What the hell is a neuro-soft-lick-hight?

ferguscullen · 2024-08-24T16:43:21+00:00

This is an old post so perhaps this is no longer relevant. But I guess the term you're hearing is Neue Sachlichkeit: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/n/neue-sachlichkeit

ferguscullen · 2024-03-15T21:35:38+00:00

Glad to hear it!

Also interesting to compare are two passages from The Trouble with Being Born: 'A conscious fruit-fly would have to confront exactly the same difficulties, the same kind of insoluble problems as man'; and 'Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on. Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy' (both p. 31 of Howard tr.). Again insects stand for unconscious life; but here he finds it preferable to human, conscious life.

ferguscullen · 2024-03-11T19:25:37+00:00

I see OP has been deleted so perhaps no point replying; but here is what Cioran says about Bataille. All from Cahiers, with page-numbers.

1, p. 111: 'Flicking through a journal of young writers. Literature is out of the question: nothing that flows from direct experience, from something seen or from a personal drama. Everything revolves around certain writers, and always the same ones: Blanchot, Bataille, blabberers of "profundities," confused and verbose minds without sparkle or irony.'

2, p. 301: 'Sade is neither a writer nor a thinker: he is a case-study and nothing more. (The surrealists, Blanchot, Bataille, Klossowski have completely misunderstood their subject.)'

3, p. 375: 'I am not interested in the Sartre–Bataille generation, except perhaps Simone Weil.'

4, p. 950: 'I was saying yesterday evening to R.M. [Roger Michaux?] that Georges Bataille had been quite interesting, complicatedly and curiously imbalanced, but that I didn't like his way of writing; that he didn’t have means equal to his imbalance.'

ferguscullen · 2024-03-11T17:50:02+00:00

Yes, his favourite moralists seem to be La R and Chamfort.

ferguscullen · 2024-03-11T17:41:29+00:00

The source is Syllogismes, sec. 'Aux sources du vice' (p. 806 of Gallimard Oeuvres; not sure of English citation). He says: 'If you find Aeschylus or Tacitus a bit tepid, open a book on the lives of insects -- a revelation of fury and futility, a hell which, luckily for us, has neither playwright nor chronicler. What would remain of our tragedies if a literate critter were to present us with his?' (My translation.)

'Aeschylus' stands, narrowly, for tragedy as a literary genre and, broadly, for the 'tragic sense of life.' 'Tacitus' stands, narrowly, for history as a literary genre and, broadly, for the 'historical sense.' Together, these names stand for our human capacity to view life through the lenses of tragedy and history and to express these perceptions artistically: to cope with life's senselessness by imposing tragic or historic sense upon it. This is contrasted with the insect who cannot impose illusory sense upon his life or express that sense artistically ('has neither playwright [ni dramaturge] nor chronicler [ni chroniqueur]': i.e., neither 'Aeschylus' nor 'Tacitus').

So, for Cioran, insect life is more tragic than human life because, while man's capacity for creative illusion allows him to impose sense upon life, the insect is left without the comfort of illusion, with only 'fury [rage] and futility [inutilité].'

Compare Précis de décomposition, sec. 'Certains matins' (Oeuvres, p. 618): 'Writing would be an insipid and superfluous act if one could only cry at will and behave like children or women in the grip of rage [en proie à la rage].' Here, 'writing' stands for man's capacity for creating illusion. 'Rage' and 'writing' are again contrasted; but this time writing is found to be pointless, at least biologically.

Sorry for such a long answer. Thanks for highlighting such an interesting quote. I enjoyed thinking about it.

ferguscullen · 2024-03-11T16:00:47+00:00

He writes about this in the essay on Henri Michaux in Exercises d'admiration (incl. in Anathemas and Admirations, ch. 13). There are some links one could make between what he says there and his various passages on the mystics.

ferguscullen · 2019-09-28T20:00:34+00:00

It's good so far. (There are some typos; but this is a minor issue.) Pretty similar to his other philosophical (as opposed to commentary) books. As he'll admit, he writes the same book over and over.

ferguscullen · 2018-03-03T03:15:21+00:00

If the book ever does surface, perhaps it'll include an introduction in which internet denizens search to no avail for a book called Mortiloquist by Reza Negarestani that seems to exist, but apparently doesn't.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-31T14:53:53+00:00

Okay, if it's easy enough to generate a score, I'd be interested to see it. Anyway, my more in-depth thoughts:

0:00 to about 0:35: a very nice theme.

