You seem to be saying that reality is knowable only to the human intellect. Can there not be instinctive and emotional human realities too? Isn't a feeling a reality? And doesn't music bring about feelings? Transcendence!

Tomasino

To the OP. Better not watch sports! Talk about hyperbole...Someone that throws a ball is a "hero" that has carried his entire team on his back, it the face of great adversity (i.e. the defense) to bring his city to victory and earn his place in history!

So if I play well (perhaps better than Schiff) then I would be quiet and let the foo-fah fly where it may? That makes about as much sense as...well I don't know what. Frankly, I don't care if you think what I have to say is b.s., nor do I care whether you find any of my responses intelligent. Fetch up your science kit and try to explain music to yourself as best you can. You'll scratch the surface, but will find yourself no deeper...good luck with that. =)

I think these critics care more about showing their ability to write superfluously, rather than the actual topic of whatever they're writing about.

Are you sick of Pianists Transcending reality? No. I wish more of them would. Tis a rarity, indeed.

Read again (it probably won't help though). I didn't say that people who play as well as Schiff are quiet. I said they don't talk as much b.s as you do.

Btw, I couldn't care less what you think of me either. I'm not an uneducated musician (like *some* people/musicians here are) and I thank myself for the decision that I made not to go to music school if this is the outcome of all that brain-washing!

I'm sick of pianists who do nothing but play the piano. I wish pianists were better developed all round and would take interest in and respect what other fields have to say about music (among other things). It would make them more fun/worthwhile to talk to. That might also teach them how to communicate ideas using terms that are more informative and useful than "transcendence" and would teach them not to live in a well of transcendence (whatever that is).

Well, if you believe that I'm prone to spout b.s. (and that others who play well don't...meaning they're quiet regarding b.s.) then I assume you believe that I should be quiet so as not to feed the b.s. train. Feel free to use the ignore button so as not to get hit with further b.s. =)
Probably is a good decision on your part, the latter, indeed.

.... and thus transcend the narrower boundaries of the performance discipline ...

If you haven't read Karl Paulnack's speech to a freshman class at Boston Conservatory you might find it of interest. Here's a link.
http://greenroom.fromthetop.org/2009/03/11/karl-paulnack-to-the-boston-conservatory-freshman-class/
Of most interest here is the comment about the ancient Greeks, "One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us."

I realize the ancient Greeks were great astronomers only in their time and that science has advanced a bit since then. I find the comment about music of more interest, because it's about what's in the ear of the listener. Comparing reactions to various pianists here and it becomes obvious that one person's transcendental performance is too fast and loud to someone else. Music is about reaching our hearts and each heart is different. While there may be some things that have broader appeal it seems for the most part our tastes are very individual. What makes the walls of cynicism crumble in my heart may have no emotional impact on another. Critics who hype performances with a loquacious filligree of prose are simply trying to set you up for the same experience they may have had (though not necessarily). Chances are without the setup you may not have anywhere near the same reaction. I remember first hearing about Lazar Berman slaying the Liszt Sonata, however being well acquainted with the Argerich recording I didn't share the critic's opinion after buying the record. However, by then my money was spent, thus mission accomplished.

All I know is there are some pieces that bring the walls of cynicism down in my own heart and that's why I love music. Without that internal emotional reaction music would just be organized sound. Do I transcend reality? Great music certainly allows me to forget the occasionally dreary reality that is my life and perhaps touch on something larger and certainly more beautiful. But that's all in my own mind. However, isn't all perception in our own minds? Aren't we each experiencing life within our own perceptions of the same? In that respect every life is lived in each of our own minds.

I believe you are the train, when it comes to this topic (contribution of Science in understanding stuff, including music). When you have no clue about how something works, its best to be quiet. I used to have a lot of respect for you.

I've never stated that science is not a capable contributor in understanding "stuff" (your word not mine). But music is something that science cannot touch. It comes from within...not without. It is not black and white. Don't tell me to be quiet about that which I have no understanding, because I understand more than you will ever forget young man. Someday I do hope that your understanding matures enough to realise what I and others have been talking about.

No, that would be pointless, in the same way that yelling "Concentrate!" is pointless. (i.e. "which emotion?" or "concentrate on what?")

Elementary beginner's exercise: "Play this line in an angry way" "OK, now play the same line in a silly way" "Now in a sad way".



Would you be willing to say there are no sad songs? Billions of people are pretty sure there are at least happy songs and sad songs, even if they might say the emotional content goes no further than those two. The ones who deny even the existence of happy & sad songs probably never liked music anyway.

There is a good point here, namely that our experiences ARE our definition of reality: therefore if we have experienced something, it necessarily has become part of reality as of that moment (if it wasn't already).

But the argument is disingenuous because you're claiming that people couldn't have meant what they meant simply because they chose a certain word.

Nothing is beyond good science. Absolutely nothing.

EVERYTHING is beyond any particular example of a narrow-minded "scientist" whose goal is to make the facts fit the textbook instead of the other way around.

There is, needless to say, a fair bit of ground in between as well.

And how do you know this? Sounds a lot like a belief to me, rather than science.

Because science is searching and discovering, not simply the contents of last year's textbook.

