Bill_McGrath comments on Things you are supposed to like - Less Wrong

68 Post author: PhilGoetz 22 October 2011 02:04AM

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Comment author: Bill_McGrath 22 October 2011 08:50:37PM 3 points [-]

I spoke with my supervisor in college, a composer, about this. He's made some attempts at reading Hofstader, and said he found that the sections about music were just uninteresting and obvious to a trained musician.

I've read Hofstader's article on the music of Chopin, and found it interesting, but not particularly new.

Comment author: mindspillage 01 November 2011 04:10:57PM 4 points [-]

I think you have to get a fair amount of training in music theory before it's that uninteresting and obvious, though, which most of the audience of the book isn't going to have. There may be some readers to whom all of the sections were uninteresting and obvious; I suppose it's just not the book for them. (I stumbled across it when most of the material was still new to me, which is probably the best time to read it.)