Robert Clements replies to Don Satz: >>In the larger picture, rules are made to be broken since they are >>originated by humans. If all the so-called rules of music composition >>were adhered to, music would stagnate and the creative process would die >>on the vine. > >It depends on the rule we're talking about. If you write - as particularly >idiotic advanced composer of my acquaintance once did - a chamber piece >which includes an acoustic guitar, the rule which says that you will have >a bloody hard time balancing guitar & double bass is only sanely broken >if your name is PDQ Bach. Or balancing a lute and bagpipes. Is that a "rule?" Or simply experience? >Similarly, the rule which states that the line which looks >crash-bang-wallop on the score might just go plod-plod-plod in front >of an audience is equally uncompromisingly. On the other hand, it might do exactly as advertised. I think of Verdi's wham-boks in the Requiem's "Dies irae" and Beethoven's crashes in the Missa Solemnis's "Agnus Dei." There's also a neat piece by Hovhaness, "To the God Who Is in the Fire," which begins with essentially untuned percussion and is just lovely -- against all odds, I suppose. Steve Schwartz