Brown Book: Difference between revisions

Brown Book (view source)

Revision as of 10:42, 5 January 2025

1 byte added , 25 days ago

no edit summary

MLavazza

Bureaucrats, Editors, Interface administrators, Administrators

6,328

edits

@@ Line 784: / Line 784: @@
 I will here again describe the ''kind'' of thing that happens in your mind and otherwise when you recognize a person coming into your room by means of what you might ''say'' when you recognize him. Now this may just be: “Hello!” And thus we may say that one kind of event of recognizing a thing we see consists in saying “Hello!” to it in words, gestures, facial expressions, etc. – And thus also we may think that when we look at our drawing and see it as a face, we compare it with some paradigm, and it agrees with it, or it fits into a mould ready for it in our mind. But no such mould or comparison enters into our experience, there is only this shape, not any other to compare it with, and as it were, say “Of course!” to it. As when in putting together a jig-saw puzzle, somewhere a small space is left unfilled and I see a piece obviously fitting it and put it in the place saying to myself “Of course!” But here we say, “Of course!” ''because'' the piece fits the mould {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,138}} whereas in our case of seeing the drawing as a face, we have the same attitude for ''no'' reason.
-The same strange illusion which we are under when we seem to seek the something which a face expresses whereas, in reality, we are giving ourselves up to the features before us, – that same illusion possesses us even more strongly if repeating a tune to ourselves and letting it make its full impression on us, we say, “This tune says ''something''”, and it is as though I had to find ''what'' it says. And yet I know that it doesn't say anything in which I might express in words or pictures what it says. And if, recognizing this, I resign myself to saying, “It just expresses a musical thought”, this would mean no more than saying, “It expresses itself.” – “But surely when you play it you don't play it ''anyhow'', you play it in this particular way, making a crescendo here, a diminuendo there, a caesura in this place, etc.”‒ ‒ Precisely, and that's all I can say about it, or may be all that I can say about it. For in certain cases I can justify, explain the particular expression with which I play it by a comparison, as when I say, “At this point of the theme, there is, as it were, a colon”, or, “This is, as it were, the answer to what came before”, etc. (This, by the way, shews what a “justification” and an “explanation” in aesthetics is like.) It is true I may hear a tune played and say, “This is not how it ought to be played, it goes like this”; and I whistle it in a different tempo. Here one is inclined to ask, “What is it like to know the tempo in which a piece of music should be played?” And the idea suggests itself that there ''must'' be a paradigm somewhere in our mind, and that we have {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,139}} adjusted the tempo to conform to that paradigm. But in most cases if someone asked me, “How do you think this melody should be played?”, I will as an answer just whistle it in a particular way, and nothing will have been present to my mind but the tune ''actually whistled'' (not an image of ''that'').
+The same strange illusion which we are under when we seem to seek the something which a face expresses whereas, in reality, we are giving ourselves up to the features before us, – that same illusion possesses us even more strongly if repeating a tune to ourselves and letting it make its full impression on us, we say, “This tune says ''something''”, and it is as though I had to find ''what'' it says. And yet I know that it doesn't say anything in which I might express in words or pictures what it says. And if, recognizing this, I resign myself to saying, “It just expresses a musical thought”, this would mean no more than saying, “It expresses itself.” – “But surely when you play it you don't play it ''anyhow'', you play it in this particular way, making a crescendo here, a diminuendo there, a caesura in this place, etc.” ‒ ‒ Precisely, and that's all I can say about it, or may be all that I can say about it. For in certain cases I can justify, explain the particular expression with which I play it by a comparison, as when I say, “At this point of the theme, there is, as it were, a colon”, or, “This is, as it were, the answer to what came before”, etc. (This, by the way, shews what a “justification” and an “explanation” in aesthetics is like.) It is true I may hear a tune played and say, “This is not how it ought to be played, it goes like this”; and I whistle it in a different tempo. Here one is inclined to ask, “What is it like to know the tempo in which a piece of music should be played?” And the idea suggests itself that there ''must'' be a paradigm somewhere in our mind, and that we have {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,139}} adjusted the tempo to conform to that paradigm. But in most cases if someone asked me, “How do you think this melody should be played?”, I will as an answer just whistle it in a particular way, and nothing will have been present to my mind but the tune ''actually whistled'' (not an image of ''that'').
 This doesn't mean that suddenly understanding a musical theme may not consist in finding a form of verbal expression which I conceive as the verbal counterpoint of the theme. And in the same way I may say, “Now I understand the expression of this face”, and what happened when the understanding came was that I found the word which seemed to sum it up. || characterize its expression.