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From: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: 2nd rate European Conference
Keywords: segmentation, absolute perceptual unity
Message-ID: <5121@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 9 Jan 91 01:49:58 GMT
References: <5056@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <16244@venera.isi.edu> <15268@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
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Organization: Princeton U., Music
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In article <15268@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> cpenrose@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Christopher Penrose) writes:

;                                                            I find it to 
;be dangerous to attempt to unify analysis through a homogenous analysis 
;scheme.  Different listeners/musics may have entirely different perceptual 
;mechanisms/structures.  Although, it may be possible to categorize "states 
;of listening" or "paradigms of perception", I do not see these efforts 
;being made.  

Chris, I just don't know what this means. If I'm interested in a piece of
music, willing to get involved with it, then it's almost a given that
I'm NOT "perceptually" exhausting the piece: if I continue to be
interested in a piece of music it's because I sense that there's more there
than I'm taking in. As one goes deeper and deeper into a piece that's
offering something -- and that's a point where "analysis" could start
making some sense, where complex aspects of hearing suggest study, for 
whatever reason -- because you like to study music, or because you're 
digging for something that you, as a composer, want to get a clearer
hold on, or because you want to bring something into deeper focus -- as one
goes deeper into these matters, thngs tend to become particularized,
rather than generalized. The deeper I go into a piece of music the
less likely it is that I'm going to discover some "category of listening"
or "paradigm of perception" sitting there at its core. So, thinking 
about analysis in that way, of a way of getting one's musical mind
ever more twisted in the convolutions of musical experience, what
I'm aiming at is UNDOING various "perceptual" prejudices and rebuilding
them in a manner expressive of those particularities that I most want 
to focus on. And a good analysis of a piece of music is something 
that makes just that undoing possible. In other words, DE-categorization
seems to me that aspect of listening most worth exploring analytically.
This may help to explain why I feel infuriated with the dull pedantry
of Camillieri's proposal, partly because it promotes everything about
analysis that isn't analysis, but more like recreational parsing.
And I hate esepcially seeing things like that getting  around to the
non-music specialized world, announcing all sorts of prejudices which
come to be taken for granted. I've read just one too many "music 
perception" paper to let these things sit. 


-- handelman
-- music
-- princeton u.