Stirling Newberry responds:

>Professor Bernard Chasan wrote:
>
>>And yet, the simple listener (to whose numbers I belong) really need not
>>get involved in these doctrinal disputes, which are as relevant to us as
>>the causes of the Thirty Year War.  ...
>
>Which is my point.  As long as you think of yourself as a consumer, you
>will be treated as one.  Most peple are under the delusion that companies
>make what people want, when more energy is actually invested in trying to
>find ways of getting consumers to want what they already make.  There is
>a certain arrogance in thinking of the world of classical music as merely
>a spigot that produces sounds one likes, don't you think?

Stirling makes it sound so crass.  Yes, I am a consumer, although I like
the word listener much better.  But I am missing Stirling's main point.
Apparently I am being badly treated because there is a huge amount of
recorded music available.  In actuality, if you are willing to put up with
the artificialities of recorded music, the listener - consumer is way ahead
of the wealthiest and most cultured patron-prince of yore.

I am not arrogant, I am pleased that things are as good as they are.  In
terms of repertory and reasonable price.  The recording industry, with all
its sins of omission and commission is far ahead of orchestras and public
radio and television, institutions which are supposed to be lighting the
way with no regard to profit.  Tower in Boston is two blocks from Symphony
Hall.  It is the more important of the two venues.  Sterling is loading
the dice by reducing music to "sounds one likes ", a description which,
I suspect, Stirling would not like attached to his own music.

He seems to believe that the process of listening to recorded music is a
rather low activity, not far removed from pigs at a trough.  On the other
hand, pigs at a trough need the nourishment and maybe, in a different way,
music lovers do as well.

Whenever I read an eloquent and often passionate communication from
Stirling, I am left with the eternal question, What does Stirling want?

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University