The Challenge of "Culture"

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Heh, regardless of function I always enjoy watching the corwd, I always like to make up storeis (for good and bad) how each got to the same place we're at.

I do that sometimes. I usually do that at the park.

I also sit and wonder at opera performances, who decided for all the old ladies in the world that opera = big cluster hair and furs.

[innerSpaceman]

I find the thread in this thread about lyrics to be most interesting. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I think lyrics are vitally important. I hate when I can't understand what the singer is "saying." While it's true that so much is told musically, it's also true that if a song has lyrics - - most of its communication is through language.

I always look up lyrics when I can't understand them from being sung. I must know what is being told by the human voice. And while I can appreciate foreign language vocals for the musicality of voice, I feel like I am missing something dreadfully important when I can't understand the language. (Which is why I prefer the case of Cirque du Soleil, which features a made-up language that truly relies only on vocal musicality to communicate).


Interestingly, lyrics are one of the amazing things about human memory. Most people can remember most lyrics to most songs for absofreakinglutely ever. The brain pathways to musical lyrics are the most reliable memory pathways in the human mind. We remember song lyrics we unconsciously learned 20 years ago, but remember little else from 20 years ago. We may not remember what we did last weekend, but we will recall lyrics of a song we heard on the radio 238 weekends ago.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

...While it's true that so much is told musically, it's also true that if a song has lyrics - - most of its communication is through language.

As a former communications major, I'll have to challenge you on that. Even in face to face conversations your lucky if you get anywhere near 50% of the communication happening through the words.

[innerSpaceman]

[This may be the first of many double posts, as I am just having time now to respond to this fantastic thread ... which I'm glad is seeing a bit of a resurgence (since I missed it the first time around).]



I think one of the reasons I prefer music over visual arts is that music can be heard everywhere and anywhere. I do not need to go to a gallery or a museum to experience music.

And while it is true that live music is appreciably better than recorded music, I do not feel anyone is missing the essence of a musical piece if they are listening to a reproduced version that's been recorded. The same cannot be said of art. Most artworks I have seen are far, far different in person ... with say a photographic or print representation being a mere 2-D image of a three-dimensional work (even "flat" paintings owe so much to the texture of the work).


Photography may be one of the world's great achievements for its ability to provide images of things that people might not otherwise see. But recorded music is, imo, a far greater miracle of human endeavor. Think of how much less music would be in each of our lives if our experiences of live music were our only experiences of music. How much richer are our lives than those of our ancestors now that music is transferable, portable, everywhere, and at our fingertips!?!

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Think of how much less music would be in each of our lives if our experiences of live music were our only experiences of music. How much richer are our lives than those of our ancestors now that music is transferable, portable, everywhere, and at our fingertips!?!

I was thinking this the other day as I was enjoying my iPod on the Metro. But I also thought that with all this musical technology few of us ever make our own music anymore. Not that I ever sang or played an instrument - but now I don't have to and another creative outlet is now closed (or at least limited) for me and those like me

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I think one of the reasons I prefer music over visual arts is that music can be heard everywhere and anywhere. I do not need to go to a gallery or a museum to experience music.

I guess I take the John Cage approach to music and apply it to the visula world as well - that is, the music is all around you - as is the art. Sure you can go to a concert or a gallery, but the world is full of stunning sounds and images. Now that I ride the Metro, I've become more and more inlove with the architecture of this town, and the fashions of it's inhabitants.

This morning I got a kick seeing how people subtly and not-so-subtly aknowledged the occasion of valentires day. The best, a gall in pink and red striped stockings in otherwise well tailored conservative, though hip skirt suit - we traded smiles passing ewach other in the corridors. To be sure it's not the same as viewing a Kandinsky, but the sense of wit, humor, and celebration were conveyed just the same.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Now that I ride the Metro, I've become more and more inlove with the architecture of this town

Would that be the strip clubs, or the junk yards?

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

But I also thought that with all this musical technology few of us ever make our own music anymore.

Well, I've been putting off learning to play the Sax for over 2 years now, but I don't think that having recorded music so available to me has anything to do with that. Certainly, if anything, my love for the saxophone, acquired via listening to recorded music, is what's inspiring me to learn the instrument in the first place.

In any event, while I think more people may have learned to play music in the days when live music was all music, I maintain that enjoyment of music is far more commonplace, and a life enrichment, now that live music is but a tiny fraction (for most of us) of all music.

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Even in face to face conversations your lucky if you get anywhere near 50% of the communication happening through the words.

Ah, but this is where I think lyrical songs have it over mere face-to-face conversation. Even in a live performance, the vocalist is not necessarily communicating the song's lyric story through his facial and body language. Lyrics are an artwork whose communication is through the words and vocal expression alone. I love it for that. It is not reliant on physicality the way that conversations are. Its communication is complete, as designed, without that sort of thing.

Physicality may add to the experience, but I don't think the lack of it detracts ... any more than I think hearing recorded music detracts. A live performance may be better, but a recorded performance is "complete" as is.

[lindyhop]

I'm on the side of lyrics when it comes to music. It was so great when they started printing lyrics with albums and CDs so I could stop listening to my favorite records over and over, a few lines at a time, until I had all the lyrics written down. I always love a clever turn of phrase but I'm a word person in most other things, too.

[innerSpaceman]

As for so-called high culture ... I despise opera and ballet. Mind you, I LOVE LOVE and LOVE dance, but ballet is far from my favorite form of it. Opera, to me, is absurd if you don't understand the language of the piece. That rules out 98.6% of opera for me.

I guess I'm more lowbrow in my tastes of musical theater and dance, both of which I adore. I happen to love classical music, so I'm pretty highbrow there .... however, I would get kicked out of bougeouis salon society if they ever learned that I consider film scores to be the classical music of our day, and love them accordingly. John Williams or Ludwig von Beethovan, it's all orchestral masterwork to me.

[Gemini Cricket]

Opera in English kind of throws me whenever I see it on PBS. It... just... doesn't... seem... right...

I adore musical theatre. Love it, love it. My only problem with it is that as soon as I see one I like, I have to go out and buy the CD soundtrack... That can get expensive because those CDs never seem to go on sale.

[Not Afraid]

I LOVE contemporary dance. LOVE IT!
I don't love classical Ballet
I sort of like opera but I don't seek it out
I really like the contemporary opera I've seen live (Satyagraha)
I appreciate classical music, both old and new, but it's not what I listen to the most.
I LOVE music of the now in all, welll most, forms.
I love all art - I respond to most types of visual stimulation.
What I don't respond to well is contemporary Broadway musicals.

So, in looking at what I really love, it is the new stuff that really turns me on. I'm not very highbrow in the classical sense at all. Although, all visual art is exciting to me. I think I just like to get a peak under the tent towards the now and future of art and culture.