tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post4803344256012483591..comments2023-12-16T02:44:20.427-06:00Comments on Reginald Shepherd's Blog: The Dialectic of Expression and ConstructionReginald Shepherdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11965170916626482963noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-6827859020498113042008-04-24T12:18:00.000-06:002008-04-24T12:18:00.000-06:00Good greetings Reginald, You must have been fis...Good greetings Reginald, <BR/><BR/> You must have been fishing for me with this latest post. As a matter of practice, innovative composers are fond of breaking their own rules,which can be accomplished in at least two ways. One is arbitrary,which simply amounts to making an expressive decision on ones personal terms and based on any criteria. The other takes an organized approach implying a default method to consistantly break the rules of higher order structures. What this demonstrates are diverging views towards applying linear order. <BR/> As with any musical result there is an inherent (something) value on the sketch table which will always be of technical value. In practice,composers may never show these workshop relics,but they may have already decided where, when and how (something)it can be used to effect. They may have cataloged multiple ways of remodeling the whole or any portion of a particular musical sample. <BR/><BR/>One might begin to think that composers have it easier than writer/poets and that shaking things up is a piece of cake. That might be true unless one realized that shaking things (acceptability) up gets old after awhile,and if looked at from a distance suggest a fairly limited vocabulary.<BR/> <BR/>Wishing you well,<BR/><BR/> Love, SPHscotlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01549546977518972516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-64920914377384941712008-04-17T10:30:00.000-06:002008-04-17T10:30:00.000-06:00I think what you are observing is the difference b...I think what you are observing is the difference between a great poet and a good one. Great poets can perfectly sculpt a work in construction and expression; good poets lack the skill.Daniel Pritchardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02171613044501024248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-71894037309609878852008-04-14T15:45:00.000-06:002008-04-14T15:45:00.000-06:00Hi Jonathan,Thanks for your comment. I probably co...Hi Jonathan,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your comment. I probably could have made myself more clear in this post. (My excuse: I've been sick again.) I do think that construction and expression are actual ways of proceedinmg in art, and that some artists incline more to one than to the other. It's setting the two terms in opposition, as if one has to or should exclude the other, that I find false. The best art amalgamates the two, making meaning out of method and method out of meaning.<BR/><BR/>As for Christian Bok's book, perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it, but I wanted to ground my discussion a bit, so that it wasn't purely abstract.<BR/><BR/>I definitely don't believe that just because something has already been done it can't or shouldn't be done again. After all, breathing's been done before, and I have no plans to give it up. :-) But if you're going to justify your work on the basis of innovation and technical progress, which I don't think that anyone has to do, then you should actually be innovative. Otherwise you pull the ground out from under yourself. I was actually responding to Bok's book in the terms that he sets out.<BR/><BR/>Take good care, and thanks again for reading and writing.<BR/><BR/>peace and poetry,<BR/><BR/>ReginaldReginald Shepherdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11965170916626482963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014415529871703586.post-2812581714095593472008-04-14T08:59:00.000-06:002008-04-14T08:59:00.000-06:00For someone who finds the dichotomy to be false, y...For someone who finds the dichotomy to be false, you are pretty quick to deploy it against the straw man of "technique for its own sake" in Bok's book. <BR/><BR/>I find Bok's language quite expressive and I'm sure I'm not the only one. There's kind of an increased intensity in the limitation of one vowel in each section, giving an eerily different feel to the different parts of the poem. To say that Mathews or Perec have done similar things... well yes, but then again nobody stops writing realist novels just because Balzac already did it. That's a double standard. I really don't think Bok's book is that similar to anything Mathews has done. Maybe in its starting point, yes, but not in its "expressiveness." You might as well say Berg and Webern didn't need to write 12 tone music because Schönberg already did it.Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com