"notes of strange coastal moans": Music as ordering principle in "AtLoM"

[John B.]

A couple of post-ers have favorably noted the lyricism of the concluding paragraph of "All the Lights of Midnight," and I have to agree--so much so, that I'd like to quote the last sentence in its entirety and suggest that we should pay attention to it as providing insight into a central theme, maybe even a central argument, of the story.

Here's the sentence, with apologies in advance for the missing accents etc.:

Just a different path, a different way, where for perhaps for a moment you and I might be free to imagine, if only fleetingly, scenes of alternate possibilities: quantum theory deprived of one of its most breathtaking discoveries, undone on the corner of Los Pescadores and Covarrubias, where in spite of that treacherous clan clan a different choice is made, her lip unbroken, his cheek unstained, the two of them fleeing for wholly other places, perhaps south to Isla de Chiloe in search of the ghost ship Caleuche or west to Te Pito te Henua to eat oranges and swim above the black reefs, or even cast over the Andes, as far as Peninsula Valdes, where they might linger now, forever in the shadowmatter of their dreams, Francisca with color in her hair and slender chains of gold upon her ankle, Nufro beside her, ears red from the wind, unpainted guitar on his knee, while beneath his fingertips the notes of strange coastal moans bind all the lights of midnight with the powerful prophecy of a song. (84)

The first time I read this, I thought of the concluding lines of Wallace Stevens' great poem, "The Idea of Order at Key West." The entire text is here, and if you go there you'll see that the poem's central image is that of a woman who is singing as she walks along a beach at sunset and, for the speaker and his companion, it is her song that sings that moment--indeed, that world--into existence. Her song is not ABOUT that place; it IS that place. The specific lines I was reminded of follow:

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

I hope you can see the similarity here: that Nufro's song, like the woman's singing and the speaker's gazing through the rigging at the night sky in Stevens' poem, likewise is a symptom of that blessed rage for order. Music, in other words, isn't metaphysics--it is a kind of physics.

I have more to say on this but no time, just now, to develop it adequately. But for now I'll just note that Nufro's order to Francisca, when he joins SENDA, to paint the strings of his guitar "solid to the frets" is a telling image in this story filled with song and which impels its readers at every turn to hear, to listen.

[Raminagrobis]

Music, in other words, isn't metaphysics--it is a kind of physics.

Yes, music straddles that dichotomy of formal abstraction vs. real meaning, of surface purity vs. emotional depth, that MZD sets out to deconstruct in this story - it's pretty much laid out for us in the opening paragraph. Music always straddled physics and metaphysics, even before that distinction was a meaningful one: in Neo-Platonic thought, in the medieval quadrivium, etc. I think the comparison made with the Law is a telling one: the Law is something that must be imagined to have a kind of abstract purity quite apart from its application (which of course it does not). In the same way music has always been imagined to be the art that comes closest to 'pure form' (hence the Platonic association of music and mathematics) - even though a truly 'pure' music divested of human meaning does not, of course, exist.

[Raminagrobis]

One further (slightly tangential) thought: the pun in 'Law too necessarily fulfils in a hearing' does not work in Spanish (as far as I know - unless elmago can tell us different). So that sentence must have been interpolated by Ricardo Justiniano, who translated, or by Abel Izquierdo, who retranslated. Shades of the 'water heater' brouhaha? Come to think of it, this fits in quite neatly with what I was saying above (and what Stencil said in the other thread): it's only in the hearing of the story that its potential for meaning crystallizes into a truth (of sorts).

Edit: by 'what Stencil said in the other thread', I meant this: 'Nufro's theory seems so deeply written into things that it is in the production of the words by which it is explained.'

[modiFIed]

Outstanding, John B. Get you a case o' beer for that.

Always loved Stevens' poem, and of course he's working from mythos older than dirt. Should we talk Aeolian rhythms, or the "music of the spheres" again?

The universe as harmonic chord struck once and still vibrating, vibrato infinitum. Man, that's something to chew on.

But Grobie's comments also remind me of a brief (because he doesn't talk much) conversation I had with a bassist friend of mine a while ago. His band was being reviewed, and the reviewer was praising the "abstract music" they created.

"There's no such thing as abstract music," he complains. "Music is inherently abstract."

One of those bedrock truths that we instinctively know but don't give voice to. At least I never did.

