# Do you believe in total subjectivity concerning the evaluation of music's merits?



## Xisten267

This is a sister poll to the "do you believe in greatness in music?" one. I decided to rephrase the main question because some members were complaining about a supposed lack of cohesion between what I seemed to intend with that poll's question and what I wrote in it's first post, and this could be used to refute the representativity of the results of that poll in the future.

So, now making it clear: vote "yes" if you believe that "greatness" in music is purely subjective and, thus, totally relative, depending only on each person's individual response to the process of listening, and vote "no" if you believe that there's more to "greatness" in music than just individual taste, even if you think that artistic value may not be completely objective, and that this value may be difficult or impossible to be measured.


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## NoCoPilot

I vote "it depends." Some people think hip-hop is the best music ever put out, and I can't tell 'em they're wrong. But objectively, it's not the most complex or intellectually challenging music out there. Personal taste depends a lot on what you've been exposed to.


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## JAS

Again, we have the question as to what greatness would mean. I am never going to override my personal reaction to music based on what someone else says. On the other hand, I am willing to pursue music that I am not familiar with, based on reasonable recommendations from sources that have a track record of making recommendations that my own experience at least roughly agrees with.

In other words, I don't particularly care if a composer I like or dislike is considered, in a broader sense, to be "great." Ultimately, my own actual response always wins over the recommendation of others, no matter who they are. My goal is to find music that I enjoy, not to pick the next composer who will be famous for a century or more.

The only advantage to me of following a composer who is broadly considered "great" is that I have a decent chance of finding recordings or performances, and perhaps a range of recommendations within that pool. There are plenty of all-Beethoven concerts, and even festivals, sustained by his general reputation. I am not going to find that for a far more minor composer, like Kalinnikov, no matter how much I may enjoy his fairly small body of orchestral work. (Fortunately for me, I like Beethoven too, and lots of other composers. I am not suffering for want of material.)

When I first bought a set of symphonies by Glazunov, there was only one set available, which, fortunately, was pretty well done (by Neemi Jarvi, on Orfeo). Typically, I have found recommendations of more modern composers to be disappointing, at best, and I have accordingly grown hesitant in pursuing others. Lots of people think of Shostakovich as one of the "great" composers. I have never warmed to most of his output, so I am comfortable knowing that he just doesn't work for me. I have the same reaction to Stravinsky. I am fortunate to live in the age of terrific recordings that span a broad range of more obscure works that are closer to what I like. (And "newness" has never been an element that I particularly crave. Too often, being entirely new is just a demonstration of why no one ever did it that way before, and probably should not do so that way again.)


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## Ethereality

Objective measures tell you what art you might enjoy; for instance, how historically successful compositions are, how influential they were, the sheer availability of them. But once actually exploring art, only subjective measures will tell you if it's any good. You either enjoy it or you don't, and you can gain *others'* subjective perspectives on works to change your own perspective.

Unfortunately, many people don't understand the definition of subjective.

I can't evaluate art or music 'objectively', for there's no objective measure _for_ art. There are some common *artistic values* amongst people you can tap into and rely on, but that does not make these values* objective,* for not everyone shares them or can possibly share them: Entropy, the basis for existence, biological diversity, _the continual_ evolution and change of standards, entropy, our ability to think and do anything in the first place, ensures that each human being will never agree or be the same. 'More people' by popularity appreciating something does not indicate any objectivity. Something *objective* must always be so in the circumstance of its parameters.

* Instead*, music serves a _temporary_ purpose. To entertain our biology, our development and metabolism in all its subjective circumstances. There are only objective measures for finding the art and music that more people tend to respond to, but 'more people' having certain similarities cannot make something objective. Each human psyche has been evolved biologically differently and won't ever 'catch up' with the rest, never summing up any objective law of art that goes beyond our perception of what some people have thought at some point in time, nor fully wrapping one's mind around a composer's thought process to be able to know if was great. Entropy is always changing reality away from absolutes. Objectivity in art is a wholly idealistic and not possible scenario. It doesn't even compute into a rational structure of an argument.

We can only appreciate all the subjective perspectives of others, and when they are similar, it's by symbiological design, a reason for humanity getting along and sharing our similarities.


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## Strange Magic

> Woodduck: "I don't see how anyone could see any opposition or incompatibility between "one's chosen, personal assessment of 'greatness'--one's criteria for same--and one's concurrently held conviction of the primacy and validity and authenticity of one's choices and tastes." Doesn't the former assume the latter?
> 
> If your position is misunderstood, it may be because you yourself have proposed that appraisals of art are equivalent to tastes in food."


"As we recall from many previous iterations of this discussion, that is exactly my position. Ice cream. Fine (or otherwise) wines. I thank you for recalling and invoking for this thread my views linking inextricably the identical-twin concepts of the esthetics of music and art, and the evaluation, grading, judgement of foods, wines, and other comestibles. The parallels are obvious, but the resistance to this similarity among those involved in the specific esthetics of the arts is formidable but understandable, given human nature. It is key to be observed as a knowing and confirming connoisseur of music and the arts."

This from my most recent post on the other thread.


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## JAS

Perhaps the wine metaphor is apt. (I don't actually drink wine, so this may not be entirely accurate.) If someone says that a particular wine has a strongly fruity taste, or is very sweet, those are descriptive elements that have a reasonably agreed upon meaning. (It might start to get more dubious if you say that it has notes of nutmeg, although people at least know what nutmeg tastes like, and notes suggests that it is a mild impression.) There are reasonably objective descriptions that can be made about music. The piece is loud, or soft, or parts and loud and parts are soft. It is fast, or slow, or parts are fast and others are slow. It features one or a few instruments very heavily, or it doesn't. We start to push it a bit to say that the music is calming or invigorating, although one might get wide agreement on such points. The real problem is when we get into words like melodic, lovely, beautiful, inspiring, moving, spiritual, most of which have some general sense of a common meaning but have been used (or abused) to cover all kinds of music that ultimately does not live up to the description. This is why it is often a good approach to say that if you like composer-A, you might also like composer-B, who is not necessarily a clone but lives in something like the same world. But ultimately, the work speaks for itself.


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## Strange Magic

Let's not forget the polling/voting/mutual affirmation aspects of consensus-building among key audiences to "establish" the objective greatness of works of art. I salute, JAS, your reminding us that there are myriad qualities and quantities of artworks that can be very accurately measured, stated, and agreed-upon. Greatness is, in my view, not one of them.


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## JAS

Strange Magic said:


> Let's not forget the polling/voting/mutual affirmation aspects of consensus-building among key audiences to "establish" the objective greatness of works of art. I salute, JAS, your reminding us that there are myriad qualities and quantities of artworks that can be very accurately measured, stated, and agreed-upon. Greatness is, in my view, not one of them.


I think, overall, that the word "great," in whatever form, is just too big (and flexible) a concept to throw out in anything other than a casual sense or a personal response that is extremely favorable. Whenever I hear someone say that something is great, I usually presume that the words "I think" are at least implied.


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## Woodduck

"Greatness" can be an "anti-concept" that corrupts thought unless the context is clear. In discussions here, it tends to obscure the complexity of the question of artistic merit or excellence and how that, if it's a real thing, is determined or measured. An assessment of artistic value always entails both intrinsic factors which are permanent parts of the artwork and extrinsic factors which reside in the consciousness of the work's audience. 

Since art is intended to be experienced, humanity's experience of it is a datum that must be considered in forming an adequate view of a work's merits. A work's ability to affect people, over time and across cultural lines, tells us something important about it. But art is also appraised on intrinsic factors such as subject matter, design, inventiveness, originality, and coherence. A work's intrinsic features mainly determine its long-term reception (short-term reception being frequently influenced by other cultural factors), and so, not coincidentally, works seen as having great internal merit tend to be especially well-regarded and enjoyed - and, conversely, works which have given much pleasure to people and inspired critical acclaim over time tend to be recognizably meritorious judged on internal factors.

The answer to the OP is "no."


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> "As we recall from many previous iterations of this discussion, that is exactly my position. Ice cream. Fine (or otherwise) wines. I thank you for recalling and invoking for this thread my views linking inextricably *the identical-twin concepts of the esthetics of music and art, and the evaluation, grading, judgement of foods, wines, and other comestibles. The parallels are obvious, but the resistance to this similarity among those involved in the specific esthetics of the arts is formidable but understandable, given human nature.* It is key to be observed as a knowing and confirming connoisseur of music and the arts."


The resistance to comparing art appreciation to gourmandism resides not only in human nature but in the nature of art. Food is not _about_ anything. Art is, and the means by which it goes about being about something are subject to evaluations having no parallel in the enjoyment of comestibles.


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## JAS

The deal-breaker may be the word "total" in the description since absolutes tend to invalidate a position.


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## superhorn

Well, as they used to say in ancient Rome "De gustibus non est disputandum ".


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## DjPooChoo

Woodduck said:


> The resistance to comparing art appreciation to gourmandism resides not only in human nature but in the nature of art. Food is not _about_ anything. Art is, and the means by which it goes about being about something are subject to evaluations having no parallel in the enjoyment of comestibles.


Yes the appreciation of art isn't really like the appreciation of food or a glass of wine. There are many types of pleasure: pure sensory pleasure, as in when you sink into a hot bath at the end of a long day. But it doesn't tell you anything about the world, its not based on any kind of thinking. We also have intellectual pleasures; the pleasure of following an argument or solving a puzzle. Then there are what might be called intentional pleasures; pleasures that are directed outwards on the world. For example the pleasure you take in giving someone a present, or of watching your child participate in and win a competition. It's a pleasure about, or at something.

Aesthetic pleasure is of this last kind, it is pleasure at something. It's not like pleasures of taste. When you eat a bowl of strawberry ice cream and take pleasure in it, it's because of a pleasant sensation in your mouth. When you experience a profound work of art and are moved by it, that's not a pleasant sensation anywhere in you. You're pleased at this thing you are experiencing, maybe pleased by it and about what it is saying. But taking pleasure in reading a book for example is very different from taking pleasure in a glass of wine. Reading a book is not a sensory pleasure at all. It's a pleasure of the mind, the pleasure of following a narrative, of admiring word play and language and so on.


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## Ethereality

JAS said:


> The deal-breaker may be the word "total" in the description since absolutes tend to invalidate a position.


It was just demonstrated that something being objective is absolute, therefore subjectivity is absolute, because the two are entirely different measures. In analytics we can evaluate things on a purely objective level, their characteristics. "Greatness" however is not an objective parameter to measure things, it's a personal one.

We can measure for instance, characteristics of music that people tend to like, but we're not measuring their "greatness." We're measuring the aspects themselves in response to x peoples' preferences. For instance, I can give my own preferences, and then proceed to objectively measure the characteristics of them. That doesn't mean they will match with others'. Objectivity is not a word for 'lots of people agreeing,' or 'everyone agreeing.' It's simply the literal, factual dimension of measurement, but you have to define what you're measuring.

Therefore you can't proceed from 'everyone likes A', to 'A is objectively great.' You can proceed from 'everyone likes A' to 'A is subjectively great', or, to the objective claim 'lots of people like A.' That won't tell you anything about A's greatness, unless you redefine the word great into an objective meaning with objective parameters. Then you will be using a new word fully detached from your original intention.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> The resistance to comparing art appreciation to gourmandism resides not only in human nature but in the nature of art. Food is not _about_ anything. Art is, and the means by which it goes about being about something are subject to evaluations having no parallel in the enjoyment of comestibles.


My interest aroused by the idea that, unlike art, food (in this case wine) was not about anything, I looked up on Amazon the number of books on wine they offered for sale. They purport to have over 10,000 different titles available. I also found this nugget:

"A 73-year-old bottle of French Burgundy became the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction, fetching $558,000. The bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti sold at Sotheby for more than 17 times its original estimate of $32,000. Another bottle of the same wine and vintage went for $496,000 moments later. Oct 15, 2018"


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> My interest aroused by the idea that, unlike art, food (in this case wine) was not about anything, I looked up on Amazon the number of books on wine they offered for sale. They purport to have over 10,000 different titles available. I also found this nugget:
> 
> "A 73-year-old bottle of French Burgundy became the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction, fetching $558,000. The bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti sold at Sotheby for more than 17 times its original estimate of $32,000. Another bottle of the same wine and vintage went for $496,000 moments later. Oct 15, 2018"


Exactly. Food is not about anything.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Exactly. Food is not about anything.


You are correct. Food (and wine) are clearly about something. A glass of this fine--and highly praised--Burgundy with you, Sir? They say it is quite special.


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## Strange Magic

Two interesting takes on the objectivity/subjectivity issue. One argues that Kant held the concept of beauty purely subjective:

https://oxford.universitypressschol...47975.001.0001/acprof-9780199547975-chapter-2

Kant on the Subjectivity of Taste
Hannah Ginsborg

The essay defends the subjectivity of judgements of beauty for Kant by arguing against Karl Ameriks' proposal that judgements of beauty are like judgements of colour and other secondary-quality judgements in being objective. The core of the argument is an appeal to what Kant calls the 'autonomy' of taste, and, more specifically, to the idea that judgements of beauty cannot be based on testimony. The essay draws on that argument to criticize the objectivism about judgements of beauty defended by John McDowell and David Wiggins. *It argues that judgements of beauty are subjective, not just in the weak sense that they are intelligible only in relation to human sensibility, but also in the stronger sense that any ascription of beauty to an object depends on the feeling of the particular human being who is making the ascription.*

The second, by a wine connoisseur cum philosopher, argues for the objectivity of wine tasting to be on a par with that of, say, Classical Music. Who knew?

https://philosophynow.org/issues/91/Are_Matters_of_Taste_Matters_of_Taste


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## Mandryka

Strange Magic said:


> Two interesting takes on the objectivity/subjectivity issue. One argues that Kant held the concept of beauty purely subjective:
> 
> https://oxford.universitypressschol...47975.001.0001/acprof-9780199547975-chapter-2
> 
> Kant on the Subjectivity of Taste
> Hannah Ginsborg
> 
> The essay defends the subjectivity of judgements of beauty for Kant by arguing against Karl Ameriks' proposal that judgements of beauty are like judgements of colour and other secondary-quality judgements in being objective. The core of the argument is an appeal to what Kant calls the 'autonomy' of taste, and, more specifically, to the idea that judgements of beauty cannot be based on testimony. The essay draws on that argument to criticize the objectivism about judgements of beauty defended by John McDowell and David Wiggins. *It argues that judgements of beauty are subjective, not just in the weak sense that they are intelligible only in relation to human sensibility, but also in the stronger sense that any ascription of beauty to an object depends on the feeling of the particular human being who is making the ascription.*
> 
> The second, by a wine connoisseur cum philosopher, argues for the objectivity of wine tasting to be on a par with that of, say, Classical Music. Who knew?
> 
> https://philosophynow.org/issues/91/Are_Matters_of_Taste_Matters_of_Taste


I studied with David Wiggins and went to some graduate classes with John McDowell. I don't know Ginsborg.


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## JAS

Ethereality said:


> It was just demonstrated that something being objective is absolute, therefore subjectivity is absolute, because the two are entirely different measures. In analytics we can evaluate things on a purely objective level, their characteristics. "Greatness" however is not an objective parameter to measure things, it's a personal one.


Since _part_ of the total evaluation may be objective, and _part_ may be (indeed, presumably is) subjective, the word "total" in relation to the whole is a problem.



Ethereality said:


> We can measure for instance, characteristics of music that people tend to like, but we're not measuring their "greatness." We're measuring the aspects themselves in response to x peoples' preferences. For instance, I can give my own preferences, and then proceed to objectively measure the characteristics of them. That doesn't mean they will match with others'. Objectivity is not a word for 'lots of people agreeing,' or 'everyone agreeing.' It's simply the literal, factual dimension of measurement, but you have to define what you're measuring.


"Tend to like" would indicate a substantially subjective aspect. As was previously pointed out, the chief value, in my view at least, to seeking out anything like a consensus of greatness is in looking for music that I don't already know. The next step, again, becomes my own at least mostly subjective response to what I find.



Ethereality said:


> Therefore you can't proceed from 'everyone likes A', to 'A is objectively great.' You can proceed from 'everyone likes A' to 'A is subjectively great', or, to the objective claim 'lots of people like A.' That won't tell you anything about A's greatness, unless you redefine the word great into an objective meaning with objective parameters. Then you will be using a new word fully detached from your original intention.


I have read this over several times and no idea what you are arguing here, particularly within the context of the rest of the post. (I might also suggest that any statement along the lines of "everyone likes A" is almost never going to be true.


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## larold

A reviewer should try to set aside personal reactions to transmit the contents of the recording. Not all people react to something the same way; one person's idolatry is another's anathema. The reviewer should at a minimum try to understand and transmit the qualities of the product that may be attractive to others.

Otherwise all reviews end up like the famous two word reviews on Amazon -- it sucks or it's great.


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## JAS

I do not mind a reviewer revealing his or her own preferences. I just want some explanation for the summary opinion, which gives me some chance to evaluate that. I don't want a reviewer to see himself or herself chiefly as someone trying to push products.


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> Two interesting takes on the objectivity/subjectivity issue. One argues that Kant held the concept of beauty purely subjective:
> 
> https://oxford.universitypressschol...47975.001.0001/acprof-9780199547975-chapter-2
> 
> Kant on the Subjectivity of Taste
> Hannah Ginsborg
> 
> The essay defends the subjectivity of judgements of beauty for Kant by arguing against Karl Ameriks' proposal that judgements of beauty are like judgements of colour and other secondary-quality judgements in being objective. The core of the argument is an appeal to what Kant calls the 'autonomy' of taste, and, more specifically, to the idea that judgements of beauty cannot be based on testimony. The essay draws on that argument to criticize the objectivism about judgements of beauty defended by John McDowell and David Wiggins. *It argues that judgements of beauty are subjective, not just in the weak sense that they are intelligible only in relation to human sensibility, but also in the stronger sense that any ascription of beauty to an object depends on the feeling of the particular human being who is making the ascription.*
> 
> The second, by a wine connoisseur cum philosopher, argues for the objectivity of wine tasting to be on a par with that of, say, Classical Music. Who knew?
> 
> https://philosophynow.org/issues/91/Are_Matters_of_Taste_Matters_of_Taste


Philosophy is something which people like to appear learned about but mostly anything useful it's just usually common sense. In terms of beauty of course it is subjective to the culture that the beauty is observed in. For example here in our western culture it is in general felt that women who keep their figures are desirable but in certain other cultures I have visited it is considered desirable for women after they are married to allow their figures to expand as it gives them a contented look. In other words what Maria Callas did in slimming though celebrated in the West would be considered undesirable in certain other cultures


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## MarkW

The only statement I am willing to make on the matter, is that great music contains more "greatness" than lesser music, however you define it.


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## Ariasexta

According to Montesquieu, it is our soul which decides the taste.


> Dans notre manière d'être actuelle, notre âme goûte trois sortes de plaisirs : il y en a qu'elle tire du fond de son existence même ; d'autres qui résultent de son union avec le corps ; d'autres enfin qui sont fondés sur les plis et les préjugés que de certaines institutions, de certains usages, de certaines habitudes, lui ont fait prendre.


He specifies 3 kinds of pleasure: 1-The inherent pleasure of the soul being itself; 2-Union of the soul with the body;3-Acquired through learning and education or habits.

This is purely metaphysical, and Montesquieu is very much an enlightenment leader of his age. If going more objective than Montesquieu you will have Bertrand Russells theory of pleasure: guided by love, led by knowledge. This is a very very visionary kind of idealism: an idealistic paradox within an idealistic vision. Many modern thinkers seem to be satisfied in leaving our real problems in visionary projections into speculative future. I can only say, as least reading Russell is fun, that is the most important part.

So, the classical metaphysics still applies at least to almost all the music ever produced. Purely subjective or partially subjective is not the point, personal experiences just grow and engender the way you pursue knowledge, enjoyment, fortune and everything. It is similar one way or another to the way you generally live.


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## norman bates

Like I've said other times, I definitely don't believe in TOTAL subjectivity, because if music and art in general were a completely individual experience that can't convey something understandable to others in a similar way to the artist that produces it, art would not exist in the first place, because there's no point in communicating to someone who can't understand. 
And art is a form of communication.
I believe in partial subjectivity, due to different exposition, culture, empathy and other variables. Which means also that, like indeed often happens, that people often with a similar background have also a similar experience and evaluation of art and music.


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## Guest002

I think there are things about a piece of music which are objectively verifiable: his handling of the percussion at this point is masterly; his use of counterpoint here is highly skilful; his orchestration there is muddy.

Then there are things about a piece of music which aren't, strictly speaking, about the music as such: the choice of poetry for this song-cycle showed high literary fluency; his word-setting is better than anything we've had in English for the last 300 years and so on. I think those might be more subjective assessments than the strictly musicological, but they're still pretty much 'not my opinion', but 'those skilled in the arts would suggest...' material, which might be persuasive.

And then there's yet another layer of 'stuff' that the composer puts into the music that doesn't consist of notes, rests and dynamic markings: 'this reveals the composer's fascination with the healing power of sleep', 'this is a product of the composer's fascination with the idea of lost youth, lost innocence' and so on. These are 'universal' themes which one composer may somehow convey better than another -and the skill of conveyance may again, perhaps, be judged by lots of people rather than just me, and so may be more objective than my subjective thoughts about it.

And finally, there's the matter of whether I like the work or not. That is: skillful, masterly text-setting, touching on fascinating, universal themes doesn't mean I have to like it much!

Only the last of these 'layers' is 'totally subjective'. The rest are, to one extent or another, not of my choosing or feeling, but are either entirely (objectively) factual, or factual-with-the-opinion-of-ages.

So the answer to the question as posed has to be 'no'.


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## Woodduck

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Only the last of these 'layers' is 'totally subjective'. The rest are, to one extent or another, not of my choosing or feeling, but are either entirely (objectively) factual, or factual-with-the-opinion-of-ages.


One hopes that this understanding of "degrees of subjectivity/objectivity" will be understood here. Your last category, "factual-with-the-opinion-of-ages," expresses the need for context in judgments of value. There's no question that in different social, cultural and historical contexts, assessments of the value of art works vary and change. It needs to be understood that this is not a disproof of the idea that a work possesses intrinsic merit. Its values actually exist as expressions of skill, talent, or genius, independent of anyone's perception or personal take on them, and the possible meanings it can convey to an audience are real but not unlimited. The endurance of an art work over time, its appeal across cultures, and the high degree of concurrence in interpreting its meaning, all demonstrate the presence of intrinsic values which transcend the variety of subjective responses.


