I asked for help describing the differences between Debussy and New Age
music.  Doug Fields responded:

>Two books: Theodore W.  Adorno; "The Sociology of Music" Julian Johnson:
>"Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value"

Thanks--I very much look forward to investigating these books, but at least
the Adorno looks as though it may be fascinating but not really germane to
my question, although I could of course be mistaken.

I say this because Dave Lampson also seems to perhaps have misunderstood my
question a bit when he responded:

>I'll have to be frank and say that I don't think any vocabulary would
>suffice to make clear a difference.  It's all too subjective.  You aren't
>deficient, the language is.

Really? It doesn't seem subjective to me at all--actually, what I was
looking for was a completely objective answer.

I would think most of the people on this list could explain, roughly,
to a neophyte what some of the very basic differences between, say, the
musics of the baroque era and that of the classical period, or between the
classical and the romantic.  Or between the blues and jazz or jazz and rock
or Mozart and Beethoven.  I'm not asking, in any of those cases, which is
the better genre or composer or whatever, enjoyable though unresolvable and
somewhat pointless some of those debates are.  I just wanted to know what
some of the differences between Debussy's music and New Age.

Perhaps Debussy's use of the sustain pedal had a tremendous influence on
some of the New Age artists, or his love of dominant 13th chords with a
flatted ninth or even just his preference for placing his pieces in the
key of d minor (the saddest of all keys).

I have no idea if Debussy ever used a dominant 13th chord with a flatted
ninth or if any New Age artist has ever done so on record or if one or
both would prefer to have a red hot iron placed on their hands rather than
do so (in the case of Debussy I don't reckon he'd care one way or the other
these days, of course).  I just thought there might be someone on this
astonishingly knowledgeable list who might be able to give some pointers
of this sort.

Thanks to all who wrote.  I'm gonna go hand my friend some Debussy CDs and
mention some of the ideas y'all passed on.  I think, ultimately, maybe it's
a bit like pornography--tough to explain or describe, but you know it when
you hear (or see) it.

Scott Peterson
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