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From: gmf@uvacs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Classical vs Other
Message-ID: <1238@uvacs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 18:21:18 EST
Article-I.D.: uvacs.1238
Posted: Thu Apr 12 18:21:18 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 05:43:29 EST
Lines: 30


References:  syteka.460   uvacs.1228

>>  I believe there is another distinction beyond good and bad.
>>  Many music lovers are drawn to the works of artists who appear
>>  human through their music, that is, the music itself has the
>>  feelings of human activity and probability to it.

A point well taken, generally speaking.  I have experienced this over
the years with various blues artists.  And I remember someone saying
that no one under 40 should play the slow movement of a Beethoven sonata
in public (or words to that effect).  (Classical music need not be
played as if by a machine, any more than jazz, etc.)  I have also
experienced something like this during certain performances of
certain classical music at certain times.

Still, one can make a distinction between music and the performance of it.
In the case of "pre-composed" music, the music may be performed so as
to convey or exemplify human activity (including fallibility), or
not.  Hence the music is something separate.  For improvising, or (in
favorable cases) composing on the fly, the distinction is perhaps not
so clear.  Still, if X improvises and Y imitates Y, then Y may do so
poorly or well.

It doesn't seem to me that separating music from the performance of
it, or the performers of it, need imply separation from human emotion,
The human emotion is made when performer and music meet (to coin an
adage).

     Gordon Fisher