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## JAS

Not to go all philosophical here, but if 10 people hear a work, and 7 of them have a very similar response to it, is that still just subjective?


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## science

Ten years and almost twenty thousand posts here and still you people do not know that my values are objective.


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## Woodduck

science said:


> Ten years and almost twenty thousand posts here and still you people do not know that my values are objective.


If it helps, my subjective feeling is that many of us have the subjective impression that they are.


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## science

Woodduck said:


> If it helps, my subjective feeling is that many of us have the subjective impression that they are.


That's a beginning at least.


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## Ethereality

JAS said:


> Not to go all philosophical here, but if 10 people hear a work, and 7 of them have a very similar response to it, is that still just subjective?


Yes. Objectivity implies a definite judgement. Since human beings are evolving differently all the time to no one end, there is no definite objectivity in music. That is why "greatness" is _agreeable_, not objective. The 3 who disagree are equally valid in their values. The rare psyche may even become the majority, but why does it matter?: When you take on a new perspective in art, which is a form of self-growth in the philosophies, you're expanding your knowledge one way or the other. You're exercising your judgement. It is not more admirable to find favor with the redundant and narrow--those descriptors are statistically objective, but it can be more _helpful _to listen to them for a good survey of recommendations. Experienced humans can't help to admire common composers, it is a temporary commonality we have the pleasure of communicating about.


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## MatthewWeflen

There is an objective dimension in terms of human behavior in the aggregate. There is a subjective dimension within an individual listener. Both are coherent means of evaluating music. Combining them is difficult, albeit tempting.

So let's compare Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 to "WAP" by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

In terms of current album sales and streams (i.e. "behavior"), WAP is currently "greater." You will probably find a significant number of people who would be willing to claim that it means more to them at present than No. 5. 

On the other hand, No. 5 has been listened to consistently for 212 years. It is doubtful that WAP will reach the same level of endurance. So on the behavioral axis there is still a strong argument for Beethoven being "greater."

Subjectively, you will also find many people who are willing to claim that No. 5 is much more "meaningful" and elicits deeper, more enduring, more profound emotions. (But this puts me in the mind of a certain aphorism about what opinions are like, and how everyone's got one).

Personally, I prefer to measure the behavior of people when I consider how "great" something is. Greatness refers to something's place in human society, for me. This is not to say I don't harbor my own beliefs as to "subjective greatness." For instance I think Star Trek TNG is the "greatest" television show ever made. But the public does not agree with me, in the aggregate.

I think greatness is a useful metric in terms of allocating one's time for exploration of a piece of art. But it should not be the only one.


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## Handelian

JAS said:


> Not to go all philosophical here, but if 10 people hear a work, and 7 of them have a very similar response to it, is that still just subjective?


This is still subjective. Just because of the recording goes top of the hit parade does not make it worthy to be called great. 'Popular' is the word. But I am assessment of greatness in TC is still highly subjective because we are a small and highly unrepresentative sample of opinion of the population in general on music matters at least.


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## Ethereality

MatthewWeflen said:


> There is an objective dimension in terms of human behavior in the aggregate.


An 'objective' dimension can be in terms of anything, so long as it's denoting external facts. ie. "I like Beethoven" is an objective thesis, or "e = mc2." Objectivity doesn't specify what is internally valueable to people or humanity.


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## MatthewWeflen

Ethereality said:


> An 'objective' dimension can be in terms of anything, so long as it's denoting external facts. Objectivity doesn't specify what is internally valueable to people or humanity.


I agree. I added more above. I think "internal value" is subjective, but can be measured in the aggregate by behavior or self reporting. "Value to humanity" is pretty easy to measure. The evidence is all around us.


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## Ethereality

I find a clear agreeability in your viewpoint because it is spoken accurately and properly. Thanks for your synopsis. I had said the same things myself, although in difference you say you lean towards the objective side. I am more in the middle myself.


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## EdwardBast

JAS said:


> Not to go all philosophical here, but if 10 people hear a work, and 7 of them have a very similar response to it, is that still just subjective?


That is called a significant degree of _intersubjective_ agreement.


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## MatthewWeflen

Ethereality said:


> I find a clear agreeability in your viewpoint because it is spoken accurately and properly. Thanks for your synopsis. I had said the same things myself, although in difference you say you lean towards the objective side. I am more in the middle myself.


Well, I wouldn't say I lean towards the objective _in my own listening choices_. It can be a guide (like a "top ten albums of the 90s" list), but my tastes do not mirror the Billboard Hot 100. I guess I would say I lean more towards objective measures when _talking about_ "greatness" in music.


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## DaveM

Ethereality said:


> Yes. Objectivity implies a definite judgement. Since human beings are evolving differently all the time to no one end, there is no definite objectivity in music. That is why "greatness" is _agreeable_, not objective...


You continue to make these random statements that you consider to be absolute facts and then conclude that 'greatness' isn't objective based on those random statements. The statement, '_ Since human beings are evolving differently all the time to no one end, there is no definite objectivity in music._' makes absolutely no sense. One has nothing to do with the other.

Classical music has evolved since the early 19th century. Humans have evolved, for better or for worse, since that time. But one thing that hasn't changed is that Beethoven is considered to be one of the greatest composers, usual in the top 3 if not at the top. That's a record over a period of almost 200 years. That's true now even in China, hardly a western nation. Anyone who rejects this as objective evidence of 'greatness' is kidding themselves.


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## norman bates

Ethereality said:


> Yes. Objectivity implies a definite judgement. Since human beings are evolving differently all the time to no one end, there is no definite objectivity in music. That is why "greatness" is _agreeable_, not objective. The 3 who disagree are equally valid in their values.


no, the 3 who disagree could not have a equally valid opinion. I mean, it's possible, but many times there's also a lack of understanding due to underexposition, experience or other things. I think there's music I can judge in a quite accurate way positevely or negatively and other things that for some reason I don't really get. Sometimes I get those things after a while. And there's music that I feel I don't still get.
I think there's often a lot of presumption behind this "every point of view is equally valid". Even for a listener there's a path of learning.


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## MatthewWeflen

Here is a fun study in how people talk about music:
*
'WAP' Is the Feminist Anthem We Need Right Now*

https://studybreaks.com/culture/music/wap-cardi-megan/



> The main point being made here though is that when a woman expresses her sexual pleasure in a song, it's critiqued, but the lyrics resonate with many women because the track emphasizes and normalizes female arousal.


*
Beethoven's Famous 4 Notes: Truly Revolutionary Music*

https://www.npr.org/sections/decept...vens-famous-4-notes-truly-revolutionary-music



> The Romantic era [of the early 19th century] never really ended ... Every time a singer-songwriter is praised for projecting autobiographical authenticity, every time a movie star expresses the desire for a project that is 'more personal,' every time a flop is subsequently recategorized as a before-its-time masterpiece, all these are reverberations of the bombshell of Romanticism. And one of its pre-eminent delivery systems was Beethoven's Fifth.


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## Woodduck

JAS said:


> Not to go all philosophical here, but if 10 people hear a work, and 7 of them have a very similar response to it, is that still just subjective?


Others who have commented on this are missing the point. "Similar response" does not mean, or mean only, "similar degree of liking." It's pointing to the obvious fact that there must be objectively existing factors, existing in the work itself, which lead very different people, even people in very different times and places, to hear a work in such a way that they can describe what the work communicates in similar terms and assess its merits similarly. We know, or should at least have noticed, that this happens quite commonly with musical works. Substantial agreement on these dimensions is often forthcoming despite great differences in personal taste. Mozart is not a favorite composer of mine, but based on what I perceive in his music I believe I have nearly as high an estimate of his genius as do people for whom he's a virtual incarnation of God.


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## Ethereality

DaveM said:


> Classical music has evolved since the early 19th century. Humans have evolved, for better or for worse, since that time. But one thing that hasn't changed is that Beethoven is considered to be one of the greatest composers, usual in the top 3 if not at the top. That's a record over a period of almost 200 years. That's true now even in China, hardly a western nation. Anyone who rejects this as objective evidence of 'greatness' is kidding themselves.


Radical subjectivists at work again. I am perfectly fine with calling Beethoven objectively influential and enjoyed by many people throughout time. That is an objective statement. I don't know what your definition of greatness has to do with it, since that is a personal qualifier. 'Great' in the objective sense means 'big' or 'influential', but in no way have radical subjectivists used it that way, so I'm not going to cater to their fantasies.



DaveM said:


> The statement, '_ Since human beings are evolving differently all the time to no one end, there is no definite objectivity in music._' makes absolutely no sense. One has nothing to do with the other.


Sorry but I just explained how it makes the only sense.



norman bates said:


> no, the 3 who disagree could not have a equally valid opinion. I mean, it's possible, but many times there's also a lack of understanding due to underexposition, experience or other things. I think there's music I can judge in a quite accurate way positevely or negatively and other things that for some reason I don't really get. Sometimes I get those things after a while. And there's music that I feel I don't still get.
> I think there's often a lot of presumption behind this "every point of view is equally valid". Even for a listener there's a path of learning.


I agree with this, as long as these people put in their work, experience and open-mindedness to exploration, those with the _unpopular_ opinions tend to be just as valid, often more, as they're less biased by what others say and repeat by their elitist subjectivity. This forum is a great place to start for instance, I'd much like to see a poll of favorite works of those who have identified their subjectivity honestly. I know members like Art Rock or Bulldog have been very adamant about their subjectivity and listen to a lot of music. The former is a huge fan of Mahler and some eccentric composers.


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## SONNET CLV

I feel somewhat foolish jumping into this discussion. (Is that a subjective feeling, or an objective one?)

In any case: *Do you believe in total subjectivity concerning the evaluation of music's merits?*

The term "total subjectivity" proves problematic here. Whose "subjectivity" are we talking about? Individual subjectivity, or societal subjectivity? The majority consensus of what merits merit may not strike my, or your, fancy. So, there's probably no right or wrong here.

What we term "great art" has largely gotten that designation from judgment of society at large, generally over time. One need not "like" the chosen art, but perhaps one might approvingly "appreciate" it. Is Dante's _Comedy_ any less "great" because you don't like to read it?

"Great art" tends to be that which fosters influence, which provokes imaginations towards new horizons. Music after Beethoven sounds _different_ from music before Beethoven. Beethoven seems to have had a marked influence. He also seems to be one of the "great" composers of "great" music. Is this a coincidence? Or is coincidence a subjective realization rather than an objective happening.

Actually, there is so much that is objective about music that we cannot ignore it. The notes themselves form an objective base to which we as listeners react. A "D#" is different from an "A" and a "B". No amount of subjectivity can change that. Perhaps the composer makes a subjective choice to choose the "D#" over the "A" or "B", but once selected the note becomes part of the objective reality of the artwork, the music. Still, a note's frequency, especially in a context of other notes, can influence subjective feelings. But in order to assign a merit to a piece of music, we have to realize there is an objective basis to that music, the layout of the notes and their spacing and their dynamics, etc. that leads a listener to a subjective evaluation.

Likewise, a painting done with shades of blue will likely strike persons differently, emotionally, subjectively, than the same image (or abstraction) rendered with shades of orange, or gray, or green.

If music has merit because people like it, then that's an objective consideration. If music has merit because it proves highly influential, that, too, is an objective consideration.

A wonderful thing about music, and about all art, is that it dwells on the paradoxical borderline between the objective and the subjective. And perhaps that's where we should leave it perched, for fear that otherwise it may fall off, towards one direction or the other.


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## JAS

EdwardBast said:


> That is called a significant degree of _intersubjective_ agreement.


The numbers in my example may obscure my larger point. At some substantial threshold of similar responses, especially over a long period of time and a broad selection of people, there must be _something_ a little more than just subjectivity going on. (This is why I asked if it was more than "just subjectivity," and I think there is. It also presumes that there is not a sufficient counter-response to cancel it out. I have been careful not to specify if this response is positive or negative in nature, because I do think that it can work both ways.) I would not want to have to try to assign a specific number, of course.


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## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> "Similar response" does not mean, or mean only, "similar degree of liking." It's pointing to the obvious fact that there must be objectively existing factors, existing in the work itself, which lead very different people, even people in very different times and places, to hear a work in such a way that they can describe what the work communicates in similar terms and assess its merits similarly.





SONNET CLV said:


> If music has merit because people like it, then that's an objective consideration. If music has merit because it proves highly influential, that, too, is an objective consideration.


Your post was worded correctly and beautifully here. Some of you apparently think music has objective merit, which in of itself is an oxymoron, though in your belief systems (more power to them) you don't see it that way. You believe your values are 'objective.' Now some have admitted to "my group's values" are objective. Umm... whatever you say.

A thoughtful person to me weighs objective considerations when evaluating music, but doesn't blindly give _merit_ to music based on them. It would be like saying I think a rock is great because I say so, the color, the shape, appeal to me. I think the science and ideas behind nature are great, and music _points_ to greatness. The answer to the thread question would be a 'no' for me. The merits of music come from the subjective considerations and ideas of oneself and others, although objective faculties may allow me to understand why music is so loved.


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## Ariasexta

Usually objectivity implies a majority recognition but after all under the natural variation of individual conditions, *nobody will really fit perfectly into the crowd*. For example, if a murder occured in self-defense, then the objective fact is still a murder, the jury will pass a lenient sentence but the murdered-s relatives will not like it. Condition largely decides our subjectivity, and nobody can really understand another ones objective condition let alone the subjective one.

Even in cultural differences there are subjective objectivities to be respected, homosexuality is a capital crime in some countries while in some others is legalized. We can not understand each other, but it is fine. The subjectivity within a society or community relies on the respect toward varied conditions of each individual: personal or cultural backgrounds, experience. Everybody wants some objectivities, also need to keep to themself for subjective self-reservedness. The lopsided beautification of objectivity is strange. The respect toward all given conditions, isnt it itself the foundamental objectivity? In human spirit, there is no laws can be forever definitely explained. Like Montesquieu says: The best law to follow is passions law.

The focus on objectivism is so much a hype and disinformative, because it dilutes attention to ones own condition, paying too much attention to unrelated or simply iirelevant objective problems. People really need to see through the irrelevant objectivity to reach otheir relevant subjectivity and objectivity. The key word is relevance, just maintain your own relevance to the matters that matter to you, whatever everyone else say is unimportant even if they agree with you. It does not matters people are in consensus with me or not, where is the relevance where is my attention. You need to be daring sometimes to say: "go to hell everybody."


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## Woodduck

I always wonder how these discussions of artistic merit would proceed without the use of the terms "objective" and "subjective." I'm pretty sure that people would be forced to say more precisely what they mean, and would misunderstand and talk past each other less. I think there's more agreement than there appears to be.


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## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> Some of you apparently think music has objective merit, which in of itself is an oxymoron.


"Objective merit" is not an oxymoron (contradiction in terms). It's merely a redundancy: if a thing indeed has merit, there's no need to add "objective." Music certainly may have merit; change one note in the opening chord of _Tristan und Isolde,_ or add a few more bars to the end, and the opera's merit will be diminished.



> A thoughtful person to me weighs objective considerations when evaluating music, but doesn't blindly give _merit_ to music based on them.


No one has advocated evaluating anything "blindly." And if there is no actual merit to be found in music, why would a "thougtful person" bother evaluatuing it at all?



> I think the science and ideas behind nature are great,


It's the converse: nature is behind science and ideas. There are no ideas and science behind nature, unless you're advocating some sort of Platonic theism.



> and music _points_ to greatness.


It does? By what means? Is there something actually present in music that does that? In which music? All music? How do you know that you're not just imagining a "pointing to greatness" when you listen? And what is "greatness" anyway?



> The merits of music come from the subjective considerations and ideas of oneself and others,


So you ARE just imagining that music "points to greatness."

This all sounds quite "subjective," not to mention incoherent.


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## Strange Magic

I just thought I'd add to this thread the following, hoping that it may clear up worries that the terms "great" or "greatness" may be endangered species under an "esthetics is subjective and personal" mindframe:

Why do I keep having the feeling that some do not understand that the word and the concepts of "great" or "greatness" do not go away--are not abolished--under an "esthetics is subjective and personal" viewpoint? These ideas or terms continue, or can continue--unscathed, unwounded, robust--they can be held individually, or shared, as people see fit. The only thing that changes is the replacement of some blanket _ex cathedra_ pronunciamento--or the equivalent of a Papal Bull--that Beethoven's Ninth is Great by a more modest "It's great if I think it's great--Your experience may differ."

From the other thread.


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## JAS

Woodduck said:


> I always wonder how these discussions of artistic merit would proceed without the use of the terms "objective" and "subjective." I'm pretty sure that people would be forced to say more precisely what they mean, and would misunderstand and talk past each other less. I think there's more agreement than there appears to be.


I suspect that they would use words just as loaded and just as vague, and still talk past each other.


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## Woodduck

JAS said:


> I suspect that they would use words just as loaded and just as vague, and still talk past each other.


One must never abandon hope. Otherwise it's Trumps for eternity.


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## DaveM

So far, 44 of 52 or 85% disagree with the premise of the OP. That may somewhat correlate with the proportion of classical music listeners who think Beethoven is great. (Actually that percent may well be higher.)

Reading recent posts might make someone think that the poll is finding the reverse, but that’s only because the subjectivists have little evidence other than hyperbole to support their position.

Taking Beethoven as perhaps the best example of greatness, it’s not just because of the opinion of countless listeners he is considered great, it’s also because of the considered expert opinion of composers and musicologists over 200 years. There is objective evidence of his greatness in his original scores. Few composers had his ability to write so many fully fleshed melodies or make some beautiful and wonderful musical moments out of a few snippets of a musical idea. 

He composed music that was increasingly totally original for the times and encompassed virtually every form of classical music. Superlatives apply to many of his sonatas, trios, quartets, concertos, symphonies and choral works. A number of these works are thought by many to have not been surpassed since.

Dismissing this as nothing more than subjectivity is superficial thinking, an inability or refusal to look at the collective evidence to the contrary.


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## Ariasexta

Ethereality said:


> A thoughtful person to me weighs objective considerations when evaluating music, but doesn't blindly give _merit_ to music based on them. It would be like saying I think a rock is great because I say so, the color, the shape, appeal to me. I think the science and ideas behind nature are great, and music _points_ to greatness. The answer to the thread question would be a 'no' for me. The merits of music come from the subjective considerations and ideas of oneself and others, although objective faculties may allow me to understand why music is so loved.


Applause is subjective, when in appropriate time and place, it becomes an objective norm. Simply as that, but it does not mean I applaud because people do it, rather de profundis. Some people do applaud to become a part of the norm, again, the subjective, but who cares? Yet people still say everybody should stand up and applaud because it is an objective norm, and *it is very important to do as people do. * So,,boring. If none applaud de profundis, only science and statistics shows that the music is great, and the performance is great. Oh yea who cares :lol:


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## HenryPenfold

Oops! I hit the wrong button. I do not think greatness in music is subjective, I believe it to be objective.

Why do I believe this?

Consider the two following completely objective statements:

1) "I have just listened to Harrison Bumthistle's 'Gawain' and I enjoyed it more than any other music I've ever listened to".

2) "I listened to Nielson's 3rd 'The Indistinguishable', and I did not like one moment of it, a horrible experience".

Clearly, these two completely objective statements are evidence that greatness in music can be considered objectively.

I only wish I had voted the right way in the poll.


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## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> This all sounds quite "subjective,"


Thank you! You're starting to understand.



Woodduck said:


> not to mention incoherent.


I'll point you to what an incoherent statement looks like, so you can notice its primary features being contradiction:



Woodduck said:


> "Objective merit" is not an oxymoron (contradiction in terms). It's merely a redundancy: if a thing indeed has merit, there's no need to add "objective."


_______________________________________________



Woodduck said:


> Music certainly may have merit; change one note in the opening chord of _Tristan und Isolde,_ or add a few more bars to the end, and the opera's merit will be diminished.


According to whom?



Woodduck said:


> It's the converse: nature is behind science and ideas. There are no ideas and science behind nature.


Now you have made an absolute claim, but won't be able to deal with the burden of proof. Oh educate me! Link me the best paper on the subject, if you would be so kind.



Woodduck said:


> "Music points to greatness." It does? By what means? Is there something actually present in music that does that? In which music? All music? How do you know that you're not just imagining a "pointing to greatness" when you listen? And what is "greatness" anyway?


It's not a how, it's a why. Music points to greatness because some people enjoy it: in other words, it points to a greater mechanism by which sound can be structured into something more moving and addictive. You can reword this if you'd like as long as it's coherent; I decided I would briefly respond to your posts before I must go for a bit.



Woodduck said:


> So you ARE just imagining that music "points to greatness."


I don't know why you're using the word imagining. I am observing that music has merit to some people, therefore it is subjectively great.


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## Ariasexta

When I said less emotional reaction does not mean going more onto the objective side, it is a methodological self-reservedness, or a kind of aesthics in the ethics: a mannerism to say bluntly. Do not mistake pruning emotional reaction to be a kind of scientific or analytical tendency, it is a restrospection to the classical metaphysical contemplation. There is a serious confusion of analytical appraisal with metaphysical self-reflection. In this world of self-reflective contemplation, the necessity of the objectivity is fully under control of a restrained subjective response, not that letting the objective criteria overwhelm this restrained subjective experience. The goal of artistic self-obstination is never to become more scientifical, but rather, going more deeper into the nature of the subjective mysteries of the Art. The objective criteria like technical details, skills are to serve this purpose, like building a boat out of woods and sail it into the ocean of subjectivity. It is a problem of which is to govern, of course, the subjective, but the objective has to become a tool.


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## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> I am observing that music has merit to some people, therefore it is subjectively great.


"Subjectively great" is a true oxymoron. It means nothing more than "I like this a lot" (as in "Wow! That was great!"), and it need refer to no standard outside of one's feelings. When we say that Vermeer was a great painter we are not merely expressing our feelings but talking about qualities found in his work. Some of these may be measurable (though not mathematically) in the context of the disciplines of the painter's art, and we can refer as well to the cultural context and ideological assumptions implicit in the work and judge how effectively Vermeer has communicated them. Vermeer's paintings are rich in such meanings, as well as executed with a compositional sense and a painterly skill so extraordinary that one would almost have to be blind not to see them. A denial of Vermeer's greatness as an artist on grounds that greatness is in the eye of the beholder is a perfect example of what I've dubbed the "higher stupidity," the sort of foolishness that, in general, only intelligent people manifest.


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## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> "Subjectively great" is a true oxymoron.


Not in any way fathomable.



Woodduck said:


> It means nothing more than "I like this a lot" (as in "Wow! That was great!"), and it need refer to no standard outside of one's feelings.


