# What is "profundity"?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I occasionally see criticisms that some music, especially baroque instrumental and pre-Ludwig classical, lacks profundity. So I ask, what is profundity? Is it something that actually exists in music? Something that triggers a particular neural or emotional response? How can we recognize it?

Well, definitions are welcome too -- of course!


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I cannot give a definition that will not break down but I can _point_ to the thing itself: Beethoven.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

At the risk of dodging the question, it's something one know when one hears it.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Well certainly it's a figure of speech in our language. Hardly any music will be depicting actual _depths_, like a deep cavern or something. It's a way we describe things that are serious in emotion, rather than jocular. What is "serious" music? If you can answer that question, then you can answer "what is deep music?" Probably the best way to define it is to point out common features, such as slow tempo, slow melodic lines, a variety of dynamics with subtle pianos and grand fortes all in the same slow tempo, and sometimes a genre about death, such as a funeral march or elegy.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Slow tempo, thick texture, and an abundance of diminished 7th.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

trazom said:


> Slow tempo, thick texture, and an abundance of diminished 7th.


"Schindler, come over here. I've discovered a really easy way to make music seem profound. I'll show you how it works. I intend to use it in the quartets I'm writing now..."


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## Juan Gonzalez (Mar 17, 2016)

I am no expert; however I have basic musical studios. This is my opinion, I am not stating some fact.

Generally, when people talks about profundity is when it exists a musical line that has sense. This means that the song is not only a melody with some accompaniment, or just a choral like you do an armony excercise. (Good) Music has to go somewhere, and has to receed somewhere. 

The point is that some mediocre composers just composed music like an armony excercise or just like some background music. Even if you do modulate correctly, and put some dynamics, there's no meaning behind the music. You have to take in mind what do you want when composing.

PD: I am deeply sorry about my english.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It's what's lacking in this discussion so far.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> It's what's lacking in this discussion so far.


Not so dear man, I have supplied the very thing itself!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Klassic said:


> Not so dear man, I have supplied the very thing itself!


Nay, only a thing which itself points to the thing itself.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Brahms' symphonies and concertos are supposedly examples of "serious music". Of course there is no such thing other than one's perception and "definition" which are all that matters.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> Brahms' symphonies and concertos are supposedly examples of "serious music". Of course there is no such thing other than one's perception and "definition" which are all that matters.


"Serious" is not a synonym for "profound."


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Nay, only a thing which itself points to the thing itself.


But if Mr. B is not the thing itself what other thing could it be? Let us say, Mr. Bee's Symphony No.3... now one can ask, "what is it about Mr. Bee's 3rd Symphony that's profound," to which I answer, Mr. Bee's 3rd Symphony, of course.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The question was not "What music is profound?" but "What is profundity?"


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The question was not "What music is profound?" but "What is profundity?"


But how can one say what profundity is without appealing to the substance of profundity itself?


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

So if Beethoven is the substance of profundity, does that mean there wasn't profound music before him?


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> So if Beethoven is *[ ]*, does that mean there wasn't profound music before him?


*THEE one and only substance of profundity*

What I think of your question: If I erase the number 2 I wrote on the chalk board does that mean there is no number 2?


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## Boldertism (May 21, 2015)

Bach is profound.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I'm not at all sure the the noun "profundity" can be applied to music, in an attempt to categorize it. It seems best to reserve the terms "profound, profundity" to truly illuminating, penetrating insights or discoveries that pierce through a jumble of seemingly isolated and discrete facts about reality and reveal to us an underlying deep truth that knits together many disparate facts into a unity. Examples would be the Theories (using the term as scientists use it) of Special and General Relativity, Evolution by Natural Selection, Plate Tectonics, and many recently verified discoveries in astronomy and cosmology. These are profound. There are areas of mathematics that are profound, and doubtless others will bring forth other examples. But Music? Art? We find ourselves back again in a forest of tautologies and of competing definitions and of opinions about who was great, what was great, or deep or profound. However, in cante flamenco for instance, where the song can be very jondo or grande, the measuring rod is simpler and generally accepted: to what extent does the performance, delivered within the recognized confines and accepted usages of the art form, move the listener, directly, emotionally, to empathetic sorrow, tears? Maybe not the same as the Eroica, but the criterion for profundity is clearly laid down here. In the more formal arts, such clarity of criteria is rarely found and often widely disputed.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Klassic said:


> I cannot give a definition that will not break down but I can _point_ to the thing itself: Beethoven.


So Mozart and Haydn fall short of "profundity"?


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

KenOC said:


> Originally Posted by trazom View Post
> Slow tempo, thick texture, and an abundance of diminished 7th.
> 
> "Schindler, come over here. I've discovered a really easy way to make music seem profound. I'll show you how it works. I intend to use it in the quartets I'm writing now..."


I must learn to employ something like this in my paintings: images of death, lots of black and red, and voila! I'm profound!


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> So Mozart and Haydn fall short of "profundity"?


Please see post #17


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The point is that some mediocre composers just composed music like an armony excercise or just like some background music. Even if you do modulate correctly, and put some dynamics, there's no meaning behind the music.

Hmmm...? What exactly is the "meaning" of Mozart's clarinet quintet... or Beethoven's Hammerklavier?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

A lot of pre-Beethoven music is named "De Profundis" so there's your answer.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think in this context profundity is what occurs when someone has a very 'deep' experience listening to music that is beyond what they are able to explain in words. There surely is a subjective aspect to this, yet I still think some composers are more profound than others. (ie. Debussy is more profound than Johann Strauss Jr) I do not believe that music became more profound because of Beethoven. I don't think it is possible to get more profound in musical expression than Bach (or if it is no one has yet achieved it) and I have experienced what I consider to be profound musical experiences in pre-Baroque music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> I'm not at all sure the the noun "profundity" can be applied to music, in an attempt to categorize it. It seems best to reserve the terms "profound, profundity" to truly illuminating, penetrating insights or discoveries that pierce through a jumble of seemingly isolated and discrete facts about reality and reveal to us an underlying deep truth that knits together many disparate facts into a unity. Examples would be the Theories (using the term as scientists use it) of Special and General Relativity, Evolution by Natural Selection, Plate Tectonics, and many recently verified discoveries in astronomy and cosmology. These are profound. There are areas of mathematics that are profound, and doubtless others will bring forth other examples. But Music? Art? We find ourselves back again in a forest of tautologies and of competing definitions and of opinions about who was great, what was great, or deep or profound. However, in cante flamenco for instance, where the song can be very jondo or grande, the measuring rod is simpler and generally accepted: to what extent does the performance, delivered within the recognized confines and accepted usages of the art form, move the listener, directly, emotionally, to empathetic sorrow, tears? Maybe not the same as the Eroica, but the criterion for profundity is clearly laid down here. In the more formal arts, such clarity of criteria is rarely found and often widely disputed.


I disagree. Profundity in art is not different from profundity in philosophy. Works of art, too, can "pierce through a jumble of seemingly isolated and discrete facts about reality and reveal to us an underlying deep truth that knits together many disparate facts into a unity." It's just that the "facts about reality" - or, more precisely, the elements of reality - to which art refers and which it evokes belong to the realm of feeling - of internal rather than external reality - and so are less easily identified and defined.

