Django and music theory

NylonDave

scot wrote: »

.

"It is not difficult for me to imagine a time and culture in which such such observational skills as Django clearly had were cultivated and incentivized to the degree where explanation (which, to me, is the essence of theory) becomes largely irrelevant compared to actual execution".

Why only Imagine, visit a campsite.

I wasn't aware of Bonini's paradox and just checked it out. Oddly enough I made a very similar point here in my little enjoyed thread on LED's which is actually about the danger of buying things which disconnect us from our senses and the information available.

In this case the map is a score or fakebook, the LED is a tool may be useful at times but can in fact disconnect us. (The 1:1 mapping was the illustration chosen by the Wiki author to illustrate Bonini's paradox) The best example I can think of in pop culture which misses the point of this paradox is 'The Matrix' which implies the pathetic fallacy that anything contained by a system can fully describe the system that contains it.

Any way here is what I wrote, whether it illustrates my point at all I don't know.

'I just realised that maybe I didn't give torches a fair shake.

You see I own some maps and in the dark I use a torch to consult them when I am in unfamiliar territory.

But I will stop to do that and maybe plan a route before turning the torch off and letting my night sight return.

Weird thing I have noticed is that now these new fangled LED torches are so ubiquitous I have seen a lot of people out running shining the torch at a map and reading it on the go. Sometimes they fall over their feet and stumble a bit which isn't too bad. Other times they collide headlong with trees and passers by and the like.

I think that the middle ground is better. Or maybe more and more torches. Still fancier perhaps a giant illuminated map overlaying reality. Perhaps an online version too, which would mean you wouldn't even have to leave the house.'

D.

Of course my articulation of the idea is far from perfect in my clumsy allegory as few people share my appetite for irony and I am sadly blind to my infuriating nature.

NylonDave

scot wrote: »

Professor to student, 2015: "Of course it works in practice, you idiot. The important thing for us is, it must work in theory".

There is a slightly different interpretation to that phrase than the one I think you intend Scot.

Perhaps the Professor is concerned with making the theory general and flexible enough do deal with the special case which had arisen. And that theoretical understanding might be very useful if the phenomena was to be capitalised on and developed. Which is the basis of all engineering. One might spend a very long time looking for something in nature which exactly met our needs without alteration.


D.

Shemi

For some reason I find it surprising that Django didn't like discussing musical ideas... It seems out of character for the man I imagine him to be. I just wonder if that may have been a confidence thing in some part. From what I understand, he seemed a bit shy and sensitive to the fact that he was maybe not educated in the same way as others, such as the fact that he was illiterate and probably had very little if any formal schooling. Maybe it held him back psychologically like it does for others in similar situations who shun all things "educational" because they think that they cannot participate or lack the confidence to. It's quite common for people like that to be quiet around others or choose to remove themselves from discussions. If he lacked the musical nomenclature to converse with others I wouldn't surprise me if he moved himself away from musical discussions.

Am I wrong in saying that he sort of envied guys who could read well in certain situations he encountered? It must have surely been frustrating for a guy of his musicality, the kind that has aspirations of composing great works like his mass, to not be able to write it down without someone else's help. I find it a little sad that he maybe never got to realise his full potential in that respect.

I'm probably completely wrong in this, and I certainly don't have the knowledge you guys have about the great man but it strikes me as a little odd as he was such a creative force.

Lango-Django

Interesting the way you think of him, shemakimoo. Somehow I can never picture Django with an inferiority complex or lack of confidence!

But Django was not alone in not being interested in discussing music; Stephane Grapelli was much the same.

In another thread there was a video posted of guitarist Martin Taylor telling a funny anecdote about this... check it out!

Shemi

No doubt you're right Lango-Django... Just some random musings on my part :-)

NylonDave

Maybe it is just about the difference between language and concepts. If I were to overhear a conversation in say Swahili about classical guitar then I might be bored or leave the room.

It would be ridiculous for me to assume that they were talking rubbish just because I hadn't learned to speak that language.

And it would be as silly of them to insist that I didn't have any understanding of the concepts they were discussing because I had not been able to contribute to the conversation, especially if I played better than them.

Most ridiculous of all would be if someone who could neither speak the language or play decided to choose a 'side' based on hearsay and then proceed to ridicule the other.

But it happens a lot..... maybe because that position has the advantage of being easier to take than learning the language or learning to play.

Anyway to avoid confusion I would like to insist that I am aware that it is as possible to learn a language badly and not realise it as it is to play badly and not know. To confuse the matter further very conceivable blend of competency in either or both will be found.

D.

kevingcox

From all that I have read, Django doesn't strike me as someone who lacked confidence in anything.

Buco

I can see some of what you mention @shemakimoo
My feeling about his personality is that there was a layer of insecurity underneath all that flamboyance and being bombastic was one way to cover it up. I forgot the specific details but a few books I read about him made me think that.
But I don't think that has anything to do with him being interested in only making music not talking about it.
However being able to make music on the page and arranging it for the whole orchestra when the inspiration struck is where I can see him deeply wishing he knew how to do that.

Bob Holo

kevingcox wrote: »

I remember back in my Shakespeare studies class in university the professor talking about how absolutely FAST the actors likely spoke their lines "back in the day" for the performances to be as short as they seem to have been. Yet people could follow it with ease. They were simply more comfortable with rhetorical devices used in every day speech and they were used to hearing things only once rather than the repetitive nature of, say, a soap opera.

By the same token, before mass media someone might only hear their favourite symphony a few times in their life. They are certainly paying more attention than when it comes on the radio for the umpteenth time. I know my memory was better before Google came along... you might argue I'm just getting older but actually KNOWING things is being devalued in our educational system as we focus on "critical thinking" and the like.

It is not difficult for me to imagine a time and culture in which such such observational skills as Django clearly had were cultivated and incentivized to the degree where explanation (which, to me, is the essence of theory) becomes largely irrelevant compared to actual execution.

Perhaps Django's thoughts on theory were rather like Bonini's paradox.

An absolutely wonderful post.

Education is changing, and knowledge retention is perceived as less valuable now than in the past, due to the quick access to data. The thing that concerns me is whether people will grok the difference between data and knowledge, because knowledge=data+context+logic+experience+rumination+fact-checking+trial+error+trial+error+trial+error etc. If we cede the recall and retention of information to the internet, we may become less capable of spotting logical fallacies & hence be more easily misled. Given how polarized the world has become in the past decades, I shudder to think that we may be trivializing the importance of knowledge retention on the human thought process. Is there a component of critical thinking that goes away when we stop packing knowledge into our heads where it can bang around in our subconscious and percolate to the surface in the form of new concepts. Machines are wonderfully fast and accurate, but as of yet, they cant hold a candle to humans when it comes to creativity... though Google is attempting to remedy that through projects like DeepMind. In any case, I guess what I'm saying is that humans are associative learners who use their conscious and subconscious minds to process knowledge, so what happens to an associative learner who keeps fewer things in his head?

Fantastic post, Kevin - very thought provoking & I couldn't agree more with you if I were two people.

NylonDave

'If we cede the recall and retention of information to the internet, we may become less capable of spotting logical fallacies & hence be more easily misled.'

Yup sometimes we won't even scroll up a page to check a train of logic, even our own.

D.