ONTOLOGY, MUSIC, PRAXIS

Music Theory For Complex Times

Michimasa Nakayama

Mount-Inn Records

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I

Love

Metaphication

You

Part II

History

Metanarrative

Value

Acoustics

Disconclusion

Endnotes

Bibliography

Ontology, Music, Praxis

Copyright © 2020 by Michimasa Nakayama

All rights reserved.

Mount-Inn Records

www.mount-inn.com

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Introduction

“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest” – Albert Einstein

There is nothing as fascinating and mundane as reality. All real matters regarding music can be

summarized into trial-and-error, repetition, and persistence conducted via gestalt (whole

exceeding the sum of its parts) of feeling, love, courage, etc. A dedicated musician might even

summarize it as “ninety-nine percent perspiration” (Thomas Edison). Perhaps any intellectual

endeavor is redundant for music. One needs only practice.

That being said, aside from curiosity, I would assume that one thinks of perspective, value, and

growth to be reading any intellectual content; and that participatory attitude manifests a

reciprocal self-generating return.

By default, musical growth is very time consuming and contemplative. There is no secret recipe

to become a master in a day. However, I also believe in efficiency, as much as I believe in

compound interest and the exponential growth curve. One way to be more efficient is by making

the decision to sacrifice the short-term for the long-term. In other words, investing time for the

future at the expense of instant gratifications in order to achieve exponential returns. After

several years, one will have become much more efficient through compound interests, so to

speak, than one who annually repeats the short-term game.

The initial investment should go to ontology, since any long-term endeavor is dependent on the

sufficiency of the base — the ‘why’. The ‘why’ is the remaining one percent of Edison’s “genius is

one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”. The adage means that the

ninety-nine percent has no purpose without the one percent. Quality praxis naturally initiates as

soon as one is confident with the ‘why’ — Start With Why (Simon Sinek).

Onto means ‘being’ and logia means ‘logical discourse’, and thus ontology means the ‘study of

being’. What lacks from ontology is praxis. We can think and talk... but is that what life is all

about? Would you not want to play and listen to music instead of just thinking about them?

Despite the value of a top-down approach due to ontology, as opposed to conventional

bottom-up approaches, music is most alive and fulfilled in praxis.

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Johann

Wolfgang von Goethe

The term ‘praxis’ abides by Hannah Arendt’s implications regarding vita activa (active life). To

put it simply, musical praxis is doing music, usually either animating, which includes composing

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or performing, or listening to music. That is not to say that music equals action as implied by

David Davies in Art as Performance. Action is the way we interact with music, not the definition

in and of itself.

Ontology and praxis are both essential for any study of music. Such a paradox-evoking mix

requires an alternative from rigid induction and mechanical reduction. It requires a

metaphysical view of qualitative and quantitative analyses. The alternative would be no other

than ‘feeling’ aesthetics. Although there are models which attempt the combination, they are still

yet to surface on the mainstream. Perhaps we can contribute in supporting the progressing

undercurrent that is subtly guiding us toward a deeper musical understanding.

Before we proceed to the main content, I will summarize the main points of Ontology, Music,

Praxis (OMP) to save your time.

1. Music is aesthetics in the form of ephemeral participatory sound-oriented tensions.

Which is a metaphied definition of music. ‘Tension’, in order to acknowledge the full

portion of relative intension and extension, hard and soft perception, and both unity and

conflict. Without tension there would be nothing but absoluteness, such as pure idealism

or hard determinism. ‘Ephemeral’ suggests that music is framed, either in terms of a

temporal frame (e.g., 4’33”) or Erving Goffman’s Frame Analysis. ‘Sound-oriented’

means ‘about sound’ which confines silence and sound alike, since silence is listening to

the ‘lacking’ of sound. We engage music through participation, requiring focus and

energy; which is finite, thus Goffman’s frame.

“We only hear what we listen for.” – John Cage

2. There are certain realities that can not be converted to knowledge (e.g, the essence of

objects are unknowable by default). Poetic metaphor, art, philosophy, and music all

function as mediators in the form that ‘you’ can ‘feel’ certain unknowable realities.

Aesthetics is the root of all mediators. Within enclosed reality, all things are formal

variations of a mutual form-essence, manifesting an identity. Forms are isomorphic to

holograms of the essence. At the most basic level, there is only tension in which ‘we’ ‘feel’

through various stimuli. Since the primary concern for aesthetics and ‘feel’, ‘love’ is the

only moral gravitas as it is the most consistent value metric of music.

“Aesthetics is the root of all philosophy.” – Graham Harman

3. The return of music is dependent on the investment. The more one invests, the greater

the return. None of the factors are necessarily financial nor hard. Investment in music is

‘feeling’ based — a compound of time, focus, love, and energy; and also acting within and

as music via ‘spiralling’ Stanislavski’s system manifesting causa sui state. Return comes

in ‘awareness’ of information such as space, tensions, and empirical verification; but

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more deeply in the domains of ‘feel’ and ‘love’, the gestalt of musical return, in one word

— ‘inspiration’.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Max

Planck

4. ‘Feeling’ is necessary, but one can occasionally be overwhelmed or stuck within pursuing

that path. In the sense that another perspective provides an alternate route to overcome

the proverbial wall, concrete knowledge can be a worthy investment for growth. Concrete

knowledge in the form of science and data enhances our ‘computation’ ability. However,

‘computation’ on its own does not fulfill aesthetics nor musical praxis. One must utilize

‘computation’ with ‘feeling’ as ‘intuition’, by learning and then forgetting.

“Here is natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony.” –

Bruce Lee

5. The conclusion is disconclusion; or with the integration of aesthetics an ‘unresolving

coda’. Analogous to the dependency of certain dualities such as life and death, where

death justifies the existence of life and vice versa, yet we are in every moment both living

and dying. We are always bound to some fragile monistic state which would be disrupted

by a resolve from ambiguity or by selecting an answer. This segment follows, as one

might say, dying but without death within it, as an added perspective to one’s collection

of perspectives for the love of music.

“Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth.” – Charles Ives

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Part I

Love

“Life without music is meaningless, music without life is academic.” – Leonard Bernstein

In addition to the above premise, Richard Feynman once wrote, “musicians have developed

their own jargon for naming musical notes and relations between them.” This is true in music

theory for the sake of music theory, and even worse — jargons are glorified for granted; in a way

that it superficially objectifies biased absolutism as an elevated state. Too frequently, sounds are

explained pseudo-musically and quasi-scientifically, only conveying what the theory narrowly

assumes as musically functional. They not only relegate ontology and praxis, but the scale of

intricacy music withholds is not mutual with the capacity of such methods of theorization.

From Gagaku to Gamelan, different worlds of music have profoundly different aesthetic quality.

There is no objective metric to distinguish a hierarchy between them, since aesthetics is not

quantitative, leaving one’s judgement to subjective taste. Perhaps there are only two ways we

can conduct any music theorization. (1) We can meta-analyze subjective taste rather than of

music independently; (2) Music theory can be appreciated once it models the definition of

philosophy “love of wisdom” and thus — “love of music”. Some theorists are often quick to

assume music theory as the “truth of music”. In general, conventional music theory is arbitrary

knowledge for the most part. OMP would be no different unless it follows “love of music” via

language of thought and communication, instead of meaningless jargon.

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of

genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

In any case that a metric for measuring the quality of music is necessary, it shall not be

knowledge, but ‘love’ based on aesthetics. Quality music is that which you ‘love’ and aesthetics is

the root of all music. Music is aesthetics in the form of ephemeral participatory sound-oriented

tensions. In aesthetics, there is no conflict between objectivism, subjectivism, and

intersubjectivism as it is about the search of flat grounds. Aesthetics functions taxonomically

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higher than any perspective oriented typology, just as in the term “good” and “yellow” (G.E.

Moore) which already encapsulates the subjective differences and to which bypasses

disagreement by focusing on the sensation itself. The flattening is important since knowledge,

reality, and ‘feeling’ become dissonant with one another when the three ‘isms’ are isolated

through some hierarchy (e.g., the conflict of objective truth and subjective truth). Isolation is a

conceptual gestaltzerfall (disintegration of the whole), where holistic monism is better suited to

maintain any of the essential gravitas. To put simply, the only moral obligations in music is that

which unites rather than separates — ‘love’. Therefore, any dialectical discourse regarding music

must be communication instead of preaching, and ‘feeling’ based instead of a one-way traffic of

knowledge.

“Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in

essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us

today.” – David Bohm

Knowing how to play the C-Major chord on the piano does not equate to knowing how to make

good music, nor does it follow the acoustically satisfying just intonation. Naturally, the value of

such a concept (C-Major) is questionable, especially since at this point the only justifiable surety

is what one ‘feels’. Sometimes the feelings can be shared, other times it may be unique to the

individual. Ultimately, there is no ‘right’ way of animating nor listening to music other than to

‘love’ it. Thus, the only controllable procedure of growth is the act of observing oneself when

musically participating as a beholder (including both the listener and animator).

The focus should be placed on what happens within ‘you’, more than what happens objectively.

Any attempt of musical study actually requires delving into the “hard problems of

consciousness” coined by David Chalmers. In other words, we must discuss the ‘being’ — ‘you’.

In the philosophical lexicon, ‘being’ as the root does not necessarily conjugate to ‘are’ and ‘am’,

but rather syntactically functions as an ‘object’ or rather a noun, which declines to ‘you’ and ‘I’

when parameterized within a singular identity (e.g., study of ‘being’ = study of ‘you’, rather than

the study of ‘you are’). ‘You’ already implies that ‘you are’, and ‘I’ implies that ‘I am’, and so they

are more or less redundant. Idealism is not what is implied, since the overarching theme is

nonetheless music, which involves praxis that requires externality consisting of many

unknowable realities. They neither imply the mind nor body, just as we say “your mind” or “your

body” instead of ‘you’. Mind and body are objects in their own right, which can occasionally be

interpreted as subsets of ‘you’. ‘You’ and ‘I’ are not necessarily subjects either, but rather objects

(irreducible), treating each as flatly as music, and each as essentially synonymous; ‘I’ = ‘You’,

from another perspective; which also applies to music as it models the mind in the sense that it

confines unknowable reality, just as the essence of ‘being’.

