The first musical instrument is our gesturing body...
Our body gesture on the members scale and on the throat/mouth scale ...
The two gesture are synchronized then as frogman said the rythm is fundamental...
The rythm is not merely something flowing in physical time but something creating his own time dimension...
The fist musical instrument is not physical object but body parts synchronising in something which is not speech as we know it now nor singing as we know it now in a separate way but the two as one...
Two feet and legs can synchronise with a bone sticking etc
Speech and music were conjoined twin never naturally separated but artificially separated by specialization...
it is why poetry register made us conscious about the deep root of language in music ...
Prose register is only the peak of language iceberg...
Methodologically Saussure advocated for the arbitrary of signs maxim , but he guessed that sounds in language are also motivated by meaning in his study about onomatopea...
Language is way less known than our science think it is...
The greatest linguist since Panini is not even translated in English by the way : Gustave Guillaume which opuses goes near 30 volumes and more to come in edition right now ... ( i studied it 35 years ago )
In the same way acoustics is a deep science which revolution is ongoing right now...
but all this is out of topic here ...
|
You are right for sure!
Yudina like Sofronitsky is pure spiritual power...
You cannot enjoy an erupting volcano...
You can only learn how to deal with his eruption...
Spiritual interpretation in my experience are too intense to be merely enjoyable...
You cannot listen to his Mozart like listening the magical Murray Perahia or any other magician on repeat just for pleasure...
Yudina lives on another world...you must listen to her in some sacred moment...Then you will understand why a giant like Shostakovitch considered her the greatest pianist he knew not because there is not many great pianists in Russia or in the world but because very few artist touch the spiritual plane or what he called the goal of art...
Sultanov gave a truly good Scriabin... I did not even knew him yesterday...A pity he died so young...
I would have bought his Integral piano work of Scriabin ...I did not like much any modern well recorded Scriabin ...I have many... All the one i like are not well recorded except Boris Zukhov a great pianist just under Sofronitsky the truly one god in Scriabin...
@mahgister
That Yudina performance of Lacrimosa is very intense!!! Perhaps I’m shallow but I don’t find listening to that particularly enjoyable. But then I’m admittedly not an experienced Classical music listener. I’m just reacting to how it feels energetically.
On the other hand, I enjoyed the Sultanov performance and listened to more of them on youtube.
|
|
|
|
|
i guessed all comparison right as the pianist...save the round 4 i fail as the pianist...
A.I. is not so good...
But it will be...
Then we will loose our soul and hope under monster oligarchs ...
Soon...
|
|
I am ashamed to say i only know his name...
I dont listen much to any jazz singer... (Save Chet Baker and Louis Armstrong )
I love Mary Nakamoto ...
I bet you dont even know his name ... ;)
I will go for her... thanks ...
@mahgister
Great! We agree. I’m listening to Cassandra Wilson. If you’re not familiar with her, you might give her a try. Perhaps the greatest living jazz singer.
|
The "soul" state and existence is not the matter of this thread about music then i will not go further on this...
I will only add this :
Before any instrument perhaps with the exclusion of percussive objects, the voice gesture amplifying or resonating with the gesturing body is the simultaneous beginnings of speech as we understand it and of music.
The depth of the spiritual expressive content of music is, as in the articles above together demonstrated, in the relation between the vibrating sound sources timbre (instrument+musician voice and body gestures) and the non measurable+measurable time dimensions of the expressive gestures act connected to the social group and Nature...
No instituted religion is needed in the beginings why ?
Because the Nature soul as the soul of the group and of each individual is one mimesis phenomenon, where hunting, praying, dancing, speaking-singing, eating or dreaming are one activity...Meanings is not mere information but a cosmic event cascading in the Group which perceive the synchronicities as meaningful events...
We can see it nowadays degraded in crowd hysteria and lynching festival...
We are "civilized" : we begin to loose our individualities in the mass control experiment call A.I. technology and other "progress" sponsored by mad uneducated oligarchs... But it is like the "soul" alleged non existence for programmed mind another matter for another forum...
|
|
Soul existence is a demonstrated fact in CIA laboratory and in medical hospitals..
Believing in soul or not is beside the fact...
Remote viewing is proven fact as is perception out of the body, OBE and NDE etc
Then the word "soul" means at least in a minimal way perception at distance of physical or non physical meaning...In a maximal way of meaning it means that you are not your body at all. You are only kept alive or dead in his set of filters, alive if you think by yourself, dead if you are a robot with no critical thinking...
Believing in matter only is being dead...
As John Vervaeke demonstrated there is a reason why there is so many "zombies" movies now... ( the most boring movies ever in my opinion)
|
"spiritual depth" is an experience of one of the consciousness potential layers of experiences not consciousness itself.
|
The five articles i used spoke for me about "spiritual depth" experience of "sound" and in a few words :
Spiritual depth experience in music is perceived musical time through the microdynamics gesture of "timbre" which transcend measured time and this is is where is the "spiritual depth " of music : Between timbre of the vibratings sound sources (musician+instrument) and their time dimensions, measurable and non measurable,
|
I agree that everybody has their own musical taste. And I think it’s all good because music of all types "soothes the soul."
