From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: minimalism
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 01:59:16 GMT

In article <Bs153C.127@quake.sylmar.ca.us> 
brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.173314.1675@Princeton.EDU> 
roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>In article <BruKr7.9Mq@quake.sylmar.ca.us> 
>>brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>            ^^^^^^
>>What happened to Norton?  Enquiring minds want to know.

>I left Norton to start my own company (to produce network utility software).

I wish you luck -- but if your sales presentations are like your
postings, you should sell tickets to them...

>>>In article <1992Jul23.003230.16202@slc.com> 
>>marcs@slc.com (Marc San Soucie) writes:
>>>>Brian K. Yoder (brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us) writes:

>>>>Same way some folk can justify having a desire to listen to Mozart.

>>>Ah, then you see no important difference between a Mozart symphony and
>>>some rattling pots and pans?  

>>Where do the pots and pans come in suddenly? We were talking about
>>Minimalist composers, weren't we? 

>Cage had a piece called something like "Constructions in Metal" in which
>the "performers" banged on various metal objects including kitchen
>utensils.  

This is not the same as "rattling pots and pans."

>I thought you were supposed to be some kind of Cage scholar?

I see you have a faulty memory to go along with your poor reading
comprehension, lack of argumentation skills, ignorance of music and
philosophy, and absence of decency.

Jamey Pritchett and Steve Smoliar are the Cage scholars around here.  I
have listened to many piece by Cage, but am not a scholar of his works.

On the other hand, note that Cage is not a "Minimalist" in the sense
that was being discussed here.  His music has precious little to do with
that of Reich and Glass and Adams -- music that meets all the tests
you've suggested for something being "music," by the way.

>>Now, let me congratulate you.  This must be your biggest non-sequitur
>>yet.  Just because one may justify the desire to listen to piece A, and
>>likewise can justify the desire to listen to piece B, and use the same
>>process of justification, does this mean that there is no important
>>difference between the two pieces?  

> have no idea what you are talking about.

Go back about 30 lines and read your own words.  Just because one can
justify listening to Cage, and also justify listening to Mozart, and do
so in the same terms, does that mean that one "sees no difference"
between the two?  I can use EXACTLY the same reasons for justifying
listening to Haydn and Beethoven, say, and can CERTAINLY discern a
difference as well.  

>>>Would you also apply the same reasoning to
>>>Other kinds of sounds like those produced by 
>>>the DJ on the radio? Does it matter
>>>whether he's speaking english?  Whether he's just babbling in no particular
>>>language?  Or just sitting quietly by the microphone?  What do you think is
>>>the difference?

>>Depends on what *I* wish to *do* with these sounds.  

>What "you" want to do is call something "music" or not.  There are certainly
>non-musical sounds which are of some use (weather reports for example) but 
>just because they are useful or you might like 
>them does not make them "music".

Correct.  I have to listen to them in a certain way before they're music
-- and even then, they're only music to me and others who listen that
way.  Get it?  Music is a set of *behaviors*.

>>If I want the DJ to
>>tell me what time it is, I would like it to be in a language I
>>understand.  If I wish to hear a classical symphony, then talk in
>>English is just as obtrusive as talk in Spanish, and so is rock and
>>roll, or even a Renaissance motet.

>But are they all equally "music" in your view?  

Not at any one moment.  It depends on what kind of musical things I'm
doing.  Talk in a language I don't understand is *very* easy to listen
to as music.

>Or is there something
>fundamental about the rock-n-roll that makes it more musical than the
>DJ announcing the time?

Sure -- all kinds of things.  But only within the culture that listens
to R&R as music.   All kinds of people have, over the years, decried
rock and roll with the very words : "That's not music!"  It didn't fit
into their cultural definition of music.  

There are infinitely many cultural definitions of music, though ,ad they
change over time.  

>>Besides, what do you mean by "the same reasoning"?  I don't recall ANY
>>path of reasoning having been chosen for discussion, only the fact that
>>one CAN justify one's tastes in music, but doesn't need to.

>I thought it was your position that it is impossible to rationally justify
>preferring one sound over another based on it's musical properties?  What

Where have I ever said that?  I suggest that you stop smoking those
funny cigarettes before imputing words and opinions to others.  One most
certainly CAN rationally justify preference -- but it will be with
recourse to one's own upbringing and other experience.  

>are you saying here?

What I've said all along, and what you've refused to hear because you
were shouting and spouting so loud.

Roger

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical