Is the Joshua Bell experiment the kind of thing you had in mind? If so, it pretty conclusively confirms your suspicions.
Not really, because Joshua Bell was playing mostly (maybe even exclusively) old music in that experiment, if I recall correctly.
Vassar’s suspicion was that people nowadays don’t know how to write in old styles well enough to be indistinguishable from old composers.
Edit: but just to go along with it for a minute, do you really think Bell’s status is the result of a random process? Maybe with respect to other “great” violinists, yes, but certainly not with respect to the average person, or even the average professional violinist.
Not really, because Joshua Bell was playing mostly (maybe even exclusively) old music in that experiment, if I recall correctly.
Right, it proves the (arguably) stronger result that even the old music, with its canon status, can’t appeal to the uninitiated. Impressing the indoctrinated is not impressive. The hard part is to impress the unindoctrinated.
But just to go along with it for a minute, do you really think Bell’s status is the result of a random process?
Of course not, just as I can’t make my friends laugh by generating random utterances. But that doesn’t mean that the average person is somehow deficient for not laughing at our inside jokes—or that I can go on denying that it’s an inside joke.
But that doesn’t mean that the average person is somehow deficient for not laughing at our inside jokes—or that I can go on denying that it’s an inside joke.
Here, the analogous situation would be an “average person” denying the joke was funny because they weren’t in on it, despite the fact that they saw a bunch of people laughing hysterically at it.
(...a bunch of people who were willing to welcome them into their group if they caught up on the group’s history, so they would be able to get the jokes!)
But people don’t claim that their inside jokes are the highest form of culture and that others are somehow deficient for not wanting to join in on it.
I understand that if you invest some effort E into appreciating something, you’ll appreciate it. The fact that I appreciate it for some (potentially huge) E does not somehow justify the effort—you can say that about anything.
The appropriate comparison would be “what ways of amusing myself for that level of personal investment are the best”? And given these opportunity cost considerations, it’s quite understandable why the utter indifference of the public is a strike against the field.
Not really, because Joshua Bell was playing mostly (maybe even exclusively) old music in that experiment, if I recall correctly.
Vassar’s suspicion was that people nowadays don’t know how to write in old styles well enough to be indistinguishable from old composers.
Edit: but just to go along with it for a minute, do you really think Bell’s status is the result of a random process? Maybe with respect to other “great” violinists, yes, but certainly not with respect to the average person, or even the average professional violinist.
Right, it proves the (arguably) stronger result that even the old music, with its canon status, can’t appeal to the uninitiated. Impressing the indoctrinated is not impressive. The hard part is to impress the unindoctrinated.
Of course not, just as I can’t make my friends laugh by generating random utterances. But that doesn’t mean that the average person is somehow deficient for not laughing at our inside jokes—or that I can go on denying that it’s an inside joke.
Here, the analogous situation would be an “average person” denying the joke was funny because they weren’t in on it, despite the fact that they saw a bunch of people laughing hysterically at it.
(...a bunch of people who were willing to welcome them into their group if they caught up on the group’s history, so they would be able to get the jokes!)
But people don’t claim that their inside jokes are the highest form of culture and that others are somehow deficient for not wanting to join in on it.
I understand that if you invest some effort E into appreciating something, you’ll appreciate it. The fact that I appreciate it for some (potentially huge) E does not somehow justify the effort—you can say that about anything.
The appropriate comparison would be “what ways of amusing myself for that level of personal investment are the best”? And given these opportunity cost considerations, it’s quite understandable why the utter indifference of the public is a strike against the field.