It can refer to any opinion or group of opinions, since an opinion is a valuational (feeling-based) phenomenon. If a judgement is _not_ subjective, then it can't have a _quality_ in worth: it would be a defined fact unchanged by peoples' opinions or feelings, absolute.

So when you form your extreme subjective opinion as "This music is factually great because I can tell" it doesn't make much sense to me. If you want to say "This composer is factually well-received in antiquity, because there is proof... here are some qualities in the music some people have especially liked" then you're starting to come back to reality. But to impose this as a truth of value on others who spokenly don't agree, is your own fantasy. There are people on this forum who have been obsessed with Classical all their lives, but Beethoven would not be close to one of their favorites. That doesn't mean the reality is 'mostly objective' then. It has nothing to do with the impersonal realm of objectivity.



Woodduck said:


> When we say that Vermeer was a great painter we are not merely expressing our feelings but talking about qualities found in his work.


The merit of those qualities are subjective. Saying that certain people admire those qualities, such as yourself, is an objective statement, but a value placed on them is subjective to those who do so.



Woodduck said:


> A denial of Vermeer's greatness as an artist on grounds that greatness is in the eye of the beholder is a perfect example of what I've dubbed the "higher stupidity," the sort of foolishness that, in general, only intelligent people manifest.


Who's eye would it be in then? As far as I know, the only eyes evaluating art are peoples'. Maybe other animals you think?


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## DaveM

Woodduck said:


> ... A denial of Vermeer's greatness as an artist on grounds that greatness is in the eye of the beholder is a perfect example of what I've dubbed the "higher stupidity," the sort of foolishness that, in general, only intelligent people manifest.


The recent election is a reminder that, counterintuitive as it may seem, intelligence does not guarantee wisdom and judgment. For instance, it must take a certain amount of intelligence to become a lawyer, but, lately, a surprising number of them seem to have not been blessed with wisdom and/or judgment.


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## SanAntone

First of all the ONLY thing that matters is whether a piece of music appeals to us or not. It makes no difference if the work in question is considered "great" by anyone - if we do not enjoy it, the alleged greatness factor is irrelevant.

Subjectively is how we experience music.


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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> When we say that Vermeer was a great painter we are not merely expressing our feelings but talking about qualities found in his work


(To use Woodduck's clear post as a good foil). This is a meaning claim, i.e. a claim about what the sentence 'Vermeer was a great painter' refers to.

Now, reference is like an arrow or a telescope. It is 'aimed at' something: the arrow at the target, the telescope at (say) a star we think might exist at coordinates X,Y,Z, the phrase 'Vermeer was a greater painter' at Vermeer's works themselves (not our subjective feelings about them, which exist in our heads, as Woodduck correctly states).

However, just like the arrow and the telescope, a phrase can be aimed at (refer to) something that it does not hit. One of the reasons why reference might fail is because the thing referred to (aimed at) doesn't actually exist.

To know whether reference has failed or not, we need to know the exact meaning of the referring phrase: What, precisely, are the qualities that _greatness _'aims at' in works of art?

_In other words, what is the definition of 'greatness'? _

Perhaps the meaning of 'greatness' in art is as follows:



Woodduck said:


> Vermeer's paintings are *rich in [cultural] meanings*, as well as *executed with a compositional sense and a painterly skill* so extraordinary that one would almost have to be blind not to see them


There are at least two issues (in order of seriousness):

1. Perhaps this definition of 'greatness' in art is Woodduck's private definition and not shared by the wider language community.
2. Even granting the definition as a starting point, there will be disagreements about what kinds of artworks manifest 'compositional sense' and 'skill'. Does Pollock's _Blue Poles_ exhibit compositional sense?

My own two cents:

I think there will be multiple concepts of artistic 'greatness' floating around in the language community, such that artistic greatness _does_ exist, but changes depending on who you ask. For some people, artistic greatness is a matter of works that bring people together and perhaps tell a 'human' story and are inclusive. For others, artistic greatness is a matter of works that exhibit power and awe. For others, fine-grained internal structure. Etc.


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## Ethereality

In the second part of the definition, *executed with a compositional sense and a painterly skill*, a painterly skill is up to various people to decide, perhaps the same as 'compositional sense.' In order to devise your subjective definition of objective greatness, you would need to use exacting terminology of the procedures that apply in every circumstance, or else just saying compositional sense and craft can be vaguely mistaken for whatever Woodduck is not intending. And then his definition of greatness is also that person's subjective opinion of the meaning, it's an unbacked philosophical perspective to say everyone should come to learn its true. We can only analyze qualities that experienced connoisseurs tend to like. We have nothing objective by which to say they're greater.


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## RogerWaters

SanAntone said:


> Firs of all the ONLY thing that matters is whether a piece of music appeals to us or not. It makes no difference if the work in question is considered "great" by anyone - if we do not enjoy it, the alleged greatness factor is irrelevant.
> 
> Subjectively is how we experience music.


I disagree.

If I took this attitude, I would not have come to adore lots of music I do.

Without a cannon, we are not encouraged to transcend our immature tastes.

I'm not saying that we each have to like each and every work the cannon promotes - but without the cannon factoring into our artistic development, I think we would loose out big time.

Part of the reason music is being levelled down and debased, is that the very idea of a cannon is now seen as 'elitist' or 'exclusionary'.

The existence of high modernism in music probably ruined all public credibility towards an elitist cannon of western music. An absolute PR disaster.


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## RogerWaters

Ethereality said:


> In the second part of the definition, *executed with a compositional sense and a painterly skill*, a painterly skill is up to people and Woodduck to decide for themselves, perhaps the same as 'compositional sense.' In order to devise your own subjective definition of objective greatness, you would need to use exacting terminology of the procedures that apply in every circumstance. Compositional sense and craft don't do this, because they can be vaguely mistaken for anything else. Then, *even then, Woodduck's definition of greatness would still be that person's subjective opinion of greatness, even if other people might agree * and disagree. I would agree with SanAntone above. We can analyze qualities that experienced connoisseurs like, but let's keep 'absolute fact' out of it.


If others agreed with our own definitions of artistic 'greatness', the matter would be simple: we'd just have to examine our shared definition for the qualities it identifies as 'great', then look to the world for what artworks have these qualities. These would be the great works of art.

So I disagree with your assumptions. You seem to want something very metaphysically 'weighty' to back up a workable concept of artistic greatness: like a luminous halo surrounding all the 'great' works.


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## Ethereality

But I changed what I wrote, as the above might never be possible amongst many and even the few. Such a definition is too elitely enlightened, hard to convey objectively and would be one's school vs the others, I mean yes, they would share commonalities because humans aren't all different, but there is no one great aspect of music I know of: There are a diversity of them, and a diversity of subcultures and individuals who are adapted now to hear music differently and people who hear not much of value in music at all, and I can't hate them. The two (aspects and people) seem to correlate that music is not static, unchanged, objective, etc. A lifetime is not enough for music.' I think change, evolution, catches up with people and society faster than objective rules of art can ever be proven or solidified.


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## RogerWaters

Ethereality said:


> But I changed what I wrote, because the above might never be possible amongst many and even the few. Its too elitely enlightened and hard to teach. It would just be one's school vs the others. They would share commonalities because humans share commonalities, but they may not ever define them before their life is over.


I agree with you that, in practice, everyone's individual definitions of artistic greatness probably don't coincide.

It then becomes a matter of trying to win people over. Expose them to 'great' art and push the virtues of this art, over the slovenly, the low and the utterly unremarkable.


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## SanAntone

Woodduck said:


> When we say that Vermeer was a great painter we are not merely expressing our feelings but talking about qualities found in his work. Some of these may be measurable (though not mathematically) in the context of the disciplines of the painter's art, and we can refer as well to the cultural context and ideological assumptions implicit in the work and judge how effectively Vermeer has communicated them. Vermeer's paintings are rich in such meanings, as well as executed with a compositional sense and a painterly skill so extraordinary that one would almost have to be blind not to see them. A denial of Vermeer's greatness as an artist on grounds that greatness is in the eye of the beholder is a perfect example of what I've dubbed the "higher stupidity," the sort of foolishness that, in general, only intelligent people manifest.


This assumes someone cares about "greatness". Vermeer, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollock, Cage can all be experienced on their own terms and we can either enjoy the experience or not. To become preoccupied with the question if any or all of these artists are "great" is what I've dubbed the "higher stupidity," the sort of foolishness that, in general, only intelligent people manifest.


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## Ethereality

Everyone should eventually come to know that my tastes and composition are the greatest. Even I don't know it yet, but I know there's no logical refutation so in my heart it must be so. Come learn children, as I teach you the ways of giraffe painting.


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## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> (To use Woodduck's clear post as a good foil). This is a meaning claim, i.e. a claim about what the sentence 'Vermeer was a great painter' refers to.
> 
> Now, reference is like an arrow or a telescope. It is 'aimed at' something: the arrow at the target, the telescope at (say) a star we think might exist at coordinates X,Y,Z, the phrase 'Vermeer was a greater painter' at Vermeer's works themselves (not our subjective feelings about them, which exist in our heads, as Woodduck correctly states).
> 
> However, just like the arrow and the telescope, a phrase can be aimed at (refer to) something that it does not hit. One of the reasons why reference might fail is because the thing referred to (aimed at) doesn't actually exist.
> 
> To know whether reference has failed or not, we need to know the exact meaning of the referring phrase: What, precisely, are the qualities that _greatness _'aims at' in works of art?
> 
> _In other words, *what is the definition of 'greatness'?* _
> 
> Perhaps the meaning of 'greatness' in art is as follows:
> 
> There are at least two issues (in order of seriousness):
> 
> 1. Perhaps this definition of 'greatness' in art is Woodduck's private definition and not shared by the wider language community.
> 2. Even granting the definition as a starting point, there will be disagreements about what kinds of artworks manifest 'compositional sense' and 'skill'. Does Pollock's _Blue Poles_ exhibit compositional sense?
> 
> My own two cents:
> 
> *I think there will be multiple concepts of artistic 'greatness'* floating around in the language community, such that artistic greatness _does_ exist, but changes depending on who you ask. For some people, artistic greatness is a matter of works that bring people together and perhaps tell a 'human' story and are inclusive. For others, artistic greatness is a matter of works that exhibit power and awe. For others, fine-grained internal structure. Etc.


Greatness isn't some obscure, mystical aura around the heads of extraterrestrial beings. The fits people are having over it baffle me. The "great," in its simplest and most general sense, is the the extraordinary in any worthwhile field of endeavor. We have great artists, great scientists, great athletes... These are people who do what they do in such extraordinary fashion as to rise above even common degrees of excellence and who generally elicit wonder among those of us who are "mere humans." I think this is what people generally mean by "great" when they aren't merely tossing it off as a vague indicator of enthusiasm for something.

Speaking as one on the inside of the visual art world - I studied painting and pursued it passionately when I was younger, before music took over my life, and I sold work in galleries in Boston and Colorado - I can assure you that the principles of composition are well understood by artists and are really not controversial (different styles of painting, of course, have their own "laws"). As for Vermeer, there is no disagreement about his exquisite judgment and virtuosity in either composition or the handling of paint. Nor have I ever seen anyone dispute the originality and insight with which he reveals, in heightened form, the nature of visual perception, the interaction of light and color and their contextual nature, not according to some idealistic notion as in previous art, but as the eye sees and processes them. Nothing like it had ever been done before, and although artists have studied and learned from him through the centuries, no one has equaled his apparently miraculous skill in seeming to turn light itself into pigment. Perhaps only Monet had as good an eye for the ways of light, but of course he was working in a different style and in a time when there were more precedents for its accurate rendering - including the works of Vermeer himself, which the impressionists studied.

I need to stress again that the perception and understanding of these superb qualities in his work has little to do with whether you, I, or anyone else is personally captivated by the work of Vermeer. The only way personal taste comes into play is in making us more or less likely to see clearly what he's doing and why it's astonishing. And the goal of studying art is to get us beyond, as much as possible, even this tendency toward bias in order to open up to us the greatest possible appreciation of an artist's unique achievement.

In my estimation, Vermeer's weakest work is light years beyond anything Pollock ever did. Of course Pollock's artistic goals were different from Vermeer's, and with no evidence to the contrary we have to assume that he fulfilled them to something like his own satisfaction. Given this, and looking at his "Blue Poles," I'm curious as to why you use it as an example for comparison. Is it just a question about composition? My first impression would be that things could be altered and shifted around in the painting without damage to its design quality. Vermeer's sense of design is more precise; you can't mess with it without throwing the whole thing off kilter.

https://uploads0.wikiart.org/images/jackson-pollock/blue-poles-number-11-1.jpg

In your last paragraph you list a few different "concepts" of greatness. I don't think that's what they are. I think they're simply different qualities that can contribute, if they exist in sufficient degree, to making a work outstanding.


----------



## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> In the second part of the definition, "executed with a compositional sense and a painterly skill," a painterly skill is up to various people to decide, perhaps the same as 'compositional sense.'


That statement is purely theoretical and not based on the actual experience and/or practice of art. The more you do of either or both of those, the more you realize what painterly skill and good composition actually are. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO KNOW.


----------



## SONNET CLV

Woodduck said:


> One must never abandon hope. Otherwise it's Trumps for eternity.


You have me returning, in a mood of schadenfreude, to my well-worn copy of Dante's _Commedia_, specifically Book I, _Inferno_. It seems I may have missed a canto!


----------



## SONNET CLV

SanAntone said:


> ...
> 
> Subjectively is how we experience music.


How about when we, as musicians, approach a new, unfamiliar piece for the first time, to learn it on our instrument? Do we not approach it objectively? What is the key? What is the tempo? What notes are involved here? It seems that only after an initial objective approach (evaluation) can we truly move into the realm of subjective evaluation.


----------



## DaveM

SanAntone said:


> First of all the ONLY thing that matters is whether a piece of music appeals to us or not. It makes no difference if the work in question is considered "great" by anyone - if we do not enjoy it, the alleged greatness factor is irrelevant...


It may be irrelevant to that particular listener, but if someone who doesn't like Beethoven's music doesn't know or accept that he was a great composer then they don't know much about classical music in general or are just being silly.


----------



## MatthewWeflen

DaveM said:


> It may be irrelevant to that particular listener, but if someone who doesn't like Beethoven's music doesn't know or accept that he was a great composer then they don't know much about classical music in general or are just being silly.


I agree. I don't particularly like the Beatles. But I acknowledge their "greatness" given how many other people do like them. I can see how influential they were, and how much enjoyment people who aren't me derive from the music.

This is why I think "greatness" is a category that is assigned outside of subjectivity, in the realm of collective action, even when it is arrived at individually via the subjective experience of enjoyment/enthrallment/emotional response.


----------



## SanAntone

DaveM said:


> It may be irrelevant to that particular listener, but if someone who doesn't like Beethoven's music doesn't know or accept that he was a great composer then they don't know much about classical music in general or are just being silly.


Or they don't care about evaluating art according to "greatness" or don't agree that art can objectively be evaluated according to "greatness." Or they don't think about these issues very much, if at all, and consider people who argue about whether Beethoven was a great composer or not are being silly and don't have enough to do.


----------



## DaveM

SanAntone said:


> Or they don't care about evaluating art according to "greatness" or don't agree that art can objectively be evaluated according to "greatness." Or they don't think about these issues very much, if at all, and consider people who argue about whether Beethoven was a great composer or not are being silly and don't have enough to do.


And yet, here you are.


----------



## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> This assumes someone cares about "greatness". Vermeer, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollock, Cage can all be experienced on their own terms and we can either enjoy the experience or not. To become preoccupied with the question if any or all of these artists are "great" is what I've dubbed the "higher stupidity," the sort of foolishness that, in general, only intelligent people manifest.


Try using your own words. Using someone else's is an even higher stupidity.

You had that coming.

No one engaged in this discussion, as far as I can tell, is "preoccupied" with the question of whether an artist is "great," or with trying to "rate" composers. It's merely that excellence is something that people sensitive to aesthetic qualities notice. The only preoccupation seems to be on the part of people who become indignant at the thought that some composer or other that they enjoy may not possess the creative genius that Bach or Mozart did. It's sort of like a kid realizing that his dad can't get a basketball through the hoop, while the neighbor kid's dad is a star athlete.

I would never think of arguing about the "greatness" of Beethoven or Wagner if there weren't people telling me that my esteem for their work means no more than a taste for blueberry pancakes.


----------



## SanAntone

Woodduck said:


> Try using your own words. Using someone else's is an even higher stupidity.


I had to use your words since I don't call people stupid because they don't agree with me. That's your thing.



> No one here, as far as I can tell, is "preoccupied" with the question of whether an artist is great. It's merely something that people sensitive to aesthetic qualities notice. The only preoccupation seems to be on the part of people who become indignant at the thought that some composer or other that they enjoy may not possess the creative genius that Bach or Mozart did. It's sort of like a kid realizing that his dad can't get a basketball through the hoop, while the neighbor kid's dad is a star athlete.


You are not describing the person who thinks great music is Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday and Beethoven is stuffy old music that doesn't swing. Someone else might think that great music are the early recordings of Ravi Shankar and Beethoven's music is not nearly as complex and reminds him of movie music. Someone else might be bored to tears by Bach because music for them is for dancing and Prince is their idea of great music. Someone else might think Mozart is wimpy that makes them think of dandies in white wigs and can't take it seriously, whereas Muddy Waters or Hank Williams they take seriously.

And then there's the person who says they don't listen to Beethoven, Mozart and Bach, and don't go to museums to see the Old Masters because they find old music and art less interesting than what is being done today.

And on and on and on ...


----------



## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> I had to use your words since I don't call people stupid because they don't agree with me. That's your thing.
> 
> You are not describing the person who thinks great music is Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday and Beethoven is stuffy old music that doesn't swing. Someone else might think that great music are the early recordings of Ravi Shankar and Beethoven's music is not nearly as complex and reminds him of movie music. Someone else might be bored to tears by Bach because music for them is for dancing and Prince is their idea of great music. Someone else might think Mozart is wimpy that makes them think of dandies in white wigs and can't take it seriously, whereas Muddy Waters they take seriously.
> 
> And on and on and on ...


You may have noticed that "higher stupidity" to describe a philosophical position only intelligent people hold is explicitly not the same as calling people stupid. But take it however you wish.

Great music comes in many forms. It isn't a question of "classical versus jazz" or any other such crude formula. The hypothetical people you mention seem not to realize that. Do you agree with such unidimensional views of what excellence can sound like? Obviously, people can have all sorts of narrow views of what "great music" is and isn't. So what? What does it prove? It might well prove only that people tend not to get out of their little subcultures and don't care to discover what else is possible.

This is simply not interesting.


----------



## SanAntone

Woodduck said:


> You may have noticed that "higher stupidity" to describe a philosophical position only intelligent people hold is explicitly not the same as calling people stupid. But take it however you wish.
> 
> Great music comes in many forms. It isn't a question of "classical versus jazz" or any other such crude formula. The hypothetical people you mention seem not to realize that. Do you agree with such unidimensional views of what excellence can sound like? Obviously, people can have all sorts of narrow views of what "great music" is and isn't. So what? What does it prove? It might well prove only that people tend not to get out of their little subcultures and don't care to discover what else is possible.
> 
> This is simply not interesting.


I think there are people who are concerned about what is great in art and those who don't care about greatness. Greatness, excellence, these are qualifiers that don't matter to many people - in fact I think most people just listen to what they like with not much thought to if it is great, or if they do, great is just another way of saying how much they like it.

Why this issue is talked about so much on TC, I don't know. People will never agree.


----------



## Chilham

"Fuzzy data, consistently measured, is directionally accurate".


----------



## JAS

SanAntone said:


> . . . Why this issue is talked about so much on TC, I don't know. People will never agree.


Which is why it is talked about so much on TC.


----------



## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> Greatness isn't some obscure, mystical aura around the heads of extraterrestrial beings. The fits people are having over it baffle me. The "great," in its simplest and most general sense, is the the extraordinary in any worthwhile field of endeavor. We have great artists, great scientists, great athletes... These are people who do what they do in such extraordinary fashion as to rise above even common degrees of excellence and who generally elicit wonder among those of us who are "mere humans." I think this is what people generally mean by "great" when they aren't merely tossing it off as a vague indicator of enthusiasm for something.
> 
> Speaking as one on the inside of the visual art world - I studied painting and pursued it passionately when I was younger, before music took over my life, and I sold work in galleries in Boston and Colorado - I can assure you that the principles of composition are well understood by artists and are really not controversial (different styles of painting, of course, have their own "laws"). As for Vermeer, there is no disagreement about his exquisite judgment and virtuosity in either composition or the handling of paint. Nor have I ever seen anyone dispute the originality and insight with which he reveals, in heightened form, the nature of visual perception, the interaction of light and color and their contextual nature, not according to some idealistic notion as in previous art, but as the eye sees and processes them. Nothing like it had ever been done before, and although artists have studied and learned from him through the centuries, no one has equaled his apparently miraculous skill in seeming to turn light itself into pigment. Perhaps only Monet had as good an eye for the ways of light, but of course he was working in a different style and in a time when there were more precedents for its accurate rendering - including the works of Vermeer himself, which the impressionists studied.
> 
> I need to stress again that the perception and understanding of these superb qualities in his work has little to do with whether you, I, or anyone else is personally captivated by the work of Vermeer. The only way personal taste comes into play is in making us more or less likely to see clearly what he's doing and why it's astonishing. And the goal of studying art is to get us beyond, as much as possible, even this tendency toward bias in order to open up to us the greatest possible appreciation of an artist's unique achievement.
> 
> In my estimation, Vermeer's weakest work is light years beyond anything Pollock ever did. Of course Pollock's artistic goals were different from Vermeer's, and with no evidence to the contrary we have to assume that he fulfilled them to something like his own satisfaction. Given this, and looking at his "Blue Poles," I'm curious as to why you use it as an example for comparison. Is it just a question about composition? My first impression would be that things could be altered and shifted around in the painting without damage to its design quality. Vermeer's sense of design is more precise; you can't mess with it without throwing the whole thing off kilter.
> 
> https://uploads0.wikiart.org/images/jackson-pollock/blue-poles-number-11-1.jpg
> 
> In your last paragraph you list a few different "concepts" of greatness. I don't think that's what they are. I think they're simply different qualities that can contribute, if they exist in sufficient degree, to making a work outstanding.


Your write emotively on this score, but you are simply glossing over the very obvious fact that what some people find great, others do not.

Some people find blue poles to be a great, vital work of art representing the primordial wellspring of the unconscious and are left cold by the baroque security and rationalism of a vermeer - however well crafted.

You might say they are ignoring this and that technique, however by doing so you are simply demanding/assuming your own concept of artistic greatness be/is the 'correct' one.

