Any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance. Claude Levi-Strauss describes (though to illustrate a different point) a captain at sea, his ship reduced to a frail raft without sails, who, by enforcing a meticulous protocol on his crew, is able to distract them from nostalgia for a safe harbor and from the desire for a destination.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Trying to codify music into rigid systems reduces live processes to static objects. This fetishism resembles fascist tendencies to prioritize form over substance.
- In plain terms
- Rigid musical rules turn living art into dead objects.
- What can you take from it?
- Avoid reducing creative processes to strict, immobile systems.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does structure limit creativity?
- How do you balance form and substance?
Another view
Some musical systems provide necessary structure for composition and education.
More from Luciano Berio
Alas, this industrialized twelve-tone horse, dull on the outside and empty inside, constantly being perfected and dragged to a new Troy in shadow of an ideolog…
Permalink to quote #2 Music is everything that one listens to with the intention of listening to music.
Permalink to quote #3
Related quotes
If you're listening to this song You may think the chords are going wrong But they're not We just wrote it like that
George HarrisonGeorge Harrison quote #1 The composer makes plans, music laughs.
Morton FeldmanMorton Feldman quote #1 Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate th…
Jean SibeliusJean Sibelius quote #2