Re: Hackles have been raised!

[TritoneDW <TritoneDW@aol.com>]

The good Reverend sez:

<< Sounds like someone who's been to one too many
 contemporary chamber concerts? Or someone who's
 had a music professor who composes with number
 theory?
 
 There is of course such a thing as overly
 intellectual music, music that is composed with
 theory only.  And on the other hand, there is
 music that is emotive shit.
  >>

I can partially agree with you here. A compositional method such as twelve-
tone serialism can attract people who think that if they count to twelve,
they've made music. If someone would have put up a post that said "only
intellectual music is good music" I would have reacted just as strongly. 

However, the twelve-tone system, like any other system, can be used to 
create
quite beautiful music. The work of Milton Babbitt comes to mind. Webern, 
too.
Some of his stuff is surely "emotive shit".

For the record, I'm not a twelve-tone composer, and actually every 
university
music professor I ever had was strongly against the twelve-tone system. All
I'm saying is that the attitude that "intellectual" music is automatically 
bad
is just as suspect as the attitude that "intuitive" music is always bad. 
I'll
take it one step farther: you can't objectively say that ANY music is 
bad--the
worth of any art is purely subjective. What I might find emotionally and/or
intellectually satisfying may very well leave others cold. What others find
emotive might strike me as maudlin, or silly, or whatever. "You can't 
please
all the people all the time." (Insert other cliches here)

Anyway, really I'm advocating openness to and acceptance of the vast 
variety
of musical styles and genres out there. It's a big, big world out there,
folks. Listen to it.

Drew