# Music: is it object or subject?



## Guest (Oct 27, 2012)

Some recent activity on this board has made me suspect (hope?) that TC will be a good place to chat about this question, what I have increasingly come to see as _the_ fundamental question, about all the arts.

Why, it's the unified field theory of aesthetics!


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

If music is _either_ object or subject, how can a discussion then be fruitful ? Your "_or_" must of course necessarily be provocative.

The main effect of the subject-object discussion marring a lot of recent aesthetics and theoretical debate often seems to be simply the mystifying of the work of art, trying to reach beyond our language, and trying to escape any specific social or historical relevance of the work of art.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2012)

If you look at music as object, you get a result.

If you look at music as subject, you get a very different result.

But mostly, we don't think about it at all. We assume music is an object, and we make our various pronouncements on things on that basis. What happens if we stop assuming and think about how we think? What if we try consciously to look at music as subject?

In any event, thinking about how we think or react or feel will lead us into more places (and help us understand where we are) than just thinking (about the objects) or reacting or feeling. That's what I was thinking, anyway.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> Some recent activity on this board has made me suspect (hope?) that TC will be a good place to chat about this question, what I have increasingly come to see as _the_ fundamental question, about all the arts.


With joen_cph, I agree it's both. Music and all art is similar to a language in that it is an attempt to share the experience of artist and viewer. There are certain universals of human experience, common to all, which we can share in the expression of; traditions, and agreed-upon meanings.

Usually, a subjective emphasis is put forward to discount a work, whenever that music does not agree with our idea of what it should be, or upsets our paradigm.

*"mystifying the work of art":* "We know what art is. Why is this guy trying to mystify it, to make us look dumb? There is no mystery, crap is crap."

*"trying to reach beyond our language": *"We all know and understand language. The language is just fine the way it is. Why do we need to reach beyond it? You're marring my aesthetic."

*"trying to escape any specific social or historical relevance of the work of art":* Why does art have to be all things to all people? What's wrong with nationalism? This is _my_ experience you're talking about, and it belongs _right here,_ in _this time,_ in _this place._ And all my friends agree."


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

It's a constant negotiation between the two. Without looking for a middle ground, we get into "Madonna is just as good as Beethoven, prove me wrong" territory.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Music is an object - the notes are there on the score (or whatever notational device is being used, or the sounds are being produced by whatever device is producing the sounds)

Our reaction to it is subjective.

But since there is an object there, our reactions are not totally random, as it is the relationship between us as human beings (presumably) with all our experiences etc. to the music of whatever medium with its fixed parameters. There is a tendency to forget one or the other of these in order to emphasize the other one.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I agree with Ramako. In a sense it is similar to the nature vs nurture debate. Our "nature" (usually viewed as our DNA) is real _and_ important as is the objective aspect of music (the score or sounds). But that DNA interacts critically with our environment during development to produce the product - us. A different environment could produce a different person from the same DNA (and does with identical twins). The DNA - environmental interaction is analogous to the music ("objective") - human mind ("subjective") interaction that ultimately produces a reaction to the music. Both aspects are important to the final result (i.e. our response to the music).


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

It can be both. The great JS Bach wrote his church cantatas, and was expected to do so by his employment superiors and his God, to celebrate/glorify their religion during church services. The audience would have expected the same for these pieces premiered _inside churches during church services_. Nothwithstanding the fact that some folks reading this might be non-religious, the fact is these pieces clearly had objectives in mind by composer and audience, and it would even have been considered highly inappropriate, if not totally so, to have these pieces premiered for their intended objectives outside of these contexts, and even literally so - outside of a church! At the same time, these can also be subjective. I have a lovely looking large box-set of _The Complete Sacred Cantatas_ BWV1-200 performed by Harnoncourt and Leonhardt, and collecting other series, for example Suzuki's excellent series with the Bach Collegium Japan (which I think surpasses the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set so far). As a non-believer, I can approach the music and enjoy every minute of each and not within any of the intended objectives of the composer.

This I speak from my "qualified experience" of having listened to BWV1 to BWV200 by Harnoncourt/Leonhardt and most of the Suzuki set currently available.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2012)

regressivetransphobe said:


> It's a constant negotiation between the two. Without looking for a middle ground, we get into "Madonna is just as good as Beethoven, prove me wrong" territory.


What I'm suggesting, however, is that a comment such as "Madonna is just as good as Beethoven" is coming from the perspective of considering music as object.

And that's why I used the words object and subject.

I did not intend this to be yet another object_ive_/subject_ive_ wrangle!

Of course music is both object and subject. But whichever of those is the quality one approaches listening with--and talking about music with--will return very different results. Viewing music as subject would never lead one to say either "Madonna is as good as Beethoven" or "Beethoven is the best composer ever." Both of those statements, however much in opposition they are, are coming from the same perspective of viewing music as object.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> ... Both of those statements, however much in opposition they are, are coming from the same perspective of viewing music as object.


Referring to my Bach church cantatas example again, it is possible to have both concurrently if the listener today is a believer of God, and at the same time wants to enjoy the music. And why not?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Why, it's both, of course. There can be no subject in the first place without the object, after all. We typically leap off from common ground. Whichever is preferred depends on what the listener wants from the music.



millionrainbows said:


> With joen_cph, I agree it's both. Music and all art is similar to a language in that it is an attempt to share the experience of artist and viewer. There are certain universals of human experience, common to all, which we can share in the expression of; traditions, and agreed-upon meanings.
> 
> Usually, a subjective emphasis is put forward to discount a work, whenever that music does not agree with our idea of what it should be, or upsets our paradigm.
> 
> ...


And isn't that the modern trend, one of escaping definition. If the postmodernists have their way, I'm sure nothing will be anything any more. Everything will be equivocated, condoned, encouraged, defended. No more wrong answers. Why can't there be wrong answers? Because people can't stand to hear that there are right and wrong answers to questions. And the old scholastic order must be abolished, because it is an arrogant beast, one that makes distinctions and instructs. I kid you not, this is an actual trend in academia today, amongst philosophers. According to them, it's an illusion that language expresses anything, that one action is commendable and another isn't, that two similar things aren't the same, or that one answer to the issue of religion is better. All issues thus become irrelevant. And how do they get this across? By sounding like Zen thinkers with their poorly hashed together paradoxes, which merely appear to be paradoxes because they have not defined the two values properly when stating the paradox between them.

For example: They say that an example of language being void is the paradox between simple and complex. Little do they understand that simple and complex are contingent upon one another. Simple is the single pixel or small group of pixels. Complex is the network of the pixels. So, the complex is, when you reduce it down to it's essentials, simple. But postmodernists don't respond to arguments from contingency, because all they do is hash up another poorly defined paradox without defending the previous one.

And amongst average people, postmodernism is gaining traction. It has become a big barrier today to those who work in Apologetics. Why become a Christian when the issue is purely relative and irrelevant, right? The average know-it-all just wants to enjoy him/her self. Postmodernism is so convenient. The ideal of Platonic dialogue may be in it's death throes.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> *Usually, a subjective emphasis is put forward to discount a work, whenever that music does not agree with our idea of what it should be, or upsets our paradigm.*


Wow, evidently you have not dropped in on a bunch of pros discussing music much... the subjective is present to avoid all the emotional associative 'Rorschach blot' individual reactions which may be real and valid, _but have little to do with anything pertinent about the thing when the piece is on the dissection table.
_
OF COURSE to the 'normal' listener, those Rorschach blot emotional reactions are all, everything and 'all about their personal experience.' But 'your personal experience' has little to do, really, with the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points -- other than to you.

"All about me," when in discussion with others, just doesn't stay interesting for more than a moment or two.

ED / ADD: A musical piece is an object, which once being discussed becomes 'the subject.' 
Past that, I smell a petty academic rut of hairsplitting over the semantics of a very plain case... which is no real 'issue' at all.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

PetrB said:


> Wow, evidently you have not dropped in on a bunch of pros discussing music much... the subjective is present to avoid all the emotional associative 'Rorschach blot' individual reactions which may be real and valid, _but have little to do with anything pertinent about the thing when the piece is on the dissection table.
> _
> OF COURSE to the 'normal' listener, those Rorschach blot emotional reactions are all, everything and 'all about their personal experience.' But 'your personal experience' has little to do, really, with the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points -- other than to you.
> 
> "All about me" just doesn't stay interesting for more than a moment or two when in discussion with others.


This makes me think how that the objective and subjective frames of reference can be thought of as two lines of questions: the "how do I respond to this", and the "how do we respond to this".


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2012)

And what I've been trying to get across (I do believe I made a mistake thinking I could do it, too!) is that both "how do I respond to this" and "how do we respond to this" both come from viewing music as object (this).

As does this, "the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points."

As for post modernism, in my experience it has seemed more like a whipping boy or a scapegoat than a culprit. But then I don't think society is going to hell in a handbasket, either, though some bits of it always are. And I certainly don't think that contemporary classical is a force for evil.

I cannot speak for million, whom Luke was addressing in the post modernism post, but I can say that my goal in this thread is to see if we can reassess how we approach the arts, to sharpen definitions not eliminate them, to use the appropriate words to describe whatever it is we're describing.

The biggest category error I see in discussions of music is assigning statements of value the status of fact, using them as if they described the features and characteristics of pieces. ("Beethoven's symphony no. 9 is around 65 minutes long" and "Beethoven's symphony no. 9 is the greatest symphony ever" taken as being the same kind of statement, a statement about the piece itself.) And that comes, I think, from viewing music as object. Viewing music as subject means statements of value are never taken as anything else than what they are, statements of value. Different from statements of fact. More valuable.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> If the postmodernists have their way, I'm sure nothing will be anything any more. Everything will be equivocated, condoned, encouraged, defended. No more wrong answers.


Indeed. Demanding a logical justification for any value judgment will always invalidate that judgment. In the long run, the demand destroys the myths on which any civilization depends. The Greeks knew that, which is why they (wisely) executed Socrates.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> With joen_cph, I agree it's both. Music and all art is similar to a language in that it is an attempt to share the experience of artist and viewer. There are certain universals of human experience, common to all, which we can share in the expression of; traditions, and agreed-upon meanings.
> 
> Usually, a subjective emphasis is put forward to discount a work, whenever that music does not agree with our idea of what it should be, or upsets our paradigm.
> 
> ...


I take it that you are giving examples of subjective content, since those specifications are not mine. If however you have found a critique of a loss of meaning, or a "fear" of that, in my post, I can agree with you.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

some guy said:


> And what I've been trying to get across (I do believe I made a mistake thinking I could do it, too!) is that both "how do I respond to this" and "how do we respond to this" both come from viewing music as object (this).
> 
> As does this, "the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points."
> 
> ...


In the first paragraph there, you are maybe obfuscating the definitions of subjective and objective, depending on your intentions there. In all matters of contention, there is an object. This is not what calling an approach objective or subjective is about. Subjective approaches aren't empirical, they are opinionated. Objective approaches merely observe and infer. This is the commonly accepted understanding.

I didn't mean to rail on all postmodernist thinkers, just the trend in the field of philosophy and how it has affected people. The shape that many discussions take today would have been considered nonsensical when I was younger. Either/or wasn't good enough for us back then. We didn't just settle for pure subjectivity. The label of subjectivity trivialized our passions. But postmodernists are in many ways the heirs to the Romantic philosophical tradition, so it's not like we hadn't seen our fair share of it already.

As for sharpening definitions, I don't see what is sharpened by us coming up with new definitions (although I don't mean you explicitly suggested that). We merely continue to be blunt to each other this way, if we don't educate ourselves about the standard definitions and use them as the universe of discourse. But that's not to say that I don't like the idea of this thread or the contributions here.

As for the paragraph on category errors, I think that it can be useful to start from a frame of reference like "this is what we value" and using the facts at that point. To objectively approach what we subjectively agree upon.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Indeed. Demanding a logical justification for any value judgment will always invalidate that judgment. In the long run, the demand destroys the myths on which any civilization depends. The Greeks knew that, which is why they (wisely) executed Socrates.


Seeing as I wish they hadn't executed Socrates, I'm not sure I understand your meaning here. I have an impression of it, but, no offense, you are too terse here. Let's not make vague comparisons with civilizations and myths. Let's be as clear as we can, please.