I happen to agree with your judgements on vermeer vs pollock, for what it's worth.


----------



## Strange Magic

MatthewWeflen said:


> I agree. I don't particularly like the Beatles. But I acknowledge their "greatness" given how many other people do like them. I can see how influential they were, and how much enjoyment people who aren't me derive from the music.
> 
> This is why I think "greatness" is a category that is assigned outside of subjectivity, in the realm of collective action, even when it is arrived at individually via the subjective experience of enjoyment/enthrallment/emotional response.


Yes. Here is a place for "greatness": it is as a synonym for "influential", "popular" among defined audiences, and--similarly--"enjoyed" by defined audiences. And perceived reputation among key groups is key, as few wish to go far astray. We can measure via polling /voting these various responses, and compile lists and rankings of great accuracy.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> It may be irrelevant to that particular listener, but if someone who doesn't like Beethoven's music doesn't know or accept that he was a great composer then they don't know much about classical music in general or are just being silly.


Getting close to religion here. Perhaps appeals to Papal Infallibility will help the undecided.

I happen to love Vermeer (returning to our discussions of artists), but I happen to love Albert Plnkham Ryder more, though he clearly knew (and cared) less about the mechanics of painting than most other artists, as is shown by the ravages that time has wrought on many of his works. Yet there is a strange illumination of Ryder's scenes--landscapes, seascapes--from within rather than from without, and they are haunting. I believe the Popes of Assertion of Greatness rank Vermeer above Ryder in the canon, or maybe they don't, but it is here that the idea of the primacy of ones' individual experience of art is clearly displayed.


----------



## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> Getting close to religion here. Perhaps appeals to Papal Infallibility will help the undecided.
> 
> .


Please! Don't lump everyone in your misunderstanding!


----------



## apricissimus

NoCoPilot said:


> I vote "it depends." Some people think hip-hop is the best music ever put out, and I can't tell 'em they're wrong. *But objectively, it's not the most complex or intellectually challenging music out there.* Personal taste depends a lot on what you've been exposed to.


Again it depends on your perspective. Hip hop is much more complex and intellectually challenging (typically) than classical music in terms of vocal rhythm/candence and lyrical inventiveness. Saying that hip hop is "objectively" not complex or intellectually challenging" is showing a bias toward some musical aspects (like harmony or melodicism, for example) over others. (But there's nothing wrong with _preferring_ music that's strong or more complex in those aspects, of course).


----------



## Strange Magic

Handelian said:


> Please! Don't lump everyone in your misunderstanding!


If I knew what this meant, I might be either offended or pleased.


----------



## apricissimus

I voted in favor of total subjectivity. I'm not 100% sure that it's _totally_ subjective, but I think it's probably _almost_ totally subjective.


----------



## Fabulin

Where two argue, at least one is wrong. :devil:


----------



## chu42

NoCoPilot said:


> I vote "it depends." Some people think hip-hop is the best music ever put out, and I can't tell 'em they're wrong. But objectively, it's not the most complex or intellectually challenging music out there. Personal taste depends a lot on what you've been exposed to.


There is a wide range of hip hop music. The best of it is extremely complex or intellectually stimulating, much more so than pop or country, because the experimental factors that are possible through a wide range of idioms. It's not any genre's fault that the most popular tracks aren't typically the best tracks-one could say the same for classical music.


----------



## SanAntone

chu42 said:


> There is a wide range of hip hop music. The best of it is extremely complex or intellectually stimulating, much more so than pop or country, because the experimental factors that are possible through a wide range of idioms. It's not any genre's fault that the most popular tracks aren't typically the best tracks-one could say the same for classical music.


There is a wide range of pop and country and the best country songs are extremely well written and rank up there with the best music. When I see comments like yours I have to assume you haven't listened to a wide variety of country songs. Saying hip-hop is better than pop and country is no different then those people who say classical music is better than any other music.

The best of any genre is the best.

But what some people do is compare the best of one genre against the mediocre of another genre to make their point.


----------



## chu42

SanAntone said:


> There is a wide range of pop and country and the best country songs are extremely well written and rank up there with the best music. When I see comments like yours I have to assume you haven't listened to a wide variety of country songs. Saying hip-hop is better than pop and country is no different then those people who say classical music is better than any other music.
> 
> The best of any genre is the best.
> 
> But what some people do is compare the best of one genre against the mediocre of another genre to make their point.


Incorrect. I never said any of these genres were better or worse. What I meant is that there is more possible complexity in genres like hip-hop, electronic music, jazz, alternative rock, and classical music because the far end of these genres are highly experimental and diversified, while pop and country is not.

There are extremely well-crafted and well-written pop and country ballades. Does not change the idea that they have lower levels of experimentation going on-not including the general progression within a musical genre. There is no such thing as "underground" pop (because by definition it is not "pop"), and there is no "underground" country music as far as I can tell. There is no equivalent of Frank Zappa, ELP, Ligeti, Kendrick Lamar, or Death Grips in pop or country.

But perhaps this is a naive statement out of my own ignorance, so you can go ahead and prove me wrong. Show me some pop or country songs that can be considered avant-garde.


----------



## SanAntone

chu42 said:


> Incorrect. I never said any of these genres were better or worse. What I meant is that there is more possible complexity in genres like hip-hop, electronic music, jazz, alternative rock, and classical music because the far end of these genres are highly experimental and diversified, while pop and country is not.
> 
> There are extremely well-crafted and well-written pop and country ballades. Does not change the idea that they have lower levels of experimentation going on-not including the general progression within a musical genre. There is no such thing as "underground" pop (because by definition it is not "pop"), and there is no "underground" country music as far as I can tell. There is no equivalent of Frank Zappa, ELP, Ligeti, Kendrick Lamar, or Death Grips in pop or country.
> 
> But perhaps this is a naive statement out of my own ignorance, so you can go ahead and prove me wrong. Show me some pop or country songs that can be considered avant-garde.


You are stating that one idea of complexity, or experimentation or the existence of an "avant-garde" translates as better or greater music. I don't agree that music exhibiting those attributes is better than a song like Me and Bobbie McGee or Pancho and Lefty, which I think just two examples of the best writing, with a sophistication all their own.

This is why I have said again and again these judgments are subjective based on personal taste and exposure to certain kinds of music more than others.


----------



## chu42

SanAntone said:


> You are stating that one idea of complexity, or experimentation or the existence of an "avant-garde" translates as better or greater music. I don't agree that music exhibiting those attributes is better than a song like Me and Bobbie McGee or Pancho and Lefty, which I think just two examples of the best writing, with a sophistication all their own.
> 
> This is why I have said again and again these judgments are subjective based on personal taste and exposure to certain kinds of music more than others.


My first sentence was that I never said any of these genres were better or worse.

Also, I revise my original statement. I suppose one could consider Bjork to be avant-garde pop, but of course she straddles a lot of genres.

I do believe there are genres designed to appeal to a certain, specific idiom and thus inherently discourage over-experimentation-this includes most of pop, country, R&B, and easy-listening music. Of course there are still great works of art in all of these genres, excluding maybe the latter.


----------



## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> Your write emotively on this score, but you are simply glossing over the very obvious fact that what some people find great, others do not.


I'm not glossing over that "fact." I'm simply asserting that it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that the concept of greatness is invalid, and it doesn't mean that human beings are incapable of recognizing great music when they hear it. It can mean nothing more than that people use words differently.



> Some people find blue poles to be a great, vital work of art representing the primordial wellspring of the unconscious and are left cold by the baroque security and rationalism of a vermeer - however well crafted.


After wondering what the "primordial wellspring of the unconscious" is, my primary observation would be that "some people," somewhere, are sure to think anything you can imagine and plenty that you can't. When it comes to art, no interpretation is "wrong" held in the privacy of a person's mind; if Arnie next door hears an announcement of the Last Judgment in a Justin Bieber song and the attack of giant hornets in Sibelius he's entitled to his thoughts. But private interpretations may very well have nothing to do with the things they're interpretations of. The plausible interpretations of works of art are not unlimited; a work of art consists of some things and not others. Vermeer's work clearly does reflect the "rationalism" of his culture - that is demonstrable, and not a private fantasy like "the wellsprings of the unconscious" - but reflecting the rationalism of one's culture isn't a defect, and it isn't the only thing found in the works of Vermeer. The determinant of his stature as a painter is not whether someone finds his cultural tradition appealing but whether what he has set out to do is a large, challenging and original task and whether he's performed it with extraordinary skill. If the Arnies of the world don't understand and can't appreciate his brilliance, they're simply missing out.



> You might say they are ignoring this and that technique, however by doing so you are simply demanding/assuming your own concept of artistic greatness be/is the 'correct' one.


My concept of artistic greatness doesn't require anything as specific as you're imagining. It can embrace Ali Akbar Khan and Miles Davis as well as Igor Stravinsky and Maria Callas. What it does require is the achievement of something exceptional, difficult, meaningful, and enduring. There's always room for disagreement about what art is saying, not only because people are different but because works of art are not generally statements with only a single meaning but are rather symbolic and many-faceted representations with numerous implications and possible readings. But not every opinion of every work of art is plausibly based in that work's actual qualities. You can enjoy feeling as if Pollock brings you into contact with the "primordial wellspring of the unconscious," but if you're going to try to explain what that is and show us where you're seeing it in "Blue Poles" you may have to pass around the psychotropic mushrooms.



> I happen to agree with your judgements on vermeer vs pollock, for what it's worth.


I have never, in 71 years, seen anyone dispute Vermeer's greatness. I seriously hope no one here tries to.


----------



## SanAntone

> I have never, in 71 years, seen anyone dispute Vermeer's greatness. I seriously hope no one here tries to.


I happen to value Jackson Pollock more than Vermeer. Does that mean I question Vermeer's greatness? I dunno, greatness is not an issue I think about when I look at art. Pollock is just more interesting to me than Vermeer.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Getting close to religion here. Perhaps appeals to Papal Infallibility will help the undecided.
> 
> I happen to love Vermeer (returning to our discussions of artists), but I happen to love Albert Plnkham Ryder more, though he clearly knew (and cared) less about the mechanics of painting than most other artists, as is shown by the ravages that time has wrought on many of his works. Yet there is a strange illumination of Ryder's scenes--landscapes, seascapes--from within rather than from without, and they are haunting. I believe the Popes of Assertion of Greatness rank Vermeer above Ryder in the canon, or maybe they don't, but it is here that the idea of the primacy of ones' individual experience of art is clearly displayed.


Vermeer and Ryder are both extraordinary artists. I love them both too. They express much different aspects of the human experience. Why worry about "ranking" and "the canon"?


----------



## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> I happen to value Jackson Pollock more than Vermeer. Does that mean I question Vermeer's greatness? I dunno, greatness is not an issue I think about when I look at art. Pollock is just more interesting to me than Vermeer.


Nothing wrong with preferences. I don't know whether you question Vermeer's greatness. Only you can know that. "Greatness" isn't an "issue" for me either. It becomes one only when people say it isn't real.

I'm a painter. I have stood before actual Vermeer paintings (not merely reproductions) for twenty minutes in a state of wonder, unable to comprehend how they can even exist. I find Pollock easy to comprehend. There just isn't that much to wonder about. Other people will have other reactions. They're welcome to them.

This is tiring me out.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> Other people will have other reactions.


If we have to describe that phenomenon in one word...


----------



## Coach G

"Do you believe in total subjectivity concerning the evaluation of music's merits?"

I think it can be agreed upon that certain works of art, architecture, literature, and music are "masterpieces". Though much of the evaluation is subjective, I think that when it comes to the craft and craftsmanship, certain criteria can be established. Whether you like Mozart or not, his skills as a craftsman can't be argued against, as the seamless beauty in Mozart gives the illusion that the music is almost writing itself. As different as they are from one another, I think that Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg are all great craftsman, and except for Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_, they were all composers that I really didn't learn to enjoy until I reached middle-age. I guess as I'm getting older it brings me joy to see a piece of art that demonstrates the incredible lengths the artist went to just to weave together an intricate tapestry where even in it's complexity, everything is tight and has an order and reason for being.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Woodduck said:


> In my estimation, Vermeer's weakest work is light years beyond anything Pollock ever did. Of course Pollock's artistic goals were different from Vermeer's, and with no evidence to the contrary we have to assume that he fulfilled them to something like his own satisfaction. Given this, and looking at his "Blue Poles," I'm curious as to why you use it as an example for comparison. Is it just a question about composition? My first impression would be that things could be altered and shifted around in the painting without damage to its design quality. Vermeer's sense of design is more precise; you can't mess with it without throwing the whole thing off kilter.


I know very little about visual arts, but looking at "Blue Poles", I notice a certain beauty and elegance (weird way to describe it, but I'm not sure how better to) in its arrangement and design. Perhaps "things could be moved around" without "damage to its design quality", though I suspect doing so would at least present significant _changes_ to the design quality. What do you think (for example) you could move around that wouldn't disturb its current affect, and why? Furthermore, does this mean it isn't a great work of art? Tight compositional structure is only one approach to creating great art; it seems to me there are other (equally valid) approaches: free improvisation, for example. Conversely, a melody like "Jingle Bells" doesn't seem to present much that you can tinker with without "damage to the design quality". Does this make it a great work of art?


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## Pat Fairlea

Some people can see transcendental beauty in an equation, some can hear great music in the sound of the wind, others see great art in landscape gardening. 

That's all I'm saying on this topic. 

Apart, obviously, from Vermeer was a genius.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Getting close to religion here. Perhaps appeals to Papal Infallibility will help the undecided.
> 
> I happen to love Vermeer (returning to our discussions of artists), but I happen to love Albert Plnkham Ryder more, though he clearly knew (and cared) less about the mechanics of painting than most other artists, as is shown by the ravages that time has wrought on many of his works. Yet there is a strange illumination of Ryder's scenes--landscapes, seascapes--from within rather than from without, and they are haunting. I believe the Popes of Assertion of Greatness rank Vermeer above Ryder in the canon, or maybe they don't, but it is here that the idea of the primacy of ones' individual experience of art is clearly displayed.


But this isn't all about you and what you like and don't like. Greatness is about those with superior skills in the arts that is appreciated not only by a significant audience, but also a significant number of peers who also are experts in the field.

Obviously, each individual brings subjectivity into the appreciation of the arts. Given the difference in age, personality, experience and overall life history of these individuals, why is it that you don't appreciate the greatness in the skill that is required to create something that appeals to the masses of these individuals consistently over generations and the objective evidence of the accomplishment thereof.

Res ipsa loquitur

( -the Latin added to give the post gravitas as you like to do. )


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> But this isn't all about you and what you like and don't like. Greatness is about those with superior skills in the arts that is appreciated not only by a significant audience, but also a significant number of peers who also are experts in the field.
> 
> Obviously, each individual brings subjectivity into the appreciation of the arts. Given the difference in age, personality, experience and overall life history of these individuals, why is it that you don't appreciate the greatness in the skill that is required to create something that appeals to the masses of these individuals consistently over generations and the objective evidence of the accomplishment thereof.
> 
> Res ipsa loquitur
> 
> ( -the Latin added to give the post gravitas as you like to do. )


Who says I don't appreciate the greatness of the skill, etc., etc.? Besides, in my formulation, it is all about what I like and don't like. Also concerning the objective evidence--if you mean something beside or beyond the actual physical existence of the art object itself--if you mean the significance to me as a reasonably well educated, thoughtful, appreciative absorber/enjoyer of music and the other arts, well, that's for me to evaluate and decide. And to everybody else, likewise, I grant all the freedoms I enjoy.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Vermeer and Ryder are both extraordinary artists. I love them both too. They express much different aspects of the human experience. Why worry about "ranking" and "the canon"?


I agree. Let's pledge not to worry about the canon. We need to worry much more about the cannon. I tend to like the cañons I've seen; they are often profound.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Who says I don't appreciate the greatness of the skill, etc., etc.? Besides, in my formulation, it is all about what I like and don't like. Also concerning the objective evidence--if you mean something beside or beyond the actual physical existence of the art object itself--if you mean the significance to me as a reasonably well educated, thoughtful, appreciative absorber/enjoyer of music and the other arts, well, that's for me to evaluate and decide. And to everybody else, likewise, I grant all the freedoms I enjoy.


Non responsive.....


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Non responsive.....


Why not craft an answer for me that better suits? As I have posted along these lines now for literally years, it still seems that I am not making myself crystal-clear, and for that, _mea culpa_ (a liitle more Latin).


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## Woodduck

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I know very little about visual arts, but looking at "Blue Poles", I notice a certain beauty and elegance (weird way to describe it, but I'm not sure how better to) in its arrangement and design. Perhaps "things could be moved around" without "damage to its design quality", though I suspect doing so would at least present significant _changes_ to the design quality. What do you think (for example) you could move around that wouldn't disturb its current affect, and why? Furthermore, does this mean it isn't a great work of art? Tight compositional structure is only one approach to creating great art; it seems to me there are other (equally valid) approaches: free improvisation, for example. Conversely, a melody like "Jingle Bells" doesn't seem to present much that you can tinker with without "damage to the design quality". Does this make it a great work of art?


Good questions. On "Blue Poles," I would say that the angles of the poles (why poles? they look more like trees) and the placement of the "branches" could have been different in any number of ways without changing the effect of the picture. Pollock could have created a "Blue Poles II" and a "Blue Poles III" and beyond, and all the variants could have been essentially alike in effect. That doesn't make any of them poor as art; artists often paint a series of works on a theme. But it's certainly a lesser achievement than a work that takes on and solves unique problems of design and expression, a work where everything has a reason for being just so and not otherwise. That's what "good composition" is, in its broadest sense, and artists of all kinds are forever striving to "get it right." There are kinds of art where composition is less important than other factors; musical improvisation, as you suggest, can be expressive and interesting without trying for an overall design, but that doesn't obviate the need for design - i.e., coherence - on a more moment-by-moment basis. Randomness and chaos have uses in art, but music that seems not to know what it's doing isn't much of an achievement and isn't going to get very far in the world.

I can't think of a reason to call "Jingle Bells" a great work of art, but I'd be willing to call it a good tune. It's catchy, memorable, and fun, and it expresses its lyrics effectively. One criterion of quality in art is that it achieve what it sets out to do. "Jingle Bells" certainly does that.


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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> I'm not glossing over that "fact." [that different people find different art I'm simply asserting that it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that the concept of greatness is invalid, and it doesn't mean that human beings are incapable of recognizing great music when they hear it. *It can mean nothing more than that people use words differently*.


But this, my friend, means (in its own way - I am taking a slightly different line on the subjective vs objective issue) nothing less than what you are arguing against: greatness in art is 'subjective'.



Woodduck said:


> *My concept of artistic greatness*[!] doesn't require anything as specific as you're imagining. It can embrace Ali Akbar Khan and Miles Davis as well as Igor Stravinsky and Maria Callas. *What it does require is the achievement of something exceptional, difficult, meaningful, and enduring*


What some people find exceptional, others do not. What some find meaningful, others do not. People find Pollock exceptional and meaningful, you do not (if not you, plentry of others, including me). There is no objective way to judge the former as wrong and the latter as right. Why? AGAIN, because there is no one concept of artistic greatness to fall back on[1]. Blue Poles also endures, at least so far (my government paid millions for blue poles and it remains a popular drawcard in the national gallery).

Your position seems to be that different concepts of greatness does not sully the fact that greatness in art is one (set of) thing(s).

But how? The features of the world your concept of greatness pick out, other peoples' leave completely undisturbed.

My two-cents again: rather than fight to show that one's own preferred features of art are the Great ones, instead focus on persuading others to see these features, and by doing so, appreciate them. Doing the former is only going to ruffle feathers. Doing the latter might just get you closer to your goal in the end: causing other people's concept of artistic greatness to converge on your own.

---

1. Compare this to the concept of 'chair'. There is much more agreement about what objective things in the world the concept 'chair' picks out. Ergo, there are not these kind of debates about whether chairs actually exist.


----------



## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> But this, my friend, means (in its own way - I am taking a slightly different line on the subjective vs objective issue) nothing less than what you are arguing against: greatness in art is 'subjective'.


No, it doesn't mean that. If people have apparently opposing positions but are using the same words to mean different things, neither of their positions can be affirmed. Nothing will get done so long as they're talking around and past each other.



> What some people find exceptional, others do not.


Are Beethoven's late quartets _exceptional_ in identifiable ways or are they standard-issue Classical works? This isn't a hard question.



> What some find meaningful, others do not.


What people "find" doesn't mean much. There's a hell of a lot more meaning in Schubert's _Erlkonig_ than in "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," regardless of what people think they're finding when they listen to them.



> People find Pollock exceptional and meaningful, you do not (if not you, plentry of others, including me). There is no objective way to judge the former as wrong and the latter as right.


Again, what is actually in a Pollock painting? Anyone can project anything they wish onto an artwork, but that may tell us little about the artwork.



> because there is no one concept of artistic greatness to fall back on.


We don't need just one concept. We just need to agree on what we're talking about.



> Your position seems to be that different concepts of greatness does not sully the fact that greatness in art is one (set of) thing(s).


Hey, I'm open to two sets of things! :lol: Greatness can manifest in lots of ways. I'm quite educable, so Pollock fans can speak freely.



> The features of the world your concept of greatness pick out, other peoples' leave completely undisturbed.


I wonder what you think my concept of greatness consists of.



> My two-cents again: rather than fight to show that one's own preferred features of art are the Great ones, instead focus on persuading others to see these features, and by doing so, appreciate them. Doing the former is only going to ruffle feathers. Doing the latter might just get you closer to your goal in the end: causing other people's concept of artistic greatness to converge on your own.


Showing people the features of art and explaining what's good about them takes a lot of work, and assumes that the art is before us to study. I'm afraid I have no inclination to work that hard for people who are committed in principle to the position that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination.


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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> No, it doesn't mean that. If people have apparently opposing positions but are using the same words to mean different things, neither of their positions can be affirmed. Nothing will get done so long as they're talking around and past each other.


This is kinda what I've been saying. Different people/groups have different concepts of 'greatness', causing debates like these.



Woodduck said:


> Are Beethoven's late quartets _exceptional_ in identifiable ways or are they standard-issue Classical works? This isn't a hard question.


Of course they are 'exceptional' (in the sense of being novel). But this doesn't mean, to me, that they are 'great'. What's your point here? Is 'exceptional' one feature of your own concept of artistic greatness? So what? This doesn't speak to my main contention, which I think is *completely bloody obvious*, that different people hold different concepts of artistic greatness.



