Sacred River: Six hours of continuous sacred music Sunday 26 November

[kernelbogey]

Listened on background to about an hour.

Widor's toccata?

Reformation symphony?

I cocked a secular eyebrow at these two.

I could swear I heard some Tibetan Buddhist chanting early on and a Muslim Call to Prayer....

Provisional until I can listen again.

[french frank]

....I venture explore could be heard as with 99% of language in a script of W1A....

Just to give some gravitas. A 'divagation' might have given a polysyllabic impression of greater seriousness.

[doversoul1]

I don't think in words

You are (thinking in words). This is your thought expressed in words.

I sort of see the point Serial_Apologist is making but as far as my brain/mind is concerned, unless I make an effort to organise my thoughts/feelings and express them in words so that I can receive others’ responses, I don’t think I can say I have explored the subject. Simply letting my own thoughts going through/round in my head/mind does not help to improve my ability to ‘go deeper’.

I think words may not be necessary where the activity is taking place within a community such as a monastery, or maybe within a jazz group but when something is being presented to a wider audience and if the subject is meant to be explored, then I think it needs language (I suppose that’s what Tell us what you think is for if that’s what ‘we’ mean exploring).

[eighthobstruction]

Just to give some gravitas. A 'divagation' might have given a polysyllabic impression of greater seriousness.

.....yeah i had one of those but the gearbox fell out....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... when something is being presented to a wider audience and if the subject is meant to be explored, then I think it needs language

Whose words? Sometimes subjects (such as Music or visual Art) require an absence of words in order for exploration - otherwise it's not "exploration"; it's "direction".

Language might be involved in an inner dialogue in some/many/most (but not all) listeners/viewers - but it isn't necessary in a six-hour, uninterrupted sequence of Music.

[french frank]

Whose words? Sometimes subjects (such as Music or visual Art) require an absence of words in order for exploration - otherwise it's not "exploration"; it's "direction".

Require? Looking through a couple of papers, there seems to be a suggestion that you can't generalise about what is happening in different people's minds, or how they are 'processing' a non-verbal experience. In what sense are you 'exploring' yourself?

Language might be involved in an inner dialogue in some/many/most (but not all) listeners/viewers - but it isn't necessary in a six-hour, uninterrupted sequence of Music.

I agree it's not 'necessary', any more than it's 'necessary' that everyone who listens is in any sense 'exploring'. Can one retain, take away knowledge from the listening experience without words?

[MrGongGong]

And I don't see why you would need to, any more than an artist sitting down in front of his easel needs words. But we go back to the original query: what are we exploring when listening to a ceaselessly changing stream of music? What was meant by the word 'explore' in this context?

The bit I listened to seem to be "exploring" a thread of diverse musics linked by a loose idea of them having a "sacred" starting point
which obviously means completely different things in different cultures and contexts (so that's the "universal language" myth sorted out)

[MrGongGong]

You are (thinking in words). This is your thought expressed in words.

No i'm not
I might reflect on the process of thinking using words
but that's not the same as the process of thinking involving language

[vinteuil]

.

... sometimes I'm with William -

" To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."


and sometimes I'm with Ludwig -

"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent"



.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Require?

"Sometimes", yes. How can you explore C major usefully with words? How do you explore different ways of modulating from D major to Bb minor verbally? How do you explore the effect of combining colours, except by taking different colours and actually combining them to discover the results? What use is language when exploring the flavours of different foods. "Sometimes" language is useful/necessary to communicate or describe the results of these explorations to others (or even to oneself) - but in many such cases, the discoveries one has made are being transcribed from experience (sound, sight, flavour) into language.

Looking through a couple of papers, there seems to be a suggestion that you can't generalise about what is happening in different people's minds, or how they are 'processing' a non-verbal experience. In what sense are you 'exploring' yourself?

In the sense of paying closer attention to one's reactions, or seeking out new sensations/experiences/awareness, or questioning previous ideas, or reflecting on how a sequence of pieces of Music (sometimes taken out of context and put into juxtaposition with unexpected neighbours).

I agree it's not 'necessary', any more than it's 'necessary' that everyone who listens is in any sense 'exploring'. Can one retain, take away knowledge from the listening experience without words?

Yes. (One can learn from a teacher who doesn't even speak one's own language, for instance.)

[MrGongGong]

Yes. (One can learn from a teacher who doesn't even speak one's own language, for instance.)

Spot on
When I was a student I studied the Sitar for a couple of years, at the start my teacher had only just arrived in the UK from India and spoke very little English at all. Given that I don't speak Hindi or Urdu he taught without words and was one of the best music teachers I have had.

[doversoul1]

Whose words? Sometimes subjects (such as Music or visual Art) require an absence of words in order for exploration - otherwise it's not "exploration"; it's "direction".

By subject, I meant something like a theme or a topic and not any type of art (or science for that matter), and I’d call what you describe experience rather than exploration. Experience can occur in the affective domain but exploration needs to be worked in the cognitive domain which, to me, needs language to function.

Mr GG.
OK. We’ll leave it to that as it is after all a different way of using words . But this is a genuine question. What do you do when you have to work with (or ‘talk’ to) other artists on (about) your music/creation/sound art?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I’d call what you describe experience rather than exploration. Experience can occur in the affective domain but exploration needs to be worked in the cognitive domain which, to me, needs language to function.

That's a very interesting distinction - but, I would consider that there are cognitive activities, that don't depend on language, arising from the comparison of knowledge gained from experience, from experimenting with bringing together sounds or colours or flavours to create new combinations which further develop one's knowledge. Watch children in primary school learning games just from watching others - and how do babies explore themselves and their surroundings before they know language (how do they learn language itself)?

[MrGongGong]

Mr GG.
OK. We’ll leave it to that as it is after all a different way of using words . But this is a genuine question. What do you do when you have to work with (or ‘talk’ to) other artists on (about) your music/creation/sound art?

I use words
Images
Sounds
and other things

Words are useful and have an important role to play
BUT i've worked in many environments where there is no shared language so other ways of communicating are necessary and sometimes preferable

and what is a "different way of using words" ?
using NO words?

[french frank]

How can you explore C major usefully with words? […]

I'm not sure that I'm (yet) convinced that 'not requiring words' is the same as 'requiring an absence of words'. Even if you require external silence from others!

(One can learn from a teacher who doesn't even speak one's own language, for instance.)

To demonstrate you don't need spoken words. But when the pupil isn't getting the right effect, is the teacher verbalising at all, albeit silently, when working out how to 'explain'? Does the pupil respond purely instinctively without ever verbalising? Are words only for communication with others?