source file: mills2.txt
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 02:54:27 -0700

Subject: Re: Post from McLaren

From: eig@ccrma.stanford.edu (Enrique Moreno)

I am under the impression that the main reason for our usual higher-education music curricula to devote 4 semesters to  
tonal harmony is the bulk of the greatest music ever composed can be described in terms of tonal functions or modal relations.  
This attitude is the natural consequence of a causal relationship where the great works are first and the theoretical interest  
afterwards.
	It would seem equally natural, then, that there is no interest for a generalized practice of educating music students in  
the *how-to*s of some "exotic" intonation systems for which there is no significant corpus of real masterpieces. So again, it  
seems to me that our local American educational establishment's lack of concern (with some exceptions here and there) for  
disseminating alternative intonations through its channels is a valid statement that asserts the perceived irrelevance of the  
subject in relation to music as a body of --mostly modal and tonal-- compositions. In other words, maybe alternative intonations  
will receive some attention when there is a large body of concerned compositions, including, of course, many significant  
masterpieces. Now, I don't necessarily thrive in this state of affairs, but I have to recognize that this is a valid (if  
generally just quietly unstated) view ... --certainly not illogical, or some sort of evil conspiracy like Brian seems to imply  
sometimes (though, as I have said before we should take Brian's rhetorical fireworks with a grain of salt, i.e., assume that his  
form is an emphatic way to get you to his content ... ).
	Enrique Moreno    

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