Paper blathering

Need to beg indulgences, but I've got a paper I need to write that isn't cooperating. Sometimes if I discuss it "out loud" it'll help get things flowing. Right now, I'm not entirely sure what my point is.

The paper began as a discussion of mathematical beauty, how that maps into musical beauty, what the role of music theory is in all of this, and how mathematicians and music theorists really don't mean "beauty," but something more like "enlightenment." This didn't pan out because mathematicians don't do the kind of metatheorizing that music theorists do. Or if they do have metadiscussions, it's not in terminology I can understand.

So I gravitated towards discussing music as experience and either recapturing (music theory) or encapsulating (composition) that. Now people whose writings I like tend to not draw a fine distinction between composition and music theory. I think both have similar goals, but I'm not hugely convinced that the experience of doing one or the other is similar.

Then I happened upon this quote from Benjamin Boretz:

Transcendence, then is not at all restricted to ecstasy, devouring passion, undifferentiated oneness with the universe, all-suffusing peacefulness, blinding sensation--Precise, vivid, specific, as experiential quality, the total replacement of the state of normal consciousness with a distinct state. Terrified of so much significance--that is, so much distinctness of identity in one's own experience as to be utterly isolated from the external world as a consequence of the most vivid act of experiencing it--people seek objectivity in and about their music. They invent an abstract ontology of qualities which are intersubjective--perceivable and denotable--on the order of green--pitch, say--and then talk about music as the composition of these qualities; sometimes they try to teach themselves, or are even taught by others, to actually hear music in this countersubjective flat empirical way, as if it were like discourse in its neutral rhetorical transparency. (("starting now from here,...") three consecutive occasions of sociomusical reflection)

In my mind, the act of "doing" music, whether theorizing or composing, is something similar to contemplation. Elsewhere, I've discussed how composition is more like "infused contemplation," and I'm wondering if music theorizing is more like dark contemplation. What do you have, when the experience is taken away? There's a faint trace of it in re-representation or performance of music, but it's never the same as the experience which produced it. Or the experience of producing it.

I'm the last person on the planet to discount the role of experience and transcendence in art. However, I think there's a very real trap to fall into in the experiential model of music theory. If music is to produce some sort of experience or transcendence, then what's to keep it from becoming some sort of drug? If music becomes a way to program experience, what's to keep it from losing significance and power? It's precisely because of the "so much distinctness of identity in one's own experience" that there needs to be some other thing to balance it.

If infused contemplation is the original event which fuels the contemplative life, dark contemplation is what keeps contemplatives honest. The kind of transcendence Boretz is speaking of certainly isn't infused contemplation. It's a different kind of transcendence that I think is more like dark contemplation. And that's where I am, at the moment.

What I learned this weekend:

• The people who really matter will stand out in difficult times when the proverbial excrement hits the fan.
• There are some things worth fighting for, as cheesy as it sounds.
• As much as I whine, complain, and grouse about academia, it's still a far cry better than the chance of not finishing.
  
• I put entirely too much self-worth into a piece of paper that says "DMA."
• Sometimes it takes something big happening to make one realize what's really important.

Most video games don't make a secret of their politics. America's Army is the most obvious--if not overly clever--example of this. Your average martial-themed strategy game post-9/11 has some sort of terrorist cell, usually Middle Easternish. (Poor Edward Said is probably spinning in his grave.)

Other games have a more hidden political agenda. For instance, a friend quipped that Dark Age of Camelot's latest expansion, "Darkness Rising," should've been called "Jihad Rising." (One is called upon by the king of one's realm to defend against an uprising from a demonic cult.) While I seriously doubt Mythic was thinking about 9/11, the Zeitgeist is there, and it's one which is in the forefront of people's minds. I think video games provide some sort of power over a situation we might not have a lot of control over. As such, they're a way to constructively work out one's feelings and frustrations. In DAoC, I'm sure it's no accident that a truly benevolent king is asking heroes to defend against a present and visible threat; however, the WMD's clearly exist in DAoC in the form of very ugly demons in the Circle of Five dungeons.

I promised myself that I'd purchase the expansion to City of Heroes once my exams were over. I never got around to it, so a friend graciously sent a gift certificate to Amazon for it. So I've been playing City of Villains lately. I must admit. It's fun to be a bad guy. The game is structured almost identically to City of Heroes, except for newspaper missions (a welcome addition.) At first, I didn't know how I would feel playing a villain. City of Heroes fits in with my ethics, and I thought that City of Villains would give people an excuse to run around and be assholes. It turns out I find myself questioning my actions in City of Heroes way more than I do in City of Villains.

