Kevin Sutton:

>I quite disagree.  See my earlier post for the details, but there was
>indeed a distinction between the two musics.

That's what comes of trying to make a quick point in a rush.  Different
kinds of music for different audiences, different places, different
occasions etc.  etc., of course.  But my understanding is that few if any
people (be they musicians or not) made the popular / classical distinction
in the way that we do today.  And I will not, just now, get into trying
to pin that distinction down, except to say that I do not think it can
adequately be represented by the presence / absence of a regular percussion
beat.

When Bob Dylan gave up performing with just his own guitar accompaniment
and took up with The Band, he certainly split his fans into two opposing
camps.  But to assert that he moved from classical music to popular music
by doing so is clearly absurd.  Bill will probably see this as just another
argument by exception that avoids deeper underlying issues, but I suggest
that he himself has been doing exactly that by focussing his argument on
particular rhythmic instruments rather than on the part played by rhythm in
the overall music, irrespective of how it is delivered.  If we could move
on to discussing how the rhythmic element works in different forms of
music, and why the rhythmic element in "classical" music was so repressed
during much of its history, then we might start getting somewhere in this
thread.

Perhaps I could, rather belatedly, welcome Bill to MCML.  I've read all his
messages with considerable interest, and the reason why I haven't responded
to them (here and elsewhere) is far more to do with lack of time to think
through adequate answers than with lack of interest.  He's raised some
challenging questions and he has an intriguingly different way of looking
at things.  I still think he's got the wrong end of the stick on this
particular issue, but it's a good stick with another more promising end.
I recommend a change of grip.

Ian Crisp
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