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From: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: What makes a piece of electro acoustic music a masterpiece?
Message-ID: <650@xdos.UUCP>
Date: 5 Feb 90 03:10:29 GMT
References: <647@xdos.UUCP> <20400@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Feb1.074731.19127@intacc.uucp> <21656@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <21749@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Organization: Hunter Systems, Mountain View CA (Silicon Valley)
Lines: 41

In article <21749@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> maverick@oak.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick) writes:
>
>OK, suppose we understand emotion and the mind well enough to say why
>Beethoven's Fifth is a masterpiece.  What does it mean that I dislike
>it?  Am I sick?

Gee, I didn't mean to hit a nerve...different people like different things,
each to his own, live and let live, etc.

But you point out one of the reasons why we would not understand such
things very well currently, even supposing the correct conceptual tools
were already available: there is no one who can be neutral on such subjects.

After all, although there are people who may dislike the Fifth for
good reasons, based on perhaps a deep understanding of musical theory
etc and long experience, there clearly are also other people who may
decide they dislike it without having any background in music appreciation,
or even ever hearing it. And many other possibilities as well.

As things stand in the world today, to even try to sort out all of those
possibilities is to risk (A) the appearance of egotism ("who are *you*
to decide?"), (B) the uncertainty of analysis of subjective states,
and (C) the very likely possibility that the analyst himself will probably
not be objective enough to cover the subjects neutrally. And even if he
were sufficiently neutral, few people would be neutral enough themselves
to believe that he was (i.e. prejudice against one or more of the
conclusions).

Back to your question: disliking something is not, in itself, sufficient
evidence to warrant any kind of conclusion at all without further information,
and I wouldn't think that mental sickness is well reflected in musical
tastes, anyway. (All jokes aside.) My grandmother, for instance, although
a very fine person in many, many ways, disliked *all* music. Apparently
she was tone deaf.

In any case, that's not the same question as whether you could figure out
why some people *do* like it (in a precise analytical sense, that is).
	Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt		{pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug
Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow		Professional Wildeyed Visionary