Bill Pirkle writes:

>I don't know about you, if I'm bored for more than 60 seconds, I switch to
>something else.

No, no, a thousand times no!  There are great works of music -- of
literature, of art -- that are not designed to be entertaining.  There are
more things to life than merely being entertained twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week.  I also think that, if I were to give up every time I
was bored, I would never progress.  I wouldn't master that last measure of
that Bach partita, I wouldn't learn that mathematical theorem, I wouldn't
finish that long, sometimes tedious music theory text.  And I would be the
lesser person for it.

I think that our society today, with its emphasis on instant gratification,
is forcing more and more people to look at boredom as the ultimate evil.
It is not.

Mr. Pirkle continues:

>I don't know about others, but music must at least keep me entertained,
>hopefully inspire me.

And what if you are bored and turn off your CD player right before the part
(or the movement, or the aria) that will inspire you? What then?

Jeff Grossman
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