On 11 Jan 2007, at 12:39, alex wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-01-11 at 12:13 +0000, Paul Sanders wrote:
>> This probably only illustrates the limits of metaphorical (or my)
>> thinking. I don't know if I think an unperformed score is music. I'm
>> sure that a performance is music, whether or not there's a score. Not
>> that I want to drag this very interesting and open thread down the
>> barren path of intentionality, but I would like to keep the
>> possibility open that an unsonified algorithm can be music, based on
>> some conditions which might even be unspecified.
>
> Well perhaps we can reach agreement by saying we can musicify an
> algorithm in our heads just by reading it and imagining its execution
> and result, therefore bypassing the sonification part.
>
> Then we're saying an algorithm isn't music until you musicify it,
> which
> seems rather obvious, but forces us to focus on human perception of an
> algorithm rather than the algorithm itself.
But this is of course just a conceptual mess where we are using
different
language games (cf. Wittgenstein) to talk about phenomena that are
related (and which we conceptually put under one hat).
Consider the word "book" for example.
- A stack of printed papers could be called a book.
- I could have an idea in my head and call it a book.
- The laws of physics could be called "the book of nature"
- 3 printed books in one volume could be called "one book"
- Tibetans have strips of paper (ca. 35*8 cm) unbound and they call
it a book.
- We could imagine a software that generates text and call that a book.
- And we can argue whether any of this is a book or not.
The word etymologically seems to come from the bark of a tree, both the
germanic root ("book") and the latin root ("libri").
Now the etymology of "music" is quite interesting as it comes from the
Greek "mousike techne", meaning the art (techne) of the Muses.
Not that this is important in any sense.
I like your arguments Alex, especially this one: "The code (with
revision control)
is a recording as much as an mp3 -- just much better compressed! :) "
but note that you use the word "recording" and not "music" here.
recording of what? ... the music? so what's the music then?
This is endless : )
thor
Received on Thu Jan 11 2007 - 13:59:23 GMT