Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles; site convex.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!ahearn From: ahearn@convex.UUCP Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Re: Why classical music is not popul - (nf) Message-ID: <39000005@convex.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 14:30:00 EDT Article-I.D.: convex.39000005 Posted: Tue Aug 7 14:30:00 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 10-Aug-84 00:58:11 EDT References: <1074@hou4b.UUCP> Lines: 41 Nf-ID: #R:hou4b:-107400:convex:39000005:000:2109 Nf-From: convex!ahearn Aug 7 13:30:00 1984 #R:hou4b:-107400:convex:39000005:000:2109 convex!ahearn Aug 7 13:30:00 1984 I'm sorry, but I couldn't let Mark Teribile's remarks pass. In fact, I'm embarassed by them, even though I'm a rampant classical music fan myself. In the first place, I think building myths about the musical erudition of past generations is pretty silly. I grant you that the leisured classes may have been more interested in music (and poetry and art, etc.) in years gone by, but I doubt that the majority of people are any less musically accomplished than they ever were. Do you really believe your average farmer or tradesman ever even *imagined* owning a clavier in Bach's time? True, he made music with what he had, but working people still do (as the underground music movement testifies.) Second, to base the claim that "hundreds of years of musical development ...(are)..lost in two generations" on the spurious claim that people are not as musically aware as they once were is ridiculous. Today, I will listen on my Walkman to performances of music by Palestrina and Bach and Beethoven and Stravinsky (and Patti Smith, the English Beat, the Gang of Four, and Prince). It would be a simple matter to bring along tapes of Chinese or Indonesian or African music, or delta blues, or Applachian folk music. I claim that technology has made possible a more varied and intense exposure to music than ever before in history. (This argument reminds me of a friend who greeted my news that I'd just used a computer to complete a sophisticated analysis of money-supply growth with a muttered comment that "one of these days you'll forget how to add.") Third, the two previous paragraphs should refute the slanderous assertion that "the non-performers are interested only in a `song sung for an idiot'." On the basis of that statement, I can only say thank God I spent the time I could have spent playing scales and doing finger exercises studying philos- ophy and learning to *think*. (And thank God I spend it now *listening* to music, all kinds, from the whole Earth.) Joe Ahearn {allegra, ihnp4, uiucds, ctvax}!convex!ahearn ------------------------------------------------- ex nihilo nihil fit