# "I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it"



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

*"I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it"*

Let's say there are composers (or works) "A" and "B".
With A, you didn't see his (its) "merits" at first, but you've had roughly 1000 hours of listening to his music (it), and now you "recognize" them. (At least you think you do.)
With B, you've had only 10 hours of listening to his music (it). At this point, you treat B the same way you treated A back then when you had only 10 hours of listening to A.

1. Would you decide that A is "objectively superior" to B artistically anyway? 
2. (If you said yes to 1,) wouldn't the decision be "unfair" to B (in comparison to your current treatment of A)?
3. How would you know if the following is true or false at this point: 'B also has his (its) merits, its just that you don't recognize them cause you haven't spent enough time with his music (it).'


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

. . . . because art is subjective.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

All judgments about music, art, are subjective. Any time we express an opinion about a work, positive or negative, it is a keyhole into our personalities and aesthetic taste - but offers no information concerning the music itself.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Let's not get bogged down by another useless "objective/subjective" debate, especially if the point seems to be about different stages in personal/subjective appreciation of a piece.
First of all, I myself will not invest 100s of hours into a piece that does not at least have some appeal of some sort. But I will make some effort (hard to quantify how much) to appreciate highly regarded pieces or those where I find some things appealing but am overall bored or not enthusiastic.

So I think that anyone who has had the experience that piece A was so-so after listening 5 times, became a favorite after listening 10 times (just exemplary numbers but they seem a bit more realistic to me than 1000 hours) should have a certain amount of skepticism about his own first/early impressions/judgement of a piece. 
Therefore it is rational to give pieces a second or maybe even 10th chance. 

However, there seem obviously limits to that, if only by natural limits of spare time, attention span etc. Also, an experienced listener or even musician/expert can usually be trusted to form a rather stable opinion after not so many times listening. So I think it is legitimate to "give up" and come to an opinion about pieces after a reasonable number of appreciation attempts without always adding the caveat that one might come to appreciate it more after listening to it more. Or more precisely, I think that often it really is a different stance if one has come to some verdict or if one feels that one is not really ready to have a clear/stable opinion and therefore adds caveats.

Finally, I am not sure if or why there should be an asymmetry in skepticism. (People seem to temper negative verdicts more often with caveats than positive ones.) If I am not certain and know I might revise my verdict, shouldn't I be as skeptical for positive as for negative verdicts? Should I not retain some skepticism even after 1000 hours that I might revise in the future (albeit with low probability)?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

An expert listener may be able to recognise patterns more quickly than an amateur, and therefore arrive more quickly at a personal estimation of the worth of a work...but I'm not sure about the idea of a "stable" opinion.

I've sat and listened properly to Brahms 2nd Symphony twice, just yesterday. So far, I can only recollect the lullaby theme from the 1st mvmt, and the tremendous galloping climax of the finale. I can recall no other tune, theme, motif. However, there was sufficient of interest while I was listening to make me want to return, persevere, and hopefully reach a level of both familiarity and enjoyment that makes the effort worthwhile.

I'm quite sure that a musician coming first time to the same piece would likely be much quicker.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

To answer the OP's questions directly: 

1. No. That would still ultimately depend on how much I appreciated them relative to each other, and that appreciation would extend to things like their emotional/aesthetic impact and now just how well I (think I) understand them. Often my favorite art is the stuff that moves me that I can't explain why. 

2. Nothing's "unfair" when we're talking about a person's own aesthetic tastes/preferences. If you rephrase this to say something more along the lines of how "certain" I would feel of my judgment I'd simply say that certainty isn't something I care about in my aesthetic judgments because I'm quite aware that they can change over times as I change over time. 

3. I'm not sure what you mean by "has its merits... that you don't recognize. This could mean that the work has objective qualities you aren't aware of. EG, if you don't know about counterpoint you may not be aware of what's going on in the finale of Mozart's 41st symphony, and the awareness or lack thereof of such things can certainly color or change your opinion on a piece because it changes how you listen. However, it would also be possible that you would recognize such qualities but simply not enjoy them; this is how I feel about many of Bach's fugues. It's certainly possible that if we spend enough time with such features we may come around to appreciating/enjoying them (I do enjoy Bach's fugues now than when I first started listening to classical; though it's still not among my favorites), but there's no guarantee we will. 

I guess if you're asking how you can know whether or not you're unaware of objective features of music... I don't think you can be. Certainly the more skilled of a listener you are, if you're capable of, eg, following a long to a score, noting all the instruments and harmony, parsing the structure, etc. then you can probably be fairly certain after several listens you aren't missing much that would change your mind. If you're a lay listener then I don't think you can ever really be confident you aren't missing something. Though I might say that this is all just talking about being aware of things you CAN consciously be aware of. I still think it's possible for someone to be quite sure about whether a work emotionally, intuitively, aesthetically, etc. moves them or not, as that can happen regardless of one's consciousness awareness of what's going on in the work itself. Our knowledge of such things may change how we listen, and that may change how we emotionally react to things, but it doesn't have to. I'd say part of the magic of the great composers is precisely in their ability to appeal to people regardless of their knowledge or ignorance of music.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

pianozach said:


> . . . . because art is subjective.


It's intersubjective, otherwise a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521, what obviously is false.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> It's intersubjetive, otherwise a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521, what obviously is false.


How are you defining intersubjective in this context?


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> How are you defining intersubjective in this context?


As having both objective and subjective components. It's not totally objective, but not totally subjective either.

The text below was extracted from the wikipedia article about _beauty_, but remove this word and put _art_ in it's place and it still makes sense:

"One difficulty for understanding beauty is due to the fact that it has both objective and subjective aspects: it is seen as a property of things but also as depending on the emotional response of observers. Because of its subjective side, beauty is said to be 'in the eye of the beholder'. It has been argued that the ability on the side of the subject needed to perceive and judge beauty, sometimes referred to as the 'sense of taste', can be trained and that the verdicts of experts coincide in the long run. This would suggest that the standards of validity of judgments of beauty are intersubjective, i.e. dependent on a group of judges, rather than fully subjective or fully objective." - source here.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

pianozach said:


> . . . . because art is subjective.





Xisten267 said:


> It's intersubjective, otherwise a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521, what obviously is false.


I'm fine with that; subjective, intersubjective . . .

