[MD] Churning Point?

[Platt Holden]

> Ant McWatt comments:
> 
> Platt,
> 
> I think the original point that I was making is that if you limit yourself to a
> certain number of songs and a certain genre, it will eventually lead towards
> static boredom and disinterest.  The new or Dynamic (even if it’s a personal
> discovery of a Vivaldi piece you may never heard) is always going to encourage a
> continued expanding aesthetic interest.

I'm not convinced that aesthetic interest is something that "expands." Either 
you have it or you don't. You can see it in young children as they draw with 
abandon. Unfortunately, social patterns tend to consider aesthetic interest 
something frivolous (as Pirsig noted) and the exuberance of a child towards 
matters aesthetic is snuffed out if favor of more "practical" concerns.

> Another point is that high quality art (i.e. art pointing towards the 
> Godhead) is found in nearly, if not all, genres.

We agree that high quality art points toward the Godhead. 

> I think you are blinkered
> somewhat in this respect though I do agree that it takes an increasingly open
> mind as you get older with some of the material that is popular with younger
> generations.  However, not to take risk musically (such as buying an album in a
> genre you’d never usually listen to) is to remain in a limited and less
> interesting aesthetic life.

I doubt it. As you get older you develop certain educated tastes which tend to 
serve you well in discriminating between good and bad art. Not always 
foolproof, but then few things are.

> Regarding your point that music has not developed since Mozart’s time.  His
> music as it appears today lacks the production values and the far greater
> palette of sound that the Beatles, for instance, had for their disposal for Sgt.
> Pepper’s or the White Album.

Palette of sound? You mean electronic gimmickry?

>  It doesn’t mean that Mozart was less talented
> musically but he was writing music in a more primitive and limited context. 

Musically, Mozart had more talent in his little finger than Lennon, Elvis or 
any contemporary musician you can name. When your a pop artist composes and 
performs symphonies, operas, concertos and other demanding musical forms, let 
me know.  

> Production by itself can’t save a badly composed piece of music but,
> unfortunately, I don’t think it’s possible for modern musicians to know exactly
> how Mozart would have wanted his music to be reproduced for contemporary
> playback media.

You obviously think electronics and amplification adds something to music. I 
don't. 

> Live concerts are different (in that he wrote for these in
> mind) but you can’t stick an orchestra in your car (or average house, for that
> matter).

A live anything is generally better than recording or a video. But I'll take a 
CD of the London Symphony over a Nick Jagger album any day.

> Moreover, I think good music reflects its time.  Our culture is continually
> developing and the music of Mozart and the Beatles will gradually become more
> dated and have less relevance for us.  Though I’m sure that that both will be
> played for as long as people are falling in love, can see the beauty in a
> sunset, etc.

Didn't you say just a post or two ago that our culture was on the decline with 
the rise of the neocons and other bad influences? I think pop music reflects 
that decline, only I wouldn't cite the neocons as the primary culprits.

> Finally, it’s not a popular sentiment in this relatively repressive, 
> conservative era but some rock groups such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd 
> composed music to be specifically taken with recreational drugs such as 
> psychedelics.  An analogy might be the difference between watching the 
> “Wizard of Oz” on a black and white TV and watching it on a colour set.  You can
> always watch the black and white section on a colour TV, however you can’t watch
> the colour segment on a black and white TV without losing much of the fantasy
> element that the colour set provides.  I have been told that psychedelics
> provide a far greater degree of Dynamic freedom in what Kant termed the “the
> harmonious free play of the faculties”; there is a whole aesthetic realm above
> and beyond Mozart's imagination.  The infinite number of Dynamic possibilities
> is awe-inspiring especially when taking account the way recording technology is
> developing and expanding.  At least, that’s what I was told by some guy in New
> York that I bumped into once.  His name was Del Close or Allen Tate or Bill
> Hicks or Leary or Lennon or the Fool on the Hill or something similar.
 
It takes drugs to access a "whole aesthetic realm above Mozart's imagination?"  
Now there's a concept that puts a culture into a decline, as exemplified by the 
decline of the hippie movement -- a moral revolution that failed.

Best regards,
Platt