jtm@syteka.UUCP (Jim McCrae) (08/21/84)
Greg Paley makes an important point when he says > one's reaction to Babbitt's comments will depend on whether one > views music as an art or a science. (grossly paraphrased) There is plenty of room in even an over-crowded mind to perceive a work of music as an entity to be studied for its properties at one listening, and then to let the subtleties of it as art come forward at another listening. I suspect most of us tend to lean one way or the other. Surely some musicians decide to concentrate on a single view for purity of discipline's sake, Babbitt, for instance. The important point is that the two views are mutually exclusive at any given moment. (Consensus, anyone?) I can listen to the rhythm patterns in a piece of hot Latin Salsa and dissect the different lines of notes like a set of differential equations, all the time thinking "this stuff must be good, it's technically so rich and complex". If I toss my mental meters and gauges aside and just listen, or rather feel, the music, I'm caught up in its peculiar abstract motion to some degree and my memories are stirred and blended in some pleasant or not so pleasant way, all the time vaguely aware that I recently analyzed this or that phrase, gave it a gold star or thumbs down, but I'm not really interested in that now. There is music that stands up to the microscopes of the music scientist but has minimal impact on even a well-trained listener at the raw stimulus level. And there is a lot of music that all looks the same on paper, throw-away stuff to the music scientist, but contains whole worlds of sensory information to the casual listener. Much of the ranting in the net music groups assumes one or the other of these views. (I'm not talking about vapid crap like my-favorite-guitarist contests.) I suspect most of us have made an unconscious decision that music is to be looked at from the outside(science) or from the inside(art), and that the other view is somehow less inspired, or altogether misguided. Without starting any flag-waving, I would like to suggest that it ain't that way, guys. It's a big world, full of stuff, and a single view gives you a single picture. Jim McCrae / Sytek / Mountain View CA / ...!hplabs!sytek!jtm