From: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Mr. Yoder as a Minimalist Thinker....
Date: 22 Jul 92 16:54:10 GMT
Reply-To: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI

Brian K. Yoder returns, equipped with the same lovely kitbag full of
testosterone and informal fallacies, none the wiser. He lobs another
salvo at his tormentors:

>I'm glad to hear that "minimalism" is not your "favorite" genre, but how can you
>justify having any desire to listen to it?  

At the very least, for the same reason one reads your posts. It's another
data point - the stuff of contemplation - an utterance or work to be
considered in its context of behaviour. I think that perhaps a more 
useful question would perhaps have been something like, "Why would you
choose to listen to something which is not in your collection of favorite
styles *more than once*? I'd suspect that since the rest of us are not
equipped with the latest model objectivist radar, more than a single 
listen may be necessary. Alternately, another listen may be occasioned
by the acquisition of another set of data points about the work or its
context. I find that this is pretty much necessary in cases where the
cultural context or the historical context of the work is not available
to me on first listen. As you seem to have pointed out in your usual 
"subtle as a flying mallet" style, we may be listening differently to
music than you do, or listening for different reasons.

>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?

I'm sure that Roger will be flattered to discover that he's been transformed
into a group or viewpoint, but please be reminded that such a view isn't
nearly as monolithic as you describe. It would appear that Roger has
been the most inclined to or interested in replying to your screeds -
that's all. By the way, don't we have a bit of a false dichotomy in
your last little bit of the post? If you've chosen your questions for
anything other than their value as a kind of rhetorical broadside, then
I really think that you "just don't get it." I'm sure we're all very
happy that you're back, and that we look forward to more of this pithy
and enlightening discourse. Have a nice day.

P.S. You know, I was just thinking - I'm sure that rec.music.misc would be
very interested in your applications of your cross-cultural and cross-
temporal standards to the popular music of today, as would any number
of readers in rec.music.bluenote, rec.music.industrial. Why not bring
the stark white light or reason to the unwashed masses *there?* They're
crying out for some real leadership in rec.music.funky, and you're just
the ticket. Just a thought.
--
All the more beautiful in the concert hall with people in their fine clothes and
yourself in the same place as the original music. The rest, I imagine, must be 
like the sound of a radio orchestra in the 1940s, Europe fiddling beneath the 
darkness and abandoned capital cities leaning into the sound as it becomes noise
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical