Re: Jewish Music Definition

[L_Cahan <L_Cahan...>]

Statistically, fine, but THINK ABOUT IT...MONKEYS!!!!  It wouldn't happen in the
real world.  They'd all type gibberish of one ilk or another.

Peter Rushefsky wrote:

> Actually, if you truely had an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite
> number of typewriters, you would have a 100% chance that at least one would
> produce the complete works of Shakespeare.  Sorry, I was a
> statistics/probability major in college.
>
> >>> L_Cahan 05/04 3:40 PM >>>
> I think that if you have an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters you
> will still
> have an infinite amount of gibberish.  None will ever write Shakespeare,
> because we
> are not talking about monkeys who refer to each others work in order to not
> duplicate
> it.
>
> Sorry, just a pet peeve.
> Lorele
>
> Leonard Koenick wrote:
>
> > It seems clear from all this that it makes no sense to try and define what
> > is Jewish music in the abstract.  It is impossible to define unless you
> > first state the purpose for which you want to define it.
> >
> >         I am sure some will define it on whether the composer can be
> traced to an
> > appropriate matrilineal descendent; others to whether the composer was
> > shomer shabbos and then according to which authority; and others will fall
> > into the Mr. Justice Douglas (at least I think it was him) definition of
> "I
> > know it when I [hear] it."
> >
> > Clearly some music would be easily classified regardless, but all
> composers
> > certainly draw inspiration from other sources.  Given ancient and current
> > migration and cultural mixings, any attempt at defining Jewish music
> without
> > also defining the purpose in do so is an endless exercise.
> >
> >         And defining Jewish music by whether portions of a tune sound
> similar to
> > another may be meaningful and may not.  There are only so many
> permutations
> > and combinations of notes and eventually the monkeys at the typewriter
> > theory will succeed.
> >
> > Leonard Koenick
> >
>

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