Woodduck said:


> Showing people the features of art and explaining what's good about them takes a lot of work, and assumes that the art is before us to study. I'm afraid I have no inclination to work that hard for people who are committed in principle to the position that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination.


You aren't understanding me. I don't think greatness is a figment of the imagination. I think greatness depends on one's definition of it[1]. You should really try to wrap your head around divergent opinions, in this case about the issue of subjective vs objective and how this is illuminated by thinking about divergent concepts. It's not just wise-old-you who has anything worth reading around here (although you are one of the most interesting posters).

---

[1] What is greatness in art? This depends on the MEANING OF THE CONCEPT 'GREATNESS'! For God's sake - imagine trying to discover whether genes actually exist in the molecular biological machinery of organisms without having a good definition of WHAT A GENE IS (unit of hereditary, obeying certain laws identified by Mendel, etc.)!

As it happens, and unlike the concept 'gene', the concept of 'artistic greatness' is simply so heterogeneous as to admit to little agreement - therefore, when it's time to actually look at the world to find those aspects of objective reality referred to by 'artistic greatness', there is LITTLE AGREEMENT.


----------



## science

One of the questions I have about this thread is whether I am supposed to evaluate music's merits. _Is_ that what I'm supposed to do?

I haven't usually bothered about anything like that. Do I need to set out to get the relevant expertise, or can I just go on enjoying the music without judgment?


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## Strange Magic

> Woodduck: "Showing people the features of art and explaining what's good about them takes a lot of work, and assumes that the art is before us to study. I'm afraid I have no inclination to work that hard for people who are committed in principle to the position that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination."


Perhaps there is confusion raised by your phrase "committed to the principle that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination.". This can be interpreted to mean A) some people believe greatness does not exist at all (except possibly only in the imaginations of believers), or B) it is precisely in the imagination (of everyone) that greatness exists.

I hold to the latter view--that greatness in the arts can and does exist but it is found precisely in the minds (imaginations) of the perceivers of art. It does not inhere within the artwork itself but rather in the relationship that the perceiver establishes with the neutral, inert artwork. Art just is. It has many properties ripe for analysis and precise measurement but greatness is not one of them. This concept over and over appears to be incomprehensible to many, yet is key to my assessment of the relationship between art and its perception.


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## Strange Magic

science said:


> One of the questions I have about this thread is whether I am supposed to evaluate music's merits. _Is_ that what I'm supposed to do?
> 
> I haven't usually bothered about anything like that. Do I need to set out to get the relevant expertise, or can I just go on enjoying the music without judgment?


----------



## RogerWaters

Strange Magic said:


> I hold to the latter view--that greatness in the arts can and does exist but it is found precisely in the minds (imaginations) of the perceivers of art. It does not inhere within the artwork itself but rather in the relationship that the perceiver establishes with the neutral, inert artwork. Art just is. It has many properties ripe for analysis and precise measurement but greatness is not one of them. This concept over and over appears to be incomprehensible to many, yet is key to my assessment of the relationship between art and its perception.


Right. 'Greatness' is a concept ('subjective', in these sense it is not a concrete objective thing in the world). As a concept, it picks out certain things in the world, just like 'doll' or 'tantrum' do. More accurately, it is a set of _closely related but different concepts_ - hence the disagreement on 'great works of art'.


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## BachIsBest

science said:


> One of the questions I have about this thread is whether I am supposed to evaluate music's merits. _Is_ that what I'm supposed to do?
> 
> I haven't usually bothered about anything like that. Do I need to set out to get the relevant expertise, or can I just go on enjoying the music without judgment?


You can if you want.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Perhaps there is confusion raised by your phrase "committed to the principle that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination.". This can be interpreted to mean A) some people believe greatness does not exist at all (except possibly only in the imaginations of believers), or B) it is precisely in the imagination (of everyone) that greatness exists.
> 
> I hold to the latter view--that greatness in the arts can and does exist but it is found precisely in the minds (imaginations) of the perceivers of art. It does not inhere within the artwork itself but rather in the relationship that the perceiver establishes with the neutral, inert artwork. Art just is. It has many properties ripe for analysis and precise measurement but greatness is not one of them. This concept over and over appears to be incomprehensible to many, yet is key to my assessment of the relationship between art and its perception.


The problem with this - and it's a problem for me but evidently not for you - is that, by your view, ANYTHING AT ALL can be "great" if someone wants to attach that word to it. This makes the very idea of excellence, and the artist's belief in it and striving after it, a delusion. I repeat: you are "committed to the principle that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination."

You have to choose. Either art can possess degrees of quality or it can't.


----------



## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> This is kinda what I've been saying. Different people/groups have different concepts of 'greatness', causing debates like these.
> 
> Of course they are 'exceptional' (in the sense of being novel). But this doesn't mean, to me, that they are 'great'. What's your point here? Is 'exceptional' one feature of your own concept of artistic greatness? So what? This doesn't speak to my main contention, which I think is *completely bloody obvious*, that different people hold different concepts of artistic greatness.
> 
> You aren't understanding me. I don't think greatness is a figment of the imagination. I think greatness depends on one's definition of it[1]. You should really try to wrap your head around divergent opinions, in this case about the issue of subjective vs objective and how this is illuminated by thinking about divergent concepts. It's not just wise-old-you who has anything worth reading around here (although you are one of the most interesting posters).
> 
> ---
> 
> [1] What is greatness in art? This depends on the MEANING OF THE CONCEPT 'GREATNESS'! For God's sake - imagine trying to discover whether genes actually exist in the molecular biological machinery of organisms without having a good definition of WHAT A GENE IS (unit of hereditary, obeying certain laws identified by Mendel, etc.)!
> 
> As it happens, and unlike the concept 'gene', the concept of 'artistic greatness' is simply so heterogeneous as to admit to little agreement - therefore, when it's time to actually look at the world to find those aspects of objective reality referred to by 'artistic greatness', there is LITTLE AGREEMENT.


As I just said to Strange Magic, art can either exhibit actual quality or it can't. The view that all artistic values are "subjective" means, quite literally, that art can't be good, bad, better, worse, trivial, profound, or anything else indicative of quality. It means that, intrinsically, all art is of equal quality, regardless of what qualities (plural) an artist has put into it.

No matter how often I have this discussion, i can't quite believe it.


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## DjPooChoo

Woodduck said:


> As I just said to Strange Magic, art can either exhibit actual quality or it can't. The view that all artistic values are "subjective" means, quite literally, that art can't be good, bad, better, worse, trivial, profound, or anything else indicative of quality. It means that, intrinsically, all art is of equal quality, regardless of what qualities (plural) an artist has put into it.
> 
> No matter how often I have this discussion, i can't quite believe it.


You should feel special. It's the power of _your_ imagination that makes Beethoven's 9th great. Beethoven had nothign to do with it.


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## Woodduck

DjPooChoo said:


> You should feel special. It's the power of _your_ imagination that makes Beethoven's 9th great. Beethoven had nothign to do with it.


Gosh. I didn't know my own strength. Seid umschlungen, Millionen!


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## hammeredklavier




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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> As I just said to Strange Magic, art can either exhibit actual quality or it can't. The view that all artistic values are "subjective" means, quite literally, that art can't be good, bad, better, worse, trivial, profound, or anything else indicative of quality. *It means that, intrinsically, all art is of equal quality, regardless of what qualities (plural) an artist has put into it.*
> 
> No matter how often I have this discussion, i can't quite believe it.


You have your standards by which all art is not equal. Most people do too, however they would rank different qualities differently from what you do.

'Intrinsically speaking', though, of course all art is of equal value (that is to say, it is of zero intrinsic value, in and of itself, without the reactive attitudes of human beings). How on earth _could_ art be valuable aside from the reactive attitudes of human beings?! And after you've admitted this, then you have to contend with the fact different human beings have different reactive attitudes...


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## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> *It means that, intrinsically, all art is of equal quality, regardless of what qualities (plural) an artist has put into it.*


The issue here is your forcing of the objective definition, all equal in 'quality.' Quality isn't an objective definition, therefore art does not have this definition 'all equal in quality.' You must find an objective (factual) definition if you want to communicate with us humans, for instance: _influential, written by prolific artists, favored by popular critics,_ are 'qualities' (a different word) that have nothing to do with 'quality' (a subjective, depending one.) Even _'reminds me of greatness'_ is an objective fact, because you're using the correct words _'reminds me'_ to describe a fact. If you said 'it is _objectively great'_, you would be writing in some kind of fictional language for fiction stories. It wouldn't be computable to most people.


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## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> The issue here is your forcing of the objective definition, all equal in 'quality.' Quality isn't an objective definition, therefore art does not have this definition 'all equal in quality.' You must find an objective (factual) definition if you want to communicate with us humans, for instance: _influential, written by prolific artists,_ are 'qualities' (a different word) that have nothing to do with 'quality' (a subjective, depending one.) Even _'reminds me of greatness'_ is an objective factual quality, because you're simply stating an opinion you have.


Every time you speak to me you find a new insult. Now it's "if you want to communicate with us humans." What's your problem? Did you get dropped in the toilet in infancy? It has to be something.


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## Ethereality

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓



> DjPooChoo said:
> 
> 
> 
> You should feel special. It's the power of _your_ imagination that makes Beethoven's 9th great. Beethoven had nothign to do with it.
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure why you say that. Many people of experience find Beethoven's 9th to be great personally, because humans come from one another, but no true path or objective for the existence of musical greatness has ever been proven likely, as humanity has been more subject to change and evolution of standards and opinions than an ability to locate any static, permanent standard of 'beauty' or 'meaning'. The latter will never happen, as diversification is the cause of all things we can measure.
> 
> To give my input on this then, there are _certain_ people arguing in sane manners that objective greatness exists, and I agree with them, because great is an objective term, it means big or influential. However I don't like to focus on greatness, I prefer looking at subjective acclaim and criticism: Many experienced listeners and critics have noted qualities in the Big 3 they enjoy immensely. *That's it.*
> 
> Finally, to tie this to the thread question, "Do you believe in total subjectivity concerning the evaluation of music's merits?" the answer is yes. While many of us have similar musical preferences, none of these preferences are objective. Objectivity concerns facts only. The radical subjectivist will continue arguing that these qualities enjoyed are objective to all humans, and as long as their fantasies and fiction writings don't include everyone, they can be right.
Click to expand...


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## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> You have your standards by which all art is not equal. Most people do too, however they would rank different qualities differently from what you do.
> 
> 'Intrinsically speaking', though, of course all art is of equal value (that is to say, it is of zero intrinsic value, in and of itself, without the reactive attitudes of human beings). How on earth _could_ art be meaningful aside from the attitudes of human beings?! And after you've admitted this, then you have to contend with the fact different human beings have different reactive attitudes...


Since the act of valuing necessitates a valuer, you are correct in saying that, in this sense, art has no intrinsic value. In this sense, _nothing_ has intrinsic value. However, there are things of value to human beings _as such_ of which art can give evidence and to which it can give perceptible representation, and this is true even if a given specimen of art possessing these values is not valued by a particular individual. For example, two universal values of human beings are intelligence and competence. Can art, in the choices the artist makes, show degrees of intelligence and competence at work, and can it give these abstract values sensuous representation? It should be obvious that it can, both in its physical design and in its subject matter. It can be purposefully composed and finely executed, or it can be aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution. It makes perfect sense to consider art of the former kind superior to art of the latter kind, all else being equal (please note the qualification), and the general judgment of people everywhere and through all time confers positive subjective valuation on these objectively present traits. When people see or hear work in which these values are embodied, they naturally respond with pleasure and approval. What sort of human being would respond with displeasure and disapproval?

I'll stop there and let you respond.


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## Ethereality

DjPooChoo said:


> You should feel special. It's the power of _your_ imagination that makes Beethoven's 9th great. Beethoven had nothign to do with it.


Not sure why you say that. Many people of experience find Beethoven's 9th to be great personally, because humans come from one another, but no true path or objective for the existence of musical greatness has ever been proven likely, as humanity has been more subject to change and evolution of standards and opinions than an ability to locate any static, permanent standard of 'beauty' or 'meaning'. The latter will never happen, as diversification is the cause of all things we can measure.

To give my input on this then, there are _certain_ people arguing in sane manners that objective greatness exists, and I agree with them, because great is an objective term, it means big or influential. However I don't like to focus on greatness, I prefer looking at subjective acclaim and criticism: Many experienced listeners and critics have noted qualities in the Big 3 they enjoy immensely. *That's it.* 

Finally, to tie this to the thread question, "Do you believe in total subjectivity concerning the evaluation of music's merits?" the answer is yes. While many of us have similar musical preferences, none of these preferences are objective. Objectivity concerns facts only. The radical subjectivist will continue arguing that these qualities enjoyed are objective to all humans, and as long as their fantasies and fiction writings don't include everyone, they can be right.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> The problem with this - and it's a problem for me but evidently not for you - is that, by your view, *ANYTHING AT ALL can be "great" if someone wants to attach that word to it.* This makes the very idea of excellence, and the artist's belief in it and striving after it, a delusion. I repeat: you are "committed to the principle that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination."
> 
> You have to choose. Either art can possess degrees of quality or it can't.


I believe we are getting somewhere. In place of "wants to attach that word (great) to it", we say 'if someone thinks it's great". This does no violence at all to the very idea of excellence--it merely brings it into the area where it belongs, the perception of the perceiver of the artwork and the separate perception of the artist as individuals. The artist still strives all they want; no one is stopping them. The artist's striving for excellence is no delusion, or need not be. Let's consider both Ravel's _Bolero_ and Rachmaninoff's C-Sharp Minor _Prelude_: we have here two pieces--one a bit of hackwork, the other a bagatelle on the testimony of their creators. Both pieces are regarded as mini-masterpieces by millions, yet there is a disjunct between the artists' strivings for excellence and a perceived excellence in the ears and minds of the audotors (many of them).

I have chosen ("You have to choose."). Art just is. It has many qualities, but greatness is not one of them.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Since the act of valuing necessitates a valuer, you are correct in saying that, in this sense, art has no intrinsic value. In this sense, _nothing_ has intrinsic value. However, there are things of value to human beings _as such_ of which art can give evidence and to which it can give perceptible representation, and this is true even if a given specimen of art possessing these values is not valued by a particular individual. For example, two universal values of human beings are intelligence and competence. Can art, in the choices the artist makes, show degrees of intelligence and competence at work, and can it give these abstract values sensuous representation? It should be obvious that it can, both in its physical design and in its subject matter. *It can be purposefully composed and finely executed, or it can be aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution.* It makes perfect sense to consider art of the former kind superior to art of the latter kind, all else being equal (please note the qualification), and the general judgment of people everywhere and through all time confers positive subjective valuation on these objectively present traits. When people see or hear work in which these values are embodied, they naturally respond with pleasure and approval. What sort of human being would respond with displeasure and disapproval?


We can run into real problems here especially in painting. Consider the aforementioned Albert Pinkham Ryder's art contrasted with the lifeless, deadly precision of Ingres or Alma-Tadema. Both Ingres and Alma-Tadema could paint circles around Ryder, but his art is both alive and mysteriously so, while the art of the other two is suffocating in its almost _kitsch_-like treatment of its subject matter.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> As I just said to Strange Magic, art can either exhibit actual quality or it can't. The view that all artistic values are "subjective" means, quite literally, that art can't be good, bad, better, worse, trivial, profound, or anything else indicative of quality. It means that, intrinsically, all art is of equal quality, regardless of what qualities (plural) an artist has put into it.
> 
> No matter how often I have this discussion, i can't quite believe it.


No, No, No. In the many minds of art's many perceivers and creators, art as an experience can be good, bad, better, worse, trivial. profound, or anything else indicative of quality--if thinking makes it so.


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## Isaac Blackburn

Strange Magic said:


> No, No, No. In the many minds of art's many perceivers and creators, art as an experience can be good, bad, better, worse, trivial. profound, or anything else indicative of quality--if thinking makes it so.


Music is made as a structure of experience, and the experience of the listener depends directly on features within the music itself.

It is true that these structures of experience presuppose human perception. An alien species with a much slower perception of time would be unable to enjoy Beethoven's Ninth, but this is only an indictment on the supposed universality of the perceptual ordering structure upon which the work was made, and _not_ the work itself.

If the alien, for example, could be induced into a human-like mode of perception, they would also believe. The work is "accessible" only from one set of perceptual parameters- it is not "bad" for aliens and "good" for humans, it is instead independently "good", and meant to be perceived as a human would perceive it.

All works of art are created as such because humans are the only species that we know of. Thus, the standard ordering structure is objective enough for us, since it encapsulates all possible forms of experience by sapient beings.

But there may come a time when we need more than one ordering structure for the work- different glasses for different eyes. If we are willing to expand the definition of a musical work to the set of all its temporal (or pitch, etc) transformations, then we could play the Ninth at half-speed to an alien species for whom time seems to pass twice as fast, or transposed to higher pitch for an alien species sensitive to a higher range of frequencies. In that case, it is even more evident that the structure itself is universally, objectively good, even if it must be presented within the perceptual range of its listener.


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## SanAntone

> The problem with this - and it's a problem for me but evidently not for you - is that, by your view, ANYTHING AT ALL can be "great" if someone wants to attach that word to it. This makes the very idea of excellence, and the artist's belief in it and striving after it, a delusion. I repeat: you are "committed to the principle that greatness in art is a figment of the imagination."


You as an artist can strive after any goal you wish. It has nothing to do with what I as an individual like, or what I might choose to call "great."



> It can be purposefully composed and finely executed, or it can be aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution.


Yes, and I might very well enjoy the latter more than the former. I might even call a work that was "aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution" great.

So sue me.


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## DjPooChoo

SanAntone said:


> Yes, and I might very well enjoy the latter more than the former. I might even call a work that was "aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution" great.
> 
> So sue me.


Good for you. And as an NBA basketball fan, I might _like_ Jeremy Lin more than Michael Jordan. Maybe I'm a New York Knicks fan. Maybe I find Jeremy Lin lovable, and I was sick and tired of seeing Jordan's Bulls in the finals every year.

But my preferences can take nothing away from Jordan's extraordinary acheivements in his field of endeavor -- his skills and ability to shoot, dribble, pass, defend or rebound at an extremely high level -- levels that exceed practically every other human being who has ever tried to pull a ball through a hoop and that are easily perceptible and demonstratable to anyone who understands the sport -- illustrate not only his natural gift but a high degree of motivation and drive to dedicate exceptional amounts of time into his craft. By any measure, Michael Jordan was a great basketball player -- and I might only grudgingly admit that, not being a fan of him or his team, and in any case it neither diminishes nor increases my enjoyment of the game to acknowledge and recognize the obvious.

If I were to talk to other NBA Basketball fans and tell them an extremely ordinary player like Jeremy Lin was a greater basketball player than Michael Jordan, they wouldn't be able to sue me -- they would simply dismiss my observation as highly eccentric and most likely uninformed or biased.


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## Ingélou

No. It's not that good qualities can be proved - but nothing can be - but a well-argued case based on structure and style can be made out. I often don't like pieces of music or literature based on my personal feelings, while understanding why others value them highly.


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## Strange Magic

> Isaac Blackburn: " the experience of the listener depends directly on features within the music itself."


This is true, but incomplete. Of course the gross nature of the art, and all its measurable qualities, contributes to the experience of the listener--were there no music (excluding 4' 33"), there would be no listening. But we bring to the music experience a host of other, additional attitudes, attributes, qualities, histories, including whether we have had or a having some emotional state that will bear on the experience, or a sour stomach, or a lack or a superfluity of focus, or zero knowledge of the work or its composer--almost an infinite number and amount of personal baggage brought to the experience. As posted, your observation tells us that the artwork itself will tell all there is to tell about the experience of it. This is objectivism carried to a strange extreme, in my opinion.


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## Strange Magic

Ingélou said:


> No. It's not that good qualities can be proved - but nothing can be - but a well-argued case based on structure and style can be made out. I often don't like pieces of music or literature based on my personal feelings, while understanding why others value them highly.


A lot depends on what one means or has in mind when discussing the understanding of the tastes or preference of others in the face of one's own repugnance or disinterest. If one takes a book--_Moby Dick_, for instance--there are many, and I have met them and read of them and their explanations of why they do not or cannot enjoy the book, who just cannot enjoy it. I "understand" their objections, inasmuch as their words and explanations are in plain enough English. But it is difficult to truly internalize and become as one with their dislike of _Moby Dick_. Pick out a book or piece of music that you love passionately that you know another loathes or is unmoved by, and ask whether you really understand--deeply, internally-- why they do not like it. If you do, you must dislike it too, if the understanding be complete


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## Isaac Blackburn

Strange Magic said:


> ...But we bring to the music experience a host of other, additional attitudes, attributes, qualities, histories, including whether we have had or a having some emotional state that will bear on the experience, or a sour stomach, or a lack or a superfluity of focus, or zero knowledge of the work or its composer--almost an infinite number and amount of personal baggage brought to the experience...


If we come to the concert hall high on LSD, we may be having the most spiritual experience of our lives- but it is easy to show that such an experience does not derive from the musical structure. The score doesn't predict what our individual experience will be, but it tells us what we are listening _to_. (This can be explained by means of a hypothetical ideal listener- the score tells us what _his_ experience, when he has entered into Schopenhauer's state of pure contemplation, will be.)


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## SanAntone

DjPooChoo said:


> Good for you. And as an NBA basketball fan, I might _like_ Jeremy Lin more than Michael Jordan. Maybe I'm a New York Knicks fan. Maybe I find Jeremy Lin lovable, and I was sick and tired of seeing Jordan's Bulls in the finals every year.
> 
> But my preferences can take nothing away from Jordan's extraordinary acheivements in his field of endeavor -- his skills and ability to shoot, dribble, pass, defend or rebound at an extremely high level -- levels that exceed practically every other human being who has ever tried to pull a ball through a hoop and that are easily perceptible and demonstratable to anyone who understands the sport -- illustrate not only his natural gift but a high degree of motivation and drive to dedicate exceptional amounts of time into his craft. By any measure, Michael Jordan was a great basketball player -- and I might only grudgingly admit that, not being a fan of him or his team, and in any case it neither diminishes nor increases my enjoyment of the game to acknowledge and recognize the obvious.
> 
> If I were to talk to other NBA Basketball fans and tell them an extremely ordinary player like Jeremy Lin was a greater basketball player than Michael Jordan, they wouldn't be able to sue me -- they would simply dismiss my observation as highly eccentric and most likely uninformed or biased.


Yeah, so what?

I am not a music historian and am not out to prove that my likes are definitive of greatness. I am not afraid of what other people think of my preferences, and music quality is not as easily quantifiable as basketball statistics, so I don't have to defend my likes with anything more than, "hey, I just like it."


