[ Top : Articles : "Articles from the SMT Archive from June 1996" : Other Articles ]
Journal Title. 01 Month YR. pp. 000-000.
Sokal References:
These are some of the pieces of discussion from the SMT WWW Discussion Archive by subject for June 1996 at http://boethius.music.ucsb.edu/www-talk/smt/96june.smt/index.html. If you want the most comprehensive listing of the discussion, with potential overflow from other discussion threads, you may wish to visit this site. There really isn't much content in the actual discussion, but this is included just in case you were wondering what the list discussed. [jwalsh@u.washington.edu]
Rosemary Killam (RKILLAM@MUSIC.CMM.unt.edu)
Wed, 19 Jun 1996 13:17:39 -0700 (PDT)
Larry, Are you suggesting that we continue to kid ourselves that we, as theorists, aren't judging music all the time?? When we say to ourselves or our classes: this is a good piece of music, worth more study, this is a bad piece of music, not worth much time? This kind of old false objectivity was outdated in most disciplines decades ago. Best, Rosemary Killam, UNT-COM, rkillam@music.unt.edu >>> Larry Solomon 6/17/96, 01:36pm >>> It seems to me that it is not the job of the music theorist to be a critic, to judge what is good or bad. Haven't we learned that yet? It wasn't so long ago that analyzing pop was beneath the "serious" theorist.
The Sokal Affair in Music Theory/Criticism?
Purple (asamplas@indiana.edu)
Wed, 19 Jun 1996 13:36:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The Sokal Affair in Music Theory/Criticism?
I was wondering how long it would take for the flame war to reach this list. Brian Robison presented three possible scenarios, including: > 3) Pessimism: It could happen here: Although we > pride ourselves on our collective breadth, we're focused > more than narrowly enough in our musical concerns that the > right outsider could snow us with the professional jargon > of an unfamiliar specialty. That is, we could be taken in by > our ignorance of the objective facts in another field of study, > if the storyteller chose to tell a story we dearly wish to hear. Even without getting bowled over by another field's jargon, is it not entirely possible that our field has already had a, well, let us say, tongue- in-cheek paper pass muster as something serious? For example, I have heard several professors here give the opinion that Edward T. Cone's "Schubert's Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics" (_19th Century Music_ 5.3 [1982], 233-41) must have been written as a joke. (In the article, Cone argues that a chromatic neighbor note, respelled enharmonically and leading to a key-shift, metaphorically signified the beginnings of wandering down a path of vice, tied in with Schubert's suffering from syphilis.) Does anyone on this list know whether Cone really believed this stuff? And how many folks do you know who buy the argument without question? Artie Samplaski Theory Dept. Indiana U. School of Music asamplas@indiana.edu
The Sokal Affair
Jane Clendinning (jane_c@cmr.fsu.edu)
Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:09:39 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id:
<199606211755.NAA02506@cmr.fsu.edu>
<steveng@csufresno.edu> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My guess is that Cone, a bastion of common sense, doesn't believe it, and it would be good to think that he was making fun of the new jargon. Herman U. Ticks, as David Lewin is reported to have said. Like the French poet Rimbaud II. Regards, Steve Gilbert -- ............................................................................ Steven E. Gilbert : "It is small sport shooting the Department of Music : bird who perches on the muzzle California State University : of your gun, but what hunter Fresno 93740-0077 : could keep from doing it?" phone (209) 278-7593, fax 278-6800 : --John Barth ............................................................................
David Lewin (lewin@husc.HARVARD.EDU)
Sun, 23 Jun 1996 14:09:31 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199606232105.RAA01386@cmr.fsu.edu>
Herman U. Ticks is new to me, and I don't think I would have said it. Check your sources, Steve. Rimbaud II, however, I do claim priority for. (I've seen it elswhere since.) I remember thinking of it in connection with Jon Bernard's work on Messiaen's synesthesia. (Rimbaud was also synesthetic -- he has a poem on the colors of the vowels, _Voyelles_.) David Lewin lewin@fas.harvard.edu Music Dept., Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02138 617/495-2791 fax 617/496-8081 On Fri, 21 Jun 1996, Jane Clendinning wrote: > Forwarded message: > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > My guess is that Cone, a bastion of common sense, doesn't believe it, > and it would be good to think that he was making fun of the new > jargon. Herman U. Ticks, as David Lewin is reported to have said. > Like the French poet Rimbaud II. > > Regards, > > Steve Gilbert > -- > ............................................................................ ><steveng@csufresno.edu> Steven E. Gilbert : "It is small sport shooting the > Department of Music : bird who perches on the muzzle > California State University : of your gun, but what hunter > Fresno 93740-0077 : could keep from doing it?" > phone (209) 278-7593, fax 278-6800 : --John Barth > ............................................................................ >
Jonathan Bernard (jbernard@u.washington.edu)
Mon, 24 Jun 1996 11:07:15 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199606241758.NAA13758@cmr.fsu.edu>
.David Lewin writes: . .> Rimbaud II, however, I do claim priority for. (I've seen it elswhere .> since.) I remember thinking of it in connection with Jon Bernard's work .> on Messiaen's synesthesia. (Rimbaud was also synesthetic -- he has a poem .> on the colors of the vowels, _Voyelles_.) . I can vouch for the accuracy of David's recollection--I believe it dates from the time he would have first heard me report on my work, at a colloquium at Yale in fall 1985. (Imagine rewriting Rimbaud's sonnet with Messiaen's color-chord names...) Jonathan Bernard University of Washington jbernard@u.washington.edu
Paul Attinello (attinell@crl.com)
Tue, 25 Jun 1996 09:21:26 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199606251612.MAA27691@cmr.fsu.edu>
Ha. I wrote a song on 'Voyelles,' sort of serial, quasi-Boulezian, in the mid-1980s... there was one good performance on tape... but the colors are only expressed through changes in the cells (and resulting simultaneities) used... One of my more adequate compositions... oh well. C'est la vie. Cheers, Paul Attinello attinell@crl.com
CURUGROTH@aol.com
Fri, 21 Jun 1996 13:43:18 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199606211828.OAA03609@cmr.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: The Sokal Affair in Music Theory/Criticism?
Does anyone on this list know whether Cone really believed this stuff? And how many folks do you know who buy the argument without question? Dear Professor Samplaski, I too have questions about "Schubert's Promissory Note," but I believe you have misrepresented Cone's position. He did not claim to "really believe this stuff" himself, but offered his interpretation of the Schubert as one possible interpretation within the expressive potential of the work. He does not claim that it actually embodies in some objective way "the effects of vice on a sensitive personality," and would probably have been surprised to find readers readily "buying" his interpretation. He was concerned with the relation between expressive/biographical interpretation and formal analysis and the point of the article is not to establish the credibility of his rather wacky reading. If the Schubert article was a joke, I'll bet it was a more serious joke than you suspect--one with multiple butts! Greg Karl curugoth@aol.com He may have been joking, but if he was, you missed the punchline!
Purple (asamplas@indiana.edu)
Fri, 28 Jun 1996 08:23:24 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199606281510.LAA14020@cmr.fsu.edu>
Subject: Cone & Herman U. Ticks
I attempted to reply privately to Greg Karl about Cone's article on Schubert but the mail bounced with an "unknown user" error. First, thanx for elevating me to professorhood--saves me 3 years of coursework, exams, and dissertation. :) >I too have questions about "Schubert's Promissory Note," but I believe you >have misrepresented Cone's position. He did not claim to "really believe >this stuff" himself, but offered his interpretation of the Schubert as one >possible interpretation within the expressive potential of the work. Well, the question is, is the act of suggesting such an interpretation itself far-fetched enough to be considered a joke? If Cone thought that such an interpretation was way off-base, then submitted an article where he did not state that he thought so but rather offered it as a serious possibility, then I think he was joking at the expense of those who considered it a legitimate way of looking at the piece. If Cone was serious about "the relation between expressive/biographical interpretation and formal analysis" as you put it, then imo he needed to use an example less far-fetched. Artie Samplaski Theory Dept. Indiana U. School of Music asamplas@indiana.edu