"Too difficult for artists, too easy for children"?
I love that as a description of diddley music. It's so easy a child can play it. It's too easy. And yet an artist finds it fiendishly difficult because they struggle to find anything of substance to work with.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
In the context of what Brendel said it completely misleading and irrelevant.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by david_h
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
its. sheesh
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by david_h
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
ok, I quoted what looked like a quote in Rockyroaders message above, which may well have been out of context.
- chris
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Indeed Llig, back on the posted thread topic...
I was watching Geantrai last night, the March 3rd episode. Seamus Creagh and Jackie Daly were playing. They played Oh The Britches Full of Stitches at one point, perhaps a classic case of 'too difficult for artists, too easy for children'.
Well, they made art out of it, that's for sure, but then, they're who they are. [shrug]
Later in the program, a gang of auld fiddlers tore into some slides, ending up with Denis Murphy's, another tune 'too easy for children' perhaps, but they also made art with it.
Or, perhaps I'm simply being subjective in viewing what they did as art. Subjective taste, perhaps?
Regardless, it was sublime. IMO.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Not subjective at all. Seamus Creagh and Jackie Daly are indeed greqat artists. And diddley music at it's best is great art.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
I liked this saying that he apparently is fond of using,which is:
"humour is the sublime in reverse"
...that might explain the child-like riddle "too difficult for artists, too easy for children"
it's a joke.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
ha, could be
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
he loves paradox say his friends....and that's a lovely one.
you know, it's a lot like the kinds of things you just know Shakespeare loved to dream up
but his friend also says that Brendel loves paradox [riddles qualify i think] because they also contain these deep truths....
it's a great joke about the sublime itself...about music.
about the whole ineffable process.
I think anyway.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
HA! Ineffin'. Ineffin' enough? Never!
Also, it was Paddy Cronin. He was leading the gang of old fiddling fellers. It was a pack of them, it was great to see. Must have been four or five them playing those slides, no accompaniment. Great episode.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
llig,
For me one perfect example of perhaps a slightly different take on your thesis is my listening to John Carty playing a tune that I play. You don't have to guess whose the child in that comparison!
I play the notes fine maybe, even vary a bit, but his variations and lift are organic. Also he has pushed through all the difficulties until they sound "easy." Each time through he mines new gold, yet seems always ready to do more digging. I am sure he would say it is difficult (except he seems quite modest to me) and never finished.
Of course any other master of the music you play will do.
Dan
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by curamach
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
he talks about how the art of the [so-called primitive...see his new guinea ancestor figure in his apartment] and that of the insane and children thta have "determined the course of the art of this century"....making it much more direct...making it modern in other words or post modern maybe.
but then he says "making it a more direct expression of the unconscious"
i think his riddle/paradox could be in part explained by that, ie, children are by and large unconscious [at least mine were when young]...they express directly what they are feeling...as we see in their drawing from pre-school years...., but when we're adults we filter that....Soooo.....that's the challenge then for the musician....how to be "direct and unconscious" with the music while unfortunately trapped in the body and mind of the adult "artist".
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
No, he quite clearly states that while you have to be direct and unconscious, you must never loose the interlectual side of it. To create great art, both are required. It is your interlect that can both hold you back and make it work
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Right. I agree. Both.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
And.....As he says, it's schizophrenic. You are two people....listening for what you want to do, and for what you have just done with the music. You are in some senses almost crazy, but you are sane. Witness the Messerschmidt sculptures that Brendel extols...noting he did his best work after he lost his mind, but his attention to proportion in the heads is amazing....compared to the boring cameos he did for the Court at the time. Where intellect had won, while when he's slightly nuts, he's much more interesting. but still in control.
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
What Brendel said has a meaning without over-interpreting it.
In the "even if the feeling is the origin and the goal there is the intellect as the controlling and filtering factor..." part the "work of art" could be understood as "an excellent job", not "amateurish". The message would be "feeling and thought required for excellence". The many things in parallel part (what you want to do, what you have just done) is, for his music, a massively upgraded equivalent of what has been talked about here for playing diddley tunes (the tune in your head etc).
Why look for riddles when he is not making them ?
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by david_h
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
authentic tidings of invisible things
--william james
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by mtodd
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
Was it Picasso who said something similar about how difficult it is to paint as a child does?
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
The great pianist Horowitz was attending the finals of a prestigious international piano competition, listening to a young lion of the keyboard performing incredible technical feats in a Rachmaninov piano concerto. Horowitz turned to his companion and said quietly, "Very impressive ... but can he play Scarlatti?"
# Posted on March 12th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: "Too dificult for artists, too easy for children"
llig,
good catch - lots of relevant information about music and very applicable to 'the music'
thanks for posting that!
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by madfluter