verstehen
According to
Grimm’sches (etymological) dictionary the German „verstehen“ (to understand)
derives from the teutonic „forstandan“ which roughly means „to stand forth“.
The term was, so Grimm says, coined to denote the brave behavior of the defendant
in a medieval trial where he had to face accusations. Such a trial, I guess,
one has to imagine not as the highly ritualized and lengthy procedure of
today’s jurisdiction, but rather as a crowd encircling and drawing in on the
defendant where accusations would actually not only fly in verbal terms (some
relic of this formation might still be found in the court-room where usually
the suspect is in the void between judges and audience.) To defend ones cause had quite a lot to do
with the sheer strength and endurance to remain upright. The prefix „for“ or „ver“ (in ver-stehen) in this sense
therefore connotes the passing of time rather than - as our understanding of
understanding might go - a performative action. To understand, in this sense,
means to keep a difference (or different opinion) alive along with the body
hosting it. In the times following where suspects were increasingly allowed to
defend themselves with words - „verstehen“ therefore gained the meaning of „to
know how to phrase ones cause“ or „to master ones knowledge“ from which it
again shifted to today’s use, which now completely separated from the
jurisdictional context, somehow connotes the ability to affirm the formerly
unknown.
Conspicuous in
regard to an „understanding of music“ (the blueprint on which my writing takes
place) is the move from an utterly (and desperately) self-centered towards a
seemingly altruistic action and its translation into words: the shift from the
time based prefix „ver“ to a somehow spatialized „ver“... „verstehen“ or „to understand“ as a means to orient oneself
in the vast fields of knowledge, opinion and emotion. Scaffold to this
„spatial“ interpretation of understanding is, of course, text, functioning as
the prototypical means to measure distances, scan extensions, create patterns
in order to ensure the readability of the world.
In such a
graphical, written world it seems sensible to conceive music as just another
medium to be measured and scanned and finally transposed into certain forms of
readability - which seems the more sensible as today understanding is less
about the decoding of directed messages or „content“ instead increasingly
depending on the possibilities of large scale comparison, evaluation and
differentiation (as clearly conceivable with „programmed“ music which requires
not only knowledge of different languages, but also makes „composition“ a trial
and error comparison-process within textural layers.) The main risk we run
into, when exclusively subscribing to this methodology also for music (and, by
the way, for any kind of communicative action...) is, that sound and its social
implications will actually become just an appendix to structures, replaceable
and interchangeable. I wouldn’t disregard the possibilities emerging with this
„textured“ approach (which for example consist in creating surprise and maybe
innovation in systematized gamelike settings or in the real time processing and
transformation of sonic structures) - nevertheless I’d propose to alternatively
introduce measures (or methods) to re-vive the „dissident“ body: where
„understanding“ as opposed to „writing“ could again affiliate with the primary
notion of „ver-stehen“: to let the time pass (while the anxiety that
accompanies such a passage becomes part of its momentum). Or even more so: to
create or introduce situations that can’t be captured by a preconceived layout
or scheme. In order to draw closer to such introductions, the position from
which music interacts with its environment must be re-considered. Usually music
confronts the listener with a more or less complex set or conglomerate of
pre-conditioned sonic textures - indifferent of the number, position and/or
state, i.e. complexity of the audience present. In other words: music is
(supposed to be) information to the listeners, whereas the listeners are of no
information to the music. When regarding these 2 poles of the game not as
opposites but as potentially interacting systems „music“, i.e. the technical
means which produce the sonic event could become interfaces that channel or
distribute exchange. Composition in this respect would therefore be not just a
program-design of interfaces with a (real-time) transformable sonic output but
at the same time a research in the conditions of the social system that is
interacting at the given time and situation. In other words: listeners would
become actors and interactors and music an instrument to propose evolving
patterns (notations?) for a collaborative understanding.
Oct. 10th, 2000