Kevin Sutton responding to Mike Leghorn:

>>... Maybe we can be more observant and appreciative of the music that
>>surrounds us every day.  I, for one, could really benefit from that. ...
>
>Music does not surround us every day.  Ambient noise surrounds us every
>day.  Music is something that is created.  It doesn't happen by accident.

True enough.  It's also something that composers don't necessarily create
and that doesn't arrive by a creative artist's intent.  We talk about
bird song, for example, or the music of the ocean.  Any art requires an
audience.  It takes a human being to recognize that the ambient noise one
hears is art, whether it's coming out of a symphony orchestra being led by
a conductor or a set of wind chimes moved by the breeze.  This goes back to
the questions of the Twenties: Is a public urinal art? It is if you choose
to consider it that way -- that there is an aesthetic component to it
divorced from the intent of its creator or the uses to which it is normally
put.

>>Stravinsky and Britten had completely different objectives than Oliveros.

No kidding.

>>Obviously the work and skill that Oliveros put into composing her "music"
>>can't compare with what went into composing "Rite of Spring".

This ultimately equates aesthetic worth with complexity -- a false notion
if you can think of one counter-example.

>>Also Stravinsky and Britten have received a lot more credit for their work
>>than Oliveros (I've never even heard of Oliveros).

Oh my!  I thought you'd actually heard something.  In general, don't you
think it a bad idea to comment on something you haven't heard?

>I want to see Pauline Oliveros or Paul Chihara or Morton Subotnik or Larry
>Austin sit down and write a piece of absolute music.

Well, Paul Chihara has done so, actually.  Don't know about the others.
Of course, whether you would *like* it is another matter.  But this really
says "A four-year-old kid could do as well," which probably means that
you don't understand the skill of the techniques these composers use,
as opposed to more traditional techniques.  I don't really understand
why music has to be notes on a page or something with a high degree of
invariance.  I also don't see why music has to be listened to -- that
is, beyond a recital of the process for generating the music.  Now, the
description of the Oliveros program doesn't, I admit, seem tremendously
interesting to me (or, for that matter, particularly strong-minded).
But she *has* written other works.

Steve Schwartz