"Intersubjective" is part subjective, so my four word retort still stands.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> As having both objective and subjective components. It's not totally objective, but not totally subjective either.
> 
> The text below was extracted from the wikipedia article about _beauty_, but remove this word and put _art_ in it's place and it still makes sense:
> 
> "One difficulty for understanding beauty is due to the fact that it has both objective and subjective aspects: it is seen as a property of things but also as depending on the emotional response of observers. Because of its subjective side, beauty is said to be 'in the eye of the beholder'. It has been argued that the ability on the side of the subject needed to perceive and judge beauty, sometimes referred to as the 'sense of taste', can be trained and that the verdicts of experts coincide in the long run. This would suggest that the standards of validity of judgments of beauty are intersubjective, i.e. dependent on a group of judges, rather than fully subjective or fully objective." - source here.


Wikipedia has its place, but for philosophy you should be reading Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy rather than Wikipedia, or at least be checking Wikipedia's sources. For example, that text you quoted is completely without reference, so that means that some random person simply wrote that and put it there as if they were an authority. I can almost guarantee you they are not, because it doesn't read like anything an actual expert on the philosophy of aesthetics would say; it sounds like what I'd expect a bookish-but-naive young person to say. It doesn't even bother to define how it's using subjective and objective, and that's kind of an important thing to do if you're going to discuss this. I'd recommend you read THIS and get back to me.

I have my own opinions on the matter, and depending on how we're defining intersubjectivity I might agree that intersubjectivity plays a huge part in our appreciation of art; but I don't think intersubjectivity makes sense being defined as having both objective and subjective qualities. Objective and subjective present mutually exclusive categories; things that either exist within minds, or things that exist outside of minds. Something can't exist in in both. The way I understand intersubjectivity isn't that it has any objective components, but rather it's about things as they exist among many minds as opposed to an individual mind. There is no doubt many (perhaps most) subjective things also exist in other minds and are thus intersubjective. What this means for art is a matter for discussion, but we have to get our terms straight first.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

pianozach said:


> I'm fine with that; subjective, intersubjective . . .
> 
> "Intersubjective" is part subjective, so my four word retort still stands.


Isn't "intersubjective" wholly subjective? Doesn't it just mean that the same subjective opinion is shared by more than one? It doesn't become objective just because it is shared.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Xisten267 said:


> It's intersubjective, otherwise a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521, what obviously is false.


Why would you say that? Subjective does not mean all music is equal, it means that each individual listener decides for themselves which music is good, better, best.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Wikipedia has its place, but for philosophy you should be reading Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy rather than Wikipedia, or at least be checking Wikipedia's sources. For example, that text you quoted is completely without reference, so that means that some random person simply wrote that and put it there as if they were an authority. I can almost guarantee you they are not, because it doesn't read like anything an actual expert on the philosophy of aesthetics would say; it sounds like what I'd expect a bookish-but-naive young person to say. It doesn't even bother to define how it's using subjective and objective, and that's kind of an important thing to do if you're going to discuss this. I'd recommend you read THIS and get back to me.
> 
> I have my own opinions on the matter, and depending on how we're defining intersubjectivity I might agree that intersubjectivity plays a huge part in our appreciation of art; but I don't think intersubjectivity makes sense being defined as having both objective and subjective qualities. Objective and subjective present mutually exclusive categories; things that either exist within minds, or things that exist outside of minds. Something can't exist in in both. The way I understand intersubjectivity isn't that it has any objective components, but rather it's about things as they exist among many minds as opposed to an individual mind. There is no doubt many (perhaps most) subjective things also exist in other minds and are thus intersubjective. What this means for art is a matter for discussion, but we have to get our terms straight first.


I think that the wikipedia article went straight to the point without unnecessary overthinking about the concepts it used. But I've read your source (Stanford's Encyclopedia) and it seems that it agrees with what I stated previously. The excerpts below were extracted from it:

"Perhaps the most familiar basic issue in the theory of beauty is whether beauty is subjective-located 'in the eye of the beholder'-or whether it is an objective feature of beautiful things. *A pure version of either of these positions seems implausible*, for reasons we will examine, and many attempts have been made to split the difference or incorporate insights of both subjectivist and objectivist accounts.

(...)

On the other hand, *it seems senseless to say that beauty has no connection to subjective response or that it is entirely objective.*

(...)

Taste, that is, *appears to be both subjective and objective*: that is the antinomy.

(...)

In different ways, they both treat judgments of beauty *neither precisely as purely subjective nor precisely as objective but, as we might put it, as inter-subjective* or as having a social and cultural aspect, or as conceptually entailing an inter-subjective claim to validity."

So it seems that we're defining "inter-subjective" as an in-between of the concepts of "objective" and "subjective", and I don't think that this is an antinomy if we think in terms of what the wikipedia article explained:

"One difficulty for understanding beauty is due to the fact that it has both objective and subjective aspects: it is seem as a property of things but also as depending on the emotional response of observers."



SanAntone said:


> Subjective does not mean all music is equal, it means that each individual listener decides for themselves which music is good, better, best.


What is fine to evaluate personal taste but not greatness.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> I think that the wikipedia article went straight to the point without unnecessary overthinking about the concepts it used.


I don't think you get it. Wikipedia is only as reliable as its sources because it's possible for anyone to edit it. You could go to that same page right now and write whatever you want in place of the piece of text you copy/pasted. Stanford's Encyclpedia of Philosophy is written by actual philosophers who have extensive knowledge in the fields they write about, which is why all of their articles are well-sourced and usually present most of the sides and major arguments for those sides. You shouldn't be learning from a source just because it seems "straight to the point," you should be learning from sources written by experts on the subject you're learning about.



Xisten267 said:


> But I've read your source (Stanford's Encyclopedia) and it seems that it agrees with what I stated previously.[
> 
> The excerpts below were extracted from it:
> 
> ...


I think you're slightly misreading that. First, I will say that even Stanford is just giving a rather concise overview of a subject that many philosophers over thousands of years have written about, so even it is limited, and in this case it's perhaps a bit too limited by focusing so much on Hume and Kant. Two eminent philosophers, certainly, but hardly the be-all end-all on this issue. Second, the part where it mentions intersubjectivity isn't defining it as a mix of subjective and objective--though it might seem that way given how it's phrased--it's defining it as having a social and cultural aspect that informs judgments more than the purely subjective or objective. I do think this is confusing terms a bit; it seems to be defining "subjectivity alone" as something along the lines of "an individual's subjectivity," which is fine, but we also need to have room for subjectivity in the broader sense as referring to thing that only exist within minds and not external to them.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Xisten267 said:


> It's intersubjective, otherwise a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521, what obviously is false.


I'm sure you think of (Kirkpatrick) K 30, the last of the Thirty Excersizi, nicknamed the cat's fugue.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Xisten267 said:


> What is fine to evaluate personal taste but not greatness.


