RE: good intentions

["Bailey, Jim" <JBailey@corporate.southam.ca>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: improv@peak.org [mailto:improv@peak.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 2:12 PM
> 
> >This is a wonderful discussion...
> Indeed!

I couldn't agree more.

> What if we change the definition from intent on the composer 
> side to intent
> on the listener side? i.e, "this is music because I hear it 
> as such," as
> opposed to "This is music because i composed it as such." I 
> always loved
> Cage's comment (and i am paraphrasing because my copy of 
> Silence is loaned
> out at the moment), "Is a cement truck music? Is a cement 
> truck music if it
> is driving past a music school?"

This is exactly what I've been telling people for years, or trying to,
anyway. It is based on the difference between hearing and listening. One
*hears* sounds merely as part of the environment - whether it be a bird
twittering, leaves rustling, or even a cement truck passing - and responds
to them only if there is a need (e.g. if the cement truck is about to run
you down). In *listening,* a certain sound or sounds is/are filtered out 
for
appraisal.

I can choose to listen to something in a "musical" sense. That is, I can
listen to the sound of a bird as a "song" even though its intent is only as
a territorial statement or mating call, and not entertainment. Likewise, I
can listen to leaves rustling, or a cement truck passing, in a musical
sense, even though it's just something moving. 

It's unlikely we'll ever know whether birds, cetaceans, or whatever, are
actually "singing" for entertainment, but at least we have the ability to
listen to it as such.

I hope this has added something, even though the thread seems to have died 
a
natural death.

Jim Bailey