Saturday, December 29, 2007

A Fever'd Mind Seldom Rests

A thought experiment: We all wake up one morning having forgotten music, what music is, and what music does to us. Three things can happen: (1) we re-invent music, more or less as it was before, or (2) we re-invent music, but it differs in substantial ways from what it had been, or (3) we get about with our lives but without any music. What have we lost and what have we gained in each scenario? What does this suggest about the nature and value of music? To what degree do these three possibilities reflect the working methods of a composer?

1 comment:

Charles Céleste Hutchins said...

Everything we do has a context of some kind, so a context-free music would use other contexts. It would be based on the voice and come from speech.