Thank you FatParrot, I second your call for 'kinder, gentler postings' in this thread. I, of course, am guilty as everyone else, and even more so considering the lengths/ponderousness of my own misdirecting scribblings. And of course. . . apologies to Dida.

guidocorona October 31, 2004 11:28

Ah yes, of course. My apologies. Not realized attention span problem. Briefer next time. No worries. problem very treatable. May be caused by long exposure to residual trace distortion in audio system.

guidocorona October 24, 2004 11:31

Your brave quest for the absolute and truth in the reproduction of the artistic phenomenon is Very insightful, Dear Didactically.
And yes, I have in fact been chuckling at both my subjective and objective nature for a very long time. And plan to go on chuckling.
I did have an initial problem understanding your otherwise keen posting, until I realized that the obscure term 'muscians' utilized there, was in fact a rather trivial misspelling of 'musicians'.
The other term I had some difficulty with is 'Mona'. The word in question means--in Venetian vernacular--'woman of lax moral standards'. In North America the word has been rather unfelicitously adopted as a proper female name.
Phylologically, the derivation is from classic Latin mea domina--meaning my mystress or my lady. Subsequent vernacular contractions during the Middle Ages turned it into the Italian Madonna, French Madame, middle Italian Monna), and finally the execrable Venetian mona. Except for the final one, the meaning has remained pretty well unaltered, with the term Madonna also used as a title of sort for Mary, mother of Jesus.
I suspect the work of art you are referring to is likely the Monna Lisa, [meaning Milady Lisa) painted by Leonardo and, if memory serves me right, currently displayed at the Louvre.
As you would agree, changing her name to Mona sounds utterly inappropriate, given the above. There are several problems in your otherwise brilliant argument:
1. The Monna Lisa is certainly a work of art, but is not an objective representation of reality. The woman in the portrait, may or may not have existed, and is likely to be a fantastic composite of many subjects, including the author. The painting's background is even more problematic. Attempts have been made over the last several centuries to map it to a particular North facing view of the river Adda near Milan with the Alpine foothills in the background. All efforts have met In with little success. In all likelyhood, the Monna Lisa is an instantiation of some fantastic imagery in the mind of Leonardo, transfered to an oil painting. Thus, even under the most favorable of circumstances, the viewer is not beholding reality, but a fantastic artifact.
And under what circumstances can you view the painting correctly? Not in the Louvre for certain, where lighting and context are of necessity very different from what Leonardo experience when painting it. Where did Leonardo paint this work? What lighting did he use? Was the lighting constant or did it change? To perceive the painting correctly we would need to replicate exactly the conditions Leonardo found during the creation process, we would need to rejuvenate the pigment to bring back the exact colors of its inception. If this were not yet impossible enough, the true seeker of artistic truth would need to look at the painting through Leonardo's eyes, who may very well have suffered from some chromatic aberrations. Ultimately, the seeker of artistic truth would need to get into Leonardo's mind and behold his very fantastic image directly.
Looking at the Monna Lisa in any way whatsoever gives a unique 'view' of the original, but is not the original. Drawing moustachos on a likeness of the painting is much more similar to driving a screwdriver through a speakercone, than tweaking the preamp in your system. The latter is more akin to a lighting adjustment on a museum display.

2. In music the quest for objective truth is even more hopeless. The work of art exists at many levels:
a. The virtual work in the mind of the author.
b. The original score, which may not match exactly what he/she had in mind, or may have left much implied for sociocultural reasons, and which may no longer exist.
c. One or more published scores, which may or may not be truthful to the original.
d. A multitude of performing interpretations.
e. A multiplicity of recordings/pressings.
f. A virtually infinite number of audio systems and setups.
g. Hearing peculiarities of the listener.
In a word: hopeless!

guidocorona October 23, 2004 22:22

The Helvetico-Kaschubian sage Aloysius Q. Schmaltzenstein-Gavronsky, author of the monumental "Sattura Et Fictitia" [Appenzell, CH. 1996] recently co-authored an authoritative paper with Prof. Maurizio Passerin D'ENTREVES< Compte De Courmayeur, titled
Psychoacoustic Myths, Regressio Ad Infantiam, And Institutional Decline In participatory Democracies.
This seminal work, to be published in appendix 13 of the 2007 issue of Acta Phylosopica Refutata, official organ of the Apocriphal Society of Groznian (Croatian Republic), suggest the possibility that the methodical and acritical ingestion/absorption of quasi-religious philosophies of music, based on pseudo-scientific dribble, can lead to severe chronic neurocoustic distortion, followed by emotional regression of the individual, and may be a leading cause of institutional decline in western participatory democracies.
The authors cite a little known Ethnographic work by Ruth Benedict, which discusses a severe case of regressive behavior suffered by the organist of the Cymbrian village of Cogne, in the Western Alps, in 1928, following the reconstruction of the formerly excellent Cavillier-Colle pneumatic organ in the local parish Church, according to the outwardly mathematical, and in prima face scientific sounding, but ultimately spurious principles of 'Radionics', which yielded one decade of civil strife in the alpine community and which may have been a co-triggering factor in the 1929 stockmarket crash.

The bottom line is, dear Dr. Didacto, that we love music and sound for what it does to us, emotionally, and sometimes even synesthetically, regardless of how it is being produced, amplified, naturalized, modified, carved, purified, pacified, declawed, delouced, enhanced, or otherwise processed.
We are more seekers of subjective beauty and unexplained emotions, than of a rigorous and objective truth.
The sight or thought of a Gaussian distribution curve of harmonic distortion centered around 5Khz never stirred me,
but when after 2 hours of outwardly objective and very analytical audition of the Esoteric X-01 CD/SACD player at Andy Singer's shoppe in New York, the consultant finally surprised me with an SACD remaster of Brahms's 4th conducted by Fritz Reiner, I started to cry like an 8-year-old. Except. . . I am 51.
I have no idea why the combination of Shunyata Python, X-01, Bermester SS electronics, Synergistics interconnects and JM Labs Utopia Altos let at that time so much music through. I do not even like Bermester and Utopia most of the time. But that old recording, that I had heard so many times as a child played muffled and scratchy on my father's Grunding, had suddenly turned into pure magic.

Why bother to argue if I am right or wrong? Objective or imagining things?
Heck I even love sweetbreds! And stewed tripe to boot! And even St. Honoree torte! Should I seek a pseudosientific explanation for the delight of ingesting those delicious morcels of bovine pancreatic gland expertly pan-fried in aged Spanish madera wine? Or will you let me enjoy my grand quest for heavenly sounds, which you so villified as a puny 4-month or was it 7-month itch, my music, and my corny food in blissful peace? Oh yes, and without cruelly reminding me that It's indeed high time that I bought a nice present for my wife, who has in complete truth so patiently indulged my extravagant hobby for more years than I care to remember?

Chuckling regards,

Guido

guidocorona October 23, 2004 00:39