That wasn't the point of my post. You had conflated "equality" with "subjective."

A judgment of greatness is nothing but a collection of subjective opinions over time, i.e. a consensus. More convincing than a single person's opinion, but subjective opinions nonetheless. Further, a consensus can change. Some judgments of greatness have eroded over time.

For myself, perceived greatness has nothing to do with the music I like.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> Subjective does not mean all music is equal, it means that each individual listener decides for themselves which music is good, better, best.





SanAntone said:


> That wasn't the point of my post. You had conflated "equality" with "subjective."


If art is (only) subjective, then it's value is all "in the eye of the beholder". If all it's value is "in the eye of the beholder", then it has no intrinsic value. If it has no intrinsic value, then any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero. If any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero, then their value is equal.

It follows that if art is (only) subjective, then all works of art hold the same intrinsic value. Therefore, in this context, "subjective" implies "equality".


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Xisten267 said:


> If art is subjective, then it's value is all "in the eye of the beholder". If all it's value is "in the eye of the beholder", then it has no intrinsic value. If it has no intrinsic value, then any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero. If any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero, then their value is equal.
> 
> It follows that if art is subjective, then all works of art hold the same intrinsic value. Therefore, in this context, "subjective" implies "equality".


You must have ignored the rest of my post since it explains why subjective assessments do not mean all art is equal. But it is not worth debating since all I care about is what I like, not what is considered great.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> You must have ignored the rest of my post since it explains why subjective assessments do not mean all art is equal.


I just proved you that you're wrong.



SanAntone said:


> But it is not worth debating since all I care about is what I like, not what is considered great.


Yes, you seem to listen to whatever you want as long as you like it, while I make an effort to like what I deem to be great. Greatness means nothing to you, but is very important to me. So, yes, our approaches about art are very different and, I agree, it's not worth debating this anymore.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

I liked X quite a bit in the 80s, but haven’t held up for me as well as the Clash, Dead Kennedys or Sex Pistols/PIL


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Xisten267 said:


> I just proved you that you're wrong.


Not really. Look up intersubjectivity.



> Yes, you seem to listen to whatever you want as long as you like it, while I make an effort to like what I deem to be great. Greatness means nothing to you, but is very important to me. So, yes, our approaches about art are very different and, I agree, it's not worth debating this anymore.


Well I hope, for your sake, that you measure up. I never bought into that paradigm.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> If art is (only) subjective,


That's a big 'if'. As anyone who has read any of the Stanford will realise, the jury is out on this one, though you're entitled to take a view and stick to it of course.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> That's a big 'if'. As anyone who has read any of the Stanford will realise, the jury is out on this one, though you're entitled to take a view and stick to it of course.





SanAntone said:


> Not really. Look up intersubjectivity.


This may help you.



premont said:


> I'm sure you think of (Kirkpatrick) K 30, the last of the Thirty Excersizi, nicknamed the cat's fugue.


I surely wanted to claim to have had this bright insight, but, unfortunately for me, I hadn't.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> This may help you.


Not really. I don't think it helps your argument either.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> If art is (only) subjective, then it's value is all "in the eye of the beholder". If all it's value is "in the eye of the beholder", then it has no intrinsic value. If it has no intrinsic value, then any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero. If any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero, then their value is equal.
> 
> It follows that if art is (only) subjective, then all works of art hold the same intrinsic value. Therefore, in this context, "subjective" implies "equality".


Intrinsic value is different from objective value and is set by the subjective minds that value a thing. Objectively things like money and gold have no value, it only has the intrinsic value that we all agree to impart to it, and that intrinsic value can and does frequently change (if you're dying of thirst in a desert, water would suddenly have more intrinsic value than a pound of gold). Art is no different.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> Not really. I don't think it helps your argument either.


Look at the context of the conversation. I'm not proving that art is (only) subjective. I'm proving that *if* it is, *then* all works of art hold the same intrinsic value.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> It's intersubjective, otherwise a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521, what obviously is false.


But this too is conditional...only if someone does equate a cat walking on a piano with K521 does "everything become subjective (and thereby render artistic evaluation meaningless)."


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> But this too is conditional...only if someone does equate a cat walking on a piano with K521 does "everything become subjective (and thereby render artistic evaluation meaningless)."


Tell this to member SanAntone. He is the subjectivist here, not me.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Intrinsic value is different from objective value and is set by the subjective minds that value a thing. Objectively things like money and gold have no value, it only has the intrinsic value that we all agree to impart to it, and that intrinsic value can and does frequently change (if you're dying of thirst in a desert, water would suddenly have more intrinsic value than a pound of gold). Art is no different.


I don't accept this. The word "intrinsic" means "belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing", so it's not relative to each person's perception, i.e. subjective, it's objective.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

I think you should be forced to reread the 109 pages of the thread that discussed this issue in inordinate detail.

Where is the beauty in music?

There is no resolving this debate.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> I don't accept this. The word "intrinsic" means "belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing", so it's not relative to each person's perception, i.e. subjective, it's objective.


This is just a semantic confusion, but "intrinsic value" is also a term in law and business that refers to the assessment of an asset's worth according to market value, which is itself determined by the subjective values of many people. However, if you want to use the term to be equivalent of "objective value" then I can also work with that. So, responding to your initial post utilizing this definition:



Xisten267 said:


> If art is (only) subjective, then it's value is all "in the eye of the beholder". If all it's value is "in the eye of the beholder", then it has no intrinsic value. If it has no intrinsic value, then any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero. If any work of art has an intrinsic value of zero, then their value is equal.
> 
> It follows that if art is (only) subjective, then all works of art hold the same intrinsic value. Therefore, in this context, "subjective" implies "equality".


Their value is only equal _intrinsically,_ yes. What your post is missing is the fact that subjective values exist. Gold has no intrinsic value. But if you take a pound of it to a pawn shop you will given about 20,000 pieces of paper, that also have no intrinsic value. You can then take those pieces of non-intrinsically-valuable pieces of a paper and exchange them for a hunk of metal, tires, and an engine that also has no intrinsic value, and drive that non-intrinsically-valuable object to a home, that also has no intrinsic value. I don't think "intrinsic value" as you're defining it even exists. How can you hope to prove a thing has value independent of the way subjective minds (whether an individual's or a collection of individuals') value it?


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Their value is only equal _intrinsically,_ yes.


