David W. Fenton wrote:
And when you eliminate the concept of dissonance in the musical text (i.e., the dissonances are never resolved), then you no longer have a distinction between the two types of intervals beyond the culturally defined meanings the listeners bring to the table.
This is a good explanation of the situation - unfortunately it's beyond the distance that even musicians are prepared to go to question whether their understanding of music is inate or acquired. I do find is scary, that people can react so vociferously against any suggestion that the major/minor tonality that *feels* natural to them is actually not something inherent or natural. They wouldn't react the same way if I told them that English wasn't the 'natural' language, or that base-10 wasn't 'natural' maths (assuming we got that far in the maths class :p ) But I find the defensiveness that surrounds western tonality quite scary, and very puzzling.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
