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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!cmcl2!rocky2!cubsvax!peters
From: peters@cubsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Classical vs Other
Message-ID: <200@cubsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Apr-84 21:08:02 EST
Article-I.D.: cubsvax.200
Posted: Mon Apr  9 21:08:02 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Apr-84 05:32:52 EST
References: <1228@uvacs.UUCP>
Organization: Columbia Univ Biology, New York City
Lines: 19

Dear Yours for Tolerance (this is an open letter, so y'all too!),

I AGREE.

I feel that all music, perhaps all "art," or even science, has to
be viewed in its own context, to be appreciated.  (I'm not arguing that
everyone has to appreciate everything.)  How many people have you heard
say that "All xyz sounds alike"?  I've heard it for xyz == classical music,
rock, bluegrass, jazz, Hawaiian music, Swiss yodelling...   What's more,
ALL THE PEOPLE WHO SAY THIS ARE RIGHT!!!  If you pick
one of your less favorite forms of music from the above list, it probably
all *does* sound alike to you.  But for the forms you like, what you *hear*
is not the "alikeness," but the differences, the subtleties which exist
*within the framework* that "all sounds alike" to the less appreciative.

{philabs,cmcl2!rocky2}!cubsvax!peters            Peter S. Shenkin 
Dept of Biol. Sci.;  Columbia Univ.;  New York, N. Y.  10027;  212-280-5517

"In accordance with the recent proclivity for clever mottos, this is mine."