In a way that a change in a particle affects another particle, there are enough plausible reasons

to believe (or perhaps not worth disagreeing with) that a degree of relativity and unity must exist

even within the soft domain. Despite that however, absolute identicality does not seem to exist.

Electrons exist in different spacetimes and linear world lines within the boundary of each

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moment, even if John Wheeler’s One Electron Universe happens to be the case. At least, to our

perception ‘we’ are more evidently relative, unified, and yet non-identical, just as in we perceive

multiple electrons. In that sense ‘you’ and ‘I’, and thus ‘we’ are an object as much as we are

objects as a unique beholder.

“Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view

or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not

constitute a real revolution in culture? ” – David Bohm

Metaphication

Coinciding with Ludwig Witgenstein’s statements: “language is a part of our organism” and

“philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language”; ‘we’

shall discuss music through language of communication. Since ‘I’ am a ‘you’ that is

non-identical, articulating musical thoughts in knowledge would have various defects.

Possessing knowledge crystallizes within it an aspect of ‘I’, which tends to prioritize reduction,

thus consequently interpretations of that information over mutuality.

The essential purpose of knowledge and activities revolving around it are more attuned to reality

when bound to some mutuality. As to all musical knowledge expressed concretely, one could add

‘I assert’ or ‘I know’ but never ‘you assert’ or ‘you know’ with certainty, suggesting a dismissal of

their morphological root ‘being’. Instead of concrete knowledge, much of the concepts must be

Metaphied. A term translated from “メタ化'' popularized by Shigehiko Toyama. Metaphication

is a derivation of ‘meta’ implied in ‘metaphysics’ combined with the ‘fication’ suffix, which gives

the meaning ‘to make something meta (metaphysically)’. More precisely, it means ontological

abstraction without being devoid of both the essence and its applicability. That which

metaphizes is also what we call metaphor. Metaphied concepts are most directly transferred

from ‘you’ onto another ‘you’ (i.e. ‘I’ to ‘you’) via aesthetics; commonly acknowledged in the

forms such as art, music, and poetic metaphors.

“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come

out of your horn.” – Charlie Parker

In the way that the title of Lance Armstrong’s famous autobiography It’s Not About the Bike

emphasizes, music is not about the theory nor the instrument. Instead, it is about ‘you’. It is also

about how ‘you’ think and participate reciprocally with phenomena. Bruce Lee does not express

in terms of muscles, Warren Buffett does not express in terms of money, and Miles Davis does

not express in terms of music theory. These individuals express practical yet metaphied concepts

focused on their way of life. There appears to be a correlation between mastery and

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metaphication. The more accomplished the mentor is, the more metaphied their explanations

tend to be. They express their tacit knowledge as opposed to their explicit knowledge. Perhaps

metaphication is not as complicated as it sounds, but simply just a better way to distribute one’s

thoughts for another’s praxis. Metaphication also tends to arise from being attuned to ontology,

whether consciously or unconsciously. The ability to think beyond the concrete aspects of life,

taking extra leaps of ‘whys’, while being capable of thinking, applying, or articulating them

comprehensively.

“I am an artist at living - my life is my work of art.” – D.T. Suzuki

“Art is something that happens inside us. We look at things in the world, and we become excited

by them. We understand our own possibilities of becoming. And that's what art is.” – Jeff Koons

Object

In accordance with “object” stated in Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO),

music would also be an object. Which asserts that, other than the representative (metaphied)

term “object,” music is no other than music. We can not discuss music as sounds nor the release

of dopamine, because an object is that which can not be reduced into its parts or effects. Music

theory and scientific pursuits of truth that is devoid of ontology follow a knowledge based

reductionism. The biggest issue of that is infinity. One knowledge out of infinity is the same as a

hundred out of infinity. The pursuit of increasing the quantity of knowledge would be a state of

infinite regress. We can only initiate a truly meaningful discussion of ‘what music is’ through

metaphication and aesthetics. To ask ‘what music is’ without the two would only lead us to

oblivion, because an object consists of reality that is unknowable. We can never know what our

neighbor Mr. Z is because we can never access his mind directly, but to ‘know’ requires a resolve

from mystery. Thus if we can know anything, knowledge would be fragments within the

idealistic and biased sensual qualities of music, which are limited in comparison to reality. The

qualities such as perceived timbre, rhythm, and melody of music, but never the essence of

musicality. Although we can never know reality, poetic metaphors allow us to ‘feel’ some of it.

Poetic metaphor is that which aesthetically metaphizes manifesting a platform of relatability and

transferability. Poetic metaphor invites the reality of ‘you’ in the place of unknowable reality (not

Kant’s noumena per say). For something as unknowable reality, scientific teleology is not

accountable. In the case of realizing music, the alternative to knowing is ‘feeling’.

“Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate

feeling because they're not part of it. It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual

theorem. It's not. It’s feeling.” – Bill Evans

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“Art is such a language; this is what art does. The esthetic object is inwardness as such — it is

each thing as ‘I’.” – José Ortega (Object-Oriented Ontology, 71)

Infocognition

Reduction is linear, which is only capable of paraphrasing an object upwards (effects) or

downwards (parts) both devoid of the essence. However, metaphication is about explaining or

applying the essential functions (or Aristotle’s prime mover) of an object, where information

and cognition are inseparable (infocognition), from or onto another object. Application of

infocognition is possible due to the recursive causa sui qualities within scale dynamics of

“syntax-content” relationships. Influenced by Christopher Langan’s Cognitive-Theoretic Model

of the Universe (CTMU), metaphication would be analogous to applying the “Metaphysical

Autology Principle” or the act of maneuvering within relationships such as the mind and body,

cosmos and its microcosm, and holistic monism and its endomorphic (endomorphism) identity.

In CTMU, the essence of things is referred to as “infocognitive potential”, which is a purely

monistic state within all things. The potential then manifests structures of objects being

parameterized within reality as a “closed descriptive manifold” that is also part of a larger

manifold as reality allows. Objects are intrinsically, and thus also extrinsically recursive. In the

most general sense, all things are connected in one way or another. Atoms reveal attributes of

the universe, and it is not a coincidence that various religions encourage exploration within

oneself for a better understanding of the world (e.g., Nirvana). A concept that had always been

‘felt’. Lao Tzu’s adage “music in the soul can be heard by the universe” and Langan’s “Mind

Equals Reality Principle” all share the same gravitas that syntax and content are recursively and

autologically influential.

“I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation

theory….I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually

compatible.” – Christopher Langan

In a more pragmatic sense, metaphication refers to applying conceptual models of the relatively

smaller scale (subset) to the larger scale (superset), which then becomes applicable to another

subset. Such as metaphying “the art of fighting” as “water” and utilizing that model for the way

of life, which is then also applicable for creative thinking (e.g., fluid intelligence by Raymond

Catell).

“Be water, my friend.” – Bruce Lee

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Aesthetics

Metaphication is further effective when aestheticized as a medium to express the intricacies (full

resolution) of reality and phenomena. An aestheticized medium functions as an alternative

model from knowledge that reduces and thus tends to pixelate. The alternative model would be

associating with a canvas instead of a Cartesian plane. A point does not suffice in reality, and

one can dedicate their entire life for the endless pursuit of improving the resolution of a string

(adding dimensions beyond the brane). For any sense of practicality, we must simply engage an

object as it is. However, that would be no other than doing music. For a discussion, we must

compromise the form of music while sustaining the “life of an object” (Harman). We must not

kill music by explaining its anatomical features, instead we should strive to artistically illustrate

music like Wassily Kandinsky. We ‘feel’ more musicality from Kandinsky’s Compositions, than

we do from a crystallized textbook. In literary form, poetic metaphors would be the best option.

“[D]ivision annihilates the work, as dividing the organism into heart, brain, nerves, muscles and

so on, turns the living being into a corpse.” – Benedetto Croce

Aesthetics is the root of all philosophy, art, poetry, and music; which is taxonomically equivalent

to a poetic metaphor. The shared root facilitates applicable metaphication despite the

compromised form, in the way that morphological inflections work. Perhaps one could imagine

each field like variations of a theoretic sorts of holography, where the root is the invariant

source, which is projected in different variations of stimuli. Music being one in itself, the

aestheticized medium of metaphication functions as a ‘feelable’ mediator. The mediator concept

is nothing new, rather being influenced by Beethoven’s adage “music is the mediator between

the spiritual and the sensual life.”

The world in which ‘you’ ‘feel’ in relation to reality has a procedural structure: ‘you’, ‘feel’, the

mediator, and frames of reality. The mediator works like a spectrum that extends ‘you’ and ‘feel’,

to phenomena, other objects, and further on towards reality. The mediator would be a specific

domain of the scientific view of “space”. The difference between the “space” and mediator is

whether it is specific and aestheticized. Mediator is more friendly to our perception since we can

perceive them through at least one of our five senses, while we can not sense “space” as

profoundly as sound.

You

Ultimately, the essence of ‘you’ or ‘I’ are unknowable, as any reality of an object. We can only

approach the essence and indirectly grasp our own or other’s identity from an aesthetic feedback

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loop in such a way that “the things that we love tell us what we are” (Thomas Aquinas). In a

practical sense, ‘you’ are an identity compounded by what is intuitively and self-descriptively

parameterized by ‘you’, and is parameterized by external qualities through phenomena; which

contains one’s identity in relation to external reality. ‘You’ are once again an object that cannot

be reduced. There is no need to delve into Cartesian dualism, since ‘you’ can identify what is

external. Your body is ‘you’, your mind is ‘you’, and Mr. Z is not ‘you’. The question is how much

of music is ‘you’?