This is a common place true fact nobody can contest...
All poetry and all music soothe the soul...
But how this fact is supposed to contradict my point about the "spiritual depth" of some musical pieces in all cultures and styles ?
The fact that i used Scriabin, an important composer, does not means i imposed my taste; i explained why i use him to describe the abyss between tonal music , atonal music and a genius who discover a third region where to live..
When we discuss we must be of good faith and dont use someone post to return it against him as "his taste" dictatorship instead of understanding what is the point of his argument...
If we dont understand something we must have the humility to say it and not killing the messenger ...
The fact that this "spiritual depth" in some music pieces is linked to "timbre" perception by our body and his relation to musical time as not measurable, is my main point to judge musicianship...
Is this means that i impose Scriabin or Ali Akbar Khan taste ?
No.... If you are of good faith ...
|
That being said, and I've probably pissed you off, in the latest Absolute Sound, there is a long writeup on Brazilian music and great recordings of Brazilian music. I know we share that love.
Thanks for the link... I will go to see it ...
I am moved by Villa- Lobos... And some Fado influenced voice of Brazil...
|
Thanks for the poem i appreciate it...
Composite Things
Suddenly you find yourself
for some unknown reason
staring at the ground
& there is only dirt.
You fall to your hands &
knees & start digging
fascinated by the bits of
rock & detritus
yesterday’s litter
mixed with things from
the earliest beginnings.
Then you pick
up a rock to brush
it off, some common composite
thing, but the whirling
striations have caught your
eye so you fall into an
enchantment wondering how
all these bits of sparkle
swirling with white &
brown ever got
compressed into a package
so small
& how that has come into
your flesh-pink hand
at this very moment
with the sky just as it
is overhead, tilted
slightly away.
Everything freezes together
& stops for that moment,
the universe itself
a composite stone
& you sparkling
deep in its center.
I like poetry for so long as i can remember, to be specific with Baudelaire when i was thirteen. I will gave mine i just wrote yesterday in french translated by A.I. :
As dead as alive
drink the ocean salt
that thirst endures
Winter’s hand
burns in my still
clenched fist until summer
Stirring of the waters:
a whale emerging
from my moist eyes
My animal father
and my plant mother
speak with golden voices
Joy is a cry
heard only by the silence
of tender hearts
Come the season:
Poetry without quarantine
of our dazzled hearts
The pine needle
in my open mouth dreams
that it is a green loaf
The hole in the wheel
is that single cog
playing without being there
Sharp philosopher:
the blued rhododendron
speaks without being bitter
The tiny infinite grows
still, sleeps with closed fists,
In the open hand
I am a banker,
says the tiny turtle
I already have change
Whether worth or whatever
they must do
Comes the unexpected
The heartbreaker
of the worthless heart is this boredom
never to be cured
|
This is a definition of Time in music by Google A.I. which i can use to fix the idea :
«In music, time primarily refers to concepts like tempo, time signature, and meter, which define the speed and structure of musical pieces. Tempo indicates the speed of the music (e.g., 60 BPM means 60 beats per minute), while time signature specifies how many beats are in each measure and what type of note represents a single beat. Meter is the underlying pattern of stressed and unstressed beats. More detailed breakdown:
- Tempo is the speed of the music, often measured in beats per minute (BPM).
- A higher BPM indicates a faster tempo, and a lower BPM indicates a slower tempo.
- For example, 60 BPM means one beat per second, while 120 BPM means two beats per second.
- The time signature is a musical notation that indicates the meter of a piece.
- Meter is the pattern of stressed and unstressed beats in a piece of music.
- The beat is the basic unit of time in music, a regular rhythmic pulse.
5. Other Related Concepts:
- Measure/Bar: A segment of time corresponding to one cycle of the time signature.
- It typically appears at the beginning of a musical score as two numbers stacked on top of each other, like a fraction. The top number indicates how many beats are in each measure (or bar). The bottom number indicates what type of note gets one beat.
-
- For example, in 4/4 time, there are four beats per measure, and a quarter note gets one beat. It is closely related to the time signature, which defines the basic rhythmic framework.
-
-
- Simple meters (like 4/4 or 3/4) have a regular pattern of strong and weak beats. Compound meters (like 6/8 or 12/8) have a more complex rhythmic structure. The pulse is the underlying, steady beat that the music follows. In most music, the beat corresponds to the note value indicated by the time signature’s bottom number, though it can also be a grouping of those note values.
- Rhythm: The overall pattern of sounds and silences in music.
- Rubato: A flexible approach to tempo where the performer can speed up or slow down the music.
-
- Phrase: A musical sentence or idea that is usually defined by its length
Now this definition of time in music as measurable in some way as described by A.I. we must add the concept of "musical time" as non measurable, non linear, resulting from the gesture of the musician (rubato does not catch it all ) gesture which try to catch trough the "timbre"effect mastery of the instrument something which is an information about the instrument physical state qualities and something a time-like information about the musician body state itself vibrating with the instrument and something else, an information about the written music interpretation and meaning.
