[dillonpape]

I was going to practice guitar, but I was struck by this comment on a Paco Pena video on YouTube and it got me to thinking about a few things which I have thought about before. This is the comment, by the user PasionGuitarra:

"Ok, read to me, I'm spanish and my dad is a nice flamenco player, for this reason I've listen flamenco all my live, and now read carefully: Here in Spain, people never ever speak about who is better player, we enjoy guitar sound, we enjoy that feel and nothing more, so to the people who look at flamenco players: Listen, feel, enjoy and cheers."

Not the best English, but who cares? He got his passionate message across, and let me say first of all that it does my heart well to see that this was the highest rated comment on that video, with 21 thumbs-ups compared to the 6 of the next highest-rated video.

This reminded me of something which struck me once while I was having a rather passionate discussion of my own with a teacher of mine and a couple of friends about a completely unrelated subject, probably the school system and/or politics. It seems to me that as a society (or maybe just as human beings in general) we subconsciously feel obligated to dislike things. Now, that may be kind of one-sided since we feel subconsciously obligated to like other things as well, but the main point is about disliking things. What do I mean by this? Just very basically, we feel as if we HAVE to look at certain things with a positive perception and at others with a negative perception, basically categorizing everything (at least those things which we encounter on a more or less daily basis) as being something which we like or as something which we dislike. Now, it's not as if there are certain specific things which we have to like or dislike based on what society likes or dislikes, although there is some connection. But each individual, over time, develops a list of things which they like and a list of things which they dislike. This in itself is not necessarily immediately a bad thing, but I will get to that soon enough. But first of all, think of the last time that you were exposed to something new. For example, think back to the last flamenco video that you watched of a song which you had never heard before, or better yet by a guitarist whom you had never heard before. As soon as the song was over (and probably as the song was playing and likely as soon as the song started) what did you think of? Did you try to formulate an opinion about the song which you had just experienced? Likely you immediately categorized it as either something which you liked or something which you disliked (of course, you may have changed your opinion later, but that would be irrelevant. The point is that you still formulated this opinion of either 'like' or 'dislike.').

The most extreme forms of 'like' and 'dislike' are 'favorite' and 'least favorite.' Think of how many times in your life you have been asked a question such as "What is your favorite color?" or "What is your favorite type of music?" or "What is your favorite class?" Likely, although less commonly, you were also asked about your least favorite of various types of things. These types of things, favorites and least favorites and likes and dislikes, help to form what we call a "personal identity." I remember that in my health class this semester there was a section in the health textbook about how important having a strong sense of personal identity is. Also, going into my senior year in high school I am strongly urged to consider what I am interested in in order to consider what career I would like to major in (career being something which is ideally there for one's entire life and based on an interest. I personally am experiencing an extreme case of being interested in absolutely everything and wanting to do absolutely all of them in my life ).

These are common stories throughout society, so there is no wonder that we would have such a strong identity of likes and dislikes and favorites and least favorites. However, no one ever thinks about that. What wrong would there be in these strong identities? Someone asks you your favorite color, and you just say blue, so what? I remember even just a couple of years ago that I had a very definite list of what my favorite colours were and that fact was an astonishingly big part of my personal identity. Now, if someone were to ask me my favorite color, it would seem like they might as well ask what my favorite emotion is. Curious thing, emotions. We also generally separate emotions into positive and negative. Happiness, joy, love, compassion, these things are "positive." Anger, sadness, hate, these are "negative." Yet, it would be a rare person who would venture to say that one should never be angry, that one should never be sad. There's that old cliche of "real men cry;" we wouldn't encourage men to believe that it is OK to cry unless we saw some good in it. And of course getting angry once in a while can let out pent-up emotions that would otherwise make us implode. And yes, even the most sacred of things, love, can be very dangerous if loving someone changes to needing someone, for then you will do anything in your power to stay with them even if you subconsciously know that it is not the best thing for either of you. Another example that I like to use is Hitler (his holocaust wasn't the first holocaust or the latest holocaust or even the worst, but he seems to be the most popular example. The name "Hitler" seems to immediately conjure up so many emotions). Yes, he forced approximately 12 million people to their tragic deaths, but he thought that he was doing humanity a favor. Now, I am by no means supporting the actions that he took, and never mind that he was supposedly crazy and his blatant hypocrisy and never mind that I am half German (should I just not have mentioned it? My other half is Jewish, if that helps?), but one could have at least a wee bit of compassion for him. So although I am not saying that love sucks and everyone should go attempt to annihilate a race, it would behoove you to realize that there is never any real line between between what is positive and negative, or good and bad, or what is likable and not likable. And although there are reasons for the typical category which something falls under, they are completely subjective and very, very debatable.