Agreed. I think that I left implicit in the end to the first paragraph of post #18 that my point was about intrinsic value. Even if not, in the conclusion (second paragraph) I used the term "instrinsic value". Note that I'm considering only the context of art in this discussion, what I also made clear at post #18.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> How can you hope to prove a thing has value independent of the way subjective minds (whether an individual's or a collection of individuals') value it?


I can't prove. But I don't think that it feels right to think that art is only about taste neither. There are factors such as historical significance, influence, technical value, originality etc. that, to me at least, seem to indicate that some pieces deserve more appraise than others, regardless of taste. For example, I don't like Schoenberg's _Pierrot Lunaire_, but I respect it as an artistic achievement.

I understand music as a kind of "code" created by a human brain that has to be "decoded" by other human brains. The capacity of coding and decoding in this context seems to me intrinsical, natural, to us, although some are better suited to this than others. In this sense, a musical piece would be a message, and I think that certain messages are more elaborated and important to mankind than others. So, the code matters. But the decoder too, because some may not be able to decodify the message properly, or even of understand it's value. And assuming that both the "code" and the "decoder" are important, then it seems reasonable to me to conclude that music has both objective and subjective components, or at least that there's more to it than just liking, without any further consideration.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> I can't prove. But I don't think that it feels right to think that art is only about taste neither. There are factors such as historical significance, influence, technical value, originality etc. that, to me at least, seem to indicate that some pieces deserve more appraise than others.
> 
> I understand music as a kind of "code" created by a human brain that has to be "decoded" by other human brains. In this sense, a musical piece would be a message, and I think that certain messages are more elaborated and important to mankind than others. So, the code matters. But the decoder too, because some may not be able to decodify the message properly, or even of understand it's value. And assuming that both the "code" and the "decoder" are important, then it seems reasonable to me to conclude that music has both objective and subjective components, or at least that there's more to it than just liking, without any further consideration.


Feelings aren't very useful in determining what's true. Feelings are shaped by evolutionary psychology, which has survival and reproduction as its goal. Truth is only of value (in terms of evolution) if it helps us survive and reproduce. All of the aspects you mention--historical significance, influence, technique, originality--are just objective features that some people value and some do not. You need to argue why these features are objectively valuable as opposed to just subjectively valued by many people.

The "music as language" metaphor can be insightful but it also has its limitations. In terms of this discussion, though, I don't see how it helps us determine with value is subjective or intrinsic. I mean, even to use your metaphor, it can also simply be that some people find the "code" more important than others, can it not? It's patently obvious that humans can disagree over values, and I don't see an argument that if such things are, indeed, objectively valuable how we're supposed to determine what that value is independently of what we think about it. Music absolutely has objective components, but on the most fundamentally objective level they boil down to frequency amplitudes in time. I can stretch to say that the language we use to describe those frequency amplitudes in time, like rhythm and harmony and melody, are objective to an extent; but I draw the line at value as that absolutely requires a mind to think/feel a certain way about whatever objective qualities exist.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Feelings aren't very useful in determining what's true. Feelings are shaped by evolutionary psychology, which has survival and reproduction as its goal. Truth is only of value (in terms of evolution) if it helps us survive and reproduce.


How can you be so sure about evolutionary psychology being only about survival and reproduction? Can you prove your second statement here?

Besides, how could we be so sure about Truth, if it exists, being valuable only in terms of survival and reproduction? There's more to life than just survival and reproduction, don't you agree?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Xisten267 said:


> How can you be so sure about evolutionary psychology being only about survival and reproduction? Can you prove your second statement here?
> 
> Besides, how could we be so sure about Truth, if it exists, being valuable only in terms of survival and reproduction? There's more to life than just survival and reproduction, don't you agree?


Because that's literally how evolution works. Survival and reproduction is what passes on genes. Things that aid in survival and reproduction are more likely to get passed on and thus become more common among a population. We also see the truth of this in cognitive science where our minds are riddled with cognitive biases that actually prevent us from getting at the truth of things. Rationality is the antidote to this, but humans are not innately irrational, and many rational principles are even counter-intuitive to us. The Monty Hall Problem is but one example of where our instincts lead us astray and where the rationality/math that proves us wrong is quite counter-intuitive; so much so that it even managed to trip up most mathematicians when the problem was first introduced.

I specified that truth is only valuable _in terms of evolutionary psychology_ if it helps us survive and reproduce, and survival and reproduction only matters to evolution for the reasons above. The truth is often quite useful; obviously if our senses didn't report something approximating truth about the natural world then it would be very difficult for us to survive at all given everything out there that can kill us. But evolution is a sloppy process and human brains are a mess of that sloppiness. This is all just to say that we should be skeptical that our feelings/intuitions have their basis in truth as opposed to useful illusions that help us survive/reproduce.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

........................nm.....................


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> Tell this to member SanAntone. He is the subjectivist here, not me.


Well I missed where they described themself as such...perhaps he didn't, and it's a fake label you've attached.

You're a "Slippery-Slopist" at heart, aren't you?  If everything is subjective and equal, then there are no standards and we go from squawking cat on a piano to the breakdown of civilisation as we...(you know the rest).


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

The question has a bit inconsistency, if a composer did not hit on me for the initial 10-20 hours, I will not spend another 10 hours on him. I live 22 years on JS Bach because he inspired me with his keyboard, organ, violin music in the first few day of encounter. I had a shyness from classical vocal genre like most musically uninformed people, it was like a landing on moon and return safe to go for Missa in B minor and come back positive.

I am not trying to like anything, or get used to anything, although the modern materialists always have many captions in store for you like a collection of monkey suits for their circus. I would like to call it like destiny or 缘 in chinese and japanese. Like or not, not even up to personal explanation in any rational rhetorics. Others will give huge praises to artists I dislike from the first encounter untill unknown future, it is already like an insanity space dotted with stars of disconnected rational reflections. 

As for Stanford philosophy site, it is vastly informative and worthy of reading. But I am worried about the "The Philosophy of Music" page there, in the "Music and The Emotions" and following sections, they discuss how music convey emotion, trying to break down music into blocks of notions/agents. It could be good for professional philosophers on the fat payroll but for people like me it is a bit gruesome. I am not watching dissecting living beings for fun or curiosity. There are many many innocent human caprices that might not necessarily make sense to get on with arts and philosophy, trying to make everything make sense in a fixated direction is artistically gruesome to start with.

If someone want to emulate my way, focus on what you like not dissecting why some do not appeal to you. You think I am self-dissecting, no, far from this, I am dissecting the whole world with what I like, leaving the rest to rot.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I wouldn't answer this question the way it is posed because it wasn't a matter of increased exposure leading to like or dislike ... it was more a matter of my being able to hear the music properly ... my being ready to hear it, you might say.

