Musical Eugenics... ouch!

Pete, I now wish you had the oppurtunity to lecture some of the half-witted babblers around here who persist in identifying every other culture on the planet as inferior and insipid (particularly the Western tradition-which, ironically, is endorsed by the state as part of a reckless outdated agenda). They cease not polluting young minds with extreme doses of nationalist indoctrination which eventually lead to toxic isolation and reactionist fanaticism.

Cordially,
Ozan
----- Original Message -----
From: Pete McRae
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 03 Mart 2005 Perşembe 23:59
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: new member question from a theory class

I hope you'll forgive any impertinence on my part for feeling the need to chime in here, again.

Once again, a statement like that does a tremendous disservice to intellectuals who are quite capable (to say the least) of discerning the difference between "objective" quantification, and experiential "knowing", but who may be skeptical towards the "science".

I know from the flurry of nonsense that came from the very mention of ___, that "real" intellectuals are just as prey to their affections and affectations as anyone else. And, I just met a physics professor who insists on calling 12Tet a "well-temperament", presumably to obfuscate the nature of his real agenda, which is preserving the institution as it serves himself.

For my money, Western "functional" harmony is merely a function of Western "teleological" or "pragmatic" considerations, NOT of any particular physical reality, ie the overtone series.

If one considers a harmonic progression (eg V-I) in the Music Theory class sense "profound", or insipid and sentimental (as I do), what does that mean with respect to someone who considers an interval, or scale, or Rag, or whatever, "devotional"?

The former probably does not believe that he or she is merely buffeted by their own emotions, in other words they don't believe it's insipid or sentimental, anymore than the latter believes that their devotion will actually cure disease, or achieve enlighenment, in any time-constrained fashion.

I hope we can keep the "debunking" on topic, and somehow mitigate so much, pardon the expression, musical Eugenics.

Best,

Pete