Here is my blog. I know, I know, I’m 10 years behind but I had a lot of thoughts to organize, things to do, and people to see, but now I’m going to relax, put my feet up, and sift through my cognitive fool’s gold.
The Spectral Progression of a Music Meta-Aesthetic
Music is five elements; melody, harmony, pulse (groove), counterpoint and structure. The more complex these elements, the more the aesthetic is pulled to the maximalist pole. The simpler the music, the more it represents a minimalist ethos. By extension, all people who compose music, their personalities fall somewhere in the spectrum between these two poles. Music/personality that tends towards filtering detail and/or is simple, is by nature, more about ethics, worldview, and symmetry. While music that is more complicated and layered is too obtuse to be moral, more about process than revelation, and tends towards the expression of complex feelings and subjectivity. I think better ‘poles’ are from the visual arts,those being ‘figurative’ and ‘abstract’. We are all a unique combination of these categories and I believe the greatest music is the most abundant integration of the two poles. If I was to name my subjective winners (see, I’m already tilting towards maximalist by being subjective) it has to be Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. (How we end up in a 75-year period in German speaking countries, adds a time and space dimensionality to my meanderings).
MINIMALISM MAXIMALISM
| Filtering out detail to see Layers | Discovering details and geometric structures in relation to other details and layers |
| Classical | Baroque |
| Figurative | Abstract |
| Simple | Complex |
| Moral/Ethical | Amoral/Sensual |
| Objective | Subjective/Personal |
| Active | Passive |
| Cognative Consonance | Cognative Dissonance |
| Solution Oriented | Process Oriented/Diary |
| Symmetrical | Asymmetrical |
| Science | Art |
| Musical/Melodic | Structure/Texture/Counterpoint |
| Theory of one thing | Theory of Everything |
| Ideological/Religious | Agnostic |
| Ideas/Theories | Feelings/Impressions |
| Lightness | Heaviness |
| Positive | Negative |
| Detached/Short | Narcissistic/Long |
| Focused/OCD | Distracted/ADD |
| Beginning | End |
| Nature/Silence | Civilization/Machine/Noise |
| 1000AD | 2000AD |
| Folk Music | Art Music |
OR ANOTHER ‘LEFT/RIGHT’ PERSPECTIVE
Hiphop-Rock-Country-Pop-Electronic-Prorock
Minimalism-Chant-Reich-Medieval-Renaissance-Postminimalism-Adams
Mozart-WorldMusic-Beethoven-Baroque-Bach-Romanticism
Jazz-Wagner-PostModernism-Debussy-Boulez-Modernism
Varese-Stockhausen-Xenakis ElectroAcoustic-Maximalism
