Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!mit-eddie!nessus From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Volume Message-ID: <4502@mit-eddie.UUCP> Date: Thu, 20-Jun-85 04:47:00 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4502 Posted: Thu Jun 20 04:47:00 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 21-Jun-85 00:42:29 EDT References: <4450@mit-eddie.UUCP> <353@mhuxr.UUCP> <1099@pyuxd.UUCP> <356@mhuxr.UUCP> <1226@uwmacc.UUCP> Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA Lines: 71 ["Watch while the queen in one false move turns herself into a pawn"] > [Marcel Simon] In appreciating something as subjective as music, all > we can have are opinions. They can be invalid if they are not > consistent with their own assumptions. Barring that, they are valid. > Naturally, my assumptions will be radically different from someone > else's. Yeah, but just because an argument is valid, doesn't make it necessarily reasonable. If I start out with brain-damaged axioms, it's not clear that my conclusions are likely to be other than brain-damaged. If I have the axiom "Music is good if and only if it is played on kazoo" then my conclusions will probably be bogus. "Bogus?" you say. "By what criterion?" By intuitive rejection of absurd conclusions, we can reject the axioms. How do we decided on what our axioms should be? Well, our first axiom should be Occam's razor: we want as few axioms as possible. You refuse to accept this? Well foo! Then you're a close-minded cretin! :-) Then we chose axioms that lead to intuitively palatable conclusions. It seems like a real waste to me to have all sorts of axioms for every type of human expression. "Music is timbre", "Novels are plot", "Movies are character developement", etc., etc., ad nauseam! Foo! Why not one nice little axiom like "Anything is good to the degree to which is encourages intelligence, originality, and compassion"? Seems pretty nice to me! Gee, it even allows music to have drum machines in them! Shucks, but it excludes Madonna! Oh, well. Too bad... > If that same piece moves someone to make outrageous statements, there > must be something in it to awaken such passion, and I'll check it out > (like Kate Bush, whose music I know little about, but whom I will > definitely investigate) I dunno. There certainly exist people who will say outrageous things about Madonna and Duran Duran, and there's nothing in their music but calculated mass mind control.... But in any case, please do check out Kate Bush -- in particular "The Dreaming". I'd be interested in what you have to say, even if you don't like it. But it's no fair to listen to it once and then flame. It's definitely an album that has to be listened to several times before you can begin to absorb it and make any reasonable comments. And I'll check out some more jazz... (Does Kate Bush count as jazz? Dave Tayler says she does. But I don't believe him. What about Fred Frith? He's a god! But probably not jazz... Ornette Coleman is pretty good. To bad he hasn't learned about drum machines and sequencers. What a waste!) >> [Marcel Simon] Maybe he an I can get together and form a band. Let's >> see, it would have no drum machines and no acoustic intruments. I bet >> we'd make great music! > [Rich Rosen] What's a non-acoustic instrument? (If you mean > "electronic", you're going to run out of percussion and rhythm awful > fast, Marcel, since percussion instruments other than drum machines > qualify as acoustic instruments. Oh well, it was a nice project while > it lasted... :-) Hey, Rich, you forgot that Marcel allows those electronic drums that you hit with drum sticks and which then make funky synthesized drum sounds. We could use one of those. Or we could just set up some percussion sounds on our Fairlight. We'd have to rip out all the niffty sequencing circuitry, but that's okay. Nothing else really matters, just as long as it's CRANKED! "Virile young men run down the street in havoc singing 'I wish to build, I penetrate, I penetrate'" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)