From: idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York's Computer Consulate. +1.718.729.5018
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 18:59:42 GMT

mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) writes:

> Jeff Harrington writes:
> 
> >Excuse me, but this is utterly ridiculous.  The concept of an artist 
> >wishing suffering on herself is a product of pop culture.  (A mis-guided
> >caricature attempting to poke holes in the artifice of self-importance so 
> >hated by the popular media).  
> 
 
> Hey, you're the one who brought up suffering and the rent.  (And HAVE you
No I didn't bring up suffering I brought up the quest for a life worth 
living, adventure, exploration, risk-taking.  Suffering may or may not be 
a consequence of this.  I guarantee you that suffering is a consequence 
of not being a risk taker.  Inner suffering.
 
> integrity, whatever that means.  And the "whatever that means" is, I guess,
> the crux of the matter.
Whoop, I can see that my rant is without context now :-) my real point 
was that I believe there are a lot of people who would be writing more 
interesting and expressive music (even romantic?) music if they were 
"true to themselves" instead of worrying about what Professor so and so 
would think.  A good friend of mine at LSU lost his chance at tenure 
primarily because a couple of years before he started writing a much more 
expressive and romantic music.  
 
> 
> >Our culture is in serious trouble because we all make too many compromises.
> 
> I disagree completely with this.  If anything, this is an era of absolute
> stands on everything; your statements are entirely within character with it.
> The problem with this approach, at least in the arts, is that it produces a
> lot of junk, because it makes art essentially an act of self-indulgence.  If
> you will not "compromise", then you become your sole audience.  Indeed, the
> more typical end is that your in-group is your sole audience, and you can
> easily end up with garbage like half of what passes for "classical music" in
> this century.
> 
> Understand this: I do agree with your assertion that someone consumed with
> wory over the bills and the like is going to have trouble producing.  But I
 
Again, I see I'm being misinterpreted.  Whoops, better get the context 
thing going.  I was trying to explain my viewpoint that in the '50's, 
60's and 70's and on many composers wrote the fashionable piece.  The 
piece which would get them more privilege in the academic community, a 
better shot at tenure.  This usually meant 12 tone music.  It sometimes 
meant "conceptual music."  (I remember an incredibly dull composer I had 
met a while back who wrote a piece using the first word of each section 
of the dictionary.  Kindofa cage-thingie.  Previously he had written 
Persichetti-like counterpoint.  The choral piece was a disaster.)  He was 
a professor by the way, not a student...  To repeat, I know a lot of 
people who write dull, complex, grey music but who get off on Beethoven.  
This is tragic.  I'm not saying go write like Beethoven, I'm just saying 
bang out a piece that gets you off.  Not a piece which pleases your 
mentors.  
 

Jeff Harrington      
IdEAL ORDER               
idealord@dorsai.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose