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