Music: literary or painterly?

[Tom Storer]

This question occurred to me recently:

Is listening to a piece of music more like reading a story or looking at a painting?

A friend of mine is very focused on sound quality. He can't really appreciate music unless the sound quality is excellent. I think he falls more on the "looking at a painting" side of the spectrum, in the same way that if all you see of a painting is a poor reproduction, you might as well not look at it at all. I, on the other hand, while I of course would prefer optimum sound quality, am not too bothered if the sound quality isn't great. I still feel that I'm hearing the music, the same way I think you can read a story and it doesn't make much difference if you're reading a cheap paperback or an exquisite, high-quality book.

Discuss.

[John L]

That is a very good question for discussion.

I like the analogy of the "story." For example, there are a number of people who do not listen to jazz before the 1950s because of the sound. They are missing at least one extremely important story needed for a true appreciation of jazz, namely the story of jazz itself.

[Jazzooo]

I'm not being facetious, but to me it is like looking at a painting of a story.

[Blue Train]

To me....music, paintings, pictures tell a story. The stories they tell depends on the individual(s) and their life to that point....and it's ever changing as we go through our lives.

[7/4]

When someone is improvising, I hear a story...in a composition, I hear a painting.






Or vice versa.

[steve(thelil)]

I don't usually connect music to visual images or story. To me, it goes directly to affect my visceral/mood processes without much interpretation involved. Similarly (maybe), even when I listen to music with words, my take seems to be how the words feel rather than what they mean.

[Gentle Giant]

I tend to see a movie in my head when I hear music, usually just shapes moving to the rhythm or sometimes a silver rope dancing the lead lines.

[pig pen]

I haven't really thought of it in those terms, since for me I don't relate music to either literature or visual art. That said, I think I am more in line with Tom in that I can enjoy music even if the sound quality is sub-optimal (although my preference is always for the best quality possible). In terms of older recordings I find that I need to be in the right mood to enjoy the older recordings and it isn't only because of the sound quality.

[moldyfigg]

I've always just listened to the music and felt the emotion of the sounds. It stands on its own. However, certain paintings, not literature, evoke memories of certain music.

[stonemonkts]

Closest I can come to a coherent contribution in this somewhat confusing thread topic is, I have seldom referred to certain films/dramas as being musical, in terms of how they move and are constructed. I would probably make similar comparisons with painting but I haven't spent enough time gazing at them to make the connection.

[stonemonkts]

Ok now I'll answer Tom's original question. I think music is more literary when it is composed in the classic sense, but more painterly when it is ambient/soundscape type, if that makes any sense.

[Ron Thorne]

I haven't really thought of it in those terms, since for me I don't relate music to either literature or visual art. That said, I think I am more in line with Tom in that I can enjoy music even if the sound quality is sub-optimal (although my preference is always for the best quality possible). In terms of older recordings I find that I need to be in the right mood to enjoy the older recordings and it isn't only because of the sound quality.

Bingo! That pretty well sums it up for me, too.

[Monte Smith]

As a fan of the oldest recorded music, I get what Tom is saying. I definitely appreciate old records, the older the better, because I am approaching these as artifacts. Reading into them. Depreciation is expected, maybe even perversely welcomed. The other day I was listening to some jazz on the radio and the DJ, who was playing 1920s 78s, suddenly played a 1960s or 1970s-era big band recording. The recording was flawless, so flawless that it is just in another category from a 78 rpm shellac side of Kid Ory or (pardon me) his ilk. I did a little mind experiment (I just happened to have a little mind on hand) and listened what the DJ played later in the way of older 78s and imagined I could hear this more antique recording as if it was recorded flawlessly and kept all of the information that was improvised in that recording studio. This was a hypothetical way of listening, which I guess is readerly (not writerly).

When I have most acutely felt jazz, it has been walking or driving thru NYC. Looking at buildings. Jazz doesn't really make sense for me outside an intense view of architecture. Which I guess is painterly.

[Dr Dave]

Is music more literary or painterly? I dunno, but music's long suit is expression. Go to the link, click on lecture #7, "Musical Expression" for James Grant's Oxford lecture on this:

http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/podcasts/aesthetics_and_the_philosophy_of_art

[sozamora]

I've always just listened to the music and felt the emotion of the sounds. It stands on its own. However, certain paintings, not literature, evoke memories of certain music.

I agree that in this respect music resembles painting. On the other hand, music occurs in time, so at the very least it shares that element with literature.

The reason Tom gives for classifying his friend as painterly was that he requires high sound quality in the reproduction of music in order to appreciate it. This he sees as analogous to not appreciating a poor reproduction of a painting. I don't think the two things are comparable.

[moldyfigg]

Bill Evans' playing conjures up Monet.

[steve(thelil)]

Bill Evans' playing conjures up Monet.

I didn't think I ever connected music with visual images, but Monk's music reminds me of Paul Klee's work.

[Pete C]

Neither and both. But I try to make writing that is more like both music and painting than most writers do.

[Mike Schwartz]

There are so many examples of music that's been precisely inspired by famous painters.

Here are 2 off the top....



Recently spoke to Ted Nash...wrote this where part of the inspiration was from viewing and studying the works of the 7 painters.