Edit: I just realized you could really take issue with that statement, if your mind went another way. But I'll stand by it.

[Raminagrobis]

Edit: I just realized you could really take issue with that statement, if your mind went another way. But I'll stand by it.

Yeah, I was about to say.

I remember writing an essay about Beckett as an undergraduate, in which I made the claim (lifted, no doubt, from some well-thumbed library copy of a students' guide to Beckett) that B's language at times (as in the sing-song exchanges of Vlad and Tarragon) aspires to the condition of music, which is pure form. My supervisor pencilled a discreet 'Is it?' into the margin, and left it at that.

Music is not pure form, is not 'inherently abstract', surely? If we want to call something 'music' we must invest it with some kind of significance - there is no abstract music. A chord can be uplifting or poignant. Even atonal music isn't really abstract, because it means something in relation to tonal music. White noise, maybe that's abstract. But as soon as you call it music, it stops being abstract.

[John B.]

Just a couple of quick things:

We're told that the basic idea of Nufro's theory is that

a particle's "choice of path" actually determined "the property of the destination" (79)

Isn't that analogous to what theories of harmony describe, too?

(That's not a rhetorical question, by the way.)

Also, we're told that Nufro's fingers "flutter . . . whenever numbers were discussed" (79)--in a manner similar, I would imagine, to this:

. . . by the age of fifteen he declared to several musicians . . . "I have played it all," after which his fingers moved but never touched, string and fret retaining their accustomed distance, Nufro packing more and more shreds of homemade sweater into his ears so he "could hear." (81)

I mentioned in the first post on this thread that Nufro's request to Francisca that she "paint the strings solid to the frets" is significant. It is especially so considering that it coincides with his deepening involvement with SENDA. As elmago notes elsewhere, "senda" means "path." In this story, at least, musicmaking is figured as the creation of multiple paths, some popular, some so idiosyncratic that few can follow. But when he joins SENDA, Nufro ceases to create. He becomes the political equivalent of a cover-band; he becomes the messenger, ceases to be the message. What good will a guitar do him?

[elmago]

One further (slightly tangential) thought: the pun in 'Law too necessarily fulfils in a hearing' does not work in Spanish (as far as I know - unless elmago can tell us different). So that sentence must have been interpolated by Ricardo Justiniano, who translated, or by Abel Izquierdo, who retranslated. Shades of the 'water heater' brouhaha? Come to think of it, this fits in quite neatly with what I was saying above (and what Stencil said in the other thread): it's only in the hearing of the story that its potential for meaning crystallizes into a truth (of sorts).

Edit: by 'what Stencil said in the other thread', I meant this: 'Nufro's theory seems so deeply written into things that it is in the production of the words by which it is explained.'

The spanish word for hearing is 'audiencia'. In Spanish, the phrase toruns out to be 'También la Ley se cumple necesariamente en una audiencia' and the pun still works, albeit with a sightly different connotation.

I'm trying to translate this and some other of the musical paragraphs to see if there's any relation to songs form the Nueva canción Chilena, tough I will need my girflriend's help for that. I'll keep you posted on any findings.

[Raminagrobis]

OK, thanks for that, elmago. I see it does just about work in Spanish, but, as you say, it's not quite the same pun. It sounds like an effort to translate the English pun into Spanish, rather than a pun that originated in Spanish, if you see what I mean.

[modiFIed]

there is no abstract music.

Exactly my thought.

Nyeah!

Seriously - I see what you're saying. But you're talking about heard music.

I'm talking only of music.

And not musical notation either, or a particular work. Just music. What is it?

I note how you say, "when we want to call something music," and "we must invest....etc." But what we do when we listen is not music. When you explain music to me, that structured explanation is something else altogether than the music you explain. When even you hear it, what you hear is one thing, but what you remember hearing, and the qualities you ascribe to that memory, is

something else.

You could catch me on that, and say "Okay, the very waves in the air - they have a shape and a structure." Sure enough - when we look at them. But we do not look at music.

[sutrix]

White noise, maybe that's abstract. But as soon as you call it music, it stops being abstract.

The same way calling a blank canvas a painting makes it so?

[Raminagrobis]

I note how you say, "when we want to call something music," and "we must invest....etc." But what we do when we listen is not music. When you explain music to me, that structured explanation is something else altogether than the music you explain. When even you hear it, what you hear is one thing, but what you remember hearing, and the qualities you ascribe to that memory, is

something else.

