Bill Pirkle wrote:

>Karl writes ...[about my reply to Mimi's emotions]
>
>>>You seem to get annoyed and irked.  Maybe you are taking the list too
>>>seriously.  My name is shown as the sender, just delete them.
>>
>>As I don't see the value in denying one their emotion, likewise, I find
>>it odd that those outside a discipline would attempt to define that
>>discipline.
>
>No, of course not.  I am an emotion based guy who approaches music from
>the emotions it produces.  I did not mean to offend Mimi by that remark,
>rather, imply that this is just a music discussion list, not brain surgery.

I am reminded of a letter I once wrote a composer who had written
something to the effect that the New York Philharmonic had done a good
job at presenting the American Composer in recent years.  That article
was written, as I recall during the early Mehta years when I found little
American music on their programs.  I wrote "what you wrote was one of the
most depressing things I had read recently." She responded by saying that
some tornado or some war was certainly far more important.  Well, for me,
music is pretty much my life and probably means as much as brain surgery.
I love being able to add that the following season, that composer I wrote
had her work played by the New York Philharmonic.  I cannot wonder if that
was not her payment.

>I am not sure what you mean by "I find it odd that those outside a
>discipline would attempt to define that discipline."
>
>I assume you mean the discipline of music, but what do you mean by "outside
>the discipline"?

Outside the discipline...I believe it is up to the artist to decide what
is art.  How many on this list write music? It goes back to my fundamental
notion that music theory (and definitions) follow practice.  It follows, in
my mind, that those who practice, define.

Karl