Klarinet Archive - Posting 000718.txt from 2004/10

From: "rien stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
Subj: Re: [kl]: Appealing to the superficial
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 19:29:01 -0400

Tony Pay wrote

<<
In particular, it's worthwhile understanding that kids don't like 'their'
music *just because there's a drumkit under it* -- or whatever.

To think that they do, and to act as if they do, is to demean them very
profoundly.

They may, or may not, come to appreciate Mozart. But if they do, it will be
on what are *both his and their* own terms.

...and, it doesn't really matter if they don't.
>>

Tony, I completely agree. Especially as to your last remark. To me, music is
a part of my life almost as important as my wife and children. And my oldest
son has the talents needed to be a very good professional musician (Dick,
laat hem dat niet lezen: hij is altijd beledigd als ik zoiets op internet
zet) but he decided to become a mathematician and physicist. My second son
was already a great fan of Michael-get-new-faces at the age of five and
still is a lover of hard rock and that kind of music. But yesterday he
surprised me when I was with him to help him with his computer with music
written by Simeon ten Holt, Steve Reich and Phillipp Glass. I was almost
shocked! I would not play "my" music, and he would not play "his" music when
we were together, that was a 20-years old agreement. But he has spent seven
months studying with the Bologna University, and in Bologna he had visited
the Aïda, and ... liked it. So back home he has listened to more classical
music, and, as he said yesterday, liked especially one "old" piece: Elvira
Madigan! (Mozart, piano concerto 19 or 21, I am not sure).

This experience made me wonder on my way back home: How important is it that
people love the "right" kind of music? Does such a thing exist? I always
have been very critical about some kinds of music, and about the people
making it (do you remember or know the worst tear jerker ever: paper
roses?), but not about the people thinking that this music is the highest
form of music: they love it. Let them have it. Even Tom Parkes has his
disciples, and whatever I think of his music let them have it. But them
allow me to refuse to play it.

But the treasurer of our local band has no relationship whatsoever with
music, he and his wife have no pick-up, no cd-player, no dvd-player, and a
portable radio thay only use during holidays to hear Wereldradio, the Dutch
broadcasting system, to hear whether there are serious health problems with
their relatives (no news is good news).

And do you think they are less happy than me? I don't think so.

Rien

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