You could catch me on that, and say "Okay, the very waves in the air - they have a shape and a structure." Sure enough - when we look at them. But we do not look at music.

Ah. I'm glad you added that in the edit, because I was having some trouble understanding the first part of your post, which had me thinking you were going all platonic on us - I mean sure, you 'evacuate the event', take everything out of music that defines music, and what you're left with is an abstract idea of music - but you can say that about anything: poetry, for example, or the act of eating peanuts.

But your explanation makes perfect sense, and I agree. It fits in with the paradox I was describing up there - that the instantiation of music/law both is and simultaneously is not the thing itself. And there is always something in 'excess', that is fundamentally ungraspable but is nevertheless essential - in the case of the Law, it's the fact that Law had to be imposed by an act of violence even before there was Law - so an abstract of the Law very obviously preceded an instance of it, even if it meant nothing - in fact, only meant its opposite, violent irrationality. In a similar way, the experience of music that you describe does not really exist for us except when/until it is explained or remembered or discussed or invested with emotion. The experience is only 'disclosed' in the passage into experience (even the word 'experience' is causing us problems here), but that doesn't make the experience any the less essential. Music is both entirely abstract and not at all abstract. How's that for equivocation?

The same way calling a blank canvas a painting makes it so?

Yup. Were you referring there to Kazimir Malevich's 'Black square on white background'?

[modiFIed]

Ah. I'm glad you added that in the edit, because I was having some trouble understanding the first part of your post

Aye, bless this blood-red crucible. Note too how it is only with careful explanation and revision--structuring--that the thought--the abstract--is reified and shared between us as an intellectual tidbit--a concrete idea--thus creating a structured piece of reality out of the mind's microcosmic universe of apparently chaotic electrical impulses. And yet one could argue just as vehemently that the impulses are the actual reality, and the "concrete" idea is the abstraction. Spooky.

Music is both entirely abstract and not at all abstract.

And there you have it, sir. It is in fact the best example I can think of of this paradox. What could be more structured than the score of a Mozart symphony? What could be less tangible--yet entirely real and not at all theoretical or platonic--than the music as it emanates from the pit?

[John B.]

We're told that the basic idea of Nufro's theory is that

a particle's "choice of path" actually determined "the property of the destination" (79)

Isn't that analogous to what theories of harmony describe, too?

(That's not a rhetorical question, by the way.)

Perhaps this (in particular the discussion of types of harmony) begins to answer my question. Or does it?

[sutrix]

The same way calling a blank canvas a painting makes it so?

Yup. Were you referring there to Kazimir Malevich's 'Black square on white background'?

You think too highly of me, sahib: I know more or less nothing about artists and art. (And if this one's from HoL, then you think too highly of my memory as well.)

[marsjams13]

If i'm not mistaken, Rami's avatar is Malevich

[naught]

Check out Rami's avatar, sutrix. Does it ring a bell?

Malevich has also painted a white square on white background.




Edit: marsjam was faster...

[sutrix]

I did think of his avatar after I closed the tab, and... (yeah, sure, sutrix. We believe you.)

[modiFIed]

I feel like I should apologize to John for taking this thing off the rails a bit, but was just thinking of my exchange with Grobie in light of AtLoM and Stevens' "The Idea of Order at Key West," and reviewing these posts. And by George, it kind of fits.

Stevens' infatuation with ideas of order and creation, as well as (and more to the point) perception of order and the mental ordering of life and experience represents the same kind of line I was taking with the idea of music versus perceptions of music.

Not that I would compare myself with The Master. More like my thinking is informed by his much earlier journeys into these realms. Stevens got us all thinking about the tension between existence and non-existence, presence and absence (Hi, Stencil), visible order and the mind's idea of order, or visible chaos and the mind's need to stabilize perceived chaos into some kind of order (cf "The Anecdote of the Jar" and "The Emperor of Ice Cream" among others).

Stevens' motif of the singing woman "creating" the observer's experience (and hence the world of the moment) was possibly rattling around in MZD's head when he came up with his frets and strings metaphors. The image of touching the strings without pressing them to the frets in order to produce the "purest" sound—a sound uncreated—that's easily compared to Stevens or, I suppose, Plato.

[John B.]

