joel@decwrl.UUCP (Joel McCormack) (03/02/85)
I don't know why there is even a question of progress in music, or the arts
in general. Is any music better than that which preceded it? Who cares?
Two hundred years ago I could listen to a few kinds of music. One hundred
years ago I could listen to those, and a few more. Today I can listen
to Vivaldi and Back and Beethoven and Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky and Steve
Reich and Satie and Yes and Mike Oldfield and Pink Floyd. My preference is
the variety I have available today.
As long as new music is being created that I find sufficiently interesting
and moving, there is progress being made. People looking for "absolute"
progress in the sense of music being composed today being "better" than that
composed in the past are looking for trouble, and are merely providing
themselves with poor excuses to be unhappy.
"And some of you are harmonies to all the notes I play;
Although we may not meet still you know me well
While others talk in secret keys and transpose all I say
And nothing I do or try can get through the spell."
-- Al Stewart
--
- Joel McCormack {ihnp4 decvax ucbvax allegra}!decwrl!joel
joel@decwrl.arpa