Katz



Relationship between ethos and epistemology: what is the character of our knowledge, and how is Katz not only suggesting a shift in what we accept as a viable means of knowledge acquisition but also the evaluation of knowledge?

How does Katz handle the “quantum physics vs. Newtonian physics” divide? What do we do with the apparent divide between the sciences and humanities? Can Katz’s suggestions for revitilizing our understanding of epistemology be applied equally to physics as it can to composition studies, or rhetoric? (see esp. 12-15)

Is musica practica—that is, our Western, musical language and “theory of music”—a result of universal, innate musical tendencies, or is it a specific, problematic, and even ideological construction that has persisted over time, gone unchallenged? Do we have a “prelogical” musical sense? (60) – Then, where would this take musical pedagogy? Or even composition pedagogy? If we are all natural writers, natural talents… (Katz goes on to this further, later)

How do we distinction between interpretation and analysis? And why does Katz have such beef with “interpretation”? (75)

“The physical dimension of language as sensuous experience, as the performance and reception of sound, can perhaps move us one step closer to understanding the temporal dimension of affective response. If we listen.” (78)

Is harkening back to a golden age of orality merely nostalgic? When is nostalgia dangeorus? Why cannot orality and literacy coexist?

I might suggest the development of a framework for a rhetorica poetica, as Katz hints at, much like a musica poetica –from there, a musica rhetorica would look just as nice as a rhetorica musica. (See 85)

Embodiment, eloquence… the embodiment of music and the physical, “meatiness,” the human element of rhetoric… Or are we privileging ourselves too much?

“Rhythm and meter inscribe knowledge not only in memory but also ‘in the muscles’” – (87) – we might take this back to Barthes who seemed to think that an over-emphasis on muscle memory in music might lead to a sort of automation or emptiness in music.

Muscle memory, musical memory…

“The music of rhetoric is rooted in the substance of words as sound.” (88)

I wonder if we do not sometimes get drunk on our own music, get lost in our language as we speak. We see this espeially in the short of temper, who seem to be able to whip themselves into a wild frenzy from the rising crescendo of their own voice, even in a vacuum. We must be self-listeners, be self-aware of our own sounds, our own products that we put into the world. And this is what I tell my students in my composition class: to be aware of the potential effect of what you are producing, writing, designing… this is the essence of rhetoric, for me, to listen to the self speak.

89-90 – Truth, reality, the sophists and Gorgias actually start to sound like contemporary

Burmeister mentions autoschedion in his treatise on musical poetics – he used this term to explain the phenomenon of one pretending to think of something at the spur of a moment for a rhetorical purpose… such as “oh, this came to me just now…” to give the impression of quick-wittedness and ingenuity when really it is a pre-formed idea or a notion that occurred during solitary and serious meditation…

I think autoschedion has become normality, as we all construct our speech acts beforehand. there is no real improvisation, there is no real play. But even play has rules. Should we know our own outcomes?

There is the Greek poieo which means “to make” or “to create” – it forms the root for poetry, poetics… and as Katz mentions, we have abandoned this desire to create, to invent. He returns to this trope of “creation and response” (95 and 97 and throughout) which I think pair nicely. We must not only invent but listen to the repurcussions we have created in the world.

Katz: “Perhaps music, that universal language, could facilitate kairotic response in and to writing for all time.” (99) Time is important, here…

Ethos again, 100

“…both poetry and oratory rely on and employ the music inherent in language, the rhythms and sounds of words.” (106)

eloquence (109) … natural talent, embodiment…

“And it’s probably safe to say that when many students read or write, they hear little or nothing at all.” (139) I am cynical like Katz and probably think this is true. But even as I’m writing this note, now, I hear my own inner voice singing. Often my favorite songs I conceive of first as words, when I’m freewriting or “journaling” or such – a spark ignites when two words collide and it finds fuel in an old chord progression I had lying around… soemtimes it all just explodes at the same time, though, and I dive into my mind and it IS almost like a “divination” like a maddened process, like a drunken experience but drunken clarity…

Similarly, one might see a guitarist mouthing the vowel sounds his instrument his making. I think this is ridiculous and annoying, however. But like the writer, the musician knows the notes that are coming, can feel the trajectory of the wave. Maybe not the exact moment, we are not prophets as writers or musicians, but the curvature of space-time becomes known for a moment

“Thus for Zuckerkandl, the meaning of music, like music itself, is temporal and therefore nonreferential. It refers to nothing but itself. The same may apply to the temporal nature of language as well.” (161) Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World might be a good read for me in the future

“However, Meyer believes that emotional meanings must learned. [sic] Thus, while the Kantian categories of intuition, or the natural aesthetic faculty that underlies music and speech, are innate, perhaps the meaning of aesthetic responses and their appropriateness in particular contexts are not…. Although we possess the innate propensity to create and understand music and speech, and although emotions themselves may be universal, using Krashen’s distinction between acquisition and learning, the emotional meanings of music and of the music of language, like vocabulary and grammatical rules, probably must be learned. Like the sound of sense, then, the emotional meaning of music is at least partly social.” (179) – Yes, absolutely, if not entirely social… but there is some sort of universal binding of rhythm, the beat of low bass inspring people to move their bodies. Or do we learn tod o this as well? Yeah

Hemingway (187)

Katz provides a reason to think that we might be able to look at music academically, sound... moving past a visual-centric and logocentric world. But there could be problems with this, too.