I disagree. This thread was, I thought, about subject and content. Form is a different term than subject. Form and content are intertwined; one can be perceived as the other or of the other.
But let me return to subject. Here's what I think. I hold that subject is a simple thing, at base, the name of a thing. or when dealing with sounds and colors or material objects, the shape of a thing. We can indeed separate the subject from the content. We can say there are such things as round rocks, or red fabrics, or loud horns. But just as soon as we say or imagine a rock, redness, or loudness, we must associate it with past experience, perhaps very particular experience, and even with many experiences, both direct and indirect. In doing that we unlock the box of content and then we construct that content, through still more associative events. Thus we do separate subjects from their associative and metaphorical contents. I don't agree that when music takes music as its subject it generates primarily formalist content because I can't accept that any content at all can be primarily formal or un-associative. If we hear the music then we will instantly associate the sounds to something in our experience, many somethings, events, etc. Then the music is already flooded with "texts". The only way to try to stick to the purely formal would be to attempt to imitate that formality exactly, that is, to describe it without any additions or subtractions. Perhaps some technological device can do this, like recording the sounds. But if we really want content that we must admit that its going to be value-added, something extraneous to the music itself will "explain" or exchange it. This is also true, I believe, with form. There is shape, the blunt measure of something. But form is a coherence added to shape, or projected onto it, or derived from it, and it that way form is a iteration of content because contributes something to shape --an added value-- that is not the shape alone. Subject, shape, these are the beginning points. We can say they exist but as soon as we experience them we are in the process of adding value to them. We have engaged content. Thus, in this view, subject and shape are objective, the "formal" the impossible to experience purely but probably approachable with technology or mathematics and geometry. The pure formal state is utterly meaningless. In apprehension, meaning -- content -- is unavoidable. That's as "objective" as we can get. It is disingenuous if not to say uninformed, to insist that there is no alternative view to the conflation of subject-content view. On the contrary, the rise of modern science and an abundantly thick tradition in philosophy are offered as evidence. I know the alternative view is also established but it strikes me as one that is limited and naive..based on "what seems to be" and the natural inclination to objectify our feelings, sensations, experiences, as when we say, for example, That river is dangerous" or, "That abstract painting is purely formalist" or, "This music is playful". We are closer to the limits of our capacity to objectify when we say, for instance, "That river has several eddies and a current of X feet per minute" or, "That painting has an unmodulated surface, painted red at low saturation", or, "That music relies of six notes played rapidly". (One could add more specifics, all modes of measure). Prove me wrong. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Allan Sutherland <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 6:25:42 PM Subject: Re: Reading Kivy: Chaper 6 - The Quest for Musical Profundity On 24/10/2009 21:18, "Saul Ostrow" <[email protected]> wrote: > My point is that when music takes music as its subject it generates primarily > formalist content that is the meaning, message or sense (reason) associated > with its forms, formats and disposition , as well as a full range of other > contents - as such we should be talking about forms and contents of a work of > art Thank you Saul, I understand better what you are trying to clarify, and detail. I have a singular problem with these sorts of divisions of form and content; that is once we have succeeded to distinguish them is it then possible to reintegrate them? Or if it is possible to distinguish one from the other, is it then the case that there is a problem with the artwork, here music. Also, what I am trying to get at is that music is also part of the exploration of the world of sound, and in that sense is a sound form about a sound content; in other words there are no differences between them; they are what they are. They lay before us aspects of sound in the environment. Sound is itself a worthy object and I am trying to say this without arguing for pure music. Also, I am not arguing that all music has this purpose and structure, but that some are, and many others could be considered so. I hope this is clear. -- http://braesidecottage-garden-music.blogspot.com/ Toodle-pip, Allan.