That is musical time which transcend measured time and this is is where is the "spiritual depth " of music...Between timbre of the vibratings sound sources (musician+instrument) , their time dimensions, measurable and non measurable,
I dont throw ad hominem arguments by the way...I like to think with others of good faith...
And yes my posts are sometimes long...
You can add this to "snobism" ...
|
@mahgister
I don’t have time to read all the books you throw out. I’m writing and researching a novel. But inherent in what you say, it seems to me, that you believe that your experience of music is at a "higher" level than others.
I dont "trow out books" these are akll articles of science or acoustics linked to music...
I presume if you write a book you are not in the crowd and dont despise someone who think...
must i apologize to suffest content articles and reflections ?
You make innuendos about my behaviour and posts suggesting that my "taste rule" over everyone... This is "ad hominem" attacks...
I expressed in this thread and communicate links of music in all genres and styles from West or East or Africa, save commercial pop chart...
Instead of trying to understand my point you dismiss it by these ad himinem attacks..
I am a "snob" who impose his taste...
Are you serious ?
|
For sure we can as the ignorant crowd of consumers speak only about music "fun" visceral or not ...
But i am not member of this crowd...
The most powerful music must be visceral in his effect for sure but it is not enough to create "a felt change in consciousness" the effect like Marian Anderson create singing anything,or in the didgeridoo experience, or with some talking Nigerian Yoruba drum experience or with a sarod master or with some Hildegard of Bingen etc we must add "consciousness change" tools and means to our visceral perceiving metabolism . Music experience is precisely the indifferentied/differentiated action of meaning as sound and sound as meaning through our body and mind as an internal pluralities appearing as ONE gesture.
Then spiritual musical experience can be created by "love supreme" playing which is not religious music at all ...
«Why do you like eating cadavers marinated in underwater for so long ? I cannot explain said the crocodile, it is "visceral" » Anonymus zoologist
|
"spiritual depth" is not a religious experience linked to a piece of religious music for me...
This is a common place Lapalissade association by superficial look...
"spiritual depth" in music is linked to the " felt change of consciousness" Owen Barfield defined and associated with the way words/sounds/rythms are used in poetry...In the same way musicians can use music language of their culture and timbre mastery to create real "spiritual experiences" not just "fun" or a designed orthodox religious celebration.
"visceral" on the other way refer back to the property of music to speak trough the "timbre experience" which is a universal experience lived trough our body sensation nevermind the differences of culture...
you read it here :
Bodily maps of musical sensations across cultures
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2308859121
Timbral effects on consonance disentangle psychoacoustic mechanisms and suggest perceptual origins for musical scales:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45812-z
The reason why this is such is explained by this acoustician in his book here an article :
The Mechanical Invariance Factor in Musical Acoustics and Perception (Revisited)
https://sciencepublishinggroup.com/article/10.11648/10026300
This article can help to understand all the others above :
«Building on the current results, the researchers are now investigating how human hearing is more finely tuned toward natural sounds, and also studying the temporal factor in hearing.»
I insisted on "musical time" so much in this thread the reason is explained here in the lastarticle under these lines and why musical time cannot be measured by linear clock...Furtwangler knew it in a way Toscanini did not...(Gergiev Russian maestro)
https://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html
|
|
By the way in the last 2 days i enjoyed 12 hours of Vivaldi "I musici" Vivaldi albums... There is no spiritual depth in his concerti at all, only pure joy...
I bet i am a normal dude even if my most precious music exihbit "spiritual depth"...
I pity those who do not even recognize "spiritual depths"...
I love Vivaldi as much as Scriabin "spiritual depth" by the way and will never claim that Vivaldi is inferior to Scriabin genius...
I hope i had been clear...
By the way it need a good audio system to enjoy the high frequencies range of violins for 12 hours almost non stop ... I had one... Violin sound like honey butter between hot and cold...
|
Who claimed to speak for others?
I explained why "spiritual depth" in music , be it Blind Gary Davis and Bach matter more than "sound pleasures" or superficial emotions or masculine or female qualities associated with music..
But some others prefered sound pleasure and feminine music..
|
When you love a woman for example, you love her for spiritual reasons, not only for his body, for his intellectual state, for his economical attitude, for his appartenance to the same tribe or because she is the mother of your unborn child etc..
The first most important reason may be his body but the last most important reason cannot be his body but "spiritual reasons"...
It is the same for music...
We all love a woman and music for many reasons the most important one being spiritual reasons, knowing it or not...
What is love without spiritual reasons and music experience with no spiritual discoveries and motives ?
It is fun. Mere fun. It is pleasure and boredom. It cannot be meaning. When we discovered meaning in an activity or in a phenomena,or being, there is no more boredom or just pleasure... There is sustenance and continuous support of our being like eating sacred bread after communion or the bread offer by the father to his son, by the wife or mother each day with the soup. Bach is sacred experience, not fun merely but joy...Even Bob Dylan must be like that if i enjoy him time to time yet after 60 years...Pleasure did not compare to joy anyway even in music...
