Music Discussion

[stargroup100]

Tass got pissed at me spamming his Queue Discussion Thread.

Well, I guess I'll start from there then.


Currently, my main argument is that music can be judged by quality, and in some cases it is valid to say that a song is better than another. Music quality can be proven.

I see many people claim that it's all a matter of opinion; some people may like a song, but others won't, so therefore it is based on opinion, not fact. They might say that as long as you like a song, it's good, and if you don't like it, someone out there in the world does, and so it's a good song anyways.

However, my argument is that some songs are good, some are bad, regardless of how many people like or dislike it. Songs can be judged by their quality by analyzing their structure, patterns, creativity, etc. Certain songs can even be compared, proving one is better than another. Although this is not always the case; obviously, you can't compare two songs with completely different approaches, genres, focus, etc; I generally believe song quality can be proven.

I apologize ahead of time if I did something wrong. This is my first post in this forum.

[Kilroy_x]

My response is basically, yes it is a matter of opinion, however certain opinions seem to carry more weight than others. The opinion of a musician carries more weight because of their experience with music. Any opinion which is well thought out and internally consistent carries more weight than its alternative. Evaluating a song based on its structure and patterns seems to be using principled distinctions to help form an opinion, which is always good. I'm not sure what would constitute creativity, approaches or focus. Perhaps a musician could offer substantive explanations for those things.

But basically, even though it's a subjective area competition can still occur between the reasoning processes behind calling something "good" or "bad", and ultimately the better the reasoning the better the claim.

Here's a funny aside about all this. There was actually a sort of philosophy of music which grew out of the dogmatic relativism and general intellectual worthlessness of the past century or so. Modernist music, that is. Now, I dare you to go listen to the collective works of, say, Arnold Schoenberg or Bela Bartok, and to tell me the bulk of their music is in any way "good". I would be fascinated to hear the reasoning behind such a claim.

[stargroup100]

Well music, like all art forms, can be a way of expressing how you think and feel. Generally, this can be distinguished and/or identified relatively easily by an experienced, intelligent musician. However, it gets ambiguous when we're talking about avant-garde music.

Now a question that might arise is how do judge expression? It's something that seems very abstract. In my opinion, this is where the gray area is; this is the part that makes it impossible to compare two pieces of music at times.

On the other hand, sometimes it can be judged. First of all, the purpose of the piece has to be identified. Then it is possible to judge how well the expression was executed. Does the piece really reflect what the composer is trying to say? An extreme example would be a piece that sounded really happy, but the composer meant to make it sad. Of course, that would make it nearly impossible to figure out what the composer's original intention was, but that's the idea.

Another way to judge expression is how powerfully it's expressed. Music is supposed to be pleasing to the senses, so a piece with little expressive movement is dull and boring. The goal is to put the listener on an "emotional roller coaster" (this isn't originally my metaphor, but it's the perfect term to use here). Even if you want the mood to be calm or even just normal-paced, extreme emotions are what make the piece worth listening to.

In some cases, music is actually meant to be technical, no emotions in general. In this case the situation would be pretty straightforward, and the piece should be judged by technicality only.

Creativity is another factor. How exactly is creativity judged?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity
Creativity is generally about having new ideas, imagining new possibilities, and creating work with new properties. If a piece is creative, it will show elements that few, if any, songs have.

About composers such as Bartok, I see what you mean. After hearing their work, it is difficult for the common person to see why their music is so acclaimed. I taught myself everything I knew about music after my first few years of learning piano from my teacher, so it's difficult for me to comprehend anything complex. However, I'm sure that with higher education, it will be easier to see his genius and explain why, but for now, their work is still beyond my level.

Sorry for the unclear explanations, I'm bad with words. I tried my best.

[devonin]

The simple answer is: If you set a list of criteria for what constitutes good music, you can declare objectively that a given piece of music is good or bad, simply by how closely it matches those criteria.

However, since you are almost certain to be completely unable to generate a list of criteria that even a slim majority might agree to, the basic formulation goes like this:

The best you can do is declare something objectively good or bad based on its adherence to subjectively created criteria.

[sleeplessdragn]

It's too bad that this thread can't be linked into the Gym or something. =(

I view music like I view anything else that stimulates the body's senses: pleasure = good. However, it's probably necessary to define what pleasure is. This is tough however because humans are an interesting creature. While scientifically speaking we can derive precisely what it is that instinctively feels "good" to the brain, we can also convince the brain to feel "good" in rather odd circumstances, most of which vary from person to person. This explains how some people can derive pleasure from pain (S&M), or anything else in a similar fashion (I for example find cute objects pleasurable to view ^_^).

Culture has an astounding effect on how a population rates music as well. It is due to culture, in fact, that I believe no music is truly "good" in any form. I believe that in order to uncover true "good" music, one would have to experiment with a population that has no culture, which is unfortunately an impossibility.