“In short, all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory

universe.” – John Wheeler

Everything you ‘feel’ of music is ‘you’, and everything in which you do not ‘feel’ ceases to be

music for ‘you’. Everything ‘you’ ‘feel’ as music is music. In this instance, ‘feel’ functions as the

verb form of ‘you’. It is the way we exist and participate aesthetically in this universe. Borrowing

once again from OOO, ‘feel’ would also be the “quality” of the object ‘you’; both sensual and

mental perception, and the surface boundary in which others can ‘feel’ of ‘you’.

Another famous line by Bruce Lee “don't think, feel...it is like a finger pointing a way to the

moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory” is a prime

example of how metaphors work. ‘Feel’ is the participatory method we must utilize to be in tune

with the resolution of reality (the “moon”), since it is the way ‘you’ engage with the mediator that

presents itself holographically of reality. The mediator lies in the domain between “the pointed

finger” and “the moon”, which is ‘felt’.

The main theme is still, nonetheless, music. Since the mediator is analogous to a hologram of

aesthetics, the theme of discussion intrinsically coincides with how we value the mediator. The

value of the mediator functions in a similar model as Marshall McLuhan’s famous adage

“medium is the message”. Although reality such as “the moon” is the oscillator of the message

(the source of reflection), reception by ‘you’ requires a transmissible domain (space of traveling

light) that projects the image in the form of a mediator, or medium in McLuhan’s case.

The term “moon” also happens to side with Einstein’s contemplation against the Copenhagen

interpretation: "Do you really think the moon isn't there if you aren't looking at it?" The

mediator is ‘felt’ by ‘you’, thus the “moon” is interpreted as an existing object as long as one can

‘feel’ the association with the “moon”, which does not necessarily require direct observation.

One can ‘feel’ the “moon” from the ray of light that exposes the ocean at night, as well as the

phenomena of higher tide caused by the moon’s gravity implying the existence of the “moon”.

In terms of perception, ‘you’ first require the “pointing finger” (framing) in the form of thought

and control to devise a focal point, so to speak. One can attempt to look at the “moon” without

focus, but chances are that one looks upon open air. When the focus is devised, conscious

thought becomes a distraction, simply because you do not see nor ‘feel’ with thought. Thought is

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not a direct receptor. Instead, one ‘feels’ the holographic “moon” within the mediator, ultimately

making the medium the most accurate message ‘you’ can ‘feel’ hitherto.

"To experience anything fully and see it clearly there must be a moment of presence where

conceptual thinking is not interfering with your experience of that moment." – Eckhart Tolle

Actor

So what exactly happens with ‘you’ in music? As Ortega stated, music is felt as the ‘I’. Therefore,

‘you’ participate as an actor within music and as music. This thought is derived from Konstantin

Stanislavski’s system. A method for actors, in order to not merely act as a rehearsed and

conscious representation of the qualities, but by ‘becoming’ through sympathy and aesthetics, to

the degree in which one embodies another object (e.g., the reality of the character). The system

has become common practice in the film industry. Heath Ledger did not practice his role

superficially, but made sure that he integrated the background context and psychological

position that the character “Joker” was in. Ledger embodied what was proximal to the reality of

“Joker”. Music is slightly more complicated, since it is easier to interpret music as if it were a

stage, plot, or a world, rather than a character. But Ortega also dialectically established that

anything you ‘feel’ of music is partly ‘you’. In that instance music is simultaneously personified

and localized, while it is also a domain that potentially exceeds ‘you’. What actually happens

here is not a one way system, but rather a ‘spiral’ of Stanislavski’s system. ‘Spiral’ in Friedrich

Nietzche’s sense that “in music the passions enjoy themselves” and that it manifests some

vitality à la causa sui, often symbolized by the Ouroboros-like state. ‘You’ consciously and

unconsciously play the role of music within the level of ‘feel’. In return, music becomes ‘you’, as

if music plays the role of ‘you’, and that spiraled network subsequently manifests a stage, plot,

and world of music; or a self-descriptive manifold in which ‘you’ can become it as well as its

subset. Unconscious sympathy and its embodiment is, more or less, isomorphic to the act of

‘feeling’, as is the tension dynamics of ‘you’ and ‘I’.

“Acting and performing music is exactly the same. Therefore, an actor, for instance, who is very

impressive, he's not simply imitating or trying to imitate, but he must dominate this kind of

feeling, and then he transmits it in a much stronger way.” – Pierre Boulez

Growth

As far as growth is concerned, it is important to note that the domain of ‘you’ fluctuates. Our

focus here is what ‘you’ are and what ‘you’ can do more. The prior is self-awareness, and the

latter agenda starts to overlap with the purpose of science according to Sapiens by Yuval Noah

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Harari. Harari states that science is about the “willingness to admit ignorance” and the

“acquisition of new powers”. There would be no urgency to invest in science if one were content.

Contentment is rarely (or almost never) met, thus the value of science.

A good place to start with growth is psychology. ‘You’ can expand through self-transcendence,

extracted from Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Growth implies change from ‘you’ to an

updated ‘you’. Growth occurs through exposing one to externality, which would initially be in

conflict (due to tension) with the boundaries of ‘you’. The conflict is what Kazimierz Dąbrowski

calls Positive Disintegration. The current ‘you’ is the self. One first enhances self-awareness by

introspection and feedback. From that moment, the procedure becomes a feedback-loop,

inviting the snowball effect of disintegration and enhanced integration. In growth, one enters a

domain that values experience, empiricism and objective facts, whilst also sustaining ontological

contemplation to maintain self-awareness and prevent infinite regress. The rest is up to time

and persistence. Without self-awareness, Justus von Liebig’s Law of the Minimum comes into

effect. Musical growth is dictated not by the abundant resources available, but the limiting

factor. The limiting factor is self-awareness. Self-awareness gradually manifests within the

snowball effect (as does the ‘spiraled’ system), requiring a ‘feeling’ based telic exposure to

reality.

All in all, the entire purpose of growth and the above procedures for an animator (composer and

performer) is to animate “good music”. Duke Ellington states, “there are simply two kinds of

music, good music and the other kind”. “Good” is yet again an object, simply:

“If i am asked 'what is good? my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter.

Or if I am asked 'How is good to be defined?' my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is

all I have to say about it” – G.E. Moore

Computation

“[I]ntuition is not a different dimension of perception, it is just a different dimension of

computing.” – Sadhguru

Although ‘feeling’ is most direct, a worthy alternative to consider within the dynamics of

perceiving music is the amalgam of psychology and science, which models ‘computation’; a more

conscious and “easy” (Chalmers) function of our CPU (central processing unit) — the brain.

‘Computation’ is not an antithesis to ‘feeling’. ‘Computation’ more directly relates to ‘intuition’,

which is the utilitary form of ‘feeling’; and ‘intuition’ is a higher dimension of ‘computation’. As

to say ‘computation’ is the third dimension and ‘intuition’ is the fourth, nonetheless, both

consist of different utilitarian values just as Classical physics and Modern physics.

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Where one encounters the proverbial wall, or that when ‘feeling’ is overwhelming, ‘computation’

may be a focus worth investing in, for the sake of bypassing paralysis. In terms of ‘computation’,

concrete knowledge becomes beneficial, since they are capable of justifying externality (e.g.,

Euclidean space) and tensions (relativity) through empiricism and linear logic. Concrete

knowledge that improves ‘computation’ is science and data.

The more the input, the more samples the mind can work with. As the mind adapts to higher

levels of ‘computation’, the mind improves in output quality and efficiency. The entire process

can enhance one’s technical ability as well as productivity. A word that must not be ignored here

is justification. As we object-oriented-ontologically established that certain realities are

ineffable, while ‘computational’ growth progresses axiomatically, having a justified axiom is the

best that one can “work” (Arendt) with. One can only know if the axiom was sufficient in

retrospect. Experimentation comes prior to the result. In summary, the best method for

conscious musical growth is ultimately trial-and-error, in regards to pure praxis.

Forget

Knowledge, in the vernacular sense, comes in two forms; experience and education. Experience

is the accumulation of reflected consequences of experimentation via praxis. Education is either

received through verbal or written language. Usually in the form of a lecture or a book. The most

important thing to remember when investing in education is to follow one’s curiosity, interest,

or will to grow; in the ethos isomorphic to that of Maria Montessori’s Method of Education

combined with Andragogy. That is because Stanislavski's system requires ‘feeling’, which can

not be met forcibly.

A good investment requires some auditing to prevent the mindset of ‘having to’ without asking

‘why’. If one is interested in George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization,

by all means, invest in it. One would save time and effort by being aware that you do not ‘have

to’ but that one ‘wants to’ (or ‘loves’ it). If one is interested in music but not theory at all (no

‘love’ for theory), the correlation between aesthetics and knowledge is uncertain. Learning does

not necessarily mean learning music theory, it could be learning about life. There are many

acclaimed musicians who have produced great music with minimal to no theoretical knowledge.

It is after all about aesthetics, ‘love’, and how ‘you’ ‘feel’. Nonetheless, learning, and thus

knowledge in general, is also useful for transcending certain boundaries of life. It is just that

theory is not the absolute requirement.