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## SanAntone

Ingélou said:


> No. It's not that good qualities can be proved - but nothing can be - but a well-argued case based on structure and style can be made out. I often don't like pieces of music or literature based on my personal feelings, while understanding why others value them highly.


I often don't like works that prominent experts have a well-argued case based on structure and style and can prove that the music is "great." I simply don't care if a million experts say it's great. All I care about is if I enjoy it or not. Greatness is totally irrelevant.

Again, I am not teaching a music appreciation course, not writing a music history treatise, my likes and dislikes are a private matter. I have no obligation to explain why I like something, or not, I couldn't tell you anyway. Most often I just do, and I don't want to try to put into words why I like something.

Why should I bother with that?


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## Tikoo Tuba

Zero Knowledge . That may be imagined as an objective reference . I sometimes think of Yo Yo Ma's documentary about music in a remote African village . In one scene featuring the cello , the people's unexpressive response to his Euro-music was interesting .


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## DjPooChoo

=----------------------Deleted----------------------------------


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## Isaac Blackburn

Tikoo Tuba said:


> Zero Knowledge . That may be imagined as an objective reference . I sometimes think of Yo Yo Ma's documentary about music in a remote African village . In one scene featuring the cello , the people's unexpressive response to his Euro-music was interesting .


One can't evaluate or judge anything properly if one doesn't understand it. You can't evaluate, for example, the effectiveness of an argument if you don't know what it's saying, or the literary worth of a novel if you don't understand the plot. (At most, your testimony may be interesting in regards to the work's immediate comprehensibility.) A zero-knowledge listener is thus not an objective reference for sussing out intrinsic quality.


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## DjPooChoo

SanAntone said:


> I often don't like works that prominent experts have a well-argued case based on structure and style and can prove that the music is "great." I simply don't care if a million experts say it's great. All I care about is if I enjoy it or not. Greatness is totally irrelevant.
> 
> Again, I am not teaching a music appreciation course, not writing a music history treatise, my likes and dislikes are a private matter. I have no obligation to explain why I like something, or not, I couldn't tell you anyway. Most often I just do, and I don't want to try to put into words why I like something.
> 
> Why should I bother with that?


Realizing there is more to aesthetic values than one's one personal likes and dislikes and being able to recognize artistic greatness is no bother. If you prefer not to even think about it, that's your privelage.


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## fluteman

DjPooChoo said:


> Good for you. And as an NBA basketball fan, I might _like_ Jeremy Lin more than Michael Jordan. Maybe I'm a New York Knicks fan. Maybe I find Jeremy Lin lovable, and I was sick and tired of seeing Jordan's Bulls in the finals every year.
> 
> But my preferences can take nothing away from Jordan's extraordinary acheivements in his field of endeavor -- his skills and ability to shoot, dribble, pass, defend or rebound at an extremely high level -- levels that exceed practically every other human being who has ever tried to pull a ball through a hoop and that are easily perceptible and demonstratable to anyone who understands the sport -- illustrate not only his natural gift but a high degree of motivation and drive to dedicate exceptional amounts of time into his craft. By any measure, Michael Jordan was a great basketball player -- and I might only grudgingly admit that, not being a fan of him or his team, and in any case it neither diminishes nor increases my enjoyment of the game to acknowledge and recognize the obvious.
> 
> If I were to talk to other NBA Basketball fans and tell them an extremely ordinary player like Jeremy Lin was a greater basketball player than Michael Jordan, they wouldn't be able to sue me -- they would simply dismiss my observation as highly eccentric and most likely uninformed or biased.


But art and sports are fundamentally different things, and this thread (and your comment) bring up what is probably the most fundamental difference. In sports, there is a clear, objective method for determining which athlete or team is better: the better athlete, or team, wins. In team sports, much ink is spilled arguing which individual players are the best, and a broad array of individual statistics are cited, more than ever in recent years. But those statistics are meaningful only if, and only to the extent, they correlate strongly to winning. That's why in the most popular professional sports, like basketball, ever more sophisticated statistics are devised to try to capture precisely how much individual players contribute to their team's success, i.e., winning.

The success of art can only be measured by the aesthetic, emotional or intellectual impact it has on the audience. But what audience are we considering? Only people in a specific time and place? People from a particular culture or country, but across many eras, or even centuries? People from many cultures or countries and across many eras? Do we value art that has had a significant impact on Western culture more highly than that that has had a significant impact on non-Western cultures? And how do we measure impact? Do we care how large the audience is, or what its makeup is, or both in some proportion? What if a work of art itself is little known, but has a clear and considerable impact on many things that are well known by a large and broad audience for a long time?

There are no absolute, objectively correct answers to any of these questions. Like most things in life, but unlike sports, there is no ultimate conclusive statistic like wins (or losses). In my opinion, this is one of the most important attributes and sources of the popular appeal of sports. Alas, despite your persistent efforts, all you NBA fans will not succeed in turning music into a sport.


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## DjPooChoo

-----------Deleted Post--------------------------


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## Tikoo Tuba

Isaac Blackburn said:


> One can't evaluate or judge anything properly if one doesn't understand it.


What of music is not understandable ?


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## SanAntone

Isaac Blackburn said:


> One can't evaluate or judge anything properly if one doesn't understand it. You can't evaluate, for example, the effectiveness of an argument if you don't know what it's saying, or the literary worth of a novel if you don't understand the plot. (At most, your testimony may be interesting in regards to the work's immediate comprehensibility.) A zero-knowledge listener is thus not an objective reference for sussing out intrinsic quality.


Everyone is a knowledgeable listener. They may not know much about music outside their culture, but they don't need knowledge about it in order to react to it. If Yo-Yo Ma playing a Bach cello suite does not get a reaction from African audience, it just exposes how flawed our idea about the universal quality of Bach is.

Also, not everyone cares about evaluating music or anything.

Using critical thinking to deconstruct an argument is different from evaluating a work of art of music. I often am surprised at how little critical thinking people often use when being given arguments by their elected officials or reports in the mainstream media that can drastically effect their lives, but which upon examination are seriously flawed. Critical thinking is a important survival skill.

But I am loathe to evaluate art or music.


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## Strange Magic

Isaac Blackburn said:


> If we come to the concert hall high on LSD, we may be having the most spiritual experience of our lives- but it is easy to show that such an experience does not derive from the musical structure. The score doesn't predict what our individual experience will be, but it tells us what we are listening _to_. (This can be explained by means of a hypothetical ideal listener- the score tells us what _his_ experience, when he has entered into Schopenhauer's state of pure contemplation, will be.)


First, are you asserting that our spiritual experience does not derive from the musical structure? This is interesting, in that it can be looked at in two ways: A) support for the idea that the entirety of the musical experience is not found within the musical structure. Or B) But the work of Leonard Meyer showed us that our perception of pleasure in music comes--certainly in part--from the music's establishing a balance between expectation fulfilled and thwarted. Of course, the individual interpretation of and reaction to this is highly individualistic in nature.

In the light of this ambiguity, does the score tell us what the hypothetical ideal listener's experience will be, or does it not? And of what use, really, is the notion of an "ideal listener" floating in a state of pure contemplation? All of us live and experience music and art in real time in a real world.


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## SanAntone

DjPooChoo said:


> Realizing there is more to aesthetic values than one's one personal likes and dislikes and being able to recognize artistic greatness is no bother. If you prefer not to even think about it, that's your privelage.


If you think you have access to objective data that can determine artistic greatness, more power to you. I happen to believe it doesn't exist and trying to prove that it does can be quite a bother.


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## Handelian

Isaac Blackburn said:


> If we come to the concert hall high on LSD, we may be having the most spiritual experience of our lives- but it is easy to show that such an experience does not derive from the musical structure. The score doesn't predict what our individual experience will be, but it tells us what we are listening _to_. (This can be explained by means of a hypothetical ideal listener- the score tells us what _his_ experience, when he has entered into Schopenhauer's state of pure contemplation, will be.)


LSD and Schopenhauer together with hypothetical ideal listeners. Really concrete evidence that!


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## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> You as an artist can strive after any goal you wish. It has nothing to do with what I as an individual like, or what I might choose to call "great."
> 
> Yes, and I might very well enjoy the latter more than the former. I might even call a work that was "aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution" great.
> 
> So sue me.


I won't sue you. You may call anything anything. Your saying "I enjoy it" is a statement only about you, not about art. With apologies, I find art much more interesting.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> I won't sue you. You may call anything anything. Your saying "I enjoy it" is a statement only about you, not about art. With apologies, I find art much more interesting.


So much for your potential careers in anthropology or psychology!


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## Isaac Blackburn

SanAntone said:


> Everyone is a knowledgeable listener. They may not know much about music outside their culture, but they don't need knowledge about it in order to react to it. If Yo-Yo Ma playing a Bach cello suite does not get a reaction from African audience, it just exposes how flawed our idea about the universal quality of Bach is.
> 
> Also, not everyone cares about evaluating music or anything.
> 
> Using critical thinking to deconstruct an argument is different from evaluating a work of art of music.
> But I am loathe to evaluate art or music.


"Classical music" carries significant intellectual content in its tonal and formal structure; it is not a meaningless mass of sounds, just like a philosophical argument is not a meaningless string of words. If one does not know to listen for motifs and their journey within harmonic and formal space, then one cannot enter into the abstract space where the body of the music lies and thus cannot comprehend or properly experience it. The "zero knowledge" listener is not able to "evaluate" the work, of course, but more importantly, he/she is not able to even properly react to the work, because the work _is_ the abstract structure, and if he/she cannot perceive the structure, he/she is not reacting to the work but only its sounds.



Strange Magic said:


> First, are you asserting that our spiritual experience does not derive from the musical structure? This is interesting, in that it can be looked at in two ways: A) support for the idea that the entirety of the musical experience is not found within the musical structure. Or B) But the work of Leonard Meyer showed us that our perception of pleasure in music comes--certainly in part--from the music's establishing a balance between expectation fulfilled and thwarted. Of course, the individual interpretation of and reaction to this is highly individualistic in nature.
> 
> In the light of this ambiguity, does the score tell us what the hypothetical ideal listener's experience will be, or does it not? And of what use, really, is the notion of an "ideal listener" floating in a state of pure contemplation? All of us live and experience music and art in real time in a real world.


I meant that the "spiritual experience" which the listener is getting from the LSD, is unrelated to the _being_ of the music, even though he may be having such an experience and listening to the music simultaneously. Experiences such as a hungry stomach, fatigue, or cramps likewise do not originate in the music, even though they may be bound up in the overall experience of listening to the music.

The question then becomes: what is the experience that the music alone truly gives? Well, a work of music_ is_ already a structure of experience -- this note is heard after this note, etc. -- and so the answer is that the truest experience of music occurs when our external, subjective experience matches exactly the internal, objective _experiential form_ of the music itself.

As you said, this is impossible to achieve in practice: it requires the purgation of all corrupting factors so that _all _of the experience should be that of the music, and there should be _no_ experience outside the music. This is the state of "pure contemplation" where our mind is a blank slate and can focus wholly on the experiential object, the music. Furthermore, it requires a human listener whose biological makeup is calibrated exactly to the perceptual ordering structure supposed by the composer. It is not necessary, however, that such an experience be _achievable_, it is only necessary that such an experience _exists_, in order for us to know that there is some core element of musical experience that springs directly from the score.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I believe we are getting somewhere. In place of "wants to attach that word (great) to it", we say 'if someone thinks it's great".


A distinction without a difference.



> This does no violence at all to the very idea of excellence--it merely brings it into the area where it belongs, the perception of the perceiver of the artwork and the separate perception of the artist as individuals.


I perceive excellence in the works of Bach. I don't create it. I create excellence, or try to, when I paint or play the piano.



> The artist still strives all they want; no one is stopping them. The artist's striving for excellence is no delusion, or need not be.


Wrong wording. According to you, the artist's BELIEF that he's striving for excellence is a delusion. According to you, all he's really striving for is liking.

Artists know better than you what they're striving for. Most of them are striving to make their work better, not just more likable. They know the difference.



> Let's consider both Ravel's _Bolero_ and Rachmaninoff's C-Sharp Minor _Prelude_: we have here two pieces--one a bit of hackwork, the other a bagatelle on the testimony of their creators. Both pieces are regarded as mini-masterpieces by millions, yet there is a disjunct between the artists' strivings for excellence and a perceived excellence in the ears and minds of the audotors (many of them).


Perhaps those pieces really are "mini-masterpieces." A bit of hackwork? Why would an avowed subjectivist even use such language? According to you, _Bolero_ is greater than _Parsifal,_ because more people like it.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> We can run into real problems here especially in painting. Consider the aforementioned Albert Pinkham Ryder's art contrasted with the lifeless, deadly precision of Ingres or Alma-Tadema. Both Ingres and Alma-Tadema could paint circles around Ryder, but his art is both alive and mysteriously so, while the art of the other two is suffocating in its almost _kitsch_-like treatment of its subject matter.


I find nothing here relevant to my statement, which you've highlighted, "It can be purposefully composed and finely executed, or it can be aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution." Do you find the work of Ryder "aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution"? I don't. I find a superb integration of expressive meaning and technique. What would happen to the meaning if the technique looked like Alma-Tadema's?


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## Ethereality

Isaac Blackburn said:


> All works of art are created as such because humans are the only species that we know of. Thus, the standard ordering structure is objective enough for us, *since it encapsulates all possible forms of experience by sapient beings. *


Again, this will probably never be true, the lack of members' attention here. A 'standard ordering structure' first of all is a delusion (in the minds of members of this forum) caused by some temporal human similarity. Yes we know of some of the most abstract blocks that sound _harmonious_ to _most_ humans, like a major chord, but a theory of _'greatness'_ tying music together is a far-fetched proposition with no evidence. All you need to do is, stop being shut off to what others like, and start observing the trends in all the many different subgroups and fangroups of music and its continual diversification. People here don't even agree on many composers' quality, and it's only getting less agreeable these days, and this is the most similarly opinioned you're going to get.


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## SanAntone

Isaac Blackburn said:


> "Classical music" carries significant intellectual content in its tonal and formal structure; it is not a meaningless mass of sounds, just like a philosophical argument is not a meaningless string of words. If one does not know to listen for motifs and their journey within harmonic and formal space, then one cannot enter into the abstract space where the body of the music lies and thus cannot comprehend or properly experience it. The "zero knowledge" listener is not able to "evaluate" the work, of course, but more importantly, he/she is not able to even properly react to the work, because the work _is_ the abstract structure, and if he/she cannot perceive the structure, he/she is not reacting to the work but only its sounds.


Classical music is still music and anyone no matter their level of knowledge can listen to it. All of that "intellectual content in its tonal and formal structure" is irrelevant; the music should and can stand on its own terms. OTOH, if classical music requires outside information in order for it to be appreciated as music, then this is a serious flaw.



> "The "zero knowledge" listener is not able to "evaluate" the work, of course, but more importantly, he/she is not able to even properly react to the work"


I simply disagree. Any listener, even a "zero knowledge" listener can and will react to classical music, any music. In fact it will be a more honest, true, response precisely because they are hearing the music with fresh ears and minds without any of the cultural conditioning.

Music is experienced as sound, no outside information or knowledge is necessary for anyone to hear the music and react. Now, maybe if they are interested and wish to learn more about classical music, they can go on to read about the composer or works, etc.

But that is icing on the cake, not the cake.


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## Isaac Blackburn

Ethereality said:


> This will probably never be true though, the lack of thought in members here. A 'standard ordering structure' first of all is a delusion (in the minds of members of this forum) caused by some temporal human similarity. At best it is a far-fetched proposition with no evidence. All you need to do is observe the trends in all the different subgroups and fangroups of music. People here don't even agree on many composers' quality and this is the most similarly opinioned you're going to get.


The perceptual ordering structure is the speed, the volume, the pitch, etc., at which music is conceived and played. Biologically we all experience time at roughly the same rate, we all hear sounds at roughly the same volume, and so on. Playing the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth in 6 minutes is not going to be comprehensible to anyone, playing the entire thing at 5 decibels will not work either, and transposing it up 9 octaves is also going to be a failure. All humans make sense of music within a certain range of perception, and so a piece of music written to be comprehensible within such a range maintains objective experiential qualities for all humans -i.e. if it occurs at 175 bpm, 4 sixteenths to a beat, it is perceived as "fast" by everyone.


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## Ethereality

Isaac Blackburn said:


> The perceptual ordering structure is the speed, the volume, the pitch, etc., at which music is conceived and played. Biologically we all experience time at roughly the same rate, we all hear sounds at roughly the same volume, and so on. Playing the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth in 6 minutes is not going to be comprehensible to anyone, playing the entire thing at 5 decibels will not work either, and transposing it up 9 octaves is also going to be a failure. All humans make sense of music within a certain range of perception, and so a piece of music written to be comprehensible within such a range maintains objective experiential qualities for all humans -i.e. if it occurs at 175 bpm, 4 sixteenths to a beat, it is perceived as "fast" by everyone.


Ok, and while that is quite right, it has nothing to do with the subject in question. Most music is appropriated by these scientific phenomena, they demonstrate no aspect of quality or greatness, they explain all music itself. My own subjective reasons on which composers sound great have more substance of importance than your above observation. Or say, a critic's subjective reasons why they like their favorite music. Our tastes can be similar but they can never be singular and standardized. Humans appreciate and assure diversity, always. That is how were designed.


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## Isaac Blackburn

SanAntone said:


> Classical music is still music and anyone no matter their level of knowledge can listen to it. All of that "intellectual content in its tonal and formal structure" is irrelevant; the music should and can stand on its own terms. OTOH, if classical music requires outside information in order for it to be appreciated as music, then this is a serious flaw.


I did not say it requires outside information; I don't think it does, and I agree that if that were the case it would be a flaw. It only requires a means of perceiving what it actually is. Anyone can listen to it, and great music works at instinctual levels, but they will not be in full experiential contact with the music until they can perceive motifs, for example, as units of meaning.



SanAntone said:


> I simply disagree. Any listener, even a "zero knowledge" listener can and will react to classical music, any music. In fact it will be a more honest, true, response precisely because they are hearing the music with fresh ears and minds without any of the cultural conditioning.
> Music is experienced as sound, no outside information or knowledge is necessary for anyone to hear the music and react. Now, maybe if they are interested and wish to learn more about classical music, they can go on to read about the composer or works, etc.
> But that is icing on the cake, not the cake.


I agree that such a response is fresh and honest. The question is: _what_ is it a response to? For a zero-knowledge listener their response is to the sound, not to the structure. I used to be that kind of listener, and I disliked and thought little of many pieces that I adore now, or liked many pieces that I now recognize as attractive but shallow, because I was not in contact with their deeper being but only the outer layer of their sound. I knew only that music could be pleasant or prompt emotion, and did not know what sublimity was possible.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> A distinction without a difference.
> 
> I perceive excellence in the works of Bach. I don't create it. I create excellence, or try to, when I paint or play the piano.
> 
> Wrong wording. According to you, the artist's BELIEF that he's striving for excellence is a delusion. According to you, all he's really striving for is liking.
> 
> Artists know better than you what they're striving for. Most of them are striving to make their work better, not just more likable. They know the difference.
> 
> Perhaps those pieces really are "mini-masterpieces." A bit of hackwork? Why would an avowed subjectivist even use such language? According to you, _Bolero_ is greater than _Parsifal,_ because more people like it.


I will not attempt the wearying point-by-point refutation; I will rather just assert that I find all the above points and "objections" without force, and most as (mere) counterassertions. Your last example, that I hold Bolero "greater" than Parsifal, is assertion of the purest form, divorced utterly from anything I either believe or have posted. All I can be justly accused of saying--and you just corroborated this--would be indeed that more people like Bolero than Parsifal. Even I may prefer it, but so what? End of story.

My suspicion that my position is unclear to many remains fully supported.


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## Isaac Blackburn

Ethereality said:


> Ok, and while that is quite right, it has nothing to do with the subject in question. Most music is appropriated by these scientific phenomena, they demonstrate no aspect of quality or greatness, they explain all music itself. My own subjective reasons on which composers sound great have more substance of importance than your above observation. Or say, a critic's subjective reasons why they like their favorite music. These things can be similar but they can never be singular and standardized.


If all music is written to such a perceptual ordering structure then of course the presence of such a structure alone does not make music great. It means, however, that there is now a "ground" upon which we can make objective (objective enough!) statements about the music.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

We seem to have gotten into a tangential (but very relevant, and IMO more interesting) debate here:

_*Does music require context to be considered?*_

I'd like to ask one user in particular, @SanAntone, to further elucidate his (/ her) position. You say (correct me if I'm wrong; I haven't red all 11 pages of this thread) that you are not concerned with greatness or objective qualities in music, and yet you propose the following:



> Any listener, even a "zero knowledge" listener can and will react to classical music, any music. In fact it will be a more honest, true, response precisely because they are hearing the music with fresh ears and minds without any of the cultural conditioning.
> 
> If in posing this question I've made assumptions about your position which you do not agree with, please also clarify that.
> Music is experienced as sound, no outside information or knowledge is necessary for anyone to hear the music and react.


I'm assuming you consider this response (even for a "zero-knowledge" listener) to be subjective, and not determined (or at least not primarily determined) by any inherent qualities in the music. However, if not context, then what factors might contribute to this response, and how so?


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> I find nothing here relevant to my statement, which you've highlighted, "It can be purposefully composed and finely executed, or it can be aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution." Do you find the work of Ryder "aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution"? I don't. I find a superb integration of expressive meaning and technique. What would happen to the meaning if the technique looked like Alma-Tadema's?


We both like Ryder's art, and _ex post facto_ discovery and assertion of the power of his work comes easily to us. Yet you will agree that a very large majority of viewers of the technique of Ingres and Alma-Tadema irrespective of the content/subject matter of their paintings, would be persuaded that their mastery of the techniques of painting far exceeded Ryder's dark, lumpish shapes and often vague, wobbly forms. And, as we know, much of Ryder's oeuvre has self-destructed due to his lack of understanding of his medium. Ryder's wonderful gift was his enthusiasm and his powerful imagination. There are what I consider serious flaws also in _Moby Dick_, which, like Ryder, Melville overcomes by sheer abundance rather than skill or even good judgement.

My position is always that, in esthetics, I am the decider, and that is exactly as it should be.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I will not attempt the wearying point-by-point refutation; I will rather just assert that I find all the above points and "objections" without force, and most as (mere) counterassertions. Your last example, that I hold Bolero "greater" than Parsifal, is assertion of the purest form, divorced utterly from anything I either believe or have posted. All I can be justly accused of saying--and you just corroborated this--would be indeed that more people like Bolero than Parsifal. Even I may prefer it, but so what? End of story.
> 
> My suspicion that my position is unclear to many remains fully supported.


