Fleur de Vie Weinstock 1998 - Harvard University (4.1.

98 - Thesis course)

The Creation of Socially Validated Music Music is an industry. Even for the electronic composer of the avant-garde who shuns MTV, the love of music often dictates finding ways for at least some of that music to be validated, accepted, endorsed, paid for. The ideal of the composing musician as dictating his or her own aesthetics may be a reality for some, but nonetheless many find themselves fitting into a social network in which music serves a purpose rather than being a pure creation from the mind of the musician. At the moment on National Public Radio, two men are discussing Ayn Rand and her philosophy. Her books Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead emphasize individuals who are individuals, who fail (in a superficial way) to serve others, yet (in their fictional existences) end up significantly enriching the lives of those who understand them. Individuality is held up as a truthwhat some Eastern philosophies might call being "centered." But nonetheless we find ourselves restricted to words, and it seems many have forgotten that words can also be music. The silence of a printed page Music should not have a purpose. Then it becomes just another tool for the onward tumble of society. Music is a moment in time, a crystalline existence, a point where the need to get somewhere stops and one finds himself suspended in the fluid of sound. David Rosenboom has done experiments with the physical influence of music on mind, studying the effects of different brainwaves in playing chess:
For Beta: "Maximum efficiency in making abstractions. Making instantaneous logical connections between things seen in the game. Playing the game well. Felt I could win. Very attentive." For Alpha: "Super consciousness of the presence of everything in the environment but not making any abstractions. Raw data stored but not coded. No filters of incoming information. Can't play the game." For Theta: "Pure relaxation. Oneness. Everything on automatic pilot. Pattern recognition complete. Automatic non-evolutionary automation. Why play the game?" (Rosenboom p 14)

Why play the gameinstead, eloping into a world of creation where music rolls out, buoyed by attentiveness to the momentsounds existing for themselves, not for an end goal.

References: Schafer, R. Murray. The Tuning of the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Rosenboom, David, ed. Biofeedback and the Arts: results of early experiments. Vancouver: Aesthetic Research Centre of Canada, 1976. [through p. 14]