Arguably, the very lack of definiteness inherent in an aesthetic experience opens up the possibility of greater profundity, greater complexity of experience and meaning, than is found in the more delimited concepts of philosophy or science, since the possible areas of subjective experience the forms of art can evoke are effectively limitless, and may merge, interpenetrate, and transform into one another both while the art is experienced and in retrospect. Not all art is equal in its capacity to tap the complexity of subjective experience. Art which seems to express the more complex, subtle, rich, difficult to comprehend, important states of our subjective being, as opposed to simple, sensational, sentimental, or merely intense ones, is recognized as more profound. It doesn't matter how much agreement exists about any particular work of art; what is a profound experience for you may not be for me. But that's merely the personal nature of artistic experience, and doesn't invalidate the idea of profundity. Of course humans have much in common, and so certain works and their creators are very widely recognized as profound.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Klassic said:


> If I erase the number 2 I wrote on the chalk board does that mean there is no number 2?


Well, there's certainly plenty of _that_ in this thread so far. :lol:


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Profundity, or rather the discovery of profundity in something, must necessarily be experiential. We cannot find profundity in Beethoven if we do not listen to Beethoven, but if we do listen to Beethoven we only permit the possibility of finding profundity in Beethoven. For some people, it will simply not be there, no matter how much others would like to push onto them their own findings of profundity in the music of Beethoven or in any other composer. I don't doubt that most people agree that Beethoven has at least produced musical moments which we find profound in some way, but this does not necessarily mean that the music of Beethoven is profound, only that most people agree that they find it to be so. The distinction between the purely objective and the mass subjective is always contentious here, so I'm not sure if we want to get into it, but I think that is ultimately where all or most discussions of this kind lead.

So, what is musical profundity? Given that I reject the notion that there is anything like an objective measure of qualities which are found only through the process of reflection upon the listening experience after the fact, I would propose the following definition: a listening experience in which the music appears to bypass the brain and is instead felt directly by the body. This is what we might even term a spiritual experience, something that transcends the rational everyday processes of thought and enters into us directly at a deeper level than that on which we normally process musical input. Given that we are attempting to qualify and quantify, I'm not sure "spiritual" really cuts it, but we could probably make a link between what we think of as spiritual and elements in the subconscious which are sympathetic to particular musical inputs, and which reflexively expand the experience of listening to such inputs.

Also, I think it is possible to draw a distinction between two kinds of profundity in music, these being a) profundity of construction, and b) profundity of experience. In the case of *a*, I am talking specifically about the way in which the musical materials are treated, their interrelations, the "thesis" which they serve, and the level on which they come together. This "profundity of construction" is something that is inherent in the music, the fruits of the composer's labour, which can be gleaned through analysis of the actual score. On the other hand, *b* is specific to the listener, and may, as I suggested in the second paragraph, involve no ratiocination whatsoever. Both *a* and *b* are obviously somewhat dependent on the natural sympathies of the receiver; despite *a* being a matter of inherent musical qualities, it is entirely possible to give two people of equal experience and level of education the task of analysing the same score independently of each other, and have their findings differ, possibly wildly, because of those natural sympathies. And a similar test in the mode of *b* would perhaps give us even wilder differences, not only for all that is true in the case of *a*, but also as, in the process the mind goes through in order to recall and collect the particulars of the listening experience into an ordered account, it may invent certain things to aid in its explanation, such as narratives and images, or may conflate those things with the music through the sudden triggering of memory during the listening experience, and these retroactively become part of the experience. So, in another way, it is entirely arguable that profundity of experience is far more than just a case of "feeling the music," and may have more to do with what we add to it than what we take away from it.

It's also important, I feel, to make a further distinction between *a* and *b*, which is the fact of authorship of input. In *a*, the input can reasonably be assumed to be the work of the composer, yet in *b* we are presented with an input which comes from this source but is filtered through something else. Even if we could remove the fact of interpretation from the situation, the fact is that we are still hearing a sonic projection of a work written in a logographic system. But since in real terms it is not possible to remove interpretation from a performance, the fact of interpretation complicates things further, and it is for this reason that I say *a* can only be experienced through the analysis of a score rather than focused "analytical listening" to a performance or recording. Of course this may be pedantic, after all it is reasonable to assume in most cases that a given performance is generally an accurate projection of the score, and that it can therefore be analysed with a view to determining the profundity of construction, yet I feel that projection and interpretation distance the listener enough from the source that this is still impossible to properly achieve.

Take note, ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages, the post you have just read is the result of someone thinking far too much about things that don't really matter. Enjoy your music and don't sweat the small stuff!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Crudblud said:


> Take note, ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages, the post you have just read is the result of someone thinking far too much about things that don't really matter. Enjoy your music and don't sweat the small stuff!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Profundity:

Bach: Keyboard Partitas, WTC, Art of the Fugue.

Mozart String Quintet in g Minor.

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis, a Minor String Quartet, Hammerklavier Sonata.

Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel.

Schumann: Symphonic Variations.

Schubert String Quartet in G Major.

You get the idea yet?


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Not a definition, but an example: slow movements of Vivaldi's late violin concertos. That's (barroque) profundity.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Von Hoffmansthal says that profundity is hidden... On the surface.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

*A (Profound?) Difference of Opinion*



Woodduck said:


> I disagree. Profundity in art is not different from profundity in philosophy. Works of art, too, can "pierce through a jumble of seemingly isolated and discrete facts about reality and reveal to us an underlying deep truth that knits together many disparate facts into a unity." It's just that the "facts about reality" - or, more precisely, the elements of reality - to which art refers and which it evokes belong to the realm of feeling - of internal rather than external reality - and so are less easily identified and defined.
> 
> Arguably, the very lack of definiteness inherent in an aesthetic experience opens up the possibility of greater profundity, greater complexity of experience and meaning, than is found in the more delimited concepts of philosophy or science, since the possible areas of subjective experience the forms of art can evoke are effectively limitless, and may merge, interpenetrate, and transform into one another both while the art is experienced and in retrospect. Not all art is equal in its capacity to tap the complexity of subjective experience. Art which seems to express the more complex, subtle, rich, difficult to comprehend, important states of our subjective being, as opposed to simple, sensational, sentimental, or merely intense ones, is recognized as more profound. It doesn't matter how much agreement exists about any particular work of art; what is a profound experience for you may not be for me. But that's merely the personal nature of artistic experience, and doesn't invalidate the idea of profundity. Of course humans have much in common, and so certain works and their creators are very widely recognized as profound.


I very much appreciated the posts of both Woodduck and of Crudblud on this topic, and "liked" both to indicate my enjoyment of their thoughts. But I beg to differ, again, and will try to address Woodduck's ideas here first:

Woodduck posits that profundity in art does not differ from profundity in what he terms philosophy, by which I suppose he subsumes science as a branch of philosophy. But then he states that the elements of reality to which art refers belong to a world of internal reality, which is to say they are subjective in nature. We are again in "a world of feeling", with all that implies, because your feelings may differ profoundly from mine. But I propose that Woodduck offer an example of a profound piece of art (let's specify that this be a painting or piece of sculpture), and we can consider whether it be profound or not in the sense that I propose that plate tectonics or the concept of an expanding universe is profound. I think the difference will be clear.

