Category: Rants and Rambles

Orson Scott Card, The Ender Novels, and the author’s voice?

Posted on by filmscore80

Among my many projects over the past year has been reading through a few book series.  Last semester—yes, semester, I am still a graduate student so I think in semesters—it was Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, all seven books.  This semester is reading Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game novels.  First, if you don’t know the books, there around, as of right now, nine books and a short novella plus assorted short stories (some of which have been worked into the latest novel and novella).  The original four books (Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind) make up so-called ‘Ender Quartet’ because they focus on the main character of Ender Wiggin.  In the late 1990s Card wrote Ender’s Shadow as a parallel novel to Ender’s Game, and basically tells the story of the original book from the perspective of the character of Bean.  From there he wrote Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant.  These four books are called the ‘Bean/Shadow Quartet’ and actually take place in between the first two books of the Ender Quartet.  Card’s latest novel of the series, Ender in Exile, takes place during the last three books of the Shadow Quartet, and even largely between the last two chapters of Ender’s Game, and the novella, A War of Gifts, also takes place during Game.

 

Yes, it’s all very confusing if you don’t know the books and how relativistic space travel accounts for so much of the lost time.  I won’t go into too much of the details because you can read all about them on Wikipedia and what not.  There is even a handy flow chart of how all the books and stories relate.

 

For my reading, I decided to ready the books in the chronological order of events as best I can.  So that order was:

 

Ender’s Game

Ender’s Shadow

A War of Gifts

Shadow of the Hegemon

Shadow Puppets

Shadow of the Giant

Ender in Exile

Speaker for the Dead

Xenocide

Children of the Mind

 

Part of the reason I did that is that I have, in large part, already read the Ender Quartet, though it was long ago and I never finished Children of the Mind.  As of right now, I have finished Ender in Exile.  What I want to talk about now, though, it how I almost stopped reading the books about half-way through Shadow Puppets and how it relates to some modern fiction.

 

In Shadow Puppets two of our main characters are Julian ‘Bean’ Delphiki and Petra Arkanian, both friends of Ender’s from his days in Battle School.  Bean suffers from a condition that allows his brain to continue growing, hence his amazing intellect, but has the side effect of his continuing growth past puberty and his early death due to his body not being able to sustain his increasing growth.  Petra was always a possible love interest for many characters, being one of the few female characters, but her tough, no-nonsense, acerbic wit and attitude always made her somewhat of a tough nut to crack emotionally.  She obviously had feelings for Ender, but most of it was more paternal and looking after the youngest kid there.

 

What almost stopped my reading dead in its tracks, though, was a drastic shift in Petra’s character.  She went from the tough girl who takes shit from no one to a whiny teenager who wants nothing more than to marry Bean and have his babies.  For the first half of the book, any scene between the two of them were either long internal narratives of how she wanted to have his babies (and yes, Card almost always used the word ‘babies’) despite the risk that they would inherit Bean’s condition, or dialogue of her pestering him to marry her so that his legacy can live on.  It got to be maddening, but I suffered through it and luckily the book got back on track to the larger geo-political story that had made the pervious book so compelling.  There were also long dialogues between Petra/Bean and other characters on how a life is not fulfilled until one is married and has children, how it gives one life meaning.  Those obvious moments where an author’s personal views are very thinly veiled.

 

When I was reading this, though, I was struck by how this reminded me of what a friend had described to me about the first Twilight novel (she stopped after the first one because of how annoying she found the characters in the first). She described how Bella had also essentially badgered the male lead (whose name escapes me) in his relationship with her, how he didn’t want to pursue one due to the complications that may arise.  But both female leads wanted their relationships with their respective male counterpoints (reluctant due to their respective conditions) and hounded them until they gave in.

 

In the back of my mind, the thought arose of the authors religious affiliations and how they have seemingly impacted their writing.  Both Card and Stephanie Meyer are members of the Latter Day Saints (aka the Mormons), and while I have no problems with religion or Mormons in the particular, I wonder if the views of the church has influenced their view.  A hallmark of the Mormon family is it to be large (much like the Catholics), and that meaning can be found in future generations.  Not to mention the fact that Meyer cites Card as a writer who has influenced her.

 

But despite what I realized was Card’s own religion seeping into his writing, I wouldn’t not have been so clearly annoyed, I think , if it hadn’t been for the complete reversal in what I had found to be the very compelling character of Petra.  Apologists could say that she was being just as head strong as she previously had been, that her pursuit of Bean was driven by the same impulses that had led her to be so determined and her wit so biting previously.  But I text, as I read it, does not bear this apology out.

 

Petra became whiney, her constant pleading with Bean to marry her, not to mention her constant doubting about how she had been the first of Ender’s commanders to break under stress during the final battle with the Formics (the alien enemy that they had been fighting).  She had gone from a strong female lead to one that seemed to depend on Bean’s approval and acceptance of her as his wife.  Not to mention the other characters whose views pushed Bean into the marriage and subsequent children.

 

I’m not sure if this same theme will be present in the rest of the Ender Quartet (I don’t seem to remember it being), but its presence in the Shadow Quartet does echo what I’ve read about his writing having taken a turn that is more in line with his religious views in the latter part of the 90s.  Like I’ve said, I’m not trying to say anything about his religion per se, just how his views came to dominant so completely the first half Shadow Puppets.  I did finish the book, and have continued reading the series and enjoyed them immensely, and I’m looking forward to finishing the series. Not to mention looking forward to his final novel of the entire Ender series that is supposedly in the planning stages.  I’m just reporting my reactions to this and how they seem to line up with similar criticism reported to me by others.

The Last Frakkin’ Word on the BSG Finale

Posted on by filmscore80

Over the past few days, I’ve read a lot positive and negative comments about the finale of Battlestar Galactica.  As one of the few who were seemingly completely satisfied with the ending, I feel the need to discuss my thoughts in an open forum, and it doesn’t get much more open than the internets (use the Google to find me…God, I hope bashing Bush never gets old)

Anyway, as I’ve said many times over the past year (to anyone who would listen), Ron Moore and David Eick seemed to be following a plan with BSG that took the major plot points of the one season of the classic Battlestar as a template for the new show.  Those major points, and their analogous new episodes I shall list here:

-Fall of the Twelve Colonies: Classic ‘Saga of a Star World,’ New ‘Miniseries’
-Finding Kobol: Classic ‘Lost Planet of the Gods,’ New ‘Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part I’ through ‘Home, Part II’
-Discovery by Pegasus and Adm. Cain: Classic ‘The Living Legend,’ New ‘Pegasus’ through ‘Resurrection Ship, Part II’
-Ship of Lights/Count Iblis: Classic ‘War of the Gods,’ New…the entire series?

It is the last one that is most closely tied in with the finale of ‘Daybreak’ (both parts).  As it is revealed that the Six that Baltar would talk to that only he could see and hear (like Al from Quantum Leap), and that the Baltar vision both he and Caprica Six would have, are actually some sort of beings who have been helping them and the fleet along, hoping to guide them towards a better future.  And also that Starbuck, after she seemingly died, was brought back for a specific purpose.  I’ll come back to these points in just a moment, because first I want to address what seems to be one of the biggest sticking points:  the decision of the Colonials to renounce their technologies and settle down on our Earth and blend in with the natives.

I think this was a perfectly logical way to end the Colonial’s journey for a few reasons.  I think it does make sense from a pure storytelling perspective and from a practical one.  In context of the story, the entire point of the series has been “All this has happened before, and will happen again” and trying to break out of the cycle.  The final five were revealed to be people from the original 13th colony who had traveled to the 12 Colonies in hopes that they could prevent the terrible destruction that had visited their world (the original Earth), but they were too late.  And in trying to prevent a future war, accidently set in motion the events that would destroy the Colonies.  As Lee Adama makes clear in his little speech on why they should give up the technology, if they were to keep the technology and take over the planet, it would most likely just continue the cycle.  If they were to give it all up, they would give everyone the chance to start again, and hopefully when the civilization once again reached the point of the “Singularity,” the point when true Artificial Intelligence is reached and the systems can learn and evolve on their own (look it up), we will all be in a better position to avert the apocalypse (this anxiety is present in much of our science fiction, look no further than The Matrix and The Terminator films).

