tss@astrovax.UUCP (Thomas S. Statler) (12/30/83)
This is in response to tekig!davidl, who asked if "reading spots off a page put there by somebody else 400 years ago and making noise out of them is real". Yes, sir, it is. It is the composer speaking to us, in our own voice, of his loves, his hates, his fears, his passions. To play or listen to a work by a great composer is to experience a great mind at work; whether that mind was alive 400 years ago or yesterday afternoon makes no difference to the work's value as art. If it sounds different, it's because it's from another culture, where opinions on life and art differ from yours. The opportunity to hear such opinions, especially those from past societies, should be cherished in a culture that considers free exchange of ideas so important. To dismiss any music as "irrelevant 'cuz it's old" reeks of closed-mindedness and ignorance. Have you ever actually listened to any classical music? Have you ever actually studied any theory? Or do you just pick away at your guitar strings and hope you'll hit on something? Sorry to be so caustic, but your remarks sound so trite and generation-gap-ish they should be on television. Come to think of it, they have been.
david@randvax.ARPA (David Shlapak) (01/04/84)
To tss@astrovax ---
I hate to interpret other folks' words, but my impression is that you
and tekig!david are talking past each other.
I understood david to be arguing that just because a piece of music
is of recent vintage and its composer is not dead does not mean
it is not "real music (a term I abhore, by the by)."
I understand you to be arguing that the experience of music is independent
of its age or style and is, much like the reading of a fine book,
a meeting of two minds, one belonging to the author and the other
to the audience.
So where, may I ask is the disagreement?
The enjoyment of music is an entirely subjective experience and I
am frankly tired of being told by critics and other self-professed
experts that certain forms (or styles, or periods) are inherently
and objectively superior to others. My musical tastes run from
pre-Gregorian chants through McCoy Tyner to the Go-Gos and I
don't consider any of it more "real" than any other. Even those
styles that are personally not to my liking (gospel & bluegrass)
I cannot condemn as "junk" or "slime." Like you said, the composer,
even in these forms, is trying to say something; I just don't
care for the medium or the message...THAT DOESN'T MAKE HIM OR HIS
WORK IN ANY WAY INFERIOR...chacun a son gout...
Rock on...
From the shores of Babylon hard by the leper colony,
--- dastss@astrovax.UUCP (Thomas S. Statler) (01/06/84)
In response to randvax!david-- No, I think you misread davidl's article. If he had only been saying that contemporary popular music is not necessarily junk just because it's contemporary popular music, I would have no complaints at all. But he wrote (as well as I can remember it), "Reading some spots on a page put there by somebody 400 years ago and making noise out of them is real? ...wake up." I read this as an assertion that classical music is irrelevent because it's old, and that is what I was responding to. How about it, tekig!davidl? Where are you? What did you mean?