The impression I have is that you are arguing for the postmodernist perspective (which I can respect), that value judgments are in fact invalid and that attacking value judgments is a martyrdom of a business because value judgments are a sacred cow. Let me be clear in that I believe there is actually a rational basis for some value judgments, not all. I have the impression that I have, because I'm not sure you were serious in your post. It seems like you were trying to make a point there with a figure beloved of philosophers, how that they committed an injustice in killing him because of their sacred cows.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Postmodernism is dying, dead. Science (not me, the thing itself) has survived and thrives. 

But aesthetics remains a realm of individual/group preferences, pure subject in the terms of the post.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> Seeing as I wish they hadn't executed Socrates, I'm not sure I understand your meaning here. I have an impression of it, but, no offense, you are too terse here. Let's not make vague comparisons with civilizations and myths. Let's be as clear as we can, please.
> 
> The impression I have is that you are arguing for the postmodernist perspective (which I can respect), that value judgments are in fact invalid and that attacking value judgments is a martyrdom of a business because value judgments are a sacred cow. Let me be clear in that I believe there is actually a rational basis for some value judgments, not all. I have the impression that I have, because I'm not sure you were serious in your post. It seems like you were trying to make a point there with a figure beloved of philosophers, how that they committed an injustice in killing him because of their sacred cows.


Journalist I.F. Stone wrote a great book called _The Trial of Socrates _where he argued, quite cogently, that Athens was right in executing him. You may want to check it out.

http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Socrate...qid=1351394546&sr=1-1&keywords=stone+socrates

Socrates had, in fact, no coherent philosophy, though he had strong opinions about civic duty (which is why he stuck around for his hemlock). He specialized in asking questions to "clarify" things, and in encouraging others to do so as well. And value judgments cannot survive questioning, which forces them to be defended on logical grounds. And no, I don't believe that value judgments are ever logically justifiable. If they were, they wouldn't be value judgments, would they?

This sort of thing ultimately eats away at the foundations of any society, because all societies are based on unprovable assumptions and, frankly, myths. If these are no longer broadly believed and shared, then it's bye-bye time. So no, I'm not defending these post-modern Socratians -- if anything, I'm suggesting they be executed for the good of us all! We have plenty of our own sacred cows, and we need them.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

science said:


> Postmodernism is dying, dead. Science (not me, the thing itself) has survived and thrives.
> 
> But aesthetics remains a realm of individual/group preferences, pure subject in the terms of the post.


But is aesthetics the only thing thought of as a subject in music? I think not.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Journalist I.F. Stone wrote a great book called The Trial of Socrates where he argued, quite cogently, that Athens was right in executing him. You may want to check it out.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Socrate...qid=1351394546&sr=1-1&keywords=stone+socrates
> 
> ...


If Socrates had no coherent philosophy, then how did he manage to develop milestones such as the Forms, the Socratic method, etc. Maybe his views weren't always clear, but he practically invented several milestones of philosophy, so he seems coherent to me as a philosopher. Or do all philosophers whose views aren't set in stone need to die? That would be no bueno.

I am of the view, that some values are much like Forms, that is, valid components and core parts of epistemic models. Actual objects. Not all values, mind you. But I've been confusing with my language here. What I really have tried to establish on philosophical grounds for a while now, is that some things that we have considered values up to now, are not values but objects. Not a relative amount or frame of reference or assumption but a pixel, an axiom, an object. Because of my views on this, I've often liked to take these so called values and plug them into propositional logic as axioms of a function.

For example: assume for a moment that good and bad are actually objects, that have been called values because of their relation to one another and preferences between them. When they become objects, they become valid components of a modal equation. On those grounds I can come up with Apologetics like a modal argument for evil's existence being compatible with a tri-omni God, because an inference along the order of modus ponens can tell us that we live in the possible world in which those three aspects are most being expressed. So, we start from the assumption that a tri-omni God exists, and use Kripkean logic to determine that in order for our universe to be consistent with that, this must be the best possible state of affairs (which we would spell out in the Kripkean terms of "possibly necessarily true"). Of course, we don't start from that assumption to argue for this god's existence. We use that UOD to consider the rationality of that possibility, once we consider it a possibility.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> If Socrates had no coherent philosophy, then how did he manage to develop milestones such as the Forms, the Socratic method, etc.


The "Socratic method" is of course no more than a structured way of asking questions. It's far more dangerous than simply stating unfounded opinions and building a superstructure of further opinions on that. If Socrates had been more of a "philosopher" in the modern sense, he might have had a longer life.

Good luck on your efforts to turn opinions into facts. The only time opinions become "objective" is (you guessed it) when they're mine.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> The "Socratic method" is of course no more than a structured way of asking questions. It's far more dangerous than simply stating unfounded opinions and building a superstructure of further opinions on that. If Socrates had been more of a "philosopher" in the modern sense, he might have had a longer life.
> 
> Good luck on your efforts to turn opinions into facts. The only time opinions become "objective" is (you guessed it) when they're mine.


Good for you. Another person who summarily and preliminarily dismisses an idea. Just what we need. And if they are facts, is it not the case that most philosophers up to now who have called a fact an opinion, are in error?

The Socratic Method, by the way, is the basis for all modern day philosophical dialectic. "No more than" that, huh? I'd like to see any old chap just come up with it if planted back then and there, because it was actually pretty original in it's time. And of course, the Forms propped up the Stoics, who in turn propped up propositional logic, which in turn props up empiricism and math. That's two pretty coherent concepts already, and I haven't even started naming books yet.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I didn't say the "Socratic method" was not important. I said it was dangerous. It was then and it is now. You keep thinking I'm "dismissing" Socrates. Far from it. I'm saying people like that have to be kept in careful check (or even eliminated) for the good of society. It's hardly a matter of whether they were/are "right" or "wrong."

(And yes, I'm going a bit overboard here...just a bit...for fun.)


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> I didn't say the "Socratic method" was not important. I said it was dangerous. It was then and it is now. You keep thinking I'm "dismissing" Socrates. Far from it. I'm saying people like that have to be kept in careful check (or even eliminated) for the good of society. It's hardly a matter of whether they were/are "right" or "wrong."
> 
> (And yes, I'm going a bit overboard here...just a bit...for fun.)


