Mar 022010
I got sucked into a thread about music theory recently and was prepared to just end my participation by stating: "To each their own, so who cares how people use or don't use music theory as long as their song sounds good?" But instead, I crafted a post that finally articulated my feelings regarding art and science, which ended with the statement: "Yep, art is science." So yep, I think art is science. Here's the post…
I think the word 'rules' being used as an synonym for music theory is unfair. Instead, I think 'guidelines' is probably more appropriate.
In music, the key helps set the mood, the melodic space, of the song and the phrasing defines the structure, which further defines the mood.
In painting, the color pallet helps set the mood and the brush strokes define the structure of the image, which further defines the mood.
So a finished song or image is made up of an unique combination of pallet and form.
In nature, there are certain visual and aural pallets that generally reflect certain psychological states (i.e. mood). Using the color red for stop signs was not an arbitrary choice.
Over time, humans have identified those pallets, those naturally coherent groupings of tones or colors and have given names to those groupings (e.g. Major, Minor, Earth Tones, Pastels, etc) so that we don't have to reinvent them each time we want to create a form to express a particular mood.
So the theories that define musical and visual arts are not rules that were invented by humans. Instead, they are simply naturally coherent groupings of tones or colors humans have given names to, which map to particular moods due to the psychopathology of the human brain.
Yep, art is science. How's that for controversial?
In music, the key helps set the mood, the melodic space, of the song and the phrasing defines the structure, which further defines the mood.
In painting, the color pallet helps set the mood and the brush strokes define the structure of the image, which further defines the mood.
So a finished song or image is made up of an unique combination of pallet and form.
In nature, there are certain visual and aural pallets that generally reflect certain psychological states (i.e. mood). Using the color red for stop signs was not an arbitrary choice.
Over time, humans have identified those pallets, those naturally coherent groupings of tones or colors and have given names to those groupings (e.g. Major, Minor, Earth Tones, Pastels, etc) so that we don't have to reinvent them each time we want to create a form to express a particular mood.
So the theories that define musical and visual arts are not rules that were invented by humans. Instead, they are simply naturally coherent groupings of tones or colors humans have given names to, which map to particular moods due to the psychopathology of the human brain.
Yep, art is science. How's that for controversial?
So, how's that for controversial?
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