Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"

[Brant Gaede]

I disagree, Brant. Less of Rand than any other art-thread I've been in anyway. There've been insightful thoughts from everyone. I find it a refreshing change.

Some has been derivative of her, some reminiscent, but a lot of independent thought too.

Rand's "esthetics" is actually an insignificant part of her hypothesis; it is in just a few pages of TRM on the subject of "style" in her Sense of Life chapter. She writes: "(The esthetic principles which apply to all art...are outside the scope of this discussion. I will mention only that such principles are defined by the science of esthetics--a task at which modern philosophy has failed dismally.)"

Little else.

I have never quite understood what you've always meant by "Rand's esthetics". In short, she didn't express any.

Right there is a problem. She thought there was a "science" of esthetics. There can't be any such thing. In this case her understanding of science fails her. Nathaniel Branden could be even worse about understanding science. As for the rest of what you said, I'll leave it to you and the other posters.

--Brant

[Newberry]

The Rolling Stones - "I Can't Get No Satisfaction."

Setting aside the repeated signature guitar lick on the intro and the verses which basically vamp on a couple of notes, the melody consists of (1) two alternating diminished chord licks repeated then followed by (2) four three-note scale fragments each a step higher than the last (an example of a "climb" in pop music parlance) followed by (3) another diminished chord lick repeated at the top of the melody line. (Hopefully that makes sense, if you follow along in your memory or iTunes or YouTube.)

The "climb" is a standard way in music to convey aspiration, yearning - in this case, yearning for sexual satisfaction - and the Stones song matches words to music. "I try and I try and I try and I try."

Most everything else in the song is geared to building restless, frustrated tension - as opposed to the aspirational tension in the "climb." But it all works to get across the idea that it was now socially acceptable to talk about sexual desire and frustration.

(Social commentary: how many teenage girls twitched in their seats, listening to this, thinking: "Oh those poor boys. They need sex!" And how many boyfriends tapped them on the shoulder, and said "I'm right here, and I need some, too!" And how many parents cringed in horror and revulsion, wondering if this song was going to result in unplanned, unwanted pregnancies of their daughters, whether caused by the newly emboldened neighbor boy or some scruffy, sweaty stranger holding a guitar. :-)

As for *why* this works, and why it's not arbitrary or subjective...

Repetition to build tension needs almost no explanation.

Using upward melodic motion to convey aspiration or yearning and the like was explored by Edward Lippman in his 1952 dissertation Sound and Space. (It's not published, but it's probably available from Dissertation Abstracts, or whatever that outfit in Ann Arbor, Michigan now calls itself.)

Lippman explains the physiological basis of higher and lower frequency notes being heard as similar to higher and lower position in physical space. Most relevantly to upward melodies connoting yearning, he says that tones with higher pitch are experienced as having a higher degree of tension or intensity, which is correlated with higher spatial location or with any "position" in which one has exerted effort or tension in order to get "there." Such as trying and trying and tryihg and trying - and still falling short.

It seems clear from Lippman's work that this experience of (1) higher and lower notes connoting up and down in physical space, and (2) upward melody connoting striving and yearning are neither necessary (because of variations in culture and experience), nor arbitrary (because of the natural physiological basis for the metaphor).

In Randian lingo, they are neither intrinsic nor subjective, but objective - real potentials that will be discovered, if not stamped out by society or upbringing or foreclosed by tone-deafness or some such neurological deficit. Although they are not as inevitable as forming first-level concepts of objects, actions, and characteristics, they are not merely culturally ingrained responses either.

REB

Fascinating and brilliant.

[Roger Bissell]

I applaud your good taste, Michael, but you're going to pay dearly for saying that. :-)

REB

[Roger Bissell]

In Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand wrote about concepts of method, "systematic courses of action devised by men for the purpose of achieving certain goals" (35), which she said are a "large part of man's conceptual equipment" (36). She gives various examples, including logic, epistemology, ethics, and medicine. She says epistemology, ethics, and medicine are each a "science," and she explains in what sense she means it: they are each "a science devoted to the discovery of the proper methods of..."

Logic is also called an "art," and not just by Rand in "the art of non-contradictory identification." It's long been debated whether art is a science or an art. Like Certs (a breath mint and a candy mint), it's both. Logic as an art is the set of practical guidelines for thinking and reasoning. Logic as a science is the careful, organized study of how to arrange our thoughts so that we can arrive at knowledge and truth. In this respect, logic as "art" is actually the applied science of logic.

Some would say there is no theoretical science of logic, because people disagree about how we should think. I think instead there are just differing theories of logic, and some are wrong. I also think the same is true of theoretical aesthetics.

Consider ethics - which aims at discovering "the proper methods of living one's life." While we can identify the general categories of things that are good for us and sustain and promote our lives, we cannot specify the precise items we should or should not consume or actions we should take, as though we were reading the RDA from the side panel of a food package. It's all contextual - i.e., based on one's individual condition and context, as well as one's nature as a living human being - but also factual. (In other words, it's objective, not intrinsic or subjective.)

I think aesthetics (I hate and eschew the older, Randroid spelling) is the same kind of science as ethics. Just as there are anti-life or mixed theories of ethics, there are anti-life or mixed theories of aesthetics. Somehow or other, many people with suboptimal values in art, and living more generally, managed to survive at least long enough to continue the chain of offspring that led to us. I guess whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger - if only by being pissed off enough to survive despite the harm it does to you.

We spend a lot of time talking about the prescriptive, applied part of aesthetics and not as much about the descriptive, theoretical part. The basic concepts of Rand's aesthetics are sprinkled here and there - theme, subject, style, sense of life, emotional abstraction, re-creation of reality - but there is a definitive statement of what Rand thinks the essence of aesthetics is, as the philosophy of art and as aimed at principles of how our broadest abstractions can be expressed in concrete form (rather than a philosophical treatise).

In 1960 Rand gave a lecture "The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age," and she repeated it at least twice in 1962, finally producing a print version in The Objectivist Newsletter which contained less than one-third of the text from the actual lecture. In 1961 Rand gave a lecture on "esthetics" at the Creative Arts Festival at the University of Michigan, and the Esthetic Vacuum essay was said to be based on that lecture.

