# Enjoying Music That Is NOT Beautiful



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm interested in knowing whether people enjoy some music that they personally do not find beautiful. The thread is _not concerned with music some enjoy that *others* do not find beautiful_.

Recently I've read a number of threads concerning beauty in music, and over the past year or so I've talked with several people about what they find beautiful. One thing that is clear is that people's view of beauty in music varies considerably. We all know that one person might find a work simply gorgeous while another will find it profoundly ugly. In discussing why we like classical music, I have heard a number of people say, "Not all music has to be beautiful." While that might seem obvious to some or many, I'm not sure that I would say there is a work I like _that I do not find beautiful to some extent_.

Since people view beauty in many diverse ways, this question can only be answered in relation to one's personal aesthetic sense. I know some distinguish between beauty and other similar attributes such as prettiness. There are many attributes of music that people might enjoy - interesting harmonies, aspects of its creation, a driving beat, relevance to important real world events, etc., but if you enjoy a work, do those attributes _always_ make the work beautiful to you? I will not try to properly define beauty here and simply leave that up to each individual for themselves.

So I'd like to know if there are works of music that you do not consider beautiful but that you enjoy listening to. If so, could you give examples of the work and why you enjoy it?


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## Guest (May 6, 2012)

I do not enjoy any music that I do not find beautiful.

I do not enjoy much music that I consider pretty, though there is some. (I feel I'm always on the verge of not liking it, if it strikes me as "pretty.")


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## gridweb (Jun 19, 2011)

I think I understand what you're hinting at.

Personally I have this feeling with Symphony no. 4 by Sibelius.
I would not call this beautiful, but yet I own five or six versions and I find myself coming back to it again and again.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I find works beautiful that people wouldn't. For instance, deafening feedback is one of the prettiest sounds I've ever heard. I don't think I find anything "ugly" that I don't find beautiful, as I find the ugliness beautiful. So, I agree with what you are getting at.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I personally have little time for the concept of "beauty" - when asked about it, I equate it with "enjoyable", and thus have little need for it. If we are to take "beauty" to mean anything else, we enter the realm of metaphor, which I profoundly dislike. For it to mean anything other than "enjoyable", it would fall in the same category as, "which pieces of music do you find colourful?" or "which do you think are erotic?" Some people like those kinds of questions, I think they're particularly useless. In terms of the extra-musical associations I create myself, a piece might be "dark", "grotesque", "unnerving" etc., but if I enjoy it, I consider it "beautiful".


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Beauty is in the ear of the beholder. If I find Dissonance beautiful then who is there to say otherwise.


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

I actually find most of the modern pieces I've listened to to be more interesting than beautiful. 
I like Vasks' Piano Trio and Norgard's 7-9 SQ but I can't say I find them to be beautiful. They are interesting and this is why I enjoy them. 
Essentially this is why I find myself not listening to modern music that much - it's usually intellectually vigorous - the usage of interesting ryhtms, harmonies and other unconventional aspects - but I almost always find it lacks beauty.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Bartok comes to mind instantly.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> I do not enjoy any music that I do not find beautiful.
> 
> I do not enjoy much music that I consider pretty, though there is some. (I feel I'm always on the verge of not liking it, if it strikes me as "pretty.")


By pretty, do you mean something like superficially pleasant? And do you mean that finding a work pretty causes you, in general, not to enjoy it? Could you give an example (or examples) of something that you view as pretty but do not like?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There is probably some carelessness involved in the exclamation *Beautiful!* that carries over into more sedate conversation. I wonder if anyone considers Mussorgsky's "Pictures", as interpreted by Richter, beautiful. To me it is all sharp edges and rough surfaces and powerful emotion, and I enjoy listening to it immensely - but beautiful it ain't. Ravel's Le Gibet can be entrancing and powerfully evocative - but it ain't beautiful. Debussy's The Engulfed Cathedral... well, maybe.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

neoshredder said:


> Bartok comes to mind instantly.


If you enjoy Bartok but do not find his music beautiful, what would you say you enjoy about his music? And to make the question more difficult, if you think about these attributes that you enjoy but that do not give rise to beauty, do these attributes never give rise to beauty in music?


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

I enjoy lots of music I wouldn't describe as beautiful.

Some examples of tracks I've been enjoying lately that I wouldn't necessarily call beautiful:

Jai Paul





Philipp Quehenberger





Wax





However, I wouldn't describe any of these pieces as ugly. I don't think I really enjoy any music I consider truly ugly, although I can think of many pieces of music that I find beautiful that I don't enjoy (actually in this case it would be better to say pieces that are trying to be beautiful).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

What good music of any genre from any era is Not beautiful?

Not being disingenuous, but what you've brought up as a question is more in the entirely subjective arena of what any individual considers 'dissonant' or 'not harmonious.' That goes more to the listening habits of the individual (what is generally consumed) more than it has anything to do with 'beautiful.'


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> If you enjoy Bartok but do not find his music beautiful, what would you say you enjoy about his music? And to make the question more difficult, if you think about these attributes that you enjoy but that do not give rise to beauty, do these attributes never give rise to beauty in music?


It is ugly and heavy similar to some Metal music. If ugly is beauty as well, then I'm confused.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> There is probably some carelessness involved in the exclamation *Beautiful!* that carries over into more sedate conversation. I wonder if anyone considers Mussorgsky's "Pictures", as interpreted by Richter, beautiful. To me it is all sharp edges and rough surfaces and powerful emotion, and I enjoy listening to it immensely - but beautiful it ain't. Ravel's Le Gibet can be entrancing and powerfully evocative - but it ain't beautiful. Debussy's The Engulfed Cathedral... well, maybe.


As someone who listens to Richter's Pictures at an Exhibition quite often, I can for sure say that it is absolutely dripping in gorgeousness.


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## Guest (May 6, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> ugly and heavy


Bartok???



neoshredder said:


> If ugly is beauty as well, then I'm confused.


No need to be. Both these words describe experiences, not the things experienced. (A common confusion.) Things that you find ugly (Bartok? Really??) I might find beautiful. (Like Bartok. Really.)


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Cnote11 said:


> As someone who listens to Richter's Pictures at an Exhibition quite often, I can for sure say that it is absolutely dripping in gorgeousness.


Hmphh. Sloppy use of language. And judging by this thread, you are very much not alone.


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I like music that is fun, beautiful or not.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

I think Ive stated the opinions quoted in the OP numerous times in this forum.

Yes, I do listen to and enjoy music which I find ugly.

Its all about the total experience. Sometimes music is terrifying, or any other negative 'emotion', but if I listen with an open mind I can be led to discover new parts of myself or the world.

