Re: OT: Musical languistics

But is the purpose of music to be "interesting"? I thought it was meant to
do something to the spirit/soul, make you want to get up and boogie, weep,
or what have you. Do only musicologists find music interesting? For me, a
lot of (though not all) modern classical music is like a lot of (though not
all) modern art - just soulless gimmickry, with a great deal of the
Emperor's new Clothes about it. It won't do just to claim that a piece of
'art' is symbolic of (insert intellectual-sounding cliché here...). If you
need to be told it's symbolic, it ain't art.
Mike (who likes everything from Palestrina to Hawkwind and lots more
besides)
> Obviously, this is not the place for an extended
> discussion on musical aesthetics. But I can't avoid
> the need to comment. There seem to be two schools of
> thought about what 'decent' music is. The first (held
> by a lot of people in the world of 'contemporary
> classical music') proposes that music can be good or
> bad based on how internally consistent it is, how
> skillfully the composer treats/develops the musical
> materials, regardless of the musical language (read:
> set of notes/tonality/atonality/etc.). The other camp
> (which includes most non-musicians, i.e., those
> without 'extensive musical training') think that if
> music doesn't sound like what they think it should,
> then it is bad.
>
> I happen to belong to the former group. And yes, I
> write 'dissonant noise' because to me it is more
> interesting than listening to/writing what I term
> 'warmed-over sentimentality'.
>
> =====
> James Worlton
> -----------------
> Time flies like an arrow.
> Fruit flies like a banana.
>                  -Unknown
>
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