All of this was apparently worked-over material from her 1958 lectures on fiction-writing. Unfortunately, Torre Boeckmann's severely edited-down published version of the lectures omits a great deal of the material from the taped lectures, including some of the basic aesthetic concepts and definitions, which was considered "repetitive" of material in The Romantic Manifesto. It would have been nice to have a complete transcription of these materials, rather than limiting it to what the editor thought we "needed" to see.

I think that one of the most important things Rand says about art, other than her definition of it, is the passage from "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art" where she talks about how art "concretizes metaphysics," i.e., puts our broadest ideas into perceivable form. This, she says in italics, "is the psycho-epistemological function of art and the reason of its importance in man's life (and the crux of the Objectivist esthetics)" (20). The crux of her aesthetics, the core, the pivotal point...

This is what Rand bases her claim on in "Art and Sense of Life" that "the science of esthetics" defines "the esthetic principles which apply to all art, regardless of an individual artist's philosophy, and which must guide an objective evaluation" (42). She was pointing to both the descriptive science and prescriptive science aspects of aesthetics. There's plenty to argue about on each of those points, but she certainly has an aesthetics theory with both components, and each theorist approaching aesthetics in that way is exploring it as a science.

Art is a different form of expressing and communicating abstractions than language. It uses embodied rather than conventional symbols. But it does the same general kind of thing, carrying out the same psycho-epistemological function, and both can be studied scientifically, in a careful, organized way. It's good that we have both kinds of symbols and people who know how to use them in ways that enhance our lives, rather than making us confused or depressed or wondering why we bother.

REB

[Jonathan]

The Rolling Stones - "I Can't Get No Satisfaction."

Setting aside the repeated signature guitar lick on the intro and the verses which basically vamp on a couple of notes, the melody consists of (1) two alternating diminished chord licks repeated...

The idea here would be to not "set aside" the primary elements such as the signature guitar lick and everything else, other than the pre-chorus, that makes up 97 percent of the song. What are the emotions contained in the lick and the melody of the verses and the chorus?

Here's a link to previews/snippets of orchestrated versions of the Stones' songs minus lyrics/vocals, which might help you to focus strictly on the music rather reading the lyrics and then trying to find something which could be said to be somewhat reflected in the music:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/orchestral-rock-songs-rolling/id306239833

You might also want to check out other iconic Stones' song there which also have music which doesn't match the lyrics.

Here's a youtube of Paint It Black without lyrics:

Do you hear a darkened heart in that? I don't, nor do any of the serious Stones fans I know. So forget about lyrics and trying to force the music to fit them when it doesn't. What are the general emotions of the music of these songs, the emotions that Rand said anyone and everyone would all agree were in the music? And I mean all of the various emotions throughout the entire song, and not just those of one small section like the pre-chorus.

...then followed by (2) four three-note scale fragments each a step higher than the last (an example of a "climb" in pop music parlance) followed by (3) another diminished chord lick repeated at the top of the melody line. (Hopefully that makes sense, if you follow along in your memory or iTunes or YouTube.)

The "climb" is a standard way in music to convey aspiration, yearning - in this case, yearning for sexual satisfaction - and the Stones song matches words to music. "I try and I try and I try and I try."

Most everything else in the song is geared to building restless, frustrated tension - as opposed to the aspirational tension in the "climb." But it all works to get across the idea that it was now socially acceptable to talk about sexual desire and frustration.

No, you're reading the lyrics into the music. There's nothing frustrating about the music itself. It's quite energetic and happy. To fans of the Rolling Stones, the music, absent the lyrics, is a very pumped up "Wahooo!" or "Fuck yeah!" feeling. Where and how are you imagining hearing anything like "frustration" in the music?!!! The "climb" that you talk about builds to an emotional payoff, not to disappointment, nor even postponement. In contrast to the lyrics, the music is an explosively happy, satisfied expression.

(Social commentary: how many teenage girls twitched in their seats, listening to this, thinking: "Oh those poor boys. They need sex!" And how many boyfriends tapped them on the shoulder, and said "I'm right here, and I need some, too!" And how many parents cringed in horror and revulsion, wondering if this song was going to result in unplanned, unwanted pregnancies of their daughters, whether caused by the newly emboldened neighbor boy or some scruffy, sweaty stranger holding a guitar. :-)

The lyrics aren't just about sexual desire. That's only a small part of it.

Anyway, I think you've probably succeeded in identifying a pretty universal emotional response to the 3 percent of the song that is comprised of the pre-chorus, and you've failed at the other 97 percent. You're making my case for me.

J

[Roger Bissell]

The same can be said about the guitar intro lick - more of the same circling around and around 3 notes, building tension through repetition. It leads right into more of the same thing in the opening lyric section.

Whatever jubilation or joie de vivre &c listeners feel at this song is/was probably due to the flouting of societal mores and the sense of propriety they had drilled into them as kids. "Fuck yeah," indeed. Some songs are *not* just the lyrics and melodies. Sometimes it's all about the social statement. Imagine Herman's Hermits doing the song. No "Fuck yeah" there, just a pitiful statement of unmet needs. I'm abstracting from the Stones high decibel delivery and trying to get at what the music contains.

In re an earlier comment about lyrics as "training wheels" for the music theorist:

Notice that although it was easy to see how the Rolling Stones song "Satisfaction" had a very effective marrying of melody and lyrics, you actually do not need the lyrics to understand the emotional meaning of the melody. The lyrics just speed up the process and enhance the precision and specificity of identifying the meaning of the song. This is the methodology I am developing from American popular songs and will apply to 19th century art songs as well as melodies from Classical instrumental music and movie sound track themes. I especially look forward to analyzing the "Songs without Words."

REB

[Roger Bissell]

Your math is a little off. My comments apply to the whole song, and I've analyzed each distinctive part of it. Most of it is repetition, which carries its own meaning of course.

REB

[Jonathan]

I disagree, Brant. Less of Rand than any other art-thread I've been in anyway. There've been insightful thoughts from everyone. I find it a refreshing change.

Some has been derivative of her, some reminiscent, but a lot of independent thought too.