This is slightly easier with extra musical program or a libretto to guide your progress. For me my most significant experience with ugly music was the opera Die Soldaten by B.A. Zimmermann. The music is hideous and it ends with screams and the rattle of machine guns, but overall the spiritual impression it left on me was as profound as the best of the 'beautiful' operas. I understood just how far people can be dehumanised - becoming also like machines and thereby treating others only as objects. But further, I became numbed myself and almost incapable of sympathy.

Here is a great review of a recent NY performance:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/arts/music/07armo.html?pagewanted=all

One critique of modern music I often hear is that it can only work with extramusical associations, but my experience contradicts this. Ugly absolute music has also affected me to a degree comparable to the best 'beautiful' works, and indeed explores emotions often neglected by such works.
Ill give you one example: B.A. Zimmermann's Dialogue concerto for two pianos. Its just an alternation between thrilling and mysterious which leaves me breathless.

Yes, you may have noticed I love Bernd Alois Zimmermann.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Hmphh. Sloppy use of language. And judging by this thread, you are very much not alone.


*clears throat

The first definition, according to the Meriam-Webster Dictionary, for "beauty/beautiful" is the following:

The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.

DEAR LORD MR. HILLTROLL, I'm sorry for not using language "correctly" and I'm sorry for my (apparently false) thinking that Pictures at an Exhibition as performed by Richter is pleasing to my senses. Oh, lord HillTroll, where would I be without your divine wisdom and guidance?


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Hilly's vast knowledge of everything ever that surpasses any other knowledge ever to exist refutes the following:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/beauty

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/beauty

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beauty

HERETICS! May Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and Cambridge all bow before LORD HILLTROLL, KNOWER OF ALL, or face eternal damnation in fire and brimstone!


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

We all know words only have one correct meaning and that correct meaning is however I choose to define it.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Calm down, Cnote. You're destroying your reputation as the nonchalant guy with the witty one-liners. 'Onest.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Your use of "destroying" is sloppy, Dodie. I'd refrain from using language until you get permission from HillTroll.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Someone mentioned the also present factor within and about music: FUN! And where fun is involved, it seems a preoccupation with "Beauty" at least takes a back seat if along for the ride.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann ~ Un petit Rien





Joseph Fennimore ~ Concerto Piccolo; for Piano and Chamber Orchestra





and there's that more than fun 'bad boy music.' for the earlier 20th century, which is one kind of beautiful, but meant to sound 'not pretty' and a whole lotta fun 

Hindemith Kammermusik No. 1


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Dodecaplex said:


> Calm down, Cnote. You're destroying your reputation as the nonchalant guy with the witty one-liners. 'Onest.


"We all know words only have one correct meaning and that correct meaning is however I choose to define it." may not clock in at 'witty' but wryly funny it is, (and in context of the 'reaction-rant thread to which it refers, pointedly satiric)... ergo, reputation not really marred.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Seeing as that is an imaginary reputation in the mind of Dodecaplex it can be marred at any time he chooses it to be.


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## sah (Feb 28, 2012)

Beauty is just one aesthetic category. There are another ones: sublime, sinister,...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Cnote11 said:


> *clears throat
> 
> The first definition, according to the Meriam-Webster Dictionary, for "beauty/beautiful" is the following:
> 
> ...


Ah yes; the 'after the fact' modification of your statement. You are not nearly as slippery as you think you are, _Cnot_. Employment of _High Dudgeon_ is a tactic usually employed when your overweening pride is sliding off the precipice. I am surprised that you took a simple observation of a general trend as a personal challenge.

[This message will suffice as response to any further whinges you produce - re anything.]


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Nobody knows what you are talking about, HillTroll. Go mumble in a corner to yourself.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> As someone who listens to Richter's Pictures at an Exhibition quite often, I can for sure say that it is absolutely dripping in gorgeousness.


"Pictures" has always been a favourite of mine but dripping in gorgeousness?? That's very twee and about the last description I would dream of using.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)




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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

moody said:


> "Pictures" has always been a favourite of mine but dripping in gorgeousness?? That's very twee and about the last description I would dream of using.


Better yet, Richter's version of "Pictures" is AWESOME!!!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> Better yet, Richter's version of "Pictures" is AWESOME!!!


Now don't you start that 'awesome' stuff, although it is a better desription.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

To answer the question, I really don't look at whether the music is beautful. I listen to the Rite of Spring fairly often and it is not remotely beautiful' But some pieces of music undoubtedly have passages of beauty.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

emiellucifuge said:


> Yes, I do listen to and enjoy music which I find ugly.
> 
> Its all about the total experience. Sometimes music is terrifying, or any other negative 'emotion', but if I listen with an open mind I can be led to discover new parts of myself or the world.
> 
> This is slightly easier with extra musical program or a libretto to guide your progress. For me my most significant experience with ugly music was the opera Die Soldaten by B.A. Zimmermann. The music is hideous and it ends with screams and the rattle of machine guns, but overall the spiritual impression it left on me was as profound as the best of the 'beautiful' operas. I understood just how far people can be dehumanised - becoming also like machines and thereby treating others only as objects. But further, I became numbed myself and almost incapable of sympathy.


Those I have talked to about beauty and who have told me, "Not all music must be beautiful," spoke about things like energy or power. For example, music can have a drive to it that they find exhilarating. I did not expect people to suggest that they enjoy "ugly" music. I can understand enjoying an opera or movie where powerful negative emotions are portrayed and enhanced with similar music. For me I would not enjoy the music, but I might enjoy the movie or opera. Maybe my enjoyment is not so dissimilar to yours in those circumstances.

It does sound as though you go further to say you can enjoy the "ugly" music on its own. The music can elicit emotions that, while normally unpleasant (fear, horror, etc.), in the context of that setting enable you to experience something you normally could not. In a sense you can know horror without having the associated effects (death, dehumanization, etc.). Thank you for describing your particular view of certain "ugly" music.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

So far, most of the talk has been about comparing beauty with what beauty is _not_. I'd be interested to here what people actually think it _is_ when approaching this question, because it has always seemed to me to be an overarching term for referencing what is GOOD in art, yet here it seems to mean little more than a certain variety of "pretty" if the objection is that too much dissonance means a piece can't be "beautiful".


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## AndyS (Dec 2, 2011)

I would say I enjoy listening to music that is not 'beautiful'

Even before I started listening to classical music, and people would say I had a bizarre and very eclectic music taste, I would simply say I enjoyed listening to music that had 'texture', music with an almost tangible quality to it. I probably find this far more with classical music than anything else

Listening to say, Strauss' Elektra, I wouldn't find much beauty in it. But it's an exciting listen


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

> ...
> So I'd like to know if there are works of music that you do not consider beautiful but that you enjoy listening to. If so, could you give examples of the work and why you enjoy it?


