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From: ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: RE: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS NEWSGROUP?
Message-ID: <9106120249.AA20142@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 91 02:49:37 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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X-Unparsable-Date: Wed, 12 Jun 91 07:50:53 SST

In article <2055@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> sandell@ils.nwu.edu (Greg Sandell)
writes:
>In article <2503@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>, danny@moria.cs.su.OZ.AU (Danny Yee)
>writes:
>> What has happened to this newsgroup?
>> Has comp.music.theory been created without my noticing?
>>
>> Where are you Eliot Handelman and Stephen Smoliar?
>
>Funny, I think someone once asked "What has happened to this newsgroup?" when
>Eliot Handelman and Stephen Smoliar *were* posting.    :-)  You
>can find their contributions with frequency on rec.music.classical
>now.
>
Actually, I have been pretty quiet on rec.music.classical since my change of
address.  For one thing my resources have not yet caught up with me, and for
another the conversation has been relatively dull.  Eliot seems to have
restricted himself to a few amusing pot-shots, and I have been desperately
trying to catch up on the opera scene in London.  Eliot appears to be more
active on sci.virtual-worlds, which I have just started to read since we are
doing some of that work here in Singapore.

>Comp.music, I believe (and I'm no official representative), is nominally
>devoted to matters pertaining to research involving both computers and music.
>Some of the subjects which get posted here are about synthesis
>algorithms, non-commercial software synthesis packages, music notation
>software, online musical databases, research in music cognition,
>music & auditory perception.  (Questions about commercial
>music software and hardware are more appropriate on rec.music.synth,
>but sadly, many people post here on this subject anyway.)

This always seems to have been the case.  It may be that there are readers who
do not have access to rec.music.synth.  It may be that many readers do not KNOW
about rec.music.synth.  When you have anarchy, it is hard to implement very
much control (not that I am at all disposed to giving up the anarchy, which,
all things considered, tends to take care of itself quite nicely).

>  One category
>of discussion that goes on here from time to time are debates about
>the musical-philosophical implications of these subjects, and
>this was much of the bread and butter of EH's and SS's postings.
>For the time being they seem to be using rec.music.classical as a
>forum for this, which I think is a good choice since it fits in
>with so much else going on there, and they get alot more interaction
>from other readers (whereas on comp.music the dialogue tended to
>be limited to about three people).
>
As I said, the dialog has pretty much died out for now.  comp.music would
certainly be the better forum, since contributions to rec.music.classical
do not get incorporated into the Music-Research Digest, thus allowing other
contributors to enter the fray (which was what happened during the last rather
contentious round until the Digest editor decided that enough was
enough . . . probably with some justification).  Meanwhile, I do
not think that comp.music.theory will solve the problem.  The Society
for Music Theory has now tried to initiate its own (members only) mailing
lists;  and the traffic has been pretty light.  Until more people who are
serious about music theory realize the power of electronic mail and bulletin
boards, we can probably expect computer discussions to focus more of technical
computer questions than on broader musical ones.  (Shall I put on my flame suit
now?)

===============================================================================

Stephen W. Smoliar
Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore
Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Kent Ridge
SINGAPORE 0511

BITNET:  ISSSSM@NUSVM

"He was of Lord Essex's opinion, 'rather to go an hundred miles to speak with
one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town.'"--Boswell on Johnson