Donald Satz writes:

>I'm not enrolled at Sterling Newberry University where the sensitivities
>and whining of the students is indulged.  I go to Listeners' University
>and these are my listening requirements:

Now see.  I think you have just experienced one of those emotional creative
surges you were talking about.  Truly, with a pause and a ponder, a rewrite
and a polishing, your opening might not have sounded so silly.

>1.  If a composition has appealing melodies with which I connect, I keep
>listening.

No problem here.  You like what you like.  Melody is not the cat's pajamas
for everyone, you know.  Ever try to hum a fugue?  Frightening!

>2.  If the composition conveys emotion in the degree and type I want, I
>keep listening.

Now this is just silly.  Are you contracting out your listening in advance?
How do you do this? Really? Say you are in the mood for loss, not the kind
of loss that might make you suicidal but the kind that might make you have
a good ten minute cry, to whom do you go for that, and does he\she always
deliver the goods? Is it guaranteed? A sure thing? Pardon the simile or
not, but this almost sounds like prostitution.

>3.  If I have the feeling that the emotions conveyed are not sincere, the
>work becomes history.

Have you come to trust that feeling, and if so, what is it based upon?
How would you handle this situation? Say you are listening to a Starker
performance of the Bach First Cello Suite.  You have come to associate this
with sadness based on longing for lost opportunities, things that might
have been.  You have gone back to this cd many times for this experience.
Years later you find out that Starker had different feelings in mind, that
for him the piece conveyed hope.  What do you do?

>Of course, Stirling has a large advantage on me in that he works within the
>artistic world.

Where is this, and how is it an advantage? I write and have had assorted
pieces published.  I also have been a potwasher, landscaping assistant, and
farmhand.  I now teach.  In what world do I work? I really think I need to
know.

>I'm just a business/market/management type who listens to classical music.

I don't get the connection.  You hyphenate the two as though they are
mutually exclusive.  My wife is a chef.  She also listens to classical
music.  Should she feel compelled to make this known so as not to catch
anyone off guard in a conversation? I don't get it, but then again I am
just an English Teacher who loves science fiction novels.

>Cutting through to what I care about, is Stirling going to try to satisfy
>my listening requirements? Does he have any interest in doing so?

This some fantasy?  Why should he even try?

>Being a good sport, I'll respond directly to Stirling's comments.  No, I
>have not provided evidence that the artist must feel the emotion which his
>art communicates.  I never indicated a "must" premise.  My "must" premise
>is that without that feeling, I'm not interested in the composition.

So, the artist need not really have the feeling, convey the feeling, as
long you feel the conveyance of the feeling that was or was not there?

>When this thread started, I thought that the subject was a simple one.
>But, we have list members who question the value of emotion in creating
>music and turn the issue into one that requires some kind of proof or
>evidence.  With that kind of mind-set, music they compose will not satisfy
>listener requirements.

How about the idea that it just deserves a good listen or two or three
or whatever? Have you never listened to a composer or work that you once
dismissed and discovered that as you have changed, so amazingly has your
opinion of the person or piece?

Have you not ever just found a piece interesting? Here is a sentence.  It
conveys no particular emotion, but does get my interest, at least.  "The
man with tools ate the frog."

>Maybe they don't care.  I don't care either.  When I can't get what I want
>from one source, I get it from another.  Active composers are competing
>with other contemporary composers and with all composers of the past.

Sadly though when you think of it, that is not a lot of competition and
begs one to consider listening to as much as one can.

>Don Satz for Listener Rights

Not mine.

Thomas Heilman
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