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<div>Provocative, indeed!</div>
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<div>Had I not wanted to understand intellectually my aural analysis, through performance and listening, of "notes interacting with each other," I would never have been drawn to music theory. Perhaps "we" -- the music-theory community, the community of professional
musicians as a whole, the community of people whose role is to act as interface between the thorny behaviors of musical elements and the tender sensibilities of our audiences — perhaps we underestimate the very power of musical sound, as well as the ability
of musically-untrained people to hear such sound with great insight and clarity.</div>
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<div>It is interesting to read the responses Rick has provoked with this post. I hope there are wonderful, thoughtful discussions about these issues in New Orleans, and I wish I were there to hear and share. </div>
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<div>I hope it's a wonderful conference, all. </div>
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<div>Hali Fieldman</div>
<div>Associate Professor and Coordinator of Music Theory</div>
<div>UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance</div>
<div>University of Missouri — Kansas City</div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span>Richard Cohn <<a href="mailto:richard.cohn@yale.edu">richard.cohn@yale.edu</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Wednesday, October 31, 2012 3:04 PM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>"<a href="mailto:smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org">smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org">smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>[Smt-talk] the impossibility of listening<br>
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<div>I just received a copy of A History of Opera, a new book co-authored by Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker. In their preface, they write that "at a very early stage... we we decided that this history would contain no musical examples...we wanted to write
a book without reference to musical scores." After the usual justification about not wanting to swamp readers with anything that might be challenging to their technical facility, they write the following: "Readers will look in vain for abstract structural
analyses of music, or extended descriptions of notes interacting with each other: that kind of information, although relatively easy --- with training --- to extract from a score, is virtually impossible to extract from listening to or attending an opera."
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<div>Without further comment on my part, I thought this was a sufficiently provocative set of claims that I would just pass it on to the community for savoring, in advance our congregation in New Orleans. </div>
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<div>--Rick Cohn</div>
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