Radiolab

Just a quick correction: the hosts say that Rite of Spring is used in Fantasia's "mushroom" section. The mushrooms were to part of the Nutcracker Suite--Rite of Spring was mostly accompanied by images of dinosaurs.

Alas, many listeners have written in to correct us on this fault! The animation for Rite of Spring in Fantasia was actually the story of the growth of life on Earth... a stormy little number from lava to dinosaurs. Thanks to everyone for filling us in!

What was the clip used for the example of contemporary, "after Stravinsky", abrasive sounds in music?

It's *not* sad! Stravinski wasn't trying to inflict pain, he was trying to get others to hear what he heard. Imagine how elated he must have felt to realize that, finally, the public's ears were able to join him in this new plane of music, a plane on which he stood alone for so long. The only sad part would have been how frustrating it must have been for him to have to wait around for the rest of us to develop our ears to the point that we could join him there.

So, now that artists run the gamut from consonance to pure random screeches, what can possibly be new for our brain? Noises at the edge of hearing? I'm sure that's been done as well. I think that's more sad, for the artist and for the individual listening.

tried listening to this episode both streaming and downloading, and in both instances it quits right before the Rite of Spring chapter begins! such a bummer...

After hearing the stuff about consonance and dissonance, it got me thinking that our brain probably reacts the same way for other things besides sound. It is possible that our brain looks for patterns in images or even maybe ideas as well. Which is probably why change or new things sometimes scares us.

This is probably thought about before by someone else.

I think Lawrence is right on in his thinking, and no matter if it's been thought before.

We are inclined to look for patterns in images (think we can recognize a Yorkie and a Pit Bull as a dog), and we love to find ideas that corroborate our own theories (see The Black Swan).

good thought, Lawrence

@eiaboca--

one thing that seems particularly compelling to me in the realm of music and sound is taking place in soundtracks to film and television. Seen No Country For Old Men? There Will Be Blood? Cloverfield? Even the HBO series Extras or USA's the Office--the common feature is a total lack of musical backdrop (No Country), sparing use (Blood), or only as a traditional intro/outro, as is the case with Extras/the Office. Combine that with the anecdote about the guy who worked in the radio station's basement and who untrained his mind/ears to hundreds of years of music by listening to the medieval vocal music--that is, he went from being used to orchestras and electrical instrumentation to purely vocal sounds. When he emerged and heard what we would consider consummately pleasant and refined, he had to clap his hands over his ears.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: It isn't a neat, linear progression, where music starts simple and ends complex. It's all over the place; it's all context, and context always changes.

Um, to finish an unfinished point in my shoddy previous post:

When I see a movie from, say, the mid to late nineties, the gratuitous use of huge, bombastic orchestras at "emotional" or "important" points in a film is almost too much to bear; it feels cheap, easy, and artificial as opposed to letting the actors, editing, cinematography, et cetera to emerge spontaneously and "naturally."

One wonders how the evolution of how such music as Rite has been received (even in the span of that first year) is colored by a pressure to conform, to jump on the bandwagon as it were. As usual there is probably a good deal of overlap in the nature/nurture dichotomy.

Oops! Strike the second "how"...and how!

I wonder if there are many first hand accounts written by those who attended the first performance of "Rite of Spring". It would be interesting to hear how they interpreted the behavior of the crowd and their own actions. Did they consider it a reasonable reaction to something that sounded so harsh and dissonant? Or did they feel somehow strangely out of control and not really know why?