Back at Poppa Rollo's

Last week's DECOMP (08/30/09) was at the Clay Pot due to Poppa Rollo's electrical fire. It was our first DECOMP of the new school year (we had about 13 people). The Clay Pot was great but way too loud for serious discussion. We did do a creative exercise: each person was given an unusual object and had to instantly improvise a story about the object (how they came about owning it or what significance it had in one of their past "experiences"). It was great for creative mind stretching. We started off by not giving the person the object until they were to begin so no one could start thinking about what they would say until it was their turn – and they wouldn’t miss listening to someone else’s improvisation. That was very difficult – so we then began to hand out the object if you were the next to go. (Jeff, his turn near the end, brilliantly tied together many of the stories in his improv).

This week (09/06/06) we met back at Poppa Rollo's like old times. We had about 9 people join the discussion. It began with the following:

If we say that music evokes (or recalls) feelings (emotions) that people have already experienced - you feel a certain thing because you have something to compare it to - of course everyone in an audience feels something different because each person defines specific emotions based on unique personal experiences . . . example - Joe hears a piece of music and feels sad based on the sadness he experienced when his dog died.

That said - THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION - Can music make someone experience an emotion they have never experienced before? If we say people can only feel emotion in music based on their own past experiences, can music be written that is the beginning of a new emotion for that person, the experience that they later recall when the hear something?

~just a few~ PRODUCTS OF THE TOPIC

- In order to do this, we would need an entire new set of instruments, a whole new way of communicating sound so people would not bring preconceived ideas to the concert.
- It is possible the bigger idea of this discussion would be can we make people acknowledge emotions they have never been willing to. (people rarely acknowledge their emotions)
- Maybe the music doesn't say something "new" or create a "new emotion" but rather finally describes it in a way we have always wanted to but have never been able to. In that way, we say "thank you, that is what I have been trying to express myself - that is what I have been trying so hard to grasp (describe, express, understand, acknowledge, recognize, be open about, etc.). And from there you can really connect to the music.
- even if someone hates a piece, they have been communicated to, they are talking about the piece, it has impacted them, it made them "hate"
- ideas vs. emotions (left brained vs. right brained); ideas evoke emotions, do composers write their emotions or their ideas to evoke emotions, can composers even communicate their own emotions or is it just their ideas that evoke unique emotions in others?
- infinite amount of possibilities in music, each individual musical possibility evoking a different unique response from each listener - so infinite amount of emotional possibilities because everyone hears it all differently, experiences it all differently