If your position is unclear there may be a good reason for it. Lets try some questions.

1. Do you believe that assessments of quality (excellence, greatness, etc.) in art are anything more than expressions of personal taste?

2. Does the statement "Bach is a great composer" mean anything more than "I like Bach"?

3. Did Beethoven's efforts to get his music right actually improve it, or did they merely make it more likable to him?

4. Why, if many more people love _Bolero_ than _Parsifal,_ is that fact not proof that the former is a greater work than the latter, if "greatness," as I believe you've claimed, is determined only by taste and consensus?

I really am trying to understand your view clearly.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Isaac Blackburn said:


> I meant that the "spiritual experience" which the listener is getting from the LSD, is unrelated to the _being_ of the music, even though he may be having such an experience and listening to the music simultaneously. Experiences such as a hungry stomach, fatigue, or cramps likewise do not originate in the music, even though they may be bound up in the overall experience of listening to the music.
> 
> The question then becomes: what is the experience that the music alone truly gives? Well, a work of music_ is_ already a structure of experience -- this note is heard after this note, etc. -- and so the answer is that the truest experience of music occurs when our external, subjective experience matches exactly the internal, objective _experiential form_ of the music itself.
> 
> As you said, this is impossible to achieve in practice: it requires the purgation of all corrupting factors so that _all _of the experience should be that of the music, and there should be _no_ experience outside the music. This is the state of "pure contemplation" where our mind is a blank slate and can focus wholly on the experiential object, the music. Furthermore, it requires a human listener whose biological makeup is calibrated exactly to the perceptual ordering structure supposed by the composer. It is not necessary, however, that such an experience be _achievable_, it is only necessary that such an experience _exists_, in order for us to know that there is some core element of musical experience that springs directly from the score.


This is an interesting point, and I think at the heart of the issue is the question of _what is music_? Let's suppose a hypothetical listener in "a state of pure contemplation" is able to focus wholly on the "experiential object" (say, Beethoven's 6th being performed live in a concert - pre COVID of course). What exactly does this entail? Is the listener considering Beethoven? The performers? Sound waves are mechanical, so is the air between him and the source of the music part of the music itself (and thus in the listener's meditative world)? I'm supposing all the answers to these questions are "no"; in fact, I assume that the object of "the music itself" exists wholly independently of the composer, performer, and production of sound which bring it into reality. But then how might we describe music?

As to your point on LSD, it brings up some thoughts and experiences I'd like to share, but as this is a family friendly forum and as this thread is about a different topic I will refrain from doing so, at least publicly ...


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

I also have a question for @Woodduck and the other "objectivists" here. If objective greatness in art does truly exist, what are its normative / practical implications? Let's first consider the listener. You seem to be fine with anyone having their own preferences, and you seem to suggest that "greatness" should not govern preferences or subjective responses. Is their then value in understanding greatness, and if so what is it? Might it be akin to understanding the beauty in mathematics or science? Now, how about for the producer of art (composer / performer)? Why should they have an understanding of greatness, and what might they use it for?


----------



## BachIsBest

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> This is an interesting point, and I think at the heart of the issue is the question of _what is music_?


"I don't know what music is."
-Ludwig van Beethoven

I feel many-a-more qualified people than us have tried to figure this one out. Although qualifications are probably just subjective anyway so maybe we are more qualified than Beethoven on this matter. Who knows?


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> We both like Ryder's art, and _ex post facto_ discovery and assertion of the power of his work comes easily to us. Yet you will agree that a very large majority of viewers of the technique of Ingres and Alma-Tadema irrespective of the content/subject matter of their paintings, would be persuaded that their mastery of the techniques of painting far exceeded Ryder's dark, lumpish shapes and often vague, wobbly forms. And, as we know, much of Ryder's oeuvre has self-destructed due to his lack of understanding of his medium. Ryder's wonderful gift was his enthusiasm and his powerful imagination. There are what I consider serious flaws also in _Moby Dick_, which, like Ryder, Melville overcomes by sheer abundance rather than skill or even good judgement.


Well, the majority of viewers are correct. Alma-Tadema's technique _was_ extraordinary, and I have no doubt that Ryder couldn't have duplicated it had he wanted to. _In that respect,_ Alma-Tadema was one of the greatest painters of his age, or perhaps any age. But I've nowhere claimed that that sort of mastery trumps all other artistic virtues. You used Ryder to refute my condemnation of art that's "aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution." But I don't agree that that describes Ryder's work. His turbulent visions required the physically rough technique he employed. I see no conflict between substance, style and technique. As for Melville, I'm one of those who's started _Moby Dick_ a couple of times and never gotten through it. I don't blame Melville.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

BachIsBest said:


> "I don't know what music is."
> -Ludwig van Beethoven
> 
> I feel many-a-more qualified people than we have tried to figure this one out. Although qualifications are probably just subjective anyway so maybe we are more qualified than Beethoven on this matter. Who knows?


We might not need a complete answer, but having a starting point would be nice if we are to discuss "greatness" and other (supposed) "intrinsic" properties of music.


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## Tikoo Tuba

A dalliance with greatness may be educational . I went seeking a famous composer and found this person crying in his beer .


----------



## Handelian

Isaac Blackburn said:


> "Classical music" carries significant intellectual content in its tonal and formal structure; it is not a meaningless mass of sounds, just like a philosophical argument is not a meaningless string of words. If one does not know to listen for motifs and their journey within harmonic and formal space, then one cannot enter into the abstract space where the body of the music lies and thus cannot comprehend or properly experience it. The "zero knowledge" listener is not able to "evaluate" the work, of course, but more importantly, he/she is not able to even properly react to the work, because the work _is_ the abstract structure, and if he/she cannot perceive the structure, he/she is not reacting to the work but only its sounds.
> 
> I meant that the "spiritual experience" which the listener is getting from the LSD, is unrelated to the _being_ of the music, even though he may be having such an experience and listening to the music simultaneously. Experiences such as a hungry stomach, fatigue, or cramps likewise do not originate in the music, even though they may be bound up in the overall experience of listening to the music.
> 
> The question then becomes: what is the experience that the music alone truly gives? Well, a work of music_ is_ already a structure of experience -- this note is heard after this note, etc. -- and so the answer is that the truest experience of music occurs when our external, subjective experience matches exactly the internal, objective _experiential form_ of the music itself.
> 
> As you said, this is impossible to achieve in practice: it requires the purgation of all corrupting factors so that _all _of the experience should be that of the music, and there should be _no_ experience outside the music. This is the state of "pure contemplation" where our mind is a blank slate and can focus wholly on the experiential object, the music. Furthermore, it requires a human listener whose biological makeup is calibrated exactly to the perceptual ordering structure supposed by the composer. It is not necessary, however, that such an experience be _achievable_, it is only necessary that such an experience _exists_, in order for us to know that there is some core element of musical experience that springs directly from the score.


Interesting I know there were people when I was at university who were deceived into equating drugs which sent hallucinatory signals to the brain with 'spiritual experience' but I didn't think people still believed this.


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> This is an interesting point, and I think at the heart of the issue is the question of _what is music_? Let's suppose a hypothetical listener in "a state of pure contemplation" is able to focus wholly on the "experiential object" (say, Beethoven's 6th being performed live in a concert - pre COVID of course). What exactly does this entail? Is the listener considering Beethoven? The performers? Sound waves are mechanical, so is the air between him and the source of the music part of the music itself (and thus in the listener's meditative world)? I'm supposing all the answers to these questions are "no"; in fact, I assume that the object of "the music itself" exists wholly independently of the composer, performer, and production of sound which bring it into reality. But then how might we describe music?


It's a very deep question, because when you ask "What is a thing" we're now in ontological territory. As BachIsBest said, philosophers of music have struggled with it for centuries. 
According to this summary (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/music/#:~:text=Philosophy%20of%20music%20is%20the,and%20our%20experience%20of%20it.&text=Music%20is%20perhaps%20the%20art,identified%20with%20the%20work%20itself.), the most intuitive and commonly held view is that a piece of music is an abstract object which exists only in conceptual space.



BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I also have a question for @Woodduck and the other "objectivists" here. If objective greatness in art does truly exist, what are its normative/practical implications? Let's first consider the listener. You seem to be fine with anyone having their own preferences, and you seem to suggest that "greatness" should not govern preferences or subjective responses. Is their then value in understanding greatness, and if so what is it? Might it be akin to understanding the beauty in mathematics or science? Now, how about for the producer of art (composer / performer)? Why should they have an understanding of greatness, and what might they use it for?


Back on the Greatness in music thread I mentioned my belief that greatness is chiefly composed of influence and depth. The former is not very relevant to anyone's experience of the music, because it's an extramusical rather than intramusical property. 
Depth, though, is important. For many works, the assurance that there _is something there_, something authentic, profound, or transcendent, encourages listeners to continue their attempts to understand the music, even if they would have otherwise rejected the piece. We could, of course, call _all_ works "great" in order to encourage this attitude (and there is neglected depth in many pieces!) but then we'd just find a new word to describe the pieces that are "more great" than the others. And we direct people to these great works, because why would we direct them to anything else?

The composer and artist should also have his own understanding of greatness, because he should know what makes certain works pure, eminent, and meaningful, so he can aim for it, or at the very least, avoid the opposite, which is banality, meaninglessness, and sloppiness in craft. (Even if he wants to reject those values completely, he should at least know what he is rejecting!)



Handelian said:


> Interesting I know there were people when I was at university who were deceived into equating drugs which sent hallucinatory signals to the brain with 'spiritual experience' but I didn't think people still believed this.


Hence the quotes.


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## DjPooChoo

SanAntone said:


> Yeah,so what? I am not a music historian and am not out to prove that my likes are definitive of greatness. I am not afraid of what other people think of my preferences, and music quality is not as easily quantifiable as basketball statistics, so I don't have to defend my likes with anything more than, "hey, I just like it."


And I'm not a basketball historian. There's more to basketball than pure statistics, as any connoisseur of the game will know -- there are all sorts of nuances and intangibles that won't show up on the statistcal sheet that go into making a player great. And the same for music -- within any particular genre there are parameters that some excel at more than others. Some of these can be quantified, and some can't. It comes down to an acquantince and understanding of the field the endeavor.

I'm not sure why you view others acknowledging greatness as a challenge to your tastes. No one is asking you to defend your tastes. I might absolutely _adore_ a painting my 6 year old daughter makes for me. And I might even like it more than any painting by Rembrandt, Monet or Dali. I don't feel any need to defend my preference for my daughter's painting to anyone. But my enjoyment of my daughter's painting does not make it deep, complex, profound or great by any reasonable definition of the words. My thinking my daughter is a greater painter than Picasso doesn't make it so, anymore than my thinking Jeremy Lin is a great basketball player makes it so.


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## DjPooChoo

fluteman said:


> But art and sports are fundamentally different things, and this thread (and your comment) bring up what is probably the most fundamental difference. In sports, there is a clear, objective method for determining which athlete or team is better: the better athlete, or team, wins. In team sports, much ink is spilled arguing which individual players are the best, and a broad array of individual statistics are cited, more than ever in recent years. But those statistics are meaningful only if, and only to the extent, they correlate strongly to winning. That's why in the most popular professional sports, like basketball, ever more sophisticated statistics are devised to try to capture precisely how much individual players contribute to their team's success, i.e., winning.
> 
> The success of art can only be measured by the aesthetic, emotional or intellectual impact it has on the audience. But what audience are we considering? Only people in a specific time and place? People from a particular culture or country, but across many eras, or even centuries? People from many cultures or countries and across many eras? Do we value art that has had a significant impact on Western culture more highly than that that has had a significant impact on non-Western cultures? And how do we measure impact? Do we care how large the audience is, or what its makeup is, or both in some proportion? What if a work of art itself is little known, but has a clear and considerable impact on many things that are well known by a large and broad audience for a long time?
> 
> There are no absolute, objectively correct answers to any of these questions. Like most things in life, but unlike sports, there is no ultimate conclusive statistic like wins (or losses). In my opinion, this is one of the most important attributes and sources of the popular appeal of sports. Alas, despite your persistent efforts, all you NBA fans will not succeed in turning music into a sport.


I have no illusions about the difference between sports and music or any art. I don't believe one can evaluate a work of art like one can a great athlete. The purpose of my post was simply in pointing out that greatness is a thing, and it is independent from subjective preference.

Even in sports, there are no "absoulte, objectively correct answers" as to what defines a players excellence. It's true, statistics are an _indicator_, but they don't tell the whole story. Michael Jordan was unquestionably great, and thought of by many as the greatest basketball player in history, but he doesn't have the most wins, the most championships, the most points, the most rebounds, etc. Similarly, there are indicators as to who are the great artists and what are the great works of art, and you named some of them.


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## Handelian

DjPooChoo said:


> And I'm not a basketball historian. There's more to basketball than pure statistics, as any connoisseur of the game will know -- there are all sorts of nuances and intangibles that won't show up on the statistcal sheet that go into making a player great. And the same for music -- within any particular genre there are parameters that some excel at more than others. Some of these can be quantified, and some can't. It comes down to an acquantince and understanding of the field the endeavor.
> 
> I'm not sure why you view others acknowledging greatness as a challenge to your tastes. No one is asking you to defend your tastes. I might absolutely _adore_ a painting my 6 year old daughter makes for me. And I might even like it more than any painting by Rembrandt, Monet or Dali. I don't feel any need to defend my preference for my daughter's painting to anyone. But my enjoyment of my daughter's painting does not make it deep, complex, profound or great by any reasonable definition of the words. *My thinking my daughter is a greater painter than Picasso doesn't make it so*, anymore than my thinking Jeremy Lin is a great basketball player makes it so.


Having seen some of the awful stuff Picasso hoodwinked the gullible with I think your daughter might be in with a fighting chance!


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## Guest002

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I also have a question for @Woodduck and the other "objectivists" here. If objective greatness in art does truly exist, what are its normative / practical implications? Let's first consider the listener. You seem to be fine with anyone having their own preferences, and you seem to suggest that "greatness" should not govern preferences or subjective responses. Is their then value in understanding greatness, and if so what is it? Might it be akin to understanding the beauty in mathematics or science? Now, how about for the producer of art (composer / performer)? Why should they have an understanding of greatness, and what might they use it for?


I think it's a good question. I am going to answer it indirectly: does understanding what happened on Pevensey beach in 1066 have value?

History, as an academic discipline, has zero relevance to the fact you've got to cook dinner tonight. Except that it does, of course: had someone not noticed a compass needle deflecting in the 1780s, we wouldn't have electric ovens, or the Internet on which to look up the cooking times, because the dynamo and electricity generation would not have been invented... etc.etc.etc.

People have their daily lives, regardless of History (capital H). People have their listening preferences, regardless of 'Greatness'. But present day activity doesn't invalidate the worth of the study of the underlying reality in either case. Neither does the underlying reality dictate one's present-day activities (or listening), though (speaking as someone who always observes Elizabeth I's accession day, because I'm weird like that), the one may certainly influence the other.


----------



## Woodduck

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I also have a question for @Woodduck and the other "objectivists" here. If objective greatness in art does truly exist, what are its normative / practical implications? Let's first consider the listener. You seem to be fine with anyone having their own preferences, and you seem to suggest that "greatness" should not govern preferences or subjective responses. Is their then value in understanding greatness, and if so what is it? Might it be akin to understanding the beauty in mathematics or science? Now, how about for the producer of art (composer / performer)? Why should they have an understanding of greatness, and what might they use it for?


For the artist, understanding what makes art good or great is part of the job. He uses that understanding automatically moment by moment from the conception of a work through to its completion and beyond. It gives him both a measuring stick for his aesthetic choices and a goad to constant improvement. For non-artists, the ability to identify the qualities in art that account for the pleasure and satisfaction they experience can add to their pleasure, and it can help direct their attention not only to aspects of art they already consider familiar but to other works that might prove rewarding. Additionally, it can provide a way of relating one's own artistic preferences to those of others and to the verdicts of history, and so can provoke an examination of what one's preferences mean not only in terms of one's own self-understanding but in relation to the world beyond oneself.

Understanding how art works and what makes it good is more a process of perception and intuition than of intellectual formulation, although much can be said to guide the process productively. It isn't a science, but it is rooted in constants of human nature which can embrace great breadth and complexity in artistic expression while giving rise, again and again and in far distant places, to aesthetic principles and practices that transcend our differences. There are reasons why art may be our greatest ambassador.


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## annaw

Handelian said:


> Having seen some of the awful stuff Picasso hoodwinked the gullible with I think your daughter might be in with a fighting chance!


Go check out Picasso's paintings when he was 15 years old . He was almost a child prodigy in painting. Nevertheless, I wouldn't bring too straightforward connections between every aspect of modern music and modern painting. They are still two largely different genres of art and function differently.

Now that I think about it, I think that evident talent and genius, like that of Mozart or Mendelssohn, can also make its contribution to greatness. Not necessarily, though - it's said that young Wagner tortured the piano when he played. There are very different ways to achieve "greatness" but it tends to be recognisable when it's there.


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## SanAntone

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> We seem to have gotten into a tangential (but very relevant, and IMO more interesting) debate here:
> 
> _*Does music require context to be considered?*_
> 
> I'd like to ask one user in particular, @SanAntone, to further elucidate his (/ her) position. You say (correct me if I'm wrong; I haven't red all 11 pages of this thread) that you are not concerned with greatness or objective qualities in music, and yet you propose the following:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Any listener, even a "zero knowledge" listener can and will react to classical music, any music. In fact it will be a more honest, true, response precisely because they are hearing the music with fresh ears and minds without any of the cultural conditioning.
> 
> If in posing this question I've made assumptions about your position which you do not agree with, please also clarify that.
> Music is experienced as sound, no outside information or knowledge is necessary for anyone to hear the music and react.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm assuming you consider this response (even for a "zero-knowledge" listener) to be subjective, and not determined (or at least not primarily determined) by any inherent qualities in the music. However, if not context, then what factors might contribute to this response, and how so?
Click to expand...

A person will listen to the music, they will decide if they like it or not depending on how it sounds to them. I don't see what is confusing about that process.

It was hard for me to understand the quote you inserted in your post, since some of it was what I wrote and some wasn't anything I wrote.


----------



## SanAntone

DjPooChoo said:


> And I'm not a basketball historian. There's more to basketball than pure statistics, as any connoisseur of the game will know -- there are all sorts of nuances and intangibles that won't show up on the statistcal sheet that go into making a player great. And the same for music -- within any particular genre there are parameters that some excel at more than others. Some of these can be quantified, and some can't. It comes down to an acquantince and understanding of the field the endeavor.
> 
> *I'm not sure why you view others acknowledging greatness as a challenge to your tastes. No one is asking you to defend your tastes.* I might absolutely _adore_ a painting my 6 year old daughter makes for me. And I might even like it more than any painting by Rembrandt, Monet or Dali. I don't feel any need to defend my preference for my daughter's painting to anyone. But my enjoyment of my daughter's painting does not make it deep, complex, profound or great by any reasonable definition of the words. My thinking my daughter is a greater painter than Picasso doesn't make it so, anymore than my thinking Jeremy Lin is a great basketball player makes it so.


And yet, I only respond to people quoting from my posts and calling into question something I've written.

There seems to be some people in this thread who think identifying greatness in music is important. For the life of me I don't know why. Maybe you can explain it to me.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I think it's a good question. I am going to answer it indirectly: does understanding what happened on Pevensey beach in 1066 have value?
> 
> History, as an academic discipline, has zero relevance to the fact you've got to cook dinner tonight. Except that it does, of course: had someone not noticed a compass needle deflecting in the 1780s, we wouldn't have electric ovens, or the Internet on which to look up the cooking times, because the dynamo and electricity generation would not have been invented... etc.etc.etc.
> 
> People have their daily lives, regardless of History (capital H). People have their listening preferences, regardless of 'Greatness'. But present day activity doesn't invalidate the worth of the study of the underlying reality in either case. Neither does the underlying reality dictate one's present-day activities (or listening), though (speaking as someone who always observes Elizabeth I's accession day, because I'm weird like that), the one may certainly influence the other.


Thanks for providing this analogy, but I'm not sure how well it serves to clear things up. With "History", the importance of the "underlying reality" can be seen almost entirely (correct me if I'm wrong) as a matter of influence, direct or indirect, observed or not. With music, and aesthetics in general, those who argue for "greatness" seem to suggest it has an entirely different function. Sure, they often cite the influence of a composer or a work as evidence of its "greatness", but not as the value of its greatness.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

SanAntone said:


> A person will listen to the music, they will decide if they like it or not depending on how it sounds to them. I don't see what is confusing about that process.
> 
> It was hard for me to understand the quote you inserted in your post, since some of it was what I wrote and some wasn't anything I wrote.


Right, obviously only the first paragraph should've been in the "QUOTE". Sorry.

You seem to be avoiding my question, perhaps unintentionally. I'm not saying there is anything confusing about the nature of the process; I'm asking if you have any insight (scientific, philosophical, personal, or otherwise) into its inner workings. What might make someone (especially the "zero-knowledge" listener) like a piece of music? Your proposed point is quite a strong argument (strong as in suggestive) and so I think calls for some further explanation.


----------



## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> There seems to be some people in this thread who think identifying greatness in music is important. For the life of me I don't know why. Maybe you can explain it to me.


Perhaps the fact that it's the subject of the thread makes it seem more important to the thread's contributors than it actually is. After all, you're a constant contributor too!

Be that as it may, see post #182.


----------



## SanAntone

Woodduck said:


> For the artist, understanding what makes art good or great is part of the job. He uses that understanding automatically moment by moment from the conception of a work through to its completion and beyond. It gives him both a measuring stick for his aesthetic choices and a goad to constant improvement. For non-artists, the ability to identify the qualities in art that account for the pleasure and satisfaction they experience can add to their pleasure, and it can help direct their attention not only to aspects of art they already consider familiar but to other works that might prove rewarding. Additionally, it can provide a way of relating one's own artistic preferences to those of others and to the verdicts of history, and so can provoke an examination of what one's preferences mean not only in terms of one's own self-understanding but in relation to the world beyond oneself.
> 
> Understanding how art works and what makes it good is more a process of perception and intuition than of intellectual formulation, although much can be said to guide the process productively. It isn't a science, but it is rooted in constants of human nature which can embrace great breadth and complexity in artistic expression while giving rise, again and again and in far distant places, to aesthetic principles and practices that transcend our differences. There are reasons why art may be our greatest ambassador.