I personally have no problem with accepting that anyone can postulate that any piece of music or art is profound, if we simultaneously state that the term may have no real significance "objectively"-- it is merely convention to express our subjective personal preferences thusly. Indeed, Woodduck's second paragraph, in my reading of it, actually supports my contention that the well of subjectivity may be deep indeed, and our experience of its waters quite moving, but that we ought not allow our primary definition of profundity to be tied to such variable and uncertain phenomena as personal experience; it is an exact parallel with our previous discussions on "greatness" in art.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

*Bypassing the Brain*



Crudblud said:


> Profundity, or rather the discovery of profundity in something, must necessarily be experiential. We cannot find profundity in Beethoven if we do not listen to Beethoven, but if we do listen to Beethoven we only permit the possibility of finding profundity in Beethoven. For some people, it will simply not be there, no matter how much others would like to push onto them their own findings of profundity in the music of Beethoven or in any other composer. I don't doubt that most people agree that Beethoven has at least produced musical moments which we find profound in some way, but this does not necessarily mean that the music of Beethoven is profound, only that most people agree that they find it to be so. The distinction between the purely objective and the mass subjective is always contentious here, so I'm not sure if we want to get into it, but I think that is ultimately where all or most discussions of this kind lead.
> 
> So, what is musical profundity? Given that I reject the notion that there is anything like an objective measure of qualities which are found only through the process of reflection upon the listening experience after the fact, I would propose the following definition: a listening experience in which the music appears to bypass the brain and is instead felt directly by the body. This is what we might even term a spiritual experience, something that transcends the rational everyday processes of thought and enters into us directly at a deeper level than that on which we normally process musical input. Given that we are attempting to qualify and quantify, I'm not sure "spiritual" really cuts it, but we could probably make a link between what we think of as spiritual and elements in the subconscious which are sympathetic to particular musical inputs, and which reflexively expand the experience of listening to such inputs.


Regarding Crudblud's post, I will only address his first two paragraphs, as I am not competent to deal with the balance of his argument.

Crudblud offers a definition of musical profundity that says it is a listening experience that appears to bypass the brain and is instead directly felt by the body. If by this formulation, Crudblud refers to gooseflesh, chills and thrills, "skin orgasms" and the like, there is a growing body of research and literature on this subject, wherein the interaction between the stimuli, the brain, and the limbic system is being shown to be key. I have discussed a little of this previously, positing the importance of "cusp" musical experiences in inducing these reactions; also trance experiences may be involved, and what one could call cumulative experiences. An example of a cusp would be the sudden organ blast that heralds the final passages of the Saint-Saens 3rd Symphony, or the growing rush that begins the finale of Sibelius' _Pohjola's Daughter_; I also spoke of the cusp in _The Waiting_ by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. For trance we look again to the ostinato effects of Sibelius: 2nd Symphony, final movement, or maybe Rachmaninoff _Isle of the Dead_; also the Isley Brothers' _That Lady_, long version. For cumulative, the Hallelujah Chorus, or _Bolero_, though Bolero combines both trance and cumulative effects.

But surely Crudblud is saying there must be more to musical profundity than thrills and chills, which can be found in the most unusual places in all of music, and so there is more to it, but it again is inseparably tied, in my view, to the subjective experience of music. So, if musical profundity is to be spoken of, it should be remembered that it is merely convention, like our conversations about greatness, reflecting only our own individual experiences of music. In this sense, Woodduck's and Crudblud's analyses are but different facets of the same argument, with neither getting us much closer to a compelling definition of musical profundity.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> Crudblud offers a definition of musical profundity that says it is *a listening experience that appears to bypass the brain and is instead directly felt by the body*. If by this formulation, Crudblud refers to gooseflesh, chills and thrills, "skin orgasms" and the like, there is a growing body of research and literature on this subject, wherein the interaction between the stimuli, the brain, and the limbic system is being shown to be key.


My bold.

"Appears" is the crucial word in my definition. I would never suggest that music can actually bypass the brain and directly affect the body, but what I do suggest is that music can be so strongly felt, under the right circumstances, as to create the illusion of such a bypassing, which can be interpreted as "spiritual" or something along those lines. Thrills, chills, and goosebumps were never part of my thinking in developing this particular conception of profundity.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Crudblud said:


> "Appears" is the crucial word in my definition. I would never suggest that music can actually bypass the brain and directly affect the body, but what I do suggest is that music can be so strongly felt, under the right circumstances, as to create the illusion of such a bypassing, which can be interpreted as "spiritual" or something along those lines. Thrills, chills, and goosebumps were never part of my thinking in developing this particular conception of profundity.


Seems like a dodge to me.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

Profound music is that which helps a listener understand an important truth about life and the universe. This is necessarily going to be subjective, but I would not limit the possible classical music choices to the slow and serious. Motion and fun exist in life, so their musical counterparts can also be illustrative and provide meaning to a listener beyond "That sounds nice."


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

bharbeke said:


> Profound music is that which helps a listener understand an important truth about life and the universe. This is necessarily going to be subjective, but I would not limit the possible classical music choices to the slow and serious. Motion and fun exist in life, so their musical counterparts can also be illustrative and provide meaning to a listener beyond "That sounds nice."


Dude, this is an awesome definition. I like and accept.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Klassic said:


> Seems like a dodge to me.


And this seems like an attempt to bait me into doing... something, I'm not quite sure what. I know you haven't been around here for very long, so I'll clue you in: the Donald Trump method of debate doesn't work on me, if you want to engage my argument and get a serious response you'll have to provide a pointed, reasoned rebuttal.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Crudblud said:


> And this seems like an attempt to bait me into doing... something, I'm not quite sure what. I know you haven't been around here for very long, so I'll clue you in: the Donald Trump method of debate doesn't work on me, if you want to engage my argument and get a serious response you'll have to provide a pointed, reasoned rebuttal.


I can assure you that I don't want to debate you.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> I very much appreciated the posts of both Woodduck and of Crudblud on this topic, and "liked" both to indicate my enjoyment of their thoughts. But I beg to differ, again, and will try to address Woodduck's ideas here first:
> 
> Woodduck posits that profundity in art does not differ from profundity in what he terms philosophy, by which I suppose he subsumes science as a branch of philosophy. But then he states that *the elements of reality to which art refers belong to a world of internal reality, which is to say they are subjective in nature. We are again in "a world of feeling", with all that implies, because your feelings may differ profoundly from mine.* But I propose that Woodduck offer an example of a profound piece of art (let's specify that this be a painting or piece of sculpture), and we can consider whether it be profound or not in the sense that I propose that plate tectonics or the concept of an expanding universe is profound. I think the difference will be clear.
> 
> I personally have no problem with accepting that anyone can postulate that any piece of music or art is profound, if we simultaneously state that *the term may have no real significance "objectively"-- it is merely convention to express our subjective personal preferences* thusly. Indeed, Woodduck's second paragraph, in my reading of it, actually supports my contention that the well of subjectivity may be deep indeed, and our experience of its waters quite moving, but that *we ought not allow our primary definition of profundity to be tied to such variable and uncertain phenomena as personal experience*; it is an exact parallel with our previous discussions on "greatness" in art.


Artistic experience and value cannot be reduced to pure arbitrary convention and "subjectivity," where subjective and arbitrary are taken as synonymous.

I stated the sense in which profundity in art is not different from profundity in philosophy or science. I stated it simply by quoting your phrase ""pierce through a jumble of seemingly isolated and discrete facts about reality and reveal to us an underlying deep truth that knits together many disparate facts into a unity." Elements of subjective, emotional life are, like concepts and physical facts, complex, encompassing, and explanatory - rich and deep - in greater or lesser degrees. Your "subjective-objective" distinction does not get to the point I'm making.

"Subjective" phenomena have an existence which is not less real than "objective" ones, and emotions (which are complexes of physical sensations and conceptualizations) exist in complex and hierarchical relationships to one another. Some subjective states are simple and obvious; others can be understood only in relation to others. Profound works of music are those which are capable, by reason of both the richness of their internal qualities and their references to both external reality and emotional realities, of expressing and evoking more complex, fundamental, encompassing, and explanatory subjective states. To put it simply, they say more _to_ us by saying more _about_ us.

Yes, we are all different, and will respond differently to a given piece of music. But notice how widespread is the agreement about the meaning of works of art, to a degree which would be impossible if artistic perception were purely personal or purely conventional. I have not tied the _definition_ of profundity "to such variable and uncertain phenomena as personal experience." The fact that individuals differ in their personal responses to works of art doesn't negate the existence of definable human modes of perception, the fundamental commonality of human emotions, the existence of profound artistic experience, or the qualities in a work of art which make such experience possible or likely. There are objective reasons, objective attributes of the art itself, why the art of Bach - or the art of Ali Akbar Khan - is considered profound, and the art of Carrie Jacobs Bond or Hannah Montana is not. The difficulty of defining these reasons and attributes does not demonstrate their nonexistence, and neither does anyone's preference for Hannah Montana (does she even exist any more?) over Bach (he certainly does, and it's no mystery why).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Profound means 'very deep and serious.'

Schuman's 4th Symphony in D minor is a good example.

It seems that humor will ruin the atmosphere of profundity, since to be profound, something must be serious.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> There are objective reasons, objective attributes of the art itself, why the art of Bach - or the art of Ali Akbar Khan - is considered profound, and the art of Carrie Jacobs Bond or Hannah Montana is not. The difficulty of defining these reasons and attributes does not demonstrate their nonexistence, and neither does anyone's preference for Hannah Montana (does she even exist any more?) over Bach (he certainly does, and it's no mystery why).


There is this: because people like it, but maybe you can give us some examples of these asserted "objective reasons?" O wait, just because you cannot demonstrate them doesn't mean they don't exist, therefore your lack of demonstration does not matter, all that matters is your assertion that they exist. Very good Mr. Duck.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

What, indeed, is profundity? To answer this, we need to leverage our personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable ourselves to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing a forum-wide value definition across the continuum of cross-median processes.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Klassic said:


> There is this: because people like it, but maybe you can give us some examples of these asserted "objective reasons?"


Have you not noticed a difference between the richness and subtlety of the language of musical expression as employed with extraordinary imagination and refinement in the music of a motet by Bach, an opera by Wagner, or a raga by Ali Akbar Khan, compared to the poverty and superficiality of these in a song by Hannah Montana? You don't have to be able to say in what precise way the elements of music represent and evoke human subjective experience, and you don't even have to be able to enjoy them, to know (or to come to know) that Bach, Wagner and Khan are doing, in their radically different ways, something profound and that Hannah Montana is not.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> What, indeed, is profundity? To answer this, we need to leverage our personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable ourselves to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing a forum-wide value definition across the continuum of cross-median processes.


Now you're talking.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Have you not noticed a difference between the richness and subtlety of the language of musical expression as employed with extraordinary imagination and refinement in the music of a motet by Bach, an opera by Wagner, or a raga by Ali Akbar Khan, compared to the poverty and superficiality of these in a song by Hannah Montana?


Indeed "I" do, but if I'm not mistaken you are claiming that there are objective elements?



Woodduck said:


> "You don't have to be able to say in what precise way the elements of music represent and evoke human subjective experience..."


While I suspect this is correct for me, if I'm not mistaken you are claiming that there is an "objectivity" here? If this is the case then does this criteria still apply to you?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Klassic said:


> Indeed "I" do, but if I'm not mistaken you are claiming that there are objective elements?
> 
> While I suspect this is correct for me, if I'm not mistaken you are claiming that there is an "objectivity" here? If this is the case then does this criteria still apply to you?


I'm not really sure what you're asking, or why. If you're suggesting that for something to be objective, everyone has to be able to perceive it and agree upon it, then I disagree with your definition of "objective." There is nothing in the universe that everyone agrees about.

The question is "What is profundity in music?" If you disagree with my attempt to define it, say why. I find the question of what particular features of this or that piece make it a profound work a different question, and one would have to go case by case. I'm not really interested in doing that sort of minute examination here.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Artistic experience and value cannot be reduced to pure arbitrary convention and "subjectivity," where subjective and arbitrary are taken as synonymous.[........]Yes, we are all different, and will respond differently to a given piece of music. But notice how widespread is the agreement about the meaning of works of art, to a degree which would be impossible if artistic perception were purely personal or purely conventional. I have not tied the _definition_ of profundity "to such variable and uncertain phenomena as personal experience." The fact that individuals differ in their personal responses to works of art doesn't negate the existence of definable human modes of perception, the fundamental commonality of human emotions, the existence of profound artistic experience, or the qualities in a work of art which make such experience possible or likely. There are objective reasons, objective attributes of the art itself, why the art of Bach - or the art of Ali Akbar Khan - is considered profound, and the art of Carrie Jacobs Bond or Hannah Montana is not. The difficulty of defining these reasons and attributes does not demonstrate their nonexistence, and neither does anyone's preference for Hannah Montana (does she even exist any more?) over Bach (he certainly does, and it's no mystery why).


As I see it, your argument still comes down to essentially a popularity contest among the cognoscenti, those who know (their own) experience of "profound artistic experience" when they see or hear it. I grant that we can classify art as more or less complex--an Egyptian chariot of the New Kingdom vs. a Supermarine Spitfire, or bigger vs. smaller, long rather than short; and that if things come down to a TC vote, then A may prove voted more profound than B--maybe "greater" than B. But where does that get us? I think it is more accurate to discuss the actual, measurable attributes of art and how these relate to why we like or dislike certain things, than to leapfrog over these and pronounce something great or profound as if we were talking about something real. As a practical matter also, if we wish to introduce people to art, music, whatever, it's probably much more effective to say to them, "I think you might like this because it's (this, that, the other)", rather than, "This is profound, this is great, great art-everybody important says so," etc. In that sense, the recruiting of new audiences, the arts need all the help they can get.

And how about that piece of profound pictorial art that I had hoped you'd supply?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> As I see it, your argument still comes down to essentially a popularity contest among the cognoscenti, those who know (their own) experience of "profound artistic experience" when they see or hear it. I grant that we can classify art as more or less complex--an Egyptian chariot of the New Kingdom vs. a Supermarine Spitfire, or bigger vs. smaller, long rather than short; and that if things come down to a TC vote, then A may prove voted more profound than B--maybe "greater" than B. But where does that get us? I think it is more accurate to discuss the actual, measurable attributes of art and how these relate to why we like or dislike certain things, than to leapfrog over these and pronounce something great or profound as if we were talking about something real. As a practical matter also, if we wish to introduce people to art, music, whatever, it's probably much more effective to say to them, "I think you might like this because it's (this, that, the other)", rather than, "This is profound, this is great, great art-everybody important says so," etc. In that sense, the recruiting of new audiences, the arts need all the help they can get.
> 
> And how about that piece of profound pictorial art that I had hoped you'd supply?


You seem to be equating an appreciation of art with "liking or disliking certain things," and defining the perception of depth of meaning as a mere experience of pleasure. I get more pleasure out of Josef Strauss's _Dorfschwalben_ waltz than Schoenberg's _Moses and Aron_, but I think and feel the latter to be considerably more profound. The relevant question is how that can be.

As a matter of fact, when I was getting interested in music I was quite interested in what music was considered profound by those important people. But I guess that's me.


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## Juan Gonzalez (Mar 17, 2016)

EDIT: this is an answer to reply #23
Just my english limitations. I was refering to the *a)* of post #28. He explained what I was trying to say much better than me. I was refering to the technical construction of the piece, not an actual meaning like God, freedom... This is one of the most important things that differenciates a Mozart Sonata from any mediocre Clasical composer sonata. They both use alberti bass, same structure, same typical cadenzas, but it is not the same.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not really sure what you're asking, or why. If you're suggesting that for something to be objective, everyone has to be able to perceive it and agree upon it, then I disagree with your definition of "objective."


You asserted that there were "objective" elements no? What I'm suggesting is that if you claim that something is objective, then you have the burden of proof to substantiate that claim. It seems to me that you are wobbling back and forth between the _claim_ that "objectivity exists" (_at least you seem to hold this in indemonstrable theory_) and the actual reality you are faced with, which is a kind of subjectivity. My point is that your assertion of objectivity is without substantiation.... _which_ (*if one reads you carefully*) you seem to already admit. I have no problem with your position until you claim the existence of objectivity.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"Profundity" has more than one link to fundament.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It's rarely more than yet another way of denigrating the tastes of people who don't worship at the right musical altars. That covers 99.99999% of the time it's used. 

That remaining little bit probably refers to variation or development in ways that experienced musicians find very surprising and yet satisfying.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> You seem to be equating an appreciation of art with "liking or disliking certain things," and defining the perception of depth of meaning as a mere experience of pleasure. I get more pleasure out of Josef Strauss's _Dorfschwalben_ waltz than Schoenberg's _Moses and Aron_, but I think and feel the latter to be considerably more profound. The relevant question is how that can be.
> 
> As a matter of fact, when I was getting interested in music I was quite interested in what music was considered profound by those important people. But I guess that's me.


Here we get to the heart of our different approaches. You do pose the question very clearly when you remark that you prefer the Strauss waltz to the Schoenberg work, and ask "how that can be?" I echo your query: How Indeed? And I think we came to music by different paths; this may explain much: I never particularly cared much about what important people thought was profound, having been immersed to a degree in hearing music of all sorts from young childhood. I thus made a god of my own preferences in music and the other arts, and have left considerations of greatness, profundity and the like to one side entirely, reserving those concepts to areas like science, where they more accurately apply, IMO.

Meanwhile, I'll note a painting that I really like--_The Sleeping Gypsy_ by Henri Rousseau. I don't know whether it is profound, but I like it.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I find myself coming down very much on the side of SM in this discussion (probably no surprise given my scientific background). I think that the key to the concept of being profound is that the word root and early usage meant having deep insight into a topic. However, as with so much else in language, particularly in recent times, the word has been increasingly used in different contexts where the original meaning would be less applicable, e.g. music and art. As a result the meaning of the term has become very fuzzy. This then brings us directly to Becca's First Law of Threads - the fuzzier the word/concept, the longer the thread.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> Here we get to the heart of our different approaches. You do pose the question very clearly when you remark that you prefer the Strauss waltz to the Schoenberg work, and ask "how that can be?" I echo your query: How Indeed? And I think we came to music by different paths; this may explain much: I never particularly cared much about what important people thought was profound, having been immersed to a degree in hearing music of all sorts from young childhood. I thus made a god of my own preferences in music and the other arts, and have left considerations of greatness, profundity and the like to one side entirely, reserving those concepts to areas like science, where they more accurately apply, IMO.
> 
> Meanwhile, I'll note a painting that I really like--_The Sleeping Gypsy_ by Henri Rousseau. I don't know whether it is profound, but I like it.


Don't assume that I came at music through the opinions of others, or that some assumed difference in that respect led to our difference of opinion. I was merely noting that the opinions of those who, early in my life, knew much more than I did, were of interest and value.

So the question of how profundity - or any aesthetic excellence - is perceived independent of taste remains unanswered. And I continue to ask it, because it is not a rare perception; it is in fact very common, easily observed, and constantly encountered by anyone involved in the arts and possessing a reasonable degree of self-awareness. Materialistic empiricists, who are suspicious of the reality of emotional and spiritual phenomena, as well as relativistic subjectivists, who want a maximum of "wiggle room" in matters of opinion so that they never have to feel inferior, may be unable to see the objective existence and identity of human mental processes and the relationship of artistic forms to them, and so cannot conceive - or tolerate - the idea that aesthetic judgment represents anything but the accidentally determined tastes and biases of equally qualified (or unqualified) perceivers.

The human mind is highly flexible and adaptable, but the structures and processes of perception, the dynamics of human emotion, and the conceptual building blocks which enable human beings to function in the world, are not. Aesthetic forms both arise from these realities and, when perceived in works of art, represent them. But because aesthetics involves both the objective and subjective realms (how could it not, and communicate any meaning at all?), and because the perception and evaluation of aesthetic qualities is not hard science and not subject to the kind of concrete measurement the emipiricists and the relativists demand, they have to believe that no aesthetic judgment has any truth value or importance.

So Hannah Montana really is as profound as Bach - or, rather, neither is profound. They are merely fancied by different people for ultimately and equally insignificant reasons. Got it.

