# How do you define good music



## kanonathena (Jun 25, 2010)

I came across a discussion on western vs Japanese video game music. Apparently lots of people believe Japanese music are far superior because of the catchy tunes, even though western music seems to be complex and of high production value.

I think about how the importance of melody also holds true in classical music, most popular pieces tend to have a striking motif, Bach's air, beethofeen's 9th, most of debussy and Tchaikovsky's music, wagner's ride on Ride of the Valkyries, mozart's 40th ... plantes ... I am only a casual listener but I think these pieces are not necessarily the most intellectually complex there is, yet they are a joy to listen to. 

So how do you define good music? Which aspect of music do you treasure the most, technical or emotional? Do you enjoy some pop music, if not is it because the melody does not resonate with you or simply because they sound too simple?

Back to the western vs japanese topic, here is something I found may be useful in explaining why people like japanese game music:

There is a minor scale and there are modal scales
within the Western system of musical notation, all of
which have eight notes. It is to be noted in this
regard, still speaking of music, that in the Eastern or
Oriental ways of producing tone, there is no precise
way of grading notes. Not only are quarter-tones
appreciated and differentiated but also those who are
gifted musically can produce by their voice or upon
an instrument that is unfretted2 an infinite number
of gradations which have values less than a quartertone.
This is why Eastern music is fundamentally different
in its effect upon the listener than Western music.
Western music lives in modular boxes of
differentiation that have neat and regular borders,
whereas the Oriental approach offers an infinite
landscape in which to create tone.

If one gazes into the thinking and the culture of the
West and the East, we would suggest that many
inferences could be drawn by this difference. The
tendency of the Western or Occidental orientation
of mind is to choose the major scale or one of the
eight-tone scales to listen to in music. It is not by
chance that this choice is natural to the Occidental
culture.

What do you think?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

There are a lot of ways for music to be good. 

One way, that is particularly important to me, is that repeated close-listening reveals new features in the music, new details or new patterns or new emotional textures. If I can comprehend every aspect of the music in just a few listenings, then it isn't very good. But if I'm still discovering new aspects in it after many hearings, then I gain a deep respect for the composer and performers. 

This holds in jazz and classical music, and to some degree in pop music as well, though in pop music I am willing to forgive it being formulaic (when it is, though it isn't always) as long as it is self-aware and moving. 

I wish I were more familiar with other forms of music so that I could trust my judgment there, but from what I can tell, the principle of "hidden detail" (forms of excellence that require close attention to find) seems to hold. 

I have sometimes thought something like this is the key to the difference between excellence and mediocrity in any art: whether it is a painting, a building, a poem, a novel, a film, a suit, a meal, or whatever: the whole issue of aesthetics might be whether knowledgeable complete attention enjoys it more than naive partial attention. 

I don't know though - aesthetics is a branch of philosophy of which I'm totally ignorant and I don't take my hypothesis too seriously!


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## Barking Spiderz (Feb 1, 2011)

The problem with most pop music is that is structurally rudimentary with all the melody contained in the vocals and the instrumentation just serving as accompaniment. On first hearing a song it wil often be catchy but after a few listens there's nothing else to find. Why else do you find so many pop CDs in charity stores? That to me is the essence of lower quality music.


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## kanonathena (Jun 25, 2010)

Barking Spiderz said:


> The problem with most pop music is that is structurally rudimentary with all the melody contained in the vocals and the instrumentation just serving as accompaniment. On first hearing a song it wil often be catchy but after a few listens there's nothing else to find. Why else do you find so many pop CDs in charity stores? That to me is the essence of lower quality music.


Isn't there a tune that you just want to listen over and over again without getting tired of it? The vibration of that few notes is in complete harmony with yourself, this is what I mean by the emotion aspect of music.

Actually there a few tunes upon first listening, I get deja vu, it's like I have heard this tune before. This is the same with certain people, when I first see them I feel that I have known them for centuries.

The way I see good music is that there is something in the music that evoke some deep inside you, whether it's simple and complex, you just can't stop listening to it, it's like in a constant orgasm. Although I believe it is quite difficult to compose a piece that appeal to everyone in such a way because different personality/preference, but there must be something common in all humans.