Rand's "esthetics" is actually an insignificant part of her hypothesis; it is in just a few pages of TRM on the subject of "style" in her Sense of Life chapter. She writes: "(The esthetic principles which apply to all art...are outside the scope of this discussion. I will mention only that such principles are defined by the science of esthetics--a task at which modern philosophy has failed dismally.)"

Little else.

I have never quite understood what you've always meant by "Rand's esthetics". In short, she didn't express any.

Rand's "esthetics" does deal with many legitimate esthetic issues. The fact that she didn't address the primary issue of aesthetics in regard to art -- how one would "evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery,"how one would establish standards and criteria by which to make judgments of aesthetic value -- doesn't mean that she "didn't express any" aesthetics.

Heh. Others "failed dismally"? Well at least they tried! They did much more than just look down their noses at others.

Actually, Rand kind of came close to addressing a little bit of the issue, but only as it pertained to literature. She didn't identify any objective standards for how to judge aesthetic value, but she did describe her own subjective preferences and explain why she had them.

J

[Jonathan]

The same can be said about the guitar intro lick - more of the same circling around and around 3 notes, building tension through repetition. It leads right into more of the same thing in the opening lyric section.

Whatever jubilation or joie de vivre &c listeners feel at this song is/was probably due to the flouting of societal mores and the sense of propriety they had drilled into them as kids. "Fuck yeah," indeed. Some songs are *not* just the lyrics and melodies. Sometimes it's all about the social statement.

No, I'm not taking about social mores or statements or any other extra-musical linkages that you're trying to impose on the music. I'm talking about the music, and only the music. It is not the expression of frustration that you claim it to be. Stones fans who see it as a "Wahooo!" expression are not doing so due to their "flouting of societal mores." Heh. Electric guitars are apparently too cultural shocking to you, so, please, listen to the orchestral version that I posted a link to. Forget about all of the non-musical associations and judgments that you have stuck in your head.

God, I feel like I'm talking to a merging of the characters Reverend Shaw Moore from the movie Footloose, and the mayor, Big Bob, from Pleasantville.

Imagine Herman's Hermits doing the song. No "Fuck yeah" there, just a pitiful statement of unmet needs. I'm abstracting from the Stones high decibel delivery and trying to get at what the music contains.

No, it's not an issue of who sings or plays the song. It doesn't matter if it's Herman's Hermits, Tony Bennett, Metallica, Slayer or the London Philharmonic. The music itself, as written, is not about "unmet needs." It's a "Wahooo!" and "Fuck Yeah!" expression no matter who performs it. It's fun. It's a feeling of joy and satisfaction. It's not dissatisfaction and frustration as you claim.

In re an earlier comment about lyrics as "training wheels" for the music theorist:

Notice that although it was easy to see how the Rolling Stones song "Satisfaction" had a very effective marrying of melody and lyrics, you actually do not need the lyrics to understand the emotional meaning of the melody.

That is totally false. The music and lyrics do not match. The music is satisfaction, where they lyrics are lack of satisfaction. A person who was not familiar with the lyrics would not successfully guess at what they were just by listening to the music alone. The music itself builds to the feeling of victory, satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Is "no satisfaction" ironic?

It plays well with Vietnam vids and Full Metal Jacket.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Is "no satisfaction" ironic?

It plays well with Vietnam vids and Full Metal Jacket.

--Brant

It also plays very well as a dance club synth remix, or as a sporting event halftime cheerleader/dance line number, because of its happy, excited, pump-it-up, let's-party emotional effect.

So much for Roger's ability to reliably read the emotional content of all music, and goodbye to Rand's theory that all listeners will hear the same general emotional content. What you grew up listening to -- what you like and are familiar with -- plays a major role in how you'll interpret music and how you'll respond to it. It is nowhere near to being as universal as Rand believed. It's more nurture than nature.

J

[anthony]

*Satisfaction*, if I subtract the voice and lyrics, still gives me this sense: *Frustation*. Its staccato repetition ... and he's tellin me more and more, about some useless information, s'posed to drive my imagination - that section.

Then the way it drops and then climbs to the end in a crescendo.

Desperate frustration, man.

One of the darkest numbers, musically too, was Paint it Black. You didn't need the words to know. Flat and depressed and repetitive.

Loved it.

I'm back there, that gloomy rebel all over again...

[Brant Gaede]

Is "no satisfaction" ironic?

It plays well with Vietnam vids and Full Metal Jacket.

--Brant

It also plays very well as a dance club synth remix, or as a sporting event halftime cheerleader/dance line number, because of its happy, excited, pump-it-up, let's-party emotional effect.

So much for Roger's ability to reliably read the emotional content of all music, and goodbye to Rand's theory that all listeners will hear the same general emotional content. What you grew up listening to -- what you like and are familiar with -- plays a major role in how you'll interpret music and how you'll respond to it. It is nowhere near to being as universal as Rand believed. It's more nurture than nature.

J

"So much"? Let's not make waste in your haste.

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

OK, sure, maybe Jonathan's right. Maybe the words of "Satisfaction" were intended ironically. Wouldn't be the first hit song that fit in that category. I'm thinking of "I Should Care" and "I Get Along without You Very Well," both from the pre-rock era. It would be good to have a rock era tune to include in this category, when I do the survey/analysis.

BTW, I don't remember saying that I had "the ability to reliably read the emotional content of all music." That would be a nice super-power to have. I *do* think that understanding the connotations of melodic motion, major-minor harmony, and rhythmic patterns is a good place to start in analyzing how words and music usually work together, and a good framework with which to study music without lyrics. If that makes me a pompous know-it-all, I guess I can live with that.

Also BTW, I *love* electric guitar. My only beef on "Satisfaction" is that the intro lick was originally intended to be played by horns (sax, trumpet, bone - not French or English horn). It sounds really cool when a horn section plays it.

"Paint it Black" - very interesting. I distinctly remember the melody and chords, but I don't recall the lyrics at all.

This song never impressed me a great deal, in itself, probably because it sounded so much like the Supremes' song, "My World is Empty without You," which actually came out a bit later than "Paint it Black." Being a high school kid in a rural Iowa community that year (1965-66), and being very busy with studies and "dance gigs," I missed a good bit of the pop music when it first came out.

