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On May 1, 2005, at 18:57, Kris Hartung wrote: > On occasion, I hear artists claim that they are doing their own thing > without any influences from others, or when someone asks who > influenced > them, they shrug their shoulders and claim ignorance. I find this > laughable, if not arrogant and pretentious, as if they think they can > compose in a vacuum outside the influence of human society... >>I do partly agree, but in a certain sense I believe that you really can compose - and listen to music - "in a vacuum". I guess the question is whether we can objectively test this. If we assume the possibility of subconscious or non-conscious influences, then it is hard construct a sound argument either way, unless we start with a blank slate or "tabula rasa"....and that is a whole different can of philosophical worms. Even with your childhood example, which I think is a rather interesting one (recalling geometric shapes, etc....very fascinating!), you were exposed to some musical patterns, albeit to a limited degree. You consciously recalled goemetic shapes, but what else was stored and integrated beyond your awareness? Can we quantify the influence that it had on you? (Just rhetorical questions, here). Moreover, your case is interesting and probably counts as an exception to my series of claims about influence...which I was applying primarily to mature musicians who do listen to a fair amount of music. I wouldn't mind hearing about other examples of childhood memories of music. [snip] >> Those forms and colors are still the same today, almost half a century later. Learning musical styles, scales and theory has not changed that way of experiencing music. So, I'm thinking that maybe there really are universal human "musical archetypes" (similar to what C.G. Jung described). I'm certainly attracted to the idea of Jungian musical archetypes. It's very intriguing. I wouldn't be surprised if some theoretician has written about this at length. What might we speculate those archetypes to be? For example, would there be an archetype depicting the general feel of the minor key? (emotive archetypes) Or an archetype for scales, or the 12 tone scale, or intervals,, etc. Or are we talking about more "Platonic" archetypes which are conceptual and boil down the essence of a concept...such as the essence of "major key" or "major key-hood". Heh heh. Might birds tap into these archetypes when they sing their songs? This goes further back than Jung. Pythagorus actually proposed that the universe was composed of numbers, that is, that the essence of the universe as numbers....real numbers as entities, not just conceptually as a grid to understand the universe. And of course, we all know about his contribution to our understanding of intervals, the octave, fifth , etc. Plato took this one step further and said the essense of the universe was "form" or essenses. Both Jung and Frued were influence by Plato...speaking of influences. Both Pythagorus and Plato erected there own sort of archtype systems. ....different but related topic, have you read the book "Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind" by David Peat? Very interesting book, that ties both Freudian and Jungian concepts together with physics.....proposes an "a-causal" production of coincidental events, or an "unfolding" from a fabric that is neither physical or non-physical, but much more fundamental than this. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553346768/qid=1114984645/sr=2-3/ ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/002-9037292-3866461 Cheers, Kris