[78-L] Well EXCUUUUUUSE MEEEEE!!!

[Kristjan Saag]

Steven C. Barr wrote:
> Point being that so-called "Easy Listening" (an actual radio category at one
> time?!) was music carefully designed to offend as few listeners as possible,
> while NOT inspiring any of its hearers...?! It is effectively music stripped
> of
> any emotional content...and the latter is and always has been the primary
> purpose of its existence...?!
>    
----
I like the question mark that ends your comment.
It saves me the trouble to point out that music may also have other 
purposes, such as ritual, descriptive, distracting etc, none of which is 
inferior, per se, to being "of emotional content".

But what is "emotional content"?
Well, emotions associated with music could be of several types:
1) the personal emotions that the composer/ lyricist/ arranger/ 
performer puts into it
2) the emotions that any of the former hopes to trigger among his listeners
3) the actual emotions perceived by the listeners
4) the emotions thought to be perceived by the listeners
(The latter could be, for instance, the observations made by people who 
mistake head banging music listeners to express aggression, whereas 
they, subjectively, perceive and express joy.)

Where is the "emotional content" in this spectrum?
Am I, as a listener, justified to feel delight in Mantovani's music, if 
he (which I doubt) deliberately produced music to be without emotional 
content? Or is there a judge out there, somewhere near Toronto, perhaps, 
or in London or in the L A area, to decide where the emotional content 
in different types of music lies?
Wouldn't it be better to allow all listeners, educated or not, 
sophisticated or not, cool or not, to define the qualities they find in 
different types of music, respect their stories and, perhaps, learn from 
their experience instead of diminishing it as bad taste and ignorance?

What puzzles me, in these discussions, is the notion that many listeners 
seem to be unable to encompass different types of listening within 
themselves. The "sophisticated" listener looks for complexity in all 
kinds of music, and dismisses the music where he doesn't find it. The 
"primitive" listener, on the other hand - we don't find them on this 
list, of course - is provoked and disturbed by too much complexity. The 
"emotional" listener fails to perceive moods as emotions and rules out 
music that isn't overtly expressive. Etc.
Relax! It's not a competition. No one needs to be smart or cool or 
primitive or educated 24 hours a day. The world isn't waiting for the 
Ultimate Definition Of Good Music. It waits for more tolerance, joy and 
curiosity, in music as in other matters.
Kristjan