"meaning"...in photos but not music?

<p>Many of us "interpret" photos, but I suspect few of us do that to/with music. We do distinguish ambient sounds from music, but we might not if the composer was John Cage ( <a href="http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/index.php/past-bmcm-ac-events/82-a-night-out-with-bob-rauschenberg-and-john-cage">http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/index.php/past-bmcm-ac-events/82-a-night-out-with-bob-rauschenberg-and-john-cage</a> )<br /><br />If we see a photo we may say "that's a bird." We may forget "that's a photo."<br /><br />If we hear Mussogorsky's "Gates of Kiev" we may say it refers to gates...which was the composer's intent, which is why he provided the label. That comes close to "meaning."<br /><br />But little of the music we hear (apart from lyrics) is that "concrete." When we hear Coltrane or Bach does the music mean something?<br /><br />My impression is that our (me included) very early response to photos is typically interpretive: what is it "of?" Why is music (or ambient sounds) different?</p>

 

<p>Why is music different? Because the photograph (typically) contains much more specific information. Instrumental music doesn't generally try to convey the same sort of detail. Productions of seasonal music that use the percussion section to portray hoofbeats and sleighbells might come close, but that isn't most music. An unlabeled photograph of a bumblebee in flight has a better chance of conveying "bee" to the viewer than will a playing of <em>The Flight Of The Bumblebee</em> to someone who doesn't know the work's title (they might get the idea, but find themselves thinking "hummingbird" or "three year old child hopped up on sugar").</p>

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<p>My impression is that our (me included) very early response to photos is typically interpretive: what is it "of?" Why is music (or ambient sounds) different?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I find music to be more naturally ( inherently ) interpretative than photographs, less descriptive.</p>

<p>Good music is more about moods, feelings, emotions, etc. rather than being an interpretation of actual things. The same could be said for some photographs though.</p>

<p>that is a bad presumption John: Most people that I know who listen to music closely listen for clues i nthe music to help us place it in an emotional and intellectual contexts. here's an example: http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/04/25/110425on_audio_ross</p>

<p>The article in the magazine itself is a terrific read.</p>

<p>Successful photos can be interpreted I think as much for their composition as their emotional, evocative or literal content, independently or together.</p>

<p>Music also has those two qualities, of musical composition and evocation of ermotions or ideas. While I don't think it is necessary to name music by the non-musical images that it evokes for the composer (such as in Mahler's first, or the Mussorgsky piece you mention, or a Sibelius tone poem), anyone listening to the "Metamorphosis for strings" of Strauss, written in Germany (or Austria?) in about 1945, cannot escape the meaning of the music, at least that of its evocation of a Germany and many of its landmarks that had been destroyed, and a period of cultural creativity that was also over. Quite apart from the brilliant composition, which I do not pretend to understand fully, the music is of a sadness and melancholy and strength, meanings that are hard to miss. </p>

<p>Obviously, some people DO interpret music and photos (and virtually everything else), but that doesn't mean they are hearing or seeing. Interpretation springs from another set of physical facilities.</p>

<p> Again obviously, music can be far more full of detail than any photo. If one insists on interpretation of any one piece by Bach, one can spend one's life at it.</p>

<p>Asserting that one "cannot escape" meaning seems no more than a vote for accepted interpretation, perhaps bolstered by a fear of lack of interpretation. We are told by professors and preachers what things mean, and we may believe them...or... </p>

<p>Music, to be appreciated/enjoyed, doesn't require "context." It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing :-) Maybe all the claptrap about importance of "composition" in photos is similar to "got that swing?"</p>

<p>There is a semiotic framework in music that is culturally defined. However, it is much looser and less descriptive a vocabulary than is present in photographs. We simply as a species are more attuned to visual clues than aural ones, and that is reflected in our culture.</p>

<p>Phylo...you find music more "interpretive" than photos. I agree that it's not as "descriptive" but I wonder if that's just a bad habit of mine...the habit of wanting to know what a photo is "of."</p>

<p>How do you find music interpretive? Interpretive is only an adjective, it describes something. That interpretive describes seems at odds with your assertion that music isn't as "descriptive" as photos.</p>

<p>I propose that photos, like pieces of music, are neither "interpretive" nor "descriptive." The interpretation/description function goes on in our heads and is specifically verbal...yet neither music nor photos are verbal unless one injects them with words (songs, grafitti). Seems to me that the most interpretive/descriptive music is "concrete" (e.g. sounds like a busy street in Manhattan) and the most interpretive/descriptive photos work to substitute for their subject (photo ID, porn, catalogue photo). Thoughts?</p>

<p>Descriptive I understand here as : <em>2. describing or classifying without expressing feelings or judging.</em> while interpretive I use in the meaning of <em>2. understand (an action, mood, or way of behaving) as having a particular meaning or significance : her self-confidence was often interpreted as brashness.</em><br /> To me music is inherently less descriptive - even if a piece has a 'backstory' - than photographs, and more interpretive to moods, feelings. Which doesn't mean though that even very descriptive photography can't be interpretive too.<br /> Most music - or what people would understand as music - also doesn't come into the world "objectively", unlike how an image is essentially formed / smacked <em>from the world,</em> on a sensor or film.<br /> A photograph must always derive from the physical world first, the mind second, even if it is conceived in the mind. You could say that about music too I guess if it's explained as soundwaves ( equivalent to light reflected from a surface into the camera ) and defined scientifically, but...</p>

<p>I think there's a lot in David Wagel's "semiotic framework" idea. It's harder for me to appreciate Chinese opera than it is for me to appreciate Western music (save for John Cage's).</p>

<p>As well, humans have eyes at the front of their heads, rather than at the sides, which may cause us to emphasize certain kinds of visual perception (whales can't see straight ahead so have to sort wildly disparate visual perception, relying more on sound...from what they tell me :-) Humans aren't nearly as good at hearing as are most other mammals. This physiological reality is probably involved.</p>

Music is inherently abstract. Sometimes music is crafted to sound like something recognizable such as the songs of

birds or the sound of train whistles, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Photos can be abstract, but usually

they represent the subject in a way that we can recognize it immediately.

 

Photos can be made more abstract and or general when subjects are chosen for their symbolism, when they are

combined in unusual ways, or when they exhibit visual signs of emotion or drama. Often, a photo of a tree is just a photo of a

tree, but with creativity it can mean something more - strength, age, durability, seasonal changes, the relative health of

an area, etc.

<p>I just listened to a story on internet radio ( U.S. NPR ) that I play in the background alot while working on computer. This quote from it relates to how ( more ) interpretive or open to interpretation depending on the context music perhaps is. Though the same 'experiment' could be done with photographs ( maybe for example stating the picture of an unknown photographer as being made by a historically famous photographer ), but I don't know if the effects or influence would be as great as here :</p>

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<p>Michael Beckerman is the chair of the music department at NYU. He's done research on this very subject. Five years ago, he invited a group of people to listen to a piece of music in a church in Germany. He gave program notes to half of the audience that told them the piece they were about to hear was written in a concentration camp, by a composer who was sent to Auschwitz only days later, where he died. He told the other half nothing other than the composer's name.<br /> "Afterwards," Beckerman says, "we interviewed everybody. And the people who didn't get program notes thought it was sort of a sweet, lovely, folksy, Eastern European piece. And the people who got program notes almost uniformly tended to understand it at as one of the great tragic statements of the century."</p>

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<p>http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/04/20/135568766/everything-you-know-about-this-band-is-wrong</p>

<p>Phylo, brilliant link. Shows why a certain political party wants to kill NPR...too perceptive.</p>

<p>Here's another that directly comments on "context" <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/04/20/135516812/herzog-enters-the-cave-of-forgotten-dreams">http://www.npr.org/2011/04/20/135516812/herzog-enters-the-cave-of-forgotten-dreams</a></p>

<p>Yes, that's one to watch. Not only because of the subject. Was blown away by Herzog's <em>Grizzly Man</em> ( a week after watching it, it still wouldn't leave me alone ) and also <em>Encounters at the End of the World.</em> Regarding context and meaning, he's that kind of documentary maker, and even more than in his films, that makes the factual seem fictional and vice versa, without giving in on...( a ) truthfulness.</p>

<p><em>"I've always made it very clear that for the sake of a deeper truth, a stratum of very deep truth in movies, you have to be inventive, you have to be imaginative." </em>Werner Herzog</p>

<p>I think his 'imaginative' relates mostly to using images and symbols, than to something story-like with words.<br /> -----<br /> The same is perhaps in a way true for the music experiment. We see truth, a meaning, where we want to see truth, or at least where we would hope to find it.</p>