Hard to generalise, but often I enjoy pieces that have a fair share of ugliness (or what my gut feeling says on first listen is ugly), due to their visceral impact. In other words, it's an animalistic gut emotion that comes to me, it's not refined.

Xenakis, whose music gives me that feeling, said it better than I could in this quote -

_"...the listener must be gripped and - whether he likes it or not - drawn into the path of the sounds, without special training being necessary. The sensual shock must be just as forceful as when one hears a clap of thunder or looks into a bottomless abyss."_

Source - ABC website: http://www2b.abc.net.au/abcdiary/ev...y&gatewayid=2&presdir=tv/sundayarts&PageRec=0



mmsbls said:


> ...There are many attributes of music that people might enjoy - interesting harmonies, aspects of its creation, a driving beat, relevance to important real world events, etc., but if you enjoy a work, do those attributes _always_ make the work beautiful to you? ...


With relation to the Xenakis quote, & speaking to things you list there, these works give me this kind of feeling (but there are many others)

_Shostakovich _-_ Piano Trio #2_ & many of his other things. In this work, a Jewish wedding dance in the final movement is deliberately distorted, eg. made ugly, to reflect the horrors of the Holocaust and the juggernaut of the German war machine. Not surprisingly, it was banned after it's first performance in late 1944, the audience was in total shock at this. I often cry during this work. It's a wonder that it got through the censors in the first place (his contemporaneous _String Quartet #4_ didn't even make it that far, was banned after the first 'test' hearing by the censorship committee). The _nice_ wedding dance becomes a merciless _dance of death _by the end.

Xenakis - _La Legende d'Eer _; _Pleaides_ ; _Theraps for double bass solo _; _Herma for piano solo_

Schoenberg - _Violin Concerto_

Nigel Westlake -_ Piano Sonata _(esp. the last part)

Stravinsky - _Symphony in Three Movements _(esp. final movement, but also how a brutal Nazi fanfare goes right through it, similar issues as Shostakovich's trio above)

Penderecki - heaps of his stuff, eg. the famous _Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima _- chilling

Varese - again, most of his stuff, esp. the surreal song-cycle _Offrandes_

Boulez - _Messagesquisse for cello ensemble_

Weill - _The Threepenny Opera_

Berg - a lot of his stuff, _Wozzeck _for one

As can be seen, many of these have historical and political elements, which interests me a lot, it often makes me hear a story being told in the work, and often these histories are no walks in the park.

& in the world of non-classical, there's tonnes of this stuff. One Australian jazz musician, sax player Bernie McGann, even had an album called _Ugly Beauty_. It's a good description of his music.


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## Guest (May 7, 2012)

Polednice said:


> I'd be interested to here what people actually think it _is_ when approaching this question.


"...beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us."

--Rainer Maria Rilke


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Polednice said:


> So far, most of the talk has been about comparing beauty with what beauty is _not_. I'd be interested to here what people actually think it _is_ when approaching this question, because it has always seemed to me to be an overarching term for referencing what is GOOD in art, yet here it seems to mean little more than a certain variety of "pretty" if the objection is that too much dissonance means a piece can't be "beautiful".


I think it's extremely difficult to define beauty in general or beauty in art. I chose not to try in the OP for that reason. Since beauty can mean different things to different people, I thought it best to simply leave the definition up to the poster. I'm not sure I completely agree with you that beauty equates to enjoyable, and apparently many posters here do not equate the two although I guess we have to specify what is meant by enjoyable (i.e. just because people want to listen to certain works does not mean they believe they are enjoyable).

The issue of dissonance is not straightforward. Obviously a certain level of dissonance might be jarring to one person but barely noticeable to others. The term "too much dissonance" seems to require that the person using it experiences an unpleasant quality that cannot be mitigated by resolution elsewhere (hence the qualifier "too much"). Individuals must determine whether the dissonance present precludes their enjoyment of the work. On the other hand, some people here have suggested that a piece could have enough dissonance to make the work horrifying, disturbing, or ugly, and yet those people want to listen to the work. As mentioned above, there is still the question of whether they actually enjoy the work (or just want to listen for other reasons).

The bottom line for me is that I think people instinctively know whether they find a work beautiful and everyone knows whether they enjoy the work. I simply want to know if a work _must_ be beautiful to be enjoyed. For me the answer seems to be "yes"; whereas, for others the answer is apparently "no."


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

Great thread. I have really enjoyed reading it.

Enjoy. 

That is the word that I want to discuss. Sometimes we listen to music within a context and the music is not 'beautiful' but it is appropriate and evocative of what is being conveyed by that music. The purpose may not be for the audience to 'enjoy' the music but to experience it as threatening (think Jaws danger motif) or for some other emotion. 

Thus the music may be 'ugly' and even unpleasant in how we perceive it, but still tremendously successful and 'enjoyable' within its own context.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

moody said:


> To answer the question, I really don't look at whether the music is beautful. I listen to the Rite of Spring fairly often and it is not remotely beautiful' But some pieces of music undoubtedly have passages of beauty.


Le Sacre du Printemps is exciting, awesome, and _it drips gorgeousness!_ ERGO: It is truly beautiful


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> So I'd like to know if there are works of music that you do not consider beautiful but that you enjoy listening to.


Schumann symphonies, Chopin piano concertos.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> The bottom line for me is that I think people instinctively know whether they find a work beautiful and everyone knows whether they enjoy the work. I simply want to know if a work _must_ be beautiful to be enjoyed. For me the answer seems to be "yes"; whereas, for others the answer is apparently "no."


I question the usefulness of the responses when it has already been established that no one's definition is the same, and there's no attempt to even come to a consensus definition. That's why I think "beauty" as a term is quite vapid.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I agree that beautiful is not a very effective term to use when describing art/music and our reactions to it, but I don't think there is any one effective term. The very nature of art is that it transcends words - it is an alternate form of expression for where words fail. 

I would suggest that if the OP is able to categorize neatly works of art that are purely beautiful and enjoyable on one side of the spectrum and works of art that are not these two qualities on the other side, there is something about the bigger picture of creative expression they are missing. (I would guess mmsbls perhaps senses this too, hence the creation of such threads).

I feel good answers have been given to the OP here and in many similar threads, and if mmsbls still wants to enjoy more of the music available to them, that they find 'ugly', perhaps the next step should be something more hands on, such as actually learning a musical instrument, or learning/exploring some form of creative expression?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Polednice said:


> I question the usefulness of the responses when it has already been established that no one's definition is the same, and there's no attempt to even come to a consensus definition. That's why I think "beauty" as a term is quite vapid.


