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To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
It seems to me that, yes, even on this great musical site(a four page discussion on accoutics""), there seems to be, like everywhere in the world of music, excessive, and even pointless analysis of things that, at the end of the day mean nothing.
The simple question that must be addressed is that why when reading the writtings of the great composers, there is clarity and sense, when on the other hand when reading the great players or musical academics, there is no sense, and in fact the writtings upom most subjects of musical conception-theory, harmony, meter, technique, and the like, written by the best in the field are crappy, nonsensical, and for the most part not very helpful. Check this out for yourself-go to your local library and check out even a basic book on music and you will find it to be mostly pointless. The most we know of Bach, and upon the brown of his own views comes down to the simple point of putting the fingers in the right place at the right time, yet when one reads a musical analysis by a great harvard man on Bach, there is hundreds of pages of nonsensical rubbish, every measure is unclearly analyzed to the point where you do not know what is going on after the first page of the commentary. Yet when Bach speaks it is simple and downright concise, practice and develop the feel, in other words gain confidence through rigourous practice, and henceforth the key and eternal element of music will arise and that is instinct. A biologist may think that they know the wolf, yet are they one.AH"""
Another simple example of this argument is this-video games-you may have played a very physical video game where only practice dicatates the move, and someone watches and says-man-how do you do that-well the person perfoming the move has no answer-for it is now part of the subconcious mind. The mechanism of perfoming this great move is now encoded in the instinctual apparatus of the brain, thus leaving the peformer at a loss for words, I dont know how I do it, I just can.
Thus we are dealing with hundreds of years of musicology written by generations of musicologists who have no real feel for the instinctual underpinnings of what a great composer thinks or really feels, they believe that the composer like themselves were musical robots, devoid of feeling and filled with analysis, scrutininizing every note as if music was written in only one way. Yet Bach and all the rest were inventive, mystic, extremely imaginitive, and of course spontaneous in there music. Thus the anylytic aproach employed by our payed genuises at the universities is largely masterbatory material, or at best it is meaningless.
Thus to conclude this newest rant, remember play, think playing, and question, yet never microscopically analyize your playing; all that this exercize will do is lead to doubt, and double tracking. You will find no certain answers for as we have found all along is that the greatest lesson of music is its mystical subjectivity, and not it scientific certainty. If we try to give music a one and done formula it will cease to exist. Thus feel music, for god sakes dont think it.
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
2/13/2010 6:44 PM
Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:
I am returning from a one week stint in hell, it was fun, yet the weather was a little hot, and the demons well, they were not very polite.
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
2/10/2010 5:36 PM
Garry Cantrell (3704) wrote:
I have a great eye. I can distinguish very subtle distinctions in color, shade, perspective, etc. I can draw like Rembrandt and paint like Matisse. The two go hand in hand. In my younger days I couldn't understand why there were art classes at all other than to maybe teach you some basic physical differences between different types of art processes (oils vs. watercolor, etc.). I mean, after all, it was just a matter of looking, seeing and perceiving. What could be simpler?
I have a crappy ear. Reasonable rhythm, but a crappy ear. Music, for the longest time was a real mystery to me. Always loved it but couldn't understand how it all worked. Then I started paying attention to theory. Little by little it started to make sense, first intellectually and then more naturally, and then my ear started to get better. I still have a crappy ear - but it's a trained crappy ear and I hear waaaay better than I did. On a really good day when the stars are aligned just right, I can occasionally pass for a moderately competent musician - but it was a LOT of work. Not sure I ever would've gotten here if it hadn't been for the theory books I read.
Aside from the above bit of testimony (can I get an Amen?), theory is just kinda cool. In the same way that, oh I dunno, watching those how to build a hot rod car television shows on Saturday morning are cool to watch - even though I'll never build any such thing.
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
2/13/2010 6:43 PM
Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:
Garry my advice is to keep building the latter, and to keep picking away, it will all come in time. I to had a bad ear, I just am an excellent reader of the stave, which over time brings about a good ear, and the ear is a sub concious thing, it builds itself over time, with simple playing. Sadly when the ear is built up, that is when theory disspears, for then it becomes an automated reflex, rather than an exercize in analysis.
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
2/14/2010 11:21 AM
Adam Furay (1713) wrote:
can you, for the sake of our members here, list some theory sources you have found over the years that have more potential for harm than good?
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
2/16/2010 4:45 PM
Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:
Adam for the sake of this noble assembly can you cite the serial number on every candy bar you have ever eaten? That is about how absurd, and stupid that question is, and never ask it again. It would be like asking Hank Arron, how was that 433ed home run, tell me about it. But, being that I understand that no question should be left in the air, and being that your question is an impossibilty, we will switch the question- What I can do here is give some great examples of musical literature, that I have enjoyed"-
"Abby Whiteheads-"essay on Chopin
Gregor Syandor-"magic, motion, and expression(piano0
"Jean Phillipe Ramue-essay on harmony
Arron Copland-Lecture Series"
Albert Swheitzer-Four part Bach series
Jeffery Hummel-Bach in his own words
Fritz tannetz-Essay on organ and piano ornamentation
King Palmer-"understanding Beethoven"
Shopenuer-Generally his entire philosophical catalogue
Alfred Brendel-Interprations of Hayden
Rubinstein-everything he wrote
There are a few others, yet you have to searh, good luck with your search-it is not the impossibity of finding good sources, it is just you have to really look
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
2/14/2010 12:08 PM
Adam Furay (1713) wrote:
and for my own curiosity, who is the Harvard theorist you have such a distaste for? I hope it's the same one I do :)
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Re: To the theorist:(MUST READ SEND ME HATE MAIL LATER)
2/16/2010 4:24 PM
Jon Hermansen (3886) wrote:
Adam, once again, lets teach you english, it is a metaphor, harvard is one of the elite universities in the country, and being that I am attacking modern academia, why not use the best-would you have felt better if I would have used east carolina university-by using Harvard that is a university that everyone knows about, thus we have a symbolic complaint using this particular university-If you are interested read what Debussey had to say about his academic experience, or being that you know nothing about reading, imagine that William Faulkner, one of the greatest american writers-failed english-
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