flame about "substantiality" of Kate's music

[hui@joplin.mpr.ca (Michael Hui)]

In article <9001051714.AA14270@GAFFA.MIT.EDU> Doug Alan <nessus@athena.mit.edu> writes:
>What's the point of this little flame?  I have certainly missed it.
>First of all, *no one* has ever written music "more substatial" than
>Kate's best work.  Secondly, what does "substantiality" have to do
>with accessibility?  *Most* very accessible music is not very
>substantial, but that does mean that there is not a great deal of very
>substantial and accessible music.  And there are certainly plenty of
>musicians who completely *love* writing fluffy pop ditties, and there
>are musicians who write very substantial music as a part-time hobby,
>so this comment about devotion is pretty bankrupt.  Thirdly, *no one*
>is more devoted to his or her music than Kate is (or perhaps rather
>*was* on her pre-*Sensual World* albums).  Fourthly, most people don't
>seem to find much of Kate's work very accessible at all.  In fact,
>that is one of the most common criticisms you hear about her music --
>that you have to listen to the album ten times (take *The Dreaming*
>for example) before it makes any sense.  So, all in all, I'd say your
>message really pretty poorly constructed as an argument for whatever
>it's supposed to be an argument for.

I wrote in response to someone suggesting that Kate may be reading this
news feed. My point was that many musicians think / socialize / have
values and priorities different from engineers / scientists / stock
brokers / lawyers, etc. So if I asked a composition student in a
university what he/she thinks of our posts in rec.music.gaffa I will
most likely get a bored reply: they always believe that they operate on
a much higher intellectual plane than anyone in pop/rock out there.

Since "academic" music is so much more intricate and symbolic, it is
immensely more difficult to "enjoy", or even to understand. In fact, I
doubt this stuff was ever meant to bring joy to any listener; it could
well be written to only satisfy the whims of certain composition
professors.

I especially take issue with your fourth point: people generally have
this feeling of superiority once they have acquired a liking of some
type of music. This happens to all walks of life. Well, a composition
student has had to STUDY a lot of different genres of music, including
most stuff written after WW2. So their feeling of superiority may well
be the strongest. If they can honestly claim that they have seriously
listened to ALL kinds of music written after WW2, then perhaps you have
to give them some credit for claiming that Kate's music is not as big a
deal as you make it out to be.

I encourage you to attend "new music" concerts given by faculty and
students of a music school near by. Only then will you understand what I
mean. Composers in academia are going in a completely different
direction from what most pop artists are going (not that pop artists are
going in any sense of a similar direction, I would readily admit).