Anyway, what struck me, once I had heard both songs, was that the minor harmony and the rhythm and pitches of the first seven notes of the two songs are identical. I probably discarded mentally discarded the Stones song, thinking it wasn't as good or as interesting a tune as the Supremes song.

But yeah, what does that melody mean? Right off the bat, from just the first phrase, I get a strong sense of continuing sorrow or despair. I'm sure I'll hear about how I'm messing up, and that the lyrics are about rainbows and happiness and sex and "Fuck yeah" and "get it on" and all that good old party stuff. After hearing that phrase twice, I hear in the next phrase more of an attempt at happiness, stated twice, which turns back to the darker mood.

So, overall, a dark mood, probably about some lost love - or being turned down for a football scholarship - or whatever.

If I had to write a lyric for "Paint it Black," I'd start out by cribbing from the Supremes' lyric writer: "My world is dark and empty since you went away." Or something like that. Correct me, if I'm not remotely close to either the content of the song's lyrics, or your own understanding or sense of the emotional content of the song.

The song really isn't very good, IMO. It sounds like a second-hand idea borrowed from some Jewish wedding reception song. Borrowed from somewhere in the Middle East, anyway. Needs more sitar, less gitar.

And now you have a somewhat better idea why I don't care much for the Stones' music in general. One of their big hits sounds like a less interesting (to me) knock-off of someone else's hit tune, and another one seems like a fun, but rather simplistic, cliched vehicle for stirring up teenage sexual behavior. I guess you don't always get what you want...

REB

Ohne haste, aber ohne raste

[PDS]

I disagree, Brant. Less of Rand than any other art-thread I've been in anyway. There've been insightful thoughts from everyone. I find it a refreshing change.

Some has been derivative of her, some reminiscent, but a lot of independent thought too.

Rand's "esthetics" is actually an insignificant part of her hypothesis; it is in just a few pages of TRM on the subject of "style" in her Sense of Life chapter. She writes: "(The esthetic principles which apply to all art...are outside the scope of this discussion. I will mention only that such principles are defined by the science of esthetics--a task at which modern philosophy has failed dismally.)"

Little else.

I have never quite understood what you've always meant by "Rand's esthetics". In short, she didn't express any.

Rand's "esthetics" does deal with many legitimate esthetic issues. The fact that she didn't address the primary issue of aesthetics in regard to art -- how one would "evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery,"how one would establish standards and criteria by which to make judgments of aesthetic value -- doesn't mean that she "didn't express any" aesthetics.

Heh. Others "failed dismally"? Well at least they tried! They did much more than just look down their noses at others.

Actually, Rand kind of came close to addressing a little bit of the issue, but only as it pertained to literature. She didn't identify any objective standards for how to judge aesthetic value, but she did describe her own subjective preferences and explain why she had them.

J

Give Rand a break. She wrote The Fountainhead.

[Brant Gaede]

I disagree, Brant. Less of Rand than any other art-thread I've been in anyway. There've been insightful thoughts from everyone. I find it a refreshing change.

Some has been derivative of her, some reminiscent, but a lot of independent thought too.

Rand's "esthetics" is actually an insignificant part of her hypothesis; it is in just a few pages of TRM on the subject of "style" in her Sense of Life chapter. She writes: "(The esthetic principles which apply to all art...are outside the scope of this discussion. I will mention only that such principles are defined by the science of esthetics--a task at which modern philosophy has failed dismally.)"

Little else.

I have never quite understood what you've always meant by "Rand's esthetics". In short, she didn't express any.

Rand's "esthetics" does deal with many legitimate esthetic issues. The fact that she didn't address the primary issue of aesthetics in regard to art -- how one would "evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery,"how one would establish standards and criteria by which to make judgments of aesthetic value -- doesn't mean that she "didn't express any" aesthetics.

Heh. Others "failed dismally"? Well at least they tried! They did much more than just look down their noses at others.

Actually, Rand kind of came close to addressing a little bit of the issue, but only as it pertained to literature. She didn't identify any objective standards for how to judge aesthetic value, but she did describe her own subjective preferences and explain why she had them.

J

Give Rand a break. She wrote The Fountainhead.

And for that we can all be thankful she never ran into a Jonathan that didn't bounce off her.

I have this fantasy I used once or twice. Time travelling back to the 1930s I meet and influence Rand so she can avoid all her big "mistakes." Then I travel back to the present. "Ayn Rand? Who was Ayn Rand? Never heard of her. Nice name, though."

--Brant

ugly: "traveling"--handsome: "travelling"--the first is the only correct spelling sayest sayst says my spell checker

[anthony]

And now you have a somewhat better idea why I don't care much for the Stones' music in general. One of their big hits sounds like a less interesting (to me) knock-off of someone else's hit tune, and another one seems like a fun, but rather simplistic, cliched vehicle for stirring up teenage sexual behavior. I guess you don't always get what you want...

REB

Ohne haste, aber ohne raste

Ya can't always get what you want...but if you try sometime - you just might find - you get what you need!

Eventually I went off the Stones, but in Roger's parlance I've never left my "training wheels" I'm afraid. Melody plus lyrics stayed my preference.

Saying which and stating the obvious, to give the music a fair and true reflection, in this exercise of isolating it from the lyrics, one would have to replace the singer's voice with - something. After all, the song is written for the singer and a voice is an 'instrument', too (similarly, instruments have a 'voice') with the singer's phrasing and pitch and all that.

Most often heard in fully instrumental remixes of old hit songs, it's sax or trumpet that fills in (oops,sorry to any horn players) for voice and lyric.

[Jonathan]

OK, sure, maybe Jonathan's right. Maybe the words of "Satisfaction" were intended ironically.

I don't know that it's an issue of irony so much as contrast.

Wouldn't be the first hit song that fit in that category. I'm thinking of "I Should Care" and "I Get Along without You Very Well," both from the pre-rock era. It would be good to have a rock era tune to include in this category, when I do the survey/analysis.

BTW, I don't remember saying that I had "the ability to reliably read the emotional content of all music."

