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It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes.

RE: Art and music: can non-intellectuals appreciate post-19th century music

Of course they can. As evidenced by my personal experience, and many consider me to be THE village idiot.

A while back MMT discussed on a PBS (I think) program the manner in which newer music presented in an unfamiliar form transitions from being 'noise' to 'music'. That this was the result of the minds acceptance of the new form through exposure to all like music from that period. Just as a mind conditioned to forms of Western music would have to adjust to forms of Eastern music. All one needs to experience this transition is curiosity, not intellect or musical education. IMHO of course.

Evidence Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps which when first played caused a 'riot'. When I first heard it (not the original performance of course!:-) all I heard was noise (dissonance). That was then. Today, if anything, it sounds bland albeit very enjoyable.

I believe that someone new to 20th century music, born to classical music without reference to 18th and 19th century music, would do as we all have done when we were exposed to earlier forms. They'd listen, value some, and reject a lot. Just as we did and we continue to do. Coincidentally I think as we accept newer music we tend to not listen as much to older music. How many folks listen to much music written pre-Bach? I don't, in fact I regularly listen to little music written before Beethoven and the majority was written in the late 1900's to the present.


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