Some philosophy.
In spring 2009 I took a class on philosophy of art and aesthetics, and I'm still thinking through a lot from that class, especially the performing arts. This post is a place (accessable from more locations than my hard drive, and more appropriate than Cogito for thoughts I haven't finished formulating yet) for me to collect and work through my ideas.
-----------------------------
(July)
Some day I want to finish writing the second half of my final paper for that class. I was already at the page limit with just the first part, so I only have a rough outline of the rest, but I'd still very much like to think it through and set it out in a readable format. The paper as I handed it in starts from exploring what digital reproduction would do to Benjamin's idea of the aura of music (answer: not destroy it like he'd think), and mostly consists of showing what he means by the aura and establishing that it can still be there when people listen to digitally recorded music. The part of the paper I haven't written yet is about what the aura of live music is like now that that's not our only option for listening. It's probably just as well there wasn't room for it in the official version of the paper, since it was at risk of devolving into Gackt and Libertines fangirling (that's what I planned to use as my main examples of modern live music's aura, because 1) excellent and very different examples that I'm very informed about, and 2) would be so much fun to write!), but on the other hand, a lot more fangirling will slip in since I'm not going to ever give this to a professor, and I hope I don't let it detract from the philosophical content.
an extremely rough and patchy partial outline of the as-yet-unwritten part
"I am considering including discussion of attitudes about live recordings of concerts of some modern popular music, as there is evidently still a distinct aura of live one-time-only performances. A live concert is thought of as a kind of experience distinct from listening to official albums, and recordings of it (made by fans and distributed for free, often in lossless music files, or else official releases for sale) are considered convenient and accessible but inferior or missing an important aspect of actually attending the concert- they bring some of the concert's aura (a desireable experience, despite reproduction) to the home, but can not satisfactorily recreate it."
old type aura can still exist, even in popular and commercially-produced music, and is valued
::lives::
General characteristics
variations that only happen once
emphasis on energy
experience of going there with a crowd as part of aura
Shambles
recordings encouraged/allowed by band's management
taken by audience members
available soon after concert to internet fans everywhere
no paying for lives
Gackt
no cameras/recorders allowed into concert hall
one dvd and sound version released of each tour, from one night in it
has audience noise, talking w/ audience (artist connexion, probably irrelevant here)
lives are extremely full-experience-oriented
_total work of art_
except be careful with implications about Wagner, Nazis, and RR(II)
Digital recordings of live performances
recognised as less than actually being there; the live itself has some highly desireable quality or aura that can be hinted at in recordings of said but not fully captured but for being there
difference entre, and implications of, watching various things* and being there for it.
*: televised broadcast, DVD (esp. Gackt, of visualive as total work of art), or youtube'd audience members' cameras
----------------------------
(September)
This isn't really an issue of philosophy, but it's something to think about, so I'll put it here for now: what place should visual aesthetics have in performances of classical music?
I started thinking about this a lot during a performance last month of a Mozart overture (I was there for Shosti 5 and a Beethoven piano concerto) as an alternative to listening to the Mozart and making myself annoyed and bored. Orchestra members generally follow a nice dress code (particularly conductors and many soloists) and the stage is meant to have a visually presentable setup; obviously looks are not entirely irrelevant. But they're rarely given much attention beyond meeting minimum conventional standards.
The string section, admittedly what I pay attention to most, has a lot of unused potential. They're arranged in neat rows and they already synchronise the direction of the bows and the style of playing; a certain amount of coordination is vital to the sound. But they are so close to perfect synchronisation; why do they never try for it as its own end? In a corps de ballet, matched alignment and movement among members produces a stunning effect which I would love to see brought to an orchestra. Why would they probably say the small changes required to go from their current state to perfect unity would cheapen the music, devalue it, hurt it? Each player is an individual and adds a part of theirself to the music; this is why we have live orchestras of musicians. But would they really lose anything important by more attention to visual conformity? Or perhaps anything that could be lost from the music by more attention to its visual aesthetics never was there fully enough in the first place.
It is a question for soloists as well. Again I pay most attention to violinists. Some sound wonderful but make the most dreadfully contorted faces on stage. Some certainly put on a show of emotion, but rarely seem to calculate this or mind any nuance of its effect; it is often said either that Joshua Bell's movements when he plays are extraordinary passion and focus, or that he's disgustingly unwatchable. I read that Gackt and You spent much effort forming their coordinated bowing style in Sayonara, giving weight to how the bow movements would be seen by the audience as well as how they sounded and felt to play. I have not seen video of this yet, sadly, but... I do not have the impression a classical violin soloist who admitted being influenced by such considerations would be very well received. They may be seen as losing sight of what matters in music, being shallow, failing to give due attention to the sound, being unnatural. Is this criticism right, and the essential principle is to be exclusively honest to the sound of the work? I wonder, because how the soloist looks is also undeniably an aspect of the performance. Isn't it best if every aspect of one's body is consciously used in an effective performance? Yet classical music rarely seems to give conscientious attention to how it looks or might look better.