I took your classifying tonal music as being in the same category as representational visual art, rather than in the same category as abstract visual art, as meaning that the subject matter of tonal music -- the "virtual entities and actions" and emotions contained in it -- are as reliably identifiable as the subject matter in representational paintings. You appeared to saying that there is only one proper, correct, objective identification of the content of any piece of music, just as there is only one proper, correct, objective identification of the fact that the subject matter of a painting of an apple is an apple, and that anyone who claimed to see or hear what you didn't was "rationalizing."

But if I've misunderstood you, and your actual view is that you recognize that music is much more open to differing interpretations, and that each individual listener will necessarily bring his own personal context and subjectivity to interpreting a piece of music, then I'm very glad to hear it, and I apologize for the misunderstanding!

That would be a nice super-power to have.

Rand thought that she had that power in spades, and that the rest of us had it to a slightly lesser degree than she did. In fact, her classifying music as art -- her accepting it as a valid "re-creation of reality" -- depends on her belief that all people can identify the same general emotional content of music. She wanted to believe that music was an objective art form, and therefore it wasn't acceptable that different people have all sorts of differing subjective interpretations of what the music contained. Music's nature had to be that all people identify the same content, and the hoped-for discovery of music's objective "conceptual vocabulary" would just be the inevitable technical formality which would explain why and how everyone identified the same content.

But I'm glad that you recognize that it is akin to a comic book fantasy to believe that people pretty much universally identify the same general emotion in any piece of music.

I *do* think that understanding the connotations of melodic motion, major-minor harmony, and rhythmic patterns is a good place to start in analyzing how words and music usually work together, and a good framework with which to study music without lyrics. If that makes me a pompous know-it-all, I guess I can live with that.

The opinion that you expressed right there, with the attitude of tentativeness and of beginning exploration, definitely does not make you a pompous know-it-all. Only your previous attitude, on this thread and others here, of unwarranted mocking smugness of preaching established conclusions, had the stench of pompous know-it-allitry.

Also BTW, I *love* electric guitar. My only beef on "Satisfaction" is that the intro lick was originally intended to be played by horns (sax, trumpet, bone - not French or English horn). It sounds really cool when a horn section plays it.

I agree with you there. Hearing pep bands blast that intro and the chorus is a fond memory of mine. It would add inches to my vertical leap during warmups before basketball games back in high school.

"Paint it Black" - very interesting. I distinctly remember the melody and chords, but I don't recall the lyrics at all.

This song never impressed me a great deal, in itself, probably because it sounded so much like the Supremes' song, "My World is Empty without You," which actually came out a bit later than "Paint it Black." Being a high school kid in a rural Iowa community that year (1965-66), and being very busy with studies and "dance gigs," I missed a good bit of the pop music when it first came out.

Anyway, what struck me, once I had heard both songs, was that the minor harmony and the rhythm and pitches of the first seven notes of the two songs are identical. I probably discarded mentally discarded the Stones song, thinking it wasn't as good or as interesting a tune as the Supremes song.

But yeah, what does that melody mean? Right off the bat, from just the first phrase, I get a strong sense of continuing sorrow or despair.

I'm sure I'll hear about how I'm messing up, and that the lyrics are about rainbows and happiness and sex and "Fuck yeah" and "get it on" and all that good old party stuff. After hearing that phrase twice, I hear in the next phrase more of an attempt at happiness, stated twice, which turns back to the darker mood.

So, overall, a dark mood, probably about some lost love - or being turned down for a football scholarship - or whatever.

I think you're still letting outside considerations influence your interpretation. If not the lyrics, then at least the title.

I've asked several people today (all from my generation) to tell me what the music alone (the versions without vocals/lyrics) evokes in them -- emotions, meanings, whatever else, anything and everything that they experienced. They all described it as being "up" rather than "down." Most saw it as enthusiastic and exciting. Several described it as exotic and adventurous. Some described visions of great action, such as men on galloping horses going to raid a nearby encampment -- a sort of 13th Warrior meets Lawrence of Arabia. Some saw a large group dancing in a circle -- a sort of arabesque Kalinka. The closest anyone came to your dark interpretation was one person who described it as being something like a nocturnal ritual dance, like belly dancers in a nomad's tent for the evening's entertainment. But that's just visually dark, and not the emotional darkness that you described.

If I had to write a lyric for "Paint it Black," I'd start out by cribbing from the Supremes' lyric writer: "My world is dark and empty since you went away." Or something like that.

If the idea was to write lyrics which matched the music, I'd write something like, "We roam these dusty lands, we ride in search of gold..."

Correct me, if I'm not remotely close to either the content of the song's lyrics, or your own understanding or sense of the emotional content of the song.

I'm not buying it. I think you're pretending to not know the lyrics. Heh, and you're really bad at it because you're also pretending to not have noticed the name of the song:

"Paint It Black, you say? Hmmm, I suppose you'll tell me that the lyrics are about rainbows and gum drops, but I'm going to go with emotional blackness!"

The song really isn't very good, IMO. It sounds like a second-hand idea borrowed from some Jewish wedding reception song. Borrowed from somewhere in the Middle East, anyway. Needs more sitar, less guitar.

Yes! But why don't you interpret Hava Nagila and similar Jewish and Arabic songs which are very much like Paint It Black as being major downers? It's because they aren't called "Paint It Black," and they don't have dark lyrics to sneak a peek at online, and therefore you didn't allow their dark titles or dark lyrics to influence your interpretation of the music!

And now you have a somewhat better idea why I don't care much for the Stones' music in general. One of their big hits sounds like a less interesting (to me) knock-off of someone else's hit tune, and another one seems like a fun, but rather simplistic, cliched vehicle for stirring up teenage sexual behavior. I guess you don't always get what you want...

I think you're fixated on lyrics and the sex thing. Muscially, purely musically, the Stones' songs are generally much more high-energy than sexual.

I have to say that your use of "simplistic" sounds just a bit pompous/highfalutin. It reminds me of Rand's valid gripes about "complexity-worship." The validity of depth of aesthetic response isn't in any way dependent on complexity, nor is it invalidated by simplicity. And I would think that "clichés" would be a very good thing in music by Objectivist standards. After all, if the goal of writing music is to communicate specific intended meanings to the highest percentage of listeners possible, then nothing would accomplish that goal like clichés. At the same time, new and difficult to understand methods of expression would be discouraged.