I was never bored to listen "the art of the fugue" 1000 times at least in my life...
Then it is spiritual sustenance of a new kind who attracted me to Bach, Scriabin or Bruckner, not just fun, even if the sensual dimension was there ...
Even Jazz attracted me first for unknown spiritual reason : i begin with Chet Baker long ago my jazz awakening, surprised to hear so strong emotions coming from a jazz musician..It awake my sense for a new musical language i never spoke nor heard before...Spiritual reasons not fun or boredom was the reason i was attracted to Baker then to the pianist Bill Evans as his unknown brother the rest is my history through jazz...( it begun with Armstrong but at 13 i was attracted to his singing not to jazz per se)
Those who never have spiritual experience listening music had never hear what music is...
@mahgister
I was not talking about a wider spectrum of music itself. I was talking about a wider spectrum of reasons to listen to music. A wider spectrum of responses. I was talking about listening to music for beauty. Or listening to music for joy. Or listening to music for intellectual stimulation. You seem to focus on listening to music for "spiritual discoveries." I think I do also, but that is not the only reason. I also listen for the reasons I’ve mentioned above.
|
@mahgister
I think that many people, including myself, are looking for a wider spectrum of pleasure and "understanding" out of music than you are.
i listen jazz extensively as Persian/iranian masters or Indian masters ...
Not just classical...
How many composers of the period before Bach do you know as pure genius ? I will say more names than most known composers after Bach such composers before Bach were unknown in the modern era and are known since few decades only...
I dont search for pleasures only but for spiritual discoveries...
"Wider spectrum" ?
Do you know the didjeridoo masters?
The tabla tarang masters ?
The tanbur masters?
Etc...
Try to understand what i wrote without presuming that i did not know classical music or "wider spectrum"...
I knew since decades that Haydn was a genius in his masses and chamber music...
Try Tacet "tubes only" Hadyn quatuors recordings with Auryn quartet superior perhaps to Mozart one...
I prefer Mozart quintet with Grumiaux magic..
|
I am slow to understand music new language too...
I was not born with the habit to prefer talking Nigerian drum...
music speaks to our feelings but to our mind too ...
I like Scriabin not because his music is emotions...
I can have emotions in many others composers or musicians...(for example the great Gesualdo)
I love him because he master the way we can make an idea sensible with sound body...
I love him because his goal was to make mankind more creative... You do not this with only music packed emotions but you do it initiating mankind with a new language... This is why he is beside Tonal Bach and Atonal Schoenberg in my book as a god on the same footing...
I dont "taste" music, all things are not equal and relative for me... I had my "best" geniuses the others will bore me...times to times i discover a new one...but i go back without end half the time to what i had discovered progressively in my life...
For example i discovered Akhnaten of Glass, and each month it is difficult not to listen to it one more time...it is why i listened the 8th book of madrigals 500 times since the moment i discovered it at 23...
This hierarchy between composers reflect my personal history, it is not universal truth for all, but one thing is sure, this musical hierarchy reflect the depth of my personal search...
|
I think the difference between our tastes is that I like to become acquainted with new music, and as you’ve said, you like music which struck you and moved you in your youth. If I may, I will call the the strum und drang period of life. The first composer I played a lot was Wagner--his orchestration, not arias. He is very strum und drang. Probably moreso since that is a German expression.
I discovered and learned to hear music all my life...
I was not at all in "sturm and drang"...
You miss my point about the Western written tonal music...
I did not want to makes history gravitate around tonality...
History of music is more complex than that...
I wanted to present Scriabin as the main interesting composer between two extremes : tonality and pure atonality, three regions...
By the way i am fanatic about Indian and Persian music and Jazz...
I listened much music before Bach not mainly Mozart Beethoven and the romantics...
I think Robert Simpson is a genius as Philip Glass...
Then your "strum and drang" qualification defined a nostalgia from my youth is completely wrong... Young i listen to few poets (Ferré Dylan Joan Baez) but mostly choral music before Bach where there is no "sturm and Drang"... My discoveries of different music era and languages came later...
By the way Scriabin is not a "sturm and drang" Romantic at all save in his beginnings ... His ideal is spiritual he was a theosophist whose goal was elevate mankind soul by creativity and the sense amplification... Nothing to do with Wagner or the first Schoenberg excessive use of the emotions by saturation... Scriabin is more sophisticated than the first Schoenberg and Wagner...Even more sophisticated than the first Liszt... Nearer the late Liszt of the Christus but with a more volcanic language...
I learned to appreciate very different musical languages and form..But i am not a person who look for novelty each listening session at all ... I goes back to all i had discovered all my life, the most important...This dont means i hear by nostalgia... I hear to improve the depth experience of what i love... I need novelty not as a distraction for boredom, i need novelty of genius work...The new which i cannot consider total genius bore me,....
|
I want to add something about Scriabin...
Scriabin is not as most could think a composer among others composers...