-----------------------------
(July)
Some day I want to finish writing the second half of my final paper for that class. I was already at the page limit with just the first part, so I only have a rough outline of the rest, but I'd still very much like to think it through and set it out in a readable format. The paper as I handed it in starts from exploring what digital reproduction would do to Benjamin's idea of the aura of music (answer: not destroy it like he'd think), and mostly consists of showing what he means by the aura and establishing that it can still be there when people listen to digitally recorded music. The part of the paper I haven't written yet is about what the aura of live music is like now that that's not our only option for listening. It's probably just as well there wasn't room for it in the official version of the paper, since it was at risk of devolving into Gackt and Libertines fangirling (that's what I planned to use as my main examples of modern live music's aura, because 1) excellent and very different examples that I'm very informed about, and 2) would be so much fun to write!), but on the other hand, a lot more fangirling will slip in since I'm not going to ever give this to a professor, and I hope I don't let it detract from the philosophical content.
an extremely rough and patchy partial outline of the as-yet-unwritten part
"I am considering including discussion of attitudes about live recordings of concerts of some modern popular music, as there is evidently still a distinct aura of live one-time-only performances. A live concert is thought of as a kind of experience distinct from listening to official albums, and recordings of it (made by fans and distributed for free, often in lossless music files, or else official releases for sale) are considered convenient and accessible but inferior or missing an important aspect of actually attending the concert- they bring some of the concert's aura (a desireable experience, despite reproduction) to the home, but can not satisfactorily recreate it."
old type aura can still exist, even in popular and commercially-produced music, and is valued
::lives::
General characteristics
variations that only happen once
emphasis on energy
experience of going there with a crowd as part of aura
Shambles
recordings encouraged/allowed by band's management
taken by audience members
available soon after concert to internet fans everywhere
no paying for lives
Gackt
no cameras/recorders allowed into concert hall
one dvd and sound version released of each tour, from one night in it
has audience noise, talking w/ audience (artist connexion, probably irrelevant here)
lives are extremely full-experience-oriented
_total work of art_
except be careful with implications about Wagner, Nazis, and RR(II)
Digital recordings of live performances
recognised as less than actually being there; the live itself has some highly desireable quality or aura that can be hinted at in recordings of said but not fully captured but for being there
difference entre, and implications of, watching various things* and being there for it.
*: televised broadcast, DVD (esp. Gackt, of visualive as total work of art), or youtube'd audience members' cameras
----------------------------
(September)
This isn't really an issue of philosophy, but it's something to think about, so I'll put it here for now: what place should visual aesthetics have in performances of classical music?
I started thinking about this a lot during a performance last month of a Mozart overture (I was there for Shosti 5 and a Beethoven piano concerto) as an alternative to listening to the Mozart and making myself annoyed and bored. Orchestra members generally follow a nice dress code (particularly conductors and many soloists) and the stage is meant to have a visually presentable setup; obviously looks are not entirely irrelevant. But they're rarely given much attention beyond meeting minimum conventional standards.
The string section, admittedly what I pay attention to most, has a lot of unused potential. They're arranged in neat rows and they already synchronise the direction of the bows and the style of playing; a certain amount of coordination is vital to the sound. But they are so close to perfect synchronisation; why do they never try for it as its own end? In a corps de ballet, matched alignment and movement among members produces a stunning effect which I would love to see brought to an orchestra. Why would they probably say the small changes required to go from their current state to perfect unity would cheapen the music, devalue it, hurt it? Each player is an individual and adds a part of theirself to the music; this is why we have live orchestras of musicians. But would they really lose anything important by more attention to visual conformity? Or perhaps anything that could be lost from the music by more attention to its visual aesthetics never was there fully enough in the first place.
It is a question for soloists as well. Again I pay most attention to violinists. Some sound wonderful but make the most dreadfully contorted faces on stage. Some certainly put on a show of emotion, but rarely seem to calculate this or mind any nuance of its effect; it is often said either that Joshua Bell's movements when he plays are extraordinary passion and focus, or that he's disgustingly unwatchable. I read that Gackt and You spent much effort forming their coordinated bowing style in Sayonara, giving weight to how the bow movements would be seen by the audience as well as how they sounded and felt to play. I have not seen video of this yet, sadly, but... I do not have the impression a classical violin soloist who admitted being influenced by such considerations would be very well received. They may be seen as losing sight of what matters in music, being shallow, failing to give due attention to the sound, being unnatural. Is this criticism right, and the essential principle is to be exclusively honest to the sound of the work? I wonder, because how the soloist looks is also undeniably an aspect of the performance. Isn't it best if every aspect of one's body is consciously used in an effective performance? Yet classical music rarely seems to give conscientious attention to how it looks or might look better.