If that's your view of what art is about and is capable of, and of what the human mind and spirit achieve in creating and appreciating it, I'm not going to do the work of trying to convince you otherwise. As for the use of the word "profound" in art, it's a concept which may mean nothing to you. Others, to whom it has much meaning, will go on using it. I believe this thread is attempting to determine how they use it.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

*


KenOC said:



What, indeed, is profundity? To answer this, we need to leverage our personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable ourselves to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing a forum-wide value definition across the continuum of cross-median processes.

Click to expand...

*"_Leveraging our personal knowledge capital_"- I like that.

In fact, I'd even take it to the _next level_- writ large: We need_ laissez faire _and free markets; and not mercantilism and rigged markets.

We need price discovery and capital formation made possible by market catallaxies; and not high-frequency front running and bank bailouts made possible by corporate subsidies.

I want see individuals absolutely 'flourish.'

Okay, sermon over and back to my _King Roger_ opera.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^ Profundity is driving a Catallaxy.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

*


Woodduck said:



^^^ Profundity is driving a Catallaxy.

Click to expand...

*









So is Amenities- the Greek Goddess of Luxury.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> ^^^ Profundity is driving a Catallaxy.


are you sure that wasn't supposed to be 'catalepsy'?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

*


Becca said:



are you sure that wasn't supposed to be 'catalepsy'? 

Click to expand...

*Only when I give my Maine **** a catatonic.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

This is too profound now. We know that because we don't know what the hell it means.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

*


Woodduck said:



This is too profound now. We know that because we don't know what the hell it means.

Click to expand...

*Post-modernism is farce-sided that way.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> I find myself coming down very much on the side of SM in this discussion (probably no surprise given my scientific background). I think that the key to the concept of being profound is that the word root and early usage meant having deep insight into a topic. However, as with so much else in language, particularly in recent times, the word has been increasingly used in different contexts where the original meaning would be less applicable, e.g. music and art. As a result the meaning of the term has become very fuzzy. This then brings us directly to Becca's First Law of Threads - _the fuzzier the word/concept, the longer the thread._


But it's the fuzzy ones that are most fun. There's always something under the fuzz.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> But it's the fuzzy ones that are most fun. There's always something under the fuzz.


Very true, hence it being the first law! However the only problem with fuzz is that you have to keep a watch over your shoulders to see if they are lurking nearby with infraction pads in hand


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Woodduck: Materialistic empiricists, who are suspicious of the reality of emotional and spiritual phenomena, as well as relativistic subjectivists, who want a maximum of "wiggle room" in matters of opinion so that they never have to feel inferior, may be unable to see the objective existence and identity of human mental processes and the relationship of artistic forms to them, and so cannot conceive - or tolerate - the idea that aesthetic judgment represents anything but the accidentally determined tastes and biases of equally qualified (or unqualified) perceivers.


I ask such people:_ "Is reality optional? Is everyone truly equal in aptitude, ability, looks, or anything else?"_

I'm still waiting for a great _apologetica contra mundum_ on that one.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> Very true, hence it being the first law! However the only problem with fuzz is that you have to keep a watch over your shoulders to see if they are lurking nearby with infraction pads in hand


Yes, that does happen here, doesn't it? One sometimes forgets when one's been away...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> There is nothing in the universe that everyone [must] agree about [in order to be rational].


Primary properties: size, shape.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Artistic experience and value cannot be reduced to pure arbitrary convention and "subjectivity," where subjective and arbitrary are taken as synonymous.


Speaking as someone who has spoken in favour of subjectivity, I would never consider "subjective" and "arbitrary" to be even remotely synonymous.



Woodduck said:


> So the question of how profundity - or any aesthetic excellence - is perceived independent of taste remains unanswered. And I continue to ask it, because it is not a rare perception; it is in fact very common, easily observed, and constantly encountered by anyone involved in the arts and possessing a reasonable degree of self-awareness.


It may be _perceived_ independent of taste, but really, isn't your question to do with whether it _exists_ independent of _anyone's_ taste? Are there examples of profound art that literally nobody cares for?



Woodduck said:


> Materialistic empiricists, who are suspicious of the reality of emotional and spiritual phenomena,


I'm certainly not suspicious of the reality of these phenomena; the "suspicion" (if that's the word you want to use) is over claims that such phenomena aren't rooted in the individual human brain and shaped by cultural norms.



Woodduck said:


> as well as relativistic subjectivists, who want a maximum of "wiggle room" in matters of opinion so that they never have to *feel inferior*,


But why should "inferior" and "superior" even enter into the discussion? Why should finding profundity in a particular work of art make one feel superior, or be a sign of superiority, compared with finding profundity in another work of art, or not seeking profundity for that matter?



Woodduck said:


> may be unable to see the objective existence and identity of human mental processes and the relationship of artistic forms to them, and so cannot conceive - or tolerate - the idea that aesthetic judgment represents anything but the accidentally determined tastes and biases of equally qualified (or unqualified) perceivers.
> The human mind is highly flexible and adaptable, but the structures and processes of perception, the dynamics of human emotion, and the conceptual building blocks which enable human beings to function in the world, are not.
> Aesthetic forms both arise from these realities and, when perceived in works of art, represent them.


This particular subjectivist takes exception to "accidentally determined"; our tastes and biases are accidental only in the same sense that evolution is random (i.e., not really). I agree about the constraints suggested in the second sentence here, and I'm happy to accept the possibility that the human brain may be inherently more oriented to enjoying certain kinds of music over others, and certain aesthetic features over others. This is why we can have a shared culture in the first place. But this culture also, over time, produces a bunch of conventions overlaid onto such biological constraints. I'll grant you "accidental" or "arbitrary" here in the sense that rerunning the last thousand years might produce a very different kind of musical aesthetic, but again, there'll only be a finite number of ways things could turn out.



Woodduck said:


> But because aesthetics involves both the objective and subjective realms (how could it not, and communicate any meaning at all?), and because the perception and evaluation of aesthetic qualities is not hard science and not subject to the kind of concrete measurement the emipiricists and the relativists demand, they have to believe that no aesthetic judgment has any truth value or importance.
> 
> So Hannah Montana really is as profound as Bach - or, rather, neither is profound. They are merely fancied by different people for ultimately and equally insignificant reasons. Got it.


But what is truth? What's important? Why are the feelings and thoughts going through the head of the person who loves hearing Hannah Montana inferior to those going through the head of the person who loves hearing Bach?
Again, why must we decide that one is better than the other?

And let's just be clear: there are plenty of fans of "inferior" music who sneer at and look down on people who love Bach (Hannah Montana fans maybe not so much - they don't strike me as the type); the question equally applies to them.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

When someone asks 'what is pain?', you show them an example of pain, you don't start writing a science book.

Words refer to experience. In the absence of experience, they have no use.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Hannah Montana fans should be drug into the streets and maimed... 

I kid, I kid but psychology tells us when someone says there joking right after they say something controversial, more than 50% of the time they really mean it... :devil:

Oh and your welcome for adding nothing of substance to this thread..


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## Lucashio (Mar 11, 2016)

Profundity is one of the words that should not be attempted to be analyzed, you must feeeeeeel it.

