The focus and air lie

ah, it's all relative i suppose. when i've been in graduate school i always found that those from developing countries listening to boom boxes always seemed to enjoy music, be transported, deeply affected, etc., more than their spoiled first world counterparts. i have no doubt that better and better speakers do not mean those listening to them appreciate music any more, often less, than those with far less. perhaps having less, having to struggle, face REAL adversity, makes good music (any art form really), not good sound, that much more enriching. if one can see that art is often the product of a sort of pain or angst, longing, alientation, etc., then it would make sense that cultures in which oppression is commonplace would relate more to art than those of us for whom music (art) is merely yet another leisure activity. frankly i find the notion that the genuine appreciation of music rests on one's income/technological advancement disturbingly flawed and nonsensical on its face, a real non-starter.

shadorne, i never said a boombox is better suited to anything. what i said had to do with debates over the location of and access to the soul of music, or any art for that matter. sorry you are so shocked by this perspective, but your criticism is still disingenuous and unfair, though obviously one is free to appreciate music for any reason whatsoever, as such appreciation is by definition purely subjective. i just don't think any coherent case can be or ever has been made that in general those with better stereo equipment are thereby able to (or for that matter actually do) appreciate MUSIC more than those with inferior equipment, though only coincidentally this will be the cases in many instances. it is actually just an extension of the exact same argument one audiophile uses when he rejects a more expensive and better speaker or amp or whatever as not worth the cost while another finds it absolutely worth the cost. do you honestly think this indicates the latter's greater joy in or appreciation of music? just because one person can hear more nuance of timbre or dynamic range has no bearing over whether he will thereby appreciate music more than someone who cannot. (importantly, i'm not saying that when a single person hears less and then hears more, he won't appreciate the more, only than comparisons between two separate minds are, from any reasonable psychological and philosophical standpoint, quite impossible. this also doesn't mean that this greater appreciation can't be achieved either by never hearing more or hearing more and then having to go back to hearing less.) sorry if i offended you or interfered with the flow of this thread. you are correct that it has nothing to do with audiophilia, but nevertheless i believe it is correct.

sorry, one last effort to make clear what seems obvious: as with all art, the appreciation of music, any music, must have AT LEAST as much to do with the person listening (and all that "a person" entails, which is so so SO much more, including variable, than whether one has or has not heard a given level of fidelity), than the instruments or other machines (re)producing the sound waves that make up the music. any effort to refute this diminishes art via reductionism, scientism, and determinism.

i should add that such efforts not only diminish art, but NOT coincidentally (because the two are inextricably bound together), they also diminish (via the same reductionism, etc.) what it means to be human.

mrtennis,
wow, you missed the point entirely...in refutation of my argument you simply restating it: since we cannot get inside others' heads, so we cannot assert through any objective fashion that something external to their heads is where the music lies. if you think this is all too conjectural, i suggest you read some aesthetic philosophy. we may not know why those with poorer stereo equipment can and do enjoy music as much or more than those without, but you will find nothing anywhere to refute that widely held belief.

as for communication, well communication is what music is all about, and if you think technology is the key to communication, i suggest you take a look around at your modern world, saturated with communication and divisiveness. i am genuinely shocked you or anyone could find this perspective, which is by no means something i am making up, but springs from powerful philosiphical traditions, so offensive. the idea that art, and the love of art, is a product of pain and struggle, the effort to deal with that pain by expressing it to others, is not exactly novel. frankly, i'm at a loss for words as to your response. what did i say that was so divisive? you don't think the implication that money and technology is necessary to truly appreciate music is divisive! Please...tis sad.

shadorne, using terms like "circular argument" fallaciously hurts whatever point you are trying to make. there is nothing circular in my argument. as i stated before, you argument, if it can be called that, is reductionist. like much reductionist rhetoric (it is more rhetoric than argument), it is also elitist. but to be fair, i think you have simply conflated music appreciation, which is a westernized practice submitted to its characteristic practice of rationalization and objectification, with the love of music, which is a much broader, more universal phenomenon. music appreciation is not a bad thing at all, it just doesn't and cannot add up to the love of an art form. read Kant, Hegel, Schaupenhaur, Nietzsche, Adorno, Cassirer, and Badiou on aesthetics and see if the genuine love of music, which is often spontaneous and, like much that is valuable in life, utterly inexplicable, can be reduced to "appreciation," which is more of a technical term referring to a very specific set of purely objectivistic metrics. Love and passion can only be taught by life itself. Can't buy me love.

wow, shadorne, no one could do a better job of refuting your argument than your own words.

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST

fz