So in the context of the story, it makes perfect sense.  From a practical standpoint, let’s play what if.  What if instead of reaching Earth in the distant past, they reach Earth (our Earth) and it’s more recent, or even present day or even near future?  Essentially you would leave open the door for future series in some alternate reality in which the Galactica reaches Earth…then you just have the disaster that was Galactica 1980 all over again.  Instead, the way Moore and Eick ended it, you have a morality tale that squares with our own human history (but what about wreckage of the Raptor that Adama had, etc…I’ll get to that).  As for people who ask the question I just parentheticalled, well, I just say you’re over thinking it, and if you really want an answer, well Adama set the autopilot and crashed it into the Sun like the rest of the fleet.  But again, I think you’re missing the forest for the trees if you get that nitpicky.

 

So with that now settled, I would like to turn my attention to the previously mentioned point, that of the revelation of the true natures of, what had been referred to as, “Head Six” and “Head Baltar.”  Call them angels, spirits, or whatever, it becomes clear that they were operating for some source, power, whatever that had instructed them to do what they did.  And playing against them in this game was the original Cavil cylon, who we had learned earlier, was behind the mind wipes of the final five, planting them in the fleet and many other devious things.  He wanted to wipe out humanity so the Cylons could be ascendant.

 

This does mesh well with the general tone of the original series’ “War of the Gods” two part episode.  On the one hand there is Count Iblis who is our devil/Cavil figure (originally there had been a scene of him with cloven hoofs, but it was pulled from the aired episode), and he is warring against the beings of the ‘Ship of Lights,’ who are beings who have ascended to a higher plane of existence (if you are familiar with Stargate SG-1 think of the Ancients).  They hope to guide humanity to a better existence.

 

Also like the episode “War of the Gods,” is the obtaining of the location of Earth.  The return of Starbuck at the end of Season 3 leads to this…twice.  First the original Earth, destroyed by conflict of man against machine, and then to the new Earth, our Earth.  Also of similarity is that Starbuck returns in a pristine, shiny viper.  When, in the original series, the pilots who had been taken by the “Beings of Light” return to Galactica, their vipers are in similar condition.

 

From this, it can be seen that Ron Moore, when writing out this ending, had these episodes in mind.  And that all along, he was following the large plot structure of the one season of the original series.  But rather than the rather obvious, in your face, religious angels that we had in the original, we have the rather enigmatic, obtuse, and not always ‘good’ angles of “Head Six” and “Head Baltar.”  In the payoff of the Opera House visions, we do see that all along it was to protect the future of humanity, Hera, who would lay the seeds of our modern humanity (as seen in the tag of the near future and the discovery of our most recent ancestor).

 

But an ending with such religious overtones?  That seems to be a sticking point for some.  In a science fiction show that prided itself on realism, a metaphysical ending?  I didn’t have any problems because the entire show had religious themes.  From the Colonial’s pantheon of Gods, to Roslin’s faith and Moses-like figure, to the Cylon’s one true God, the series is littered with the religious.  The only lingering question for me is: with all of the strong allegory of religious conflict, and parallels to 9/11 and Arab/Judeo-Christian conflict, what, if anything, can we read into this ending?  My initial thoughts are that by the refutation of the name “God” at the end, it is a message of pantheism (if I’m using that term correctly).  That religion is putting a specific name on something which doesn’t want or need to be named (though anthropomorphizing it in such a way contradicts such pantheistic readings seemingly).

 

I’m not an expert in such matters, but a reading of the ending that encourages unity rather than division seems to be perfectly in line with the shows message as a whole.  In the end, in order to survive, didn’t humanity and cylon have to come together?  Wasn’t that the whole point of Hera?  Exactly.

 

So, those are my thoughts.  Yours?

Stop the Planet of the Apes! I Want to Get Off!

Posted on by filmscore80

  For those of you ignorant of The Simpsons, the subject is a reference to the musical version of The Planet of the Apes starring Troy McClure…as the human (the part he was born to play!).  But I’m not going to write about the classic song “You’ll Never Make a Monkey Out of Me (I Hate Every Ape I See)” or “Dr. Zaius.”  Rather, I’m going to speak about the movie franchise.  Using it to elaborate on some subjects talked about in my previous post, “Science Fiction.”