No apologies required. I saw the connections as well.

The image of touching the strings without pressing them to the frets in order to produce the "purest" sound—a sound uncreated—that's easily compared to Stevens or, I suppose, Plato.

Keats, too, of course:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.

The point: This story seems to be getting at a deeper connection between music and physics than one might initially suspect the two of having. There's much to be teased out concerning that relation, of course.

[elmago]

Ok, so we have:

physics (string theory)

music (guitars have strings, also. The guitar is one of the main components of the Nueva Canción Chilena and Nufros instrument of choice)

sweaters (wich are made of strings)

[sutrix]

And what about literature itself? Stories are also threads aka strings.

[modiFIed]

By the way, John, how much does a Grecian earn?

How about Yeats and melody?

Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old
In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody.

Fergus - he of the Sweet Speech.

I love how the speaker "sings" his ancient ways (not "of" them--he transitive verb "sings" them), and "thine" (rose's) sadness is "sung" by the stars in their high and lonely melody. Would this in effect create a moment/world of Man/Nature harmony? What could please the poet more?

Whoa, modiFIed, you're getting out there...dude...

It's been said melody is the "horizontal" of music while harmony, or chords, are the "vertical."

Can we make a connection to storytelling? We might say the plot, or action of the story, is the linear, the melody, and the favorite toys of MZD--symbolism, metaphor, double entendres, puns, allusions, etc. etc.--are the verticle, the harmony.

[Raminagrobis]

I think the connection between music and storytelling has always been there. Before Stevens and before Keats, music was used to stand for poetry in poetry (by synecdoche?), as far back as Orpheus. Incidentally, John B. implicitly made that connection in the first sentence of this thread when he spoke of the 'lyricism' of that closing paragraph. There was in antiquity no sharp distinction between a song and a poem (carmen in Latin serves as the word for both) because all poems were originally sung. Poems were not always performed in later antiquity, but the association remains. On the whole, whenever you come across a musician in a poem, chances are that he is readable as a figure for the poet.

Music is very often used to stand for poetry in poetry when the poet wishes to stake a claim to immortality. It is also associated with power to create and to change the world (the Latin word carmen means both 'song' and 'magic spell'). Orpheus is the archetypal musician/poet, and he can move inanimate objects with his song - stones and trees follow him. Orpheus is however also used to represent artistic failure (in Metamorphoses XI) since he is torn apart by Maenads. But his lyre continues to play on its own as it floats down the river and out into the sea. Again that association of music and water; the mournful notes of the tides have a strange poetry of their own: Sophocles heard it long ago.

What's the reason for the death of Orpheus? He wanders from his accustomed path and, by chance, his song is heard by an unappreciative audience (the Maenaeds, who think he is scorning their god). The destination point changes. Orpheus is killed because he addresses the wrong audience. The intrusion of that element of chance is what silences his music (or rather what transmutes his music into something immaterial and eternal).

[modiFIed]

synecdoche?

Or metonymy.


And yes, of course. Hence prosody. But I'm more concerned with reactions to my original outlandish idea:

Can we make a connection to storytelling? We might say the plot, or action of the story, is the linear, the melody, and the favorite toys of MZD--symbolism, metaphor, double entendres, puns, allusions, etc. etc.--are the verticle [sic], the harmony.

The connection I'm referring to being the one described, between melody/harmony and plot/device.

Or perhaps that idea has a historical precedent as well?...

[Raminagrobis]

I didn't mean that last post to sound dismissive of your idea (in fact I'd already written it before I read your post, so I just added the first part to generate the illusion of continuity).

Historical precedent? Perhaps the Symbolists? Synaesthesia and all that jazz.

[Slow Dog Noodle]

The connection I'm referring to being the one described, between melody/harmony and plot/device.

Or perhaps that idea has a historical precedent as well?...

I definitely think you're treading on some solid ground here. Usually the best songs are ones that you can whistle the melody of. Similarly, the best books have a strong plot. The most difficult part of writing music, in my opinion, is creating a strong melody. I’m not a writer, but I would imagine that the main story line (or lines in HOL’s case) of a story or novel would be equally difficult to craft.

