Another view of Leonard Peikoff

[Mindy Newton]

We don't "see things", atoms or photons, we manufacture images.

Neither do we know reality, just our own ideas, nor do we speak the truth, just sentences...

I was wondering how long it would take for the relativists to reveal their Kantian mistakes.

Do you deny that we manufacture images in our nervous system? This is not "a Kantian mistake", LOL, it is simply basic anatomy.

Would you say that a photograph "manufactures" its image, or that it captures the visible form of its subject?

--Mindy

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

"Dodecaphonic" wasn't in my OED, but it must mean 12-tone scale. I assume you mean the chromatic scale? I like chromatic melodies particularly, when I can find a good one. The melody to A-Train is chromatic, and it is an addictive delight!

More to the point, the division of tones into a scale does have an objective basis. Harmonious and inharmonious steps and chords have an objective basis also. So there's a pop song with ?uneasy? tonality. If you were talking about tone-rows, there are still objective bases on which to evaluate such, and they are chiefly what was claimed for them: the ease of, or even the possibility of relating them given the perceptual capacities of the human ear.

Mindy,

Dodecaphonic music is a school of composition designed by Arnold Schoenberg shortly after WWI when people were searching for new forms of trying to understand the universe after that mess and blaming every previous human structure for leading up to it.

The technique consists of establishing a twelve-tone row (chosen by God knows what standard), then using that as the basis for a composition. The rule is that you must use up all twelve tones before you are allowed to sound them in sequence again and you must repeat the sequence in the same order. For example, you are allowed to make a chord out of the first five notes, use the next three for melody, and the remaining 5 as a bass line. Or you can make a chord out of all 12 notes at the same time. Or several chords. Or a 12-note melody. And so on. That part is up to you. The only rule is that only after the last note has sounded are you allowed to start the series over.

In addition to repeating the series, you are allowed to run it backwards, invert it, transpose it up and down, and so on for more variety.

Dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) technique was an attempt to replace tonality as an organizing principle in music. The problem is that the human mind does not organize sound that way. In literature, it would be akin to establishing an arbitrary order for all 26 letters of the alphabet, then only allowing you to reuse a letter after you have used up all the others for writing the words and sentences to an article or book.

The music resulting from this method sounds just awful. When it does sound more or less listenable, it is because the composer fudges and leans on the overtone series for his strong notes and lets the really dissonant ones be less important. Alban Berg was a composer who worked more in that manner and even has a famous opera Wozzeck in that style. Schoenberg used the technique in a very strange manner. Imagine a work by, say, Mendelssohn, that keeps the form, orchestration, etc., but is filled full of wrong notes. That's his style. Of the third famous dodecaphonic composer, Anton Webern, this guy wrote extremely short compositions that were full of intricate mathematical formulations, but they sound only a bit more organized than an orchestra warming up. Or better, a chamber group warming up (he mostly wrote chamber music).

Other composers have fiddled with this technique. Even Stravinsky did. But no one has achieved any fame as a twelve-tone composer on the scale of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. They are known as the classicist, Romantic and miniaturist respectively of dodecaphonic music. They even have a colorful title: the Second Viennese School.

Most performers I knew during my orchestra career did not protest so much against playing these pieces because they liked the athletic challenge to their playing technique (the pieces are usually very difficult to perform), not because they liked the music.

Here is the Wikipedia article if you are interested: Twelve-tone technique.

Michael

[Mindy Newton]

That whole locution, "I perceive a green car," is more like a phenomenological report, the kind of thing someone would say when reporting on their ~experience~, rather than on the ~object of their awareness~.

The "object of your awareness" does in fact reside in your brain, the stimuli is what exists outside of your nervous system. When we look at the sky at night do we "see a star" or do we register some light and create an image in our brain? Is this little pinprick of light a star?

How about, "we register some light," and that's it. The "registering" is the seeing.

--Mindy

[tjohnson]

How about, "we register some light," and that's it. The "registering" is the seeing.

No because the cones and rods in our eyes register the light and is only part of the seeing process. The rest is the nervous transmission and synthesis of an image in the visual cortex.

[tjohnson]

Would you say that a photograph "manufactures" its image, or that it captures the visible form of its subject?

Sort of but it's not as complex a process as our seeing. When we look at the picture we create an image of the image in which we can recognize forms, structure etc.