Anyway, if you really want to see the Stones' borrowing ideas, compare the opening riff of Satisfaction to that of Jumpin' Jack Flash to see the Stones' third-handedly borrowing from themselves a second-hand idea borrowed from elsewhere. But let's not forget that such borrowing is very common in the music world. It's not limited to the Stones, or even to the rock genre.

J

[Jonathan]

I disagree, Brant. Less of Rand than any other art-thread I've been in anyway. There've been insightful thoughts from everyone. I find it a refreshing change.

Some has been derivative of her, some reminiscent, but a lot of independent thought too.

Rand's "esthetics" is actually an insignificant part of her hypothesis; it is in just a few pages of TRM on the subject of "style" in her Sense of Life chapter. She writes: "(The esthetic principles which apply to all art...are outside the scope of this discussion. I will mention only that such principles are defined by the science of esthetics--a task at which modern philosophy has failed dismally.)"

Little else.

I have never quite understood what you've always meant by "Rand's esthetics". In short, she didn't express any.

Rand's "esthetics" does deal with many legitimate esthetic issues. The fact that she didn't address the primary issue of aesthetics in regard to art -- how one would "evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery,"how one would establish standards and criteria by which to make judgments of aesthetic value -- doesn't mean that she "didn't express any" aesthetics.

Heh. Others "failed dismally"? Well at least they tried! They did much more than just look down their noses at others.

Actually, Rand kind of came close to addressing a little bit of the issue, but only as it pertained to literature. She didn't identify any objective standards for how to judge aesthetic value, but she did describe her own subjective preferences and explain why she had them.

J

Give Rand a break. She wrote The Fountainhead.

I missed the part in The Fountainhead in which Rand gave her exposition on how to objectively "evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery" of all art forms, let alone just architecture, and how one would establish objective standards and criteria by which to make judgments of aesthetic value! I had assumed that since she felt that such a complex philosophical exposition was beyond the scope of her non-fictional essays on aesthetics, then she certainly would have felt that it was completely inappropriate to be included in a work of fiction!

But I'm very happy to discover that your copy of The Fountainhead includes it! May I borrow your copy, or convince you to post the exposition here, since my copy of the book doesn't include it?

Thanks,

J

[Brant Gaede]

My idea of Paint It Black are the Vietnam vids put to that song--painting the other guy black.

I sure love waltzes. My all time fav classical music. Rand dumped on them. I just expanded on my classical music choices and I'm sure Rand would dump on them too, especially by exclusion--that is, by so called "sense of life" (mine is better than yours but you can't know mine and don't send me any records, thank you. In the 1970s I sent Nathaniel Branden a bunch of gospel records. I don't think I told him who I was that sent them. Ha, ha. I have no idea what he thought of that. I had a gospel record blip that never came back.)

--Brant

[william.scherk]

And now you have a somewhat better idea why I don't care much for the Stones' music in general. One of their big hits sounds like a less interesting (to me) knock-off of someone else's hit tune, and another one seems like a fun, but rather simplistic, cliched vehicle for stirring up teenage sexual behavior.

Ya can't always get what you want...but if you try sometime - you just might find - you get what you need!

Eventually I went off the Stones, but in Roger's parlance I've never left my "training wheels" I'm afraid. Melody plus lyrics stayed my preference.

Saying which and stating the obvious, to give the music a fair and true reflection, in this exercise of isolating it from the lyrics, one would have to replace the singer's voice with - something. After all, the song is written for the singer and a voice is an 'instrument', too (similarly, instruments have a 'voice') with the singer's phrasing and pitch and all that.

Most often heard in fully instrumental remixes of old hit songs, it's sax or trumpet that fills in (oops,sorry to any horn players) for voice and lyric.

Tony, are you ready for an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones standards? I had to go looking for iterations of Paint It Black and Satisfaction. I found ukulele, I found the London and the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, I found a Brazilian girls choir and a high-school 'big band' with chorus. But this is the gem: a fabulous National Symphony Orchestra of Moldova Radio with the Rolling Stones Overture.

Also BTW, I *love* electric guitar. My only beef on "Satisfaction" is that the intro lick was originally intended to be played by horns (sax, trumpet, bone - not French or English horn). It sounds really cool when a horn section plays it.

"Paint it Black" - very interesting. I distinctly remember the melody and chords, but I don't recall the lyrics at all.

This song never impressed me a great deal, in itself, probably because it sounded so much like the Supremes' song, "My World is Empty without You," which actually came out a bit later than "Paint it Black." Being a high school kid in a rural Iowa community that year (1965-66), and being very busy with studies and "dance gigs," I missed a good bit of the pop music when it first came out.

Anyway, what struck me, once I had heard both songs, was that the minor harmony and the rhythm and pitches of the first seven notes of the two songs are identical. I probably discarded mentally discarded the Stones song, thinking it wasn't as good or as interesting a tune as the Supremes song.

...

The song really isn't very good, IMO. It sounds like a second-hand idea borrowed from some Jewish wedding reception song. Borrowed from somewhere in the Middle East, anyway. Needs more sitar, less gitar.

And now you have a somewhat better idea why I don't care much for the Stones' music in general.

It's amazing to think what a footprint the Rolling Stones will leave behind, and have left behind. Even if I don't like anything they have made in their lengthy career, the product looms large in popular music since the sixties. Interesting to think that these two 'middling' or not very good songs have been 'translated' into classical arrangements** and performed to the satisfaction of audiences (my own favourite symphonic treatment of the Stones is Gimme Shelter by the LSO -- it doesn't approach the aural thunder of the original recording, but thoroughly thrills the heart in its own way. And who can forget the exciting choral ending to You Can't Always Get What You Want?)

Paint it Black and My World Is Empty Without You are both successful, distinctive pop confections, to my sensibility. Each has its own charms. I think Paint it Black's simple bristling rhythms and ornamental oriental melodies have put it in the pop classics songbook. A different, simple rhythm in the Supremes song and the incomparable sweetness of the vocal mark out another golden standard for me.

