source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 20:06:09 -0800 Subject: Re: Valuable Experiences From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> Clearly there is subjectivity in here: What is "catchy" for example. There are, however, some aspects of a CD that are a matter of hard, cold fact: Does it have significant timbral or volume variations, for example? Does the rate of the notes vary over time or across the various instruments? You can measure those sorts of factors fairly unambiguously. And there are things somewhere in between subjective and objective: Is there drama in the music, for example? You can't measure drama, but many of the measurable factors above have very strong influences on drama. But John did address more directly what I'm particularly concerned about: Does the music contain anything to keep the audience coming back? Will they listen to it more than once or a few times? He mentioned a case where he didn't learn to appreciate a composition until he heard it ten times. Clearly that's a very meaningful example to consider. But I suggest that if an entire CD has that quality, it will never be appreciated, because it won't get heard ten times! The thing I think many of us who have made CDs lose slight of all too easily, is the environment around the music on our CDs. It's easy, and certainly very important, to think of that environment as the other compositions on our CD. That makes a lot of sense in the context of the movements of a concerto for example. But what we seem to lose sight of all too often is that how the compositions on our CD relate to each other - as important a concern as it is - is only a secondary environmental concern. Why secondary? Because as soon as that CD goes into the shelf, the environment becomes ALL 200-some-odd CDs on that shelf! If a CD is unmemorable, it will be played exactly once! And CDs don't need any help in becoming obscure! The case I mentioned about playing a CD a second time to remind yourself why you haven't played it in two years, is not at all that big an exaggeration. I'd be willing to bet that a third of my CD collection is in that boat, and I seriously doubt if I'm anywhere NEAR unique in that regard. And that third includes some very major titles too. For example, I don't think I've played my copy of Petruchka, or Haydn's 94th in two years. If those CD weren't memorable in the first place, the chances that I'd ever play them again are infinitesimal. Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 8 Nov 1995 07:04 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id VAA02598; Tue, 7 Nov 1995 21:04:46 -0800 Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 21:04:46 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu