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From: ROGER@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Do you have to be a Musician to enjoy Mu
Message-ID: <11223@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 2 Jul 90 15:09:16 GMT
References: <15069018:49:52KRW1@lehigh.bitnet>
Reply-To: ROGER@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 46
Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article

In article <15069018:49:52KRW1@lehigh.bitnet>, KRW1@Lehigh writes:

>My $.02: I think that any art form eleveted to a high enough
>intellectual level that it is no longer accessible to the untrained
>ear/eye/etc becomes a SCIENCE, not an art.

Why would that be?  Why does inaccessibility make science?  Are all
things that are inaccessible to all but the intellectual a science?

>Let's get our terminology straight.

Yes, let's do.

>Yes, an intellectual exercise can engender an emotional
>response - so what?  If that's what you want, great.

Well, so what indeed!  Lots of people DO want that.  And when you
consider that most art does in fact require SOME intellectual effort,
and I'm talking about movies and pop songs as well as operas and oil
paintings, it would seem that a) people are getting what they want, and
b) the intellectual effort and its relationship to the emotional
response are pretty central issues in our understanding of art and its
reception.  That's what.

>The "worth" of art
>should not be judged as equivalent to its complexity or obscurity.  I'm

True enough.  Tell me, has anyone here been doing that?

>sick and tired of "popular" forms of music being maligned, and
>discounted as valid forms of expression.

Ditto: has anyone here been doing anything like that?

>And I can't for the life of me
>understand the arrogance necessary for someone to say that "art" which
>can be enjoyed by one individual can't possibly be good enough because
>of some narrowly-focused personal value system.  -- Kevin

And I can't for the life of me think of anyone who says things like that.

What's that chip doing on your shoulder?

Roger Lustig (ROGER@PUCC.BITNET roger@pucc.princeton.edu)

Disclaimer: I thought it was a costume party!