[r-t] Little Bell Music

[Michael Foulds]

Sorry, Ben, I didn't mean to rant.  It wasn't intended to come over like
that at all.  I don't disagree with you at all, and I don't say that runs
(or crus) are not musical becasue I don't think that.  I like them!  My
point was not "this is rubbish", but rather "yes, but there is more to it
than this", and that we should be wary of accepting a count of rows
containing runs as a measure of musicality (is that a word?).  Others have
now made the point better than I that the distribution of the rows, and the
order in which they occur, are musically significant.  Runs are fine, just
not the whole story, that's all.

Thirty years ago no one cared about little bell music, because the fashion
was the pursuit of CRUs.  I don't think it's too strong  to suggest that
this acceptance of CRU count as the measure of musicality (it's not in my
dictionary but I'm using it anyway) delayed the emergence of little bell
music - no one found it because no one was looking for it.  It would be
ironic to climb out of that trap only to fall into another.