Order! Order!

[Serial_Apologist]

[Bryn]

Experiencing a static situation and a dynamic one simultaneously is experiencing a dynamic situation, isn't it?

While these two modes of experiencing music are in contradiction, and the former is conveniently described as "static", all is dynamic, in essence, surely?

[french frank]

Since we started the forum in 2010 it has altered - a little - depending on who the active participants are. Sometimes an influx of new members provokes the departure of others - no one is obliged to participate. Those of us who have been posting since 2007 - years before the forum began - have sometimes to sigh over the changes. But in the end, a community is about fitting in, isn't it?

[Joseph K]

Some people might think of the imaginative world that opens up through musical experience is some kind of unchanging Platonic realm (which is sort of what LMcD seems to be saying in the OP), while others might think of it as something dynamic and thought-provoking, which engages intellect and emotions in such a way as to go beyond perceived differences between them, in other words embodying not an escape from the world we live in, as a vision of a world we imagine might some day be made real. Where some see timelessness, others experience a desire for a better future. The first plays into the hands of conservative social/political tendencies by emphasising that we can't change things but at least we can escape from them into the warm embrace of art, while the second stresses the imagination, a sense of possibility, that if human beings can achieve this then they can change things.

Well put. I think your comment about 'going beyond perceived differences of emotions and intellect' is exactly what music does in the brain, making connections between different parts that is unlike any other experience.
However, I think that there is a place for timelessness in art that is not necessarily conservative (but I agree about escapism, which for some time now has manifested itself in nostalgia) which I see as something archetypal. I am reminded of the Chomsky - Foucault debate about human nature; one might think there is such a thing as innate characteristics of humans without necessarily thinking we can't radically alter how our society is organised.

P.S. Sorry for your loss.

[LMcD]

Well put. I think your comment about 'going beyond perceived differences of emotions and intellect' is exactly what music does in the brain, making connections between different parts that is unlike any other experience.
However, I think that there is a place for timelessness in art that is not necessarily conservative (but I agree about escapism, which for some time now has manifested itself in nostalgia) which I see as something archetypal. I am reminded of the Chomsky - Foucault debate about human nature; one might think there is such a thing as innate characteristics of humans without necessarily thinking we can't radically alter how our society is organised.

P.S. Sorry for your loss.

I have a transcript (sadly, I could only get it in Welsh) in a golden frame above my bed.

[ahinton]

Very well said...

[Richard Barrett]

one might think there is such a thing as innate characteristics of humans without necessarily thinking we can't radically alter how our society is organised.

Yes, this is something that came up in another thread recently IIRC, and for sure it's an unresolved issue of great complexity. (Have you come across the Radical Anthropology group on Facebook? It often contains links to interesting and valuable work in this area.) If I were pushed to make a comment of my own I would say that there's a difference between "innate" and "unchangeable". Our innate abilities don't allow us to observe distant galaxies but they do include the curiosity and intelligence and (just as crucially) history to get to the point of building devices which enable us to do so. And we can certainly experience something we interpret as timelessness; music might in that context be thought of as a sort of mind-altering substance...

P.S. Sorry for your loss.

Thanks. My mother was 86 and had been bedridden with Parkinson's for some years, and eventually it weakened her to the point that her immune system basically ceased to function. So it wasn't unexpected. On the other hand, these are times when it's good for families to be together even for a short time, and there was no way this could be arranged, largely, I would have to say, as a result of arbitrary and heartless decisions being made in the clown show that currently passes for a government in the UK.

[kernelbogey]

Richard - I'm sorry for your loss.

And we can certainly experience something we interpret as timelessness; music might in that context be thought of as a sort of mind-altering substance.

I hope you will find space and time to find this in coming days and weeks.

[Serial_Apologist]

As John Dewey said (roughly) in another context: people don't learn from experience. They learn from reflecting on experience.

Success would depend on what suppositions are brought into the reflecting, surely?

[ahinton]

I agree about escapism, which for some time now has manifested itself in nostalgia) which I see as something archetypal

Yes - I well recall Alan Bush's thinly veiled disgust at the notion of using music as some form of "escapism" (citing "bath salts for the soul" in this context in a chapter on Beethoven in his book In my eighth decade and other essays); I also remember him expanding on this in conversation when arguing that, in such a context, Beethoven represented the reality while what was purportedly being "escaped from" did not...

[Serial_Apologist]

My mother was 86 and had been bedridden with Parkinson's for some years, and eventually it weakened her to the point that her immune system basically ceased to function. So it wasn't unexpected. On the other hand, these are times when it's good for families to be together even for a short time, and there was no way this could be arranged, largely, I would have to say, as a result of arbitrary and heartless decisions being made in the clown show that currently passes for a government in the UK.

May I add my deepest condolences.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have a transcript (sadly, I could only get it in Welsh) in a golden frame above my bed.

I hope all works out well for your wife, LMcD.

[Serial_Apologist]

If I were pushed to make a comment of my own I would say that there's a difference between "innate" and "unchangeable".

I quite liked Ernest Mandel's generalisation, "malleable", as applied to "human nature".

[LMcD]

I hope all works out well for your wife, LMcD.

Thank you. I wasn't allowed to accompany her to the hospital, and have been 'no. 3 in the queue' for 33 minutes, waiting to talk to somebody in A&E.....

[Richard Barrett]

I quite liked Ernest Mandel's generalisation, "malleable", as applied to "human nature".

Yes, an important thinker on such matters.