When I was in my 20s complex composers with complex compositions and emotions such as Shostakovich, Mahler and Sibelius, just to name three big names, were too much for me to grasp. I could come to grips with the Sibelius "big 5" compositions -- Symphonies 1, 2 and 5, violin concerto and Finlandia -- but it took me years to understand, comprehend and enjoy his more complex symphonies Nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7. 

And even though I could hear and grasp the others as a younger listener I wasn't sure if I liked them. As it turned out over time I don't care for them that much. Today, about a half-century later, I sure enjoy some of the others and lots of other music I could never have mentally interpreted when younger.

I started listening to and collecting in the early 1970s but it wasn't until the 1990s that I felt I was ready to understand Shostakovich and Mahler outside of the first Mahler symphony. Before then I wasn't sophisticated enough as a listener to understand what was going on in this music.

Once when I was young I read a review of a performance of Mahler's Symphony 5 which I think probably his best symphony and one of the more straightforward among them in presentation and organization. It has fewer of the stops and starts that often characterize his symphonies. I tried listening to it and liking it but could not.

I saw a movie some time ago, a comedy, where a college student said he intended all his life to learn the colors (yes -- red, blue, orange, etc.) A friend of his said he once saw a rainbow and had vertigo. This was comedy, of course, but a fair example of my listening when I was younger. So, yes, time and exposure help immensely but not if one isn't ready for it.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

As to JS Bach`s fugues, some people might prefer piano to harpsichord, that is the predisposed taste already, listening to fugue on piano is likely predetermined to be underwhelming in the baroque aesthetics. JS Bach himself criticized piano for its lack of contrapunctal beauty. Do you prefer to read scores rather than listening to actually music? I guess some people might feel this way. Beautiful scores might not be equal to beautiful music. The trickiness of music is that it touches personal psyche you like or not, even if you do not like the piece but the reaction toward the piece still reflects the real profile of this psyche. 

Liking music can be either emotional or passionate, if according to Descartes, passions and emotions are not equal, emotions are more superfacial and passions are more implicit. Theoretically, a bad piece of music can raise emotional reactions from everybody and thus pass off as anything you want it to be, but good music should be able to raise passions if not everyone, but at least from some. If you do not take music as a totality completed in sound, related knowledges, act, then the discussion is a null. It is also uninspiring to ignore the classical music philosophies in trying to define what is good and bad about a musical piece. Borrowing only tools from modern payroll philosophers is suspiciously sliding toward the harmony in economy and society than music. 

But I am open to all possible forms of music, like Plato says philosophy being the best music. As long as there is harmony, there can be an alternative form of music: music in economy and society like in the wallstreet and russian and chinese/northkorean media; music in celestial radiowaves like those recorded by the Cassini probe; music in buddhist chants.(I really love the latter two kinds of music.) But as to the music in classical terms, where we establish our most foundamental ideas of music, is still of the central interest so far. I am sure in accoustic ways, we can creat any marvellous kinds of music to convey the foundamental ideas of any alternative musical forms: thinking about music of the particles, of quantum chaos, we can have electronic music to the task. I do have choosen a few rock bands and electronic composers to represent such ideas. Oh, there can be music of images, that is already taken up by Vivaldi, unless one thinks about images of his own secret interets.

I have to be honest that I do enjoy your posts Yojimbo, I like philosophical discussions in all topics and yours are particularly intensive and passionate. Sometimes, there could be some ironies about sensitive controversies in my posts, just a personal extension against a general trend in analytical philosophy. I am always a thorn to those philosophical atomists. Please do not take it personal.:tiphat:


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> You must have ignored the rest of my post since it explains why subjective assessments do not mean all art is equal. But it is not worth debating since all I care about is what I like, not what is considered great.


and since you don't care about truth.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Music is itself an empirical form of knowledge with experience indented into itself. So, in terms of empiricism, if we continue to break down everything and making each unit opaque in understanding to most people, what is the use of such philosophy？ People should be able to reassemble all those components to make sense of their own experiences and knowledge. It is true that some interests foreign to music could require breaking down of every integral idea or object to analyze and exploit the inner mechanism to serve universal goals(in good ways), then there will be diverging treatments and ethics regarding the same principle or value. Still, the classical routine of thinking should not be discarded to make way for modern approaches, in order to maintain the integrity of personal and individual experiences, allowing each one of us to make sense of their own knowledge and experiences.

In terms of music, too much analytical methods is certainly and surely distractive, because music itself is an embodiment of all aspects of human understanding and knowledge. Anything beyond is point is religious transcendency.

If you find my thinking is good, I can provide a few recipes:

1-Do not ingest too much analytical ideas before you can focus on a certain type of your experience or learning, free your emotion in a civilized way, do not believe in a cold-minded rationalism, that will make you a robot. You will never need to know more analytical tools than your own actual experiences require, and feel free to reject something you do not like.

2-Respect *all *classical heritages, even if you might not like some.

3-Argue with yourself first, do minimum argument with other people about the unresolved problems, and read more than argue.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> You're a "Slippery-Slopist" at heart, aren't you?


No, I'm not................................


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> But this too is conditional...only if someone does equate a cat walking on a piano with K521 does "everything become subjective (and thereby render artistic evaluation meaningless)."


How on earth does that follow?

Explain what you mean


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## souio (Dec 31, 2019)

I swear the Objective/Subjective argument here is TC's version of the Nature vs Nurture argument. 

I believe there can be both; most people can tell the difference between an amateur vs professional musician. If a musician is sight-reading a piece for the first time vs working it out and performing it. I think that's where the objectiveness can come in. The subjectiveness of it 

For example (and to actually make this post on-topic :lol - Haydn. It took a while for me to get what his genius was, and why he appears to be in the top tens of classical composers. But I realized that it was because of certain interpretations of the music. But the difference is, all of the boring interpretations of his music were objectively well-played, recorded and mixed. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the performance; it just did not suit my style. It wasn't so much hours listening to it than it was finding the right people to interpret it. 

So it's like a mix, in my opinion. Which objectively well performed interpretation do you subjectively like the most?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> How on earth does that follow?
> 
> Explain what you mean


Xisten267 said that "a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521 [...]."

I argue that unless someone actually claims that the music made by a cat walking on a piano is as relevant as K521, Xisten267's statement is untrue. It doesn't automatically follow, just because someone proposes that all opinions about K521 are only subjectively "true".