[devonin]

I believe that in order to uncover true "good" music, one would have to experiment with a population that has no culture, which is unfortunately an impossibility.

The problem with this is that we are in many ways slaves to our brain chemistry. I know someone who did a project in University gauging human reactions to various chords, sounds and tones, especially with respect to emotional reactions that occured, and they found that certain tones and sounds created very specific reactions in listeners.

Certain minor chords were saddening, others worrisome, certain tones sounded happy or positive to people with an astounding degree of consistancy.

This is why you can point to certain music groups having multiple songs that all sound the same, and why certain kinds of music that we will even state we actively dislike nevertheless get stuck in our heads. They are created specifically to take advantage of the unconscious reactions we have to hearing certain groups of sounds and tones and beats.

In that case, while I'm willing to grant that a group that had no culture at all might develop differing opinions on which artists or groups they perfer compared to other cultures, I'm pretty confident that it would be the same general kinds of music.

[sleeplessdragn]

Originally Posted by devonin

The problem with this is that we are in many ways slaves to our brain chemistry. I know someone who did a project in University gauging human reactions to various chords, sounds and tones, especially with respect to emotional reactions that occured, and they found that certain tones and sounds created very specific reactions in listeners.

I was trying to imply this when I stated how science can precisely pinpoint what is pleasurable to the brain. However, I would argue though that someone who understood the emotion of sadness can be taught to relate that sadness to, say, Happy JCore-esque music. I believe this is entirely cultural. While it is true that certain chords of music can invoke consistent feelings, it is culture which ultimately defines what that feeling means to the people.

[stargroup100]

Originally Posted by devonin

The problem with this is that we are in many ways slaves to our brain chemistry. I know someone who did a project in University gauging human reactions to various chords, sounds and tones, especially with respect to emotional reactions that occured, and they found that certain tones and sounds created very specific reactions in listeners.

This is the scientific support for my argument. Music can be judged by quality because certain sounds stimulate these specific reactions. By learning the effects of each sound, we can manipulate our music so that it will be scientifically more pleasing to the ear. It doesn't matter if a certain individual doesn't like the music because it is about how humans will react to the sound in general. If one person doesn't like it it is just his or her personal opinion, possibly influenced by other factors.

[Quit]

would that be like saying that there is a selection of musical techniques that would produce an eternal classic essentially using paint by numbers? Since every individual will have their own individual lives and experiences, that should allow different genres, but the wiring of the human would still put what is acceptable within boarders.
but then how would that explain how an experienced musician could make crappy music?
(experienced being knows what usually works or usually produces something likable)

[dore]

Many guitarists have great technical skill but can only play what is sitting in front of them on a piece of paper (be it tabs or sheet music). But, when you ask one of them to improvise, they can't do it, because they never learned why they play what they play. They know nothing of chords, progressions, and the other building blocks of music.

My point? You can't use the average person's reaction to music for determining if music is good or not, as the average person has little to no theoretical learning in music. The guitarist example is not to prove that most people who play guitar are terrible musicians; rather, it shows that even those who fancy themselves musicians often know little about music. A simple example: Nobody would deny Mozart's symphonies are great music. However, how many people actually listen to great music like that? and of those few who do, how many actually listen to it as music and not for calming purposes? Very few, compared to other genres of music.

Consider the opposite: Would anybody actually consider Fall Out Boy good musicians? Sure they may be entertaining to a large group of people, but are they admirable for their creativity and musicianship or just popular for making their own spin on the newest popular style of music?

Good music can't be determined by popular opinion or reaction, it has to be determined by an inspection of the creativity, originality, musicianship, and expression of the artist. The general public simply does not have enough musical knowledge to be able to judge a piece of music.

[sleeplessdragn]

Such an explanation depends a lot on how to determine good music. You've taken a perspective on quality that is...qualitative? but some believe that something is good when a large majority of people believe that it is good. Few would argue that Mozart produced bad music, but I would ask then: what if someone who had absolutely no cultural influence/knowledge listened to Mozart? Would they say it was good or bad?

This example can't be applied to someone say, who was born deaf and suddenly gained the ability to hear though, because of the emotional attachment society places on the loss/lack of senses. This deaf person would automatically associate this newfound sense (and song) with happiness, because of the prior stated attachment. This association would occur most probably not because of the scientific aspects of the music, but by situational and cultural influence.

[dore]

They would say they either like it or dislike it, which has nothing to do with whether it's good or bad music. If you handed a four-year-old War and Peace, would they be able to tell you if it's good literature? No, they won't like it because there's too many big words and no pictures. That doesn't make War and Peace bad literature, it just means that a four-year-old didn't like it.

