From: ken@advtech.uswest.com (Kenny Chaffin)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 15:33:21 GMT

In article <8XVawB1w165w@dorsai.com> idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington) writes:
>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
> 
>> 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.

	Sorry, Jeff, but I don't agree with this. There are lots of different
kinds of people in the world. Some are risk-takers and some aren't. To those
that aren't to be forced to take a risk can be the cause of greater suffering
than staying where they are. Much of our evolutionary heritage causes us to
want things to remain as they are, even though they never do. Change is a part
of living, and so is resistance to it--that produces the drive for life to 
continue. Anyway, enough of that. I do by the way agree 100% with your views
on today's academic (and for the most part, popular) music.

>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.  
> 
>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.  

	I agree completely and so does Mark O'Conner in the latest _Accoustic
Guitar_ magazine. He says essentially the same thing when asked about today's 
music coming out of the music schools. 

KAC

Opinions? Can anyone actually _have_ opinions or are they no more 
than dust motes floating in the sunlight of collective intellect.

Kenny A. Chaffin                      {...boulder}!uswat!ken
U S WEST Advanced Technologies         ken@dakota.uswest.com
4001 Discovery Drive  Boulder, CO 80303	     (303) 541-6355
 
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose