On Music and Computability: Contrasts between Harry Partch’s Bitter Music and Guerino Mazzola’s Topos of Music

Abstract

The clash of ideas between classical music and several avant-garde movements in the previous century, not only found its way into twentieth century musicology, it also lead to a number of new developments in music digitalization. This paper reflects on the inscription of these opposing ideas about the concept of music into the contemporary views on the human condition and the notion of computability of human interactions. Harry Partch, the American iconoclast broke away from the classic, predominantly European traditions in music, and contested the abstract architecture and well-tempered tonal system of it. The mathematician Guerrino Mazzola constructed an even bigger, abstract formalization system, that allegedly allows for a complete digitalization of music, from the mind and inner ear of the composer towards the scores, the gestures and sounds produced by the performers up to the auditory cortex of the listeners. In this paper we will mainly investigate the philosophical and musicological basis of this formalization system, which is essentially based on the Denotator system and a number of concepts from algebraic topology applied to music. Finally, we will unravel the typical de-humanizing aspects that are followed in the digitalization system as used by Mazzola, and what this approach implicates for humanity (and the human sciences).

On Music and Soul: Coltrane’s My Favorite Things, LeRoi Jones' Black Music and Adorno's papers on Jazz

“…Given this personal testimony of Adorno [60], it appears that his attempts to construct a system of constraints for a permitted harmony or counterpoint in the 'new music', de facto is based on a post-renaissance, classic western conceptualization of polyphony as a pattern of simultaneities (in contrast to the earlier renaissance polyphonic conceptualization, see e.g. the Berlin musicologist Carl Dahlhaus in [14]). This however doesn't mean that the Renaissance concept of polyphony was free from harmonic restrictions, well on the contrary.…”

“…Coltrane's cries are not 'musical', but they are music and quite moving music. Ornette Coleman's screams and rants are only musical once one understands the music his emotional attitude seeks to create"(ibidem, p. [14][15]. How could someone ever defend the idea of a 'failed attempt at individualization'?…”

“…For, one of the first lessons of social life is that the favorite of one is a bore to the other: there isn't a transitivity property in the mind-set that produces a passionate affection to certain things or elements of culture, except for the groupies of like-minded spirits. Although some have attempted to create a universal formalization system of for instance digitalized music [14], it is hard if not impossible to create uniform standards for comparing cultural forms that at the same time carry the heritage and expressive means for their cultural identity.…”

“…J.B. Robinson, 1994)? Furthering this question, we wonder how Adorno's defamation of improvisation and his sarcastic viewpoint on 'amateur jazz musicians' (as being an ultimately lower grade of jazz performers, because they might have cost even less for their commercial entrepreneurs), could become an integrated reality within the recent master piece of integrationist, amateur jazz musician and mathematician, Guerino Mazzola [13,14]? Although several authors have elaborated on the charge of racism in Adorno's comments on blacks and jazz, as well as on the refutation of this charge [15,16], we will not insist on this matter.…”

“…Finally, as we might wishfully long for an antidote against the philosophical boredom of adopting disciplining and regulatory constraints for musical expression, one of the most exalting exponents of our longing for freedom [14], there must be another way than the whip and camel hair's chastity coat [18]. In this paper, we found an interesting escape route through the notion of experiencing passion in music and the usefulness of little, 'favorite things' in realizing this passionate endeavor.…”