Klarinet Archive - Posting 000960.txt from 2000/06

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: RE: [kl] Despised music?
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 12:05:21 -0400

<><> Ed=A0Lacy wrote:
By extension, if there is no bad music, then there should be no good
music. I think most of us are willing to agree that there can be value
judgements in visual arts, drama, literature - why not in music?

There is physically verifiable evidence -- see Benade -- that
certain intervals (eg: perfect 5th, not to mention unison and octave)
appeal to humans because of the -physics- of how our ears and nervous
systems are built and how they are affected by sound waves.
It's true, of course, that all intervals have an effect on us --
microtones, non-12-tone, etc -- but the basic fact remains that some
aspects of music are built into us, and therefore a fixed starting point
exists from which judgements can be formed.
There is physical variation between human beings, not to mention
between rooms and instruments and weather and culture. Hence there's
room for more than one emotional response. But there _is_ a common
starting point among healthy human beings for appraising music.
To use an extreme example (reductio ad absurdum), if I were to play
a melody that never rose above 1 mhz in pitch, you'd have no opinion
whatsoever because you couldn't hear it.

Cheers,
Bill

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