You really need to address your indignant question to Xisten267: how does it follow that a subjective approach to judgements about art necessitates reducing every opinion to the absurd (cat/piano etc)?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

When I first joined TC, I didn't really enjoy Mozart, and even made the thread that he is my enemy in favor of the Romantics. It took me quite some time to develop a favorable opinion on his music.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

souio said:


> I swear the Objective/Subjective argument here is TC's version of the Nature vs Nurture argument.
> 
> I believe there can be both; most people can tell the difference between an amateur vs professional musician. If a musician is sight-reading a piece for the first time vs working it out and performing it. I think that's where the objectiveness can come in. The subjectiveness of it
> 
> ...


Puh-leez.

I'm a fairly good pianist with excellent sight-reading skills, yet I know a couple of extraordinary pianists with only adequate sight-reading skills. I know some excellent musicians on other instruments that cannot read sheet music.

Sight-reading skills are both over- and under-rated. A great skill that can help greatly, but not a good barometer of musicianship.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> When I first joined TC, I didn't really enjoy Mozart, and even made the thread that he is my enemy in favor of the Romantics. It took me quite some time to develop a favorable opinion on his music.


I've been on a *Mozart* binge for at least a week. Whenever there's not a need to be listening to something else, I've been shuffle-playing Mozart, and it has brought me great joy.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> Xisten267 said that "a cat walking in a piano would make music as relevant as K. 521 [...]."
> 
> I argue that unless someone actually claims that the music made by a cat walking on a piano is as relevant as K521, Xisten267's statement is untrue. It doesn't automatically follow, just because someone proposes that all opinions about K521 are only subjectively "true".
> 
> You really need to address your indignant question to Xisten267: how does it follow that a subjective approach to judgements about art necessitates reducing every opinion to the absurd (cat/piano etc)?


But according to the subjective view k521 is not "relevant," its not any more "relevant" than a cat walking on a piano.

According to the subjective view k521 is not objectively a good piece of music. There is no such thing. Likewise a cat walking on a piano is not objectively bad music, because again there is no such thing. So neither of them are objectively good or bad.

You don't need to make a statement about each piece of music you just need to subscribe to subjectivity.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> But according to the subjective view k521 is not "relevant," its not any more "relevant" than a cat walking on a piano.
> 
> According to the subjective view k521 is not objectively a good piece of music. There is no such thing. Likewise a cat walking on a piano is not objectively bad music, because again there is no such thing. So neither of them are objectively good or bad.
> 
> You don't need to make a statement about each piece of music you just need to subscribe to subjectivity.


"Not objectively good or bad" does not equate to "not good or bad." Objectively money has no value, it's literally just a piece of paper. Does that therefor mean money has no value? Just like with money, art has value to all the people who agree it has value and are willing to act as if it does. Most don't value the cat-piano, but they do value the Mozart.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> But according to the subjective view k521 is not "relevant," its not any more "relevant" than a cat walking on a piano.
> 
> According to the subjective view k521 is not objectively a good piece of music. There is no such thing. Likewise a cat walking on a piano is not objectively bad music, because again there is no such thing. So neither of them are objectively good or bad.
> 
> You don't need to make a statement about each piece of music you just need to subscribe to subjectivity.


Since you are not an exponent of "the subjective view" you are not someone who can accurately represent it. If you wish to describe how your objective view operates, that I would find interesting. However, to watch you flail around clumsily trying to articulate "the subjective view" is a gruesome display of incompetence.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Since you are not an exponent of "the subjective view" you are not someone who can accurately represent it. If you wish to describe how your objective view operates, that I would find interesting. However, to watch you flail around clumsily trying to articulate "the subjective view" is a gruesome display of incompetence.


:lol::lol::lol:

"Since you are not an exponent of "the subjective view" you are not someone who can accurately represent it."

Your not serious are you? Your saying because someone doesn't hold to a certain position that means they don't know accurately what the position is? C'mon man!


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> But according to the subjective view k521 is not "relevant," its not any more "relevant" than a cat walking on a piano.


You're losing me here...I don't understand what you mean by 'relevant'



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> According to the subjective view k521 is not objectively a good piece of music. There is no such thing.


Well, I'll allow that for now. I'm not sure "the subjective view" is a single viewpoint. But, as someone who holds the view that no piece of music is _objectively _good (or bad) because no objective criteria could ever be universally agreed to identify such works, I accept your statement. But so what? Show me the criteria that you would use to argue that it is, objectively, a good piece of music and I'm sure it wouldn't be long before someone pointed out contrary criteria that are just as valid to use for a different kind of piece.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> You don't need to make a statement about each piece of music you just need to subscribe to subjectivity.


There's not much point "subscribing to subjectivity" if you never apply it to individual works. It's pretty obvious that all the classical music lovers who post here exercise evaluative judgements about what they like to listen to. They might arrive at different conclusions wrt to labels such as 'great/greatest', but every one of them would argue the merits of particular pieces by their favoured composers.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> You're losing me here...I don't understand what you mean by 'relevant'
> 
> Well, I'll allow that for now. I'm not sure "the subjective view" is a single viewpoint. But, as someone who holds the view that no piece of music is _objectively _good (or bad) because no objective criteria could ever be universally agreed to identify such works, I accept your statement. But so what? Show me the criteria that you would use to argue that it is, objectively, a good piece of music and I'm sure it wouldn't be long before someone pointed out contrary criteria that are just as valid to use for a different kind of piece.
> 
> There's not much point "subscribing to subjectivity" if you never apply it to individual works. It's pretty obvious that all the classical music lovers who post here exercise evaluative judgements about what they like to listen to. They might arrive at different conclusions wrt to labels such as 'great/greatest', but every one of them would argue the merits of particular pieces by their favoured composers.


I used the word relevant as Xisten267 used it. He said a cats "music" was as _relevant_ as Mozart's music if art is completely subjective.

That is, since there is no objectively good music, all music then is neither good or bad, its neutral, its all on a level playing field and its down to the hearer to ascribe (pretend) goodness or badness to it.

which, as Xisten267 also said is obviously absolute nonsense! (OK, I added the absolute nonsense bit ) Therefore there *must* be something that makes the art objectively or intrinsically good or bad.

_Some_ people know this is true but they don't want to hear it because this means that truth exists in the world outside of themselves.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

OK, and as I already argued Xisten267 is wrong so to propound. As Eva Yojimbo argues, you xan reject the objective bit without rejecting the good/bad adjectives.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> OK, and as I already argued Xisten267 is wrong so to propound. As Eva Yojimbo argues, you xan reject the objective bit without rejecting the good/bad adjectives.


