Best Seat in the House Love Letters to a Profession

When you study "classical music" you learn right away that there's "in tune" and "out of tune." One is good, the other is bad. A value judgement. And there are "right notes" and "wrong notes." Another value judgement. And you begin to sense that an étude by Czerny is "not as good" as the Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 127. Eventually you begin to sense that almost no music is as "good" as the Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 127. A positively massive value judgement. There's one way of carefully, respectfully, modestly—perhaps fearfully—approaching the idea that truth exists.