To me, air and adagio for strings have achieved this status, the immense grace.


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## Pieck (Jan 12, 2011)

kanonathena said:


> Isn't there a tune that you just want to listen over and over again without getting tired of it?


No. Even in classical overhearing a piece can make you want to get away from it for a while, and that when the music is constantly changing, developing. In pop where they stick you one melody 5 or 6 times in 3 minutes makes me quite bored not to say angry. Hey, but not anyone understands comlex music and no one have to like (although it's sad).


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Good music is music I like.


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## wingracer (Mar 7, 2011)

kanonathena said:


> There is a minor scale and there are modal scales
> within the Western system of musical notation, all of
> which have eight notes. It is to be noted in this
> regard, still speaking of music, that in the Eastern or
> ...


This is true but not so much for video game music as every Japanese video game composer I am familiar with is grounded in western music theory.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

kanonathena said:


> There is a minor scale and there are modal scales
> within the Western system of musical notation, all of
> which have eight notes. It is to be noted in this
> regard, still speaking of music, that in the Eastern or
> ...


That's not really true.

Japanese music is modal. It is mostly based around pentatonic modes, the most popular being Hirajoshi, Yo, In, Insen, Iwato, Akebono, Kumoi. Some of these are different modes based on the same scale but with different 'tonics'. Although Japan had no equal temperament in it's history, ethnomusicological studies have shown that the interval arrangements are actual closer to ET than JI although there are differences from region to region and player to player.

Other Eastern musics do use more intervallic freedom, like Indian music with it's andolans, meends etc and making some swaras more komal or teevra than others, or in Indonesia where pelog and slendro scales can be totally different from gamelan to gamelan. You mention quarter tones but I think the only cultural system to use this effectively is in the Arabian maqams.

The main difference therefore between East and West is that the West sacrificed melodic nuances and variety for harmonic structure and function, whilst the East left harmony to remain a byproduct of the mode and the rasa was determined by melody. Also, the emphasis on fundamental improvisation as opposed to pure recital.

Except for like wingracer says, most modern Japanese composers use the imported system of Western harmony and basically augment that sound with timbres from traditional instruments.

The catchiness you mention in Japanese tunes may be down to its pentatonic nature and as every musician knows, you can't go wrong with good old pentatonics.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

kanonathena said:


> Isn't there a tune that you just want to listen over and over again without getting tired of it?


When I lived in a student hall of residence - a long time ago - the bloke next door played something called Band On The Run, and when it finished played it again....and again....and again....and again....


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## toucan (Sep 27, 2010)

wingracer said:


> This is true but not so much for video game music as every Japanese video game composer I am familiar with is grounded in western music theory.


Perhaps you should find more constructive forms of entertainment than video games.
Like Noh Theater, for instance.

The best composers have broader minds than others, thus broad vistas and perspectives (most obviously in their symphonic work).

They have greater depth of sentiment

Their music feels like they have been touched with grace - an air of spirituality that emanates from it, + harmonies and complexity that seem cosmic.

They are not necessarily innovators in the sense of inventing new forms or practices (ie sonata, counterpoint or fugue). But they have a way of putting notes together, of deducing one note from the preceding ones, that is all of their own & unexpected and original.

In fact, the great ones are so original you can easily tell them apart from their imitators and no one who is experienced with music could ever confuse Chopin and Alkan, or Scriabin and Roslavets.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Argus said:


> Good music is music I like.


I think one could expand this to say good music is music many people like. A piece or song that appeals to a very large number of people in some sense has to be good music. It has touched many people emotionally (joy, sadness, thrill, whatever). One slight problem with this definition is that it could be extrapolated to say a book by Jacqueline Susann is superior to say Camus's The Stranger because it appealed to more people.

For me good music is music that is emotionally profound. When I was young, I almost never listened to classical music - only pop music. Years ago there was song, "Sugar, Sugar". It was the number one song of the year and set records for being number 1 the longest. It had a VERY catchy tune and was certainly quite syrupy. I would say I still like it today. But that song is very limited emotionally.