(Continued in the replied post.)

[dillonpape]

(The 10,919-character-long post was too long for the 10,000 character limit for the post, so this is simply a continuation from part 1.)


What does all this have to do with this fabulous thing which is known world-wide as Flamenco at Falseta.com I have become rather fond of this term that I have learned from flamenco, this "duende" (I also became fond of another term which my friend used, which was "the mustard." I was telling him about another one of our friend's reactions to a particular guitar riff I had made. Although I don't remember what the reaction was, the first friend's interpretation of the second friend's reaction was that "It didn't have the mustard." If anyone has ever spread a healthy dollop of some horseradish mustard all over a cajun-spiced chicken sandwich, you know what "the mustard" is. I propose this as one possible English translation of the undescribable "duende"). What is "duende?" Well, it is undescribable, as I said, but that is kind of the whole point of it, verdad? But whatever it is, it is something that causes unrivaled "mustard appreciation" (i.e. awe, passion) in the listener (the experiencer, I prefer, as it is a whole experience more than just some auditory occurrence of some general sort) and it arises from the emotion, the feeling, the mustard, the duende.

Y'all, as flamenco lovers of all description, can appreciate this more than any others (as far as groups as a whole), but this duende can apply to anything, any type of music, a particularly meaningful quotation, anything. Even that favorite color or that favorite class which somebody was asking about can have duende, no? Something that arises an unsurpassable, undescribable, awesome, passionate love for everything. Sometimes that one great teacher does that, and you end up thinking about them and their lessons for the rest of your life, no? This is what music is for. I think John Frusciante said something to the effect of "When the intellectual side of my music takes over the spiritual side, that is when I will stop playing." He didn't need to be a flamenco to basically define duende in that vow, did he? No, of course not.

So the next time that you dislike something, think about why you dislike it. Try to explicitly state every single reason why you dislike it. Be very detailed. Examine these reasons from every direction. Create voices inside your head who disagree with you and have them explain to you the opposite side of the argument. Have compassion for this thing, whatever this thing is, or the person who created it. Perhaps just that conscious contemplation alone will lead to you having an undiscovered appreciation for things which previously brought out even the deepest loathing in you. If that fails, don't think about it, just simply experience it. This works particularly well with music. Find a song that you didn't like, and cue it up ready to play. Find a quiet, comfortable place, your bed, a comfy chair. Relax. Take some deep breaths. Clear your head. Be completely still and silent. Simply relish the air around you. Appreciate the duende in the very oxygen which gives you life. Become tranquil, content. When you notice the unconscious smile appear on your face unbidden, start the song. Don't think about it, or anything else. Ignore the lyrics; the words become just another instrument. Let the sound waves find themselves to your ears and through your ear canals, through the little hammer and drum (instruments in themselves, am I right? ), and let them swirl around inside your empty mind. Experience it. Let it evoke the feelings which it wishes to evoke. Now see if your feelings towards it have changed. Even if it still doesn't quite "float your boat," prevent yourself from using that old categorization method of saying that you "dislike" it. Simply appreciate the fact that your opinion is completely subjective and that there is nothing exactly bad about it, it just doesn't quite evoke that hitherto-undiscovered-by-scientists section of your brain devoted to the appreciation of duende (I think that it is near the dopamine centers, maybe we should alert the scientists). If you try to be conscious of these things and do them often, I think you may notice a drastic and profound change in mentality. You're more open-minded, less overly-critical, more relaxed and content, more appreciative, and you won't find yourself following that subconscious habit of systematically disliking things. May you all experience excessive amounts of duende until the day that you die .

