From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: minimalism
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 01:45:16 GMT

In article <Bs14IL.10A@quake.sylmar.ca.us> 
brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <Brunpr.KBz@news.cso.uiuc.edu> 
erwin@helsinki.ks.uiuc.edu (Edgar Erwin) writes:
>>Roger Lustig writes 
>>> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>> >I'm glad to hear that "minimalism" is not your "favorite"  genre, 

>>> Um, were you talking to someone?  I don't see any attribution line...

>>> >but how can you justify having any desire to listen to it?  

>>Although I can think of many reasons why I enjoy listening to Glass, Reich,  
>>Riley, etc, I don't feel the need to 
>>justify my tastes to you or anyone else.   

>Well, you don't HAVE TO justify these things, but you don't have to justify
>decorating your living room with the decaying bodies of dead neighborhood 
>cats either, but I would expect that you would have some interest in 
>coming to an understanding of what makes you do that and if any particualr
>kind of living room decor is better or worse than any other kind so as to be 
>able to guide your future choices (say, discovering that the smell of decaying
>flesh produces a bad overall effect). 

Well?  DOES the music of Steve Reich produce a bad overall effect?
C'mon, Brian, tell us how the analogy works.  Tell us how one is like
the other.  Tell us HOW, exactly, Minimalist music is worse than other
music in an objective sense.

>>Although I've not yet had the pleasure of 
>>reading many of your posts, I already
>>have the impression that I would have about 
>>as much chance of convincing you of
>>the merits of minimalism as I would of 
>>convincing Velikovsky that our moon was
>>not burped out of Jupiter's great red spot.

>Come on, I'm willing to accept rational arguments.  

Are you willing to *make* them?  We haven't seen one yet.  And your
analogy above is so bizarre that it's hard to suspect it of being
rational.

>What I'm not willing to accept is ad hominem arguments 

Then why do you invite them?  Why do you write unsupported opinion,
pretend that it's fact, and accuse anyone who disagrees with you of
being irrational or a fraud?  Why do you use stupid analogies like the
comparison between listening to a certain kind of music and living in a
room full of carrion?  Why do you refuse to provide simple
demonstrations of your views when asked to, e.g., showing what the
"metaphysical value judgments" inherent in a certain piece of music
might be?  

Given your behavior in these discussions, you're lucky you get off with
simple ad-hominem attacks.  Flat-out invective would not be uncalled
for.

>and assertions that facts are based on inexplicable whims.

Now, could you show us an example of somebody who has done this?  Seems
to me that e've been producing LOTS of explanations for musical taste,
for musical styles, for all kinds of distinctions within music.  You've
refused even to see them.  What do you want from us, Brian?  That we
simply accept your unjustified judgments abotu what is and is not music?

>>> > Or are you another of these "Lustigians"
>>> > who don't think that there is any way to evaluate musical quality aside
>>> > from knee-jerk emotionalism which is beyond explanation?

[Note that I have seen no response to my request for Brian to show where
I hav ever said anything like this.  In this context, the silence is
deafening.]

>>No.  I respond best to music which is not overly emotional.  Thus I prefer  
>>Baroque, Classical and several more recent 
>>styles, but not in general Romantic.

>Actually I prefer the romantics (the period, not the band ;-), but that's not
>what I meant by "knee jerk emotionalism".  The Lustigians insist that there is
>no particular features of music which give rise to your response to it.  

And you wonder why people make ad-hominem responses!  YOU CAN'T READ!
This is the most hopeless, insulting distortion of what I have said that
illiteracy is the most charitable explanation for your posting.

I have stated that there are no features of a given piece of music that
will give rise to EVERYBODY's response -- and that responses will vary
across cultures, and be culturally determined in part.  That is, the
same thing may move a lot of people in similar ways in one culture, but
not in another.  

I have, as evidence for my position, the simple fact that nobody has
ever discovered an affective universal such as you posit for music.  And
this despite long centuries of looking.  

It is quite telling that your supporter Mark Peter (And, I believe, Ayn
Rand herself at one point, but I don't have _Romantic Manifesto_ handy)
supports the claim that there are such universals with recourse to
Helmholtz -- who concludes his study by claiming just the opposite.

>In
>essence, he is saying that you have have 
>this "aesthetic response" to any sound
>and that there are no particular qualities of any 
>particular sound which in fact
>make it more musical or less musical.  