In terms of musical knowledge, that person with no cultural influence/knowledge compares to that four-year-old. Just like the four-year-old has a basic understanding of how the combinations of words form ideas but has no true analysis skill, that person to which you referred to has no idea of how to analyze music; therefore, his opinion is moot in this case.

[Verruckter]

Here's my response, ignoring all posts but the OP:

Yes, it is absolutely possible to classify a song judging by it's caracteristics in an absolutely objective manner.

Some songs are better than others for very simple reasons: Complexity, polyphony, depth of the melodies, etc.

A song with 3 catchy riffs written with fifths and with only one voice at the time is quite objectively less good than a song with many parts that overlap, along with polyphonic interactions between the voices and actual research in the melodies. Compare a song written for Britney Spears or Celine Dion to a song written by Biago Marini or Beethoven and you'll understand my point.

Just becase you can't admit a song is better than another because you like it too much doesn't mean it's not subjective.

Another argument: Some songs are actually pleasent to my ears. That does not mean they're good. It just means my mind is used to hearing those perticular pitch variations. All in all, catchyness doesn't make music necessarely good.

[sleeplessdragn]

It is a very difficult bridge to say that a 4-year old is comparable to someone with no culture. Perhaps a 4-year old who grew up by themselves in the midst of a planet lacking any other humans. But arguing about examples of non-culture is besides the point. I'd like to note that there is a clear difference between knowledge and culture. Someone who is uneducated can still discern whether something is pleasurable, an association that is formed by culture.

The problem is that the analysis of music, and much of anything else, is heavily rooted in culture. While yes, science can say this chord sounds like this and makes the brain do this, the brain has to translate that feeling into something that it can consciously relate as something. This is where that person's culture defines how it sounds, defines if it is "good". Take for example, music on a world scale. It's hard to say that Japan's Jpop is truly bad music in any way (I for one love it), yet compared to Western music any general person would be able to discern one as "Japanese". That person might not say it's bad sounding, or even that it is bad sounding, but clearly they would note that it sounds "Japanese". Who is to say that one is better than the other, or that one is good or bad? This is the cultural influence of music and it is separate from the science of sound. This is why I believe that the only way of uncovering truly "good" music is experimentation with a population not affected in any way by culture.

I would also like to note that there is a clear difference between reading something and hearing something. To read is to recollect definitions of words that have their meaning predestined in your mind. The act of listening asks the brain to define what it is hearing for itself. If you hear something you have never heard before, you feel strange, you wonder what it is and you try and synthesize a meaning to the sound. If you see a word that you haven't seen before, you look it up in a dictionary and allow culture to tell you what it means.

EDIT: This was in response to dore. Verruckter is a ninja.

[aperson]

I won't chime in on the main part of this post since I really don't know how I feel about objectively evaluating music. All I can say is that music manages to completely put me in sheer ecstasy on a day-to-day basis, and I wish I could help others understand the power that music has. I believe there are different approaches to music that are capable of giving different levels of enjoyment to the listener, and the artists someone chooses to listen to only give hints into how he or she enjoys music.

Now, onto the load of pretentious crap.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Here's a funny aside about all this. There was actually a sort of philosophy of music which grew out of the dogmatic relativism and general intellectual worthlessness of the past century or so. Modernist music, that is. Now, I dare you to go listen to the collective works of, say, Arnold Schoenberg or Bela Bartok, and to tell me the bulk of their music is in any way "good". I would be fascinated to hear the reasoning behind such a claim.

Twelve-tone is an interesting, although kind of limited-in-scope idea which makes it interesting for a few songs, but I don't think it should be expanded out into a whole scene of music. When fleshed out over a wide variety of timbres, I could probably listen to and enjoy it all day for quite awhile.

Bartok is another composer which I find really, really legitimately good Why? I can't say. I like music that doesn't make assumptions about what music is. At its most basic level, music is nothing more than organized sound. If you take this perspective of music and open your mind and awareness to accept it, you'll find lots of beauty in the dissonance, the timbres, pitches and sounds.

John Cage matches my musical philosophy near perfectly: There's so much sound around us with so much ordering and beauty to it, but we never notice it. When your standard reference points for what defines what is good are pulled away from you, you might open up and find lots of good buried elsewhere as well. Or, who knows, you might just become a smarmy asshole who dares others to find good because you can't find it yourself.

Maybe you should try running tomorrow and listen to the rhythm your body creates, the flanging of the sounds around you as your head bobs up and down, the aleatoric timbre your feet create as they constantly hit the ground. When that 'music' makes you ecstatic, you might change how you view all this stuff you've tossed aside.

[aperson]

Originally Posted by Verruckter

Some songs are better than others for very simple reasons: Complexity, polyphony, depth of the melodies, etc.

