From: jeffw@or.credence.com (Jeff Winslow)
Subject: Re: Help Required. Dodecacophony. ;-)
Organization: Credence Systems Corp. Beaverton, OR
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 23:19:35 GMT

Noam:
>Jeff:
>:Noam:
>:>and most listeners have not tired of the cornucopia of tonal music of this
>:>and previous centuries.  
>:
>:Oh to be a babe in wonderland. Nice for them. What about the rest of us? 
>
>Come now --- were all musicians and listeners before c.1900
>"babes in wonderland"?  Or do you suppose that all sophisticated
>musicians of that time suffered for lack of atonal music? 

Ah, you're no fun any more. Oh well, since you asked a serious question...
Of course not. But that was then. Now is now. Culture changes, expectations
change, what can be imagined changes, everything changes. It's flippant
of me to call someone who keeps away from half the signature developments
of the music of their time a "babe in wonderland", but it's not entirely
unapt - they live in their own little world which they enjoy (and BTW, which
I also tremendously enjoy), but do not traverse the entirety of the real
musical world of their own culture.

>Or
>if not, that their 20th century counterparts must be bored
>with tonal music only because atonal music is now also available?

There is no "must". There is only "may". And the question doesn't follow:
tired -> availability of atonal music (my assertion) does not imply
or depend on availability -> tired. I mean, you're the mathematician,
but really! :-)

>:>(And quite a few probably find *atonal* music tiresome, if not worse...)
>:
>:To the greater part of them I say, fatigue due to knowledge is always a
>:more difficult malady to treat than fatigue due to ignorance. A statement
>:I make quite without value judgements, if you can believe me.  [...]
>
>What I question here is not the value judgements or lack thereof, but
>the presumption that "fatigue" of atonal music can generally be ascribed
>to ignorance --- that if only the listeners knew/understood the
>music, they would take to it.

After all, there is usually a positive correlation between a person's
knowledge of a subject and their enthusiasm for it. Otherwise they wouldn't
have bothered to learn so much about it. A chicken and egg problem, yes?

And the presumption of ignorance is reasonable.  From the earliest age, we
depend on a sound that incorporates a simple (that is, non-interfering)
harmonic series, the human voice. Also, the vast majority of music that a
maturing human will hear is tonal music rather than atonal music.  And by
the time they are usually exposed to atonal music, their learning capacity
is already well past its peak. Four years of music school isn't likely
to turn that around.

>This especially when you do allow for
>"fatigue due to knowledge" of tonal music: why couldn't the same
>happen with atonal music?  

It could, of course, and if I interpret Eliot Handleman correctly, he has
experienced this first hand. But considering the availability and popularity
of tonal vs. atonal music, the likelihood of this being an important factor
is virtually nil.

Because, to have experienced this "fatigue", you first have to have passed
through a period when it did not fatigue you. You don't say that a man
with no arms is tired because he can't do chin-ups any more.  How many of
those who rail against atonal music can make that claim? You gotta pay your
dues. Otherwise, how can anyone else be sure you know what it's like on
the inside?

Of course, none of this says you have to like it, or that there's any
negative judgement associated with disliking it. But that wasn't the
assertion, was it? The assertion was, simply, "you get tired". You seem
to disagree with that; I'm still not sure why. Maybe it sounds like
I'm talking about some major watershed in a person's life. No - what
I mean is more like, I had chicken all last week, I don't want any tonight.

[I see that you qualify your charge with
>"To the greater part of them" --- i.e. that only a majority, not all,
>are ignorant --- but that still leaves the matter of the considerable
>"lesser part". 

Let's be entirely clear here. I realize that it's common to criticize
people by calling them "ignorant", meaning they don't know what they
should know. But that's not what I mean - I mean simply that they don't
know. There's no particular reason they should know, unless they pride
themselves on a broad knowledge of music, or their knowledge of 20th
century music. Most people don't, and there's no particular reason they
should.

Let me ask you this - you said there is atonal music you like. Why do
*you* like it? What led you to appreciate it? Rather than argue about
vague generalizations, let's have some personal experience. That might
ultimately be far more useful to the person who asked the question
that started this off.

						Jeff Winslow
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical