At 07:58 PM 12/13/2003, you wrote:
quoted 20 lines your point could assume a sort of monolithic "attention requirement"
>>your point could assume a sort of monolithic "attention requirement"
>>function from music which could be construed as predicated upon music as
>>having one particular purpose or utility.
>
>
>yeah, i guess my post leads in that direction. i do appreciate the
>different roles music can play, and the general wisdom of judging each
>kind of music on its own terms.
>
>perhaps i'm just noticing how much of electonica is geared towards casual
>or background listening, and that needn't be construed as a negative judgement.
>
>
>>Maybe we can take a page (har de har :-) from Literary critic Roland
>>Barthes and see some musics as more "readerly" and others as more
>>"writerly" - and often some musics being purposely created to be to one
>>side or the other of the dynamic(?).
>
>would you care to say a little more about what that would mean in this
>situation? I'm not familiar with his argument.
Hmmm...any post I could make which attempted to encapsulate Barthes would
A.) fail and B) bore most people to tears.
There is, of course, a lot of "pre-history" needed (i.e., critical history
against which Barthes reacts) to see what exactly he means, but the point I
was trying to make was more along the lines of "music which is more often
thought of as an objective standard" and thus "functional" in a sort of
"set"/closed fashion as opposed to "music which is more open to subjective
evaluation/structuring" and thus operative on more "polyphonous"
user-determined levels. Admittedly, the analogy is stretched and happened
to pop out mostly because I have been somewhat awash in theory this term.
So as not to dodge the question altogether, I'll just post this link and
let someone else try to encapsulate Barthes on this notion. I'm sure they
do a better job than I would and I'm not sure I would say it quite this way
- but what do I know?
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0250.html
jeff
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