Smoking club

[Jean-Jacques]

I hereby welcome the inaugural gathering of smoking club, my sincerest gratitude and thanks to neonate Annabelle Herschel for her hospitality.

Members present, the seven

Annabelle, gracious hostess
Lucian
Maximillian
Christine
Kira
Jedediah
Jean-Jacques

So without further ado, we all know the rules of engagement, let us commence with our first question.

‘Music, art or science”

[Max Wainwright]

Mr Jean-Jacques

I would continue our discussion on Science, for we ran out of time to debate on the evening.

However I am new to bath and not yet acquainted with all the members of gathering.

I also extend my thanks to Neonate Annabelle Herschel for her hospitality.

As a new kindred to Bath I am Neonate Maximilian Wainwright of Clan Ventrue , it is a pleasure to find kindred who value sciences in the City

[Christine Daye]

Christine tilts her head in confusion at the first question. She is seated upright, quite properly, dressed in a respectably green walking dress, and with green gloves on her hands.

"...music, art, or science?" she queries in a soft voice. "...forgive me, Mr Marcheaux, but how is that a question? For there can be no doubt that music is an art, touched by the very Muses themselves, and yet... at the same time... it is also a science... or so my... reading would lead me to believe.... does not the very universe resonate according to the Music of the Spheres?"

[Jean-Jacques]

Why my gracious lady Christine, you are well placed to opine indeed.

It interests me greatly that music can be both written and yet performed with such passion as to separate the mundane form the pure emotion that drives even a tear to ancient eyes.

The written form suggests an element of science, yet, to mine simple ears there is yet more that flows from the chords within the page when in the hands of a maestro.

As to the vibrations of the air, thence again another question doth flow.

Your admirer, Jean-Jacques

[Max Wainwright]

Max leans forwards, the candlelight flickering off the smoked round glasses he routinely wears.

Music is most elusive, you cannot replicate it or repeat it. You can manufacture a 100 instruments identical in every way, in a heartbeat in my manufactures, and have the same song played on each, by the same musician, but each performance would be different. The small imperfections seem to enhance the art, rather then detract from it. There is method but as it is not repeatable it cannot be a science, I believe.

Max leans back in his chair

[Christine Daye]

Christine blinks slowly, hums quietly to herself.

"Mr Marcheaux... on the subject of the written form of music... the notation which writes the pitches, rhythms, chords, etc. ...you are correct in that they are no more the actuality of the music than the text of a poem is the poem itself... for a musician, it is possible, after dint of long training, to read a score as easily as one would read the newspaper, and to hear the music in one's thoughts as clearly as if it was being played before you... you are aware that Beethoven was deaf quite a while before he stopped composing? He could no longer hear the music with his ears, but he heard it with his heart, and his mind...

"...oh, what I am trying to say is that the science of music is not in its notation, but more in the harmonic principles, chord progressions, modulations and the like... and of course in the sheer physicality of the production of the sound... how the same note played on a plucked string sounds so different from that played on a blown pipe, but yet are the same note... and all capable of inducing emotion in the heart..."

She looks over to Max then, looking at him intently, and there's a flash of something (annoyance?) at his use of the word "imperfection". There's something fae and otherwordly about her, but then she is a Malkavian.

"I must most respectfully disagree with you, Mr Wainwright, in your claim that music is not repeatable. I myself would be quite willing to demonstrate, here and now, my own ability to sing the same song in exactly the same way multiple times. I am also quite capable of singing a song in exactly the same manner as any other singer who I have heard and studied, thereby replicating their music. If I had two harps of the same size and manufacture here with me now, I could demonstrate similarly from an instrumental point of view.

"You are correct in that each instrument is subtly different, as is each performance. My contention is that, for the most part, the listener to the music does not care, or in many situations, cannot even hear that those subtle differences exist. The audience at one of my performances one night will hear the same music should they chose to attend another night during the same run. Their emotions might be different, from night to night, but the music will be the same. To say that music cannot be repeated... well... respectfully sir, you are mistaken."

[Jean-Jacques]

Why Madame Daye, how,very astute of,you and it perhaps brings me to a further conjecture,

What of the proposition that the same performance be heard, or rather interpreted differently by different persons in attendance?

I my self have found my self,disagreeing with a fellow patron at the sound,of a piece. I offer the theory that the art is received not only on the talent of the performer, but that also of the recipient.

Maximilian, it is indeed an interesting concept you propose, indeed if it were a science perhaps there would be but a single translation of the chords, I, as someone of no such talent bear no witness to such, I merely offer a theory.

Jean_Jacques

[Jedediah Knox]

Jedediah Knox finishes scribbling some notes he has been recording on a stack of paper in front of him and sets down his pen.

“Ah expect we can all concur at this point that music contains elements of both art and science, being neither entirely, but not at all diminished bah its dooal nature; if anyone has a refutation to that supposition to offer, Ah have no doubt we would all be grateful to hear it.

Ah’d lahke to raise, for those who may be unaware, technologies allowing for the mechanical replication and playing of music, such as clockwork music boxes, player pianos, and lately mechanisms to record sounds from the air for future - perfect - rescitation. Perhaps this may colour some people’s notion of whether art is still art if reproduced perfectly, as with the pictures in a book.

In mah opinion there’s a lotta merit to the point that music’s effects vary greatly bah listener, and Ah’d go further still: that the same person can have very different emotions aroused in them bah the same music, and not, Ah propose, bah differences in the performance, but bah differences in the person. Whah Ah mahself can readily think of songs that have variously inspired joy, affection, excitement, prahde, regret, loss, and anger in me at different points in tahme. Ah concede that not all of these were necessarily the intent of each song, but a product of song and listener. Can we separate the dancer from the dance?”

[Christine Daye]

Christine looks aghast, her gloved fingers twisting each other nervously. She shakes her head slowly.

"...no... no such recording exists... nor can it exist... you would trap the living music in a machine? Like... like pinning a butterfly to a board?! No! That is... that is an abomination! It's cruel beyond all reason!"

Her voice falls into a quiet hum, soft and soothing, though her manner remains agitated.

[Jean-Jacques]

Jean-Jacques smiles and nods as Christine speaks,

he face the others in the room,

“I admit that I am a merely an untrained ear, yet I have been carried upon the waves of music and the sound of drum and cornet in equal measure to that of the opera house, yet whilst I have no experience of these items to which you refer Jedediah, the wave that has carried my emotions and sense of belief has been the sound direct from those that wielded instruments or voices of what I perceive as an art.”

“Music can move men to deeds beyond that which seem possible”

He pauses,

“Perhaps there is a science that might be akin to that which you refer, though without first hand experience I am unable to judge”