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Date: | Tue, 21 Sep 1999 08:55:40 -0500 |
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Bob Draper wrote:
>This whole question of what is music is utterly inponderable. We can
>never agree on a suitable definition.
I disagree. Music is an art form, and I'm working on the idea of art
as a specialized human activity. It's important to think in terms of
a "product" here. Cage's works may consist of noise, but the idea that
he had a concept, a set of instructions, and a beginning and end (even if
not explicitly specified) gives his work a performance aspect, and thus
would have to be considered music. He made noise special by calling our
attention to it for its intrinsic qualities rather than as a danger signal,
attention-getting device, etc. Whether one responds to it "aesthetically"
depends on the person, of course, but that isn't the only defining quality
that makes it "art."
Chris Bonds
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