rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/20/84)
> Well, Rich Rosen is up to his old tricks again. I think he only posts > to the net to start arguments. The argument was started by someone proposing a dichotomy of the order 'serious thinking classical music lovers'--'frivolous non-thinking popular music lovers'. > A while back he took a survey of why people looked at this newsgroup - he > never posted the results. You obviously are misinformed as to why the survey was posted -- it had to do with the reasons for having a subgroup in the first place instead of submitting to the parent group. The reason the results were not posted were 1) everyone who took the survey claimed that it was biased and not worthwhile, and 2) most of the responses suddenly arrived all at once (as some gateway was opened) long after I discarded the first 2 (I thought the ONLY 2) responses and the means of decoding/collating them. If you are that interested, I will post them. (On looking at the survey questions again, it seemed to me that although some questions were pointed, the survey itself was "biased" only in that it forced people to answer questions they didn't want to answer. Some interesting things WERE gleaned from the responses about differing ideas about what a newsgroup is supposed to be.) > Rich Rosen accuses all classical music fans of being snobs. Apparently you have been led to believe that when someone uses the phrase "a goodly number of X's", they are referring to "all X's". To me, the phrase "a goodly number of X's" doesn't even imply a majority of X's! I was referring to a subset. Since this hit home so hard, I wonder if you are a member of that subset, if you can count yourself amongst that "goodly number"... > The tone of his article is 'If you don't appreciate ALL music, you are a > narrow minded snob.' But, reading through his articles, I get the feeling > that he has an active dislike for quite a lot of classical music. It would seem that having an active dislike for a lot of classical music is wrong, but having an active dislike of ALL popular music is O.K. according to Mr. Giles. The tone was that "whether or not you appreciate ALL music, if you deride and belittle whole classes of music just because of some whim, some elitist ideals, or whatever, THEN you are much more than just a narrow-minded snob!" (In answer to Giles' speculations, I like what's good, I ignore what's bad, and I despise bad stuff passed off as good, without regard for labels. Good and bad are, of course, based on personal taste rather than prejudicial labelling and stereotyping. Some people don't have time to decide for themselves what their personal taste is, so they resort to labels. We call such people "sheep".) > By the way, there is nothing 'so-called' about classical music. It is > music that has become classic. You could even apply an unambiguous, > objective test to it - it is a classic if is is still widely performed > one or more generations after it was written. This definition does not > depend upon taste or point of view, and by this definition some of the > popular music of today will eventually become classic! "Classical" is a misnomer in that the term applies only to music from a certain period (approx. the 18th century). Perhaps someone with some real knowledge on the subject would be familiar with the exact dates and composers. As far the "unambiguous" test: what about the work of the Beatles? Not old enough. OK, how about the music of Stockhausen or Philip Glass or other recent composers? Still too recent? I guess it's not classical, then. What about African or East Asian music? That's certainly old enough! You mean, THAT's not classical either? How come?? The point is, these labels are just ways for YOU to pigeonhole, and as such they're absolutely meaningless. No one (not even me) wants to read either back-and-forth ad hominem nonsense that Mr. Giles puts forth, or defenses against such nonsense by myself or others. Thus, I call upon Mr. Giles to either continue the discussion by mail or else refrain from further nonsensical attacks entirely. I only submitted this in the first place because I'm sick of getting my name dragged through the dirt by yutzos who seem to make their living misquoting what I've said! -- If it doesn't change your life, it's not worth doing. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr