From: "Barry B. Bean" Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 12:56:09 -0600 Subject: Art - Audience - Long
I'm glad to see my comments (many of which are quoted at the end of this lengthy post) spurred such interest on the list. Harp-l subscribers have complained on several occasions that they thought the list was too gear oriented, and should spend more time discussing the esoteric and philosophical issues behind making music.
That said, several (most?) of the posts in response to my assertion that "art requires an audience" (and hence music requires an audience) statement have misunderstood my intent, and or my terms. Several readers have taken this to define their personal playing as masturbation, to demean non-professional players, and in one (tongue in cheek, I hope) instance have compared me to nazi censors (who coincidentally were eager to terminally censor those of my religious and ethnic persuasion).
First: I am making no value judgements. My definition doesn't declare art higher or lower than any other human pursuit, and I make no attempt to define good or bad art.
Second: I define audience as another human being who is exposed to the art at any point in time, in any context. This does not require intent on the part of either the artist or the audience. Someone who walks by and hears your music floating out a window or who finds your "wall smearings" centuries after you made them completes the process.
The crux of the matter is that I see art (and hence music, a subset of art) as an emergent quality that arises from the interaction between the artist and the audience. It is this interaction that defines art.
Which apparently brings up the question for many readers - "so what is it that I'm doing when I play harmonica all alone?"
In my construct, private harmonica is either preparation for performance (practice), and hence part of the creative process that ultimately leads to art, or it serves a purely private purpose (meditation, personal pleasure, release). Doug's suggestion that it might be masturbation is entirely possible, but I'd argue that we've all seen musicians masturbate their egos on stage, so privacy hardly seems like a prerequisite for that.
Several readers have suggested that private playing is self expression, and should be considered art. I'd counter by pointing out that expression is an outwardly directed communication. Something done wholly private cannot be expressive.
Although people don't immediately associate Kurt Vonnegut with the philosophy of art, he presented a similar perspective on art in his 1997 book "Timequake". In the book, his brother (a critic of modern art) makes some color inkblots, and proposes to send them to museums anonymously to see if they will be considered art. Vonnegut replies with a letter. I've taken a few quotes from that letter:
"You yourself are gratified by some music, arrangements of noises, and essentially nonsense. If I were to kick a bucket down the cellar stairs, and then say to you that the racket I had made was philosophically on a par with The Magic Flute, this would not be the beginning of a long and upsetting debate. An utterly satisfactory and complete response on your part would be 'I like what Mozart did, and I hate what the bucket did.'"
"Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a rewarding time or you don't. You don't have to say why afterward. You don't have to say anything."
"Any work of art is half of a conversation between two human beings"
BBB
On Sun, 20 Sep 1998 10:54:17 +0100, Douglas Tate wrote:
>Wow! > >Does that mean I spend most of my time not making music????? THAT seems >to me to be a thought from somewhere else, not the real world!!!!! > >What am I being moved by when my subconscious helps me to make a series of >sounds which sets my mood, which makes me joyous or sad... would you call >it musical masturbation... I think not.
On Sun, 20 Sep 1998 13:39:14 EDT, BluesGe~ol.com wrote:
>However, there are times when I just play for myself, just because I want to >hear the harp, I want to be the audience. Sometimes, I experience both >perspectives at the same time.
>In some African traditions, art is created and then immediately destroyed.
On Sun, 20 Sep 1998 12:07:11 -0700, Michael Polesky MPA wrote:
>I don't think art can happen in a vacum or >without any sesnsory input at all, but I do believe that some art >is very "personal" and less important to share. Once you know >what or who your audience is it is much easier to go out there >and "make art" - even if the audience is just yourself ;-).
> What resulted may not have been a carefully >framed picture that stood the test of time, but there is an >element of jazz that is created and then "immediately destroyed" >in the sense that once the moment passes the actual art is >forever "lost". Not everything is meant for posterity. This is >why art can take place for a single individual at a single moment >playing in their stairwell for sound ;-). Anyway, hope you >enjoyed my take on the issue.
On Sun, 20 Sep 1998 17:25:49 EDT, Snaru~ol.com wrote:
>If we are talking whether an audience is the prerequisite that certain >acoustic phenomena can be called "music", then also about the question >whether certain art movements are to be considered art at all. > >In quoting your > "Art is nothing without an audience"`< or > "I'd go so far >as to not call it music until its heard by someone else"< I recall the >situation in Germany some 6 decades ago.
>Some last remarkings to the artist and his audience. > >Going back to the beginning of human art "activities", we may be visitors >of the famous stone paintings in the vaults of Lascault in southern France. >These paintings the experts consider doubtless to be art in the modern >sense. However, they can't be exhibited in a museum to be admired by an >audience. No art, simple wall smearing?
On Mon, 21 Sep 1998 08:35:31 +1000, Scott Gold wrote:
>At 17:20 19/09/98 -0600, Barry B. Bean wrote: > >>I think music perfomed privately serves a very different function >>that "normal" music. In fact, I'd go so far as to not call it music >>until its heard by someone else. > >--Barry, i would agree with this statement if > you deleted the last word ('else').
On Mon, 21 Sep 1998 00:46:31, Pat Missin wrote:
> Some of my best music was played when I was both >the performer and the audience (but I have to state that I wasn't playing >in front of a mirror!).
On Sun, 20 Sep 1998 22:23:43 -0400, Joe Mahan wrote:
> It is possible to create popular music without a live audience. >(remember Steely Dan?) Their conduit to the audience was a recording >system. If they turned it off, would it affect the music? I do think >that the music by itself has legs of its own.
On Mon, 21 Sep 1998 00:40:09 EDT, Taoquan~ol.com wrote:
>The audience is a >critical part of the performance, as well stated by other contributors. >The fact that the majority of the audience is oblivious is really irrellevant. >Discouraging, if you dwell on it, but irrellevant. >
>Having said that, I do acknowledge that music, not unlike meditation, >has a healing value of its own, but performance is different. Meditation >perhaps is spiritual "practice"; your spiritual performance is how you >behave in interactions with other people.
On 21 Sep 1998 12:48:41 -0000, Mike Will wrote:
>I agree with Barry.
- - B.B. Bean - Have horn, will travel bbbe~eancotton.com Peach Orchard, MO http://www.beancotton.com/bbbean.shtml
