TubeNet

Hey y'all,

So I recently finished the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and after some googling, stumbled across this:

http://www.ohio.edu/people/smithj10/Tub ... roject.pdf" target="_blank

Stroeher, Michael. “Quality in Brass Performance.” T.U.B.A Journal 11 No. 1 (Summer 1983): 12-13.

In this short article, Stroeher discusses the role of the tuba in Pirsig's classic text, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This can be a good point of departure for the teacher or student interested in applying eastern philosophies to western music.

I was wondering if anyone had easy access to this article, and could send it my way, as I'm currently counseling at a music camp with no easy access to any libraries.

Thanks,
~jb

Sorry, my TUBA's go back only to Vol. 13

Hi,
I've got it-PM sent.

Paul

1984 is my earliest, too, assuming I could put my hands on it, which is not likely.

But having read Pirsig, I'm not sure I get the connection to Eastern philosophy, the use of "Zen" notwithstanding. It seemed to me Pirsig's thesis was to discover the meaning of quality, and was more connected to Western philosophy than Eastern. (Pirsig is, of course, a lunatic, however interesting his writing.) He distinguished between those who live in the moment with no regard to how things work, or to the quality of how things work, with those who analyze and understand how things work in order to embrace quality. The former operate by feel, and are often frustrated (he calls them Romantic) while the latter have more control over their relationship to their surroundings and suffer less frustration (he calls them Classical). This was based on the original distinction between the philosophies of Socrates and Sophocles, very much at the core of western philosophy.

Of course, I have no idea what the author of the TUBA article might have said. Most musicians live in the moment, and ignore analysis (or reserve it for non-musical consideration). That's the opposite of what Pirsig proposed, but then he was a philosopher not a musician.

Rick "who'd like to see a copy, too" Denney

I have to say, that's an odd reading. Its focus as a philosophical essay is a sort of unifying principle he calls "Quality". There's a reference to a prior trip across the US with musician friends "who were Negroes who had always been complaining about this Qualitylessness that he was describing. Square. ..." These guys of course belong to the Romantic element you mention, and I guess this complaining about squares illustrates their frustration, but a key point is that they and all their kind are frustrated because the square world is so ugly and messed up.

He tries to examine that principle, not in terms of (and thus subordinate to) more basic philosophical principles, but as the key to those basic principles, thus showing that it's not just for jazz musicians. Just a little more than half way through, he picks up a translation of the Tao Te Ching and discovers that the Tao is the same thing. Eventually he does get to explaining the proposed relationship between Zen practice and motorcycle maintenance. I think if it's more about Western philosophy, it's because it's about showing how wrong-headed Western philosophy has been, where the East is pretty much allowed to get by with having produced the Tao Te Ching and Zen Buddhism (and we don't need to get into how significant these are more generally in Eastern philosophy.)

Donn wrote:Just a little more than half way through, he picks up a translation of the Tao Te Ching and discovers that the Tao is the same thing.

Which just goes to show how ignorant Prisig is of Taosim and Zen Buddhism,

it's because it's about showing how wrong-headed Western philosophy has been, where the East is pretty much allowed to get by with having produced the Tao Te Ching and Zen Buddhism (and we don't need to get into how significant these are more generally in Eastern philosophy.)

Which just goes to show how ignorant most Westerners are of the multitude of varieties of Eastern philosophy (most of which are neither Taoist nor Buddhist generally, much less Zen Buddhist), which far and away outnumber those of Western philosophy.

pgym wrote:

it's because it's about showing how wrong-headed Western philosophy has been, where the East is pretty much allowed to get by with having produced the Tao Te Ching and Zen Buddhism (and we don't need to get into how significant these are more generally in Eastern philosophy.)

Which just goes to show how ignorant most Westerners are of the multitude of varieties of Eastern philosophy (most of which are neither Taoist nor Buddhist generally, much less Zen Buddhist), which far and away outnumber those of Western philosophy.

If it seems to show that, then I must have expressed myself poorly. It just was not an exhaustive treatment of Eastern philosophy, or really any kind of treatment of Eastern philosophy per se. More of an attempt to straighten out a major flaw in Western philosophy, where Taoism and Zen from the East make a brief appearance for moral support. You're welcome to debate the connection that he makes at that point, but I guess the only answer to "that shows how much he knows" is "that shows how much you know", or some similar riposte.