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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Le 21/07/2014 00:01, Stephen Soderberg
a écrit :<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:94bec437-ebbc-48c9-89b2-5c3ab474fa1e@me.com"
type="cite">
<div>I want to thank Nicolas for his thoughtful response (copied
below). I have read his comments over several times and must
say that there is nothing in them that I find truly dissonant
with points I have made in my blog entry –– which is not to
imply a consonance with his conclusion. And so ....</div>
</blockquote>
No dissonance, indeed. I probably overstated my argument, as you
probably did also. Isn't that the fun of the argument?<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:94bec437-ebbc-48c9-89b2-5c3ab474fa1e@me.com"
type="cite">
<div>I must admit that I hadn't thought about it all starting as a
gentlemen's agreement ("Western music or its musicians decided"
–– consciously? Maybe "decided" is not the right word, but I
know what Nicolas is getting at) that was periodically renewed
across the centuries ("'our' choice"? –– Really?? I don't
remember being asked and I doubt Nicolas was –– unconscious
acceptance - the unexamined life - is one of my primary issues).
Nevertheless, I like the audacity of this justification. An
argumentum ab auctoritate stretched over 1,000 years is nothing
to sneeze at. But neither is it anything to genuflect for.</div>
</blockquote>
These gentlemen probably did not foresee the consequences of what
they agreed upon, but they did agree, certainly, to perform
(consonant) polyphony – this would hardly have been possible without
some agreement. They did not agree on consonances as "pleasing", or
"suave", or anything of the kind. They merely confirmed a choice
(that already existed in monodic chant, but not to the same extent)
of easily identifiable and reproducible intervals – for these are
the most important characteristics of consonances. In order to
increase these characteristics, they opted for the types of vocal
and instrumental emissions that produced the most stable pitches.
They also chose the instruments most suited to the purpose,
instruments with a sustained supply of energy: winds (including the
organ) or bowed strings. And when they (re)invented notation, first
literal, then diastematic, they made sure that it would indicate
pitch above all, because pitch became the most important category
for Western music.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:94bec437-ebbc-48c9-89b2-5c3ab474fa1e@me.com"
type="cite">
<div>Re my identification of the culprit as the "tonal triad": I'm
trying to critique the "perdurability" (as one anonymous reader
put it –– I'll add that to the growing list) and relatively
recent near fetishist attachment associated with the<span
style="line-height: 1.5;" data-mce-style="line-height: 1.5;"> usual/traditional/common-practice-period/over-determined/ubiquitous/tonal/consonant/diatonic/3-11/<3,4,5>/(p,sign)/pretty-sounding
triad.</span></div>
</blockquote>
Agreed, but your critique may not aim at the real culprit, which is
the idea that all this results from "laws of nature", and that's
what I'm fighting against (as you are, probably). All what our
forefathers agreed upon (or not) eventually led to the discovery of
"the overtones" – by which, obviously, we should understand
"harmonic overtones". Because the sounds privileged by our
forefathers (see above) had the unexpected characteristic of
producing harmonic overtones, more recent of our forefathers (and
many of your contemporaries and, I am sorry to have to admit, too
many of mines) came to believe and to claim that harmonic partials
were "universal", too easily concluding that all the categories
resulting from this initial choice also were universal: consonance,
pitch, and the like – and eventually the triad... the "tonal
triad"... tonality itself... universal?<br>
This all is THE major misconception of musical Eurocentrism. And
I acknowledge with some surprise that this misconception in
increasing. Up to the early 20th century, (I'd say, until Schenker
and Schoenberg; but I wont say it, by fear of the reactions) it was
generally believed that overtones could not normally be heard.
Today, it appears that everybody hears overtones anywhere, and that
I am of the very few not to hear them (or, more probably, not
ashamed to say that I don't hear them).<br>
Let's be clear: I am not a composer, merely a historian of music
and of music theory. As such, I an very much attached to studying
the common-practice period of tonal music. As such, also, I am
convinced that we should view this common-practice period for what
it is, not as something to which one should have any kind of
fetishist attachment. But let's leave that for another discussion.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:94bec437-ebbc-48c9-89b2-5c3ab474fa1e@me.com"
type="cite"><span style="line-height: 1.5;"
data-mce-style="line-height: 1.5;">But for the record: of course
I know the triad </span><em style="line-height: 1.5;"
data-mce-style="line-height: 1.5;">itself</em><span
style="line-height: 1.5;" data-mce-style="line-height: 1.5;"> is
innocent; and as to that triad itself, I'm an admirer. </span><span
style="line-height: 1.5;" data-mce-style="line-height: 1.5;">In
fact, as will soon be seen, I believe the object in question <em>may</em>
have a future role to play <em>beyond</em> its essential
backward-facing role in support of "music theory today" whose
goals are embedded in analysis. But perhaps its new role will be
taken down a notch or two or three. [...]</span></blockquote>
I have no real opinion on this, and I ain't entitled to have any.
But beware: the triad as such is linked to so many more important
characteristics (consonance, harmonicity, pitch, 'note', etc.), that
I don't think one could easily 'take it down a notch'. But once
again, this is not my concern...<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:94bec437-ebbc-48c9-89b2-5c3ab474fa1e@me.com"
type="cite">
<div><span style="line-height: 1.5;" data-mce-style="line-height:
1.5;">One final note re Nicolas' statement, "</span><span
style="line-height: 1.5;" data-mce-style="line-height: 1.5;">Musical
analysis, that I know, never claimed to state how music should
be.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5;"
data-mce-style="line-height: 1.5;">" Not directly perhaps, but
this claim is less convincing now and has become much more
difficult to defend in the past century or so. The sheer
weight of accumulating analysis and the curriculum to support
it and the oversupply of teachers to teach it all clearly
favor an approach that strongly urges, without necessarily
meaning to say such an impolite thing out loud, that "this
music we're teaching is superior" [...].<br>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
This, Stephen, is not a situation that I have resented here (in
France, I mean), on the contrary. Under the heavy shadow of Ircam
and others, we would rather be under pressure to defend common
practice as something worth some minimal preservation. I am quite
actively involved in the preparation of the next European Music
Analysis Conference (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.euromac2014.eu/">http://www.euromac2014.eu/</a>): I think some of
these questions will be much discussed there...<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Professeur émérite, Université Paris-Sorbonne<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:nicolas.meeus@scarlet.be">nicolas.meeus@scarlet.be</a><br>
<br>
PS. @Ildar: I never said, nor thought, that Pythagoras is a joke,
merely that this medieval legend of hammers and blacksmiths is.<br>
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