But our society is built upon people like Socrates. Where would our technological innovations and political systems be without his philosophy? Nowhere. People like him are the basis for our scholastic tradition. And our scholastic tradition is the basis for us having electricity, cars, running water, etc. We arrogantly eliminate the gadflies whose nectar we drink. They point which way is forwards, and we kill them for it now, but our children thank them and not us. We are ultimately hated by society and not them. By the virtue of their sheer brilliance alone, they win in the end. If we had never had any gadflies, then life would be barbaric, cruel, miserable, painful, trite, devoid of dignity. We would struggle to survive, and kill one another mercilessly. We would live in constant fear of people like the Minoan's warlike neighbors, the Myceneans, who had to plunder other groups just to feed themselves, because their system was so stagnant. The Minoans died because they were doing something right. They had naval trade and prospered, but they had no walls. So their barbaric neighbors, whose art reflected only war, whose crops never sustained them, whose political system couldn't work without infighting, came and slaughtered them.

If they should have killed Socrates, then why is the court and not him vilified today? Society ultimately agrees with it's true arbiters, the thinkers. The thinkers aren't content. They root out stagnation, pain, the oppression of tyrants, those who prey on widows and the weak. They provide, encourage, fulfill, and sustain. They inspire and write constitutions, entertain us with their brilliant music, and fill our homes with amenities.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Ramako said:


> Music is an object - the notes are there on the score (or whatever notational device is being used, or the sounds are being produced by whatever device is producing the sounds...Our reaction to it is subjective. But since there is an object there, our reactions are not totally random, as *it is the relationship between us as human beings (presumably) with all our experiences etc. to the music *of whatever medium with its fixed parameters. There is a tendency to forget one or the other of these in order to emphasize the other one.


Yes, music is interactive; it is the "mapping of our experience" onto the "coded experience" of the artwork/artist.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

As long as a "subjective opinion" has information that is valid and refers to the object, then it can pass muster as a valid observation, and then be subjected to various criteria about the object.

For example, a subjective opinion which in essence says that "the music of Lady Gaga is superior to Beethoven's music" must be explicit and articulated enough that it illuminates some aspect of the objects in question.

Further example, "the music of Lady Gaga is superior to Beethoven's music because Lady Gaga's music is more danceable, is refreshingly simple, and is on the cutting edge of fashion," is acceptable as a subjective opinion, but fails the criteria test, because these qualities (dancability, simplicity, and fashionability) are not applicable to the criteria I use to validate Beethoven, and are, in fact, absurd comparisons.



Lukecash12 said:


> The shape that many discussions take today would have been considered nonsensical when I was younger. Either/or wasn't good enough for us back then. We didn't just settle for pure subjectivity.


The discussions nowadays will continue to be nonsensical and absurd until both sides define the parameters of their criteria, and whether the application of those criteria is appropriate, or absurd for different forms. That's what a responsible post-modernist does.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Further example, "the music of Lady Gaga is superior to Beethoven's music because Lady Gaga's music is more danceable, is refreshingly simple, and is on the cutting edge of fashion," is acceptable as a subjective opinion, but fails the criteria test, because these qualities (dancability, simplicity, and fashionability) are not applicable to the criteria I use to validate Beethoven...


Which is a roundabout way of saying that the criteria that are applied to music must be *your* criteria. Do I have that right?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> But our society is built upon people like Socrates. Where would our technological innovations and political systems be without his philosophy? Nowhere.


The examples you give (political systems aside) are from science. Science can withstand Socratic questioning; in fact science is based on such questioning. You might even say, with justification, that Socrates is the father of the scientific method.

Shared values and the myths that societies depend on cannot withstand such questioning. If the societies are to survive, people like Socrates must go. I assure you, if Socrates were plying his questioning trade in the USA today, he'd be in Supermax very quickly. History would, of course, excoriate us; but we'd solve a serious and immediate problem. To paraphrase, how many divisions does the future have?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> The examples you give (political systems aside) are from science. Science can withstand Socratic questioning; in fact science is based on such questioning. You might even say, with justification, that Socrates is the father of the scientific method.
> 
> Shared values and the myths that societies depend on cannot withstand such questioning. If the societies are to survive, people like Socrates must go. I assure you, if Socrates were plying his questioning trade in the USA today, he'd be in Supermax very quickly. History would, of course, excoriate us; but we'd solve a serious and immediate problem. To paraphrase, how many divisions does the future have?


But our so called "serious and immediate problems" are really just lingering examples of barbarism. It doesn't solve anything for us to perpetuate our ignorance and arrogance. If we were civilized enough to submit ourselves more to Socratic dialogue, then we would be more responsible and accountable in general. Our society thrives because we no longer subscribe to the harmful myths of our predecessors. Why bite the hand that has fed us since time immemorial? If it comes to feed us we should recognize how it has already built the pillars of our current society, and let it begin to carve a new pillar.

Progress should be considered the worthy end. Not the perpetuation of delusions. Progress won't tear us apart, like we often fear. It is going to build us up. The things that progress threatens, are things that threaten us, and shouldn't be protected. Who feeds and clothes us, after all? Did backwards thinkers write our constitutions? No, forward thinkers did. Thinkers merely present serious and immediate problems, to things that are actually problems themselves.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> Our society thrives because we no longer subscribe to the harmful myths of our predecessors.


Oh? I could name a dozen "harmful myths" that survive, or that we have invented since. But by merely naming them, I'd probably be kicked off this forum permanently. I'm not as brave as Socrates, and I'm not about to ask the wrong questions. Who was it who said, "We need two books: One on what everybody says but nobody believes, the other on what everybody believes but nobody says."


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Oh? I could name a dozen "harmful myths" that survive, or that we have invented since. But by merely naming them, I'd probably be kicked off this forum permanently. I'm not as brave as Socrates, and I'm not about to ask the wrong questions. Who was it who said, "We need two books: One on what everybody says but nobody believes, the other on what everybody believes but nobody says."


Of course some still survive. There is always progress to make. And we shouldn't kill the messenger. But this forum is for a specific purpose, so I wouldn't consider it too representative if what you say is the case. We don't come here to solve all of the world's problems.

It is quite nice, that we can often write on subjects like this and even get published, without being given the hemlock. I don't think I'm as brave as Socrates either.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> The "Socratic method" is of course no more than a structured way of asking questions. It's far more dangerous than simply stating unfounded opinions and building a superstructure of further opinions on that. If Socrates had been more of a "philosopher" in the modern sense, he might have had a longer life.
> 
> Good luck on your efforts to turn opinions into facts. The only time opinions become "objective" is (you guessed it) when they're mine.


