Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!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 Mu
Message-ID: <886@artsnet.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jul 90 12:48:26 GMT
References: <15069018:49:52KRW1@lehigh.bitnet> <595@sdl.scs.com>
Reply-To: mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Organization: ARTSNET  Atlanta, GA  USA
Lines: 100

In article <595@sdl.scs.com> dan@sdl.scs.com (Dan Adler) writes:
>Nobody talked about not being accessible. Just that some mental mechanism must
>exist for it to be enjoyed. Can you, being untrained in Swahili, enjoy a poem
>in that language ? -probebly not ;

...except that music is not a language.  The analogy does not hold.

>Does that make poetry a science ? no!
>It just means you lack the mental faculties to enjoy it. This is not to say
>that you CANNOT in principle enjoy it, just that you'll have to expand your
>awareness and knowledge of the language in order to do so.

Once again, what you are talking about sin't enjoying the
experience of music, but the enjoyment of the analytical process.
The analysis is not the same as the experience.

>> 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
>
>This is a very common complaint, but it's based on a misunderstanding of the
>concept of freedom of choice.
>You can "enjoy" things at many levels. You can enjoy how it feels, how it
>sounds, how cute it is, how smart it is, how different it is, and so on.
>But, the stuff we end up calling "art" is most commonly that which requires
>human *intellect* to understand, but that there is no intellectual "formula" 
>(or algorithm) for its creation.

This is a common retort, but it's based on the misunderstanding
that an intellectual response to music is "better" or heiarchally
"superior" to any other kind of response to music.

>And so I feel completely justified in judging
>art in intellectual terms. Even if it's NOT artistic (musical), you are free to 
>enjoy it, but it means you probably can't talk about it or point out to
>someone why it's "good".

You've got a circular argument here, as you've already defined
artistic viability by its intellectual appreciability.

>	I don't think it's narrow minded to say that some pieces of music are
>"junk". On the contrary, if they fail all tests of interest and unobviousness,
>then they are junk - in the music sense.

Like the music of Natalie Sleeth, and most fundamentalist Christian
"contemporary inspirational music"?  I would quickly categorize
those has having a lack of interet and immense obviousness.  But
then, when you mentioned "unobviousness" you didn't say whether
that was a asset or a detriment.

>They still may be ingenious in the
>sense that whoever did them is a millionare. But then, so is anyone who sells
>drugs. The fact that something is popular doesn't make it "good". The fact that
>millions of people think it's true does not make it right -
>just profitable to someone. Look at all the kids using drugs. They enjoy it.
>And they are millions. Does that make it OK ? NO! They were *ALL* wrong.

I think this fellow is hung up on notion that certain kinds of
music cause (or are intimately related to) drug use, far more than
basing judgment of these styles on objective intellectual
criteria.

>	We have to accept some form of objective criticism based on intellectual terms
>otherwise the voice of freedom may be used to get rid of freedom.

I'm beginning to sense some specific political sloganisms creeping
into the conversation.  Ultimately, I don't think they have to do
with validity of a musical style but of that poster's social
and political concerns, and where because of some level of
frustration with making genuine progress in those areas, certain
styles of music have become easy substitute targets.

Let me make it clear at this point that I (1) am a stong opponent
of drug use, (2) am not a fan of rap or heavy metal, but (3)
believe that both are valid musical styles and (4) neitehr are the
cause of drug use.

>And although
>I don't believe that "good" music should be differentiated from "bad" music
>in any constitutional way, I sure wouldn't let my kids (if I had any)
>grow up only on heavy metal and rap.

And that's your responsibility as a parent to expose them to a
diversity of ideas and cultures, including a diversity of artistic
experiences.  If you expose them to the wide diversity of experiences
life offers, they might not wind up using drugs.

But at this point, were I you I'd be more concerned about taxes.
(New Jersey is really making the national news on that.)

Cheers,

--Mark

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