No you cant. If you say a piece of music is good, you don't really mean IT is good, you mean your perception of it is good. But everyone thinks you are saying IT is good.

You can never say a piece of music isn't good, all you can say is you don't like it.

but you'll keep saying "its good" or "its rubbish" even though your beliefs don't permit you to use such language, or make such statements.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> No you cant. If you say a piece of music is good, you don't really mean IT is good, you mean your perception of it is good. But everyone thinks you are saying IT is good.
> 
> You can never say a piece of music isn't good, all you can say is you don't like it.
> 
> but you'll keep saying "its good" or "its rubbish" even though your beliefs don't permit you to use such language, or make such statements.


I can say anything I like about a piece...

If I want to claim that Sibelius 7th is good, I will. I just won't also assert that what I say must be objectively true and anyone who disagrees must be tin eared, inexperienced or dim for not recognising its greatness.

I'll also be comfortable in the knowledge that many other people will agree with me, and it doesn't matter whether we're agreeing on an objective judgement.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> I can say anything I like about a piece...
> 
> If I want to claim that Sibelius 7th is good, I will. I just won't also assert that what I say must be objectively true and anyone who disagrees must be tin eared, inexperienced or dim for not recognising its greatness.
> 
> I'll also be comfortable in the knowledge that many other people will agree with me, and it doesn't matter whether we're agreeing on an objective judgement.


Well yes you can be inconsistent.

Because people acknowledge that some music is objectively good it doesn't mean they insult those who don't see it or know it.

But what are they agreeing on? That the piece is good? See, the position makes no sense.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Inconsistent? How?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> No you cant. If you say a piece of music is good, you don't really mean IT is good, you mean your perception of it is good. But everyone thinks you are saying IT is good.
> 
> You can never say a piece of music isn't good, all you can say is you don't like it.
> 
> but you'll keep saying "its good" or "its rubbish" even though your beliefs don't permit you to use such language, or make such statements.


Saying "X is good" can just be a shorthand for saying "x is good to me" or "x is good relative to our communal standards of goodness," and this is especially true when you're saying that among people who share similar values about what constitutes goodness/badness to them. Whether or not an individual intends it this way is, well, relative to the individual saying it. I always hear it that way simply because I understand that goodness/badness are subjective concepts and not inherent in objects.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Should I put on some popcorn to enjoy the relevance of a cat-piano work?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

So who had "subjectivity/objectivity revisited for the 12th time" in the 2022 Talk Classical bingo card?


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> Inconsistent? How?


If you choose to say "Sibelius 7th is good" you are saying the _music _is good, which you do not believe.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Of Wagner. Hated the dude and thought him overrated...But after hours of listening realized his true power and strength...


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Your saying because someone doesn't hold to a certain position that means they don't know accurately what the position is?


Correct. Your description of it is distorted, and your words are those of someone who doesn't know how it works.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Correct. Your description of it is distorted, and your words are those of someone who doesn't know how it works.


How does it work?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> If you choose to say "Sibelius 7th is good" you are saying the _music _is good, which you do not believe.


Please quote what I wrote that leads you to infer that I don't believe the music is good. Thanks.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> How does it work?


It doesn't mean that music has no value other than what someone gives it. It means that while music has inherent value, each listener responds to it uniquely and some music will resonate more positively to that listener than a different piece of music.

It also means that our personal response is more important than any consensus judgment about objective greatness of a work or composer, not that there are not works and composers that have been judged great.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> Please quote what I wrote that leads you to infer that I don't believe the music is good. Thanks.


Its sounds to me like you don't understand the concepts. I'm not trying to be rude, so apologies if it sounds like that.

If you hold to subjectivity you CANT believe the music is good. All you can believe or say is you like it. Because on the subjective outlook good music doesn't exist.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Its sounds to me like you don't understand the concepts. I'm not trying to be rude, so apologies if it sounds like that.
> 
> If you hold to subjectivity you CANT believe the music is good. All you can believe or say is you like it. Because on the subjective outlook good music doesn't exist.


It sounds to me like you can't find anything I wrote to support your contention that I'm inconsistent.

It's perfectly consistent to say that x piece of music is good, but that this is only a subjective opinion.

We could turn this around, and I could ask you to explain how your 'good' judgement of a piece is an objective evaluation.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> A judgment of greatness is nothing but a collection of subjective opinions over time, i.e. a consensus. More convincing than a single person's opinion, but subjective opinions nonetheless. Further, a consensus can change. Some judgments of greatness have eroded over time.


Yes, that states it well and succinctly. The only thing I would add is, consensus on aesthetic values, as reflected in the cultural characteristics of a society, impermanent and subject to erosion and change as it may be, serves a fundamentally important purpose in human existence. It reminds us that although we are individuals with our own unique set of values, tastes and ideals, we also have enough of these things in common to function in unified societies.

Humans function both individually and socially, and our art reflects that. I don't understand why this is such an endless point of contention here.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> It's perfectly consistent to say that x piece of music is good, but that this is only a subjective opinion.
> 
> We could turn this around, and I could ask you to explain how your 'good' judgement of a piece is an objective evaluation.


Again, forgive me but your question shows you don't understand the concepts.

I'm not claiming that my judgement is _good_. I'm claiming the music is _good._ or bad inherently!


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> A judgment of greatness is nothing but a collection of subjective opinions over time, i.e. a consensus. More convincing than a single person's opinion, but subjective opinions nonetheless. Further, a consensus can change. Some judgments of greatness have eroded over time.


Objective truth has nothing to do with peoples judgements.

When something is objectively true or beautiful it is that regardless of opinion.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Objective truth has nothing to do with peoples judgements.
> 
> When something is objectively true or beautiful it is that regardless of opinion.


In what way is this basically different from the question _"Where is the beauty in music? When you hear a beautiful piece of music, is the beauty in the music itself or is it in the listeners brain?"_ You may remember a thread about that (you started it after all, just a few months ago). The outcome after over 1600 posts and over 100 members voting was a small majority in favour of the idea that it is in the listeners brain. Now that is an outcome which you obviously do not like, and/or do not agree with, but what is the point of re-starting the same discussion here? Or if it is not the same discussion, please explain.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Objective truth has nothing to do with peoples judgements.
> 
> When something is objectively true or beautiful it is that regardless of opinion.