“Learn all that stuff and then forget it” – Miles Davis

Knowledge functions best when one ‘forgets’. By ‘forgetting’, one detaches from conscious

information, and instead works with the essence of information that remains in the mind

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through unconscious filtering. An upgrade from computation onto intuition. It is also the act of

“stealing” instead of “copying” in Pablo Picasso’s terms — “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

‘Forgetting’ also resembles the model of Four Stages of Competence by Noel Burch; the

transition from “conscious competence” to “unconscious competence”. More accurately, it is to

maintain one’s ‘feeling’ despite the conflicts arising from accumulated knowledge, also

previously referred to as the “bewitchment of intelligence” (Witgenstein). ‘Forgetting’ provides

one with the ability to ‘feel’ genuinely, which more effectively abides by the spiraled

Satnislavski‘s system as well as the premise that “every child is an artist” (Picasso).

Intuition

Unless one is self-aware and content, one would benefit from being ontological, practical, and in

‘love’ with music. Furthermore, one must learn and then forget. As contradictory as it may seem

in today’s intersubjective paradigm as far as institutional education systems goes, one would

benefit multifolds by following ‘intuition’ arising in such symptoms as curiosity, interest, and

‘love’. The aforementioned concept is analogous to the right and left hemispheric dichotomy of

the brain. Aesthetics and concrete knowledge seem to require different functions of our brain,

perhaps the prior is right-brained and the latter is left-brained. More precisely, music is rather

bound to fluid intelligence (Gf) in Catell’s Theory of Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence. Any

activity is enhanced by utilizing a wider domain of our CPU or brain. Thus concrete knowledge

and ‘computation’ has its benefits, as does crystallized intelligence (Gc). Gc and concrete

knowledge is simply not the entirety, as Roger Penrose states “playing music or falling in love or

whatever these things might be are not computations. There is something else going on.” The

product that manifests from tension between “something else” and ‘computation’ is what may be

‘intuition’.

To say that ‘learning is useless because we must forget anyways”, is a hasty generalization.

‘Learning and forgetting’ is not the same as ‘not learning’. Such assumptions may arise due to

the vagueness in our comprehension regarding the unconscious. The essence of the premise is to

be ‘intuitive’. Acclaimed Yogi Sadhguru explains the value of ‘intuition’ through the following

analogy:

“[T]here is a phenomenal amount of information that you are not conscious of…. [I]f you

analyze the process of what it takes to walk on two legs, it is an extremely complex

process…You will not get it even if you study it for a lifetime...but all of us can walk. We

know this intuitively not intellectually.”

As OMP is literary afterall, let us resolve in the most aesthetic form — poetic metaphor. A prime

example of all that needs to be said about music. Perhaps it may reach you intuitively. A haiku

by Matsuo Basho:

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Quietude,

Soaking into the rock

cicadas’ voice.

What ‘you’ ‘feel’ from that changes depending on the participatory level. Nonetheless, if ‘you’

‘feel’ anything, that is aesthetics in effect. Do ‘you’ ‘feel’ within it, or of it? Music is that in sound,

silence, and most evidently the ineffable factor that completes the object.

“Meaning lies as much in the mind of the reader as in the Haiku.” – Douglas Hofstadter

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Part II

Knowledge

For the reader’s benefit, I must emphasize that Part II is not as essential as Part I. I would go as

far as to say “skip to Disconclusion and just do music”. The purpose of part II is to recollect and

compensate for certain irresponsibilities of part I. I believe that any “intellectual” manuscript

regarding musical praxis requires more than the socratic ethos. In other words, part I is guilty

for being question-oriented rather than providing knowledge. To be specific, the irresponsibility

of part I is dismissing know-hows, even despite its ontological flaws.

I did not have to, but I decided to write part II despite the risk of contradiction, refocusing on

the value of knowledge and reduction. Although I technically could, I choose not to justify that.

Many things are paradoxical, and I would rather acknowledge that as part of ‘life’ than

apprehending it as a “horizontal dilemma” on a cartesian plane that is treatable by

supplementing the z axis as “multilevel integration”, abusing Dąbrowski’s terms and abstract

Euclidean constructs. Dilemma is aesthetical in its own right, just as in when you try harder, the

harder it becomes. One could even reference “Creative Destruction” (Joseph Schumpeter’s

Gale), Erwin Schrödinger’s Cat, and even Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy for the sake of it. To

abuse knowledge in such a way would be inelegant, contradicting the most important part of

OMP — aesthetics. Nonetheless, knowledge is both questionable and useful. If there is any

knowledge that may benefit you, I believe it would be history (musicology), anthropology

(metanarrative theory), economics (value theory), and science (acoustics).

The four topics follow a progression starting from the past, to paradigm, to today, and to the

‘now’. Metanarrative, derived from Jean-François Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition: A

Report on Knowledge is important in understanding the contemporary paradigm. To realize the

context of music today we must understand the sequence of paradigm shifts, which has

manifested from historical events. We would then benefit from analyzing how we ‘value’ such

knowledge and products. The ‘now’ is synonymous to the ‘moment’ which is phenomena and

information of sound, which is explored in science.

In contrary to part I, part II will agree with the following premise:

“Creative work turns out to be a system of equivalence; it is only possible through accumulated

knowledge.” – Hideki Yukawa

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History

Although the frequencies were too low to be audible, the birth of sound would date back to the

birth of all things, as far as we know — the Big Bang. In accordance with Development of

Hearing. Part I: Phylogeny by James Peck, ancestral bony fish (osteichthyes) that existed 350

million years ago are considered to be the first organisms to perceive sound through the

“auditory-equilibrial labyrinth”. Evolving from the premature auditory organ, eardrums

developed during the Triassic period (200-250 million years ago), long after organisms had left

the waters.

"Hearing is the response of an animal to sound vibrations by means of a special organ for which

such vibrations are the most effective stimulus" – Ernest Wever

The origins of music is still uncertain, however, archaeologists have had a lot of progress in

recent studies. Although it is likely that the oldest musical instrument would be the voice and

perhaps percussive use of wooden sticks and stones, there are two significant artifacts. The first

artifact attributed to homo sapiens is a 42,000 years old flute carved out of a bird’s bone

discovered in southern Germany. However, some refer to the oldest flute known hitherto is that

of Neanderthals dating back to 60,000 years ago, but it is commonly refuted. The supposedly

Neanderthal flute or possibly a bone with holes of a bite mark was discovered in Divje babe,

Slovenia. The second artifact is the oldest written music known hitherto, a clay tablet that is

3,400 years old notating a Hurrian Hymn, discovered in Ugarit, Syria. The artifacts suggest that

music evolved to what we apprehend of music today with technological, cultural, and societal

advancements.

Modernism

More recently, music history can be divided into Western music and World music. To state

briefly, World music is local. They are rather natural and conservative, preserving much of its

original form. ‘Western music’ is ‘modern’. Valuing three Western ethos: reason, telesis and

exploratoration. The ethos of Western music can be realized through other literary records such

as colonization and the Reformation. Due to the ethos in themselves, and through colonization,

much of today’s music are influenced by Western music.

As a byproduct of the three ethos, Western music tends to be rationally organized, constructive,

and synchronized. Evidently persistent in concepts such as equal temperament, formalities (i.e.

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Sonata form), and notation systems. The overall progress of Western music models engineered

‘digitization’. Western music detached from World music when it was no longer local and that it

became ‘modern’; of which one of the most influential and earliest historical instances would

perhaps be the Reformation led by Martin Luther, and musically reflected in Bach. It is no

coincidence that Austro-German musicians such as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven,

appear most frequently as the early references in the textbooks.

Despite prior to the rise of ‘modernity’, the first significant precursor of Western music would be

attributed to Pythagoras. Although Confucius had devised similar concepts, Pythagoras remains

influential in the Western context, as far as most accessible references are distributed today.

Pythagoras believed everything can be explained mathematically, and established the

relationship between harmonics and ratio. Pythagoras provided an early potential of ‘digitizing’

music. Western music had integrated a mathematically metered perspective.

By the Renaissance (15-16th century), musical notations had become more universal within

Western Europe due to developments of the Roman Catholic Church. Extending from the

explorations of Philippe de Vitry and Gesualdo, the likes of Giovanni Palestrina and Claudio

Monteverdi are considered the most influential figures to advance music during this paradigm.

The transition onto the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, through the likes of

Izaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, further enhanced the ‘digitization’ of music. One figure of

the Baroque era that many consider to be the greatest of all time is Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bach’s music can be seen from one perspective as a complex digitization, but from another as

utilizing theory as a tool to transcend the rational conceptions, microcosmically portraying

universal laws based on ‘feelings’. The peculiar balance was one of the moments where Western

music had become truly ‘modernized’.

Subsequently, the Classical era simplified techniques of the Baroque period while elevating the

status of intellect-correlated music as a high class activity. Joseph Haydn formulated various

templates and formats of music, inventing the Symphony and String Quartet. He was also skilled

in producing talents such as Mozart and Beethoven. Mozart displayed eloquence, creative range,

and technicality. Beethoven further pushed music toward the soft qualities of music — known as

Romanticism. The Romantic era integrated diversity, creativity, and subjectivity into ‘serious’

music. The sensual Schubert, the cultural Schumann, the sensitive Chopin, the psychedelic

Berlioz, the virtuosic Liszt, the healing Faure, the traditional Brahms, and the radical Wagner

are prime examples.

Globalization

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By the late 19th century, Claude Debussy strived to ‘de-digitize’ music from within the ‘digitized’

tradition by challenging musical formalities that had persisted from the Classical era. Being

moved by the Gamelan performed at the Paris Exposition in 1889, Debussy integrated World

music onto the Classical tradition. Post-Debussy, Western music, dominantly in the first

legitimate ‘new-wave’ of France entered a phase of radical transformations through innovators

such as Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky (Rite of Spring premiered in Paris).

