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Originally Posted by noumenal
I'm constantly bothered by, for example, how the average educated person loves Shakespeare and Austen, but has no interest in their contemporaries Palestrina and Haydn. What's the deal?
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I'm sure I've sent you PMs about Peter Kivy's take on this point before - if memory serves, I think it came across in that thing I sent you a while ago, my dissertation jobby? If I didn't, you really should read Peter Kivy, he's very, very good at consolidating music theory with cultural theory/ philosophy - it's basically him and Adorno, as far as I'm concerned (with an honourary mention of Schopenhauer.
To Mr & Bowels - from my point of view, the reason there are a lot of very, very shit improv (whether that means noise-improv or jazz-improv or electro-acoustic-improv or whatever-improv) bands out there is because people neglect that every sort of music has its paradigms, its theories, its archetypes, its modes (in the not-so-properly-musical sense of 'modes') and so on. That's not to say that one can't get by without theory - many people can and do. However, in the vast majority of cases, if one doesn't look at whatever music you're making in something approaching a critical fashion, then it's just dilletantism or vanity.
I think music theory is incredibly important, and I struggle with it - mainly because I don't see myself operating within a 'properly' 'classical' field. I sympathise entirely with Messr Noumenal's point about people not listening to classical. You don't have to like it, but you really should give it a go, unlike the 40 million sub-genres of rock. While I have an ok basis in theory, I don't feel for a second that I'm going to stop liking horrific no-core or somesuch because it's somehow 'stupid' or whatever - it doesn't work like that. I think anyone with a critical approach to music (critical in its broader sense) should have an interest in theory, and many people - including Mr & Bowels, based on the (so-called) real world conversations I've had with you - have this
implicitly. Making that explicit does no damage, and will probably benefit your ears greatly.