Re:Toward a Better Music Theory (2013)
by AlbertCory on Saturday August 06, 2022 @07:43PM
(#32372600)
ok, sure, there are two senses of the word. Certainly artists react to each other and take advantage of new technology. They also make things more readily accessible to their contemporaries.
> To say it hadn't would mean nobody had continued to write plays in the same tradition of western literature.
To say it hadn't, in my sense, would mean nobody has written any "better" music than Beethoven's 9th. Nobody has.
To say it hadn't, in your sense, would mean the form of the symphony hadn't continued to evolve, and of course you're right that it has.
Re:Toward a Better Music Theory (2013)
by tbossanova on Saturday August 06, 2022 @07:44PM
(#32372611)
Time advances
One sense of "advance" does mean to improve, but another commonly used sense is simply to "move forwards". History advances, literature advances, music genres and technique advance, time advances. None of those imply improvement or a value judgment, just moving-forwards and building-upon (or building-in-reaction-to).
You can absolutely say drama has advanced since Shakespeare, and few people would misunderstand. To say it hadn't would mean nobody had continued to write plays in the same tradition of western literature.
(See [1] and contrast definitions 2 and 3.)
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advance