Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!oak.Berkeley.EDU!maverick
From: maverick@oak.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: responsibility (second try)
Keywords: Intonation systems, octaves, pianos, computers
Message-ID: <19433@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 10 Nov 89 20:52:26 GMT
References: <3111@husc6.harvard.edu> <various> <3068@husc6.harvard.edu> <1553@esquire.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Lines: 10


In article <3111@husc6.harvard.edu>, elkies@brauer.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies) writes:

> That wasn't quite what I meant...  Only that, as with text
> typesetting programs, the surface sound of synthesizer output
> can be seductively appealing quite independently of musical
> content, tempting the composer to accept what in another
> medium (s)he would further improve/revise.

The analogy with typesetting suggests that the notes are the content and the sound is the realization of the notes.  Why can't the musicality of a piece reside in what you dismiss as its "surface"?  I would say it does in some Oliver Knussen orchestra pieces, to pick an example from the Euro-composer tradition, and in a lot of popular music -- early Rolling Stones for example.