[tjohnson]

GS,

Just because mankind didn't know about as aspect of reality before (like the microscopic level) doesn't mean that it didn't exist. I find that fact to be so obvious I still get astonished when I find someone trying to deny it.

Michael

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. My point is that the best representation of "reality" is given to us by science, and science (neurology) tells us that what we refer to as "objects" actually reside (exist) in our nervous system. What exists outside our nervous system is inferred by science.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. My point is that the best representation of "reality" is given to us by science, and science (neurology) tells us that what we refer to as "objects" actually reside (exist) in our nervous system. What exists outside our nervous system is inferred by science.

GS,

This is a problem when you use the meaning of a term in one system of thought, transpose that meaning to another system of thought and pretend the other uses that meaning.

Let's at least get one thing straight. Science does not tell us or infer anything. People do that. Science is not a person. Science is merely a method used by human beings for identifying and investigating and transforming reality. It is made up of a mental part (concepts, including logic and math) and a physical action part (experiments and applications).

If we can't agree on something as basic as that, then the ideas are shot to hell in this communication. What is the point of constantly repeating words and dogmatic statements while ignoring the meanings used by people you are discussing matters with? Entertainment? Social interaction to kill loneliness?

Michael

[tjohnson]

Let's at least get one thing straight. Science does not tell us or infer anything. People do that. Science is not a person. Science is merely a method used by human beings for identifying and investigating and transforming reality. It is made up of a mental part (concepts, including logic and math) and a physical action part (experiments and applications).

I guess I can agree with this.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I guess I can agree with this.

GS,

Good Lord!

Michael

[Mindy Newton]

"Dodecaphonic" wasn't in my OED, but it must mean 12-tone scale. I assume you mean the chromatic scale? I like chromatic melodies particularly, when I can find a good one. The melody to A-Train is chromatic, and it is an addictive delight!

More to the point, the division of tones into a scale does have an objective basis. Harmonious and inharmonious steps and chords have an objective basis also. So there's a pop song with ?uneasy? tonality. If you were talking about tone-rows, there are still objective bases on which to evaluate such, and they are chiefly what was claimed for them: the ease of, or even the possibility of relating them given the perceptual capacities of the human ear.

Mindy,

Dodecaphonic music is a school of composition designed by Arnold Schoenberg shortly after WWI when people were searching for new forms of trying to understand the universe after that mess and blaming every previous human structure for leading up to it.

The technique consists of establishing a twelve-tone row (chosen by God knows what standard), then using that as the basis for a composition. The rule is that you must use up all twelve tones before you are allowed to sound them in sequence again and you must repeat the sequence in the same order. For example, you are allowed to make a chord out of the first five notes, use the next three for melody, and the remaining 5 as a bass line. Or you can make a chord out of all 12 notes at the same time. Or several chords. Or a 12-note melody. And so on. That part is up to you. The only rule is that only after the last note has sounded are you allowed to start the series over.

In addition to repeating the series, you are allowed to run it backwards, invert it, transpose it up and down, and so on for more variety.

Dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) technique was an attempt to replace tonality as an organizing principle in music. The problem is that the human mind does not organize sound that way. In literature, it would be akin to establishing an arbitrary order for all 26 letters of the alphabet, then only allowing you to reuse a letter after you have used up all the others for writing the words and sentences to an article or book.

The music resulting from this method sounds just awful. When it does sound more or less listenable, it is because the composer fudges and leans on the overtone series for his strong notes and lets the really dissonant ones be less important. Alban Berg was a composer who worked more in that manner and even has a famous opera Wozzeck in that style. Schoenberg used the technique in a very strange manner. Imagine a work by, say, Mendelssohn, that keeps the form, orchestration, etc., but is filled full of wrong notes. That's his style. Of the third famous dodecaphonic composer, Anton Webern, this guy wrote extremely short compositions that were full of intricate mathematical formulations, but they sound only a bit more organized than an orchestra warming up. Or better, a chamber group warming up (he mostly wrote chamber music).

Other composers have fiddled with this technique. Even Stravinsky did. But no one has achieved any fame as a twelve-tone composer on the scale of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. They are known as the classicist, Romantic and miniaturist respectively of dodecaphonic music. They even have a colorful title: the Second Viennese School.

Most performers I knew during my orchestra career did not protest so much against playing these pieces because they liked the athletic challenge to their playing technique (the pieces are usually very difficult to perform), not because they liked the music.

Here is the Wikipedia article if you are interested: Twelve-tone technique.