Paint it Black may induce multiple interpretive or imaginative construals of its movement, tone, action, mode, melodies, musical gestalt -- as Jonathan has suggested. The other may also be construed abundantly. For me it is a wonderful strutting expression of love, stylized to smooth perfection. It's a perfect snapshot of American culture on a roll in the mid-sixties.

Everyone gets prizes.

-- a rare, non-vocal studio recording of the Stones Paint it Black, followed by that fabulous Detroit trio.

And one final oddball cover for cover version connoisseurs, the Hullabaloo Singers and Orchestra. Sublime jazzy take on Satisfaction:

____________________________

** A business called The Rock Orchestra does Satisfaction at a gallop, a kind of love march, less awful than the Hullabaloo massacre, and with a thumping mix of fuzz-guitar and horns from the get-go.

Added: clever high-school Roger to have caught the melodic overlap of My World Is Empty Without You To Paint It Black!

Edited March 12, 2015 by william.scherk

[Brant Gaede]

What's great about the orchestration is I'm left free to make my own videos in my head.

--Brant

you should see what I see!

[Brant Gaede]

I disagree, Brant. Less of Rand than any other art-thread I've been in anyway. There've been insightful thoughts from everyone. I find it a refreshing change.

Some has been derivative of her, some reminiscent, but a lot of independent thought too.

Rand's "esthetics" is actually an insignificant part of her hypothesis; it is in just a few pages of TRM on the subject of "style" in her Sense of Life chapter. She writes: "(The esthetic principles which apply to all art...are outside the scope of this discussion. I will mention only that such principles are defined by the science of esthetics--a task at which modern philosophy has failed dismally.)"

Little else.

I have never quite understood what you've always meant by "Rand's esthetics". In short, she didn't express any.

Rand's "esthetics" does deal with many legitimate esthetic issues. The fact that she didn't address the primary issue of aesthetics in regard to art -- how one would "evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery,"how one would establish standards and criteria by which to make judgments of aesthetic value -- doesn't mean that she "didn't express any" aesthetics.

Heh. Others "failed dismally"? Well at least they tried! They did much more than just look down their noses at others.

Actually, Rand kind of came close to addressing a little bit of the issue, but only as it pertained to literature. She didn't identify any objective standards for how to judge aesthetic value, but she did describe her own subjective preferences and explain why she had them.

J

Give Rand a break. She wrote The Fountainhead.

I missed the part in The Fountainhead in which Rand gave her exposition on how to objectively "evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery" of all art forms, let alone just architecture, and how one would establish objective standards and criteria by which to make judgments of aesthetic value! I had assumed that since she felt that such a complex philosophical exposition was beyond the scope of her non-fictional essays on aesthetics, then she certainly would have felt that it was completely inappropriate to be included in a work of fiction!

But I'm very happy to discover that your copy of The Fountainhead includes it! May I borrow your copy, or convince you to post the exposition here, since my copy of the book doesn't include it?

Thanks,

J

Faux greed.

--Brant

tsk, tsk -- now, something from Greg about values: his objective, yours subjective; his right, yours wrong, being feminized leftest liberal

[anthony]

In a consciousness, art and science meet and mingle around the curve, our concepts literally are "created", and so it looks to me that Objectivism, in tune with these realities, is an 'artistic' philosophy as much as anything.

Hm!

"I've come to see art and science as occupying two ends of a continuum that wraps around on itself like a circle, so that the two meet at a common point. Both art and science involve perspective-taking, representation and rearrangement - the three foundational ingredients of the musical brain. When these three are combined we get metaphor, (letting one object or concept stand for another) and abstraction (letting a hierarchically larger concept stand for subordinate elements).

Both art and science rely on metaphor and abstraction because they take sensory, sensual, and perceptual observations and distill them to an essence...

Art and science are about extracting and abstracting world knowledge in a form that makes it more readily understandable--what they share is a sense of overview and unifying themes, decisions about which facts-of-the-world are relevant and which are not."

[...]

------

I picked up this book at a bookstore today (only because of this discussion) and flipped through and almost right away saw this passage. That idea I was fumbling with yesterday was so proximate to this author's thoughts (and with objectivist flavour) I was stunned, so I've bought it.

He is Daniel J. Levitin.

Apparently he had a NYT bestseller 'This is Your Brain On Music'.

This one is 'The World in Six Songs' - How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature.

[Roger Bissell]

William, thanks for sharing those links. I really liked the Moldava orchestra playing the Stones medley. I had completely forgotten that the Stones did "As Tears Go By." It's a very short tune, but gorgeous, joyous - despite ending on the leading-tone of the key, which I suppose contributes to the wistfulness of the tune. It certainly leaves you hanging, wondering, "yes, and...?" Sort of like "Shave and a haircut, six..." only there's no "bits" to finish the tune with. It's a complete statement. It's done. Ending the way it does is part of what it's "saying." (Which I take to be: "It's over, but it's not over.")

I love the comments Keith Richards and Mick Jaggar made about their song-writing and about this song in particular. Richards in 1992 said: "We were writing these terrible Pop songs that were becoming Top-10 hits. I thought, 'What are we doing here playing the f--king blues, and writing these horrible Pop songs and getting very successful?' They had nothing to do with us, except we wrote 'em." And Jaggar in 1995 said: "It's a very melancholy song for a 21-year-old to write: The evening of the day, watching children play - it's very dumb and naive, but it's got a very sad sort of thing about it, almost like an older person might write. You know, it's like a metaphor for being old: You're watching children playing and realizing you're not a child." It's interesting also to note that the original title of the song was "As TIME goes by," which they changes to "As TEARS go by," in order to avoid confusion with the standard from the movie "Casablanca."

But back to that orchestra playing the Stones medley, including "Paint it Black." I find that the arrangement of a song greatly characterizes how people remember it, and I try to abstract the melody away from whatever performances of it I've heard, including by the writer(s), so that I can get a better sense of what it means - what it means, in itself, apart from how someone is performing it. That orchestral arrangement was very dynamic and...orchestral. Very large scope, almost cinematic.

Over the years, lots of rock tunes have been elevated in that way and made accessible to listeners who wouldn't have paid much attention to them otherwise - just as rockers like Rod Stewart and Boz Scaggs and pop singers like Linda Ronstadt and Toni Tennille have kept the "Great American Song Book" in circulation.

