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From: jlg@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: discussion
Message-ID: <18405@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 20-Dec-84 23:01:18 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.18405
Posted: Thu Dec 20 23:01:18 1984
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> Needless to say I don't.  I'm trying to educate my taste in music, and
> here's a big question I confront often:
> 	SHOULD I enjoy this?
> It's true that there's music that almost everyone agrees is bad, and some that
> almost everyone agrees is good.  In fact, outside those classifications,
> people can often agree that piece A is better than piece B.  But what is
> the object of good taste in music?  A friend once told me, "If I don't
> enjoy a piece, it's my problem."  That's an easy and good answer to
> the problem, but I can't live with that.  Is there always an answer to
> whether a piece is good or bad?  Is there sometimes an answer?

I have recently maintained that musical taste is totally subjective and
that what agreement there is, is culturally based and depends upon the
individuals background.  I used to think that there should be some objective
criterion by which to value music, but I can't come up with a consistent
system.  Based upon this idea I can't conclude that any of John Cage's
music is bad since any given piece may fall within someones subjective
range of what he considers good.  I can conclude that random music generation
IS a bad idea, since it does not necessarily generate music that anyone will
like - not even the 'composer' (the human component of the composition
process).  To be good music, I think there should be directed effort on
SOMEONE'S part to make the music enjoyable.

Of course, these are just MY conclusions.  I don't like John Cage either,
but I have not felt the need to defend my tastes for some time since
I think the whole thing is purely subjective anyway.