Scriabin was not a simple composer when i discovered him without understanding why i loved him so much listening to a pianist able to play him, which is the rarest thing...
(To play Scriabin you must understand the motivating idea behind the music from which the music emerge as a new dimension of time , it is different from the linear tonal time where it is the motives which emerge from the written music)
Scriabin educated me about music in way i did not consciously integrated at first...
I will explain it very briefly here :
(i spoke too much sometimes)
If we divide all the history of Western written music in periods, viewed from a chosen perspective among many others possible, there is three periods with three names possible i will draw your attention to:
------The peak of tonal music as his highest expressive form is reached and mastered by Bach... (Few people can contest that it is a fact)
The next written revolution was Atonal dodecaphonic music, which co0mpletely quitted tonality then the usual emotive expressive character inherited by history. Here it is Schoenberg the genius...
----But who created and explored and opened the immense country between the tonal region and the atonal region, who walked between these two without falling backward or forward in neither of them. The only one who mastered it totally is Scriabin a genius on par with Bach and Schoenberg.
The truth is simple, it will take a new century to understand the real genius of Scriabin in the future and the road he opened...He influenced a few composers like Feinberg (whose sonatas are strikingly beautiful) but none takes his legacy to the next level.
Instead of making convenient motives emerging from the music why not making the music emerging from new motives themselves? it is why nobody can whistle Scriabin music but anybody must think and perceive a new world dimension listening Scriabin.
|
One of the greatest musician i ever heard (recorded privately because he had never done any concert he play privately with few disciples only to pray ) who i discovered after hearing that the great violonist Yehudi menuhin who hear him say that this is the greatest musical experience of his life :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCmJrSGX3W4&list=RDDCmJrSGX3W4&start_radio=1
He was a sufi mystic.... His music is only prayer ...
This modified tanbur with 5 strings is a tiny instrument ...
|
One of the greatest modern composer after Scriabin i love very much (after Weil and Glass and Sorabji and Feinberg) is a pupil of Bruckner : Robert Simpson.
I read his book on Bruckner...
He is an astonishingly interesting composer . 11 symphonie and 15 quartet...
Try him ...
|
|
|
|
For sure you had the right to your opinion as i have and we are different and as frogman says there is no best only "our own best" informed by our own journey...
In your post you spoke a lot about the personal life of these two artists and their relation to women...
For me i did not pay attention to these aspects as very important but only part of a larger journey...( i try to not judge people life with narrow glasses of my prefered color)
I must say i did not understand history or poetry as a war between patriarchy versus matriarchy... I see it on other ground...Try Iain McGilchrist if Jean Gebser is outdated, McGilchrist live right now...He rooted his work in the hemispherical modes of attention...
Or try another genius who also treated consciousness history in relation with language but he is dead and probably outdated if i takes into account your use of dating for philosophical work : Julian Jaynes "the genesis of consciousness in the breakdown of the bi-cameral mind"... Jaynes too use a theory of hemispheric polarities but different than McGilchrist... I will not enter into deetails here ...
Anyway i apologize if i defended Dylan who nevermind his life, was a poet of the highest kind in the popular scene as "murder no foul" demonstrated as his last genius work...
To make amend i will give you to listen a feminine singer not well known i love a lot : Masha Vahdat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJYMLzbHdWM&list=RDEJYMLzbHdWM&start_radio=1
And another one popular in Russia a veritable poet who sing poetry, no need to understand Russian" to be moved :
Elena Frolova:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFEeNcvgPVo&list=RDiFEeNcvgPVo&start_radio=1
Abida Parveen who move even mountain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR7WrlUM3FE&list=RDfR7WrlUM3FE&start_radio=1
As you can see in popular music i am very attuned to the feminine power...I owned most of their music, which is a lot of albums by Frolova in particular...
I must add Tripti Mukherjee among many other feminine vocalists i love dearly:
Here she sing with one of the greatest Indian singer :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j4brANIdE8&list=RD4j4brANIdE8&start_radio=1
@mahgister
Before I say anything, you must afford me the right to my opinion. I am a person with perhaps more complicated opinions than others. Bob Dylan is about six years older than I am, but we’re basically of the same generation even though I am considered a Baby Boomer and he of the Silent Generation. He wasn’t at all silent, I think we can all agree on that.
When I am afforded extra, kind of "inside" information about celebrities, I often make judgements. I live in L.A. and I often receive this kind of information. From what I have heard, Dylan is a sad person. Although he has been with quite a few women (as have I) and fathered children (not I), he seems to be pretty much alone. He has never developed familial ties.
The roots of Dylan’s early relations with women are well defined in the recent film about him, "A Complete Unknown." The film pretty much ends with one of the women he was with (Joan Baez?) flipping him off. The film portrays him as a person who is more interested in himself than anyone else. I think his later years have shown him to be a kind of recluse.
How has all of this affected his music? His music about social matters are strong and don’t seem to be affected. His music about personal matters, however, do seem to be affected by this. Just listen to how he writes about women. Kind of Madonna/whore syndrome. Does this make him less of a good poet. Yes. I say yes.
