From: E. Shaun Russell (e_shaun@uniserve.com)
Date: Sun Aug 02 1998 - 12:01:42 MDT
Kathryn Aegis wrote
:
>I have been thinking about recent postings relating to music--which music
>enhances mental processes, which music might be considered 'extropian',
>technical processes for predicting what sort of music an individual might
>want...and I agree that any listing of 'extropian' music would have to
>include the tastes of many individuals.
That is a very key point from both a musicological as well as
compositional standpoint. In the case of a listener, music is wholly
subjective: it can be interpreted as "extropic" if that is what the
listener derives from it. To use myself as an example, I listen to a lot
of music (dubbed as progressive rock) from the late sixties and seventies;
I find that the majority of this progressive-music movement strives toward
a distant goal of perfection. Musically, the songs are generally lengthy
and are technically quite difficult to play. Lyrics in this genre usually
have a lot of depth and even (as with Yes' "Starship Troopers" and Mike
Oldfield's _The Songs Of Distant Earth_) base themselves around science
fiction. However, it is only my enjoyment and interpretation of this genre
that makes me prone to calling the music "extropic." Many others will
disagree.
Composition of material is a different matter altogether. When I
write music, I don't necessarily have an "extropic" objective in mind,
though could it not still be considered as such because it was written by
an extropian? Referring back to Kathryn's post, I'm not sure if it is even
feasible for any composer to create music that is universally accepted as
being "extropic"...the pure subjectivity of artistic interpretation --not
to mention the complex individuality of each and every listener-- makes
such a task pretty well impossible. As for enhancing mental processes, all
music does that in some way or another; the key is to find which kind of
music really appeals to each listener: something which can involve a lot of
searching.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
E. Shaun Russell Musician, Poet, ExI Member
==============================> Transhumanities editor for Homo Excelsior
Kineticize your potential. http://www.excelsior.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:24 MST