Sorry, in my rush to ask my question below, I didn't see where you justified your assertion that the Socratic method is dangerous: please point me back to your post (for which many thanks in advance) ... or justify!



some guy said:


> Some recent activity on this board has made me suspect (hope?) that TC will be a good place to chat about this question, what I have increasingly come to see as _the_ fundamental question, about all the arts.
> 
> Why, it's the unified field theory of aesthetics!


More importantly, let me show my ignorance again (always a risk when one asks questions, but without asking questions, how else is one to learn?) and ask what you mean by 'subject' ( I think I've grasped 'object') if you don't want us to talk about 'subjective' and 'objective?'


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2012)

Oh y'all can talk about whatever you want. I'm not very possessive about threads that I've started.

In brief, looking at something as an object means first of all that you notice certain things (and maybe don't notice other things). It also means that the trap of responding to it and taking your responses (or even the responses of others--friends, critics, audiences, posterity) as being object-ive, thus as being qualities of the piece is always open and ready for you to fall into.

Looking at something as subject means that you look at everything, at the object, at yourself and your reactions, and at what happens when you and the object engage. You're less aware of the object as object and more aware of it as something you engage with, more aware of the engagement itself.

Take girls. (Hah, don't I wish.) Guys and lesbians think girls are pretty cute. They have nice features, including some very interesting naughty bits. But if you interact with your girlfriend or wife (or date) on only that level, I don't have very high hopes for your success. That object with all those attractive bits is a human, a subject, someone with whom you can interact. And the magic happens when you have a meeting of the minds, not when you have a meeting of the naughty bits, nice though that is.

Pieces of music don't have independent consciousnesses, of course. But they share this with human girls, they are not just their objective characteristics. They are part of a complex web of forces, their pitches and rhythms and timbres combine to make something that is more than the sum of its parts as soon as a human mind listens to them. And its that thing that happens when the listening is going on that's the focus of attention when you think of them as subject.

Back to girls for a second. When you're with a girl, you're with someone, someone who forever and always is more than/other than your impressions of her. Other than your feelings about her. She's a real, live subject. The work of art is not so much. It is always and forever more than/other than your impressions, but there your impressions are a little more central to the situation. The danger only comes if your impressions become normative. They're not, even if you're the grand Poo-Bah. And they don't become part of the objective reality of the piece.

But why should they? They are part of your experience with the music--they _are_ your experience. And thus vital and necessary and important. Without them, you don't have any experience at all. That can't be good. But my experience will be different. If we have consensus, that is, a lot of people with similar experiences, it's easy to trick ourselves into thinking we've got some qualities of the object going. We don't. We have a lot of people with similar experiences. And finding people who've had similar experiences to ours is important to us, is part of what makes us human. But it doesn't change the art. It doesn't make the art into something it's not.

Hmmm. So that's the brief version, eh? Wow. I wonder what the long version would look like! Yikes!


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

> If we have consensus, that is, a lot of people with similar experiences, it's easy to trick ourselves into thinking we've got some qualities of the object going. We don't. We have a lot of people with similar experiences. And finding people who've had similar experiences to ours is important to us, is part of what makes us human. But it doesn't change the art. It doesn't make the art into something it's not.


It seems to me that you are saying that the artist/creator is not able to communicate any concepts or ideas then, even in his own time. Isn´t the work of art normally built on 99% of more or less collective references, on a common ground - the last 1% reserved for innovation? Or ?


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> [...] Looking at something as subject means that you look at everything, at the object, at yourself and your reactions, and at what happens when you and the object engage. You're less aware of the object as object and more aware of it as something you engage with, more aware of the engagement itself.


Speaking entirely personally (just to be clear) I can't envisage a situation where I can (or have) listened to music as object. Even where the music has no prior associations, and I'm in equable mood, the minute it starts, it will trigger a train of thoughts and emotions over which it is almost impossible to have control. Whilst I'm not claiming that those thoughts and emotions are part of the music (object) they are part of the musical experience/engagement.

It may be mildly diverting to wonder whether Bach, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Boulez made assumptions about how their music should be heard - place, context, temperament, attitude etc - and what Mozart, Wagner and Schoenberg would have made of the variety of circumstances in which their music is reproduced, it would surely be wrong to suggest that any one of their assumptions is more valid for the generality of musical listening than any other. True, one of them might have made those assumptions explicit (I'm sure someone will enlighten me if they did) and warned against listening in imperfect circumstances (doing the washing up, making love*, walking the dog, in the Royal Albert Hall, in the company of the over-40s etc). But none of them could dictate that all music should be listened to 'their' way.

The evolution of audience experience is almost as interesting as the evolution of music. (I don't mean to imply positive progression or negative degeneration by the term 'evolution'). Has anyone published on this subject?



joen_cph said:


> It seems to me that you are saying that the artist/creator is not able to communicate any concepts or ideas then, even in his own time.


I'll not speak for someguy, but I'd say that whatever the composer wishes to communicate, s/he cannot control the environment in which the communication takes place. This may or may not interfere with the transmission.

* [edit] Just a thought. I wonder whether Rossini ever had the ignoble thought that his William Tell Overture might not be the thing to listen to while doing this?


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

*The answer is both or neither.*

Over internet (or whatever) it is introduced that 'Object' is real, material and absolute truth. So Objective truths are like sacred rules. Therefore if you say something not equal to them you're uneducated, idiot, moron, etc.

Also 'Subject' is the matter of opinion, not-real, mental and relative... pure subjective opinions are always right or wrong or neither (based on your interpretation).

*If we accept music is Objective, we are Nazi!
If we accept music is Subjective, talking about is pointless!*


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

> * [edit] Just a thought. I wonder whether Rossini ever had the ignoble thought that his William Tell Overture might not be the thing to listen to while doing this?


Reportedly, people were _reckless_ during opera performances back in those days. After all, you still take Rossini as a reference .

But perhaps Shostakovich 15th Symphony - where he ambivalently quotes the politically charged heroism of Rossini´s ouverture - is more fitting to the sortie of positivism under the influence of relativism here .


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Speaking entirely personally (just to be clear) I can't envisage a situation where I can (or have) listened to music as object.