Leonard Cohen also had complicated relationships with women, but his songs are so nuanced on the matter. Leonard Cohen writes about relationships in so much more of a loving way than Dylan. He sees himself as an actor, whereas Dylan pretty much sees himself as a victim. I’m sorry. I’m a poet and I listen to lyrics.
In regards to his stance on social matters, I think Dylan was important. But so were other singers who influenced him. Woody Guthrie and Pete Seager. Probably Hank Williams. So to summarize, as a social commenter, Dylan was important and strong, although there was a lineage behind him. As a writer of personal matters, Dylan was pretty weak, especially compared to songwriters around him like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, who were able to see themselves in their writing.
Bob Dylan’s poetics was often pretty lazy. He’d throw in an extra word not used in conversaton to complete an iamb. (Unstressed, stressed.) It was not really noticed. People didn’t care about it because his social songs were so new and strong. Although he has a witchy woman in "Tom Thumb Blues," he also has strong and beautiful imagery. In "Maggie’s Farm" he is the victim of a woman. On one of my favorite albums (I have almost all of his work on vinyl) "Nashville Skyline," women are idealized. But the music is lovely and there is always Johnny Cash.
I understand that probably a lot of writers and poets who have been awarded the Nobel have lived lonely, screwed-up lives, but I don’t know about them, and I do know something about Bob Dylan.
On the other hand, Leonard Cohen lived a somewhat magical life. He spent years in a Buddhist monestary trying to figure himself out as he got older. People loved him and he loved others, even those he had to leave.
Joni Mitchell was probably more self-aware in her songs than anyone. I listen to the lyrics. In the future I will post songs that I think are well wrought, with strong lyrics. I admit that "Tom Thumb Blues" is one of those songs. The lyrics stand up and are complex. But so many of Bob Dylan’s songs don’t stand up so well. And in very few, if any, is he self-aware.
So, I am not a friend or confidant of Bob Dylan and I may be totally wrong in my judgement. Some people might say I’m wrong to judge at all. Yet, I do. And that’s me.
|
I cannot understand any poet failing to love Dylan or Cohen...
I like them and dislike most popular music...
And English is not my language...
In French the only singer i listened to is Léo Ferré... A poet too ...
I like old french songs and old english songs though... But it is considered classical music...
|
|
I discovered "musical time" listening Bruckner symphonies non stop for 6 months...
Then i discovered Scriabin...
Scriabin music and theories exhibit a synesthetic perspective.This is why it is easier "to see" the late music of Scriabin than to whistle it. Musical time in it unfold in and from a non linear spiral of tones not from beats and rythms external to the spiral, they are internally born from it when the pianist plays and render them in linear time . Very few pianist are really able to understand and render it...
To understand what i speak about listen this 2 minutes video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_qCFuWlAMo
or this longer 5 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBrHPLzrAc4
In Russia a pianist is great if he can play Scriabin , as in Poland he is great playing Chopin or not well , as in Hungary playing Liszt...
Here interpretation is everything and there is no so much matter let to our taste...
listen to this "bad recording piano" of a genius :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93dWui2fi2g&list=PL5DE3A83BD9995664
One of the only rival to Sofronistsky, the immense and unknown in the West Neuhaus father here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEK1PctlQgk&list=RDPEK1PctlQgk&start_radio=1
now the tremendous Igor Zukhov :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhhVsQIRrCc&list=RDDhhVsQIRrCc&start_radio=1
Now the son of Neuhaus Heinrich, Stanislas Neuhaus one of the pillar of the Russian school of piano :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fUG9pyqcKQ&list=RD2fUG9pyqcKQ&start_radio=1
We all know Michelangeli or Pollini but who know Viktor Merzhanov :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjHioPPaK2E&list=RDmjHioPPaK2E&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxhGoTo0tV0
Now you must read an article about the "saint" pianist Maria Yudina and his fearless relation with Stalin...
She was considered one of the greatest pianist in Russia too poor to have a piano most of the times :
https://angelusnews.com/voices/the-legend-of-stalins-holy-fool/
lIsten his Scriabin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KIO9U8icBE
We know merely the Russian pianists who went to the West, as Richter, Horowitz,Gilels,Rachmaninoff, etc not those who stay there...
How many know Jakob Flier ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms_qO8czTa4&list=RDMs_qO8czTa4&start_radio=1
|
I dont know much about music as musicians know about it...
I will be frank, i dont listen too much many new music pieces why ?
Because i was enthralled by some classical music over every other because of some interpretation...
I hate opera but i am in love with some operas because of the interpretation...
I discovered simply that in classical music i love to be moved, some interpretation did, most did not...
It is why i spoke about "the greatest interpretation" for me , i must add for me...
there is greater interpretation so great that all the rest of music may appear way under it...
It is how i fell in love with Marian Anderson or Scriabin...
miracles exist. Not all is about taste. Some interpretations are so sublime that they are a revelation (for me) ...
And i hope they will appear such for all or at least a few...
Gesualdo is boring sang by most, sublime sang by inspired singers..A volcano...
