Klarinet Archive - Posting 000037.txt from 2009/01

From: "Peter Gentry" <peter.gentry@-----.uk>
Subj: RE: [kl] Re: If Mozart Were Alive Today...
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:43:18 -0500

Kevin Fay posted

<<I'm a bald, over-middle-age curmudgeon, and don't much like or listen to
eminem. He's an angry young man with too many tattoos for my taste.>>

Spot on Kevin, actually I am 67. I don't limit myself to Eminem - all rap
black or white is puerile rubbish I rather listen to a Kazoo.

I don't get as worked up as emails may suggest what I do resent is the over
blowing of fashion, although I admit that many of the great artists were
"fashionable" at one time or another, and others were not.

And, since art cannot really be defined in absolute terms it would seem
impossible rate it. And yet, we do, all the time.

Is there something more than "I like it therefore it is art/of value"?
Greater minds than mine have struggled with that one to no conclusion.

I like to think there is, when an audience leaves after carefully listening
to a piece of music for two or three hours you can feel the difference.
There can be a sort of collective serenity as they leave still savouring the
experience or there may be a nervous disjointed babble after an
unsatisfactory experience.

Maybe the right audience can receive the same serene experience from the
violent ravings of a rap star (gangster) but it seems more likely they are
looking for the next fight or someone to mug or denigrate.

I know violence and crass stupidity is an ever present part of life but
don't see why I should be expected to appreciate it in music especially as a
monotonous diet. Once or twice just to sample all genres maybe but not as my
main diet please nor as a highly rated part of my diet. Just a rather stale
biscuit which highlights the appreciation of the delicious juicy main
course.

Some people like sticking pins into themselves but is it art?

13:10

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