I don't think anyone actually does. But when they come to _talk_ about music.... 


MacLeod said:


> ...those thoughts and emotions are [not] part of the music (object) they are part of the musical experience/engagement.


Bingo.



MacLeod said:


> The evolution of audience experience is almost as interesting as the evolution of music. (I don't mean to imply positive progression or negative degeneration by the term 'evolution'). Has anyone published on this subject?


William Weber, _The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms._



MacLeod said:


> I'll not speak for someguy, but I'd say that whatever the composer wishes to communicate, s/he cannot control the environment in which the communication takes place. This may or may not interfere with the transmission.


I'll just add to this that I strongly suspect joen_cph of using "communicate" to mean "transmit." It's a common simplification of a complex activity, allowing for conclusions like the one he made.

And speaking of simplifications, how about that object/Nazi subject/pointless one? Whew! That was amazing. But of course, that also included a very common idea, that subjective means "not-real, mental and relative...," with mental and relative both being bad things, of course. But we are minds all of us, and the bulk of our reality is mental, even the things we think of as ordinary objects.

Physics, for instance, tells us that matter is really tiny objects spinning around in complex patterns with mostly empty space in between them. But that's not how we perceive an oak tree or a skyscraper, is it? Even purely physical objects are a matter of "tiny spinning objects" plus "sensory apparatus connected to minds." Our eyes and our ears and our minds are part and parcel of "reality." Subjective, far from being "not-real," is actually more like "all-real."


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

> I'll just add to this that I strongly suspect joen_cph of using "communicate" to mean "transmit." It's a common simplification of a complex activity, allowing for conclusions like the one he made.


But you will agree that transmitting is the basis of communication, one-sided or dialectical ? Aren´t the remarks of Tinguely on your avatar, the "Stravinsky Fountain" outside the Pompidou Centre, full of references and inspired by 16 specified Stravinsky works, relevant for a qualified communication or discussion about it, cf.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stravinsky_Fountain
_Tinguely on the fountain
"I wanted [the fountain] to have charm, with the colors of Niki, the movement of the water, and a certain attachment of the heart that I gave to my sculptures. I didn't want artifices of color in the California style, with jets of water that were electronically controlled, things mysterious and bizarre. I wanted sculptures like street performers, a little bit like a circus, which was at the heart of Stravinsky's style itself when in 1914 he had his first encounter with jazz, thanks to the recordings which Ernest Ansermet brought from the United States, or when he wrote an homage to a circus elephant, all made up in colors, which he saw in a circus in Evian or Lausanne." [6]
"... the first model that I made for Pierre Boulez, even though it was very small, had lots of colors. I didn't want, after Basel, to install another black machine. Paris has a completely different speed than Basel. It's a city of light, it's practically the center of the world, and there was that superb monstrosity, the Centre Pompidou - it was an enormous provocation, and I couldn't put something monumental next to it..." [7]
"The only way to do it was to go to the opposite [of the Pompidou Centre]; to think in terms of psychology, of speed, of movement, of charm, of games, of jokes, of competing with the street performers, the Afro-Cuban orchestras, the fire-eaters, who were in front of the Centre. That's why it had to have colors, the gold of the Firebird. I wanted an alarm clock, an answer to the daylight...." [8]
"...I studied the place during an entire year. i looked at the sun. I observed the wind. That determined for me the placement of the sculptures, and the orientation of the fountains...."[9]
"[Niki de Saint Phalle] began by making a large number of models; hats by the dozen, numbers of elephants, serpents, things, tricks... the Firebird was a found object in the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, but she redrew it, repainted it, until we had exactly what we needed, not to big and with holes to let the wind pass through to avoid it being carried away by the wind which is always blowing in the square of the Beaubourg...<[10]_.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> Sorry, in my rush to ask my question below, I didn't see where you justified your assertion that the Socratic method is dangerous: please point me back to your post (for which many thanks in advance) ... or justify!


If you make assertions, to the extent that they differ from the common wisdom, you're simply a crackpot. If you ask questions, though, you're inviting people to really think through certain things. And yes, that's dangerous! More on Socrates and the dangers he posed to Athenian society in journalist I.F Stone's book _The Trial of Socrates_.

http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Socrate...qid=1351455785&sr=1-1&keywords=stone+socrates

Though the book is about Socrates, the only Socrates we know is through the writings of Plato. This connection (and a similar critique) can be found, I'm told, in Karl Popper's more academic _The Open Society and its Enemies_.

http://www.amazon.com/Open-Society-...1-1&keywords=the+open+society+and+its+enemies


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2012)

KenOC said:


> If you make assertions, to the extent that they differ from the common wisdom, you're simply a crackpot. If you ask questions, though, you're inviting people to really think through certain things. And yes, that's dangerous! More on Socrates and the dangers he posed to Athenian society in journalist I.F Stone's book _The Trial of Socrates_.


Thanks for the recommendations.

I'm not clear how far your tongue is in your cheek when you talk about the 'dangers' of the Socratic method.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

MacLeod said:


> Speaking entirely personally (just to be clear) I can't envisage a situation where I can (or have) listened to music as object. Even where the music has no prior associations, and I'm in equable mood, the minute it starts, it will trigger a train of thoughts and emotions over which it is almost impossible to have control. Whilst I'm not claiming that those thoughts and emotions are part of the music (object) they are part of the musical experience/engagement.
> 
> It may be mildly diverting to wonder whether Bach, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Boulez made assumptions about how their music should be heard - place, context, temperament, attitude etc - and what Mozart, Wagner and Schoenberg would have made of the variety of circumstances in which their music is reproduced, it would surely be wrong to suggest that any one of their assumptions is more valid for the generality of musical listening than any other. True, one of them might have made those assumptions explicit (I'm sure someone will enlighten me if they did) and warned against listening in imperfect circumstances (doing the washing up, making love*, walking the dog, in the Royal Albert Hall, in the company of the over-40s etc). But none of them could dictate that all music should be listened to 'their' way.
> 
> ...


The sentiments of those who consider the opinions of the composers important, don't really run along the lines of whether or not they could/should be able to dictate how we listen to their music, so much as it is a passion for appreciating them on their own terms. So much focus can be had on what we get from art on our own basis, instead of what we can get from an experience of art that is more like a relationship with the artist than it is just a fancy, a preference for the art.

