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Of course, commenting more on Purpose Music (I don't know if I like that, sounds too much like "Porpoise Music"), nothing is wrong with writing music for orchestra, or for string quartet, or for MIDI trombone etc. I myself have written many of these pieces; just last year (as an example) I wrote "Loop and Swirl" for flute, guitar, theorbo and bass gamba - it's meant to be performed on stage, not during any kind of event or anything. So does it have a function? Is it meant to be only admired as a piece we hear on the radio or on stage? Why shouldn't we write pieces which people simply go to in this fashion? After all, we race off to the museum to see works of art, or run down to the bookstore to buy books. Why is it that music is seen differently?
And why am I poking holes in my own discussion about how music should have a purpose?
posted by Tim Risher at 10:28 AM
2 Comments:
I don't get it, what's the argument? :)
I changed the word "argument" to "discussion" - I am thinking about music with a function. Music in many cultures or other times is (and was) seen as a function of other things - In Bach's time, for example, music was seen as "handmaiden of theology" and part of an educational ideal of(according to Luther) "training of men toward God as a consequence of the practice of music to the glory of God." This broke down under the Enlightenment - nowadays the cantatas of Bach have simply become pieces to be enjoyed at concerts, like Beethoven or Reich or Blur.
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