Since then I have slowly changed to where I hardly ever listen to pop music - only classical. The reason is simply that in no other music have I found the beauty, the power, the sense of awe, the sadness that I find in classical music. I used to think that pop music was beautiful and moving and fun (it can be these of course), but classical music can be so much more so. I have never heard anything remotely as beautiful in pop music as the second movement of Bach's double violin concerto or of Mendelssohn's piano concerto No. 1. The third movement of Paganini's violin concerto No. 1 is so much more fun and joyous than what I heard in pop music. Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante (second movement) almost brings me to tears. I have found nothing in pop music to rival the power and awe of the crescendo of horns joined by the strings in Wagner's Meistersinger Overture.

This emotional profoundness defines great music for me.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I like the way one person described good music: It makes my soul sing.


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## wingracer (Mar 7, 2011)

toucan said:


> Perhaps you should find more constructive forms of entertainment than video games.


I do. I was referring to video game composers because that is what the OP was talking about.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Comparing western and non-western music is comparing apples and oranges.
Completely futile. It's rather like asking which quisine is superior, French or Chinese?
How can you say? There are many different world quisines ; French,Italian, Chinese,Japanese, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese,Korean, Turkish etc. Which is the greatest? It's the same with different musics. Different people have different preferences in music. Who is to say who is right? De gustibus non est disputandum. Some people are Jazz afficionados.
I happen to prefer classical to pop or Rock music .. But others prefer those. Who am I to look down on them for their tastes? That's just plain snobbism. But reverse snobbism against classical music exists,too. 
Many people have an ignorant contempt for classical music, regarding it as stuffy,boring and "elitist". Often without having ever gained any familiarity with it.
The myth persists that only wealthy snobs go to orchestral concerts and opera, even though they're really bored to tears and go just to see and be seen and show off their jewelry and fancy clothes. Too masny people blindly accept this canard, and it closes their minds to the possibility of ever enjoying classical music.
Can't we all just get along ?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Good music is stuff that do *not * sound like this:-


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Good music is stuff that do *not * sound like this:-


Indeed - there should have been a cadenza before the return to home key. Or something. 

"Good music" is music that does what it intends when the intent is something worth doing to begin with according to the listener. Then there is better music which does that and more.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

For me, good music is music that evokes strong emotions in me, be they happy or sad - and that I want to listen to over and over again for that reason. This is not limited to classical at all. There are numerous pop, rock, and jazz songs that for me qualify as good music.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Very simply. First, one asks himself:

*"Is it by Bach?"*

If YES: Good music

If NO: Not as good as it could have been.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I believe I win because my definition is the only one that's unambiguous.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Good music is stuff that do *not * sound like this:-


I was all prepped to disagree with you, but I agree.

That's a good example of pretentious, excessively intellectual "music" that few people (if anyone) really genuinely enjoy.

All the same, that might be a worthwhile exercise for composers and performers of the future, who can use techniques explored in music like that to create genuinely enjoyable music.

Like this:






(My first successful youtube link! I'm really becoming a talkclassical insider now, huh?)


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Art Rock said:


> For me, good music is music that evokes strong emotions in me, be they happy or sad - and that I want to listen to over and over again for that reason. This is not limited to classical at all. There are numerous pop, rock, and jazz songs that for me qualify as good music.


Same here. 

I don't have a 'difficult music fetish.' That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy difficult music as well, but music doesn't HAVE to be complex for me to appreciate it. I'm for example knocked out by the new PJ Harvey album ("Let England Shake"). Yet anyone who's never held a musical instrument in their hands for their entire lifes could with a little practice probably learn to play those songs. Yet any effort to make them sound more complex would automatically make them less effective. If you can communicate your ideas by using only a few chords there's no need to use more. If anything, chances are that it would be counterproductive. Sometimes less is more.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Good music is music that consistently spares the listener negative reactions to it.


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## Pieck (Jan 12, 2011)

Argus said:


> Good music is music I like.


Actually this is the closest answer I think.
If you ask about 'good' then one will ask good for what?
If you'll change it to beautiful then it's completely subjective for things dont possess beauty. Beauty is the contentment or pleasure that one feels when watching\hearing something. People project this feeling on the objects that evoked it.
Is this answer satisfying?


