I think Judith is absolutely right.  Every day, everywhere I go, and
especially where I work (in a shopping mall, for my sins) I hear cheap
music which does nothing and goes nowhere, gratuitious music that nobody
asked for and nobody listens to.  The other day in the mall I saw two
very small girls accompanying their shopping parents, both carrying toy
microphones, so they could pretend they were Miley or Hannah or whatever
her Disney name is.  It nothing to do with music, but with incessant
distraction.  (I remember a British critic's description of Australian
pop star Kylie Minogue as 'a prancing dancing antiseptic swab.') All it
is is background noise.

And most of the new 'classical' music I hear, from the minimalists to
the Tan Duns, similarly goes nowhere.  Nowadays if people go to the
lakeshore they cannot hear the waves lapping or the fish jumping; if
they go to the mountains, they cannot hear the waltz of the wind.  I'm
afraid most people nowadays cannot even hear music in any meaningful
sense.

Donald Clarke <[log in to unmask]>

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