What Does Catler Do?

Hear him tonight

American Festival of Microtonal Music - MicroMay '97 (May 16, 21-23)
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
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reinhard@idt.net
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>However, taking an overgeneralized, dismissive, and
>patronizing tone towards one's fellow microtonalists is below the level of
>discussion here.

I personally didn't get that impression of Neil's comment, but it
probably would have been safer for him not to mention this particular
performer's name.

It's certainly true that there will always be compositions that
reviewers or various audiences don't think much of but the composers like,
or the reverse. But there often are at least *fairly* concrete reasons for
such cases. If so, then there can be no doubt that it truly comes down to
a difference of personal tastes.

I personally however think it's pretty clear that there's a lot of
xenharmonic performances out there where, if you were to ask the composer,
questions like,
* What were you feeling when you wrote/performed this part?
* What do you think are the best parts or aspects of this piece?
* What in this piece would you do differently if you had it to do over?
* What were you trying to portray in this piece?
they would pretty much draw a blank. They never really had anything in
particular in mind to communicate; they were just simply doodling around
on a canvas because they found the canvas neat. A lot of them, I'd bet
money, wouldn't even be able to tell you what happened in a given
performance after the fact.

If on the other hand, the composer/performer can cite specific aspects
they feel are unique, or spots of the music that they feel are especially
moving, or such, and the reviewer just simply doesn't see them that way,
then that's very clearly a perfectly legitimate case of different personal
tastes.






>You are a perfect target for all your own criticisms yet I would
>never level them against you.

Well, I know for certain of at least one of Neil's main criticisms that
very few if any of us can rightfully level against him, that being
performance prowess.

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