But anyhow, I suppose profundity deeply has something about recognition of our true nature as divine beings part of the divine dance, something beyond words, something deeply in favor and devotion that "what is" - pro found.

In music I guess it is what appeals to a deeper and common sense of divine communion and some composers trully manage to do that. Bach or Tchaikovsky has this effect on me, I start to journey into scenery of ancient nature, as if their music is a soaring witness of landscapes long forgotten but kept alive for the ones who can listen, I have this feeling not only with western classical music but also with some African and Indian classical songs or tunes where I can see sceneries or people gathered under the stars. 

Sometimes the profundity in music lulls me into a direct transcendence of experience and reveal the subtle beauty of life, the intensity of the stars, the infinity of a flower, the awe of an oaken tree or the joy of seeing thousands of linden leaves flying off the linden trees like yellow ballerinas, THAT is profound! :tiphat:


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Do put my name down as one of those materialistic empiricists. While I do not doubt for a moment the reality of emotional phenomena, the reality of spiritual phenomena is, by definition, undemonstrable. While the continuing decline in organized religion in the West is ongoing, there is a concomitant rise in talk of and assertions of "spirituality", all of which is lost on a dullard such as myself. But this reminds me of a remark in Harold C. Schonberg's chapter on Bruckner, Mahler and Reger in _The Lives Of the Great Composers_; in an exchange of letters between Theodor Reik and Sigmund Freud, Reik comments that Mahler "sought for the hidden metaphysical truth behind and beyond the phenomena of this world, for the ideal. He never tired in his search after that transcendental and supernatural secret of the Absolute and he did not recognize that the great secret of the transcendental, the miracle of the metaphysical, is that it does not exist."


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Do put my name down as one of those materialistic empiricists. While I do not doubt for a moment the reality of emotional phenomena, the reality of spiritual phenomena is, by definition, undemonstrable. While the continuing decline in organized religion in the West is ongoing, there is a concomitant rise in talk of and assertions of "spirituality", all of which is lost on a dullard such as myself. But this reminds me of a remark in Harold C. Schonberg's chapter on Bruckner, Mahler and Reger in _The Lives Of the Great Composers_; in an exchange of letters between Theodor Reik and Sigmund Freud, *Reik comments that Mahler "sought for the hidden metaphysical truth behind and beyond the phenomena of this world, for the ideal. He never tired in his search after that transcendental and supernatural secret of the Absolute and he did not recognize that the great secret of the transcendental, the miracle of the metaphysical, is that it does not exist."*


And yet Kant demonstrated that it does.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Massive arrogance on this thread from the fundamentalist/reactionaries... I hate to break it to ya all, but we don't know what the hell reality is yet, let alone some kind of objectivity in the product of human creation.


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## Guest (Mar 18, 2016)

Klassic said:


> We don't know what the hell reality is yet


I generally try to keep this truth in mind. Profundity is perhaps a quality we should address once we have half a clue about why some basic electrical signals tell some blob of goop what so many of us seem to see. In light of the infinite questions one would need to ask to fully understand an infinitesimal portion of the "universe", I find the qualities of pride and arrogance to be a big problem, especially when I detect them coming on in my own mind. And yes. This forum has A LOT of narcissism floating around; if I opt to "go out in flames", it'll be because of the N word.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Klassic said:


> I hate to break it to ya all, but we don't know what the hell reality is yet


I think some of us have a better handle on it than others, though I have always enjoyed that bumper sticker that says QUESTION REALITY.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

*


OperaChic said:



And yet Kant demonstrated that it does.

Click to expand...

*How?- by demonstrating that it doesn't?

Kant's epistemological arguments for the _Ding an sich_ argue that reality is unknowable _in principle._


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Marschallin Blair said:


> How?- by demonstrating that it doesn't?
> 
> Kant's epistemological arguments for the _Ding an sich_ argue that reality is unknowable _in principle._


Correct me if I'm wrong, but Kant acknowledges that the _Ding an sich_ exists, doesn't he? We just cannot access it, right? Maybe that's what OperaChic meant?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

*


Xaltotun said:



Correct me if I'm wrong, but Kant acknowledges that the Ding an sich exists, doesn't he? We just cannot access it, right? Maybe that's what OperaChic meant?

Click to expand...

*OperaChic said_ supra _at Post 75 that Kant demonstrated that the transcendental and the metaphysical exist.

If Kant 'demonstrated' this, the did it without recourse to the lynchpin of this entire epistemology.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Klassic said:


> Massive arrogance on this thread from the fundamentalist/reactionaries... I hate to break it to ya all, but we don't know what the hell reality is yet, let alone some kind of objectivity in the product of human creation.


No, massive arrogance on the part of those who diagnose people they disagree with as "massively arrogant," and call others condescending and insulting names such as "idiots", "blockheads," "reactionaries", "Neanderthal ears", "fundamentalists", "non-comprehenders", "serial-straw-man-inventors," "moralists", "warmongers," "Eddy" (his name is EdwardBast)...

Congratulations on compiling in just three months the longest list of disrespectful epithets I have seen on this forum.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I have always found that the greatest threat to progress and human well-being has not come from the relativists, but from the dogmatist, from those people who are so certain about the world that they feel the need to impose their ideas on everyone else. Contrary to what such people might feel, this is not humility. How arrogant that there are some people on here with the deluded idea that they are saving the world from all those evil people who dare to challenge traditional values and ideas. I ask you: does this not summarize the entire problem of the human race! Great minds have always been seekers.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> "reactionaries"


What about the arguments I put forth? This merely proves my point Mr. Woodduck, fundamentalists cannot back up their position with reasoned logic and evidence, hence, as all reactionaries do, they resort to brute force. Am I an immoral person simply because I drew legitimate and contextual unfavorable conclusions? You make it sound like I was merely engaging in Ad Hominem arguments, but you would be sorely mistaken. While I agree that I gave the inferior position ammunition in the sense that they can hide behind a false and irrelevant moral excuse (your mode of reasoning is now proof of this), I did not reason by fallacy. I simply allowed you and your friends to lay down the premise. Governor Wallace was an idiot of the future, so were all those who spoke against the "bombastic" symphonies of Beethoven: do you disagree? There are two charges I confess to, I did call EdwardBast Eddy (though he never complained), and I did call you Mr. Duck (though I don't remember you complaining either).


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I'll take my simplistic shot at this: an experience, emotion and/or realization that stirs the core of your being.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Klassic said:


> *What about the arguments I put forth?* This merely proves my point Mr. Woodduck, *fundamentalists cannot back up their position with reasoned logic and evidence, hence, as all reactionaries do, they resort to brute force.* Am I an immoral person simply because I drew legitimate and contextual unfavorable conclusions? You make it sound like I was merely engaging in Ad Hominem arguments, but you would be sorely mistaken. *While I agree that I gave the inferior position ammunition in the sense that they can hide behind a false and irrelevant moral excuse (your mode of reasoning is now proof of this)*, I did not reason by fallacy. *I simply allowed you and your friends* to lay down the premise. Governor Wallace was an idiot of the future, so were all those who spoke against the "bombastic" symphonies of Beethoven: do you disagree? There are two charges I confess to, I did call EdwardBast Eddy (though he never complained), and I did call you Mr. Duck (though I don't remember you complaining either).


