When Nothing is Called Music: Recent Episodes
Dr. Pessi Parviainen
The words we use affect the way we think.
Music is a word.
Do we have to use it? Have we always used it?
The answer to both these questions is "no."
This is not nitpicking on words. This is a radical call for cultural reformation.
This podcast presents excerpts from Dr. Pessi Parviainen's dissertation "When Nothing is Called Music: Towards Ecological Composition."
The book is available to download for free:
https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/318951
The dissertation was generously supported by the Kone Foundation, the City of Helsinki, UniArts Helsinki (Theatre Academy / Tutke & VÄS), and the Risto Mäenpää Foundation.
If all people are creative, what we believe about creativity indicates what we believe about humanity.
Without dogmatic barriers between 'sacred' and 'secular', creativity could flow in an unprecedented manner.
A unity of abstractions is a self-contradicting idea since the point of abstraction is precisely the opposite of unity with others.
Instrumental specializations can form a unity, since specialized focus does not mean a detachment. This could be called a “non-dogmatic togetherness” – another way of saying “ecological composition.”
The movie scene discussed in the episode can be viewed here:
https://youtu.be/gKafo_OCBDo?t=796
Category-based thinking cannot be used to understand the whole. A different mindset is needed.
An ecological composition is an adaptation at the level of the composer: the act of composing is an act of adaptation, of dealing with one’s existence in the
environment one is in. The border between an ecological composition and its environment is like a cell membrane. There is a clear boundary, but it is also a process. An ecological composition emerges as the composer engages their environment creatively.
Adapting to one’s environment through creativity is necessary. It is not a cultural frill, it is not decoration, it is not avoidable without avoiding life itself.
It is vital.
Ecological composition is not a genre. It is a way of seeing any creativity. Removing the dogmatic concept of music opens the field up, when the dogma isn’t replaced with another. Practical boundaries remain like cell membranes, but a cell membrane is alive, not a stone-dead dogma.
What would a world without the word "music" look like?
How would it be different?
In the book, "When Nothing is Called Music," I have shared seven distinct points of change. This episode features the first two.
I'm reading from the pages 160-163. You can download the pdf for free if you like: https://taju.uniarts.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/6090/Acta_Scenica_60.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
The concept of music is a definition, a fiat, sheer dogma. This means that the "music mindset" is in denial.
The Redefiners have tried to redefine music in order to make it connect with reality, but this does not work. Redefining a definition does not change it: it's still a definition. IOW, denying the denial does not help.
Giving up the music concept means giving up fantasy (denial) and facing translation.
"Music" is the same in every language. There's only variation in spelling.
But "playing" or "sound" (etc) need to be translated.
"Music" is a word in denial. It creates a false fantasy structure.
"Playing", "sound", and other descriptive concepts are not in denial - they are vulnerable to translation.
What is this podcast about? Here's a quick introduction.
When Nothing is Called Music (the book) is available as a free pdf over here:
www.pessiparviainen.com