Shortly thereafter, ‘cutting-edge’ music was no longer limited to Western Europe. The Russian

Five had been reciprocally influenced by the movements in France. Bela Bartok innovated and

entered new territories compositionally, but also as an ethnomusicologist, producing field works

of folk traditions, elevating the status of World music. By the early 20th century ‘modern’ music

had become geographically flat (global), along the rise of Heitor Villa-Lobos in Brazil (onto

Bossa Nova in Antonio Carlos Jobim), Charles Ives, George Gershwin, and Jazz in the United

States; rise of Tango in Argentina (such as Julio de Caro and Astor Piazolla), and World music

rising in status becoming considered as ‘serious’ as ‘modern’ classics.

Refocusing on the Western context, Arnold Schoenberg devised dodecaphony, a method of

composing using mathematics (Twelve-Tone Matrix) in an attempt to disintegrate the biased

sensuality of the tonal system. His disciples Anton Webern further progressed in his footsteps,

while Alban Berg utilized dodecaphony with more sensual aspects of tonality. The three were

part of a group known as the Second Viennese School.

Technology

Technology was also entering a paradigm shift, producing new ways to record music. By the

1900s, Piano Rolls had become a method to record piano performances. Shortly before,

specifically after 1877, Thomas Edison had invented and developed the Phonograph. Although

the sound quality was still far from commercial use, in retrospect, the impact of that event can

not be overstated. By the early 20th century, 10-inch and 12-inch phonograph records gradually

entered the consumer market.

Extending along the Second Viennese School, avant-garde music as we know it today owes a lot

to Olivier Messiaen. Messiaen further ventured into complexity and innovation, utilizing his rare

case of synaesthesia with his eclectic palette. Messiaen composed tunes transcribing birds,

integrated world music, and established new tonal theories. Like Haydn and Schoenberg,

Messiaen also polished the talents of the next generation, such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz

Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis.

In the mid 1900s, electronic devices were becoming ever more popular, developing electronic

musical instruments from the Theremin and Ondes Martenot, to more elaborate systems such as

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the magnetic tapes and the Moog synthesizer. Music was no longer dependent on analog musical

instruments but also on the science of sound. Serious music progressing toward electronics

started through the likes of Edgard Varese, and further rise in Musique concrète led by Pierre

Schaeffer. Boulez and Stockhausen utilized Serialism using frequencies produced electronically.

Xenakis further extended the mathematical path utilizing algorithms complemented with his

architectural background.

Boulez further progressed as a conductor as much as a composer, interpreting classics in a

radical fashion with an emphasis on the ‘interesting’ factors of the composition. A B2B (business

to business, precisely creative to creative) presentation of conducting. In the compositional

realm, John Cage, after being mentored by Schoenberg, goes on to create avant-garde music

through ‘indeterminacy’ (random or chance operation). The intellectual compositions of the

likes of Boulez entered such complexity that it sounded random to the laymen. Cage thought the

whole ‘process over sensual result’ was becoming pointless, instead abiding by the Dadaist

approach. In opposition, Boulez thought compositions should be under control, creating

‘aleatoric music’, where chance operation was integrated to his intellectual style. Both through

controversiality, resulted in further enhancing ‘modernity’.

One mutual factor of avant-gardists from Messiaen and the following generation was an

attraction towards the Eastern philosophies. Cage completes that integration through his

affection towards Zen Buddhism expressed in his infamous 4’33”. Furthermore, the movement

influenced the likes of Toru Takemitsu recreating the Eastern influenced Western ethos from

modernized Japan. The musical division of West and East had disintegrated.

Jazz

Outside of the Classical world, within the span of three decades prior to Takemitsu’s November

Steps, was the success of Jazz, Rock, and Pop. Shortly before Jazz within the ‘modern’ context,

was Swing and Big Bands in Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and

Duke Ellington. Jazz further minimized in size and sound to ranging from trio to sextet, and

solo.

Solo pianist Art Tatum was admired by classical pianists such as Vladimir Horowitz and Sergei

Rachmaninoff. Young Charlie Parker worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant where Tatum was

performing, arguably influenced by Tatum’s elaborate technicality. The likes of Parker, Bud

Powell, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy

Gilepsie were assuring a position for Jazz to be considered as ‘serious’ as Classical music. With

theoretical insights from Gil Evans, and the economic growth of America, Jazz became

appreciated by an unprecedentedly wide demographic. Along with the seminal Kind of Blue,

Miles Davis is the most popular reference in the Jazz lore, pushing Jazz from Bebop, to Modal,

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to Fusion, and even towards Hip-Hop. Aside from Davis, the likes of Bill Evans, John Coltrane,

Scott Laffaro, Paul Chambers, and Tony Williams further refined the Jazz lexicon.

Bill Evans was also convincing for the Classical audiences, to witness a disintegrating border of

genre-oriented dogma of ‘elegance’. Jazz met a similar ground as indeterminacy through Free

Jazz, by the likes of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and Cecil Taylor. Furthermore, Herbie

Hancock followed through with Miles Davis onto Fusion. A genre that further invited Chick

Corea, Mahavishnu Orchestra, George Duke, and Frank Zappa. One of the musical epitomes that

balanced experimentation and sensuality.

Rock

On the other side of the spectrum, Rock had gained momentum post the pop-unification

through Elvis Presley, who consequently merged blues, country, and rock unto the popular

market. Subsequently at a quite fast rate, Rock had become avant-garde by the late 1960s

through the likes of The Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart, and Soft Machine. Although

not as progressive in concept, the contribution of Jimi Hendrix can not be undermined, who

merged and progressed Blues and Rock through his unconventional use of pedals, amps, and

eccentric playing style. Despite radical diversifications of musical quality, it was The Beatles

shortly before Hendrix, praised as the “fab four” dominating in popularity. With producer

Gerorge Martin’s Classical insights, The Beatles were not only a marketing success, but also a

musical success. The Beatles used the studio as an instrument, with multi overdubbing, and

various tape effects. Their compositions were also very unique in merging elegant vocal

harmonies while sustaining the minimal rock quartet form.

In the meantime Classical avant-garde in the United States had become more reciprocal to Pop

elements. Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass were leaning toward the cusp of sensuous

aspects from the academic basis. Cage, Stockhausen, and Reich (in Europe also Luc Ferrari and

Luigi Nono) expanded the use of tape loops, influencing the Beatles, and further movements.

Postmodern

Approaching the 80s, music became unprecedentedly diverse, fluid, and flat. Funk in the J.B.’s,

Sly and the Family Stone, and the Meters; Progressive Rock in Robert Fripp, Emerson Lake &

Palmer, and Pink Floyd; Film Scores in Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, and Vangelis; Krautrock in

Kraftwerk; Cosmic in Tangerine Dream; Art conceptual in David Bowie; Ambient Music in Brian

Eno; No Wave in DNA; Game music and Samples in Yellow Magic Orchestra; and Afrobeat in

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Fela Kuti. Trends repetitively disintegrating, integrating, synthesizing, and diverging, extending

to the likes of Prince, Radiohead, and Bjork.

The most recent trend, to something which might be called post-genre, is dominantly due to the

rise of sample based music . Post-genre mirrors postmodernism, in the sense that it detaches

from modern genrelizations. Most notably in Hip-Hop producers such as Dr. Dre, Jay Dilla, and

Q-Tip; Electronic movements in Fennesz, Jim O’rourke, and Herbert; Eclectic musicians in

Warp Records such as Aphex Twin, Flying Lotus, and Oneohtrix Pointnever; and countless other

musicians and artists revitalizing music quality.

Overall, what we learn from history is that we can grasp the underlying context of today's world.

We learn what has been done, devise trends, and justify what and why we should do certain

things. Music history mirrors the progress of society in various ways. The progress from story to

science, from hardware to software, and the entire sequence of paradigm shifts. To summarize

the contemporary musical paradigm, we can say there are postmodern features on the surface

level, yet still with a subtle undercurrent known as the metanarrative.

Metanarrative

One of the originators of postmodernism Lyotard described:

“Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives....

The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great

voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language...Where, after

the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?”

Although the metanarrative has certainly weakened within the intersubjective awareness, its

elimination has not been verified hitherto; or perhaps that which cannot be eliminated is the

actual definition of the metanarrative considering its etymology. There seem to be those who are

aware of it, usually in academia (or active learners), and those who are not — the passive

majority. In modernism, musicians knew well what to do because the metanarrative functioned

as the gravitas mutual for the less abstract values. Modernist musicians were on a mission to

innovate and push the boundaries of music toward the future by overcoming challenges. They

were reassured through participatory feedback from the elites and through the controversial

reception of the mass. That is now left to a small group of academics, without being as impactful

as their predecessors, simply because there is no mass reaction, as there are less concerns

regarding modernistic values. In addition, the future of music had become unpredictable post

4’33”, a cul de sac of pushing boundaries, which signaled the demise of modernism.

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Standardizing legitimacy became increasingly difficult as music further diversified. Various

legitimate music today are constructed as a bricolage, sampling works of various paradigms and

styles. The process of music creation had integrated curation, which challenges the modernist

perspective; and even the concept of copyright devised during that time. Plunderphonics coined

by John Oswald suggests that recorded music becomes a separate work when the duration is

manipulated. For example, Beethoven’s 9th could have a new name if the record was

intentionally played at double speed. Legitimacy is no longer clear as it was during modernism.

The closest thing we have to the modernist legitimacy would perhaps be populism, mostly due to

democracy and capitalism. A condition where popularity assumes certain works to be legitimate.

Yet again, populism is not the metanarrative nor the essential value of music.

Despite the disintegration of the modern narrative, there is still a metanarrative. What is

actually required is a meta-analysis of the historical trends in order to devise such a grand

concept. Lyotard’s view of the metanarrative is rather a narrative of modernism, where the

father of postmodernism speaks of a future from within modernism, focused on the shift of a

paradigm rather than the repetitive paradigm shifts. Paradigm shifts had and still occurs

repeatedly throughout history, and with each shift the world becomes more abstract.

