Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!randvax!edhall
From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: WHY NO ONE CARES WHAT S. PAGE DOES
Message-ID: <1991Jun25.044117.8155@rand.org>
Date: 25 Jun 91 04:41:17 GMT
References: <9106230259.AA12032@lilac.berkeley.edu>
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In article <9106230259.AA12032@lilac.berkeley.edu> ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
>In article <1991Jun20.194837.19912@rand.org> edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall) writes:
>>  Sometimes the paradigm
>>(to use a well-warn word) is the problem, not just the practicioner.
>>It seems that music theory itself might be suspect.  I'm sure the
>>thoretician is just as likely to be kind to children and small animals
>>as the rest of us.  But the practice of music theory often seems to me
>>much like nuclear physics limited to particles whose names contain the
>>letter "e".
>>
>Unfortunately, Ed, you have said nothing to support your case as far as the
>paradigm is concerned.  Yes, there are those who practice music theory who
>may devote their lives to cataloging interval relationships in WOZZECK;  but
>there are also thesis-hungry physics students who may very well end up looking
>at nothing other than "particles whose names contain the letter 'e'."  We are
>still in the arena of practice!  If you want to haul out paradigm, then you are
>obliged to say WHICH paradigms of music theory (if any) are making it "suspect"
>(to use your word).

Any theory of music which focuses on pitch and duration, to the exclusion
of other factors, is nothing but a form of numerology.  In fact, even
more inclusive theories of music fall far short if they ignore the
effect of music upon the mental state of the listener or practitioner.
The goal of music is, after all, to produce things to be played and
listened to, and not the production of grist for the analytic mill.

My apologies any open-minded theorists out there who recognize the
centrality of human experience to this thing we call "music."  My
hat is off to those distinguished few, and I am left with just one
question for them: Why have you not succeeded in awakening your
souless brethren?

		-Ed Hall, who is being a bit of a curmudgeon this week
		edhall@rand.org