The original Apes film, and to a lesser extent its sequels, are a perfect example of what Sci-Fi can do so well.  It takes touchy social/political subjects and wraps them in the cloth of science fiction to make them more palatable for the viewing public.  Planet of the Apes addressed such topics as: 1) Social inequality based on race, 2) Science versus Faith (i.e. evolution), and 3) Nuclear Warfare.  Oddly enough, even though the film is 40 years old this year, all these things are still very much a part of our civilization.  Maybe man doesn’t evolve, we just find more clever ways to cover up our flaws.

  So what we do have here is a perfect example of what might be normally taboo, or at least touchy, topics to be addressed in such a public way, Apes tackles them head.  And does it for FIVE FILMS!  Yes, the four sequels are not nearly as creative or subtle as the first, but how does one really beat the Monkey Trial Redux?  I mean, really?  The classic scene of the original film where intelligent Apes evolving from Man is debated and the judges do all they can to deny the evidence is simply brilliant (not to mention the comical moment where the three Ape judges imitate the See No, Speak No, Hear No Evil bit).  “Objection!” “Sustained!”

  The second film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, while not nearly as subtle, I believe has new found relevance in our modern society.  It deals with an overly adventurous and aggressive military general forcing an unnecessary and ultimately disastrous campaign against what turns out to be the mutant human descendants of humanity who live in a bombed out NYC and worship the almighty bomb…and the holy fallout.  The general, Ursus, has the classic, and chilling, line while addressing a council of, “The only thing that counts in the end is power!  Naked, merciless force!”

  Remind anyone of another chilling absolute recently uttered?  Perhaps, “You are either with us or you are with the terrorists.”  Maybe?

  Of course I would not be the first to compare the current Commander in Chief, aka “The Commander Guy,” aka “The Decider,” with an ape.

  Granted, that film was made at the height of Viet Nam and also deals with pacifism, a war protest, and the eventual destruction of the planet.  Surely not things we have to worry about now, right?  Wait a second, didn’t Russia just invade someone?  Is this 2008 or the 1950s?

  The remaining films deal with how the Earth got to be the planet of the Apes, of which the best installment is Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.  It deals with the Ape revolution against their oppressive human slave masters, and is quite far and away the darkest installment.  The changed, more positive, ending that the studio demanded really kind of ruins the whole thing.  Caesar, the leader of the resistance, gives a speech on how Apes shall no longer tolerate their slavery, talks about the world burning in the fires of revolution, really great imagery, and original the human governor of the city was to be beaten to death…but instead the studio demanded that he be spared.

  It’s not that I’m opposed to the change, it’s just that it was such a bad hack job and is so obvious that it just ruins the whole ending.

  A few words on Tim Burton’s 2001 remake should be made.  Mainly on why it just does not measure up to the original.  It comes down to the fact that it doesn’t have any of the social commentary that made the 1968 film such a classic.  Instead, we get a two hour sci-fi action adventure.  Not that sci-fi action is necessarily bad, it’s that when that is everything it is, the obvious silliness of the concept overwhelms the story.  In the ’68 version, and Pierre Boulle’s novel, the Ape oppressing human story is a device to explore society, and both do it well.  Burton’s remake doesn’t really do it.  It focuses entirely on the human’s capture and escape.  Also, these humans can speak and do so.  Part of what made the original so devastating was Taylor’s palpable frustration at the situation of the humans not being intelligent and the Apes insistence that his intelligence was all a learned trick.

  Simply, there were no scenes in the 2001 version that screamed “classic” like the courtroom scene, or Heston’s classic, “Get your stinkin’ paws off me you damned dirty apes,” and definitely not the ending shot of the Statue of Liberty.  Burton’s end just left the view saying, “huh?”  Granted, he was intending to remake more of the films, and perhaps the “Ape Lincoln” at the end might have been explained.

  Instead we’re left with a mess of a remake.

  What I’m saying is that the films actual hold up better than most people give them credit for.  I would recommend the original to anyone I know, and for any fan of science fiction, the whole series really is a must see.

Science Fiction

Posted on by filmscore80

I love science fiction, have since I was a kid.  I used to dream about going into space, inventing warp drives, and other such flights of fancy.  Alot of my love stems from my parents, growing up Star Wars and Star Trek were in heavy rotation for viewing in my house.  My parents themselves as teens and young adults read the works of Asimov and others and once I was old enough, I too read many of those works.  A quick glance at my bookshelf I see works of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Orson Scott Card.  But as I’ve grown older, and I’ve tried to explore science fiction in both literary and visual media, I have grown to appreciate just what is so wonderful about the genre.


It’s that in my opinion it’s not a genre.  At least not in the sense of “drama,” “action,” “comedy,” and other such labels you find at the local video store, though there is always a “sci-fi” section (many times lumped in with “horror”).  Or even in a bookstore, you have the “literature” section, then sub sections for “romance,” “mystery,” and “science-fiction/fantasy.”  In my opinion science fiction is a genre that transcends genre.  It’s a setting that can be anything it wants.  It can be action, drama, romance, comedy, horror, mystery.  It’s a genre that is so rich and varied.  Not to mention an underdog that has been looked down upon since its early days, and still is for the most part.  When was the last time a sci-fi film was up for Best Picture?  Maybe Star Wars?  


But despite the snubbing of many of the intelligentsia (or intellinistas as I like to call them…hey I’m one too), it is a “genre” that has flourished and has become so rich and varied that many people have a hard time knowing if to call something science fiction unless it blatantly involves robots, aliens, space travel, or preferably all three!  Many people say the TV show Lost is science fiction, but is it?  There is definitely something unknown and strange at work, weird scientific experiments and such.  But unless the last two seasons have some really strange twists (which I don’t really put anything past J.J. Abrams), there will not be any aliens or robots or space travel.  Though they did just move the entire island, which was pretty cool.


But look at how science fiction is action and drama and comedy.  What science fiction funny?  Read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy lately?  Action? Drama?  Star Wars is both in one, as is Trek.  If you want just action, look no further than The Matrix or Total Recall or The Terminator movies or Aliens.  Horror?  How about original Alien, or the more recent Sunshine (which is more 2001 drama until the last act when it turns horror). Pure drama?  How about some 2001?  Too slow or cerebral?  Well maybe Dark City, which is also cerebral, but also a good film noir too, along with a little drama and romance.  Or if you want so really good long form “space opera,” then check out the new Battlestar Galactica.  That should be dramatic enough for anyone.  Hell, it’s practically a soap opera in space.  The only thing it’s lacking is a coma patient pregnant with Admiral Adama’s love child.  But maybe we’ll get that in the last half of season four.


I guess my favorite thing about science fiction, though, is its ability to make us think.  The good science fiction challenges us and makes us think.  But changing the setting from what is known about our world, tweaking it, making changes to force us to ask questions.  Questions about humanity, what makes us who we are.  Questions about reality, what is real, could we tell the difference between reality and a completely convincing illusion?  Or what if we ourselves are the illusion?  It can force us to look at our own reality and see the absurd in how we act to each other.  As in the classic original Star Trek episode “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield.”  You know the one with the race of people that are half white/half black, and dependent on which side of your body is which you’re either slave or master.

Rodenberry was never exactly subtle with his points, but they were effective none the less.  Science Fiction is in many ways like the jester of Shakespeare.  I know, I know I’ve used the reference many times before, even in the previous post, but it is such a classic literary device.  Anyway, because Science Fiction is not dealing with the “real world” it can get away with more, just like the jester could comment on the king through comedy.  Since people didn’t take it seriously, we could dream of a better world, comment on just how terrible our current times are.  Or ask the really hard questions about our human nature.

  There is a great episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where Captain Sisko has a hallucination about being a science fiction writer back in the 1950s, “Far Beyond the Stars.”  He dreams up the entire DS9 universe complete with a black captain, which of course sparks a huge debate on whether to publish the story.  It captures much of what is great about the genre, not to mention why it had such a hard time gaining even the respect it has today.

  I guess what I’m trying to say is that Science Fiction has so many of the qualities that make other genres great, but it does them in such a way that it transcends those genres.  It’s more than just a genre.  What is a genre really?  I know there is great debate in academic communities on this very question, but I would ask if Science Fiction fits many of these qualities.  It has both drama and comedy, and aren’t those the two most basic genres?  Science Fiction can challenge us to make a better future and make a better self.  And this, among many other reasons, is why I love it so much.

  And space ships are wicked cool.

Music and Ritual

Posted on by filmscore80

As some may know, one of my papers last semester dealt with describing film as a ritual activity and analyzing scores in that context.  My ideas are still very much a work in progress, but here are some thoughts I’ve been jotting down the last few days.