This is why i love Gesualso, because i discovered some musicians able to sing the impossible...
That is for me the greatest interpretation..
I was awaken by some interpretation that stayed for me the greatest,... Sometimes it reflect my personal idiosyncracy but sometimes it is also a universally recognized fact as for Furtwangler in the Schumann fourth...Or about Sofronitsky recognized as a sublime pianist over all in Scriabin even recognized as such by Richter and many others great pianists...
|
My godly pianist (badly recorded as usual) playing a godly composer :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRD78IG4VN8&list=RDJRD78IG4VN8&start_radio=1
The reason why, is because music is not only only about timing, or timbre colors, it is about a dimension of time, the musical time, which cannot be measured in any way possible, only felt, because it is a quality.
The cosmos is centered around these times qualities as an orchestra masterly directed by a maestro who is one with the musicians. As Furtwangler was claimed Gergiev. This is why his 4 th of Schumann is unique if not the best for everybody,the best for me.
|
@mahgister
"I will go for his Strauss and his Rachmaninoff..."
I was speaking of the singer Asmik Grigorian...
|
Thanks for this one ...
I will go for his Strauss and his Rachmaninoff...
There is no objective best interpretation , but there is an historical ranking by universal acclaim (for example Rubinstein Chopin or Sofronitsky Scriabin )
But one thing is certain, each one of us has his own history with music , and in our heart there is the best interpretation ever and sometimes for ever ... our heart judge not our brain ...It is how sometimes we discover some music by being stunned for life ...I was by Scriabin when i stumble on a pianist able to play him ...Sofronitsky stunned me... I am not alone...
Here’s a lovely aria called "Song to the Moon" from Dvorak’s Rusalka sung by a lovely soprano named Asmik Grigorian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us_F2xLJgKI
|
Save some miraculous exceptions, there is no perfect interpretation...
But my point was that music exist when a musician interpret it...
Musical work are resilient and able to support many interpretation perspectives...
The main point is listening to the musicians not to a dead corpse ( written score)...
|
|
In a word. music is boring if it is industrial production...
Music is not boring, it is our attention span and power often that makes music boring...
Music written or not is makes by musician...
Then speaking of a symphony from a composer without naming the musicians behind the interpretation makes no sense for me...
I never loved any composer BEFORE listening them by specific musicians which awake me to the composer creative potential because they were able to tap in the composer creativity in a way that touch me. It could be different interpretations for sure for others people. But interpretation, thats to say, musician playing "voices" is music, not the written paper.
Music meanings is linked to cultural history , if we are unable to read history through music we miss a lot...
Tastes must be educated as the ears must be trained...
Music like poetry or mathematics ask for attention training...
They exist boring people in my experience, but no boring music from any cultures on earth...
I listen music,i hear acoustics, as i read a book, the attention awaked...I judged it after deep listening.
We hear music with sounds conveying information about the vibrating sound source material and spiritual state, which are the vibrating instruments and the vibrating gesturing body of the musician even from his heart and mind...
Sound generate light, in the beginning was the "verb"....
A sound inside a sound,inside a sound; body,soul,spirit...
|
Thanks frogman for this very interesting article about musicians who are music itself...
All composers are first and last musician who could "interpret" their own work but any work of genius exceed his creator...They can interpret their own work but without ever exhausting it if it is a deep one...
Art of music is so deep,no one master it once for all even his own works escape the creator with a life of his own...
Simple evidence : each new interpretation of the art of the fugue on any set of instruments non intended by Bach reveal something new...
To feel bored listening to Bach or Josquin Des Prez pass my understanding and my perception...
I am never bored by great musicians who play any great work or improvised masterfully...
https://crosseyedpianist.com/2020/07/27/the-composer-intends/
|
First, the awakening of the soul is that: an awakening of the self consciousness...Then Gebser never said that the soul did not exist before homo sapiens but that it awake to new dimension of self reflection.
If you doubt even the soul could exist i am not suprised that you close the Gebser book...But your opinion about the soul inexistence appear so much dated exactly from the materialism era, and industrialization, since then things has changed recently , did you know ?
And anyway in spite of my sarcasm about materialism it makes no sense to critic a thinker saying his outlook is too much "1966"...We dont speak about design clothes here ...And the events which happened since Plato cannot be used as a reason to close off the book of a philosopher...
I understand that you already had your own set of ideas against which Gebser seems to goes opposite...
It is all good we do not understand things et see them from the same perspective...
I dont see what i can speak about which will beat Gebser ideas...
By the way i could recommend at least 50 others genius confirming his takes on the evolution of consciousness from all perspectives and fields...from acoustics to linguistics, to mathematics, psychology ,anthropology, history, epistemology... It was my job before retirement ...
I stop to read only mediocre book...I dont even need to stop reading them i sense them before 15 minutes...
And yes the "soul" exist...I trust mathematics and if the primes numbers appear more solid than a table as for existence, then the soul too is real...But materialist think that numbers are from some apes merely symbolic convention with no meanings... It is false but here the discussion is out of place... And too long with too many books to quote from ...