Yes indeedy: "BEAUTIFUL" covers such items of variance as the face of Catherine Deneuve to Picasso's 'Guernica.'
Not only vapid, but a tich beyond wildly general


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## Vitruvius (May 7, 2012)

I do not enjoy music that I consider not to be beautiful, but I will still listen to them, until I find them beautiful.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Why would you want to do that? Can't you force yourself to like them for their personality, we can't all be beautiful you know!


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

PetrB said:


> Yes indeedy: "BEAUTIFUL" covers such items of variance as the face of Catherine Deneuve to Picasso's 'Guernica.'
> Not only vapid, but a tich beyond wildly general


Quite. I cannot see why "being beautiful" has any correlation whatsover to "liking" a piece of music. Still less to whether the music has any absolute value. Everyone who has posted in this thread seems to have made the same huge, and highly dubious, assumptions.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> ...
> The bottom line for me is that I think people instinctively know whether they find a work beautiful and everyone knows whether they enjoy the work. I simply want to know if a work _must_ be beautiful to be enjoyed. For me the answer seems to be "yes"; whereas, for others the answer is apparently "no."


Well I can't generalise, as I said, or it's hard to do that. But I think that composers aim for different things (see my reply to Moira below).

Often, composers purposefully distort originally beautiful or pretty things into ugly things. It's a form of irony. Shostakovich did this many times. In his_ Piano Trio #2_ as I said, and in his _Sym.#7 Leningrad_ I read that he based the march of the German soldiers in that on the waltz from Lehar's _Merry Widow_, one of Hitler's favourite living composers at the time. I don't think he meant that march theme to be beautiful, it signifies oppression. If a listener thinks it is a thing of beauty, I would think that person to be in the minority, the theme of that work is Russia's - and the world's - defeat of the Nazi menace, part of that being Hiter's agenda on the music scene and in the arts. But if you don't know the history and all that, it's just pure music to you, it has little or no historical meaning.

In short, I enjoy these kind of darker works for the meanings behind them, also the gut reaction I get (as I said before), also other things like thematic development or orchestration, etc. The element of beauty is just one element, and I have to say this is not necessarily confined to modern music. Beethoven's_ Coriolan Overture _I find quite full on, this fight between darkness and light, and when he ends it quietly and unexpectedly, it's ambigious, which can also be a factor with these things. As someone said above, you don't know if it's dark or light or in-between, it can change on every listen (& I often like that).



Moira said:


> ...
> Thus the music may be 'ugly' and even unpleasant in how we perceive it, but still tremendously successful and 'enjoyable' within its own context.


I agree. Context and also things like the purpose of the music, eg. why the composer wrote it, or the genre, etc.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> Quite. I cannot see why "being beautiful" has any correlation whatsover to "liking" a piece of music. Still less to whether the music has any absolute value. Everyone who has posted in this thread seems to have made the same huge, and highly dubious, assumptions.


I really don't think everybody has at all, perhaps you misunderstand some peoples' real meanings. I certainly do not belong in that category nor do PetrB or Sid.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I'm not interested in qualifying music with such vague terms as "beautiful", etc. I listen. Then, I like it or not. The reason why I like some pieces can be very diverse. As Ravel said, a balance between emotion and intellectuality.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

moody said:


> I really don't think everybody has at all, perhaps you misunderstand some peoples' real meanings. I certainly do not belong in that category nor do PetrB or Sid.


I particularly pointed out that some very ugly music can be enjoyable in its own context.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Moira said:


> I particularly pointed out that some very ugly music can be enjoyable in its own context.


Similar with me. Also, in terms of history or the reasons behind the piece being composed.

I think it's a waste of time to ask for the OP's definition of a word, as it's only one definition. The OP seemed to leave it open and asked for individual responses. I like that and that's what I did. I think this focus on semantics was begun here by a few members and now it's snowballed into a kind of life of it's own on this forum. Or should I not call it a forum but a symposium, or virtual conference or colloquim or a seminar or a meeting of the minds or whatever. I can use fancy words but in everyday conversation I just go for the generic use of the word, based on the context, but in terms of things as potentially complex as classical music, I give my own examples (as the OP asked for).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> By pretty, do you mean something like superficially pleasant? And do you mean that finding a work pretty causes you, in general, not to enjoy it? Could you give an example (or examples) of something that you view as pretty but do not like?


Half that School writing something like 'The Lark Ascending.' etc. Very Pretty - and to me, annoying. Very fine writing, no question, just rather 'content' skewed toward 'pretty.' And HOW but that is as subjective as 'Beautiful. As others have said, these questions are almost entirely pointless, or all you get are individual's various takes on the definition as matched to their taste. Someone else may find the RVW "Lark" one of the most profoundly beautiful pieces, like, of all time


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Vaughan Williams initial works in that style were pretty innovative, esp. the Tallis Fantasia. Such harmonies had not been heard since the time of Tallis (except in churches' choral music, but not in the concert hall, in purely instrumental music). There are other reasons but that's the main one.

But if you don't like 'schools,' why don't we target the post-1945 _total serial _school aping Webern? What has survived from that period in the current post-1945 repertoire? Not much, I'd say. The composers they said were not up with the times, some of them have actually made comebacks of sorts.

If we wanna target pastiche, let's target all pastiche and rehash, not just stuff we personally don't like. Even stuff that ideologically innovative but only 2 per cent of listeners today like it. A bit of an exaggeration here but let's get real, not get too dogmatic.

Just cos it's ugly doesn't mean it's better than something outwardly pretty. Sorry I'm not providing a dictionary definition of these things.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*"Originally Posted by mmsbls

"The bottom line for me is that I think people instinctively know whether they find a work beautiful and everyone knows whether they enjoy the work. I simply want to know if a work must be beautiful to be enjoyed. For me the answer seems to be "yes"; whereas, for others the answer is apparently "no."*

Perhaps what separates the more casual listener from the aficionado is:

To the aficionado, what matters and is enjoyed is musical discourse of interest and -- if you will allow another wildly general word of subjective value -- 'expressivity.' - that basic interest does not for one moment need the art to qualify as "Beautiful, pretty, plain, unattractive," or all the other adjectives describing 'superficial' qualities of appearance, or in this case, sound.

There are many who are deep into music who do not go to it looking for 'beauty' but some fascinating and meaningful discourse.

There are consumer / listeners who perhaps get as much from listening, but are more casual or -- regret to say -- superficial in what they hear, or in their expectations of certain qualities in a piece for it to keep them interested in the music.

In my beautiful / ugly accounts ledger, both Beethoven's Grosse Fugue and the HammerKlavier Sonata are monumentally ugly: their hideousness does not seem to keep the adoring world from continually laying garlands of reverence at their feet.

Me and Bach's entertainment value, whatever it's 'beauty.' I find a lot of it monumentally boring. That experience might be as if one was in conversation with an extremely attractive-looking person who talks and talks, repeatedly stating the obvious and over-obvious, and has nothing of the least interest -- for you -- to hear.

I'll not think to worry about beauty much at all: I will think and work hard to avoid boredom


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

I thought of a rather stupid comparison, but the more I think about it- the more it seems to work for me:

A piece of music is like a person. Some people are beautiful and some are not. The advantage of beauty is clear, people are very much programmed to see this as a positive trait and wish to associate with these people. However, once you look past this aspect of a person - you find that irrespective of their physical appearance all people have varying degrees of interest, intelligence and character, and that worthwhile communications and interactions may be had with a person who is ugly too.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

PetrB said:


> these questions are almost entirely pointless, or all you get are individual's various takes on the definition as matched to their taste


indeed........


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

There is a lot of quibbling in this thread. While beauty IS subjective, there are also elements of beauty and form that are universal. The Golden Ratio is the most pleasing to us when used in design, some colours compliment each other and others clash just as some flavours go together and some don't and some smells are inherently bad. Hearing is no different than any of the other senses. We have consonance or dissonance; we have harmony.

I think that there are actually three different terms that can be used with regard to 'liking' music, namely BEAUTY, MEANING and COMPLEXITY.

BEAUTY is full of consonance, IMO, and is based on the principles of harmony. Of course, it is often the case that beauty alone is not enough. That is why most of us need dissonance of some kind. There are many baroque or classical pieces that I find very pleasant and beautiful, but entirely unmemorable. Some would go as far asto say boring.

MEANING attaches itself to program music and the text of vocal or choral pieces. We have two inputs in these cases and the one usually effects the other. This is especially the case in popular music, but also with opera. It puts the music itself in context. Someone quoted Guernica as being a display of beauty, but this is quite incorrect. Guernica is meant to be ugly because its context transcends the importance of beauty. It is the depiction of an atrocity, so why would the artist wish it to be beautiful? I watched the opera Nixon in China a few days ago and one of its strongest points is the story and the resonance it has with the modern public. Unless you bury your head in the sand and go in completely blind, the influence of story and context are impossible to prevent when considering a piece of music. 

COMPLEXITY is an attribute that appeals to my analytical side, but I see it as being quite apart from beauty and meaning. The works of Bartok or Schoenberg and his disciples is complex to me, without being beautiful. I equate complexity with the solving of mathematical problems (which I enjoy not because they are either beautiful or meaningful). 

There is one other aspect that might be another independent variable in enjoyment and that is MELODY. That, to me, is a more elusive element perhaps defined as the memorable part of a composition. I can't yet tie it down to either of the other variables, but I don't think I should neglect it as an important factor in enjoyment. When listening to any piece in detail, I am generally unaware that I am ticking off these four boxes, but I do so nonetheless. IMO, the works of JS Bach usually score highly in all areas. Others, like Schoenberg, usually only tick off one or two, but are very successful in appealing to that one side of my personality.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sid James said:


> ^^Vaughan Williams initial works in that style were pretty innovative, esp. the Tallis Fantasia. Such harmonies had not been heard since the time of Tallis (except in churches' choral music, but not in the concert hall, in purely instrumental music). There are other reasons but that's the main one.
> 
> But if you don't like 'schools,' why don't we target the post-1945 _total serial _school aping Webern? What has survived from that period in the current post-1945 repertoire? Not much, I'd say. The composers they said were not up with the times, some of them have actually made comebacks of sorts.
> 
> ...


Agree with you fully, but there are dozens of 'schools of' around RVW whom have since bit the dust, just as all those serial bandwagoners, mostly, have seen their day in the sun.

"Just cos it's ugly doesn't mean it's better than something outwardly pretty." Well that is just ridiculous and I never said or remotely implied that. I was just naming one kind of 'prettiness' which I do not, emphatically, care for, and cited a very strong composer of it so the example could not be otherwise faulted. Another I hold in that 'pretty / sentimental' which for me lessens the interest of the music hugely is Rachmaninov, almost all of it. I can think of two other 'very pretty' composers whose works for me are also in the 'non-listenable' bin; Tchaikovsky and Puccini.

Point is, to have chosen the serialists as an example of pretty -- though some of them are  -- to many would have seemed at the least like I had chosen that example to be sardonic.

I know that for many Brits, Ralph Vaughan-Williams and a small set of somewhat 'alike' fellow national composers seem to 'embody' a not so distant and real "England which no longer is." That is nothing to me, nor have I fondness for either the harmonic matrix of that genre of writing, nor fondness either for those like sentiments as being conveyed in music -- an individual aesthetic preference. That leaves a lot of that genre, not just Vaughan-Williams, in my 'negative pretty' bin. 
[I find Rachmaninov impossibly diabetic-shock / coma "pretty," and find all remotely in that general area just not to my taste, more mawkish than interesting; whatever that element is, it has me moving away and not toward.]

The history ledger is littered with second and third-rate composers -- both sides of the Atlantic -- who did not make very interesting music before they turned to serialism. We're left with those who were good composers before, during, and sometimes after having adapted serialism ~ as usual from any decade's crop composing in any genre, we are left, if lucky, a small handful of good.

I forget that Ralph Vaughan-Williams is somewhat of a holy of holies to many (a status I'm sure Aaron Copland never quite reached as far as seeping into the general national / nationalist imagination.) But even if I had remembered, I would not wish to appear inconsistent with rapping at the pillars on which these enshrined objects stand.

To me, also, the very word, "pretty" is usually said through tightly clenched teeth, as in, "Yes, dear, it is very pretty." So my evaluation of pretty is rather low from the outset.

As ridiculous as it it is, one has to keep up appearances of perhaps trying to influence the taste of others, just to keep the delusion that what any of us has to say about 'art' is not a mere exercising of egocentrically held opinion.

[Q: "How do you get two oboists to agree on tuning?" A: "Shoot one."

That, in a nutshell, no matter how deeply informed the opinion is, is a comment on all opinion on and within the arts; there will never be a 95% consensus because they are the arts, not sciences, maths, or verbal logic.]


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

It would be sadistic-masochistic to myself!

I suppose I cannot listen to Stravinsky and enjoy it.
I also find Bartok's works (or what I've heard), pretty uninteresting and Sibelius symphony No.4 is a divide between his good symphonies. (in agreement with some of the comments in this topic)

And If I find some pieces ugly after I heard them enough to memorize, I won't listen to them again.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Arsakes said:


> It would be sadistic-masochistic to myself!
> 
> I suppose I cannot listen to Stravinsky and enjoy it.
> I also find Bartok's works (or what I've heard), pretty uninteresting and Sibelius symphony No.4 is a divide between his good symphonies. (in agreement with some of the comments in this topic)
> ...


Eh, I've memorised entire symphonies and now that I can have my own interpretation playing in my head, I can't stand listening to other interpretations that have actually been recorded. :lol:


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Eh, I've memorised entire symphonies and now that I can have my own interpretation playing in my head, I can't stand listening to other interpretations that have actually been recorded. :lol:


You know perfectly well that we are all hugely impressed by you!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

PetrB.

I find your quaint decription of the British attitude to Vaughan Williams and 'alike' fellow nationals outdated and wrong headed. Rather akin to those Hollywood movies about Britain obviously put together by people who have never been there and populated by Dick van **** type cockney accents---i.e completely ridiculous and false.
Vaughan Williams was not a second rate composer by any means at all, and you will note that Koussevitzky, Stokowski and Bernstein among others your end thought him to be a highly rated muscian.
Granted that 'The Lark Ascending' is, to me at least, a ghastly piece of sticky confectionery but it is a one off.
His 6th Symphony is quite disturbing and both the 5th and 6th powerful examples of composition..
Lastly, there are no ' alikes' that I know of.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Arsakes said:


> [...]
> I suppose I cannot listen to Stravinsky and enjoy it.
> I also find Bartok's works (or what I've heard), pretty uninteresting[...]


All of us are fortunate, in that there is so much good music out there that the things we fail to comprehend are hardly limiting.

Still, I feel obliged to say that Bartók's music is salubrious.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Arsakes, because you find them ugly, does that make them so.
Apart from your realationship with them?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

With regards to Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, PetrB, they were quite innovative composers. I've talked about that on this forum whenever I can, esp. on current listening when I hear their music. As for Puccini, more of a polyglot (a combination of things) than an innovator, but so where guys like Nielsen and Tippett, basically, yet they're good composers. They were all unique.

I'll just leave it at that. I agree with moody above in that Vaughan Williams was not a caricature of England or pastoralism. When he wrote those works, a lot of that lifestyle had vanished. It was certainly gone after 1945 replaced by so-called progress, in industrialisation and all that, but also in music. I am not of the opinion that just because something speaks of progress it is any better than some ditty like Lehar's _Merry Widow _waltz. It has to be music that is engaging to listeners in the first place, or potentially so, not just pushing the envelope so far that even musicians and composers have no chance of understanding it to a fair degree, let alone ordinary listeners.

Anyway, that's part of my philosophy or view of all this, I've made numerous threads about this (eg. false dichotomies presented by certain dogmatic views of music), I don't want to repeat myself. I just go with what I like, independent of dogma, modernist or otherwise. Even Schoenberg had no time for Adorno's more extreme opinions, so why should I go for that sort of thing? To dogma no thanks, to music that engages me, yes!


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Sid James said:


> With regards to Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, PetrB, they were quite innovative composers.


Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky were the same composer.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Polednice said:


> Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky were the same composer.


Dunno if you're serious, but I'll answer to flesh it out. I've been listening to their piano trios - Tchaikovsky's only one and Rachmaninov's _Trio Elegiaque #2_. They are definitely very different in many ways, even when working in the same genre, etc. They both did things that were unique and not by the book. Just because music sounds enjoyable to hear, like these works, or VAughan Williams' music, it doesn't mean it is not innovative in some way, in many ways. & all of these were influential.

I can understand the dogma in some people's opinions. I went through that a bit, I was influenced by ideas that I now know were dodgy at best. From both experts and also on this forum. It took me a while to apply critical thinking skills. & also hear the music in a deep way, not just superficial. I think it can be done with the minimum of means, I have one recording of the two piano trios above. It's all I need to figure out what these composers where really doing with their music, not just on the surface.

Anyway, I think that is what I'm about, actually trying to perceive, not just experience it on a lower level. I have my limitations but I think when people say stuff like that, you may as well say all three guys in the Second Viennese School were the same, or Dvorak and Smetana were the same, or whatever. Freeze whoever in a certain time and space and they are the same, but see the big picture and you can tell they were quite different and unique.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I anticipated 3 types of responses to the OP:

1) No, there are no works that I enjoy that are not beautiful.
2) Yes, there are works that I enjoy that are not beautiful.
3) Something like - Works are not necessarily beautiful or not beautiful to me. I don't classify works as beautiful or not. Thus, I can't answer the question.

There were clearly 1's and 2's and I believe some 3's. There were also many who suggested that the term "beauty" either had to be defined or could not be defined so the question was meaningless. I should have been clearer in the OP. I agree, and essentially stated in the OP, that beauty is extremely difficult to define. Therefore, I left the definition up to each person. People either have a good sense of whether a musical work is beautiful _to them_ (1's and 2's) or they do not (3's).

I am not interested in defining beauty (much too hard) and then seeing people's views based on that definition. That question would have been too difficult for people to answer since the definition is so hard to pin down. People have a much better sense of their own definition or feeling of beauty so I wanted everyone to use their own definition. Basically I wanted to know how people use the word, beautiful, with respect to classical music. From the responses I have a better sense than before, and I thank everyone for their posts.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Hmmm...



mmsbls said:


> I anticipated 3 types of responses to the OP:
> 
> 1) No, there are no works that I enjoy that are not beautiful.
> 2) *Yes, there are works that I enjoy that are not beautiful.*
> 3) Something like - Works are not necessarily beautiful or not beautiful to me. I don't classify works as beautiful or not. Thus, I can't answer the question.


Yet earlier in the thread you said this:



mmsbls said:


> * I did not expect people to suggest that they enjoy "ugly" music*. I can understand enjoying an opera or movie where powerful negative emotions are portrayed and enhanced with similar music. *For me I would not enjoy the music*, but I might enjoy the movie or opera.


So, which one is it? Did you expect people to enjoy music that is not beautiful or didn't you? Because you claimed both things... You also suggest that in an Opera or movie where powerful emotions are portrayed by powerful negative emotions and enhanced with similar music - *you wouldn't enjoy that music.* Here you are creating a hypothetical scenario based on music that *you cannot possibly have even heard before - as it doesn't even exist* - *yet you have already decided you would not like that music*.