Music, Western music, especially classical music, used to be consumed in a primarily ritualized manner, i.e. the concert.  Recording technology changed that, but the process of listening to classical music at home still had ritualized tendencies.  Then along came the pop explosion, and more importantly, radio airplay.  The digestion of short, disposable songs made the music less valuable because much of the ritual was taken out of it.  It was less about the journey of the music, the piece moving the listener with it, then about the commercial viability of the single.
Album-oriented rock held onto some of the ritual elements.  The listener, to gain the full impact, had to sit, listen, digest.  It was about a ritual journey again.  Now once again, with iTunes and other similar services, we are again faced with a focus less on the whole and more with the catchy and disposable.

But will music as a listening ritual every really die?  The marketplace will always have it’s “pop.”  Folk music, lieder, etc. down through the centuries is a testament to the fact that for every mass, opera cycle, symphony there has always been the motet, madrigal, piano prelude, and Billie Jean.  But as long as individuals keep listening, and artists keep writing with the album as a conceptual whole, the ritual of listening will be around.  Whether in your car, your iPod on the bus, or on your favorite home stereo, people still treat these things as rituals.

But these are examples of ritual activity in which music is the focal point of the ritual.  What about rituals in which music is just a component?  What effect does music play?  How does it inform the ritual?  More to the point, how can film, television, video games fit within the scope of ritual activity and how does the musical score effect it?  Alter our perceptions?  And most importantly, why is seeing it within the context of the ritual process useful?

My primary thought is that, to my satisfaction, the question of why music is associated with such visual storytelling mediums has never been answered.  I believe that such an analysis through the ritual process can illuminate this question.

De Musica, Part II

Posted on by filmscore80

               In his Fundamentals of Music, Boethius divides those engaged in music into three categories:  those who perform music, those who composer music, and those who contemplate music.  It is only this last category that to Boethius deserves the title of musician.  It also works as a sort of social stratification, and in this sense truly shows its derivation from the Greeks.

 

                And while I do not agree, necessarily with the socio-cultural aspects of this musical caste system, it does have not only some interest educational aspects, but also shows a striking parallel to today’s musical elitist culture (which will be discussed later).

 

In learning music, the path of one’s education does go from performer to composer to philosopher, that is if one ever reaches beyond the first step.  We start out young learning an instrument, and learning some basic theory along the way.  Eventually, we learn how music is constructed, more advanced theory, and learn how to compose.  Finally, with all appreciation of these aspects we learn how to think about music.  For most students, though, the third step is not taught.  As articulated previously, we as musicians are very rarely, if ever, given the tools for this.

 

                I can appreciate not wanting to spoon-feed  knowledge to people, but a basic discussion of Kant and Hegel in relation to 19th Century European Art Music would seem a given, but not even that is done in some cases (my case).

 

                We, as educators, should strive in training young musicians to make them true “musicians” in the Beothian sense of the term: to possibly coin a phrase, the performer-philosopher. 

De Musica

Posted on by filmscore80

I’m not advocating a return to the cultish aspects of Pythagoras, or saying that music is some mystical religion or occult teaching.  But rather that philosophy and aesthetics as related to music have lost their way, at least in regards to how we teach music.

 

In most other disciplines, they teach some basic philosophy course that lays out many aspects of it: philosophy of science, education, math, history; but no such course for music is standard.  We don’t even routinely teach aesthetics, something that is at the very heart of music.  (Now granted, this is from my own limited experience, but these are things I strongly feel should be standard in a musician’s education.)  It is part of training a true musician.  Not just one who plays or composes, but one who truly contemplates and strives to understand music.

 

We teach many of the tools:  theory to understand its construction, history to understand its place, but we need philosophy and aesthetics to bring these together.  We do not teach this.  Many courses might touch on the periphery, and students might talk about it, but if we give student two of these tools, theory and history, why don’t we give them the third, philosophy?

 

Towards a Unification

 

                String Theory seeks to give physics the mathematical tools to finally unify Einstein’s General Relativity Theory of gravity with the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics, and music is in need of something similar.

 

                Music is a fractured discipline.  Not only do we have specialization by discipline (performance, composition, jazz or classical, theory, musicology), but we are still very music culturally biased (Western, non-Western, and every other culture on Earth).  We are all under the umbrella of music, but are we really taught to thing about music as a whole?

