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What is it?

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The Blue Note

ragus
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Posted 09/27/09 - 12:46 AM:	#41
mookie blaylock wrote For instance, the structure of a jazz tune is irrelevant and even distracting when listening to a tune. Then what (or rather who) are you listening to? Apart from freeform jazz (not my tatste) all jazz has well-defined structure. How can you listen to Bill Evans (pianist not sax player), for example, and ignore the chord progressions he uses that hint at the original song. There's nothing arbitrary there - it's a weaving of a new tapestry along familiar lines. The Fast Show did a nice weekly take on jazz - mmm nice! It's worth watching.
"A word in your ear is like an untethered goat in a field" Wittigenstein

mookie blaylock
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Posted 09/27/09 - 12:56 AM:	#42
Banno wrote: What if I argue that the mooted blue note is nothing more than pretentious posturing. Jeese. An old teacher of mine told me the myth, making me believe it was true. What if we don't get personal and just talk about some implications? What does it mean to be abstract? It has no meaning. So, why does my bed next to me have meaning, even though audio visually it is abstract? I perform an activity of sleeping on it. It has criteria for usage. Typically, I sleep on my bed and I don't use it to play music. So, although the world is abstract (it's just an organic mess of sensation), there are functions things have that, I think ultimately have to do with my social and ecological sustainability. Because I need to survive in a social ecology, I distinguish things through meaning. It makes it easier to identify a cup to drink out of and a lake to swim in. A cup is not something to drink out of unless the shape of the cup in my visual field implies that I can drink out if it. The social-ecological function of an abstract arrangement of light in my visual field determines its meaning. Meaning is a social ecological phenomenon. Sound has little meaning in this regaurd. Language works similarly. We're interpreting audio and visual abstract patterns across a page or "in our ears". Sounds and symbols that have no semblence of anything socially and or ecologically recognizable are considered abstract. The soundscape in jazz music does not resemble anything socially and/or ecologically recognizable. It is impractical. It does not have a purpose. It is a form of communication that communicates something that is not intelligible. It communicates an enigma. It communicates something, but that something is inexplicable. My new proposition: - If the soundscapes in Jazz are clearly communicating something (because there is a large cultural response to it (dancing, painting, etc.)) and it's not intelligible what it is communicating, then it is communicating something that is impractical (not blatantly assisting our social and ecological sustainability). - Impractical physical "things" (jazz) that are removed from ecological and social sustainability, have no determinate meaning, while at the same time express an explicitly enigmatic "message". - You're mean
The Internet: The only place to be racist without pants. - Mookie Zoloft: Heaven is just a warm loaf of morning diarrhea away. - Mookie

mookie blaylock
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Posted 09/27/09 - 01:01 AM:	#43
ragus wrote: Then what (or rather who) are you listening to? Apart from freeform jazz (not my tatste) all jazz has well-defined structure. How can you listen to Bill Evans (pianist not sax player), for example, and ignore the chord progressions he uses that hint at the original song. There's nothing arbitrary there - it's a weaving of a new tapestry along familiar lines. I'm talking about the conceptually accountability of the structure. For instance, if I listen to Coltrane, I don't think to myself very literally, "Bb -- > D#7 --> Bb7 etc.". I recognize the tune, sure. But it's not something I translate into a concept. It's just something I hear. What's the fast Show? Sounds fun.
The Internet: The only place to be racist without pants. - Mookie Zoloft: Heaven is just a warm loaf of morning diarrhea away. - Mookie

Banno
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Posted 09/27/09 - 01:22 AM:	#44
Being mean is what I do best. mookie blaylock wrote: - If the soundscapes in Jazz are clearly communicating something (because there is a large cultural response to it (dancing, painting, etc.)) and it's not intelligible what it is communicating, then it is communicating something that is impractical (not blatantly assisting our social and ecological sustainability). If it is clearly communicating, then I put it to you that it is not unintelligible. Since when is having fun impractical?
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

mookie blaylock
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Posted 09/27/09 - 01:28 AM:	#45
Banno wrote: Since when is having fun impractical? Aren't there degrees of practicality? I need food more than shelter, I'd say. I can live longer on water than food, I think. I could def. survive without music. If it is clearly communicating, then I put it to you that it is not unintelligible What does this mean? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2s6LZUdYaU
The Internet: The only place to be racist without pants. - Mookie Zoloft: Heaven is just a warm loaf of morning diarrhea away. - Mookie

Banno
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Posted 09/27/09 - 01:47 AM:	#46
Does it mean anything?
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

mookie blaylock
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Posted 09/27/09 - 03:01 AM:	#47
Banno wrote: Does it mean anything? I don't think so. It's potentially infinite in possible meanings, none of which are correct or incorrect. It is abstract just like anything else physical and it doesn't communicate anything intelligible (i.e. a correct or incorrect conceptual expression). It is non-conceptual. It communicate socially unrecognizable abstract soundscapes. It creates a world, like 180Proof mentioned. It is a landscape of sound, to use a visual metaphor. The landscape is not recognizable by any criteria we use for the real visual world. It is so strange that a metaphorical translational process cannot even begin to take place because there is no criteria in the soundscape. Having criteria in the social, ecological world, I think, is a result of a physical things useage in a social, ecologically sustainable world. We have to survive in this world. We don't have to survive in the soundscapes, in other words. Somehow, it's causing people to respond in unintelligible (i.e. a correct or incorrect conceptual expression) ways. Let me try to make an argument for my case: A sound with no social ecological necessity and thus no meaning is causing people to respond. Jazz Music is something that is clearly expressing something. What that thing is expressing is meaningless. We don't have any criteria that would give it a correct or incorrect meaning. If indeed it is a form of (conceptually) meaningless communication, it would necessarily imply (in a very powerful way, I might add) that conceptual meaning and criteria are not compatible or adaptable (yet anyway) to everything. This means that concepts, criteria and in one word, intelligibility are useless when interpreting an unintelligible expression. Intelligibility is a practical social construction. Unintelligibility is an impractical, absolutely strange social construction - world making. This is nothing profound. W already pointed to this fact of things that cannot be talked about. But, I really can't see how this argument wouldn't stomp on idealism. I don't know though. Sometimes my scope in thinking is limited, so I may very well be leaving out something that destroys this argument. Just try to crush me gently. It won't take much.
The Internet: The only place to be racist without pants. - Mookie Zoloft: Heaven is just a warm loaf of morning diarrhea away. - Mookie

ragus
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Posted 09/27/09 - 03:38 AM:	#48
mookie blaylock wrote What does this mean? Does it resonate with you? In what way? The Fast Show - a BBC production - may make you smile. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsQYzpOHpik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMBHkntOMtk&feature=related
"A word in your ear is like an untethered goat in a field" Wittigenstein

mookie blaylock
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Posted 09/27/09 - 03:56 AM:	#49
ragus wrote: Does it resonate with you? Yes. In what way? I have no idea. Thanks for the links!
The Internet: The only place to be racist without pants. - Mookie Zoloft: Heaven is just a warm loaf of morning diarrhea away. - Mookie

Banno
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Posted 09/27/09 - 05:44 PM:	#50
So, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should shut up and listen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT2...=36E158390C19239B&index=48 (The bloody thing only has one string...)
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

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