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Date: | Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:32:45 -0500 |
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James Tobin raeplies to Chris Bonds:
>>How music makes you feel has nothing to do with its value.
>
>I think what you really want to say, Chris, is that how an individual
>listener feels about a piece of music--or how it makes one feel--is not a
>sufficient measure of its musical value for (other) listeners. At least,
>that is something I would agree is clearly true.
I would certainly agree with this, and I thank you for taking me to task
on it. However it isn't exactly what I wanted to say, because I was
referring to value in the absolute sense. We could argue about whether
there is such a thing but that would really be outside the scope of this
list. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that there is such a thing as
intrinsic value (intellectual, aesthetic or both) to music, because humans,
regardless of culture and education, are more alike than they are
different. True, some people will always have a deaf ear for certain kinds
of music, but that is not the music's (or the composer's) problem. I will
concede it does make the problem of establishing standards of value more
difficult, however.
Chris Bonds
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