So I think you can draw a parallel between the allure of a good melody and an engaging storyline. This is not to discount harmony/device, which serves as the backbone or foundation of the song/story and lends support to the melody/plot. I may take your analogy even further by suggesting that the “harmony” consists of everything in the story (not only the symbolism, metaphors, etc., but also character development, setting… ) that does not directly drive the plot. Hmm. I may not have phrased that last sentence very well. I guess I’m suggesting that a given story is made up entirely of melody and harmony, like a song. Melody and harmony (plot/device) act as counterpoint and are engineered to create dynamics that will grab the listeners/readers attention.

Hopefully I didn’t take your analogy and run the wrong way with it…

Also, reading AtLoM and then rereading it a couple of times I began to see Nefro as a sort of bard.

[elmago]

You may want to listen to La luna siempre es muy linda

[sutrix]

Usually the best songs are ones that you can whistle the melody of.

I don't quite agree. If you mean that the most popular songs are ones that you can whistle while driving, then you're probably right; but so far as I've noticed, sometimes a great song is not only entirely devoid of a catchy or even pleasing melody, but is also--if they're present--completely full of shit lyrics.

Similarly, the best books have a strong plot.

This where I'd use usually. The best book I've read has no strong plot, except in a way we tend to try and make sense of and connect things which may not be connected at all.

The most difficult part of writing music, in my opinion, is creating a strong melody.

Nope. The most difficult part of composing is mixing it all together so it sounds good. An amazing guitar riff or piano bar in the wrong place can render both the song and the piece useless. A few weeks ago I got a ridiculously catchy bassline while composing a reggae meets space jazz kind of track. I keep humming that melody even now (it's very catchy), but it just didn't fit in the song, and so far I can't make up any song structure where it would fit. So I've just saved it away in the musicians equivalent of the story pit.

So I think you can draw a parallel between the allure of a good melody and an engaging storyline.

I would say the parallel exists between the allure of a good song, not melody. A good melody could likely be compared to an engaging line or paragraph. Something along the lines of "Once upon a time and a very good time it was..."

Melody and harmony (plot/device) act as counterpoint and are engineered to create dynamics that will grab the listeners/readers attention.

But don't you think that in fiction, it is often the unusual, the unharmonic as it were, that catches the attention? And also (this may be specifically my case), in music too, a good melody or a specific insrument or effect would catch my attention, sure, but an unhinged or out of sync note gets me piqued far more often.

Hopefully I didn’t take your analogy and run the wrong way with it…

And I'm hoping I didn't, either.

[Slow Dog Noodle]

Sorry for the delayed response. I don't have a a computer on weekends.

I don't quite agree. If you mean that the most popular songs are ones that you can whistle while driving, then you're probably right; but so far as I've noticed, sometimes a great song is not only entirely devoid of a catchy or even pleasing melody, but is also--if they're present--completely full of shit lyrics.

Yeah, this is very open to interpretation. There are some songs that get away with having a very weak melody, or no melody at all. But at the end of the day, if you enjoy listening to it, it really doesn't matter.

As far as popularity, I think most of us on this board tend to agree that quality and popularity don't necessarily go hand in hand. I can't whistle most of the popular songs on the radio, but maybe that's because I'm largely indifferent to them.

This where I'd use usually. The best book I've read has no strong plot, except in a way we tend to try and make sense of and connect things which may not be connected at all.

Okay, I can see that.

Nope. The most difficult part of composing is mixing it all together so it sounds good.

Well, I'm sticking to my guns on this one. I'm sure its just a personal thing but melody is the end all for me. After I have that everything else usually falls into place. The hardest thing for me is coming up with the idea, not the physical act of writing it down. That said, I have never tried to compose music for more than 3 or 4 instruments at once.

I would say the parallel exists between the allure of a good song, not melody. A good melody could likely be compared to an engaging line or paragraph. Something along the lines of "Once upon a time and a very good time it was..."

Well, in the context of the analogy I was comparing the melody of a song to the plot of a book because I think both the melody and plot are integral to the work and hold more importance than any one paragraph or measure.

But don't you think that in fiction, it is often the unusual, the unharmonic as it were, that catches the attention? And also (this may be specifically my case), in music too, a good melody or a specific insrument or effect would catch my attention, sure, but an unhinged or out of sync note gets me piqued far more often.

Yes. This is a good point. It is the unexpected that piques interest. But it has to fit in the story. You don't want someone to go out of character solely for the purpose of throwing the reader for a loop. That would be a sour note.