First, the setting: Paragon City, Rhode Island. This is the area where the heroes play. It's mostly new, clean (except for the "working class" areas, but they look old, not necessarily skeevy). Part of the newness has to do with the fact that the city was invaded and almost destroyed by a race of aliens called the Rikti. (This happened towards the end of the open beta, I'm told.) The game's "present" takes place after the reconstruction of Paragon City.

And then we have the Rogue Islands. They are older than Paragon City, appear to be untouched by the Rikti wars (there are cobblestone streets and true gothic buildings, unlike neo-gothic skyscrapers in Paragon City). Streets wind, and there's obvious blight and disrepair. Most of the areas I've seen so far are areas with "character," as a Craigslist landlord would put it.

So when I began playing CoV, my character was rescued by a crime syndicate in the Rogue Islands, Arachnos. A comment made by an NPC put an inkling in the back of my head that things might not be as they seem in Paragon City. She said that in the Rogue Islands, one has complete freedom.

Of course, it's complete chaos as far as social order goes. Your missions are assassinations, heists, and the like. (I'm surprised anyone wealthy goes to Larry's Tiki Lounge anymore, with as many heists as I pulled there on Mercy Island while levelling.) There is nothing opaque about one's motivations as a villain: your bottom line and infamy.

So tonight as my chill time, I was playing in Paragon City for a change of pace. My hero entered the server, and I became sick to my stomach. My first sight was a large billboard, proclaiming that Earth was for humans. Another billboard says that "they" are still among us, and to report any strange activity. I've seen these billboards hundreds of times since I started playing the game last summer, but the context had radically shifted.

In CoV, there is no discrimination as to who might be an antagonist. In CoH, the antagonists are those who are different, changed, and not part of mainstream society. One gang, "The Lost," is comprised of homeless people being changed into Rikti. Another gang, "The Trolls," are a Superdyne addicts (the drug of choice in Paragon city) physically altered into a subhuman race. The Tsoo are a vaguely Asian gang. (There goes poor Said again.) In short, anyone "different" is a potential antagonist. That the antagonists' powers resemble the heroes' powers is no accident.

There's something eerily Orwellian and totalitarian about Paragon City, with it's manicured lawns and grid-construction streets. Heroes are kept in check by their service to the State. Sure, the Arachnos billboards in the Rogue Islands provide propaganda, but their messages are couched in potentiality: one has the ability to better one's situation through the organization. Granted, my ninja mastermind is only level 10. But it'll be interesting to see if there are any other context shifts, the further I get.

On another friend's blog, someone remarked, "We would do well to remember that only as a living tradition are we the sacrament of salvation." It was one of those comments that hit me in the gut, in a good way, and made me hopeful. He was speaking of the Catholic Church and tendencies towards unthinking legalism that seem to be popular among the twentysomethings, but it dawned on me that he could be speaking about what it is to be a composer.

All composers are part of a living tradition. The common notion about composers is that they operate in some mythical, romantic past, and that every piece they make is some sort of masterwork. (Whether or not the concept of a "masterwork" exists, is another blog entry for another time.) But popular notion aside, at any given moment, there are people out there (still breathing), who're writing music. The act of composition can be seen as a kind of repetition. And like the earlier post on repetition, there is a danger of being trapped in either slavery or rehearsal.

Since we have almost a thousand years worth of tradition, it's easy to become enslaved to it. The model of music theory is one of rules and empiricisms (think basic theory), and, to an extent, part of the legalistic model of music theory is used to teach composition. In it, a student must learn certain stylistic rules of different historical periods, and then they make music based upon it. Composition becomes like part-writing or counterpoint exercises. They might make some good music this way, but they're trapped to a bunch of rules, which really don't exist. The joy of creation becomes a part-time job.

It would be wrong to say that music theory is only the analytical material one would find in a first or second-year theory text; and it is criminal to teach composition along these ways. Outside of a first or second year theory class, nobody cares whether or not you resolve chords, if you use chords at all, or if you do a perfect sonata form. The only thing that matters is the piece, itself. The degree to which the composer conformed to some stylistic practice is secondary.

The other type of enslavement is when everything is new. In this type of slavery, the composer-to-be is obsessed with only producing "new" things. They are in the process of perfecting their "art," which means obsessing over that which hasn't been done previously. They have little concern for those who came before, and every work they produce must be one which breaks these connections. People in this extreme can also make good music, but there is the danger of becoming imprisoned in one's own ego.

I don't write music in a vaccuum. I studied with various people, who studied with various people. I listen to music. There are sounds all around me, and I can't write in an anechoic chamber. I can't deny that they are a part of me when I write, so there will be elements of other people in my music. Another joy of composition comes when I realize that these people are so a part of me that they flow into what I do unthinkingly.

It's only when I'm aware of my roots and conscious of what possibilities are out there that I'm free to be the composer I'm meant to be. It's the "un-self-ish"ly opening towards some larger and unconfined end that is what it means to be part of a living tradition. If my future were determined by some past tradition, I'd be just as enslaved as if every possibility were open. Without some final cause, which retains some element of mystery, I become trapped in either extreme.

Those of you who know me from elsewhere should know by now that I don't like René Girard. Not him, personally, since I'm sure he's a perfectly nice human being; but his writings annoy me to no end, especially Violence and the Sacred, which has some currency among cultural theorists. In a nutshell, in order to quell violence, a sacrificial victim (surrogate) has to be killed and then contemplated; but in the act of killing the surrogate, violence can be mistaken for the sacrificial act, throwing more violence into the system. And the more the community contemplates the sacrificial victim, the more they desire it, also creating more strife. (Of course, this is an oversimplification.) The reference to the Eucharist is obvious.

His writings have their uses in cultural theory, and he often gets used to describe issues of desire, consumer vs. mass culture, a framework for discussing the sacred without referencing any one particular religion, and the like. In particular, the expression of creativity can be seen as a violent act:

I see every music-doing act by a socialized person as an act having something for or against me; you doing something for or against you. At the very least, I need to articulate my thoughts out loud among you, to put my music sound out there where others are, to disseminate my articulations of word ideas and music ideas, so that there will be some resonance of my reality, or my ontology, for me to hear coming back at me from within the world I inhabit, too, not just the resonances of everyone else's, or some generalized resonance of everyone's. (Benjamin Boretz, "Interface V. The InnerStudio (Strategies for Retrieving Reality in Music Experience and Practice.")

The notion that I'm somehow imposing myself upon an audience is something I wrestle with. Where is your place, if you know you're vocation is in some form of the contemplative life, which is by definition hidden and reserved, but also part of the same vocation is, by necessity, extroverted? Some composers don't have a problem with assaulting the audience with themselves. What Boretz is trying to get at is the relevance of creativity, and how it might be used to reconcile the "me-against-you" danger of composition and creativity. Within his essay, the consideration of the Other is what wards against this danger.

Part of what pisses me off the most (even more than his Paleolithic views on gender role) about Girard's book is his take on the sacrificial act. In his worldview, we don't have a choice--we're compelled by the very thing which brings us peace to use it against other people. In his world, every act of creativity is an act of violence against someone else. It doesn't matter if you're the one being sacrificed, or the one drawing the blade over the victim's throat. But the way out of his feedback cycle of violence is to not play along. From Wednesday's (the Wednesday after Passion Sunday) Office of Readings:

"What does it mean to sit at this table if not to approach it with humility? What does it mean to observe carefully what is set before you if not to meditate devoutly on so great a gift? What does it mean to stretch out one's hand, knowing that one must provide the same kind of meal oneself, if not what I have just said: as Christ laid down his life for us, so we in our turn ought to lay down our lives for our brothers? This is what the apostle Paul said: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we might follow in his footsteps.
This is what is meant by providing "the same kind of meal." This is what the blessed martyrs did with such burning love. If we are to give true meaning to our celebration of their memorials, to our approaching the Lord's table in the very banquet at which they were fed, we must, like them, provide "the same kind of meal." (From a treatise on John by St. Augustine.)

Girard forgot a four-letter word from his catechism: love. It's not enough to blindly follow along with the herd in the sacrifice. Out of love, by participating in it, it means becoming it. or put another way by a Dominican who would routinely visit my old parish, to participate in the Eucharist is to break the bread of one's own life.

Similarly to Boretz's notion, the Other is my hope. If I exert what might be called "myself" in a piece of music, I'm offering myself, out of love, to the Other. If my life, and everything coming out of it, becomes a reflection of the Eucharist, how can I cause violence to the Other?

There's another line in another article by John Rahn (If you haven't guessed I like his writings):

There is a positive joy in perceiving a flawlessly intricate musical structure, one which leads the mind to startling discoveries as it is unfolded, offering depths upon depths into which we peer, within which we play, but which are never exhausted, never leave us low and dry.
This is not the flash of a Richard Strauss, not the meretricious craftsmanship of the mere technician, unconnected to the wellsprings of his human existence; it is, rather, the kind of craftsmanship that apes the divine, or from which the notion of divine creation is extrapolated. ("What is Valuable in Art, and Can Music Still Achieve it?")

A bit of backstory...I started out my composerly life, as do many others, as a performing musician. My teachers played in the orchestra near where I grew up, they played studio gigs in the area, and when I entered college,it was thought I'd follow in their footsteps. That's all I knew. A high school orchestra director routinely quipped that art and fifty cents would get you a cup of coffee.

I'm not here to debate commercial/entertainment music and "high" art. My inner ethnoid tells me that both have their places (I do write about video game soundtracks, after all). Instead, I'd like to describe something more personal, namely why I'm in the field I am, and why I can't be a part of the commercial musician's world. The last sentence of Rahn's passage sums it up for me. I'm devoted to a kind of creation,"from which the notion of divine creation is extrapolated."

But when I was facing a lifetime of being in the "business" of music, studio gigs, wedding parties, and the like, the feeling of being "stuck" in the situation was oppressive. I was just begining to discover that I could write music, and it was (and is) something I barely understood, but knew that this was something special, which if I chose to accept it would mean a radical repositioning of my life. It also offered the prospect of something else.

I don't know where I'm going. When I started grad school, I had no idea that other people like me--composers--existed. The more I come into contact with it, the less I understand about the ability to write music. But I can't help but be humbled--and a little frightened--of the chance to peer into the kind of creation which Rahn describes. It's a kind of creation which changes me as much as the thing I'm writing.

"A morte perpetua, libera nos, Domine." (from the Litany of Saints)

There's something powerful about art and the aesthetic experience. It's hard to say anything about it at all, without falling into trivializations and banal metaphors. And even the act of translation from pure experience into language can make the experience seem flat and empty. Yet it's one of the most powerful forces we can experience. It's a life-changing and life-saving moment, when it happens. Remembering such experiences, I find they're no less vivid, for the years separating them.

It's an experience which lifts us out of ourselves, as Merton put it, and points to something greater than we could possibly become otherwise. Infused contemplation, when it comes, is a powerful grace. It's a rare thing, and something not everyone encounters. Those who haven't think that they aren't capable or good enough for it, but like any grace, it isn't our choice when it's given.

"In contrast, what I would like here to call "repetition" is repetition within a larger thing whose telos is not given (as in répétition), but is in the process of being formed. Such subglobal repetition is not répétition because the point is not to perfect (τελεω ) the thing repeated, by accomplishing its telos, but to point beyond the thing repeated to the thing being formed. This is lively because it escapes the dead hand of some prefigured order; like life, it is a process of continual transcendence toward who knows what end. The focus is always forward, un-self-ish, opening away from the current entity in the direction of something larger and unconfined." ("Repetition", John Rahn)

It's relatively easy to become trapped in everyday life and routine, whether imposed from outside or within. There's another name for the lowest order of repetition in Rahn's essay, slavery: acedia, the "noonday demon," and the bane of monastics since the early days in the desert. It's a state of being in which life becomes drudgery, one plodding step after another, and the routines and pressures become oppressive.

The second order is répétition, or rehearsal. In it, there's some sort of final cause, or telos, but it's mired in the fact that the telos is fixed and unchanging, another kind of slavery, perhaps less insidious than the first.

The third order, repetition, is a continual transformation towards an unknown end. But this isn't plunging into chaos, rather it's an unfolding into something greater. It's this "opening away from the current entity in the direction of something larger and unconfined" that makes the aesthetic experience what it is.

For some, infused contemplation comes as a result of a period of overwhelming darkness, aceida, or some other "dark night." People have moments where they're awestruck at something, but the difference between these little moments and the life-changing one is one of magnitude. It's not that this experience makes the situation magically better--in the writings of the visionaries and other contemplatives, their lives often get worse afterwards--but rather that one's awareness is expanded out of itself towards some other purpose, one hidden, but larger than the situation one finds oneself mired in.

When it happens, we're faced with a choice: either to accept the gift of infused contemplation, and all the trials which come with it, or to remain in what came before. One kind of death happens with its acceptance: we can't be the same people we were before. The experience is often one which heals us, but leaves us changed in its wake. The other choice leads to another kind of death, far worse than anything physical. But saying "yes" to infused contemplation means accepting the moment with one's whole being. It may lead to darker things than we could imagine, but also the hope for something far more than we could ever conceive.