QOL

Postmodernism is, in a sense, modernized modernism. On the surface, the world may not

appear as progressive and growth-oriented as it was half a century ago. However, the essential

metanarrative had perhaps always been the pursuit of enhancing our quality of life (QOL). The

metanarrative is not so obvious today because our values have become more complex and

abstract. There are many forms of value no longer bound to material, such as ‘trust’ and

‘happiness’. The declining visibility of values has occured because much of our basic needs are

more easily fulfilled. In the most practical sense, both modernism and postmodernism occurred

out of biological, instinctual, and psychological needs (Mazlow) — a metanarrative towards

enhancing QOL. Meta-analysis of trends suggests that the actual metanarrative had always

existed in relation to needs.

If one were granted the choice between boredom (low QOL) or enthusiasm (high QOL), the

latter would be the popular option independent from the paradigm. Perhaps, the theory of

enhancing QOL must overcome the following argument: “Why did we sacrifice QOL for the

agricultural revolution?” If the metanarrative was indeed for QOL, there appear to be various

contradictions with certain historical events. One must first consider the difference between the

QOL of the individual and the whole. We must think in terms of homo sapiens before we discuss

the individual.

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The agricultural revolution brought stress upon the individual but allowed for increase in

population, benefitting our species. One possibility is that homo sapiens unconsciously

prioritized survival as a whole, due to The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins asserts

that it is not our will that dictate our actions, but rather our genes. The effects of our genes

seems as if it were “selfish”, caring only about replicating itself through natural selection. In

retrospect, the initial sacrifice of QOL played a significant role in increasing population to

benefit the genes also consequently enhancing our control of surrounding terrains. From

another perspective, it was perhaps the selfish genes of wheat that manipulated homo sapiens

thus the agricultural revolution is equivalent to something as a natural disaster or pandemic.

Nonetheless, the striving of homo sapiens against nature underlines the metanarrative.

However, to say the metanarrative is purely based on the genes would also be false. We seem to

have the ability to consciously utilize the cards that we are dealt with; not to win the round, but

to win the game. Otherwise it is difficult to justify the impact of urban civilizations, the purpose

of the neocortex, and one’s ability to invest for the long-term. Perhaps the reason for the success

of homo sapiens is the ability to meta-analyze natural selection. In other words, although many

things have deterministic properties, a degree of free will can interfere in certain cases.

Determinism and free will may perhaps be beyond scientific understanding. Despite the ongoing

debate regarding the “Bereitschaftspotential” (“readiness potential”), from the most simple

empirical evidence that there are social complexities and non-periodic properties of human life,

suggests that there are at least levels of determinacy in relation to chaos, of which the latter is

essentially ‘free’. It is impossible to live as intended, but nonetheless, we seem to have certain

choices. There may perhaps be a Master Algorithm as Pedro Domingos suggests, but there are

equally plausible statements asserting that consciousness is entirely different to computation

and no algorithm will ever suffice.

An example of free will in this context is perhaps the ability to believe in fiction (Harari). An

ability that allows us to think and act counter-instinctually for an imaginary ideal. Perhaps the

agricultural revolution was a long-term method that functioned due to a shared fiction, whether

that be the concept of a better future or religious practice. Although our diet had become worse,

it did gradually guarantee our first basic need — food supply. Our individual progress and homo

sapien progress follows the same model in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Homo sapiens,

collectively and individually, focused on being free from the search of physiological needs

through Positive Disintegration (Dąbrowski) that exceeds the limits of “memes” (Dawkins).

There have always been anomalies — a handful of individuals who fulfilled Maslow’s Hierarchy

of Needs in its entirety despite the disadvantageous societal condition. Buddha, previously

Siddhārtha Gautama, is a prime example. Siddhārtha was born in an aristocratic family, being

guaranteed most of the needs. He then renounces his status to endeavour on a journey for

self-transcendence. However, as history suggests, the more we go back towards the agricultural

revolution, the number of people who were fulfilled decreases due to lower life expectancy,

slavery, and harsh living conditions.

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Much of our needs were better fulfilled by hunter-gatherers. The direction in which society is

heading today is regaining the QOL of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle (e.g., Pirahã people) from the

condition set forth by the antecedent social systems; perhaps because societal progress far

exceeds the rate of evolution; or perhaps as Émile Durkheim states, suicide rate increases with

social control. There appears to be coinciding values between postmodernism and the

hunter-gatherer communities, such as diversity, autonomy, and prioritizing well-being over

progress.

The industrial revolution followed a similar model as the agricultural revolution. This time

round however, the pursuit was no longer physiological needs, but beyond safety needs. In

developed countries today, social needs and esteem needs are the most popular concern, but

attainment of those needs have also become attainable by choice. There is food and there are

people. The infrastructure is already established. Technically, one only needs the courage to be

set free from arbitrary expectations by focusing on self-actualization and transcendence.

However, that is no easy task either, as apparent in the contemporary art movements, QOL has

become more abstract.

It is most common to be social and esteem needs oriented today; depending one’s QOL on

concrete measures such as money, wealth, and status. With basic survival being guaranteed,

living has technically become a choice, implying that so has death. The moment we lose the will

to live will be due to the decadence of QOL. Our paradigm faces the problem of Durkheim’s

Altruistic Suicide, a category of suicide caused by placing society higher than the individual. One

must be set free from social and esteem needs, instead of searching for them assuming that one

“has not” when one often “has” or perhaps even “not need”.

“Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him

to which he belongs. To free him from all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and

demoralize him.” ― Émile Durkheim

Courage

“Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.” – John

Lennon

In a social and esteem needs oriented society, self-actualization and transcendence require The

Courage to be Disliked derived from the same title by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi making

reference to Adlerian psychology applied to ‘now’. In today’s infrastructure, focusing on the

growth of ‘you’ benefits ‘us’, as it did for hunter-gatherers.

26

“[T]he free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very

good, when you are near or with them.” – Charles Bukowski

There is no need to subdue ‘you’ for those who are wired to socially bind others, caused by their

own superficial needs and lack of self-actualization. ‘You’ may encounter many dislikes in this

pursuit, which conflicts with social and esteem needs. Therefore, we require the courage to be

disliked by prioritizing self-actualization and transcendence over social and esteem needs.

One who is self-actualized will naturally develop self-esteem, not necessarily the other way

around. Creating music through ‘your’ sound is most authentic, and in that instance, one is

already fulfilling the function of self-esteem. There appears a sensation of existence as it is,

where ‘you’ own every experience. On the other hand, creating music based on social pressure

disrupts self-actualization due to bad faith (Jean-Paul Sartre), or simply self-deception. There

appears an existential crisis, and lack of purpose for one’s identity. In regards to aesthetics,

authenticity and self-honesty has more to provide in QOM. Honesty is the purpose, as it also is

the process of music. The important distinction here is to integrate a mindset that counters

consequentialism and result-based thinking.

Result-based thinking tends to disrupt the natural sublimation of time that emanates from the

‘now’, with a merely simulated reversal of linear time. In any case, music can not function in

such a perception of time. The result within a beholder is still a variation of ‘feeling’, such as

inspiration and love. For the animator, perhaps the introspective fulfillment and the ineffable

gratitude that a listener might be ‘feeling’.

“In the broadest context, the goal is to seek enlightenment.” – Steve Jobs

Today’s paradigm is often called the information age, digital age, or the internet age.

Nonetheless an age established by entrepreneurs and engineers who developed home

computers, mobile devices, and various softwares. Steve Jobs has been the most popular symbol

of this era, embodying the courage to be disliked, and extending the metanarrative beyond

innovation to aesthetics, vision, and meaning. Jobs was also like Edison in that he changed the

way we engage with music through iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and Apple Music, just as the

innovation of the phonograph. What we can especially learn from Jobs in today’s context is how

he thought about results in an ambivalent way, a perspective of the future without relying on

consequentialism. In terms of physics, results would be bound to the unforeseen world line

following an abstract cause-effect model, which is only revealed to our consciousness in

retrospect: “you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking

backwards”. Not only are result-based models rooted in esteem needs, but they are irrelevant

and inconsequential in the ‘now’. In other words, the future cannot be predicted, and it would be

unreasonable to base our current actions on a crystalized pseudo-result that is yet to happen.

What we can do instead is to use faith in the place of the result-oriented design: “so you have to

trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future”. What is needed is simply to “have the

courage to follow your heart and intuition” and to realize that “the only way to do great work is

27

to love what you do” (both quoting Jobs). The above inception is in itself a valuable

transcendence, not only from modernism, but from fear to ‘now’.

“A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivated by fear, which of course is

always linked with having your focus on the future and being out of touch with the Now. As

there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.” – Eckhart Tolle

Value

The concept of value is rather a modernistic concept, since it suggests a hierarchical metric of

legitimacy; while we can say postmodernism tries to value all existence (hence the rise of niche

markets). However, all actions and choices in life are bound to how we value in relation to time

(opportunity cost) despite the paradigm. Value is that which supplements the receiver’s QOL,

and is most visibly exchanged under the basic structure of business — supply and demand of

needs (Maslow). In one word, value is vitality. Music does not supply physiological needs, but

provides intangible needs such as information and emotion, of which their value forms are

subsets of inspiration. In short, the greatest value of music comes from its ability to provide

inspiration, “good music” is more inspirational.

Music is not a concrete demand in a way that the iPhone was product-oriented as opposed to

market-oriented, abiding by the premises that “it’s not the customer’s job to know what they

want” (Jobs) and “creation exists only in the unforeseen made necessary” (Boulez). In other

words, it is initially an unrealized demand. Inspiration occurs without expectation, and the

return of music does not reveal itself until it is beheld. Unrealized demands are common in the

form of ‘newness’ such as innovation, first time experience, open-mindedness, and theoretic

epiphanies; just as applying the model of the Copernican Revolution to all domains of life. Some

demands are unrealized because our perception is delayed from phenomena occurring ‘now’,

and most directly due to our delay of knowledge from the ‘now’ of universal information.

