Re: Does music express things?

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 22:35:21 +0200
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Size: 1,451 bytes

Dr.Matt wrote:
> In article <email-address-deleted>,
> Samuel Vriezen <email-address-deleted> wrote:
>
>>Dr.Matt wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Music is already used to signify equally complex ideas as hunger and
>>>>it could add hunger to the vocabulary without becoming a poor cousin
>>>>to language.
>>>
>>>
>>>When music is used to signify ideas, it's already functioning as
>>>a poor cousin to language.
>>
>>But there's a difference between 'signify' and 'express'.
>
>
> Hm... which difference did you have in mind?
The simplest thing a piece of music expresses is the ideas it was made
with (if it was well-made at all), but I don't think it 'signifies' them.
A piece could be an expression of an idea of musical continuity or of
sonata form, or of a theme, of a tempo, of a way of playing instruments,
or of the influence of rock music or whatever but it would hardly
signify sonata form etc.
And since the expression of music could be expression of musical ideas,
it can go quite far; a piece of music could express 'sudden death' for
example (you get a nice sonata going and stop it half-way through the
development perhaps). That might at the same time express sloppiness
perhaps, but that again might learn us something about the relationship
between sudden death and sloppiness. Etc, etc - the subject is nicely
infinite.
--
samuel
free.concerten.fr
Toccata III: http://www.niwo.com/music/vriezen.html