Music for the Intellectual Elite

[beletty]

If humans we're to be eyeless, everybody would have been able to create intellectual music, even if the vast majority of ideas sent by music is unfeeding for the intellect. In an eyeless society music and spoken language would be the same thing.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

If humans we're to be eyeless, everybody would have been able to create intellectual music, even if the vast majority of ideas sent by music is unfeeding for the intellect. In an eyeless society music and spoken language would be the same thing.

I fail to see how lacking eyes yields the creation of great music. It takes a strong man to make strong music, 'I'm sure if we looked hard enough we can find a weak blind man.

[beletty]

A man without eyes tries to get the best out of his ears. He has a greater acoustic sensibility than others. He is thus able to use music as a way of communicating, his barrier between language and music is thin. I am sure that what you perceive as strong music is a masterful interveawing between aesthetic and intellectual. In another way put, it is a concise message wrapped in a form of beatuty, that reccurs each time you listen to the piece of music.

Yet I am sure that nowadays music, although it isn't hedonistic it can give only pleasure. In order to make the music an intermediate between the creator and the listener, it must be theoretised. Thus the music loses it's general human character, but gains an intellectual capacity that is accesible only to a limited quantity of people - those who have studied it. Both natural music or aesthetic, broad speaking, however you like to call it and intellectual music, are inferior arts. The only superior arts are literature and painting and that is conditioned by our empiric anatomy.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

Jimmy Hendrix was a musically talented individual but this does not prevent his music from meaning nothing important. I am sure humanity without eyes could vary well be more musically talented, that does not make them better people. Without people with a meaningful will their "art" will only be a shadow, an imitation of real art.

I stand with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche when they say music is the highest of all art. There is no matter in which I believe in more firmly then music as the single greatest achievement of mankind.  I would on any occasion choose the B minor mass over Faust, the messiah over King Lear or the four seasons over the Iliad. I choose not to argue with you outright about the subject because I am aware in order for you to see  literature and the visual arts as superior we are clearly looking for different things in our artistic pursuits.

Both natural music or aesthetic, broad speaking, however you like to call it and intellectual music, are inferior arts. The only superior arts are literature and painting and that is conditioned by our empiric anatomy.

How exactly is literature and painting made superior by our anatomy? Also the term intellectual music is a term I myself greatly dislike, its use however, is purely due to the thread title.

[beletty]

You bring word of 'The Four Seasons'. I will narrate my experience regarding it. I recall, back in the fourth grade, our teacher told us about 'The Four Seasons'. I remember having a glimpse of the expectations I have as an adult towards it. For me, Vivaldi's work should upon audition conjure cryogenic images if 'Winter' be the object of listen or landscapes of ripe fields under a fiery sun, respectively 'Summer'. Even back then, the fascinating part of 'The Four Seasons' is that it could be translated into images when brought in contact with the mind.
The first listen came when I was a teen-ager. It's one of my favourite works of classical music I have to confess. 'Winter' in particular is a fantastic experience. As I once listened to 'Winter' I asked myself why don't I see in my mind a snowy landscape or anything to justify for the name of the track. If under it's influence my mind visualises only subjectively, the classification of music as art fails, for music cannot send information. It's only function is for pleasure. A superior art for me must be aesthetic, have an intellectual meaning and be decipherable for every man.

I will talk later about the anatomic determination.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

If this is your definition I am sure that by the nature of what man is, nothing is art. Literature only paints the external scene, the will is purely created by the human, and superimposed on the story. Music can convey the internal perfectly, just as literature can present the external perfectly. If you discount music for its inability to convey information, and can only show a subjective nature of the external world then the written word is guilty of its ability to only show the internal world as purely subjective.

Your first two conditions of art I agree with, it is the third I disagree. A philistine who views the thinker or reads a tragedy by Aeschylus and sees nothing great and feels nothing tremendous is surely showing that the visual arts and written arts are not decipherable for every man. They are just as subjective as music, two can only with certainty paint a scene, and the other can only with certainty portray an emotion.

[wood]

Why do you need to see anything?  During winter you feel the cold in the air, I believe the music conveys a sense of coldness regaurdless of the visuals.  If I close my eyes and listen to music I expect to feel what the artist is trying to convey, I might not be able to pick the exact word for the feeling but once I see the song title (if it's a great artist) I will agree after listening to the music.

[ASBO]

I think the "intellectual elite" need to prove themselves as such before simply declaring themselves elite, and then expecting us to kiss their asses.

The guys behind ANUS... sure, they've proven it with over a decade of meaningful activity.

The guys on the ANUS forum... well, it varies; what the fuck do most of you do besides buy stuff, work to enrich yourselves and periodically complain?