Now

“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.” – James Joyce

In terms of time, all that ultimately matters is the ‘now’. Lifetime, in retrospect, is essentially a

sequence of ‘nows’, however, life only exists in the ‘now’. As Joyce describes in Ulysses episode 9

Scylla and Charybdis, “I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Can’t bring back time.

Like holding water in your hand.” ‘You’ are always bound to the ‘now’, consciously, scientifically,

28

and perhaps by other means: “Molecules all change. I am other I now.” Much like an object,

‘now’ has no other representation requiring a certain degree of granted acceptance. However, we

cannot be devoid of the value of contemplating ‘now’, of which phenomenon is eloquently

expressed in the following passage:

“As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day,

their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his image. And

as the mole on my right breast is where it was when I was born, though all my body has

been woven of new stuff time after time, so through the ghost of the unquiet father the

image of the unliving son looks forth. In the intense instant of imagination, when the

mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which I was is that which I am and that which in

possibility I may come to be. So in the future, the sister of the past, I may see myself as I

sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.” (p.91, Ulysses)

Hitherto, supply for unrealized demands have risen from self-actualization and

self-transcendence due to the way in which they affect our apprehension of the ‘now’. Hence

figures such as Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Socrates are considered to be beyond their time,

making them inspirational to this day, and even perhaps ‘now’. Actualization and transcendence

are also relatively significant ‘now’. That is because much of social and esteem needs are already

realized and supplied, thus they have relatively grown into concerns of the past. In music ‘now’,

the value is essentially inspiration, and all that is confined within it. Integrating the concept of

inspiration and ‘now’ on QOL, value can be qualitatively measured by return of investment

(ROI); where R is inspiration and I is time, thus QOL = inspiration/time. It can also be said that

time is life, and inspiration is the currency of quality. QOL correlates with quality of music

(QOM), since beholding high quality music supplements the beholder’s QOL relatively greater

than music of lower quality. QOM and QOL are in direct correlation.

As Immanuel Kant suggests in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, there is relative

value and absolute value. Relative value is measured by opportunity cost. Absolute value can be

interpreted as irreplaceable value; a value that cannot be obtained otherwise; as to suggest that

unoriginal musical pieces are comparable and relative, thus can be measured hierarchically in

opportunity cost; while incomparable music has no such hierarchy. When there is no hierarchy

there is no objective cost, and thus the choice will be bound to ‘feeling’ and intuition.

Incomparableness is bound to the strength of originality and transcendental qualities.

Inspiration is aesthetic energy, so to speak. Aesthetics ‘inspires’ but does not necessarily ‘move’

the beholder directly. That which causes one to feel moved is the affects of inspiration, as much

as how gravity influences an individual, in which case aesthetics would be the earth. Inspiration

partly resides in the ‘feeling’ of living or approaching living life to the fullest. A sense of

‘nowness’, as life exists only in the moment; not the past nor the future. Although all matters of

life are bound to the timely ‘now’, our imagination is not bound by linear time. Our imagination

can simulate the untimely ‘now’; such as reliving one’s past (the most extreme case would be

PTSD) as well as dreaming about a possible future. Under a positive condition, one can also

29

utilize the simulation to enhance the ‘nowness’ of the future. For example, one can invest the

timely ‘now’ for the study of biographies (simulated untimely ‘now’) for the purpose of ‘feeling’

the ‘nowness’ more strongly for tomorrow’s event. One can ‘feel’ more inspiration from a new

electric car by having simulated the sequence of ‘nows’ in Nikola Tesla’s epiphanies and Henry

Ford’s efforts. Without the historical ‘nows’, the electric car would only be another material,

having less ‘nowness’ and inspirational impact for the observer.

Let us examine the analogy of the ‘reinvention of the wheel’. Reinvention is weaker in the

‘nowness’ than is invention. Treating the wheel as the most updated technology is objectively

false, and in the instance that one becomes aware of that fact, inspiration becomes merely

ignorance, hence the claim “ignorance is bliss”. Reinvention is not unethical, nor is it negative

depending on the context. The problem is claiming to be innovative in such a case, without

realizing that it is not only false for the receiver of the claim, but it is simply a cliché. Inspiration

is objectively more vital in the ‘now’ of when the wheel was actually invented, just as the

inverse-square law, inspiration is greater near the source; and just as chemistry, the

concentration of inspiration is greater in lower volume of time.

Inspiration would also be subjectively stronger due to the aura-like (Walter Benjamin)

sensation, of associating with the ‘now’ of the wheel, which naturally confines added value other

than the wheel itself. We experience the timely impact it has on society and further changes, as a

milestone toward the future. We are more inspired by studying the original invention of the

wheel, just as in how we value the timely ‘now’ that “stands on the shoulder of giants” (Izaac

Newton), thus the value of history and the simulated untimely ‘now’. Reinvention has a lower

‘nowness’ and thus also less value considering opportunity cost.

In today’s paradigm, music of social and esteem needs have become a cliché. The process of

shifting from cliché is as binary as ‘go or stay’, requiring a radical counterpart. We must focus on

the antonym of cliché — originality. Today, QOM correlates most with originality. Originality is

created from self-awareness, and it inspires the beholder to appreciate one’s identity. As

originality requires courage, original music can motivate the listener to also be brave; as well as

providing a comfort zone, in that one’s idiosyncrasies does not have to manifest insecurities. The

step that arises beyond courage and self-awareness is self-transcendence. Transcendence is

growth, or a state of progress that exceeds the boundary of ‘you’. An example of someone with

self-transcendence is a giver. The inspiration of ‘giving’ makes another giver, creating a ripple

effect.

“To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.” – Henry Ford

Originality

30

We have established that the greatest form of inspiration is in the ‘now’ and the metanarrative

exists as the path to bettering QOL. At first glance that may seem as if innovation is, once again,

the primary concern. However, in terms of aesthetics, innovation is an outdated product of

modernism, thus is not necessarily aligned with the timely ‘now’. More simply, the value of

innovation confines the nuances of hardware based modernism, but with the abundance of tools

available today, the shift of focus has naturally become software based. It is important to

consider, despite the commonness today, clinical psychology is a recent field, only developing

toward the end of the 19th Century through the likes of Sigmund Freud and Lightner Witmer;

Furthermore, Zen practices which are now used for mental health, were only popularized in the

1950s through figures such as D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts. The transition of modernism to

postmodernism could also be stated as industrialization to post-industrialization, and an

increase in the value of individualism. That suggests a decline in value of innovation that

sacrifices the individual, and a refocus on the essence of innovation based on originality.

The essence of innovation such as inspiration or ‘nowness’ is neither material nor concrete.

There is always something yet to be revealed in relation to our ignorance, even if one obtains

every existing material. As Socrates states “the only thing I know, is that I know nothing”,

‘nowness’ and inspiration has unlimited potential. Music can be inspirational and ‘now’ without

pure innovation by providing originality. There are more objects than we can decipher in our

lifetime, thus there is always some form of originality awaiting our ignorant minds.

The seeming lack of ‘nowness’ is caused by the repression of originality, not the scarcity of

original potentials. The initial cause of repression stems from the industrial revolution. Starting

in Great Britain, industrialization was dominated by factory based labor, which placed no value

in originality. In 1870, the education system as we know it today was developed for improving

the labor force who were bound to work in factories. The competition of industrialization grew

from nation to nation, escalating the manufacturing of obedient and mechanical laborers.

Naturally manifesting a bubble of banality, where education conditioned individuals in a model

not much more advanced than classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov). It is challenging for

conditioned individuals to know any better than assuming the negation of originality as just.

Furthermore, there are various historical narratives to consider the possibility that innovation

may be inversely correlated with QOL in the long term. Considering the potential decline of

influence, innovation may digress from the metanarrative. Perhaps innovation has become, in

part, a dogmatic concept. Considering the early stages of homo sapiens, one could say

innovation was one of the most valuable strengths of our species, nonetheless a means to an end.

In today’s world however, innovation may be persistent without the initial essence, merely as a

means for its sake, in a matter that resembles Karl Marx’s theory of Gattungswesen

("species-essence") and “alienation”; which states that certain systems and activities, mostly in

labor, can persist despite detaching from the initial concerns regarding a person’s natural and

intrinsic QOL.

31

Another problem of innovation, is that it parallels and reciprocates with technology. How much

technological advancements could there be? What if machines start possessing superhuman

intelligence? Why shall humans exist in such a dystopian world? The threshold of such a future

may appear beyond the “Singularity”, in the mechanical sense that machines become

nondeterministic and beyond our comprehension; and in the technological sense as stated in

The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweill, where machine intelligence exceeds and merges with

humans. Once artificial general intelligence exceeds human intelligence, innovation would be

left to machines. The inspirational value of innovation will decline since there would no longer

be any human quality. Despite any biological-digital fusion, aesthetics will consequently reside

more deeply within organic, spiritual, and subjective qualities. A situation requiring an alternate

form of ‘nowness’ from innovation, which leads to natural or anti-mechanical features such as

idiosyncrasies and imperfections. Perhaps all existential concerns would be regarding

originality, and art will reciprocate.

Acoustics

While keeping in mind all the soft qualities of music explored hitherto, the objectivistic aspect

worth considering of musical existence in a given moment is the sensual presentism of its

extended and physical properties. Let us retreat from the abstract aspects of music and get back

to the basics. If one were to play a random tune out of millions of songs enlisted on various

streaming platforms, chances are that one lands on music consisting of sound. It is safe to

assume that sound is one of the most primordial qualities of music. By shedding light on the

reductionist approach, perhaps there are certain things we can learn about music from delving

into sound.

