Your editorial (“The National Community,” Apr. 17) was disingenuous in saying more world music on CBC Radio 2 is a good thing, and claimed that an Indian musician spends a long time at his craft as well. While all musicians may practice for years in their chosen music, only European classical music organized over 100 such musicians at a time in symphony orchestras, a vastly complex undertaking and equally complex to write music for. Furthermore, the development of well-tempered intonation (separating all semitones by a fixed frequency interval, the twelfth root of 2) allowed for instant key changes with no “wolf notes,” unlike key changes in the just intonations using fractional intervals as in the music of non-European ethnic groups. This was such a vast improvement that going back to listen to ethnic music makes it all sound “monotonous.” Furthermore, music shapes our culture. If you learn to listen to complex music your brain will, hopefully, develop the ability to handle other complexity as well.

There is a damaging tendency in the media today towards “Orwellian duckspeak” about non-European cultures, trying to find words of praise to mouth about another culture, no matter what the truth is. That’s why we have a silly display in the Ontario Science Centre of Chinese acupuncture, which mentions qi (or chi) as if it is a real energy force in the body. I hope that you would develop the discernment not to fall into such traps. I don’t see so much of a problem if CBC Radio 2 wants to explore other forms of music, but praising the monotonous output of other, less-developed musical cultures is going too far. PIERRE SAVOIE

One letter too many?
Can we please, please put the Dimitri the Lover saga to rest? (I’ll admit I’m open to charges of hypocrisy so I’ll keep this brief.) A forgettable article about an obscure and uninteresting man has led to a mind-numbingly tedious quarrel. I suspect I am not alone in being utterly bored by this “controversy.” Of particular irritation are these people who claim that the article was somehow “supportive” of Dimitri’s activities. Seriously, get a grip. Do you really need a newspaper to cut through life’s moral ambiguities for you? And, EYE WEEKLY — for God’s sake, surely you can do better than this. GREGORY CROUCH

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