[Aurelio]

Interesting post. Dillon, you would appreciate the writings of Leonard Meyer, former head of the U. of Chicago Music Dept. He wrote two excellent books--Emotion and Meaning in Music and Music, the Arts, and Ideas, in which he tackled this issue, and many more. His books are not easy reading; I would recommend the latter book as an introduction. But his main point was that the pleasure of music comes from the hearer's ability to put together a somewhat flawed prediction of what the music's progress will be, from various clues provided by the composer or artist--the pleasure is a mix of satisfaction that the prediction is correct, and (usually) pleasing surprise when the prediction fails.

The total collapse of the attempts to introduce serial (atonal) or aleatoric (chance) music into the public repertoire indicate the strength of Meyer's thesis. In order to be enjoyable, music must be to some extent predictable. That is the essence of melody, harmony and rhythm--the establishment of the basis of a belief that a hearer can somewhat predict what is going to happen next.

I could go on and on, but Meyer is infinitely better. He also had very interesting ideas on where music and all the arts were headed, back in the 1960s, which have been proven to be very accurate, fifty years later.

aurelio

[dillonpape]

Thanks for the recommendations! I'll be sure to check those books out. They sound very interesting. I am currently reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, so I am no stranger to difficult readings. haha As I was studying for the SAT, I happened upon a very interesting short article (used as an example passage) about the ways in which music interacts with the emotions, and how that differs from the way that other art forms such as painting, sculpture, literature, and dance interact with our emotions, so I copied and pasted it into an email to myself. I'll see about getting that up here sometime too as well. I think it should be of interest and value to you and the rest of the forum users, as well as musicians in general.

As far as the topic of music's pleasure being in the listeners ability to predict...haha this is something that I have thought about somewhat before as well and have some uncertainties about. It certainly is an interesting thing to think about. I'm not sure where to start...well, I'll just jump into it and see what happens. So I do think that it is a very valid point. I think that when we listen to music, we habitually and somewhat subconsciously do follow that pattern of attempting to predict what happens next. Even if we are doing something else and maybe only 10% of our focus is on some background music, that 10% will try to predict even though you don't know it because you are 90% inattentive. And it makes sense; music which is easily predictable is successful music. Think of all of the hit songs whose music doesn't get more complex than a simple chord progression, and each chord does logically go to the next so that you can often hear the entire progression before it even plays through. I had an instructional music book with accompanying CD which had a classical song from some particular time period which was known for being predictable and the instructions were to listen and try to predict, the idea being to teach melodic craft. And as you say, melody, harmony, and rhythm (good ones, at least) do indeed have a large aspect of predictability. And a lot of the time when I am just casually listening to music I will do that, purposely and consciously try to predict what is coming. Certainly I do experience the combination of satisfaction and surprise that you mention and certainly it is a good exercise for someone who writes music in order to improve melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, etc. appreciation.

But then sometimes you want to experience music, similarly to the way that I outlined in the last paragraph of the post. Although I detailed this method of experiencing music in the context of music which one dislikes, it is just as effective while listening to music which one does like (although not with the intent of liking it more, just as almost a type of relaxing, purifying, sensual, spiritual yogic meditation), so I try to do it quite often. And the main point in this experiencing is the fact that you do not think about the music. This means no attempting to predict. And this aspect of not attempting to predict the music is by far the hardest part of the experience. Fortunately, my other favorite genre (if I were to have to pick a favorite genre, which I try not to do for the reasons in the post) is math rock, like Tera Melos, Hella, Giraffes? Giraffes!, Sky Eats Airplane, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Psyopus, Heavy Heavy Low Low, Giant Battle Monster, and my favorite band (if I were to be forced to pick one favorite band) is that progressive rock giant Yes. The common thread between all of these bands is that they very purposely, because of the nature of their music, try to be sporadic and unpredictable. As you mentioned about the collapse of attempts of such music to be inserted into the public repertoire, these are obviously not mainstream bands at all (with the exception of Yes, but it is interesting that one of their two most well-known songs is Owner of a Lonely Heart, the most mainstream-sounding and likely most predictable of all of their songs). But the same reason which contributes to them not being mainstream is precisely the reason why I like them so much. If something like certain time periods of classical or pop hits are my exercises to better predict music, math rock and Yes are my exercises to prevent myself from predicting music. Certainly once one of these songs first starts, I am trying to predict, but in short order I have become so unsuccessful that the old habit of prediction may at first tell me that this music is unenjoyable, but the exercise is to shut that voice down and it almost forces you into a kind of lesser version of one of those "experience trances," if you will, as I detailed in the post. I think that this exercise of being able to consciously not predict also has another advantage even if you do not wish to go into an "experience trance." If you think about it, if you are listening to a song and attempting to predict what comes next, then you are only focusing on the present note just enough to subconsciously process it and interpret a prediction. Your focus is in the future of the song. However, if you are not focused on the future, you can more intensely focus on the present, you can more intensely analyze and appreciate the nuances of each note as it plays and for its entire duration. Now, I do not quite have the practice to have such intense in-the-present focus, I cannot yet fully and completely immerse in the present, at least not for long, but it is a long, slow process and that's why I love it . Ideally, the final goal would be able to kind of turn on and off the "predictor processor" like a switch at will, so that one can decide how one wishes to experience any given song at any given time, even switching back and forth within one song or being able to straddle some median between them in order to be able to simultaneously appreciate each note not only for its function in the present but its effect in the future, which of course would require instantaneous reflection into the past. This is the kind of the thing that I describe as being the yoga path for music in my self-introduction post, like enlightenment for musicians Now, while listening to a song and consciously predicting it is a good exercise for composers, doesn't all of that sound like an infinitely better exercise, having the balance between the two methods?

So for casual listening, yes, predictability is key, I believe. As I said, there is even some part of me which tries to tell me that some of my "favorite" music is unenjoyable because of the absence of such predictability. As my friend told me when I showed him a song that I thought was amazing by a guitarist in a similar type of band, Animals as Leaders, "This is not casual music." Although it wasn't really his type of music in the first place (he's into jazz mostly) and so I would be more likely to listen to it casually than him, I will admit that there is certain music which is kind of conducive to a perhaps less "casual" sort of experience. Of course, any music is more enjoyable while experienced rather than just casually listened to, but the level of difference in enjoyment and appreciation between the experience and the casual listening would probably be much greater in something like a classical piece than in a pop hit, all bias set aside. And I will admit that even in the mathiest, most dissonant math rock, the music is not entirely unpredictable. I would venture to make a quick, unscientific presumption that it would not be possible to make any music entirely unpredictable aside from playing something that is truly randomized notes and note combinations. I think that as long as there is some aspect of theory, or structure, or whatever else, as long as there is any aspect of cohesion and coherence (although we are starting to venture into the realms of subjectivity here), there will be predictability to some degree. But to sum everything up real quick, although predictability is necessarily present to a certain degree and is often very important, it is not vital and under circumstances it is not the preferable partner in the ratio of predictability to nonpredictability.

[Aurelio]

Meyer's notions about predictability/unpredictablility do not differentiate between the hearer consciously or unconsciously attempting to predict the future course of the music. As a species, our urge to organize experience into patterns, whether the patterns are there or not, is very deep-seated, and is both conscious and unconscious.

