[silence] Messiaen & Cage

[john saylor]

hi

On 3/30/07, Mark Kolmar <mark@burningrome.com> wrote:
> Any connection to Western commercialism is less clear.  To extend the
> analogy, I might submit that harmony uses "cheaper" materials to produce
> complex sonorities with greater "added value", therefore more "profit"
> than other types of sound combinations.

i sense you are half-joking here, but i think your analysis is flawed
nonetheless. nothing personal, it's just interesting to me to try and
combine economics and music in this way [as opposed to the 'pop music
machine' way we are all too familiar with ...]

harmony is cheaper? maybe. there's a lot of 'prior art' to compare it
against for valuation. on the other hand, it requires more
coordination between musicians to pull off- more top-down control
[where is the beat?] than what happens in the majority of cage's
music.

how do we measure the 'value' of complex sonorities? [an interesting
question outside of any economic manifestations that we are discussing
here] if the goal is to persuade someone to spend money, than the
sounds that get people to think less are better than sounds that
encourage the listener to contemplate.

and, of course, how do we measure the 'profit' of sound combinations?
it seems to be related to the effort of the musicians to produce them
in your analysis.

i don't really have an answer, but i'd think some marketing whitepaper
[beautifully formatted] is sitting in a file cabinet somewhere that
might tell us something about this question.

i think looking at this issue in terms of 'supply and demand' may be
more ... um ... *profitable*

[ouch!]

-- 
\js  [ http://or8.net/~johns/ ]