And like I've said before, I'm more impressed and feel more benefited from what a composer can think up over a process of even ears, than I am of what I can think up just from hearing a piece without that kind of primer. I'm not the one who inserted novel little reminders of the theme, all over the piece, so I'm probably not going to find enough to go off of compared to how much there is that supports the composer's narrative.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> If you make assertions, to the extent that they differ from the common wisdom, you're simply a crackpot. If you ask questions, though, you're inviting people to really think through certain things. And yes, that's dangerous! More on Socrates and the dangers he posed to Athenian society in journalist I.F Stone's book _The Trial of Socrates_.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Socrate...qid=1351455785&sr=1-1&keywords=stone+socrates
> 
> ...


Where's the danger, though? Thinkers are only dangerous when they ask questions, to the things that are a danger to us themselves. What man can't admit, is that what lurks in every man's heart, is a downright fascist. It's purely instinctive and it's a protective instinct. There is no shame in it. And there isn't any fully coming to terms with it. It's how we continue to feel a semblance of control. And it's also how we ultimately do a disservice to the pack. Which is naturally why it's come to be more suppressed in the modern day, or at least more suppressed among certain groups.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2012)

@Lukecash12

Sorry, I'm not sure I follow.



> it is a passion for appreciating them on their own terms


Appreciating who on whose terms? Are you saying that the contexts in which music is listened to (and which have an impact on the listener and their appreciation of the music) are less important than having a relationship with the composer?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> Thinkers are only dangerous when they ask questions, to the things that are a danger to us themselves.


Not so. Societies exist and survive through shared lies and myths. This is as true of ours (and maybe truer) as of others. But I'm getting repetitive...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> And what I've been trying to get across (I do believe I made a mistake thinking I could do it, too!) is that both "how do I respond to this" and "how do we respond to this" both come from viewing music as object (this).
> 
> As does this, "the piece, the 'value' of it, or its strong or weak points."
> 
> ...


Objective: "Beethoven's symphony no. 9 is around 65 minutes long"
Subjective: "Beethoven's symphony no. 9 is the greatest symphony ever"

When anyone said something like, "Beethoven's symphony no. 9 is the greatest symphony ever," the convention used to be it was clearly understood that an unstated "IN MY OPINION" preceded any such statement.

And so it still is. Even a formal set of criteria from which to plunge the depths of the worth of a work are to a degree a matter of 'opinion,' since some one set up "that list of criteria from which...."

You have on this forum enthusiastic neophytes, well informed but not formally trained laymen, all the way through to thoroughly trained professionals.

There is no one set of criteria which will satisfy such a hodgepodge of varied classical music lovers who have such disparate backgrounds. Fact is, on a forum such as this, the moment one starts to get 'conservatory detached / clinical' and go about the business of assessing in that manner, you lose the interest of a good deal of the members here.

Setting up a segment where those who have none or little of the more basic terminology, and who are flying by the seat of their pants, on emotions only, might be a worthy educative enterprise. 
Lately, 'romantic' was used in speaking of music but without any sense of 'Romantic' in the context of music history.
There are TC members who still advocate and evaluate 'melody' as a major element in assessing music, for example.
Others seem to think the only way to evaluate a piece of music is by doing a theoretic analysis of it, wildly missing that incalculable spontaneous 'personal aesthetic' and the more intuitive choices almost all artists make and take - one of those truly 'sloppy' areas of art which have to date, just refused to quit the scene in order to make the analyzers / assessor's lives any easier.

I think your work is cut out for you, and I wish you good luck with all that


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I think your work is cut out for you, and I wish you good luck with all that


 Well, I may have done all the work I'm going to do on this. Other than gentle nudges on other threads from time to time.

I'm aware of the unspoken (it's often spoken, too, though) assumption that "...greatest..." is "in my opinion." And I agree that opinions should not have to be identified as opinions.

Should not, but so often do. How many people do you think really believe that their opinions are anything but God-given truth?

In any event, I think that the transference of "this is my opinion" to "this is a quality of the work itself" has already taken place when most people talk about music. No way to prove that, of course. But the arguments and the quality of arguments about music certainly suggest that that has happened. Just to take HC's use of the word "crap," for instance. Clearly "I, HarpsichordConcerto, dislike this" has mutated into "this music is in and of itself not worthwhile." The word "crap" no longer points to the experience (where it belongs) but to the object.

And that, I think, is a mistake.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

A full drawing, with explanations of all the physics and math of the engineering, covering every bit from foundation, tower, the catenary of the cable, rivets, etc. will tell us how and why Joseph Strauss' Golden Gate Bridge stands and works.

_None of that will ever tell us why it is considered one of the most beautiful bridges in the world._

We are left with the eternally sloppy and variable realm of aesthetics, then.

Sorry, imho, determing value of 'abstract' music or much of fine art will remain forever messy.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2012)

PetrB said:


> [...] Fact is, on a forum such as this, the moment one starts to get 'conservatory detached / clinical' and go about the business of assessing in that manner, you lose the interest of a good deal of the members here.
> 
> Setting up a segment where those who have none or little of the more basic terminology, and who are flying by the seat of their pants, on emotions only, might be a worthy educative enterprise.
> Lately, 'romantic' was used in speaking of music but without any sense of 'Romantic' in the context of music history.
> ...


I get the impression that there are a number of members of TC being dismissed here, because of their perceived inadequacies in responding to, understanding, analysing music. Perhaps you'd like to set out _your _manifesto to explain the right way we should be doing these things?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I´m glad if there was a partly ideological programme rather than a mystifying one here .


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Sorry, imho, determing value of 'abstract' music or much of fine art will remain forever messy.


Quite true. Which is why we need an authority on such things, with enforcement power. For example:

"We find that Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony is rated at 64.2 Ludwigs on the standard 100-point scale of greatness. Staff's analysis indicates that society's resources expended on this work are at a level higher than justified by its rating. Accordingly, the following limitations are placed on its radio and television transmission, new recordings, reissues, and live performances..."


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> ...to explain the right way we should be doing these things?


Speaking for myself, I don't think there is a right way. There are many right ways and maybe a few wrong ways, one of which is to insist (however unconsciously or unadmittedly) that whatever you're listening to should be doing something other than what it is doing. It's doing whatever it's doing. Best to deal with that.

