clarity

Daniel drdq at m5.sprynet.com
Sun Dec 27 15:39:56 PST 1998


"There may be some people who find a tone row instinctively compelling, but I doubt there are very many."

Let's see, do you know anybody who finds the C major scale instinctively compelling? I doubt it: but try a good symphony in the key of C.

The Jameson quote is interesting. I'm not familiar with Jameson. Is this essay relatively recent? His comments on the nature of polyphony and monody, or rather his idea of what is "natural" and "unnatural" in each, would be hard to excuse if expressed in a time such as our own, in which it is really not TOO difficult to hear, say, classical Indian music. For, there is an example of music which is not polyphonic, yet manifests the same "concert" psychology that he attributes purely to the Western (European) polyphonic world. In short, these comments ignore the reality of music as it is, not to mention their apparent and too convetional cultural bias. You might do better examining this for yourself, rather than relying on Jameson's authority.

Daniel



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