James Tobin winds up an interestingly speculative posting thus:

>Whether one can take my claims about perceiving quality in music any
>further than I have is something I have been banging around for decades
>myself, but I have mostly given it up because (1) I don't really feel
>musically qualified enough--the "objective" consideration"....

I think subjectively that Jim Tobin makes a great deal of sense
objectively.  As I get him, he tends to believe rather more that there
is such a thing as objective judgement in music, and that subjective
judgement is less important.  I would hope so, anyway.  For if anyone
claimed to have a taste all his/her own, and then ac t on the strength
of that conviction, that person would surely figure as a candidate either
for the insane asylum or jail.  One's judgements are mental processes that
are bred and then developed by the teaching, or example, of others.  Great
music is discovered by authorities in the field who also then cause it
to fall out of fashion--meaning the current fashion of judgement.  Which
doesn't dictate that one has to go with the newest fashion, but whatever
one sticks with is a fashion to which one has assigned one's fancy.  Music
is wrought and enjoyed by social animals.

Denis Fodor