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I had a friend tell me once that music is inherently a good thing. Music is something that everyone should enjoy. I agreed with that second statement, but not the first. He quickly did a double take. Why isn't music a good thing? I answered with a second question: Why isn't language a good thing? Is it a good thing? Simply put, music can be good. It has potential to be. Then again, it can be bad. It has been said throughout history that "The pen is mightier than the sword." And indeed it is. Buddha even said "Words have the power to both destroy and heal." I'm sorry, but making the simple statement "Music is a good thing" is somewhat naive. That's like saying "sharp knives are a good thing." Music is a tool, a weapon, and an art, and like all three, it can be as destructive or as constructive as you want it to be. Well, that's the way I feel. How do all of you feel? How can music be good? How can it be bad? How can we, as composers, use this information to our advantage? And please don't say "There is no good or bad" or anything of the like. Such a debate should be done somewhere else.

I've given you more space, now try.

... Not really, no. I mean people tend to do the whole "art" thing once they aren't, you know, running away from tigers and other things that want to eat them. Plus they don't tend to be very good musicians if they're starving. It's kind of on the bottom list of priorities, since strictly survival certainly doesn't include making noise that gives everyone your position away (yum.)

I prefer bad music.

uh

Music is essential for survival. It is an invariant across all societies. It is a good thing in the same way breathing, food, and shelter are good things. But then it doesn't mean you can't drown, be poisoned or burglurized.

I am not sure what good and bad is, so by following your guidance I am not able to answer that. I don't think I could answer any of those questions you stated anyway.

Good Music is good, Bad Music is bad, if you put pain in one side and placer in the other, music can take you at any point between those.

This depends entirely on what you're counting on as "good." Music can cheer someone up, so that's one way it can be a "good thing." But music can also bring someone terrible memories, so in that case it may be to them a "bad thing." ... I don't see what's there to discuss? Obviously saying it's "inherently good" is retarded for the same reason food is "inherently good," nothing like this is black or white.

Okay, I really hate to poo-poo on something that Chopin the webmaster obviously put so much work and time into, but I'm primarily doing this with the fact in mind that he wants this site to be professional, functional, and a pleasant user experience. It's a reflection on his work and brainchild that there are SO many issues both functional and cosmetic. It doesn't look professional at all when perusing this forum to see so many issues everywhere one turns. I personally would much prefer the previous site where everything WORKED well and looked okay. About the only thing I like about the new layout is the sleek look of the skin. But the layout glitches alone kill what little appreciation I have for that. The bugs: There are still a crud-ton of bugs that haven't been taken care of. Many of them are a result of switching from the old format to the new while still retaining many of the functions of the old. Apparently multimovement works still cannot be uploaded, editting an uploaded work causes problems, there's still no way of editting one's avatar, 'restore' sized browsers still don't get the website placed in the proper place to be able to see it all, some links do funky things, the switch from each upload getting its own page to being an extention of one's profile page has caused a huge amount of bugs in the uploads and on profile navigation, the "view users who have listened to this piece" link still links to a page of white text on white background... seriously, how many bugs must there be before starting over becomes the only option that will actually take care of the problems?? Right now it's like a scavenger hunt for every clear piece of sand on a beach. The interface: it stinks. The home page (note: not the index page) looks horrible. The post 'feed' is cumbersome and confusing and apparently you can post onto restricted areas by it. And profile pages look horrible for the same reason (not to mention the bugs on the profile pages). The "recent uploads" list was an AWESOME feature that has all but vanished. It's a huge pain to simply find an upload by a specific person anymore. The profile pages have far too many tabs and links that are named the same thing (info, music, etc) but go to different areas. To forgo loss of interest because of wordiness, I'll go ahead and leave it at that. Really, the whole idea of changing to this new format was for a better site. It ain't. It makes me wonder if it is really worth it to continue tackling the avalanche of issues for the sole sake of this new layout. Thank you for reading. Kindest regards. -Peter