Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical Subject: Re: Progress, the Arts, Razor Blades and Bull Message-ID: <1468@dciem.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 17:35:51 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.1468 Posted: Mon Mar 18 17:35:51 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 18-Mar-85 18:53:35 EST References: <8347@brl-tgr.ARPA> <109@spar.UUCP> <963@hound.UUCP> <3096@allegra.UUCP> <631@mhuxt.UUCP> Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 24 Summary: Arts change, but progression is only the progression of a "fairy ring" (mushrooms or some such fungi spread out from a starting centre point, not re-entering to central area because it has been depleted of nourishment). Each generation knows well what the previous generation fought to invent, and so must invent something a little (or a lot) different. If there is no memory (scores or recordings) to study, random variation could return to an old form; in practice, the lessons of the very old are still embodied in the practices of the not so old, and therefore are shunned by seekers of the new. *For each generation* the music is as subtle and complex and beautiful, but the last generation's music seems simpler because we know how it was done. When we look at a historical sequence from the earliest notated music until the present, we see variants on rules continually forming new rules. The music is more indeterminate, but not more complex within the rule systems used at the time of composition. Within modern rule systems, new music is more complex. But it's not progress *toward a goal of perfection*, it's just continuing change in which all of the old forms the pattern away from which the change must happen. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt