Len Fehskens [[log in to unmask]] said:

>... Further, your inference that because classical music, though good, is
>"marginal" for most people in general, it should also be the case that
>atonal music, because it is marginal for most classical music listeners,
>must also be good, is just as odd a syllogism.

With this post I confess it: I don't *believe* in Atonal Music.  Studies
have shown, and so argued Bela Bartok already in the thirties, that the
human brain automatically tries to find structure or system in music (or
images etc) thatn seem to have no, or have no, system in themselves.  This
demand for control and system is coded in our genes and is a part of
ourselves.

Consider why the Cro-Magnon human survived the Homo Neanderthalensis.
The reason was Cro-Magnons demand for control, and the Homo Neanderthalensis
lack of such demand.  I shall spare you a fat bunch of arguments, but one
I will present on this mailinglist for studies of Stoneage: it is a fact
that most of Cro-Magnons livingplaces have been found on hills, or areas
that peak up from the rest of the landscape, while most of Homo
Neanderthalensis livingplaces have been found in valleys (btw note the name
Neander-Thal= Neander Valley from German language).  And this shows the
distinction: Valleys are generally warmer and provides a shelter from
cold unpleasant winds, and are therefore at first sight appropriate for
living in.  Hills are colder and more windy generally, but they provides
the advance that gems can easier be detected, and approaching enemies
discovered in early time.  (But against last argument stands that the
people of these societies were much more peaceful and lowaggressive than
people of agridultural societioes that came later, but this has nothing
with this to do).

So, may I suggest that the people who love Atonal Music have some blonde,
longheaded, chinless, blad, Homo Neanderthalensis forefathers? ;-)

Steve Schwartz [[log in to unmask]] reveals:

>If I hate other atonal music, I hate it for reasons other than many
>people hate it too.

You want to share something with us here?

>As I said, nobody likes everything.  There's lots of music - mostly from
>the 18th and 19th centuries - I don't like and would prefer not to spend
>time hearing.  But unfortunately it does make me close-minded.  That's
>part of the price I pay (and it's a significant price).

I am nobler than "The White Rose" (or what that aristocrat was called),
the noblest of the noble: I stubbornly continues to dabble with things I
dislike, listening to music I dislike.  With this strategy I have sometimes
discovered absolutely wonderful things in life.  But it has of course also
brought me much time of boring listening to "boring" music, so if this has
made my life richer than someones with a different strategy? Hard to
tell!:-)

Mats Norrman
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