Well, what about those arguments? When people think they may have figured out what your arguments are, some of those people don't agree with them. Is this somehow surprising or offensive to you? Words are slippery. Some things - especially things relating to consciousness and the life of the mind and spirit (of which art is one of the most important and complex) - are not easily or precisely expressible in words that all people, or any two people, will understand in the same way. The most interesting and important things in life are precisely the hardest to speak about, and so humans resort to metaphor, religion, philosophy, poetry, music. That's the difficulty of our conversations here, and that's why we need to listen respectfully when others talk. We ought not to assume too readily that we know exactly what they mean by the words they choose, that our own positions are as transparent to others as they are to us, or that others are culpable and deserving of insults for not accepting our revelations. Infatuated with your "reasoned logic and evidence" and your "legitimate and contextual conclusions," you may fail to realize that you and your presumed opponents are not really talking about the same thing or approaching it from the same angle, and that the points you think it so important to make are not even interesting, important, or relevant to those whom you think need to hear them. It happens all the time, on this forum and in "real life."

I'm surprised to be pointing these things out to another mature adult, but perhaps that isn't what I'm actually doing. I know nothing about you except the attitudes you broadcast. But I see that, having had your bad manners pointed out, you wish only to double down and resort to further offense by telling me that my "mode of reasoning" is "proof" of an "inferior position hiding behind a false and irrelevant moral excuse." By that I assume you mean my insistence on some civility in discoursing with others. I too might have thought that false and irrelevant - when I was seventeen.

I haven't noticed anyone employing brute force on this forum, but now that you mention it I have seen - and cited in my previous post - some fairly brutal terms of insult (to which I could have added others), and a great deal of sarcastic and belittling language. To paraphrase you: when people can't persuade by other means, they resort to name-calling. And, by the way, it's presumptuous to assume that you know who people's "friends" are. Those you call my "friends" are unlikely to think exactly as I do. Your lumping us together as "friends" apparently indicates your own need for an opposition you can claim to understand, put down, and prove you're superior to. That need is perfectly clear in your lumping together, weirdly, George Wallace and people who failed to grasp the genius of Beethoven as "idiots of the future." I can assure you that most of those people were not idiots; they were merely people who did not understand Beethoven. Your strategy seems to be: pick any diverse bunch of people you think were wrong in their judgments, and classify them together under some derogatory epithet. Just who you imagine will find that persuasive as a "legitimate and contextual conclusion", I can't imagine.

By the way, my name is neither "Mr. Duck" nor "Mr. Woodduck." Woodduck is my user name on this forum. When you address me - if you must - I'd appreciate your using it.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I can assure you that most of those people were not idiots; they were merely people who did not understand Beethoven.


Woodduck it seems you have made my point.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

KenOC said:


> What, indeed, is profundity? To answer this, we need to leverage our personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable ourselves to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing a forum-wide value definition across the continuum of cross-median processes.


Understanding true profundity may be beyond the intellectual capacity of humans. Thus, i don't pretend to understand the above, but I have a strange _feeling_ that it is truly profound, far more than anything else that has been written here. And so, I think he just may have hit the nail on the head!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Klassic said:


> Governor Wallace was an idiot of the future, so were all those who spoke against the "bombastic" symphonies of Beethoven: do you disagree?


Okay, I re-read the whole thread just to make sure I hadn't miss anything: How did Governor Wallace get in here and in the same sentence as Beethoven? This just may be a first in the history of online forums!


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

DaveM said:


> Okay, I re-read the whole thread just to make sure I hadn't miss anything: How did Governor Wallace get in here and in the same sentence as Beethoven? This just may be a first in the history of online forums!


Because he's the perfect example of a reactionary. I highly advise you to look up the word.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Klassic said:


> Because he's the perfect example of a reactionary. I highly advise you to look up the word.


Don't worry. I just keep my dictionary nearby in case you come up with more of those high fallutin words that little ole me just can't comprehend. (Did you have to go that far back in ancient history to find a good example of a reactionary?)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Speaking as a reactionary (my certification is from 1963), I say that "profundity" is a quality in music easily sensed by pointy-heads who are convinced that they are profound. Me, for example.


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## Guest (Mar 19, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Speaking as a reactionary (my certification is from 1963), I say that "profundity" is a quality in music easily sensed by pointy-heads who are convinced that they are profound. Me, for example.


Yesterday, I was reading the most lovely essay by David Foster Wallace on David Lynch. He briefly refers to the word postmodern and the fact that it's pretty much indefinable, but "We know it when we see it"; I suspect profound is a similar word.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nathanb said:


> Yesterday, I was reading the most lovely essay by David Foster Wallace on David Lynch. He briefly refers to the word postmodern and the fact that it's pretty much indefinable, but "We know it when we see it"; I suspect profound is a similar word.


That's true of a great many things in life. The most important things, actually. Which is why we all fight about them - and why we need to fight for them, even if we get it wrong.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

[Post Deleted]....................


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## Guest (Mar 19, 2016)

Sorry Ken, but I think 'profundity' in music is a construction which serves the purpose of identifying between what we subjectively experience as 'serious' and 'meaningful' in a context which has no other attached meaning...er, I think. To illustrate, the 6 o'clock news (or whatever passes for your main news bulletin of the day) usually carries items that convey the difficulty of existence - war in Syria; domestic violence; the case for assisted dying etc - and the trivialities of existence - Taylor Swift's haircut, the dog that can skateboard etc. Whether we distinguish these stories in this way very much depends on our mood and activity at the time we are watching. I have been moved by some stories which, on other occasions, have not caused me to stop eating my tea, ironing my shirts or surfing on my smartphone. The point here is that we can probably agree which of these items will more likely provoke a serious response, enabling us to reflect more profoundly on the "acute experiences of life".

But in this case, language does all the heavy-lifting.

Music, on the other hand, cannot directly convey "the acute experiences of life", but, taking Crudblud's explanation, it does have the capacity to bypass those parts of the brain that are about _rationalising _experience (in the way that language sorts things for us and blunts the acuteness), and somehow expose us to our own subconscious, forcing us to consider the human condition as we encounter it.

Therefore, profundity is not something that can be readily pointed to in particular forms or constructions of music (though I'll grant that if the research was done, some commonalities might be found). It can probably only be reported by the individual in response to whatever it is that has triggered that exposure, whether Tristan and Isolde or Yellow Submarine.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I can buy MacLeod's approach to a definition if we postulate that the "experience" of the profound is a unique, idiosyncratic, personal, often ephemeral, sometimes never-to-be-repeated unless we are in exactly the same mood, phenomenon; it is subjectivity itself. It is a name for evoked feelings of perhaps all sorts of things that may or may not be triggered in any given individual at any given time, though I believe that the approach that I alluded to in my thrills and chills interpretation of what Crudblud was saying, may be a very fruitful path. Crudblud, however, repudiated any such interpretation of his approach, so I stand alone.


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