Bucket Factory
Monday, May 11, 2009
  music and The Body
I stumbled upon a debate between these bloggers about the nature of Sonic Youth, which was interesting in itself but I really noticed this:

I think BMR (Bad Moon Rising) is the point where Sonic Youth in effect reconnect discord with the body, restoring to it a libidinal force which you hear in The Rites of Spring, but which the cold geometries of Schoenberg and Webern subsequently evacuated.


Why is it that dissonance is always only sensual if it is loud and aggressive? To my ears Webern's Symphony op. 21 or Six Bagatelles String Quartet are two of the most sensually evocative pieces of early 20th Century composition, and I can see no rational argument to separate from "the body" the experience of hearing Webern's sounds as opposed to any other sounds.

Or consider late Feldman: the music is quiet and dissonant with no metric rhythm; exactly the type that might be categorized as cold/intellectual/not connected with the body, etc. But if you actually listen to all 4 hours of For Philip Guston it's obvious that the piece is completely concerned with the body. It's about what happens to human perception when a piece of music lasts WAY beyond the scale we're accustomed to, and that is just as much about the body as it is the mind.

Frustrating how often criticism is premised on philosophically old-fashioned categorical dichotomies.
 
Comments:
Hi Matt,

You're right that my argument there rather unfairly taps into preconceptions about Webern et al being bodiless brains in vats.

I actually agree re Feldman & the Webern examples you cite as being sensual physical experiences.*

But let me rephrase my point slightly. Sonic Youth make dissonance danceable. People sit down to listen to Webern. They move their bodies to Death Valley 69. Hence my comparison to Rites of Spring - a ballet score. (And yes, I know Webern *has* been used by dance companies, but never I think to evoke/reflect the Dionysian dervish abandon that most people would relate to dancing (in clubs/at gigs/etc)


* Folke Rabe's What? is a great example of this to if you haven't checked it out.
 
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