Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> writes (yes, Dave, this time it's him): >General recognition is as much a matter of luck as anything else, and >people seem to understand this with respect to all music except what's >generally called "atonal." I have yet to figure out why aesthetically this >music constitutes a special case - why people should get so much hotter >over this than over other music whose appeal is equally limited. When we listen bad tonal music we may feel bored or disappointed. However, that music speaks in a language familiar to us, and then, there's no reason for alarm: we "understand" it. Its just like hearing a friend telling a bad joke...one can anticipate the end of it. But if I'm in a party, and an albanese guy begins to tell jokes (in albanese, of course) and people laughs around, probably I will feel uneasy: "I suppose that the joke is not about me, it isn't?" would I say, with a broken bottle of beer in my right hand. Some wars have begun this way. However, I would feel much more uneasy If I discover that the supposed albanese whom I sent to the hospital was actually a neighbor who lives two blocks from my house. The poor guy just invented some different way to tell old jokes. Of course: I didn't know that, because I don't go to parties. (I suppose that this may be called "The Parable Of The Funny Albanese"... well, now you know why was I rejected at the School of Preachers) Pablo Massa [log in to unmask]