And you accuse me of verbosity...?

What musical literacy is required exactly? I don't see any references to complex musical issues. I see things that would be jargon and argot even to (or especially to) average professional performers. When I read these exchanges in WW, I rely mostly on my knowledge of Marxist aesthetics, and not much on my understanding of the specialist aspects of music. I wish Wieland Hoban would talk about music more specifically, since that is where, beyond the posturing, Downie's position actually falls apart, as I outlined in my diagnosis in post #92. 90% of Wieland's response, while accurate, is a response to Downie's techniques of argumentation, not to his actual hypothesis.

After Downie concedes he's gone over the top (and I don't know him well enough to guess whether he will), his position per se still needs to be taken apart at the seams.

Such noble thoughts lead me to ask Dr Grew two simple questions:

a) Is he possibly confusing monasticism with Communism?

b) To what extent did this altruism help him to cope with the 1926 General Strike?

Baz

Ah, I momentarily forgot that usernames can actually create anonymity! Yes, I am indeed Mr Downie's fencing partner.

No, you're right; the first response was much more to do with the substance of Downie's arguments. However, I think the substance of your critique would need to be from the perspective that the object being critiqued itself suggests in order to really slay the beast. You write that
Was Adorno's suspicion vis a vis the "rigorous parametric rationalization of music" the result of his adherence to bourgeois expressive tradition? That is the allegation you imply. Then perhaps you can clarify for me this question: do you share with Downie the conviction that "rigorous parametric rationalization," which Downie later calls "constructing music parametrically, from atomic building blocks" allows composers to "assume command over the medium" ? Not doing so, do "composers lose control over its signifying capacity" ?

I think if that were true, then I don't actually have any issues with Downie and with the aesthetico-political urgency of his program. Unfortunately, what the atomic building blocks of music are is undecideable. Or rather fortunately... it's a little vortex of contradictions rich in possibilities for compositional exploration.

It's not enough to say that an argument is irrelevant because it doesn't engage with the real world, then point out how lamentably marginal it is: Downie is right that there is no 'middle ground' that the artist can occupy. But by appealing to the modernist principle of letting music be a medium for the pure contemplation of its own basic building blocks, and then identifying what those building blocks actually are (pitch? duration? timbre?), Downie (like you, perhaps, and I imagine I'm wrong about that) engages in a different and no less counterproductive kind of positivism. The elementary atom of music is itself grounds for skepticism.

For further reading, on the 'elusive elementary atom of music' I have to refer you to the dissertation of my colleague Dr Brian Kane at Columbia University, though not everything he says in that epic, eminently readable tome is anent this discussion. If you want to dip into that item, I'll have to convince him to make it public; I only mention it to dissolve the impression that these are entirely my own ideas.

But he doesn't think of his performers as marionettes, as you're implying. Ian should comment on that.

That 'categorical urgency' is shorthand for a modernist position, though. When we compose, we're inclined to think about pitch organization, rhythmic structure, and other such parameters that have notational immediacy. In improvised music, the elementary atom-candidate that first suggests itself is the 'gesture' (i.e., clearly NOT the note and its result-oriented parameters). But I find a lot of improvised music from Bailey to Parker to Braxton seems to contemplate some notion of an elementary atom of gesture: a note becomes an overtone gliss becomes a squeak, etc. Where I place pressure with my tongue changes the tendency of a particular fingering to overblow in different ways... In both cases, notated and improvised, it requires a leap of abstract thinking to make forays into the contemplation of the other set of elementary atoms: in notated music, we don't compose gestures, at least not interesting ones, without intimate knowledge of instrumental technique. In improvised music, one can't create parametrically rigorous score-like experiences without one's brain connected to a multivariate analysis machine.

Hadn't heard the Tudor anecdote; great stuff. I wish I had been there.

No, I mean Marxist/philosophical argot, not musical argot. But you're right that it takes a sophisticated kind of reflection about the power of music to see how this exchange is relevant to the weekly or daily worker. However, it's an admirable bit of optimism to attribute that sophistication to the working class, and I can't help but applaud it and wish them well in their efforts to make this type of conversation available to that readership. I can't see why you have a problem with it, but I'm also tired of waiting/wading to find out why.