Dennis Fodor writes:

>Oh, I think there are quite a few listeners who are accustomed to the
>dissonant musical language (it's hard to avoid because it keeps getting
>shoehorned into programs by a recalcitrant and tricky minority that is
>for it);further, who understand it; and further still, who dislike it--
>in part because they find that it sounds contrived and unnatural.  It's
>perfectly sound aesthetics to dislike the atonal or the serial in music.
>It's perfectly reasonable aesthetics to plead something is ugly because it
>sounds unnatural.

I would say that if you did really 'understand' the music you would not
find it unnatural.  There are always degrees of understanding.  However
there still will always be people who do not like say - just for example -
late 19th century Romanticism etc etc.  There are people who GENERALLY do
not like Mozart much (ME!), or others who even find him quite 'unnatural'
and distasteful (Adorno) and who would rather listen to a Josquin, a
Webern, or a Boulez any day because they sound more 'natural' (you might
have gathered that I don't think highly of either Rousseau or this
half-witted expression 'natural').  There is no compulsion to like
dodecaphony any more than there is one to like Mozart.  Chacon a son gout.

>The serial and atonal innovators have been at it for at
>least half a century and have failed to gain broad acceptance.

'Broad acceptance' means here 'popularity'.  If this is your measure of
music's worth then I suggest listening to pop music.  I am pleased that in
the age dominated by tonal pop music that pantonality has failed to gain
popularity and dread the day it does.  And if THAT day never comes - well
then all the better.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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