Organ Grinding: When the Audience Revolted at Carnegie Hall
I have only limited formal music education, but I am an ardent amateur performer and listener. But I agree with the person who ran down the aisle at the 1970 performance, yelling &quot;Stop! I will confess!&quot;<p>Western music requires rhythm, melody, harmony. (though rhythm may stand nearly on its own.) Beauty can be subjective to a degree (some non-Western cultures do not find dissonant notes to be objectionable in an otherwise harmonious piece) but coherence of chord progression and melody are fundamental.<p>This &quot;Four Organs&quot; piece is to my ear a timing algorithm, far less interesting than a perpetual canon (&quot;song in rounds&quot;) because it implements only rhythm - melody and harmony are missing. Frère Jacques... no, scratch that, even &quot;Happy Birthday To You&quot; seems a grand compositional achievement by comparison. It is a meager elevation beyond the sort of finger and timing exercises every music student performs -- play a scale in eight notes. Now dotted eights, now triplets, etc. This sort of timing-coherence pattern is pretty common in percussion -- two musicians playing in different time signatures so that the beats periodically align. But the arrogance of four organs playing a monotonous note stretches this simplistic exercise beyond any value, and to raise it up as a great achievement is absurdity equal to the art world&#x27;s all-black canvas, empty box, or filled rubbish bin.<p>I&#x27;m going to use Rush Limbaugh&#x27;s definition of art : (paraphrase) &quot;Art is what I can&#x27;t do. I can throw paint on a canvas. I can glue litter to a floor. I can pound the keys of a piano. That&#x27;s not art.
I cannot carve a statue of David from marble. I cannot paint the Mona Lisa or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel nor compose an orchestral work. These are all art.&quot; [edit: added last sentence]