Karl Miller wrote:

> ... I remember when music could be "shocking" to an audience.
> While it may be true that even today there are those who question
> the validity of any music written after Brahms, it seemed to me
> that I cannot imagine anything a composer could do to "shock" an
> audience these days.  I wondered if we, as suggested by Leonard B.
> Meyer in his book, Emotion and Meaning in Music, have indeed gone
> as far as is possible to expand the vocabulary of music.  I was
> left thinking that maybe such a notion might be good for music.
> Perhaps now that the shock value is gone, we can just listen to,
> and for the music, assuming we choose to do so.

Beautifully put!  And I hope this is what more and more of us choose to
do.  I would add only that although composers can no longer create shock,
they can certainly create colossal boredom.  Shock can often turn to
pleasure, but boredom seems to endure forever.

David Lamb in Seattle

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