I believe these two points seem to be suggestive of A) It seems as though the OP was more or less just another veiled criticism of much modern music, yet - instead of addressing the many valid points brought up about the OP, you decide to hide behind a guise of scientific objectivity and suggest that you anticipated these responses, but give a vague reference to some kind of further insight you obtained based on the responses and B) The second quote seems to suggest that *your issue with not liking certain music is that you have decided not to like it.* I believe this is shown by your comment about not liking hypothetical music that doesn't exist - therefore you have already judged what you haven't even listened to, based on what you believe the music is supposed to be suggestive of.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I have nothing against member @mmsbls, but in this particular topic I have reached to the same conclusion in another thread and i have suggested my thought to him.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I hope what was earlier written by me and what was written by tdc is clear below.



tdc said:


> Originally Posted by mmsbls
> I anticipated 3 types of responses to the OP:
> 2) *Yes, there are works that I enjoy that are not beautiful.*
> 
> ...


I expected some people to say they like music that was not beautiful. But, to me, most music that is not beautiful is also not ugly. I thought some people would like music that they felt was neither beautiful nor ugly. I was a bit surprised when people said they enjoyed music they felt was ugly. I have not heard that before.



tdc said:


> You also suggest that in an Opera or movie where powerful emotions are portrayed by powerful negative emotions and enhanced with similar music - *you wouldn't enjoy that music.* Here you are creating a hypothetical scenario based on music that *you cannot possibly have even heard before - as it doesn't even exist* - *yet you have already decided you would not like that music*.


I wasn't trying to say something complicated here. All I'm saying is that there could be a movie that I enjoy that has music that I didn't enjoy. I'm not creating a hypothetical scenario. I'm just saying that if music is actually ugly to me (and in a movie), I will not enjoy it (even though I might like the movie it appears in). Obviously if I have not heard the music, I could not know that I find it ugly. But _if I do in fact find it ugly_, I will not enjoy it. I think that's just what many other people here have said.



tdc said:


> I believe these two points seem to be suggestive of A) It seems as though the OP was more or less just another veiled criticism of much modern music, yet - instead of addressing the many valid points brought up about the OP, you decide to hide behind a guise of scientific objectivity and suggest that you anticipated these responses, but give a vague reference to some kind of further insight you obtained based on the responses and B) The second quote seems to suggest that *your issue with not liking certain music is that you have decided not to like it.* I believe this is shown by your comment about not liking hypothetical music that doesn't exist - therefore you have already judged what you haven't even listened to, based on what you believe the music is supposed to be suggestive of.


The thread is not about modern music. I never mentioned modern music. More importantly, the thread is explicitly about _liking_ music and not about *disliking* music. I believe you have read too much into my comments.

I do understand that there are people on TC that dislike modern music and post many negative comments about it. I know there are people on TC who love modern music and are wary of such attacks. I'm sorry that there are misunderstandings like this one. I thought my comments were clearer, but based on your comments and possibly aleazk's as well, I probably did not explain my thoughts well.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

aleazk said:


> I have nothing against member @mmsbls, but in this particular topic I have reached to the same conclusion in another thread and i have suggested my thought to him.


Since I really don't know what you are referring to, could you either explain or send a PM? I suspect that we're talking about different things (as with tdc).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> ...
> I do understand that there are people on TC that dislike modern music and post many negative comments about it. I know there are people on TC who love modern music and are wary of such attacks. I'm sorry that there are misunderstandings like this one. I thought my comments were clearer, but based on your comments and possibly aleazk's as well, I probably did not explain my thoughts well.


I think your opening post is fine. I understood what you were asking clearly. You steered away from dogma or judgement and asked us to give examples, eg. what we think, to answer the question in our own way. I think that's a good way to go, it's been a good discussion on the whole. Don't worry too much about it.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> So I'd like to know if there are works of music that you do not consider beautiful but that you enjoy listening to. If so, could you give examples of the work and why you enjoy it?


Interesting way of putting it. I would normally consider works that I can enjoy as "beautiful" in some ways. I don't want to get down into a semantics argument about what is "beauty" when it comes to music. I suppose one way of answering your question is that I can enjoy works that I might not listen to as often as favourite pieces because the level of engagement was on a different level than the favourites. I stress different - Berg's _Wozzeck_ is very different to Mozart's _Figaro_. I enjoy both, and would listen to the Mozart more often but I find the Berg sufficiently engaging that I would want to listen again for a different type of musical engagement and experience. Does this make any sense? :lol:


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I do understand that there are people on TC that dislike modern music and post many negative comments about it. I know there are people on TC who love modern music and are wary of such attacks. I'm sorry that there are misunderstandings like this one. I thought my comments were clearer, but based on your comments and possibly aleazk's as well, I probably did not explain my thoughts well.


No, I think you've worded things clearly.



mmsbls said:


> The bottom line for me is that I think people instinctively know whether they find a work beautiful and everyone knows whether they enjoy the work. I simply want to know if a work must be beautiful to be enjoyed.* For me the answer seems to be "yes"; whereas, for others the answer is apparently "no."
> *


From reading your previous thread about learning to like new works, many people gave you great suggestions, including member aleazk. I didn't notice you giving very much feedback to those great suggestions, but then started a new thread in which you asked if people enjoy music that is NOT beautiful. You then made it clear in this thread that you cannot enjoy music if it is not beautiful to you. It just seems to me by your actions that you are not really sincere in your attempts to enjoy a wide range of works, as you seem *very certain about what you already enjoy and do not enjoy*.



mmsbls said:


> I wasn't trying to say something complicated here. All I'm saying is that there could be a movie that I enjoy that has music that I didn't enjoy. I'm not creating a hypothetical scenario. I'm just saying that if music is actually ugly to me (and in a movie), I will not enjoy it (even though I might like the movie it appears in). Obviously if I have not heard the music, I could not know that I find it ugly. But if I do in fact find it ugly, I will not enjoy it. I think that's just what many other people here have said.