Sound is basically our brain reacting to surrounding atmospheric pressure changes. At the most

basic level, Newton’s theorems lay out the foundation used to explain sound. Newton’s third law

of motion suggests that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Typically for

sound, any action impacts the surrounding air particles, also referred to as the medium of

sound. The atmospheric pressure change is essentially caused by the energy that moves the air

particles, creating states of high and low pressure. The most common type of motion that emits

sound is vibration. When a fixed string (e.g., guitar) is plucked, the string vibrates, repetitively

moving from one direction to the opposite direction through reflection causing a pattern of

interference as a stationary wave. When the string moves outward and it pushes the

neighboring air particles creating high pressure, a phenomenon called compression. When the

string then bounces back inwards, it pulls the air particles creating low pressure, a phenomenon

called rarefaction. The medium and the string are both elastic, thus air particles move in

accordance with the vibrating string. It is only the energy moving at the speed of sound that

travels from one place to another. With corrections made by Pierre-Simon Laplace,

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Newton–Laplace equation states that the speed of sound through air at 20 °C is approximately

343 metres per second.

Despite that sound propagates like an expanding sphere from its source to be precise, the energy

traveling from the vibrating source toward the perceiver can be better understood when

confined linearly as one directional (point A to B). The repetition of compression and rarefaction

with energy traveling in one direction is called a longitudinal wave. By positioning air pressure

on the Y axis and time on the X axis, we can visualize its waveform. The waveform consists of

amplitude and frequency. The greater the amplitude, the louder the sound, measured in

decibels (dB). The greater the frequency, the higher the pitch of the sound, measured in hertz

(Hz). The average hearing range is 20 to 20,000 Hz. The threshold of human hearing is

frequency dependent, therefore the faintest sound audible by an average person is 0dB. Sound

can exist in the negative dB for more sensitive individuals.

The waveforms are usually represented as a sine wave, which is the most simple waveform,

equivalent to something as an atom of sound. Sine wave is a periodic and continuous wave. The

sound of a sine wave can only be emulated digitally, and therefore does not exist on its own

naturally. Natural sounds have very complicated waveforms. As Joseph Fourier’s Fourier

Transform goes, all complex waveforms can be created by mixing various sine waves. The

differences in complex waveforms create different timbres of sound. We can identify the violin

sound and a piano sound because they have different timbres. In a complicated sound such as a

piano sound, how does one identify the musical note? When we refer to the A note (440Hz)

played on the piano, we are referring to the lowest and most audible sine wave blended within

the compound called the fundamental frequency. According to Fourier Analysis all other

frequencies are harmonic partials, also called overtones. The most basic overtones are whole

number multiples of the fundamental frequency (880Hz, 1320Hz...), as they are also the nodes

of the stationary wave. Yet again, natural sound is not harmonically perfect, which also has

inharmonic partials that are not whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency.

Another aspect of a waveform is phase, which is the position in which the waveform starts. It

can start from the peak, from the trough, or anywhere in between. Natural sound has a start,

which changes over time, and eventually fades out. There is a process usually visualized in what

is called the Envelope by audio engineers. The first segment of an Envelope is an Attack, which

is the time it takes from the start of the sound to reaching the peak amplitude. Secondly there is

Decay, which is time taken to decline from the peak to the Sustain. The Sustain is the main

sequence of the sound’s duration. There is then the Release, which is the time taken for the

sound to become silent from the Sustain. In nature, no sound is absolutely periodic nor

continuous.

Let us forget about the ontological flaws and immerse ourselves in order to ‘act’ within science

as we did with aesthetics to be fair. It does not take too long to realize how the above findings are

quite profound, taking into account the infinite complexities of music and sound. Most

importantly, they are derived from observation, and organized into an essentially practical

33

model. As science becomes progressively theoretic, distancing further from the initial

observation and detaching from intuition, it becomes ontologically questionable, hindering

applicable values regarding musical endeavors. What is most profound in the selected

revelations is the elegantly simplified form that aligns with our intuition. The fundamental

frequency concept ‘works’ for our perception and is intuitively agreeable. The theorems by

Newton and Fourier, once again, ‘works’. We really do hear the fundamental frequency louder

than the overtones, and we really do hear the overtones more than the inharmonic partials. It is

hard to answer ‘why’, but it matters less in the ‘feeling’ of ‘now’, arguably a cusp of ontology and

science.

The greatest component within the “way” (Dao) of science is curiosity. The scientific equivalence

of ‘feeling good’ is ‘interesting’, and that is perhaps where musicians can absorb to better

understand music. What is acoustically interesting is often musically interesting as well. Bach

and Mozart are interesting both musically and scientifically. From the scientific scope, Mozart

and Bach are not only artists but engineers. The greatest feat of the two is the balance they have

of the theoretically stimulating qualities and the sensually pleasing quality. In a sense, their

music embodies the value of science in relation to our life. We also see why the trends

established by the likes of Xenakis and Stockhausen are not popular for the mass despite being

valued by intellectuals. Perhaps it is because there is a lack of balance. The theoretical aspects

are far greater and the pleasure aspect much lower, being incompatible with postmodern

pleasure-oriented markets. From science we learn of the possibility that ‘balance’ and

‘interesting’ may both be an important aesthetic to consider for musical understanding.

“Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies that

unite them.” – Joseph Fourier

“There is a moment where knowledge collides with the mysteries of intuition.” – Pierre Boulez

Disconclusion

“For now, what is important is not finding the answer, but looking for it.” – Douglas Hofstadter

This segment is functionally a conclusion abiding by the most acknowledged format of writing

for the sake of respecting the literary form. However, conclusion is something that has certain

conflicts with musical endeavors and life. Conclusion is ultimately about death, and that only

occurs when it has. In other words, at the moment you are reading this, you are in a state

without conclusion. Instead of hastily reaching that conclusion for the hopes of being set free

from ambiguity, it may be more practical to accept it as life. Theodor Adorno states quite

radically that “intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.” The

34

ambiguity is such that we seem to be living and dying simultaneously. Essentially a

‘disconclusion’, derived from the Italian term disconcludere, meaning “to prevent the conclusion

of something”. A more precise definition I hope to convey would be ‘unresolving coda’ — an

aestheticized disconclusion. Perhaps isomorphic to what would be a literary form of The

Unanswered Question by Charles Ives.

I go in depth to explain the functionality of this segment, because of the following premise:

“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”

― David Bohm

I do not wish for the readers to follow the knowledge attained, if attained, from OMP. All I wish

the readers to take is a perspective added to one’s collection of perspectives. Any work requires

some form of conclusion to contain the contents, but concluding, or providing an answer is

preaching, which enforces a perspective at the expense of another. Conclusion is not the goal of

‘love’, aesthetics, ‘you’, nor music. Despite that, perhaps I shall at least summarize the ‘message’

of this particular medium.

In music:

1. there is only ‘your’ way no ‘right’ way.

2. there is no way without ‘love’.

3. ‘love’ requires that ‘you’ ‘feel’.

4. the exchange is ‘inspiration’ per time.

5. one must ‘act’ it.

The message directly applies to how you deal with music as well as with OMP. Let us once again

disintegrate the bounds of the crystallized aspects of literary expression and crossfade into

poetry. Coda by Octavio Paz.

Coda

Perhaps to love is to learn

to walk through this world.

To learn to be silent

like the oak and the linden of the fable.

To learn to see.

Your glance scattered seeds.

It planted a tree.

I talk

because you shake its leaves.

35

Endnotes

Before you close this book, I wanted to briefly explain what got me writing this in the first place.

“Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by

which bills must be paid.” ― Frank Zappa

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to

everything.” ― Plato

Musician is a lifestyle and nothing else. I personally believe that it is a lifestyle that everyone

should at least try. For me the question is not “why should I?” but rather “why not?” There has

never been a better time to do music than today. Music is a low risk investment. If you take it

seriously, you can expect great returns… most importantly, it is really fun.

What is a “musician” to you? Perhaps an employed studio guitarist. Perhaps someone who

makes a living as a composer. Perhaps the famous pop stars. It would be difficult to argue that

they are not musicians. However, none of the listed qualities are essential. A musician is

someone who loves music; someone who has the urge to listen to them; and someone who is

willing to animate them. To be a musician has always been about the mental attitude, more so

than an occupation. It is about the ‘why’ not the ‘what’. It is about the ‘will’ not the ‘how’.

Been submerged in capitalism for quite some time, today’s world assumes music as a business.

We must never forget the essence of music — and everything in general. When we lose touch of

the essence, we end up working for the sake of working, and expending for the sake of

expending. A musician who animates through pure drive is much more musical than one who

compromises for the sake of business.

A musician who makes no income is not a failure, because music is not a business. Being a

vegetarian is not a business. Being a minimalist is not a business. They only become a business

when there is a product. In the streaming age, music is almost never the product. Musicians are

often forced to generate money from non-musical things, such as advertising, merchandise,

networking, and other services. Every musician has at least a dual life. Many musicians are in

show business or the marketing business as much as they are a musician.

In a market where Stockhausen’s Studie 2 is, more or less, nonexistent, while pop stars earn a

fortune, it would be incorrect to measure the quality of music by statistics. There is no reason to

dwell in misery about today's circumstances. Technology has provided us with more time to be

creative. Why not use it?

36

I would like to close this, or perhaps open, on a ponder. Music has certain values beyond itself.

As the imperfections of capitalism, democracy, scientism and religion surface on some

occasions, a perspective yet to be considered seriously and perhaps to be integrated within the

domains of ethics and governance is aesthetics. I mean literally that music and arts have the

potential of playing the role of religion and scientism with less objective-subjective,

individual-group, and macro-micro conflicts. Could aesthetic literacy be the key to balance? A

good way to start will be curiosity, and perhaps choosing to become an artist or a musician.

37

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