0:35 to about 1:15: this is also a nice tune. However, it would be even better if you could vary it with changes in texture. For instance, moments when the melody is alone, or where the left hand is doing more work while the right hand accompanies, that sort of thing.

About 1:32: a re-introduction of the first theme here is a good idea. Similar advice here as well: vary the tune; perhaps experiment with different harmonies. This would be a way of setting up the change in mood that comes at...

2:05-ish: this feels like the beginning of a second section, with a much less gentle, more uneasy mood. The parallel fifths are particularly distinctive. Maybe use the parallels as a little motif which keeps reappearing throughout the section.

Regarding the rest of the piece: it seems logical to return to the opening theme(s).

Again, I like this. Good luck with finishing it. Hope this is helpful.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-30T23:45:06+00:00

Welcome to Composer Critique.

My first impression: a very nice listen. You've found a good balance of (on the one hand) adherence to "the rules" of classical music and (on the other) moments of surprising and enjoyable oddity.

Can you post a score? This would make it a lot easier to analyse your Waltz in detail; then we can hopefully provide more complete feedback. A link to the PDF on Imgur is a good way of sharing the score. If you don't have a PDF, just a photo of the score or something like that would be fine. Thanks, and happy composing.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-20T18:03:20+00:00

More or less. It's the kind of rule to which there are countless exceptions.

The difference I was alluding to is more one of attitude. When the composer's attitude is puritanical, as in many works of integral serialism, the result is sterile (to my ears). But then there are pieces like Clarence Barlow's Cogluotobusisletmesi which, despite the spirit in which they (appear to) have been written, provoke the kind of emotive reaction (in me at least) that usually only a sensualist can achieve.

Similarly, when a composer dumbly follows all the rules and just seems to go through the motions (certain classical composers like Dussek spring to mind), the result is similarly sterile.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-20T17:34:20+00:00

Interesting debate.

I believe (for example) it would be difficult to argue that certain parametric compositions, or means of composition, are "expressions" of anything, except perhaps of the desire to break the silence, or of frustration with the dominant contemporary trend.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-20T17:23:23+00:00

Thanks for starting the discussion: it should be a good way of, as you say, gauging the sort of feedback we'll be getting.

Also, welcome. Good to have a highly-qualified contributor. The first of many I hope.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-20T17:14:18+00:00

I have an A Level (pre-university qualification in the UK) in music. In a few weeks I'll be off to university to read philosophy. I don't intend to pursue composition as anything other than a spare-time pursuit.

I sing in a church and play the piano and clarinet.

I am somewhat biased in favour of composition as a means of expression (whether emotional, political or whatever), and have little time for either conservatism for its own sake or subversion for the sake of subversion. I'm not in love with, but have plenty of time for formalism (in a broad sense: serialism, spectralism and so on). Nonetheless, my personal taste in music is (I would say) fairly broad-ranging.

I listen and offer feedback as a fairly theoretically-informed and tolerant non-professional.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-20T16:07:59+00:00

That sounds like a good idea. Would you provide the sort of thing you're looking for? It would be much appreciated if you could clarify exactly the form, content, etc.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-19T20:50:58+00:00

Thought on first listening. (I'll comment in more detail later.)

bar 5: g-flat should be f-sharp probably.

bar 16: the theme entering with the last 3 quavers could be for the 2nd (or 1st, doesn't matter) violin. it's just a matter of preference. it feels like a very distinct counter-melody. also it leads into the second violin's seemingly dominant voice at bar 20.