My mom always used to say "Why do you always have to ***?" I eventually came to understand that as really asking "Why do you have to be yourself and not someone else?"

Well, no. I'm myself, for better or worse. You want someone else, yer gonna have to go where someone else lives.

Otherwise, I don't know where Ken is getting his figures from. Tchaikovsky's fifth rates 57.9 on the standard 100 point scale. You have to look at raw data not just eyeball the chart.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> I don't know where Ken is getting his figures from. Tchaikovsky's fifth rates 57.9 on the standard 100 point scale. You have to look at raw data not just eyeball the chart.


Hey, those aren't my numbers! They're from the Department of Arts Resources, Office of Music, Classical Division, Enforcement Authority. You can check their web site, and there's even a form you can fill out with any complaint. Isn't that thoughtful?


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2012)

Department of Arts Resources! [spits]

The only legitimate authority is in the Department of Resources for the Arts, Classical Music Section, Division of Enforcement!!


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2012)

Originally Posted by *MacLeod* 
_...to explain the right way we should be doing these things?_



some guy said:


> Speaking for myself, I don't think there is a right way.


Tongue...cheek.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> Department of Arts Resources! [spits]


Department of Resources for the Arts! [spits even farther]

Let's not forget that the DRA was set up by a Republican administration because of the supposed "left-wing modernist bias" of the DAR. Now we're paying for both. Obama won't fix this because he doesn't want to bump the jobless figures. Romney promises to abolish both, replacing them with an "Arts Czar" with the same authority. Most likely some knuckle dragger who thinks "classical music" means Conway Twitty or, if we're lucky, The Monkees.

Some choice.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2012)

Wait a minute.

You mean we have NOT been talking about Conway Twitty all this time.

(Awkward....)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Arsakes said:


> *The answer is both or neither.*
> 
> Over internet (or whatever) it is introduced that 'Object' is real, material and absolute truth. So Objective truths are like sacred rules. Therefore if you say something not equal to them you're uneducated, idiot, moron, etc.
> 
> ...


Yes it is a dichotomy like that, or often ends as such when things get heated.

But its like to some music is a vessel and you pour what you want into it. For others its a cup thats already full, and you just take it and drink from it as it is. I don't think either is valid or invalid. There's many ways to approach music, not just in these dichotomous ways.



some guy said:


> ...
> 
> But why should they? They are part of your experience with the music--they _are_ your experience. And thus vital and necessary and important. Without them, you don't have any experience at all. That can't be good. But my experience will be different. If we have consensus, that is, a lot of people with similar experiences, it's easy to trick ourselves into thinking we've got some qualities of the object going. We don't. We have a lot of people with similar experiences. And finding people who've had similar experiences to ours is important to us, is part of what makes us human. But it doesn't change the art. It doesn't make the art into something it's not.
> 
> ...


Consensus is what we've got. It's like what Churchill said about democracy. Its not perfect but its the best thing we have. This is why I think intersubjectivity is a useful concept.

But I feel that what you're saying is just to comfort yourself about the music you love (& others might not). There's nothing wrong with that, but I think that the consensus based view is quite often spot on. I think music is about communication, and if a composer strikes a common chord (so to speak) with many listeners, I see it as a plus and not a minus. I like a lot of new/newer music, but I don't buy into the view that if it has broad appeal, or makes the composer rich, or its praised by many critics or fellow composers, it has to be lowest common denominator or something like that. But I'm not saying obscure music is bad as it has a more limited audience. I still take things with a case by case basis. I try not to put blanket judgements on things.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Consensus of the elites (Meritocratic Aristocracy) is what I prefer to Democracy. But if they fail to understand the very obvious needs and favorites of the society, I don't know what to say.

Also, Democratic Art = Pop


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

MacLeod said:


> @Lukecash12
> 
> Sorry, I'm not sure I follow.
> 
> Appreciating who on whose terms? Are you saying that the contexts in which music is listened to (and which have an impact on the listener and their appreciation of the music) are less important than having a relationship with the composer?


The composer on his/her terms. I am saying that having a relationship with the composer can be more significant and have more implications than just looking for whatever it is we can get in and of ourselves from the music. Understanding, learning, examining, relating, etc. can have more potential value than inspiration for inspiration's sake.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Not so. Societies exist and survive through shared lies and myths. This is as true of ours (and maybe truer) as of others. But I'm getting repetitive...


Societies stagnate and repress themselves through shared lies and myths. The evidence is everywhere. The only reason that we are delusional about our own lies and myths is that they are ours. We seem perfectly content to point out the lies and myths of the past and their obvious negative affect on life. Societies exist through whatever measure of understanding and order it's members can share and preserve. Before we had understanding and order, there was no society. We surely had lies and myths before we had groups large enough, cooperative enough, and successful enough to call societies. Lies and myths are what kept people locked in a cycle of fear, death, pain, and ignorance. To anyone who this isn't clear to, there must be some amount of delusion present within. People today must realize that this is the basis upon which they have the safety, amenities, rights, and property that they enjoy. Otherwise, if left to their own devices, the process would simply start again.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

So it will seem to anybody who speaks of the "lies and myths" they don't share. But they are seldom aware of the ones that they *do* share!


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> So it will seem to anybody who speaks of the "lies and myths" they don't share. But they are seldom aware of the ones that they *do* share!


Of course, they are of an unspoken nature, like sacrament. People in modern day America, even very anti-religious and socially liberal, would be surprised to know that there is an air of sacrament behind some of their foundational conventions. They need certain unspoken axioms in order for their system to work, typical liberal axioms such as basic rights, the value of labor, and so on and so forth. Because of their sacraments, ideas like practicality can seem "heretical", which they word as "inhuman" or some synonym. This is because of the utopian sacrament, this ultimate goal. There may be no religious sentiment behind it, but the reasoning and reactions are very similar to those of the religious.

Of course, I don't mean to imply my own views about politics here. I meant to supply a type of hypothetical. A stand-in whose sacraments (or lies and myths as you call them) we can examine. You may even be of those very views, that is: social liberalism. But I imagine you can see along the lines that the word sacrament can apply to different groups, even those that are highly secular. I chose one that could be highly secular, because it was an interesting example, and one that was humorous to apply the word to.


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