The musical scale is a convention which circumscribes the area of potentiality and permits construction within those limits in its own particular symmetry.
Iannis XenakisRead
The listener must be gripped and whether he likes it or not, drawn into the flight path of the sounds without special training being necessary. The sensual shock must be just as forceful as when one hears a clap of thunder or looks into a bottomless abyss
Interpretation
What this quote means
The listener's attention is captured by powerful sounds that evoke a visceral response, similar to nature's most intense experiences.
Iannis Xenakis emphasizes the profound impact that compelling sounds can have on a listener, suggesting that music should engage the individual deeply, akin to the undeniable force of a thunderclap or the overwhelming sight of an abyss. This quote underscores the idea that art, particularly music, can communicate and elicit emotions without the need for any prior knowledge or training.
Themes
MusicListenerExperienceEmotionImpact
In practice
Example use cases
Used in a speech about the importance of evocative art in education.
More from Iannis Xenakis
All quotes →Music is not a language. Any musical piece is akin to a boulder with complex forms, with striations and engraved designs atop and within, which men can decipher in a thousand different ways without ever finding the right answer or the best one.
Iannis XenakisRead
To make music means to express human intelligence by sonic means. This is intelligence in its broadest sense, which includes not only the peregrinations of pure logic but also the "logic" of emotions and intuition. My musical techniques, although often rigorous in their internal structure, leave many openings through which the most complex and mysterious factors of the intelligence may penetrate.
Iannis XenakisRead
The collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field. These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as totality, is a new sonic event.
Iannis XenakisRead
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