Korean way of perceiving the determinism of French spectral music and concrete music since 1970

Authors : Kim Jinho

Pages : 183-214

Doi:10.12975/rastmd.20221022

View : 20 | Download : 9

Publication Date : 2022-06-30

Article Type : Research

Abstract :We studied determinism and free will, encompassing links between philosophy, psychology, musical poetics, music analysis, and musical theory of mind (MTOM). The determinism of a musical piece refers to its deterministic features, the deterministic compositional processes involved in its creation, as well as the psycho-poetical determinism of its composer. A strong deterministic composition generates multiple musical elements rigidly and automatically under the premises set by a strong poetic determinist. A weakly deterministic composition, as created by the weak poetic determinist, generates small elements somewhat automatically and logically. Poetic libertarians compose music without planning and as their fancy dictates. We use these ideal definitions to classify certain French spectral and concrete composers and their pieces. We surveyed Koreans to establish whether they heard these genres and composers as such. Five hundred four randomly selected respondents in Korea heard parts of two spectral and two concrete pieces, then completed a data collection tool. Analyzing data in SPSS/Microsoft Excel we identified how people listen to musical determinism/libertarianism and how people have MTOM depend on their psycho-social attributes, including their psychological beliefs in and understanding of determinism/libertarianism: e.g. Respondents who properly understood determinism/libertarianism did better at perceiving the deterministic spectral music and free concrete music than did individuals who did not. Our phenomenological research did not provide the only possible explanation of the links or correlations.
Keywords : determinism, French concrete music, French spectral music, Korean way of perceiving the musical determinism/libertarianism, musical poetics, musical theory of mind, prepared deterministic composition, psychological determinists/ libertarians