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Argus is right on. "Good" is probably about the most subjective word imaginable, so it deserves a subjective response. Anyone can pretty much like or dislike any piece of music depending on the circumstances.

If the question was "How do you define a masterpiece," then we might have more room for discussion. I'd judge whether or not it was similar to how I'd judge a film. To me, a masterpiece has to fulfill the following conditions:

- Large in scale
- Effective at creating the drama it was intended to have
- Effective at eliciting an emotional response from the listener


Of course, we can leave out musical works that feature serialism or minimalism. That music just sucks.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Originally Posted by Argus View Post
Good music is music I like.

Actually this is the closest answer I think.

Except, unfortunately, Argus is notorious for disliking some really great music and for liking some really crappy music. Seriously, how can you trust anyone on a classical music site with a Black Sabbath avatar?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

> Except, unfortunately, Argus is notorious for disliking some really great music and for liking some really crappy music.


Your definitions of "great" and "really crappy" music.



> Very simply. First, one asks himself:
> 
> "Is it by Bach?"
> 
> ...


This has got to be a joke...


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## wingracer (Mar 7, 2011)

Andre said:


> This has got to be a joke...


Hey, there was a time when I felt the exact same way. Fortunately my horizons have broadened significantly since then, but I can still sympathize.


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## Pieck (Jan 12, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Originally Posted by Argus View Post
> Good music is music I like.
> 
> Actually this is the closest answer I think.
> ...


Well, I have'nt meant what Argus like (I thought it was clear) but what one finds beautiful is beautiful in his eyes (ears), the beauty is not in the piece.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

wingracer said:


> Hey, there was a time when I felt the exact same way. Fortunately my horizons have broadened significantly since then, but I can still sympathize.


I can't sympathise that J. S. Bach is king, because one man's trash is another man's treasure, as the cliche goes. This attitude also smacks of elitism, an attitude that classical fans can do without, imo. It gives them, and the music they are trying to support, somewhat of a bad name. It does no service to Bach's music if you imply that people who don't like it are morons. I am of the opinion that people who like classical music like just that - classical music - no matter which composer it's from. You like Johann Strauss waltzes and not Bach's concertos? Fine. You like Rachmaninov but not Mendelssohn? Fine again. You like Xenakis or Stockhausen but not Bartok? That's ok too. In effect, classical listeners are part of the the same broad 'church.' There are no reasons why everyone can enjoy anything even loosely called classical, be it a film score or a sonata or symphony. I think that classical fans should try to get away from the elitist attitudes that belong back in the 1910's when Stravinsky or Schoenberg premieres provoked riots from the more conservative and inflexible members of the classical music listening community. I bet you that most of those people would have had the same attitude in terms of putting music of the past on a pedestal and rubbishing anything that didn't sound exactly like it...


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

How do I define good music? I think it is a mix of objective and subjective properties. Objectively speaking, certain harmonies are generally pleasing to the human brain, and this can be statistically quantified and demonstrated. Subjectively speaking, some musical works have the power to make me experience strong emotions and to make me laugh or cry. Another important aspect is creativity. There is a lot to be said for music that is original and innovative, as opposed to formulaic music such as what you can automatically get from programming an electronic keyboard to run some pre-set combinations of rhythms and tunes.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

i cant describe it in words, its impossible, even a piece with the greatest and most sophisticated use of technique can leave me to feel sour. and pieces that are too emotionally demanding sometimes dont appeal to me either.

thus my only answer to it: you can feel it, if you cant feel like it is going to be a favorite of yours, or a good piece to listen to on occasion, then its going to stay that way - never to be heard again. You can start studying and discovering the little details of it after you have concluded it has significance to yourself as the listener.

the entirety of music people like rests on these main factors:

their cultural background (the place someone has lived the most amount of their life, this generally is what dictates what one likes and dislikes)

their personality (outgoing happy person vs introverted sad or intelligent person? Reserved vs forward thinking? I think people are attracted to music that shows similarities in their own character)

their psychology (how they exactly think and perceive things, different from personality because its not something people can see and distinguish clearly. So I guess that means i must be slightly nuts to play the grosse fugue on my ipod when im walking down the street (Ive done it) - and then to listen to Bachs toccata and fugue right after. I guess im just a fugue lover ^^


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