Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!uflorida!mephisto!gatech!artsnet!mgresham
From: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Do you have to be a Musician to enjoy Music?
Message-ID: <883@artsnet.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jul 90 16:56:57 GMT
References: <15069018:49:52KRW1@lehigh.bitnet> <1990Jun17.043120.14077@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <10209.267b825d@vax1.cc.lehigh.edu>
Reply-To: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Organization: ARTSNET  Atlanta, GA  USA
Lines: 55

In article <10209.267b825d@vax1.cc.lehigh.edu> lukrw@vax1.cc.lehigh.edu writes:
>In article <1990Jun17.043120.14077@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, pmy@vivaldi.acc.virginia.edu (Pete Yadlowsky) writes:
>
>> Firstly:
>> 	- There are no untrained ears. If you have some idea of what
>> 	  music is and is not, consider yourself trained.
>
>Skirting to the extremes and asserting that there's "no such thing" is
>certainly a clever, but tiresome way of avoiding the issue.

Why?  Because it sucessfully points out that 'training' need not
mean one particular kind of training?  It hardly avoids the issue,
but rather lays the foundation for some genuine considerations of
the limitations and possibilities of our training processes, and
what it is we train people to do.

>meaning of "training", as in systematic study, was pretty clear.

But which systematic study?

>> 	- When I listen to Cage's Variations II, I don't think
>> 	  about science.
>
>Good for you.  Perhaps you've developed an intuitive understanding of
>the science and no longer have to think about it.

In other words, he listens to the music, not the structural model
for the music.

>[...various argumants and misunderstandings...]

Look, guys, you're both trying to defend very different points
that are points of style!  As indicated below, both of you are in
essential agreement!  But you're both defending a portion of your
emotional 'turf' that often gets attacked (popular styles for one,
complex/experimental music for the other) but mistakenly against
each other!

>Ok, so your opinion on the original subject is that you don't have to
>be a musician?  Good news for the 3 billion+ individuals in the world
>who probably won't ever get around to any serious music study.  But
>why worry about them...we've got more important things to do...

After all, they're not worried about us, are they?  Instead, they
go on making music, listening to it, and responding to it.

Cheers,

--Mark

========================================
Mark Gresham  ARTSNET  Norcross, GA, USA
E-mail:       ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham
or:          artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu
========================================