Klarinet Archive - Posting 000088.txt from 1994/07

From: Jim Freeman <collnjim@-----.EDU>
Subj: objectivity/subjectivity and other myths
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 1994 16:57:23 -0400

On Sat, 9 Jul 1994, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

>
> Almost any recording of either of these two great artists will be
worthwhile > for you, but I don't give specific record recommendations
based on subjective > judgements. I'll tell you who I think does which
edition, and who doesn't > seem to understand what performance issues are
about, but I won't say if > clarinet player x play piece y beautifully (or
badly) on disk z. > > My comment on an earlier note that I found Feidman's
view on what Klezmer > music was (not a style of playing but a philosophy)
to be total nonsense > resulted in a rebuke. I point out that I stated
that this was my opinion > and may not apply to anyone else in the world.
While anyone can take issue > with my opinions any time they wish, it's a
free country and anyone may > have an opinion to voice on this board. No
one should feel inhibited from > voicing any opinion they wish simply to
avoid being rebuked for holding it. > > It is one thing to rebuke the
opinion. It is quite another to rebuke the > holding of that particular
opinion. > > > ==================================== > Dan Leeson, Los
Altos, California > (leeson@-----.edu) >
==================================== >

This reminds me a little of Wittgenstein's attempt to reduce philophical
discourse to problems of "bad grammar." Just because our language isn't
capable of expressing certain things (what is mind, is it reasonable to
think that induction will continue to function as it has, is Klezmer a
style or a "philosophy") in a way that is verifiable, I don't think this
means that they are not worth discussing at all, that they don't exist,
or, more importantly, that discussions of these things aren't productive
and meaningfull (in some sense of that word).

However, having said that, I think the style of discourse which so rankles
Dan (and many others, I happily suspect) is not so much this kind of
reductionism, but a cerain kind of thoughtlessness which places functional
equivilance to phrases like "dark tone" and "tone which I happen to like"
or "bright tone " with "tone I don't care for." My biggest concern is
that we 1) not limit ourselves to only discussing things that our language
lets us fully describe (the danger of this actually occuring appears to me
of being, at best, minimal) and 2) when we do venture into the provence of
the unverifiable, we recognize this and structure our language accordingly.

Jim Freeman (collnjim@-----.edu)

   
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