Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Gone and Forgotten


At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements.😉

Did you know that the Aboriginal people of Australia do not use the names of people who have passed away? I saw a reference to this in a movie several years ago. However, this thought just hit me recently...

What if we stopped listening to the music of artists who have passed on?

17 comments:

  1. Hi Liz - never ... couldn't happen and how dreadful ... think if we couldn't listen to Beethoven ... I'm sure you were thinking of more recent musicians ... as was I - til I thought back further ... cheers Hilary

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  2. That would cut out a chunk of my music.
    If that extended to everything, then we'd eventually forget everything. Can you imagine teaching history without using any names?

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  3. Our culture would soon suffer without the music of Beethoven, Mozart, etc... the Jazz greats, the crooners, The Beatles! Elvis, etc... that would be horrific. All we had to listen to was Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Rihanna..ughh. Horrible thought ansd it would ruin the world

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    1. However, if that was the way we'd been brought up...

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  4. That would be interesting, I feel like a lot of artists don't get crazy big until after their time if you know what I mean.

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    1. They get a sort of death bounce. Yeah, I know.

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  5. There would be a lot of music we didn't listen to, wouldn't there? Maybe underground clubs would form that would keep playing it.

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  6. Can you imagine - not listening to the music of the dead, not reading their books, not admiring their art - we would lose our entire history and be set adrift. (Meantime, I come from a tradition where we do not name our children after any living relative. It's a big no-no.) Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    1. It would be a totally different way of thinking.

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  7. If we did their estate would not make any more money! I personally love to listen to the older songs and a lot of the folks I listened to in the 70's are gone now!

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    1. It happens to all of us eventually.

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    2. haha...what is it that they say about taxes and death!

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  8. It fascinates me how different our cultures can be on such a small ball of dirt. I suppose it's like retiring the jersey number of a retired great ball player. ~grin~ You have to know I'd be devastated if we couldn't enjoy the art of those gone before us.

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  9. Oo that would be hard. But could be interesting, too. With a smaller pool of music to pull from it could bring many other talents to the table that never make it big because they're lost in the mix of so many artists these days.

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I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.