Notes from the Pluriverse {7–13 }

{7}

Seeing the nose on my face

"... to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." (Wittgenstein)

From within a/the world, I cannot see that world. A model is not a/the world, but a house of mirrors in which (imperfectly) to view a/the world. The model, flaunting the impossible, allows me to see into a/the world from outside – allows me to see (approximately) how that world relates itself to itself and, ideally, to other worlds (if they exist).

... but the fly is still in its bottle.

{8}

Dueling ontologies

 pluriverse:

I don't live in the world, but in the model of a world.

vs

universe:

I don't live in a world, but in a model of the world.

{9}

Ethical dilemma

In the [music] pluriverse, models can be misinterpreted, misunderstood, misapplied.

But there are no wrong models.

This is not the case if [music] is a universe.

There the search is for the one right model.

{10}

Janus again.

Relationships inside/outside time (warped from Xenakis):

we theorize ourselves into (–do (–experience (–hypostatize)))
   a possible music-world inside time

          as composer, performer, audience;

     

we theorize ourselves from (–undo (–observe (–hypothesize)))

   a possible music-world outside time
          as analyst, critic, politician.

Question: Is there a corpus callosum that allows communication between the two?

{11}

Etymological shards from the Early Jargonic Period

(This started as a bit of dorky self-absorbed etymological play
– just killing time – with no intention of posting it.
Then I started to think about it.
And from deep in the recesses of
my aging brain came the whisper,
"Bosch's egg.")

θέα                                                   –  view

θεωρώ                               –  consider, speculate

θεωρός                  –  envoy sent to consult an oracle

θεωρία                           –  contemplation, speculation 

                                                             –  a looking at, viewing

                                                                –  a sight, show, spectacle, things looked at.

theory (1590s)                     – conception, mental scheme.

____________________

up, throughout + a loosening  –                     ανά + λύσης

analysis  –                                         ανάλυσης

         a breaking up, a loosening, releasing  –                                                                .

unloose, release, set free  –                               αναλύειν

 to loose a ship from its moorings  –                                                             .

resolution of anything complex into simple elements  –            analysis (1580s)  

____________________

.

composition (late 14c.)                               –  action of combining

                                             –  manner in which a thing is composed

compositus                       –  placed together
componere                                    –  to put together, to collect a whole from several parts
< com + ponere     .......
F. pondre                                   = lay an egg

One of the most remarkable facts in F[rench] etymology is the extraordinary substitution whereby the Low Lat. pausare came to mean 'to make to rest, to set,' and so usurped the place of the Lat. ponere, to place, set, with which it has no etymological connection. And this it did so effectually as to restrict the F. pondre, the true equivalent of Lat. ponere, to the sense of 'laying eggs;' whilst in all compounds it completely thrust it aside, so that compausare (i.e. F.composer) took the place of Lat. componere, and so on throughout. Hence the extraordinary result, that whilst the E. verbs compose, depose, impose, propose, &c. exactly represent in sense the Lat. componere, deponere, imponere, proponere, &c., we cannot derive the E. verbs from the Lat. ones since they have (as was said) no real etymological connection. [W.W. Skeat, "Etymological Dictionary of the English Language," 1898]  – From the Online Etymology Dictionary (retrieved Mar. 11, 2015)

Concert in the Egg, (follower of) Hieronymus Bosch (ca.1561)

{12}

Analytical heresy

If you want to become a clockmaker, a good place to start is to take clocks apart to find out how they work. But if you simply want to know what time it is, all you have to know is how to "read" the face of the clock. If you want to make your appointment on time, knowledge of the clocks's mechanism hiding behind the face does you no good except insofar as it moves the hands accurately over the face.

The clock's mechanism becomes important (and vitally so) only when the clock no longer tells the right time.

{13}

Back to the future: the "relevance" issue 25 years ago.

From David Lewin Collection, Administrative Papers, Library of Congress:

Lewin: The [Harvard] Graduate Program in Theory, iv/21/90 

What do ‘music theorists’ study?  Theorists’ opinions vary widely.  Mine: they study the vocabulary, concepts, and intellectual structures in general, through which people talk and have talked about the organization and coherence of music. 

How do you go about studying this?  Among other things,
1.     You explore the systematic bases for contemporary compositional methods.
2.     You study the history of music theory in our cultural tradition, and so far as possible in others.  (There is a question to what extent the whole notion of ‘music theory’ is meaningful when applied beyond our own cultural tradition.)
3.     You explore the systematic assumptions underlying received analytic methods.