Re: the dilettante

[Benjamin Sommer:]
>Writing music-actually printing ideas as sumbols on paper-forces the
mind into a detailed reckoning of the material,

But such "a detailed reckoning of the material" is in no way a
garantee of (or even an investment in) good music, unless one happens
to see it as (or say it is) such - no?

>in the same way that a student of English Composition must use the
essay form to learn to order and present ideas.

Well the enrolled student of English Composition anyway... (Isn't
"must" maybe overstating the point?)

>The idea that Finale and notation programs are meant to be used by
the dilettante to bypass correct and clear notational usage is just
that: a dilettantish idea.

Though I can sympathize with your frustration over this point of view
(and while I haven't the slightest aversion to -- nor see anything
remotely conspiratorial about -- "dots on paper"), I just can't help
but feel the back of a hand (so to speak) when you say the must in
"must use the essay form to learn to order and present ideas," or "the
dilettante..." or the "whatever nutty, unacademic music one wants,"
(etc.) here... but that very well may just be me (and the ways that I
would tend to interpret something). Personally, I say long live
inspired naivete and the enthusiastic dilettante... (And especially
that certain superincumbent something that can often allow inspired
and talented individuals to take advantage of what skill sets they
have *and* have not!)

When Carl E. Seashore wrote of esthetics as a normative science
("Psychology of Music" pp. 377-78), he seemed (to me anyway) to strike
a pretty nice middle ground between the 'academic and the anagogic':

"If there where a one-to-one relationship between the physical sound
and the mental experience or response which it illicits, our problem
would be simplified. However, these relationships scarcely if ever
exist. The mental process never corresponds exactly to the physical
event, and it is in this situation that the real problem of the
psychologist begins on the task of discovering law and order in the
deviations of the mental event from the physical event. This leads us
first to the staggering realization that in musical art, "All is
illusion." Without the blessing of normal illusions, musical art would
be hopelessly stunted. Our profoundest appreciations of nature and art
are detachments from the physically exact and constitute a synthesis
through the medium of normal illusions. But the composer, the
performer, and the listener all deal with the physical medium and all
the theories of form and interpretation of message and response must
in the long run be grounded upon a true cognizance of the nature of
this medium and its possible roles."

Dan

NOTE: I sent this yesterday (10/13/99 8:35 PM), but as I've yet to
received it, I'm going to assume it's lost and go ahead and re-send it
again now... (So if this post should happen to appear twice - my
apologies.)

[Benjamin Sommer:]
>Writing music-actually printing ideas as sumbols on paper-forces the
mind into a detailed reckoning of the material,

But it would seem that such "a detailed reckoning of the material" is
in no way some automatic guarantee of (or even necessarily an
investment in) *good* music, unless one happens to see it as (or say
it is) such... no?

>in the same way that a student of English Composition must use the
essay form to learn to order and present ideas.

Well, the enrolled student of English Composition anyway... (Isn't
"must" maybe overstating the point?)

>The idea that Finale and notation programs are meant to be used by
the dilettante to bypass correct and clear notational usage is just
that: a dilettantish idea.

Though I can sympathize with your frustration over this point of view
(and while I personally haven't the slightest aversion to -- nor see
anything remotely conspiratorial about -- "dots on paper"), I just
can't help but feel the back of a hand (so to speak) when you say the
must in "must use the essay form to learn to order and present ideas,"
or "the dilettante..." or the "whatever nutty, unacademic music one
wants," (etc.) here... but that very well may just be me (and the ways
that I would tend to interpret something). Personally, I say: Long
live inspired naivete and the honest enthusiasm of the dilettante...
(And *especially* that certain superincumbent something that can often
allow inspired and talented individuals to take advantage of what
skill sets they have or have not!)

When Carl E. Seashore wrote of esthetics as a normative science in his
"Psychology of Music" (pp. 377-78), he seemed (to me anyway) to strike
a pretty fair middle ground between what I'll call 'the academic and
the anagogic':

"If there where a one-to-one relationship between the physical sound
and the mental experience or response which it illicits, our problem
would be simplified. However, these relationships scarcely if ever
exist. The mental process never corresponds exactly to the physical
event, and it is in this situation that the real problem of the
psychologist begins on the task of discovering law and order in the
deviations of the mental event from the physical event. This leads us
first to the staggering realization that in musical art, "All is
illusion." Without the blessing of normal illusions, musical art would
be hopelessly stunted. Our profoundest appreciations of nature and art
are detachments from the physically exact and constitute a synthesis
through the medium of normal illusions. But the composer, the
performer, and the listener all deal with the physical medium and all
the theories of form and interpretation of message and response must
in the long run be grounded upon a true cognizance of the nature of
this medium and its possible roles."

Dan