[Xmca-l] Re: The idea that our categories are created

[valerie A. Wilkinson]

Hi!  I am doing one of my dives from the abstractions of General Systems Theory.
Actually, since I am always "on the fly" I don't have time to write a well-developed thought this time, either.
When I read Aristotle's Categories at school, the first part of the work is essential. It sets up the frame. Essence or accident, a singular representative of a species - or the whole. (I can see that I've set up a bit of homework for myself)
In that work, it sticks out like a sore thumb that the list of "categories", when we finally get around to it, is made of incidental and accidental "properties."
Color and length don't tell one much about the animal. 
Being a generalist means I'm not going to dig in deep here.
But in this short (so far) thread, Huw has replied with circumstances/environmental conditions being causal, whereas Michael starts out with looking for some fundamental sense in the progression of chords. (Harmonics is an ancient thread) 
Michael's first observation, that categories, which "someone" sets up, seem provisional but are soon treated as set in stone...
And he said, "Not only for Jazz ..." (Even right brain (RB)/left brain(LB) are provisional distinctions in an extremely specialized field.) Does "that's how humans think" cover the topic?

It's a rabbit hole. Gotta git before anyone asks me any questions!

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+vwilk=inf.shizuoka.ac.jp@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+vwilk=inf.shizuoka.ac.jp@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2015 0:43
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The idea that our categories are created

Hi Huw,

Just off the top of my head I would say the blues more so.  I wonder if a music historian has ever taken an Activity Theory approach.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Huw Lloyd
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2015 11:26 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The idea that our categories are created

The impression I have is that the roots of jazz stem from an abeyance from culturally perceived unpleasant/oppressive conditions and that patterns in chord progression would be derived from that activity structure, not from anything inherent in the music per se, i.e. an orientation.

Huw



On 3 June 2015 at 15:53, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu> wrote:

>
>
> I found this article from the New York Times incredibly interesting
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/technology/personaltech/spotify-sees
> -a-future-where-music-genres-dont-really-matter.html?hp&action=click&p
> gtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-
> news&_r=0
>
> Having developed a very nascent knowledge of music late in life 
> because my daughter is studying to be a jazz guitarist and I don't 
> want to feel like a complete idiot when I discuss one of her concerts 
> with her - the article reminds me that we (or the media trying to sell 
> us stuff) creates categories that then for some reason become set in 
> stone until they aren't anymore (but the decisions always seem to come 
> from some place else) and the ways the Internet may be changing that 
> faster than many of us can understand.
>
> If you read the first paragraph and the children of the writer going 
> through different types of music as a stream -  I wonder though if the 
> writer has it wrong, that if you went back and listened closely you 
> would find they shared chord progressions taken in different directions.
>
> I may have this wrong the way I'm talking about it (I can see my 
> daughter rolling her eyes in my mind), but jazz has its developing 
> chord progressions, blues has its chord progressions, they swap back 
> and forth, rock and folk and new wave takes from both and from 
> classical, and derivative pop takes and simplifies from all.  Perhaps 
> there is a natural flow as they move between each other, something we 
> can never hear when there are strict category boundaries.  The 
> steaming music phenomenon makes these boundaries transparent, almost 
> as if they don't exist, so we traverse them without thinking we are 
> making some type of transgression.  How will appreciation of music 
> change when we don't have the gatekeepers (using Lewin's original concept) determining what we listen to?
>
> This of course is not just music.  In the academy there has been 
> greater and greater move towards particularization and strict 
> boundaries - AERA isn't one big conferences but hundreds of small 
> conferences.  Will the boundaries start to break down so we can see 
> and appreciate the "chord progressions?"
>
> Interesting to me, wonder what others think.
>
> Michael
>
>