About complexity

I recently found this article discussing the complexity of music and the place music has in societies.

Full article here: http://anthropik.com/2006/01/thesis-...nopoly-on-art/

Some interesting quotes...

"The nature of tribal art is somewhat different, though, in that it emphasizes a communal vision, rather than the work of a single "genius"--hence the oft-repeated refrain that tribal cultures lack a Beethoven, a Rembrandt, or a Shakespeare. Each storyteller tells a story, and in so doing taps a story that has been told and retold through the generations. At the same time, this particular telling is new, and different from every retelling before it; it is a perfect, sublime moment that never has been, and never will be again. This is a common theme through primitive art, a means by which the tribal ideal is reinforced: the simultaneous apotheosis of both the individual, and the collective, with neither one more important than the other. We see this reflected again and again in primitive art, music, dance,storytelling, and all their other forms of art."

And this one...

"In conventional history/progress thinking, the complexity and quality of music have steadily grown in the course of cultural evolution from something repetitive and simple like the Kalahari bushman's plucking his bowstring to the symphonies of the nineteenth century. But a very different view is possible. Suzanne Langer observes that "the great office of music is to . . . give us insight into . . . the subjective unity of experience" by using the principle of physical biology: rhythm. Its physiological effect is to reduce inner tensions by first making them symbolically manifest, then resolving and unifying them. . . . One interpretation is that the more complex the music, the more fundamental the problem; or, one might say, the more elaborate the music, the more fragmented the vision of the world. Composer and musician Paul Winter has said that we are now habituated to an overstructured format, especially in so-called classical music, from which we need to escape into a more informal extemporaneous performance and audition. But if, indeed, music is a kind of final refuge serving to hold things together, this might be impossible in modern life."

The whole article relates to some points being discussed on here lately.

Be warned...its some heavy reading and may not be everyones cup-of-tea....it hurt my head but I think I got something out of it.

Glen.

nice one