[microsound] musical structure

[Charles Turner]

On Sep 16, 2009, at 10:06 PM, Paulo Mouat wrote:

> My mention of Xenakis

> These works are culture-agnostic

Not completely sure of what you mean by "culture-agnostic," but IX's  
essay "Towards a Metamusic," which appeared in the U.S. edition of  
_Formalized Music_ (1971) and after, is quite concerned with cultural  
processes and products.

Also, in the 1950s "comparative musicology" was quite an important  
area of study, now largely over-taken by ethnomusicology. The  
comparative outlook held out a notion of universalism: that all the  
world's musics could be explained/accounted for in one big theory.  
Viewed from that context, IX and Schaeffer's theories aren't agnostic,  
but simply participated in the universalizing trends of their time.

Best, Charles