<p>Steve hit it when he said it brings out emotion, moods and feelings on a base, primal basis. Hence, Hollywood's use of background music to magnify the scene. Good movie music has made and broken many a film. Next time you're watching something with that kind of background music, shut off the sound. The movie falls flat. Turn it back on again and it stimulates the mind, gets your heart pounding, bnrings you into the scene.</p>

<p>On a higher level, good music production can also mimic the scenes. I recall <em>Victory at Sea</em> TV production of a few decades ago of the naval war in the Pacific during WWII. You can close your eyes, listen to the music, and "see" the planes attacking Pearl, the ships defending against airplane attack, etc. </p>

<p>Alan, I certainly agree with what you said about "Victory At Sea"....on the other hand, I know I was trained to identify the music with the images. I loved that TV as a child.<br>

Phylo, I'm not as sold on the role of symbols as you seem to be. I think of them as a second tier, something like labels or interpretation. On the other hand, are these distinctions as defined as I'm making them? Isn't a human a somewhat messy, wet kind of phenomenon?</p>

<p>With music if I am confused with it and do not know what to think. Is this good? does it have meaning? Well when in doubt I look at my toes. If they are tapping then I know I'm good. </p>

<p><em>Meaning</em> << = ~~~~ = >> <em>memory</em>. We have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_memory">declarative memory</a> and we have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_memory">procedural memory</a>.</p>

<p>David Wagle's post is what I would have written though maybe missing out long words like 'semiotic'. The existence of very old bone flutes and other musical instruments shows that humans are naturally given to finding meaning in sounds and then relating sounds by cultural means to emotions.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divje_Babe_flute">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divje_Babe_flute</a></p>

<p>A concrete referent in a musical composition or visual work is your own construct. It may or may not be conditioned by someone else's.</p>

<p>Regarding bone flutes...people don't necessarily need "meaning" in order to make joyful noises. As well, hunters use bone flutes to call game...In America today, some hunters call turkeys with bone flutes. </p>

<p>"concrete music" refers to at least two traditional categories. In one the music is put together with recordings of pieces of non-musical sound. In another it is composed and performed with conventional orchestration specifically to sound like other phenomena, such as railroads, violent weather, warfare, birds. That's not to dismiss Howard Vrankin's personal perspective...obviously we do learn to associate certain music with certain experiences, but that's not <a></a>"concrete" in either traditional sense.</p>

<p>Thinking about "meaning" it may be useful to mention the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who's often spoken of as comparably important to Jung and Freud. Hiking in the remote Siskyou Mountains in California I came across a water-logged copy of his "Man's Search For Meaning." It's an easy read, but grim because it centers partially on his Nazi death camp experience. p<a href="

</p>

<p>Frankl wrestles with big questions and arrives at profoundly religious answers. By contrast, I think that the same questions might lead more usefully to further questions.</p>

<p>Frankl, a Nazi death camp survivor, framed his thinking with Judaism and that terrible experience. No deity seems to have prevented comparable atrocities in the the subsequent decades: I wonder if non-religious questions might not serve better than "meaning" does? So...I've found that I'm most interested in photographs that beg questions, not so interested in photographs that just sit there beautifully. Weston's "peppers" are unlike peppers, more like some of his "nudes" and they both make certain tensions that I don't think can be relieved by referring to their subjects.</p>

<p>I appreciate Albert Camus' take on music and art: </p>

<p>"Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason."</p>

<p>I appreciate Francisco Goya's take on it also.</p>

<p><em>Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters ; united with it, she is the mother of all arts and the origin of marvels. - </em>Goya</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'm sympathetic with that Goya expression...because until I find (or am helped to) a perspective many abstract paintings and some "far=out" jazz initially seem incomprehensible to me. I don't generally find "abstract" photos worth the effort, but do think that when they reveal just a bit of "realism" they can be rewarding. Photos seem to me to be the wrong vehicle for pure abstraction. Why not forget about optical machines (cameras) if we want abstractions?</p>

<p>I've not read Camus. I've not heard that he was dream-oriented....that is, I've not heard that he explored dreams. Does that capitalization ("Dream") suggest that he was on a similar page with Jung related to the "great dream?"</p>

<p> </p>