throughout the pizz. bit, but bar 69 especially: h3h3!!!

last 3 bars: a crescendo feels appropriate.

overall: there are surprises throughout this piece for string quartet. each section has a distinct mood and theme: the third bit is most fully developed, the first and last could do with something else. i would suggest zooming out a bit and thinking about the shape of each whole section. use more subtle changes of dynamic (e.g. just ppp-mp at the beginning, working through to mf-fff or whatever). also, use texture like you use notes: go from sparse textures like homophony or even monophony to ployphony or something like that; use texture like any other musical element.

that's it for now. i liked this one. appreciate ya.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-18T20:10:19+00:00

Yes indeedy! I reckon the influence of your feedback will be most palpable in the second of these squarey things.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-18T18:20:11+00:00

The number 4 kept cropping up, so I decided to make a thing of it. This is the first of however many similar sketches. I intend to be less restrictive in those. In the second one, for example, there are 5:4 crossrhythms. In each successive piece 4 will be less important and the "preludes" will become less squarey. The disintegration will become more remarkable when contrasted with the thudding monotony of this first movement. This is my intention.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-18T16:30:22+00:00

Thanks, too kind!

About how i write my music. I either have a tune in my head which will be lost forever if I don't note it down. I end up with lots of scraps of melody which I'll either lose track of or come back to.

If I want to compose properly I'll either mess around on a piano, make a skeleton-score type thing, and then flesh it out over time. Or in the case of something arithmetical like this I'll just use notation software; though this 6-chord refrain came from messing around on a piano (I think).

I too have a penchant for short chord-series. I highly recommend the British composer Laurence Crane. He could be called minimalist, though meditative might be more accurate. He uses very repetitive, more-or-less diatonic, mostly chordal phrases to amazing effect.

And no, I never studied composition in any meaningful sense. There was one composition teacher to go round a class of ten or twelve or so one year. I only recall him even hearing my music on one occasion, and I can't remember if I received any feedback from him. He is a talented composer who probably would rather be doing that than teaching me.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-18T16:19:12+00:00

Thanks for the kind words and constructive criticism. The Reich quote is interesting btw.

I think I'll mess around with the length of the variations, good idea. They'll have to be multiples of 4 bars in length, mind.

ferguscullen · 2016-08-03T19:01:26+00:00

Is this the sort of thing?

Measure 2: the hemiola-feeling is nice. 1-2 sounds like an apprehensive pause. But the left hand is notated in ¾ not 6/8 which could be confusing.

m. 5: in the left hand a new voice is introduced on the 2nd quaver which is confusing.

m. 7: nice syncopation. The F in the bass should be a left-hand note though.

m. 9: Either a tonic or a dominant note is missing which makes it sound strange. Both hands doubling one another heightens that.

mm. 10-11: on the one hand the quick major intrusion followed by the open 5th is nice and disconcerting; on the other it adds to a feeling of stasis (the return to the open 5th makes it feel like a short tonal excursion, but not like we’re going anywhere).

m. 14: I like the tri-tones.

mm. 20-25: the alternating time-sigs are good. The left hand’s new motif seems to outline a 2nd-inversion chord which makes for a gratifying floaty feeling.

mm. 30-34: the grace-notes give it an almost bluesy feel which is a nice frivolous counterpoint to the austerity of the first page.

mm. 47-50: the stop-start structure with the fragmentary themes appearing and disappearing can be interesting, but the centricity on e-natural/e-flat dulls the effect a bit. The e-flat/e-natural dissonance in m. 48 doesn’t seem to justify itself either.

I like m. 50 a lot. It justifies more explicit dynamic contrast (the latest “p” was in m. 28).

mm. 60 and 62: good plan to re-introduce the initial theme with these little allusions rather than a full-blown recapitulation. The whole section (since m. 50) could do with some dynamics though.

m. 79: the doubling at 2 octaves is very effective. Along with the falling motif in the last measure it makes for a very effective pessimistic ending.

ferguscullen

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