Music...

The evolution of pleasure

"A principle of evolution is that in general, if something feels good, evolution must have made it so - evolution must have provided a reward mechanism for synchronized movement and music making, in the same way that evolution provided mechanisms of reward when we eat and have sex." (The World in Six Songs, Daniel J. Levitin)

Who are the real criminals?

These days the expression arts funding is equivalent to severe cuts. Deep in their hearts many people believe that the arts are not really necessary, their role and impact on society is negligible and they are the least of our worries. Arts and artists are tolerable at most if they entertain you, while you are trying to get way from having to worry with more serious matters.

Things like crime, criminals and prisons for example, these are serious matters that deserve the society’s undivided attention.

Maybe, just maybe, if more programs like the Carnegie Hall outreach program were taken more seriously and carried out at a more opportune time, society would have less to worry and human kind could preserve better its future. Maybe if more serious arts programs for children were properly funded you would not have to spend as much money fighting crime and criminals...

Watch this CBS report titled "Sing Sing inmates perform, change their lives with music" and be a witness.

Avatar

I just watched the movie Avatar. It is indeed an astonishing experience. The movie will most probably start a new trend in the industry. Great, revolutionary production, hot subject... totally disappointing sound and music!

It is incomprehensible that such a high profile work, so rich and adventurous in the visual techniques employed, tackling such an all-embracing and delicate subject, that constitutes such a challenging visual experience, should sound like his. Its use of music ranges from the totally banal to the scarily corny and some of its sound effects will probably trigger a 10-point Richter scale earthquake or speed up continental drift, if the theaters where this film is shown happen to stand on the right fault line. Often during the projection, I had to cover my ears.

Should we enforce higher musical standards for such tall characters? Yes, I don’t really see a 3 m tall Na’vi producing music of such a poor quality... 

The aura of music

I recently watched an interview on TV with the Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache. Among many other interesting issues, Celibidache discusses the problem of recording versus concert. He dismissed the former in favor of the latter based on the uniqueness and unrepeatability of the live performance. It is interesting that Celibidache uses a recorded video to manifest his thoughts on this issue.

This is of course a variation of concept of aura that Walter Benjamin explored in his famous article "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (if you can read Portuguese I wrote a paper on this; you can get it here.) Celibidache is not the only musician I've heard addressing this problem.

The question I asked in my article is basically the following: to what extent can we talk discuss the concept of aura when we evaluate works such as John Chowning's pioneering 'Turenas', a piece conceived and produced digitally that does not exist outside of the digital matrix? In other words, how is 'Turenas' physically present? And is it possible to obtain a unique and unrepeatable work that is conceived for a medium that allows infinite and perfect repeatability?

Where is, under these terms. the aura of the digital culture? Does Benjamin's concept make any sense, particularly in this day and age?