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> Have the old divisions between musical styles – a source of surprisingly bitter contention in the last decades of the 20th century – now healed? Do people now
by geofft 6y ago
> Have the old divisions between musical styles – a source of surprisingly bitter contention in the last decades of the 20th century – now healed? Do people now accept your chosen path of tonal harmony, melody, repetitive structures?
> No no no no no. Those divisions never healed. Those people just died! The people who don’t want you don’t change their minds. You outlive them, if you’re lucky. They’re all dead now, the older guys. The battle was never won or lost. The army just went away. What can I tell you? Isn’t that the truth? It’s biology. Nothing more than that. They’ve just gone away… and we carry on playing.
This seems true in so many things: politics, engineering approaches, even theology at times. Keep doing what you think is worthwhile, but don't expect to change the minds of the old guard: you "win" by having the newer generation accept your approach.
- privong 6y agoScience as well. There's the oft-quoted: ‘A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.’ - Max Planck Also see this link, for a study that tried to test/quantify this: https://www.nber.org/digest/mar16/does-science-advance-one-funeral-time https://www.nber.org/digest/mar16/does-science-advance-one-f...
- vanderZwan 6y agoThis is such a famous truism that there's even a paper that investigates whether or not science really advances one funeral at a time: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21788 https://www.nber.org/papers/w21788 edit: heh, too slow - it was already posted in the few minutes I took to read the article