The Second Practice: September 14, 2009			by Greg Henry Waters
Questions for thought:  To what exactly does the author of the first excerpt  (Giovanni
 Maria Artusi) object?  How does the author of the second excerpt (Giulio Cesare Monteverdi) defend
 his brother's actions?


For me this Giovanni Maria Artusi, is what I would call a reactionary to anything that is new and 
 different.  If music doesn't follow a traditional pattern it is not music to Artusi or I would call him a
 music critic with no knowledge of musical art.



Perfection of the harmony, what does this mean, well the problem with music is that it is a
 subjective art form, everybody can have an opinion and few have real knowledge.  For me it is a
 crime against life people with this kind of mind.  But the ego driven people have such power because
 there are so many of them wherever one walks or turns one finds ego driven people ready to promote their ignorance.



Rules are made for little men who have no minds and have no vision.  Who are nothing but living machines
 of thought and habit not of vision and flexibility.  These type of men destroy life and the
 creative process.



The second practice where the words are the main point and the music is in the supporting role to allow
 for more creative  harmony and expression.  For me being an instrumental musician, vocal music
 seems to be the ruler of modern pop music
 and during the 40's and 50's  day of pop classical standards the words are still more important than the music. 
 And now dance is so important to modern pop music 
like the Michael Jackson era.   I ask myself everyday where is the music where has it gone?  We are
 living in an age of formula music where every song has a hook and a beat that repeats itself until it
 hits us on the head like a steal hammer would.



The modern classical composers like Stravinsky and Bartok have gone completely contrary to any feeling 
 of the song form and melodic line of traditional music or diatonic music.  Now we are in an age of coldness

 and who is famous, no one has knowledge people only believe what they hear from others.

For me this is what this article brings out to my mind.  The sickness of our culture and its habits we
 have so many men in music like Giovanni Maria Artusi.  I say culture comes from cultured
 people
 not from people with money Where are the true men of character like in the Baroque era. 
 All
 we have now is copy cat form of music. Our ruling class has no knowledge of music they use music
 to promote their careers, like when I was in China music in China was used to promote the 'Party.'



I was asked to play for two presidents but turned it down because one is suppose to perform for them
 without pay.  Do they work for free.  This is the sickness of our business.  We are still considered
 prostitutes and slaves.




Our ruling class does not promote new compositions like in the Baroque era.  We composers have to apply
 for stupid grants and beg for money and we have to provide our own money if we want to promote
 our own music.  All we have is a stupid upper class who knows nothing about musical creative
 art.  If we only had musical leaders, but all we have are people like Giovanni Maria Artusi.  Musical asses I call them.
I see a lot of anger in our culture.  I do not see much humility all I see is people trying to defend
 their actions for better or worse.  The moral law of life has been broken.  We have so many cowards in
 our world or people acting like they do something, but only live copy cat lives.  Now we have
 computers that create music and not musicians.



I have been studying computer programs for music and what I do not like is the computer is taking the
 thought process out of music.



I do not understand why our composition class is not in the computer lab where it should be in our 
 modern age.



Greg Henry Waters A few thoughts by myself! Oct.05, 2009