This is all very good. We have reached a stage where all the best stuff from each genre or style category seems to be freely circulating through the culture, reaching all the listeners who would appreciate them. Leonard Meyer wrote about this almost 50 years ago in Music, the Arts, and Ideas, and at the time I thought he was very wise and prophetic in this area - like Rand was about politico-economic stuff - and it turns out he was correct.

But the different arrangements - and the difference they make. Anyone who is familiar with "Bohemian Rhapsody" knows what an intense, weird piece it is. Dark, brooding. "Mama, I just killed a man...put a bullet to his head" You get the idea. Invest a little time for comparative study on this tune, and how the arrangement can have a huge impact on what meaning people get from it. Go to YouTube and listen to Queen's performance - and then watch the Mnozil Brass do their version of it - and then listen to Weird Al Yankovic's performance on his album "Alapalooza." Yeah, putting the thing in a polka rhythm pretty well trashes (or lampoons) the original idea of the song. Rand would say that Weird Al was denying the metaphysical significance of Queen's song's message, or something like that. And if she *liked* Queen's song, she would protest at Weird Al's spitting in Queen's (and her) face. (Does Queen have a face - or faces?)

Or, consider "My World is Empty without You, Babe" by the Supremes. I saw a YouTube clip of them on the Ed Sullivan show, and they were dressed in their glittery dresses and weaving around and wearing big grins as they sang this song about being lonely for an ex-love. (Behind these big grins are three empty, desolate chickies, let me tell ya!) I wonder if Rand would have said their performance was an act of denying the metaphysical significance of losing one's love... (I can imagine their manager: no, no, you're on tv now. Don't look sad for Christ's sake, you'll lose record sales and bookings. Ya gotta smile and show those pearlies and sway those hips, if ya wanna keep working!)

Now imagine someone like Nancy Wilson or Diana Krall slowing the tempo way down and doing it as a torch ballad. OK, that would be closer to the original idea. I doubt the original writer had in mind something like a pep rally, put your hands together and clap along with us, and party! No, more like a wistful, mournful lamentation about a lost love - which would require a slow, ballad approach to get across both the writer's melodic and lyrical intentions.

So, that brings me back once again to "Paint it Black." Jonathan has already falsely accused me of being a liar twice in one post for pretending not to know the lyrics when I did my analysis and write my comments, and for pretending not to know the title of the song.

The truth is that I did *not* know the lyrics until *after* I wrote my analysis. *Then* I looked up the lyrics and found that I was approximately correct - and instead of proudly proclaiming my accuracy in predicting the probable meaning of the song's lyrics, I thought I'd give Jonathan a chance to acknowledge that I had actually made a correct guess. Instead, of course, he had to accuse me of cheating and lying.

Also, the truth is that I did *not* pretend not to know the title. I mentioned the title and said "interesting." That was supposed to be a *segue* from the previous comments to focusing on "Paint it Black." That, too, escaped Jonathan. All he could conceive is that I'm lying and cheating in order to save face.

Apparently *his* way of saving face is to distract everyone from his iniquities by hurling as much crap as he can at *other* people's faces. Way to make a positive contribution. Eric Holder is probably trying to get in touch with him, as we speak. Holder tries to shut down police departments. Jonathan tries to shut down productive intellectual discussions. Same methodology, same purpose.

Well, anyway, here's another chance for Jonathan to do what he does so well. I just now (5 pm CDT March 12 2015), in the course of writing this post, accessed this for the first time on songfacts.com. I'm no Leonard Meyer or Ayn Rand, but I sure do feel like I've come out from under a cloud of Jonathan's crazy-making and been confirmed in what I was saying about the song.

This is written from the viewpoint of a person who is depressed; he wants everything to turn black to match his mood. There was no specific inspiration for the lyrics. When asked at the time why he wrote a song about death, Mick Jagger replied: "I don't know. It's been done before. It's not an original thought by any means. It all depends on how you do it." The song seems to be about a lover who died.

Oh, it's a song about a person who is *depressed*? Hmmm. Why don't we hear that in the Stones' *performance,* then? Could it be that with their upbeat public version, they are Weird Al-ing their own song? Playing it upbeat, deliberately deviating from the original meaning and intent of the song, so it would be more appealing to their audience - not so much of a downer? Naw, couldn't be...I mean, the Stones are all about good times, high energy, exuberance, party on, "Fuck yeah." So, it couldn't be a song about death and loss of love.

Except it is. And they just threw it under the bus in order to sustain the party atmosphere and satiate their fans. Here's how it happened:

The Rolling Stones wrote this as a much slower, conventional soul song. When Bill Wyman began fooling around on the organ during the session doing a takeoff of their
original as a spoof of music played at Jewish weddings. Co-manager Eric Easton (who had been an organist), and Charlie Watts joined in and improvised a double-time
drum pattern, echoing the rhythm heard in some Middle Eastern dances. This new more upbeat rhythm was then used in the recording as a counterpoint to the morbid
lyrics.

Whoa, dude - seriously? Much slower - soul song? Well, knock me over with a feather!! Spoofing Jewish wedding music? Emulating Middle Eastern dance rhythms? You're kidding, right? OMG, they *did* Weird-Al their own song. Looks like he isn't the only one who made millions of dollars turning serious songs into polkas. If that's not "ironic," perhaps someone can come up with a better, and more clarifying, alternative than "contrast." (Coming soon: the Rolling Stones and Weird Al team up to do Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead." Can't wait for that.)

And last but not quite, my comment that the Stones' live performance needed less gitar, more sitar. I love this:

Stones guitarist Brian Jones played the sitar on this. He made good television by balancing the instrument on his lap during appearances. Keith Richards: "We were in Fiji for about three days. They make sitars and all sorts of Indian stuff. Sitars are made out of watermelons or pumpkins or something smashed so they go hard. They're very brittle and you have to be careful how you handle them. We had the sitars, we thought we'd try them out in the studio. To get the right sound on 'Paint It Black' we found the sitar fitted perfectly. We tried a guitar but you can't bend it enough."

As Jonathan would say, "Heh."

REB