Michael

Thanks. I should have consulted Wiki. What is your instrument? I play the Bassoon.

[Nicholas Dykes]

"Dodecaphonic" wasn't in my OED, but it must mean 12-tone scale. I assume you mean the chromatic scale? I like chromatic melodies particularly, when I can find a good one. The melody to A-Train is chromatic, and it is an addictive delight!

More to the point, the division of tones into a scale does have an objective basis. Harmonious and inharmonious steps and chords have an objective basis also. So there's a pop song with ?uneasy? tonality. If you were talking about tone-rows, there are still objective bases on which to evaluate such, and they are chiefly what was claimed for them: the ease of, or even the possibility of relating them given the perceptual capacities of the human ear.

Mindy,

Dodecaphonic music is a school of composition designed by Arnold Schoenberg shortly after WWI when people were searching for new forms of trying to understand the universe after that mess and blaming every previous human structure for leading up to it.

The technique consists of establishing a twelve-tone row (chosen by God knows what standard), then using that as the basis for a composition. The rule is that you must use up all twelve tones before you are allowed to sound them in sequence again and you must repeat the sequence in the same order. For example, you are allowed to make a chord out of the first five notes, use the next three for melody, and the remaining 5 as a bass line. Or you can make a chord out of all 12 notes at the same time. Or several chords. Or a 12-note melody. And so on. That part is up to you. The only rule is that only after the last note has sounded are you allowed to start the series over.

In addition to repeating the series, you are allowed to run it backwards, invert it, transpose it up and down, and so on for more variety.

Dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) technique was an attempt to replace tonality as an organizing principle in music. The problem is that the human mind does not organize sound that way. In literature, it would be akin to establishing an arbitrary order for all 26 letters of the alphabet, then only allowing you to reuse a letter after you have used up all the others for writing the words and sentences to an article or book.

The music resulting from this method sounds just awful. When it does sound more or less listenable, it is because the composer fudges and leans on the overtone series for his strong notes and lets the really dissonant ones be less important. Alban Berg was a composer who worked more in that manner and even has a famous opera Wozzeck in that style. Schoenberg used the technique in a very strange manner. Imagine a work by, say, Mendelssohn, that keeps the form, orchestration, etc., but is filled full of wrong notes. That's his style. Of the third famous dodecaphonic composer, Anton Webern, this guy wrote extremely short compositions that were full of intricate mathematical formulations, but they sound only a bit more organized than an orchestra warming up. Or better, a chamber group warming up (he mostly wrote chamber music).

Other composers have fiddled with this technique. Even Stravinsky did. But no one has achieved any fame as a twelve-tone composer on the scale of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. They are known as the classicist, Romantic and miniaturist respectively of dodecaphonic music. They even have a colorful title: the Second Viennese School.

Most performers I knew during my orchestra career did not protest so much against playing these pieces because they liked the athletic challenge to their playing technique (the pieces are usually very difficult to perform), not because they liked the music.

Here is the Wikipedia article if you are interested: Twelve-tone technique.

Michael

In ~The Agony of Modern Music~ the great American music critic Henry Pleasants called it "decomposition"! If you haven't read the book, do so, it's superb. I knew Henry personally, he was a lovely guy, utterly charming. Nicholas Dykes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What is your instrument? I play the Bassoon.

Mindy,

Bassoon?!!! So that's the problem! A double-reeder!

I played first trombone for 14 years in the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Eleazar de Carvalho. (This guy trained Zubin Mehta, Seiji Osawa and some other top talents at Tanglewood.) I also founded Brazil's first brass quintet and we became something of a celebrity group in the classical world down there. During my last 4 years in the orchestra, I doubled as Maeatro Eleazar's assistant conductor, albeit without a contract for that (Brazilian politics and an Objectivist refusal to play them). I conducted all over Brazil as a guest conductor. I was also a composer whose works were performed fairly well for a modern classical composer. I have no complaints. I won some prizes.

I then moved out of classical music and started producing popular music records and shows and became the artistic director (A&R man) for Fermata do Brasil. I worked with some of Brazil's top artists. I composed some film scores. I wrote some songs for popular TV programs.

I had a brilliant career in classical and popular music. I threw all this away on drug and alcohol addictions. I recovered, but I have not gone back into music except for some very special moments.

I ultimately intend to finish some music compositions I had planned from before and a couple of new ones that have developed in my mind over the years that keep haunting me.

Michael

[Mindy Newton]

What is your instrument? I play the Bassoon.

Mindy,

Bassoon?!!! So that's the problem! A double-reeder!

I played first trombone for 14 years in the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Eleazar de Carvalho. (This guy trained Zubin Mehta, Seiji Osawa and some other top talents at Tanglewood.) I also founded Brazil's first brass quintet and we became something of a celebrity group in the classical world down there. During my last 4 years in the orchestra, I doubled as Maeatro Eleazar's assistant conductor, albeit without a contract for that (Brazilian politics and an Objectivist refusal to play them). I conducted all over Brazil as a guest conductor. I was also a composer whose works were performed fairly well for a modern classical composer. I have no complaints. I won some prizes.

I then moved out of classical music and started producing popular music records and shows and became the artistic director (A&R man) for Fermata do Brasil. I worked with some of Brazil's top artists. I composed some film scores. I wrote some songs for popular TV programs.

I had a brilliant career in classical and popular music. I threw all this away on drug and alcohol addictions. I recovered, but I have not gone back into music except for some very special moments.

I ultimately intend to finish some music compositions I had planned from before and a couple of new ones that have developed in my mind over the years that keep haunting me.

Michael

Don't dis' the bassoon! At least we don't need a spit valve! :-) I'm sure you've noticed how much of film scores, large and small, are solo bassoon? I bet nobody has ever composed 39 concerti for the trombone! ;-)

Your background is very impressive! Have you ever performed the trombone-clarinet duo in the ?third? movement of Saint Saens' Third Symphony, the so-called "Organ Symphony?" I adore that melody!

Where can I hear some of your work?? Performances, compositions, songs, etc. I guess I can "google" you. This is exciting. I confess to doing a little composition myself. There is no pain or fear or joy that sticks in one's mind like a musical theme does, right?

--Mindy

Edited August 24, 2008 by Mindy

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mindy,

Later I might put up an mp3 or two just to practice my ripping and codecs. I only have one record I produced here in the States with me. The rest of my stuff is scattered all over Brazil.

When I was doing classical music, the best way to inexpensively record a concert for archival purposes was cassette tape. There exists a box of these tapes somewhere down there if it hasn't been thrown out. A lady at one place where I did store some of my things, including the scores of many original compositions, letters from my estranged children, etc., threw everything out after we had an argument. She owned a translation company. She's basically a good person, but after that, I was too heartsick to ever work with her again.

I do have pop songs scattered in recordings that are easier to find, but that's because the work involved was producing records, not playing concerts.

I normally don't post my musical stuff because, even though the scars are old, my shrug is still painful. Still, here is something someone bugged me to write out soon after I arrived here in the States from Brazil. I drew the manuscript paper with a ruler and wrote it with a pencil since I had been years away from music. I composed this small diddley in the 80's right after my first son (Roark) was born. I used to sing it to him to put him to sleep. It's slow (about 60 or so, with liberty rubato-wise).

I have plans to include it in an opera I sketched out years ago called Gringa. A soprano will be singing unaccompanied but surrounded by a huge chorus, ballet, the orchestra, of course, and a bunch of scenery. She will be holding her newborn—as an unwed mother—in her arms after being turned around from committing suicide (due to her disgust with how she was treated by the world—the main conflict is that she only wanted to sing in life, but the world, from several quarters during the story covering the main elements of human existence, enticed her time and time again with a promise to love her for singing, only to trap her and get her tied to duties where she would have to give it up and watch mediocre singers perform in the places promised to her). This happens after a huge noisy climax involving coming out of the suicide, deciding to go her own way in life, and the birth of her baby (partially symbolizing a world she could sing to). Her singing is a symbol in itself of realizing her full innocent potential as a unique human being, so it is used in all walks of her life and the lyrics reflect each situation.

As she sings the lullaby, the lights will slowly congeal to a single spotlight beam from above, cutting through the darkness and focused only on her, and gradually fade out to total darkness. For that version I have slightly expanded the song. I give the words below the score.

Michael

Lullaby for Roark

Lullaby my little one.

Lullaby and sleep.

Rest your mind, your day is done.

The night will reap a new day.

Lullaby my little one.

Go to sleep and grow.

May your little dreams

Come to bigger things

That the whole world will come to know.

Lullaby my little one.

Go to sleep and dream

Of your world and of things to come.

The night will bring a new day.