 

                Universals get a bad wrap in today’s culturally sensitive world.  Fears of globalization and disappearing cultures have made us keen on preserving what makes our world a wonderfully varied and unique place.  But to truly reach a unified approach to music, even with philosophy, we must first reach a unified description of music in the world, and this would HAVE to include all cultures aesthetic approach to music, non-Western theory, and how music functions culturally.  These are all things that Ethnomusicology has begun to equip us with.

 

                Once we being to understand music in the world at large more completely, we can begin to build a more complete philosophical and aesthetic base of music.  We examine what are those universals that can be found in music theories, performance rituals, cultural perception, cultural function, and others.

 

                Music is NOT a universal language, at least not yet.

 

                When we say that, many of us are thinking of only Western music, but even in Western Civilization it’s not universal.  Play a Mozart symphony for ten different people and odds are you’ll get at least five different reactions, if not ten.  The only thing universal about music is that every culture on Earth has developed some form of music.

 

                That in itself, though, is a compelling fact.

 

                Working from there we can begin to examine the philosophical underpinnings of music in culture.

 

                This is why the crucial first step in this process is to teach philosophy and aesthetics alongside theory and history.  And it is something that should be done at the undergraduate level in college.  We unify all aspects of Western music first with the proper teaching of philosophy and aesthetics to students.  Really a re-unification since to the ancient Greeks and even afterwards, this was crucial to one’s education. 

                After that, we can begin to make strides to unify the study of all musics into our schools, and not just some one semester class of “World Musics.”

Harmonices Mundi

Posted on by filmscore80

  Music is in the world and the world is music. 

 

  For many years philosophers wrote about music as an integral part of the mathematical sciences along with geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy.  Music was described as having its theoretical basis in the ratios of intervals and from there building its way to theory of notes, scales, modes, and harmony.

 

  Along with this also came the harmony of the spheres; that the mathematical ratios of intervals first described by Pythagoras can be observed in the celestial bodies in our universe.

 

  Even Johannes Kepler when setting out his theories, which would become laws, of planetary motion references it.  One of his books is called Harmonices Mundi, or The Harmony of the Worlds.

  But just as Kepler’s astrology was divorced from astronomy, so was his Harmony of the World relegated to the scientific refuse pile of the occult.

  Now, though, we have String Theory, which at least from its metaphorical terms seems to bring its back to the concept of music and science coexisting in nature: the metaphysical, the natural, the musical; the Music of the Spheres.  Or as Brian Greene likes to call it, “The Cosmic Symphony.”

  Setting aside String Theory for the moment, let us consider a more terrestrially bound thesis: music can be found all around us.  It is one that 20th Century composer John Cage exemplified in 4’33”.  Now whether you consider Cage genius or fraud is a question of personal aesthetic taste, but for my taste, and this thesis, we shall consider him the former.

  As I write this I am sitting in a room in supposed complete silence, but is there truly such a thing?  What Cage was aiming for in 4’33”, at least in my view, was for us to consider the sounds around us; the music that occurs when we truly listen.  Music is not just organized noise.  Music is the sound of the world around us, both natural and man-made.

  We only don’t consider it such because it lacks the rational, logical, organization hand of a composer.  Well, Cage gave us that with 4’33”.

  But what about in a more abstract sense?  Our lives, our culture, even our many religions are filled with musical metaphors or terminology related to music.  We talk of things being in harmony or discord.  Something is like a symphony, or someone is like a conductor.  Granted, we also like our war metaphors, or comparing things to famous historical events or figures, but music allows us a more transcendent metaphor not only because of its status as an art, but also because, even without knowing it, we still associate music with the cosmos.  We still carry a cultural memory of the Music of the Spheres.

 

From many religious creation myths to more contemporary examples like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth creation story, Ainulindalë (The Music of the Ainur), music is a powerful force, one that can be seen as providing the bridge between the sacred and the profane, heaven and earth.  “Life has a melody…A rhythm of notes which become your existence once played in harmony with God’s plan,” extols the Number Six cylon to Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.  It may be a fictional television show, but it is a popular and powerful metaphor upon which an entire cosmological musical metaphor is built upon.

 

Music is in the Universe, and the universe is music.

Music is math made audible.

Music is the universe made audible.