Here you are completely changing what you stated earlier which was if the movie scene was using music to portray powerful negative emotions - you would not enjoy it. This doesn't seem to fall in line with what you've said earlier, and seems to suggest that you will decide whether or not you like a piece based on whether or not you feel it is conveying powerful negative emotions. I don't have a problem with people not liking certain music. I find your actions in the last two threads seem to be lacking sincerity and honesty though by asking people for advice and strategies (and then getting some great tips) and then largely ignoring these tips and then turning around and pretty much confirming your own tastes are set in stone. If I am reading you wrong I apologize but apparently member aleazk felt exactly the same way about the general attitude you've displayed.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Whatever your other faults in this thread, _mmsbls_, you ignored what _I said_. This is perhaps excusable, but certainly unwise.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Interesting way of putting it. I would normally consider works that I can enjoy as "beautiful" in some ways. I don't want to get down into a semantics argument about what is "beauty" when it comes to music. I suppose one way of answering your question is that I can enjoy works that I might not listen to as often as favourite pieces because the level of engagement was on a different level than the favourites. I stress different - Berg's _Wozzeck_ is very different to Mozart's _Figaro_. I enjoy both, and would listen to the Mozart more often but I find the Berg sufficiently engaging that I would want to listen again for a different type of musical engagement and experience. Does this make any sense? :lol:


I think this does make sense. Certainly works do affect us differently, and we listen in varying ways. I will listen to Classical era symphonies (not all, but some) because I just want to hear something "lovely". I will not listen as carefully as I will to perhaps quartets from the Romantic era. I'm not sure if you mean something a bit different with engagement.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I think I know where at least some of the confusion lies (at least I hope so).



tdc said:


> You then made it clear in this thread that you cannot enjoy music if it is not beautiful to you. It just seems to me by your actions that you are not really sincere in your attempts to enjoy a wide range of works, as you seem *very certain about what you already enjoy and do not enjoy*.


I do not view beauty in music as static or unchanging to an individual. I never said that I _cannot_ enjoy music that is presently not beautiful to me. I said that I *do not* enjoy music that is not in some sense beautiful (to me). When I first heard Beethoven's Grosse fuge I thought it was ugly or at least rather unpleasant, _and I did not like it_. Now I find the Grosse fuge quite beautiful, and _it's one of my favorite quartets_. The music is the same, but to me it has changed and now I call it beautiful. Much of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and especially Bartok were rather unpleasant to me earlier. Now there are many works that I love by these composers (and find beautiful). There are many other examples.

I was quite certain that I did not like the Grosse fuge, Shostakovich, and Bartok before, but after more exposure and a variety of listening to those works and others, I have "learned" to like them. Just because I know what I presently don't like doesn't mean I'm not open to liking works in the future. I still believe most or almost all people would say that they know what they presently like.

For me the critical issue with regards to this thread is that _when I eventually grow to like a work that I previously did not_, my view of the music has already changed from not finding it beautiful to finding it beautiful. I just wondered if others viewed the music they liked in a similar manner.



tdc said:


> Here you are completely changing what you stated earlier which was if the movie scene was using music to portray powerful negative emotions - you would not enjoy it. This doesn't seem to fall in line with what you've said earlier, and seems to suggest that you will decide whether or not you like a piece based on whether or not you feel it is conveying powerful negative emotions.


I think the problem here is that the question of movie music may have been taken out of context. I was responding to a post by emiellucifuge:


emiellucifuge said:


> Yes, I do listen to and enjoy music which I find ugly. ...
> 
> This is slightly easier with extra musical program or a libretto to guide your progress. For me my most significant experience with ugly music was the opera Die Soldaten by B.A. Zimmermann. The music is hideous and it ends with screams and the rattle of machine guns, but overall the spiritual impression it left on me was as profound as the best of the 'beautiful' operas.


I replied, "I did not expect people to suggest that they enjoy "ugly" music. I can understand enjoying an opera or movie where powerful negative emotions are portrayed and enhanced with similar music. For me I would not enjoy the music, but I might enjoy the movie or opera." This is consistent with what I have said throughout this thread - If music _is presently_ ugly to me, I do not enjoy it. emiellucifuge was explicitly talking about ugly music, and I was responding to ugly music in a movie (or opera). I was not saying I would not, and especially _not ever_, enjoy music that expressed powerful negative emotions (which may or may not be ugly).



tdc said:


> I find your actions in the last two threads seem to be lacking sincerity and honesty though by asking people for advice and strategies (and then getting some great tips) and then largely ignoring these tips and then turning around and pretty much confirming your own tastes are set in stone.


I have asked advice ever since I came to TC. In fact the reason I came was to get advice. I have listened to a rather large amount of music that I either have had trouble enjoying or presently still do have trouble enjoying. The advice I have been given is *wonderful*, and I am _greatly thankful_ to those who have suggested works, methods of listening, or general strategies to learn to like new works. Rather than ignoring them, I have worked to put all the advice into good use as best I can. Instead of confirming that my tastes are set in stone, the result has been a transformation that has allowed me to enjoy many works that I could not before. It is actually an amazing feeling (to me) to realize that I now really like music that I previously disliked (sometimes strongly). I do still have a ways to go, and obviously I don't know how much progress I will continue to make. Of course, I understand that you could not possibly have known all that.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Whatever your other faults in this thread, _mmsbls_, you ignored what _I said_. This is perhaps excusable, but certainly unwise.


Was it "Sloppy use of language"? If so, I didn't ignore it, but I apparently failed anyway.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> Was it "Sloppy use of language"? If so, I didn't ignore it, but I apparently failed anyway.


"sloppy use of language" turned out to be hard to ignore. No, it was something even more brilliant.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> ...I have asked advice ever since I came to TC. In fact the reason I came was to get advice. I have listened to a rather large amount of music that I either have had trouble enjoying or presently still do have trouble enjoying. The advice I have been given is *wonderful*, and I am _greatly thankful_ to those who have suggested works, methods of listening, or general strategies to learn to like new works. Rather than ignoring them, I have worked to put all the advice into good use as best I can. Instead of confirming that my tastes are set in stone, the result has been a transformation that has allowed me to enjoy many works that I could not before. It is actually an amazing feeling (to me) to realize that I now really like music that I previously disliked (sometimes strongly). I do still have a ways to go, and obviously I don't know how much progress I will continue to make. Of course, I understand that you could not possibly have known all that.


I like that bit about your tastes, likes and dislikes, not being set in stone. That's how I see it. I joined this forum 3 years ago, and over that time, I've written things here that I think now are the opposite of how I see things now. Or different in some ways.

I think it's okay for us to express what we think about a certain piece of music or a composer or performer, etc. as long as we don't break the forum rules or insult other members of the forum. In other words, I don't believe in pandering to any kind of unsaid or hidden rules or agendas, any kind of what you might call political correctness here.

& if we don't express what we don't like, how are we supposed to change our views or at least analyse them. Often, I see this as my music diary, when I go back to read things I wrote before, I know how I thought, it's captured my thoughts at a certain time. It makes things apparent. But if we all have to like things, who says that? Eg. I don't like Wagner, I don't like Arvo Part's stuff of last 20 years, I don't like music that's way beyond my comfort zone on another planet. I've got a right to say these things, as long as I put it in an even keeled way. Not target and ridicule people, etc. It's the main thing, respect.


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