I love Matthew''s passion, very thoughtful guy with a lot to say. I learned a ton about the German organ tradition. Some reactions: 1.) Music as a universal phenomenon prior to language: agree. Music as a universally intelligible language: my stance remains. (It's not.) 2.) Music as instantiation of heavenly patterns: certainly agree but there's more to it. Music functions more a nexus of earth meeting heaven, since these heavenly patterns are embodied by earthen vessels (human voice, instruments of skin and gut) and the patterns are often informed by the bodily vessels themselves (duple meter is a thing of the feet; a guitar timbre reveals something different than a synthesizer). 3.) If you're into Messiaen you will likely be keen on all sorts of timbres and tonalities that are outside the regular tonalities and grooves that make up an average Westerner's listening diet. 4.) Is rhythm pitch, or is pitch rhythm? 🤔 (Frequency) 5.) Music of the Spheres: Yes, and there's a lot more to be said here! The statement "all cultures have fifths" is worth exploring. Is it not equally true that cultures also have seconds and thirds and fourths? All cultures have melodies, therefore all cultures have these kinds of intervals. But my point is: not all fifths are treated equally, let aloned tuned equally. Parallel fifths break the rules of traditional polyphony, but entire genres of music are based on the use of parallel fifths (rock and roll). Moreover, all cultures might have a phenomenon that we in our system would call a "fifth", or a "dominant," but there may be no concept of a fifth or dominant within that culture, and this has implications on the meaning of that fifth. The Arabic Hijaz scale, a common world scale, sounds like it should resolve differently than to the note that it actually does resolve because its tonic sounds like our dominant. Anyways, worth a longer conversation.
Thanks Drew! With regards to your thoughtful comments: Let’s get back to 1. 2. Totally agree. 3. Fair enough. 4. Yes. :) (perhaps phenomenologically it’s easier for us to think of pitch as rhythm first, since we can slow it way down, but harder to hear rhythm as pitch. (Although a minor 2nd at the bottom of a 32” stop definitely produces an audible rhythm). But my point is that fundamentally they’re the same.) I think we agree. 4. My point with the fifths (and for that matter fourths) is that though musical systems are culturally determined, there are still fundamental aspects of pitch and rhythm that connect all musical systems to each other. And though they may all have different approaches to different intervals, it seems to me that musical development inevitably ends up at treating certain intervals as landing points. Ex Georgian music landing on the fifth. And.. this is due to the natural progression of the harmonic series. (At least that’s Bernstein’s argument). I guess I’m trying to drive home some sort of musical perennialism if you will. Leading us back to 1. I’m not sure we entirely disagree, as I think the issue is tied up in the definition of a universal language, and how we determine the degree of intelligibility of such a language. Perhaps we could parse it out over a discussion :) In short: it’s obvious at least to me that music can connect, for example, people that don’t speak exactly the same language, but have somewhat shared cultural idioms. French and Germans can, without knowing the other language, play music together and connect, showing there’s something about music that is more fundamental than the lexicons and vocabularies of individual spoken languages. I guess the telos of the question, and the continuum of intelligibility would determine how we’d define “universal language”, and I suspect that at some point we’d enthusiastically agree. Seems to me you’re trying to stress the beauty of the particularities of different musical traditions, where I’m trying to stress the underlying cosmic patterns that each musical system is ritually instantiating. Let me know if you wanna do a talk! Could be fun
@@matthewwilkinson2276 Great feedback, thanks for taking your time to write. I think we'd have a great conversation. Very few people around this corner of the internet can 'talk shop' when it comes to music theory so it would be neat to try!
This is the best bail on singing something I've ever seen: "I'm a horrible singer." *plays note, then matches pitch with voice* *thinks better of it and just says it* I'm in tears.
I'm convinced now that the Buddha was a Demon. How in the World could you be detached from Suffering? There's something weirdly beautiful about suffering. I don't know how to explain it. I want to suffer ( e.g. Love for Family ) for the right reasons. My 父上と母上と兄上と姉上 taught my Dead Heart how to Love unconditionally. However, I'm a hypocrite. I have my breaking point. If I'm pushed past that point I Exile those who betray me & those who are disloyal to me. There's nothing more deplorable than individuals & animals that are disloyal. I found the most important thing in this World is Loyalty.
I love Matthew''s passion, very thoughtful guy with a lot to say. I learned a ton about the German organ tradition. Some reactions:
1.) Music as a universal phenomenon prior to language: agree. Music as a universally intelligible language: my stance remains. (It's not.)
2.) Music as instantiation of heavenly patterns: certainly agree but there's more to it. Music functions more a nexus of earth meeting heaven, since these heavenly patterns are embodied by earthen vessels (human voice, instruments of skin and gut) and the patterns are often informed by the bodily vessels themselves (duple meter is a thing of the feet; a guitar timbre reveals something different than a synthesizer).
3.) If you're into Messiaen you will likely be keen on all sorts of timbres and tonalities that are outside the regular tonalities and grooves that make up an average Westerner's listening diet.
4.) Is rhythm pitch, or is pitch rhythm? 🤔 (Frequency)
5.) Music of the Spheres: Yes, and there's a lot more to be said here! The statement "all cultures have fifths" is worth exploring. Is it not equally true that cultures also have seconds and thirds and fourths? All cultures have melodies, therefore all cultures have these kinds of intervals. But my point is: not all fifths are treated equally, let aloned tuned equally. Parallel fifths break the rules of traditional polyphony, but entire genres of music are based on the use of parallel fifths (rock and roll). Moreover, all cultures might have a phenomenon that we in our system would call a "fifth", or a "dominant," but there may be no concept of a fifth or dominant within that culture, and this has implications on the meaning of that fifth. The Arabic Hijaz scale, a common world scale, sounds like it should resolve differently than to the note that it actually does resolve because its tonic sounds like our dominant. Anyways, worth a longer conversation.
Thanks Drew! With regards to your thoughtful comments:
Let’s get back to 1. 2. Totally agree. 3. Fair enough. 4. Yes. :) (perhaps phenomenologically it’s easier for us to think of pitch as rhythm first, since we can slow it way down, but harder to hear rhythm as pitch. (Although a minor 2nd at the bottom of a 32” stop definitely produces an audible rhythm). But my point is that fundamentally they’re the same.) I think we agree. 4. My point with the fifths (and for that matter fourths) is that though musical systems are culturally determined, there are still fundamental aspects of pitch and rhythm that connect all musical systems to each other. And though they may all have different approaches to different intervals, it seems to me that musical development inevitably ends up at treating certain intervals as landing points. Ex Georgian music landing on the fifth. And.. this is due to the natural progression of the harmonic series. (At least that’s Bernstein’s argument). I guess I’m trying to drive home some sort of musical perennialism if you will. Leading us back to 1. I’m not sure we entirely disagree, as I think the issue is tied up in the definition of a universal language, and how we determine the degree of intelligibility of such a language. Perhaps we could parse it out over a discussion :) In short: it’s obvious at least to me that music can connect, for example, people that don’t speak exactly the same language, but have somewhat shared cultural idioms. French and Germans can, without knowing the other language, play music together and connect, showing there’s something about music that is more fundamental than the lexicons and vocabularies of individual spoken languages. I guess the telos of the question, and the continuum of intelligibility would determine how we’d define “universal language”, and I suspect that at some point we’d enthusiastically agree. Seems to me you’re trying to stress the beauty of the particularities of different musical traditions, where I’m trying to stress the underlying cosmic patterns that each musical system is ritually instantiating. Let me know if you wanna do a talk! Could be fun
@@matthewwilkinson2276 Great feedback, thanks for taking your time to write. I think we'd have a great conversation. Very few people around this corner of the internet can 'talk shop' when it comes to music theory so it would be neat to try!
I saw Matthew in concert several years ago close to Freiburg. It was absolutely incredible.
(It was Merry)
This is the best bail on singing something I've ever seen:
"I'm a horrible singer." *plays note, then matches pitch with voice*
*thinks better of it and just says it*
I'm in tears.
Uhhuh
Good interview! Interesting details about Bach that I never knew.
@@AndrewGould-NewWorldByzantine Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Dang Matthew is multifaceted
@@Drewsicology just the person I was hoping would weigh in :)
@@DerekJFiedler I'll weigh in more when I've finished :)
@@Drewsicology sounds good. Matthew riffs off our podcast exploring music as the universal language.
I'm convinced now that the Buddha was a Demon.
How in the World could you be detached from Suffering?
There's something weirdly beautiful about suffering.
I don't know how to explain it.
I want to suffer ( e.g. Love for Family ) for the right reasons.
My 父上と母上と兄上と姉上 taught my Dead Heart how to Love unconditionally.
However, I'm a hypocrite.
I have my breaking point. If I'm pushed past that point I Exile those who betray me & those who are disloyal to me.
There's nothing more deplorable than individuals & animals that are disloyal.
I found the most important thing in this World is Loyalty.