Steve Schwartz makes an number of honorable, defendable points: >What bothers me about this criterion, I guess, is that it reminds me so >much of the aesthetics of Rococo, galante, and classicism, which elevated >melody at the expense of everything else. This is indeed a bad memory. Of course, I wasn't advocating anything of the kind, just that melody, as one of the many, valid components of music, get just a tiny bit more emphasis in fashion one of these days. >I don't disagree with any of this. Indeed, I love a great tune. But >it's not the only thing about music that grabs me, and I suspect it's >not the only thing that grabs most listeners. So true. A great melody alone does not a great piece make. The Kallinikov symphony, for instance. >I suspect that composers are not that interested in song right now. ... >What can a composer do with song that hasn't already been done? Substitute any element of music for "song" in the last sentence, and the statement could still be made in good faith--and proven wrong. The same goes for song. Structure isn't everything. >I strongly doubt that a composer who does indeed care about catchy >tunes, has the talent to create them, and the skill to work them into >a convincing extended structure would catch on any more than Boulez. "Catching on" is a little vague here. Serious CM will never catch on to the broad general public, nor should it. Catching on to the history of music is a different story. Both Boulez and Steve's hypothetical composer might do this. Catching on to me would be more likely with Composer Hypothetical than Monsieur B. >In the meantime, I'm going with what's actually out there, seeing the >good in it as much as I can. I'm doing the same--and hoping for a tune now and then. And I've found a few, too, and wouldn't mind more. Jeff Dunn [log in to unmask] Alameda, CA