In essence, you've misrepresented me completely, despite my numerous
protestations and clarifications.  I can impute no motive to you at this
point except ill will.  Tell me: why should I *not* use ad-hominem
arguments against someone like you, who so obviously aruges in bad
faith?

My argument is, in fact, almost exactly the opposite, as you damn well
know by now.  There are INDEED qualities to a sound that make it musical
-- but those qualities are determined only within a context of specific
setting, larguer cultural arena, purpose, and so on.  These are the
things that give rise to art i nthe first place.

>>I enjoy relating the struture of, say, 
>>a Mozart sonata to one by Beethoven or  
>>Bartok.  But one cannot deny that there is something to music that defies  
>>structural analysis.  

>By that do you mean that you are unable to analyze it, or do you claim that 
>there is nothing to be analyzed or that 
>no method could possibly accomplish this
>feat?

The usual false dichotomy.  He has said NEITHER ONE, as anyone with half
a brain could easily read.  He has clearly said, by showing his
preference for analysis, that there IS something to be analyzed.  HE has
also said that it CAN be done.  He has ALSO said that there has, so far,
not BEEN an analysis that has successfully explained the effect of a
piece on its listeners, beyond a certain degree.

And, lacking any evidence from you to the contrary, I think this is a
very reasonable position to hold.  Or can you supply us with one f those
analyses?  Or even perform one yourself?

>>The power of a Xenakis piece, for example, is emotional,  
>>and doesn't require knowledge of the underlying mathematics.  

>I am not saying that one must understand the implicit 
>mathematics to appreciate
>music any more than one must understand the implicit aerodynamics of an 
>airliner in order to enjoy a flight.  I believe that, like the airliner
>aerodynamics, the musical structure must be present in order to make the music
>work well.

Well, it's certainly there in Xenakis.  Do you like _Pithoprakta_?  8-)

On the other hand, notethat we *define* structure in music based on the
pieces we like.  Sonata form is generally defined in terms of Hydn and
Mozart and Beethoven -- and the definitions are usually given by the
scholars who specialize in the music of those composers.  So the
definitions of structure can't simultaneously be derived from obviously
"great" music and define its greatness.  That would be circular
reasoning.

>>Although most  
>>music in the Romantic style bores me unless there is something interesting  
>>going on in the `formal' structure besides the programme, I would never  
>>consider a fan of Romantic music to have lower taste than mine.  

>There is certainly some room for taste, I don't deny that.  My point is that
>what makes music music is something inherent in it, not some purely
>subjective interpretation.

And MY point is that I don't know what that inhereint thing might be,
and that you don't either.  Or, at least, you've failed to show what it
is, despite repeated requests.  

(Of course, we're back to the usual false dichotomy.  Just because
there's nothing inherent in the music to make it music doesn't mean that
the interpretation is purely subjective -- unless you call all of
culture purely subjective, which would get you into a real fix, because
the music in question is part of what defines a culture.)

>>Writing music  
>>which can evoke specific 
>>complex emotions is just as difficult and worthwhile  
>>as coming up with some new structural principles.

>I quite agree.  I believe the Lustigians would disagree with you.  

You believe wrong -- and do so because you willfully misread what I have
written any number of times.

>They would
>say that what matters is the ability of the listener to "make music" out of
>whatever sounds the "artist" produces (if any!).

Quite right!  And that is NOT a contradiction of what was said above.

Why not?  Because composers don't write music for the whole world.  They
write for one particular subset of the world's listeners and
participants; they are generally aware of what that cultural subset is,
and know also what the knowledge and expectations of that group might
be.  They KNOW that their listeners will INDEED "make music" out of
their creations, and will do so in certain ways.

>>> > Is Glass overrated?  That's like asking is smallpox is overrated. ;-)

>>This is exactly what I meant when I said Glass is both overrated and  
>>underrated.  Many consider him a fraud --- many even without a smiley at the  
>>end.  

>I am one of them.

Fine.   Tell us why.  Opinions are uninteresting unless you back them up
with justifications.

>>He's certainly no more of a fraud than Cage or Schoenberg, whom many  
>>people still, unfortunately, see that way.

>In deed.  He is EXACTLY as much a fraud as Cage and Schoenberg.  They are 

Well?  Why are they frauds?  This is where you came in, months ago.  And
you still haven't given us anything other than invective and drivel and
evidence of your own ignorance of music and its history and cultures in
support of your arguments.  

>frauds too.

In what way was Schoenberg a fraud?  What did he do that was deceptive
or misrepresentative?  Give specific examples.

Roger
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical