BAB(bit)('s)

"Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer,
scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than the other arts and sciences to the person
whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields"
-- Milton Babbit

1.
We had to
imitate Jan Garber one
night; we had to
imitate Jean Goldkett the next night. We heard
everything from the radio; we
had to do it all by ear.
We took down their arrangements;
we stole
their arrangements; we transcribed
them, approximately. We
played them for
a country club dance
one night and for
a high school dance the next.

2.
Serious advanced
creation of a commodity
which has
little, no, or negative commodity
value.
In essence, a "vanity" composer
"isolation," a variety of attitudes
has been expressed
assigning blame
to the music to the critics to performers
occasionally to the public.
DO WELL TO CONSIDER
means of realizing consolidating
extending the advantages live
no longer in the unitary
musical universe of
"common practice,"
but in a variety of universe's
DIVERSE PRACTICE
this fall
from musical innocence is
disquieting challenging
irreversible
full impact of evolution
"new" music

3.
Only in politics and the "arts"
does the layman
reward himself as an expert,
a right to have an opinion heard.
POLITICS=concertgoes=secure
in the knowledge= "I didn't like it"
IMAGINE
a layman chancing upon
a lecture on "Pointwise Periodic
Homeomorphisms.
"I didn't like it"
"Why not?" Under duress:
"I found the hall chilly, the
lecturer's voice unpleasant, and
I was suffering from the digestive
aftermath of a poor dinner."
DISQUALIFIED.
"I didn't like it"--it was
"inexpressive," "undramatic," "lacking
in poetry," etc., etc.,
tapping that store
of vacuous equivalents
hallowed by time for:
"I don't like it, and I
cannot or will not state why."

4.
Composers (and performers)
wittingly
or unwittingly
assuming the character of
"talented children" and
"inspired idiots"
singularly adept at the conversion
of personal tastes
into general principals.
"not music composers" "not composers"

5.
Granting to music the position
accorded to other arts
and sciences promises
thesolesubstantialmeansof survival for music
if music is not supported
the whistling repertory of
the man on the street
will be little affected.

6.
How can we make
music more like sports?
I mean, when you think they call...
I won't name names, but
the current center fielder of
the Yankees
is called the second coming of
JOE DIMAGGIO He's
not the second coming of Dom
DiMaggio! I
mean this guy, to think of these
people, I mean the playing.
I happened to see TY COBB,
but at the end of his career
so that isn't what I'm comparing him with... the
Philadelphia Athletics in '29, '30,
'31, with Lefty Cochrane and Jimmy Foxx,
the incredible abilities
of those people.
Joe DiMaggio
would be running
after the ball
to field it the moment
it left the pitcher's arm.
But football has funny business going on:
YOU'RE PENALIZED FOR SCORING, now
they have HASH MARKS
so every play is played
from some position on
the field.

7.
PARNASSUS...
Oh, we don't have to go through
this, you know all about this.

8.
I tell you
there's no principal involved. I'm
not going to be a musical Luddite;
it's just not that, I cannot start.
I love to work in isolation, though
I've often composed in subways
I have also, I like the idea
of being able to stand there
and redo and redo and redo.

9.
In the most serious sense, it's
a matter of just being
THE MASTER OF EVERYTHING
your decisions are your decisions.
You convey them to a machine of course.
Learning how to
convey them to a machine
was a big problem at that time.
the machine was totally neutral.
There were no set-ups
or samplers. We had
to start from scratch and do everything
from the beginning.
Then there was the break-in
and everything was vandalized.
But "Philomel" is very near and
dear to my heart.
- - -

--G. E. Schwartz