Meyer also differentiates among various musics by their complexity--by the degree to which the author of the music weaves unpredictablility into the various fabrics of the music--whether melody, harmony or rhythm. You mention, say, the high predictablility of a pop music hit vs the greater unpredictability (texture might be a good term) of a Yes tune, or of classical music. Meyer does unabashedly rate highly-textured musics as being more "interesting" than less-textured musics, and therefore being less widely popular.

Some of this is all in how experienced the public is in dealing with complexity or novelty in music. The premier of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913 was one of the great scandals/riots of music history, with fistfights in the audience, people storming out, and the cops being called. Stravinsky crawled out a window. Saint-Saens left in a huff; Debussy was clearly puzzled by the music, and Ravel kept shouting the single word "Genius!" over and over again. Today, this is regarded, rightfully, as a wonderful piece of music, overflowing with wonderful melodies, tangy harmonies, and complex yet decipherable rhythms. And music could go further down that path, and did go further. But there finally comes a limit where the pleasure derived from the predictability/unpredictability ratio drops off dramatically, and people just won't listen (certainly won't pay money to listen) anymore. I believe that in the classical world, the music of Bela Bartok represents the furthest that a composer can go, and still have a large and appreciative audience for his/her work. Beyond Bartok lies, literally, chaos (and nobody listening).

All for now. More later.

aurelio

[dillonpape]

Hmm...several interesting points are present here. First of all, yes, humans perceiving patterns even when they are not there...haha I completely agree, but that is a whole topic for another day. My friend introduced me to the concept of "synchronicity," so we talked about this stuff. But, like I said, another topic and another day. Also, here's a question: you say that Meyer states that "highly-textured musics [are] more "interesting" than less-textured musics, and therefore [are] less widely popular." This almost sounds like he is saying that highly-textured music is less popular because it is highly-textured, or am I interpreting that point wrong? If that is a correct interpretation, let me quickly point out that classical music was once the pop music of its day. haha. That is, pop music is not necessarily low-textured. If you analyze blues or rock or flamenco or any other style, there are specific rhythmic and other such features which make a particular song objectively and definitively some particular style, and those definitions may make a particular style more or less the same level of texture despite variations in texture between specific songs. Pop music, however, is simply the popular music of the day. Therefore, the definitions of "pop" evolve even from year to year as popular music evolves. It just happens that today's pop is low-textured. But, like I said, I may have entirely misinterpreted your point anyway.

Now, to your other point. That is quite a fascinating story lol. I'll have to take a listen to this "Rite of Spring" in order to see what all the fuss was about. But as far as the point that you are making, you are now venturing into the realms of the popularity of music rather than the music itself. You talk of "how experienced the public is in dealing with complexity or novelty in music," but does that really measure how "good" or "interesting" some music is? For instance, continuing the Rite of Spring example, when it was premiered, there was an apparent lack in so-called "experience in dealing with complexity or novelty" which was present in the music that was presented, but now, you say that it is very respected. Does that mean that the music got any "better?" Obviously not. The music is still exactly the same. Of course, different orchestras may have "better" or "worse" interpretations in their specific performance of the piece, but the overall arrangement of notes which constitute the piece are exactly the same and always will be. Therefore, the ratio of predictability to unpredictability (if one could measure such ratio in a theoretical, scientific, and objective manner) should be exactly the same, so from an objective point of view, the overall public enjoyment of the piece should also be exactly the same. Obviously this is not the case. So this shows two very important facts about music: first, that music is completely subjective (recall the part in my original post about discussing emotions and Hitler and such and about how nothing can be definitely "good" or definitely "bad," or even any midrange in a spectrum between the two), and second...for the life of me, I can't remember the second. In the time that it took me to type the first, I forgot the second. I would really, very prefer if that did not happen. Anyway, the first point is the more important anyway. Since the predictability/unpredictability ratio is more or less objective (within a range of values) and since the pleasure derived from a certain ratio is ideally a more important aspect than the ratio itself and since pleasure is subjective and music is subjective, then the ratio of predictability to unpredictability should theoretically be irrelevant. Of course, it is possible to objectively enjoy music, i.e. by analyzing the music in terms of difficulty of the theory or rhythms or whatever else, but we are operating under the assumption that the spiritual side is more important than the intellectual, to recall back John Frusciante's quote. Thus, there is no such thing as good music. There is no such thing as bad music. And if there were, the judgment of some particular music as good or bad certainly could not be made based on quantity of listeners and/or how closely it teases the border of chaos. Again, these things are irrelevant to the pure enjoyment of the piece.

[Aurelio]

Dillon, I hesitate to put words into Leonard Meyer's mouth, but I do draw the conclusion from his writings that he does indeed correlate (inversely) a music's complexity with its popularity. This is a general rule, but not specifically correct in all cases; one can always come up with counterexamples in all discussions of cultural/esthetic phenomena, because there are so many reasons why people like/don't like various musics. I personally have no interest in Rap, nor almost all Metal, didn't much appreciate most Punk. But I have a soft spot for Disco (!), and share your interest in Progressive Rock (not only Yes, but also early Genesis--Selling England by the Pound, Foxtrot. Some of the reasons are clearly extramusical--for instance, there is a wistful quality to a lot of Disco that I find poignant.

Wish I had more time to correspond at one sitting, but........

aurelio

[Aurelio]

Concerning the Rite: at its premier, the musical experience for almost all hearers was of the wholly new. People generally go to a musical presentation with an idea in their heads of what they expect to hear/see, in the case of the Rite, a ballet (by a Russian composer whose previous work they'd heard and liked (The Firebird). When they experienced something Wholly New, something unlike anything they'd ever heard before, they (mostly) were frightened/shocked/repelled. But upon hearing the music several times, it became more familiar, more "predictable", less frightening and novel. The music didn't change, but the audience's mindset did. Not too long after, part of the music became a Disney cartoon soundtrack (Fantasia). By the way, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony recorded a video of the Rite in its original ballet format, with explanations by Thomas--it was aired on PBS stations. If you can get hold of it, it's very, very good.

I agree completely that there is no good or bad in music or the arts--we either like (find interesting) or dislike or find not interesting, based on personal experience, brain wiring, whatever. And then we try to find out the reasons after the fact. But there are outer limits beyond which few will go--I previously mentioned the collapse of two important "schools" of modern "classical" music: serial music and aleatoric music. Nobody wanted to listen to it.

aurelio

[dillonpape]

I guess I will just have to examine Mr. Meyer's readings for myself and see what's up. And of course there is more proof of the subjectivity of music. haha Being only 16 years old, I do indeed have nothing but free time, so I know that I tend to go on often excessively-long musing sprees.

Your point about them becoming more familiar with the music and therefore the music becomes more predictable and thus more enjoyable is interesting and is indeed a very good point. I don't have much to argue that particular point at this particular moment, for I have experienced that scenario myself a few times. But it still supports my point about the subjectivity of music. You say that what changed was their mindset; thus, since the enjoyment factor of the song was based on the mindset of the listeners, it may have somewhat to do with enhanced predictability, but it is also just that their particular subjective point of view changed. You mention again the point that nobody wanted to listen to these two particular schools of classical music. However, the fact that nobody wanted to listen to them (besides being hyperbolic) means nothing more than nobody (hyperbolically) wanted to listen to them. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality, interest level, etc. of the music, as (again) music is subjective. It just means that for the most part people didn't like it. Period. If you are attempting to offer that as one supporting piece of "evidence" as to what makes certain music more desirable than other music, I don't really know what else to say about it.

[Aurelio]

I think the change in the audience's point of view toward The Rite of Spring was entirely due to hearing the piece again, several times. I'm not sure whether we call this change "subjective" or objective". But concerning those other musics that no one wanted to listen to, the way the musics were "composed" or "constructed" eliminated the possiblity of any ability on the part of the hearer to predict, even feebly, what might happen next in the musical progression. This music then represents the endpoint on the predictability/unpredictability spectrum where the audience entirely vanishes.

aurelio