The musical scale is a convention which circumscribes the area of potentiality and permits construction within those limits in its own particular symmetry.
Interpretation
The musical scale defines the boundaries within which music can be created, allowing for artistic expression within those limits.
The quote by Iannis Xenakis emphasizes the idea that musical scales are not just arbitrary sets of notes, but rather structured conventions that shape the possibilities of musical composition. By establishing certain boundaries, they allow musicians to construct works that possess their own unique symmetry and coherence, showcasing the balance between limitation and creativity in the art of music.
In practice
In a music class discussing the importance of scales in composition.
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.
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.
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.
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
If music sounds dated, it means it wasn't very good in the first place.
Fiction writing is just an excuse to go discover interesting things.
I want my photographs not only to be real but to portray the essence of my subjects also. In order to do that, you have to be patient.
At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity.
Reality is the richest thing there is, the most important thing there is. Our imagination allows us to live an artificial life that is wonderful, extremely rich, but I don't believe any artist would dare to say that artifice is better than real life.
Audience members are only concerned about the story, the concept, the bells and whistles and the noise that a popular film starts to make even before it's popular. So audiences will not be drawn to the technology; they'll be drawn to the story. And I hope it always remains that way.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.