@mahgister
I have to stop reading "Ever-Present Origin." We can’t discuss it here. Maybe you can try a PM and I might get an email to respond to. Briefly, when the author began talking about the awakening of the soul in "archaic man," he just lost me. First, he did not define what he means by soul. And secondly, If there is a soul, I believe it existed long before Homos sapiens. To me, his outlook is very 1966. So much thought has happened since then. Again, if you want to discuss further, try to PM me. Thanks.
|
i like deep experience in books as in music...
But like everyone i read sometimes a novel or a biography for a relaxing lecture pleasure...
All the jazz i listen to is not deep music...
What I am hearing you say, @mahgister, is that you like a kind of soul wrenching depth in performances. If that is true, and I'm not saying it is, my response would be that I like Dostoevsky but I also like to read other authors who provide lighter fare. Of course, most novels today are written and read by women. Jane Austen is still huge.
I dont mind the composer interpretation so interesting it is because it is not always the best... And a work well composed contain information and colors and images even the composer never think about...Music goes deeper than the human brain creative power...It is why it is an experience of the heights and of the abyss and for me cinematographic or/and geometric...
The best interpretation is always the more expressive, the one who make you not only feel the music but "seeing" it ... In the cathedrale engloutie with Moravec we see the cathedral silent bell tower emerging from the sea.... I dont see anything with others pianist...
If you listen all Moravec albums you will know why someone called him "the pianist's pianists"...
|
We are on the same page about this...
For me also, there no relationship between genius and chronolectal time.
What about Sorabji or Scriabin ? Are they predictible ?
And how Gesualdo could be predictable ?
I learned how to appreciate Indian and Persian music ...Not boring at all...
The only music i dont like is music without genius nor heart...Most popular music is boring for me,...
Didgeridoo music is it boring ? not for me because it did something other music dont do...
Music initiate us to the history of consciousness...
All Western written music is a book into the soul history as linguistic is...Non western music are unique expression of consciousness ...
My taste exist as your taste exist but taste does not dictate my music listening history which is an expression of human consciousness ...
I am never bored by the art of the fugue ... I listened to it 1000 times...
It is a deep complex structure whose details cannot be grasped by 10 hearings with 10 different interpretations...
I dont listen first composers but mainly musicians interpretations of all style how can i be bored ?
Music is created by musician playing it each time in a different way... Nothing is boring in music save most industrial popular music ...
In a word all music not interpreted by top musicians can be boring... but no music interpreted and played by musicians of genius can...
This had nothing to do with my taste only with my own attention mastery...
When walking in a forest if i am not attentive i will be bored easily...
Music is a forest ...
|
I like a lot Sorabji madness played by Ogdon (almost mad himself but a formidable pianist in Busoni too)
I own many Sorabji music...pure genius and total madness...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OrAewTxBrc&list=RD_OrAewTxBrc&start_radio=1
The transcendental studies is incredible too by Ullen :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsunU1Jyigk&list=PLRs_FxzJLU50ArgMv2Ykm9IUsELIYwoML
But so much i admire Sorabji and i like him a lot, he does not moves me at all...like Scriabin or Liszt well played (which is almost impossible by most pianists)
Music is not just creative esthetical research, it is a spiritual spell...
If i listen Gesualdo well interpreted madrigals i dont even note that his music has more than 500 years old... It moves us because it is not only inventive but rooted in the heart...
|
Overall, I would say Moravec for power, Michelangeli for precision, Entremont for lyricism,
What you call power , i call expression; and expressive power is the main thing in playing as "timbre perception" is the main thing in audio, not details perception promoted by sellers ignoring acoustics...I dont want to taste music i want to be possessed by it...
I like Scriabin because almost no pianist nevermind most virtuoso are unable to play him at all ...Scriabin is a God beside Bach, Mozart Beethoven Josquin Des Prez and some others as Liszt whom almost no pianist could play really too ...
MIchelangeli is "perfect" like Hamelin is...But i want to be moved not just esthetically pleased...I want a pianist who tell me a story whose images i can see like in a movie...Moravec do so more than anyone here and he can makes "feux d’artifice" speaks and sings not only be seen ...try his Chopin nocturnes... Only Rubinstein rival him in fluid expression they are my Chopin choices...
Perfection is often only a flattening of the necessary imperfection, a flat wall with no movie.A dripping mountain eroded to be a dry plain.
"Imperfection is the peak" René Char
The same is true if we compare Michelangeli with Moravec in the "cathédrale engloutie", here note the "pulse" the internal rythm in Moravec 3-D playing as if it was a song and a movie:
Moravec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlDyXZ74kf0&list=RDPlDyXZ74kf0&start_radio=1
Michelangeli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsdIkUSjXv8
Musical time is not linear, it cannot be measured but only felt as a singing and spoken quality or as a walking abyss, the perfect note one after the other dont make music...I learn this listening Furtwangler...Unparallel maestro ...Try Schumann fourth symphony, a radiography of Schumann soul , perhaps one greatest album ever recorded beside few others.
|
|
|
|
