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