Steve replies to me:

>At this point, you've assumed that you know what music is.  Please tell
>the rest of us.

Sure thing.  Its a concatenation of sound effects.  As Chopin, himself,
(see in my ongoing post on his "Method of Methods") - the art of
manipulating sounds is music - Chopin.  This would include a symphony of
jack hammer operators and street traffic noise as music.  New York city is
a continious symphony.  In fact, if we think of taxi cab horns as a solo
instrument, then its a continous concerto.  Due to peak traffic periods,
it even has a discernable form and possibly a harmonic structure, since the
car factories do tune their horns to a set pitch - one can hear wonderful
harmonies.  Don't forget the dramatic entrance of the sirens from time to
time, constantly stating themselves as a secondary or perhaps primary
theme.  I am perfectly serious.  One could no doubt cut and paste those
sounds into something quite dramatic, possibly even atonal (this thread's
topic).

Its when we get into a discussion of what good music is that the problem
arises because of personal taste.

In fact, can we even distinguish between good music and bad music? I think
not.  Since we can't, then on what basis can we say that Mozart was a great
composer.  Certainly not because he wrote "good" music, since there is no
such thing universally agreed to.  And if we say because his music is so
popular, so is rap making them "Mozart class" composersl.  It fact, I can
choose to go down in history as the most prolific CM composer ever, since
my software can write a hundred symphonies a day - great music, in my
estimation <grin>.  When I advertize myself as "the most prolific CM
composer in history" I will expect you (Steve and others) to rally behind
me.  You can tell your friends "I knew him when and I was once on the same
CM discussion list with him.  No. Yeah, really ..." <big grin>

I suppose we could say that to "most people", Mozart was a great composer,
leaving the possibilty that there are some who thinks that his music is
bad music.  (It would be interesting to hear someone defend the point that
Mozart's music was, in fact, bad music for their tastes.  (I'll bet you can
I tell you what kind of TV programs they like to watch).  But in the "most
people" argument we are back to popularity as the basis putting rappers in
the same class as Bach, Beethoven and Brahms - the three Bs..  Its oh so
confusing.  I'm just glad I will go down in music history.

I wonder if the list would unamiously agree that Mozart was a composer
of good music.  Send in your votes, specifing any bad compositions as
examples.

A touch of humor (good humor, but then considering my tastes ...)

Bill Pirkle