I just realized I spat out some not so pleasant nor helpful comments when
I responded a couple of minutes ago, and regret that I didn't take another
minute or so to think out a more gracious response. I am sincerely hopeful
that shirling & neueweise will accept my apology for being crude and
unsympathetic and will offer the same apology to the group here, as I went
off, over the top.
The issue is a pet peeve of mine and has been for a long time, because of
the damage it does to not only the world of composers and musicians (and
other artists in all the other vocations), but because it further
dehumanizes our culture. Endless hyper saturation of anything yields
dimishing returns. They who said "everything in moderation" knew what he
was talking about. Less is more is not foolish jargon. Again, as a
musician, it's painful to hear insipid commercialized renditions of any
musical material (whether or not I like the syle, the song, or any of that
doesn't matter). The real danger is that it takes away from the silence
that would ordinarily allow for people to be lost in their own thoughts,
listening to the music in their head (like when people used to whistle
tunes & hum melodies while walking through market), they're not hearing
the everyday common sounds of life without a soundtrack; if muzak were not
everywhere, I don't think it would make any difference to the market for
portable music players of every kind and description, but it would allow
for some silence between the notes. But it is the silence that spawns the
desire to seek out some music to listen to as opposed to unconsciously
filtering it out of your life everywhere you go. And to me, the decline in
attendance in live music venues, or places that no longer provide live
music is partly attributable to the unnatural omnipresence of canned music
everywhere. Music can cease to be soul food if you are having it fed to
you on IV's 24/7. If you eat nothing but pistachios every day at every
meal, eventually you won't even be able to look at a pistachio without
throwing up; and you will completely have forgotten how much pleasure you
used to glean from an occaisional snack of pistachio. And you're not
likely going to reccomend them to anyone else. ("Pistachios? Oh, yeah; I
used to eat 'em. Not any more tho'. Now they just make me puke.")>>when in days of old, people wanted to hear music (because they >>recognized that their lives were barren without it), they would go >>to the town square.... It was considered a special event, an >>important ingredient in their lives, and the ears and mind were open >>and ready to invest to this pursuit of spiritual adventure. > > that's a bit of a romantic vision of things; the reality is that > there were other periods than ours where the concert experience was > similar to what you deplore, with people talking, socializing, > playing cards etc. while the performance was going on, and not just > in the theatres, also in the aristocratic salons, which are usually > assumed to have the pretention of a "high art" experience. and in > the case of "attentive" salon listening, social convention or even > social politics was quite often the main concern, to a far greater > degree than the "music" itself. very early in the 19th c. this > changed, of course, but at varying speeds and to varying degrees > according to the centre, the proportion between aristocratic or > public control of the local scene, and social layer you view the > problem from, but the modern era is not the only one plagued by > inattentiveness. the reasons are quite different, admittedly, but it > certainly isn't as black and white as you are suggesting. > > do you really think the drunk saloon patrons in the late 18th were > more respectful of the musicians' playing than the drunk jazzbar > patrons of today? > > -- > > shirling & neueweise ... new music publishers > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