Saying that something is out of the reach of science is merely an excuse used by someone who has no evidence for what he says and doesn't want to be challenged. If you have evidence, then that's science already.

Something is out of the reach of the research that has been done up till now? That's certainly possible, even likely. Out of reach of future research forever? A pretty presumptuous position to take. Something that's unresearchable? How so? If it's unresearchable how can we even mention it?

Well it looks like "good science" is no longer true.

Now, for the first time, subatomic particles have been witnessed as travelling faster than the speed of light. http://www.dailytech.com/CERN+Physicists...rticle22827.htm

There is an infinity of "stuff" beyond the understanding of science. Science creeps along slowly trying to understand the universe and our relationship to it. To say that there is nothing beyond good science is one of the most ridiculous statements imaginable. Science isn't a static thing and doesn't have the answers for the mysteries of our existence.
Cheers to science... and all it's vast explorations and contributions to understanding reality.
And cheers to art, which in my mind goes far beyond science in understanding the universe and our relationship within it.

Who we are BEING comes through in a musical performance far more than WHAT we play and I can tell you "Stores" that I can't imagine that I'd ever enjoy the sounds coming out of your piano if the notes oozed as much pompous arrogance as your posts in this thread. To me your elitism screams AMATEUR...

Purple Haze all in my brain

Lately things don't seem the same ....

well, that's one way to transcend reality

Just answering to the thread title, I'm sick of pianists NOT transcending reality. (figuratively, of course)

Me too.
But in the literal sense.

People like you are (hopefully) rare stores..and I hope you remain rare, for the sake of humankind and its progress. Even your colleagues over at the musicology and cognitive musicology labs within the same dept would scoff at you if you were to tell them this. You probably don't even talk to them "traitors" anyway (which explains why you are as ignorant as you are).

Very well said.

You are absolutely right. That statement couldn't have been a scientific statement because the statement itself is about science. That is what is known as a philosophical statement. Philosophical statements, many a time, are just sophisticated forms of beliefs. Sophisticated because there is usually a strong logical structure of argument behind all of it (but many a time not completely and utterly irrefutable). The quoted statement above is actually not very difficult to justify, at the very least a strong plausibility argument can be provided by citing precedence. There was a time when people attributed the solar eclipse to Gods' play. They never would have in their wildest dreams thought that people drawing figures and numbers in the sand then would figure it all out in the future.. We can carry on with this game and I'd be able to give you thousands of examples of cases where people thought nothing could ever explain something but Science managed to ultimately.

So I'm surprised that you choose to place your doubts on the side that you chose to.

Does science want to explain why a V-7 I cadence sounds complete, and why a V-7 vi cadence doesn't?

I'm all for science, but I don't see the point of, and recognize the futility, of trying to apply science to art. What's the point of identifying why things work and others don't? And even if it's all analyzed and understood, what will it all be for?

And that's just in the strict theory sense. How do you scientifically analyze great music? Music, like all other art, is really just communication (it's my personal definition, but I'd like to see a counterexample if you have it), and I don't see how that's something that could be scientifically understood.

Why has this turned into a defense of science rather than a discussion of the merits of critics or art criticism?

I have a much bigger problem with critics of the visual arts, like painting and sculpture. They can really make me want to pull my hair out. They go on and on making preposterous and unsubstantiated claims about the works and it most often sounds like it is more about them than the work they are describing. They cease to "criticize" or review a work, and end up making these characterizations which appear to me to be trying to show everyone how deep they are and what insight they have. Like everything else, it is a feedback loop, where the more known and renown the artist, the higher profile the critic is. The critics credentials become as paramount as the artist or the work, and therefore if this renown critic is reviewing the work, it must be good. This completely stifles the "normal" person who walks into a gallery or show and may have some feelings or intuitions about the work which are contradictory, but they remain silent. "What do I know," they say.

I am more forgiving of music critics, mostly because I believe music to be the most profound and expressive of the arts. I think the distinction may be that, yes, the prose may be flowery and overblown, but he might be describing how he felt about what he heard, as opposed to the visual art critic who seems to describe as factual what the work is truly about. I am more bothered by music critics who by rote criticize new works as not "modern" enough, like Kozenen and Thommasini at times. A critic saying that a performance was "transcendent" may not be true or possible, but it does not say or imply that the work itself is necessarily transcendent. If the critic then went on to organize a religion out of his experience of the music as being a "true" way to some transcendence then of course its problematic.

Using prose or metaphor to describe or attempt to articulate one's feelings or experience of something does not imply that the experience itself was true in any scientifically factual way, it merely depends on how the description of the events are presented. I am a materialist and great believer in science, but we still are emotional beings and have emotional experiences which we like to share with others as social animals, and as a result dry, clinical descriptors do not always suffice to convey feelings.

It's "those 'traitors,'" liszt85. Come on!!! I know English is your second language, but this is not a question of colloquialism! "Are them your beers?" Get it right!

And, Dara, my daughter, who is a "special needs" 18 year old, who has been watching Star Trek "Enterprise" of late, mentioned the "faster than the speed of light" story to me today. This means that she is aware that there is hope that she can travel back to before the point of conception-- right? THAT would be rare AND transcendent!