That's if it is objectively true or beautiful. No one has ever demonstrated that premise successfully concerning music, IMO.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Art Rock said:


> In what way is this basically different from the question _"Where is the beauty in music? When you hear a beautiful piece of music, is the beauty in the music itself or is it in the listeners brain?"_ You may remember a thread about that (you started it after all, just a few months ago). The outcome after over 1600 posts and over 100 members voting was a small majority in favour of the idea that it is in the listeners brain. Now that is an outcome which you obviously do not like, and/or do not agree with, but what is the point of re-starting the same discussion here? Or if it is not the same discussion, please explain.


It was just a pole to see what people thought. Its not that I don't like the outcome, but obviously I disagree.

You asked "what is the point of re-starting the same discussion here?" but I didn't re-start the discussion here, I'm just taking part like you and others.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Alas, the very idea of submitting such a question to a popular vote, and attaching some significance or importance to the outcome of that vote, itself implies an answer to the question. So you won't dispose of this endless debate that easily. In prior threads, I suggested some sources where the history of thought on this subject is discussed. (Not that I am a leading expert, but I've studied this area enough to know some good avenues for research.) A few here thanked me and followed up, I hope with some resulting enlightenment. Others criticized me for providing annotations to my posts, and still others criticized me when I didn't do so.

So good luck, Art Rock. I'm not going to revisit all of that.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

I don't buy $500 bottles of wine. I cannot appreciate the difference between a $500 bottle of wine and a $25 bottle of wine. 

I once had a $20 cigar, and couldn't tell the difference between that and a Backwoods cigar, which sell 4 for $5.

I don't buy expensive wine or expensive cigars.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

pianozach said:


> I don't buy $500 bottles of wine. I cannot appreciate the difference between a $500 bottle of wine and a $25 bottle of wine.


Neither can anyone if the extant studies on the subject are anything to go by.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Again, forgive me but your question shows you don't understand the concepts.
> 
> I'm not claiming that my judgement is _good_. I'm claiming the music is _good._ or bad inherently!


No, my question might also show that in fact, I do understand "the concepts", but I'm not explaining myself clearly enough.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Objective truth has nothing to do with peoples judgements.
> 
> When something is objectively true or beautiful it is that regardless of opinion.


Objective truth can't just come out of thin air: someone, somewhere must make a declaration that it is so. Sibelius' 7th can't declare itself inherently good. Unless and until someone makes such a statement, it's just a symphony.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> Objective truth can't just come out of thin air: someone, somewhere must make a declaration that it is so. Sibelius' 7th can't declare itself inherently good. Unless and until someone makes such a statement, it's just a symphony.


Incorrect. Humans can declare all day long whatever we want, it doesn't change what is true or make anything true.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Incorrect. Humans can declare all day long whatever we want, it doesn't change what is true or make anything true.


So how do you know what is true?


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Like that Philip K. Dick quote about reality being that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it?


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Before acquiring albums of classical music, I started out collecting soundtracks. During the late 1980s, I was hunting for vintage LPs from decades earlier. One of the many I had gotten was an United Artists LP of music by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino for *The Naked Maja*. The contents did not appeal to me at that time because most of it sounded like source music and very little of it was dramatic underscoring. In the early '90s, the Italian C.A.M. label began re-issuing onto CDs old Lavagnino albums that were out of circulation for around 30 years and most of these were never distributed in the U.S. I grabbed some more Lavagnino discs thinking I would never get to hear these unless I bought them whenever I encountered them. I kept them in my music collection even though none (*Venere Imperiale*, *Kali-Yug*, etc.) I considered as outstanding music.

Lavagnino lay dormant with me for 20 years.

Then, in December of 2014, I got a couple of Lavagnino CDs whose music 'clicked' inside me. These were *Jovanka e le altre* & *L'Assedio di Siracusa* - superb descriptive incidental music! From 2015 onwards, I started to 'catch up' and purchase almost every other Lavagnino title that was released - and now Lavagnino is one of my Top 10 Italian film composers (plus I currently rank Lavagnino above Ennio Morricone).

Why did I not realize the merits of Lavagnino music until 25 years after my first album of his (and who knows how many hours of listening between '89 & 2014)? I say it was because of how album producers assembled vinyl record programs during the 1960s.
Those initial album programs that I was exposed to the earliest had the least amount of commentative/expressive music and favored tracks of marches, anthems, processionals, guitar solos, saloon tack piano, assorted dance music, etc. ... all 'dumbed-down' for the common folk customers who would not have been receptive toward the more dissonant passages within the scores.
The CDs produced from around 2008 up through the present ... these utilize the actual studio recording sessions' master tapes containing the dramatic music as heard within the films themselves.

Now ... onto the contemporary classical area (or should I say arena?  )

As I commenced getting classical music on CDs in 1993, I blind-bought my first Xenakis disc late-'94/perhaps early-'95. At first, I didn't like what I heard at all. As with my Lavagnino, I did not discard it; my Xenakis stayed in my music collection for years without revisits. I would get compilation albums in which there would be a short Xenakis opus as a disc companion along with other composers' pieces. One such work - _Echange_ - was more digestible for me, as was another called _Xas_.
Wasn't until the French Timpani label began issuing volumes of orchestral music by Xenakis around the time of his death in 2001 that I resumed my survey on Xenakis material. Some items 'clicked' whilst others still I haven't penetrated ... but at least I 'got' what Xenakis was doing and where he was 'at' with his conceptual approaches to his compositions.

In this case, I did not absorb the merits of Xenakis until about 10 years onwards from my initial encounter.

How many hours? Not sure, but my guesstimate = 50+ hours between 1995 & 2005.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

fbjim said:


> Like that Philip K. Dick quote about reality being that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it?


I suspect that some Ancient Greek got there before Dick did.

Anyway, I'm not sure how that connects to judgements about good and bad?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

As always I'd recommend anyone interested check out Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Truth. I'm mostly in the Correspondence Theory side, but my epistemology is built less around "truth" and more around probabilities and justified beliefs that reduce everything down to empirical modeling.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

So, I said,



> Sibelius' 7th can't declare itself inherently good. Unless and until someone makes such a statement, it's just a symphony.


That is, until someone listening to Sibelius' 7th declares it to be good, it is neither good nor bad. There are _facts _about it that remain true, regardless of whether it is listened to by anybody (the reality that Philip Dick referred to, cited by fbjim), but the extent of its goodness is not one of those facts.

In response, Wilhelm said:



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Incorrect. Humans can declare all day long whatever we want, it doesn't change what is true or make anything true.


I'd still like to hear some substantial evidence to support this rejection, which is somewhat ambiguous - can Sibelius 7th declare itself to be good?


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