A song with 3 catchy riffs written with fifths and with only one voice at the time is quite objectively less good than a song with many parts that overlap, along with polyphonic interactions between the voices and actual research in the melodies. Compare a song written for Britney Spears or Celine Dion to a song written by Biago Marini or Beethoven and you'll understand my point.

So uhh, how are we going to compare a Beethoven sonata to a rearranged field recording of a slowly dying heating unit (Sleep Research Facility - Dead Weather Machine). I absolutely love both, but I am not about to start drawing comparisons between these. There's way too many songs I love that hardly have what you could even call a melody in the conventional sense, nor polyphony. I think you are making way too many assumptions about what music is, which kind of demonstrates devonin's point that you can only objectively evaluate music on subjective criteria

[dore]

Originally Posted by sleeplessdragn

I would also like to note that there is a clear difference between reading something and hearing something. To read is to recollect definitions of words that have their meaning predestined in your mind. The act of listening asks the brain to define what it is hearing for itself. If you hear something you have never heard before, you feel strange, you wonder what it is and you try and synthesize a meaning to the sound. If you see a word that you haven't seen before, you look it up in a dictionary and allow culture to tell you what it means.

I know that, I use that situation only as an example to relate my opinion on one topic to another. It's persuasion

My point is that a four-year-old has similar experience with books as the general public has with music. They both have had continual contact with their respective mediums, and are able to discern very basic ideas, but have had little training in that subject. They both are distracted by excess details (song lyrics for music and illustrations for books, for example) and are unable to find deeper meanings and make critical interpretations.

[sleeplessdragn]

All well and good, but you are still making an assumption that these deeper meanings and critical interpretations are required for good music. The point I'm trying to make is that if I played a sine wave at your face and somehow convinced you that this was the definition of good music by forcing association with everything you relate goodness to, you would be convinced that it was good music. It wouldn't matter to you that the science behind it was stupid, you would probably find the song catchy, or you would feel a tingling in a special part of your body. Again, this is cultural influence.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by aperson

try running tomorrow and listen to the rhythm your body creates, the flanging of the sounds around you as your head bobs up and down, the aleatoric timbre your feet create as they constantly hit the ground. When that 'music' makes you ecstatic, you might change how you view all this stuff you've tossed aside.

Holy ****, YES.

[Kilroy_x]

Originally Posted by aperson

Now, onto the load of pretentious crap.

You know, I had the impression I would get a response from you on this as soon as I posted. So good job following convention.

Twelve-tone is an interesting, although kind of limited-in-scope idea which makes it interesting for a few songs, but I don't think it should be expanded out into a whole scene of music.

I agree. A few songs, however, is not a collective body of work.

Bartok is another composer which I find really, really legitimately good Why? I can't say.

Ok, bye.

I like music that doesn't make assumptions about what music is.

Oh. Well I guess you changed your mind in the course of a sentence. What does this statement actually mean? That you like music which doesn't follow convention? Or that you like music which is novel, perhaps? Although, funny thing, even this:

At its most basic level, music is nothing more than organized sound.

Is an assumption about what music is. So I'm really not sure what you're getting at.

If you take this perspective of music and open your mind and awareness to accept it, you'll find lots of beauty in the dissonance, the timbres, pitches and sounds.

This doesn't follow. No one is arguing that music isn't organized sound, there just doesn't seem to be a reason to consider all organized sound (and equivalently, all music) beautiful. Hence some organized sound (music) can be called ugly.

When your standard reference points for what defines what is good are pulled away from you, you might open up and find lots of good buried elsewhere as well.

You haven't offered any new reference points, moron. Congratulations on your profound revelation that music is organized sound.

When that 'music' makes you ecstatic, you might change how you view all this stuff you've tossed aside.

Or maybe I'll just remember that you used to make stepcharts which were decent, then you descended into a stream of failed avant-garde bull**** fueled by a general philosophy on life designed to give you permission to be incoherent.

Oh, also music is organized sound.

[Verruckter]

Originally Posted by aperson

So uhh, how are we going to compare a Beethoven sonata to a rearranged field recording of a slowly dying heating unit (Sleep Research Facility - Dead Weather Machine). I absolutely love both, but I am not about to start drawing comparisons between these. There's way too many songs I love that hardly have what you could even call a melody in the conventional sense, nor polyphony. I think you are making way too many assumptions about what music is, which kind of demonstrates devonin's point that you can only objectively evaluate music on subjective criteria

I haven't heard that song but I think that all in all, wether the melody is composed of sampled sounds with various pitches or a single instrument, it can all translate to a scorable, conventionnal melody and that's what you have to analyze when you compare both pieces.

I don't think the definition of music is subjective and as I've said, you can make compromises on the actual form of the song to obtain comparable material.