I guess you are talking about principles of "good composition" and how to use color, technique, etc., the stuff they teach in art schools. But not everyone who went to a good art school produces great art. I've seen articles about what we find beautiful in a face. They talk about symmetry of the features, distance between the eyes, size of the eyes, etc. It seems silly to me, since I don't think beauty can be quantified like that - nor do I think great art can be so easily explained.

For people like me, when I walk through a museum I assume that someone there, the curator, e.g., thought everything they hung was at least "good art" maybe even "great art" - but most of the paintings don't do anything for me. I'll see maybe two or three that I like.

The same is true for music. I just don't see why greatness is important when everybody responds to music and art subjectively.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Woodduck said:


> Additionally, it can provide a way of relating one's own artistic preferences to those of others and to the verdicts of history, and so can provoke an examination of what one's preferences mean not only in terms of one's own self-understanding but in relation to the world beyond oneself.


This is an interesting point, and it definitely provides a purpose for an objective analysis of art (although I do think that on the comparative side much analysis can be accomplished simply by comparing preferences without reference to any absolute qualities or metrics). However, why is "greatness" in particular necessary, or helpful? Is it not sufficient to analyze art in terms of other qualities which might be more objective- weight, form, texture, etc. that do not refer to absolute notions of "better" or "worse", and then make our own (subjective) value judgements to align ourselves towards certain (supposedly) objective and perceivable qualities, both as creators and as listeners? Granted, some of these judgements may be nearly universal (at least in humans) - preferences for order, structural integrity, etc. - and so you may as well define a nearly universal notion of "greatness" that encompasses them. But you seem to imply stronger conditions for "greatness" than what comes to mind for me (or else, using my definition, it's hard to see "Jingle Bells" as anything other than great).


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> If your position is unclear there may be a good reason for it. Lets try some questions.
> 
> 1. Do you believe that assessments of quality (excellence, greatness, etc.) in art are anything more than expressions of personal taste?
> 
> 2. Does the statement "Bach is a great composer" mean anything more than "I like Bach"?
> 
> 3. Did Beethoven's efforts to get his music right actually improve it, or did they merely make it more likable to him?
> 
> 4. Why, if many more people love _Bolero_ than _Parsifal,_ is that fact not proof that the former is a greater work than the latter, if "greatness," as I believe you've claimed, is determined only by taste and consensus?
> 
> I really am trying to understand your view clearly.


Answers:

1: No. Though it may be that the expressing of such assessments represents good polling numbers among tastemakers.

2: Not to me, other than "Many people conversant with CM like at least some of the music of J.S. Bach and I acknowledge that, and since I really like some of Bach's music, for me he is "great".

3: If it turned out that I liked it after he worked on it, then his efforts were successful. How much he worked on a piece, though, was far more important to him than to me. We read of music flowing out of Mozart (maybe true, maybe not) like water, and of Beethoven slaving away. Such tidbits are always of interest, but......

4: It's actually popularity within or among defined audiences that defines "greatness", if indeed "greatness" means "acclaimed by a key audience". What if, in some parallel world, we were told that only seven people liked Beethoven's Ninth. We do often read hand-wringing accounts of masterpieces of CM that nobody pays enough attention to, often in highly-opinionated (and fun to read) histories of The Great (and not-so-great) Composers.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> For the artist, understanding what makes art good or great is part of the job. He uses that understanding automatically moment by moment from the conception of a work through to its completion and beyond. It gives him both a measuring stick for his aesthetic choices and a goad to constant improvement.


Yes, and what goes into that understanding in the case of Bach, for example, could fill many thick books. (If people still read books.) It isn't just the physiology or psychology of how humans hear and perceive music. It certainly isn't just a set of rules of harmony and counterpoint (to which he contributed significant developments and innovations). It includes a profound understanding of how people in his world, i.e., early 18th century Europe, perceived their lives and their world, and how and where they sought enjoyment, satisfaction, fulfillment, and a deeper understanding of themselves and their values and beliefs, or as Bach himself put it, how they could experience "the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."

I think it is possible, at least in an approximate way, to measure objectively how good or great art is, in the sense of measuring how well it succeeded, or continues to succeed, in enabling an audience (without precisely defining that audience, let's just say it's a reasonably large one persisting over a long period of time and across various societies) to experience the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

The unavoidably subjective aspect is in the values and beliefs, and the emotional, intellectual and mental makeup, of any particular audience or audience member in any particular place and time. If someone does not appreciate the music of Bach, that is neither a shortcoming in the music nor in that person.


----------



## SanAntone

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I think it's a good question. I am going to answer it indirectly: does understanding what happened on Pevensey beach in 1066 have value?
> 
> History, as an academic discipline, has zero relevance to the fact you've got to cook dinner tonight. Except that it does, of course: had someone not noticed a compass needle deflecting in the 1780s, we wouldn't have electric ovens, or the Internet on which to look up the cooking times, because the dynamo and electricity generation would not have been invented... etc.etc.etc.
> 
> People have their daily lives, regardless of History (capital H). People have their listening preferences, regardless of 'Greatness'. But present day activity doesn't invalidate the worth of the study of the underlying reality in either case. Neither does the underlying reality dictate one's present-day activities (or listening), though (speaking as someone who always observes Elizabeth I's accession day, because I'm weird like that), the one may certainly influence the other.


We've all heard the saying "history was written by the victors." Which sounds like history is not objective but something created with a bias for what was important to the ones writing it. I have a book "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States." Very different from what I learned in school.

I tend to believe the same is true for "greatness in music." There have been generations of professors and experts schooling us on which composers and works are great. But what bias is at work?

Oh, I regularly visit an Amish community to buy herbs. They don't rely on electricity. They appear to be very happy.


----------



## Strange Magic

To boil this down, people like or don't like or are indifferent to all sorts of art, music, wine, ice cream, etc. For some, like me, it is enough to acknowledge--when appropriate (often gratefully; sometimes tearfully)--and to assert our love and appreciation (or not) for the art object or other item, and to be content and fulfilled at that point. For others, there seems to be a need for approbation of their choices, their preferences from history or authority figures or some theory or other structure that serves to sanctify, validate, authenticate the preferences. This often takes the form of imbuing the art object with the quality of "greatness" inside it somewhere that renders the object worthy of and actually requiring admiration.


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## SanAntone

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Right, obviously only the first paragraph should've been in the "QUOTE". Sorry.
> 
> You seem to be avoiding my question, perhaps unintentionally. I'm not saying there is anything confusing about the nature of the process; I'm asking if you have any insight (scientific, philosophical, personal, or otherwise) into its inner workings. What might make someone (especially the "zero-knowledge" listener) like a piece of music? Your proposed point is quite a strong argument (strong as in suggestive) and so I think calls for some further explanation.


I don't even know why _I_ like some music more than other music. Have you ever been asked by someone "why do you love me?"

Good luck.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

because you grate , cheese


----------



## Guest002

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Thanks for providing this analogy, but I'm not sure how well it serves to clear things up. With "History", the importance of the "underlying reality" can be seen almost entirely (correct me if I'm wrong) as a matter of influence, direct or indirect, observed or not.


Well, perhaps. The documentary record is incomplete. Etc.

But my point was more that you are you, definitely, in your kitchen because of some Norman baron in his castle a thousand years ago: I don't think you'd be able to point to the specifics of what the links are/were between the two states, but clearly they "are"... and yet, you can live your life today entirely comfortably without even contemplating them.

On the other hand, *if* you contemplate them, you might better understand your specific place in 'things' now, but it might seem a bit of an esoteric exercise, without specific relevance to the matter of the daily grind of existence.

And yet, we study History, because we think it worthwhile to do so.



BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> With music, and aesthetics in general, those who argue for "greatness" seem to suggest it has an entirely different function. Sure, they often cite the influence of a composer or a work as evidence of its "greatness", but not as the value of its greatness.


Mmm. I can only speak for myself. I believe in 'objective' greatness, as a "quality" that's worth studying as much as History is. But, just as I cannot tell you specifically what Queen Anne's impact on my daily life now is, I don't need "greatness" to determine my daily listening practices, but I feel sure it's lurking there in the background!

The specific question was "Is their then value in understanding greatness, and if so what is it?"

And I can only repeat: there is a value in studying (and trying to understand) that which _informs_ our listening, but doesn't necessarily _contribute_ directly to it.


----------



## Guest002

SanAntone said:


> We've all heard the saying "history was written by the victors." Which sounds like history is not objective but something created with a bias for what was important to the ones writing it. I have a book "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States." Very different from what I learned in school.
> 
> I tend to believe the same is true for "greatness in music." There have been generations of professors and experts schooling us on which composers and works are great. But what bias is at work?
> 
> Oh, I regularly visit an Amish community to buy herbs. They don't rely on electricity. They appear to be very happy.


Oh, I quite agree that History is a partial account, not just written by victors, but also by what happens to survive. I don't think that invalidates History as an academic pursuit in trying to peel back layers, recover the previously discounted, and so on and on. But you cannot say Germany won WW2, nor that Harold won the battle of Hastings. There are some "points" in the story that are unarguable. In between those points, fine: let us examine the nuance, and accept that our grasp of things is incomplete.

But that's quite different from saying, 'history is what you want it to be', or 'let's take a poll on it'. The sense of a 'truth', which is partially known, but partially discoverable, and capable of viewing from many different perspectives without complete invention, is surely a reasonable approximation to the 'is there greatness in art' question.

I believe there is 'greatness' in music. I believe it's not easy to know it when it's there, and I believe people can have legitimate debate about whether X or Y qualifies.

And I also believe that, ultimately, the existence of "greatness" needn't particularly sway one in one's choice of listening pleasure. Just as the question about Elizabeth I's parliaments needn't detain me in my decision to post this message.


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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> Since the act of valuing necessitates a valuer, you are correct in saying that, in this sense, art has no intrinsic value. In this sense, _nothing_ has intrinsic value. However, there are things of value to human beings _as such_ of which art can give evidence and to which it can give perceptible representation, and this is true even if a given specimen of art possessing these values is not valued by a particular individual. For example, two universal values of human beings are intelligence and competence. *Can art, in the choices the artist makes, show degrees of intelligence and competence at work, and can it give these abstract values sensuous representation*? It should be obvious that it can, both in its physical design and in its subject matter. It can be purposefully composed and finely executed, or it can be aimlessly and awkwardly composed and clumsy and unfocused in its execution. It makes perfect sense to consider *art of the former kind superior to art of the latter kind, all else being equal* (please note the qualification), and *the general judgement of people everywhere and through all time confers positive subjective valuation on these objectively present traits*. When people see or hear work in which these values are embodied, they naturally respond with pleasure and approval. What sort of human being would respond with displeasure and disapproval?
> 
> I'll stop there and let you respond.


Thank you.

This seems to be your argument:

1. Some art displays intelligence and competence
2. People everywhere and through all time respond positively to art displaying intelligence and competence
3. (implicit premise): what people respond positively to is necessarily Good.
4. Therefore: art displaying intelligence and competence is Good art.

For an argument to be a good argument, two things must hold:

a. It's premises must all be true
b. It's premises must entail or make the conclusion significantly more likely (i.e. if the premises were true, the conclusion would follow)

In this case, your argument fails on both fronts. The premises aren't all true, nor would the premises, if true, support the conclusion:

a. Premise 3 is false. I think it's obviously false and a lengthy explanation of why is not needed.
b. The premises don't support the conclusion. People respond positively to lots of things, including really really dumb art. In fact, more people respond positively to this art than to intelligent and 'competent' art. On your logic, then, dumb and incompetent art is Good art. This directly contradicts your actual conclusion.


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> If we come to the concert hall high on LSD, we may be having the most spiritual experience of our lives- but it is easy to show that such an experience does not derive from the musical structure.


LOL.

As if our musical experiences derive simply from "the musical structure" and not the whole physical/biological substrate encompassing our environment let alone our brains!

What kind of ridiculous Platonic-esque position is this?!

"Musical structure" would have absolutely zero upshot for us if it wasn't for the huge list of 'contingent' non-musical factors such as:

1. Timbre of instruments
2. Physical medium through which sound travels
3. Speaker quality
4. Concerto hall acoustics
5. The state of one's ears
6. The state of one's transducer neurons
7. The state of one's processing neurons
8. The interaction of emotions on 6 and 7
9. The interaction of mood on 6 and 7
10. The interaction of upbringing and genes on 6 and 7
etc. etc.

More generally, what is the justification in saying that the NON-LSD state of 6 and 7 is the 'true' one and not the LSD-influenced state of 6 and 7?

Consider: do you have any idea of how much influence being a product of 21-century western society would have on 6 and 7, such that the idea that the NON-LSD-influenced state of 6 and 7 is some 'natural' standpoint is completely bogus?!


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> LOL.
> 
> As if our musical experiences derive simply from "the musical structure" and not the whole physical/biological substrate encompassing our environment let alone our brains!
> 
> What kind of ridiculous Platonic-esque position is this?!
> 
> "Musical structure" would have absolutely zero upshot for us if it wasn't for the huge list of 'contingent' non-musical factors such as:
> 
> 1. Timbre of instruments
> 2. Physical medium through which sound travels
> 3. Speaker quality
> 4. Concerto hall accoustics
> 5. The existence of ears
> 6. The existence of transducer neurons
> 7. The existence of processing neurons
> 8. The interaction of emotions on 6 and 7
> 9. The interaction of mood on 6 and 7
> 10. The interaction of upbringing and genes on 6 and 7
> etc. etc.


I answered this already.

"....The question then becomes: what is the experience that the music alone truly gives? Well, a work of music is already a structure of experience -- this note is heard after this note, etc. -- and so the answer is that the truest experience of music occurs when our external, subjective experience matches exactly the internal, objective experiential form of the music itself.

As you said, this is impossible to achieve in practice: it requires the purgation of all corrupting factors so that all of the experience should be that of the music, and there should be no experience outside the music. This is the state of "pure contemplation" where our mind is a blank slate and can focus wholly on the experiential object, the music. *Furthermore, it requires a human listener whose biological makeup is calibrated exactly to the perceptual ordering structure supposed by the composer....*"



RogerWaters said:


> More generally, what is the justification in saying that the NON-LSD state of 6 and 7 is the 'true' one and not the LSD-influenced state of 6 and 7?


It is the one more calibrated to the perceptual ordering structure upon which composers create their music. The mind of the average 21st-century man, as you said, is different than the mind of the average 19th-century man- but it is far closer than to the mind of a person on an acid trip, and certainly lies squarely within the box for perceptual accessibility.


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> I answered this already.
> 
> "....The question then becomes: what is the experience that the music alone truly gives? Well, a work of music is already a structure of experience -- this note is heard after this note, etc. -- and so the answer is that the truest experience of music occurs when our external, subjective experience matches exactly the internal, objective experiential form of the music itself.
> 
> As you said, this is impossible to achieve in practice: it requires the purgation of all corrupting factors so that all of the experience should be that of the music, and there should be no experience outside the music. This is the state of "pure contemplation" where our mind is a blank slate and can focus wholly on the experiential object, the music. *Furthermore, it requires a human listener whose biological makeup is calibrated exactly to the perceptual ordering structure supposed by the composer....*"


What, exactly, "requires a human listener whose biological makeup is calibrated exactly to the perceptual ordering structure supposed by the composer"? a "pure" experience of the music and nothing but the music, according to you. I am guessing this is some kind of account of musical 'objectivity'?

Even if I was biologically calibrated exactly as Beethoven was (which means I would _be_ Beethoven, btw), this doesn't mean i'm having some "pure" experience of the music and nothing but the music. The factors I mentioned in the my last post would all still be absolutely crucial to my experience.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> To boil this down, people like or don't like or are indifferent to all sorts of art, music, wine, ice cream, etc. For some, like me, it is enough to acknowledge--when appropriate (often gratefully; sometimes tearfully)--and to assert our love and appreciation (or not) for the art object or other item, and to be content and fulfilled at that point. *For others, there seems to be a need for approbation of their choices, their preferences from history or authority figures or some theory or other structure that serves to sanctify, validate, authenticate the preferences. This often takes the form of imbuing the art object with the quality of "greatness" inside it somewhere that renders the object worthy of and actually requiring admiration.*


This is not at all a description of my experience as an artist. Knowing when I'm making a clear and consistent statement with a painting, knowing when the curve of a line reinforces rather than vitiates the rhythm of the whole, knowing when my colors strike a mood consistent with the overall conception, knowing where to crop an image so as to create the right degree of immediacy 
consistent with the affect present in a facial expression - etc., etc., etc., etc., _und so weiter..._ Knowing such things is the artist's business.

In the building of a work of art, some choices are right and other choices - most choices, in fact - are wrong. Terribly, unforgivably wrong. Brahms knew this as well as anyone, and he knew what to do with those wrong choices when he couldn't right them. Snap, crackle, and pop!

Approbation? Authority figures? Sanctification? Validation? Authentication? Dear boy, I don't know what you're talking about.


----------



## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> Thank you.
> 
> This seems to be your argument:
> 
> 1. Some art displays intelligence and competence
> 2. People everywhere and through all time respond positively to art displaying intelligence and competence
> 3. (implicit premise): what people respond positively to is necessarily Good.
> 4. Therefore: art displaying intelligence and competence is Good art.
> 
> For an argument to be a good argument, two things must hold:
> 
> a. It's premises must all be true
> b. It's premises must entail or make the conclusion significantly more likely (i.e. if the premises were true, the conclusion would follow)
> 
> In this case, your argument fails on both fronts. The premises aren't all true, nor would the premises, if true, support the conclusion:
> 
> a. Premise 3 is false. I think it's obviously false and a lengthy explanation of why is not needed.
> b. The premises don't support the conclusion. People respond positively to lots of things, including really really dumb art. In fact, more people respond positively to this art than to intelligent and 'competent' art. On your logic, then, dumb and incompetent art is Good art. This directly contradicts your actual conclusion.


If you attribute incorrect premises to me, then of course you won't buy my argument. See "Premise 3." You've somehow concluded that I think art needs to win a popularity contest to be good. Yikes. And I try so hard to be clear...


----------



## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> If you attribute incorrect premises to me, then of course you won't buy my argument. See "Premise 3." You've somehow concluded that I think art needs to win a popularity contest to be good. Yikes. And I try so hard to be clear...


How else does your argument work without this implicit premise?

I'm open to correction, which is why i wrote "this SEEMS to be your argument".


----------



## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> I guess you are talking about principles of "good composition" and how to use color, technique, etc., the stuff they teach in art schools.


I don't know what stuff you think they do or don't teach in art school. I never went to art school. I know they teach certain techniques, they make you practice drawing and painting, and they try to teach you how to see what's right before your eyes (which most people, interestingly, don't know how to do). But I can tell you confidently that greatness isn't taught in art school, or anywhere else.



> But not everyone who went to a good art school produces great art.


Indeed. Most do not. (But how do you know this? Do you even believe in great art? maybe I'm forgetting who here does and who doesn't...)



> I've seen articles about what we find beautiful in a face. They talk about symmetry of the features, distance between the eyes, size of the eyes, etc. It seems silly to me, since I don't think beauty can be quantified like that - nor do I think great art can be so easily explained.


Obviously, beauty can't be quantified and great art can't be so easily explained. No one's pretending otherwise. But the art student has to start somewhere.



> For people like me, when I walk through a museum I assume that someone there, the curator, e.g., thought everything they hung was at least "good art" maybe even "great art" - but most of the paintings don't do anything for me. I'll see maybe two or three that I like.


I'm sorry. Certainly, art goes into museums for a variety of reasons.



> The same is true for music.


There's only a little music that you like?


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> What, exactly, "requires a human listener whose biological makeup is calibrated exactly to the perceptual ordering structure supposed by the composer"? a "pure" experience of the music and nothing but the music, according to you. I am guessing this is some kind of account of musical 'objectivity'. But it's obviously bogus.
> 
> Even if I was biologically calibrated exactly as Beethoven was (which means I would _be_ Beethoven, btw), this doesn't mean i'm having some "pure" experience of the music and nothing but the music. The factors I mentioned in the my last post would all still be absolutely crucial to my experience.


Your point seems to be that it is impossible for music, as a _template _for experience, to pass through a process of definition without becoming corrupted by experiential impurities. I don't disagree, except to say that insofar as the music is colored by these impurities- the emotional state of the listener, the state of one's ears- the act of pure contemplation has been interfered with. The fact that none of us can experience the true form of the music does not mean it isn't there.

Timbre is more interesting. When a composer writes a french horn part, it will sound different depending on whether it is played by the Vienna Philharmonic or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In cases like these, our notation fails us, and the best that conductors and orchestras can do is to aim for the ideal timbral structure- the ideal french horn sound in relation to the sounds of the other instruments- even if they have no answer key.
In my view this is precisely the benchmark for good interpretation- that the interpretation is made with knowledge of the music's inner structure and inner nature.


----------



## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> How else does your argument work without this implicit premise?
> 
> I'm open to correction, which is why i wrote "this SEEMS to be your argument".


I'm sorry. You've lost me. Maybe I'm just tired.


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> Your point seems to be that it is impossible for music, as a _template _for experience, to pass through a process of definition without becoming corrupted by experiential impurities. I don't disagree, except to say that insofar as the music is colored by these impurities- the emotional state of the listener, the state of one's ears- the act of pure contemplation has been interfered with. *The fact that none of us can experience the true form of the music* does not mean it isn't there.


What you're talking about, Socrates, is simply a set of relations, nothing more.

So much for actual music!

Maybe you'd do well as a mathematician?


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> What you're talking about, Socrates, is simply a set of relations, nothing more.
> 
> So much for actual music!
> 
> Maybe you'd do well as a mathematician?


What do you mean? Do you mean that the relationship between the true form of the music and how it is experienced is a set of relations? That's one way to say that some abstract structure of experience is preserved, i.e. the E follows the first A in Beethoven's 7th.

Or do you mean that the true form of the music is a "set of relations"? That's exactly what it is. A "set of relations" (between elements) is how structure is defined. This structure, however, is inseparable from, and includes, the _experience _of its elements and the relations between them, because the structure is built upon the bedrock of a perceptual ordering scheme.


----------



## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> Thank you.
> 
> This seems to be your argument:
> 
> 1. Some art displays intelligence and competence
> 2. People everywhere and through all time respond positively to art displaying intelligence and competence
> 3. (implicit premise): what people respond positively to is necessarily Good.
> 4. Therefore: art displaying intelligence and competence is Good art.
> 
> For an argument to be a good argument, two things must hold:
> 
> a. It's premises must all be true
> b. It's premises must entail or make the conclusion significantly more likely (i.e. if the premises were true, the conclusion would follow)
> 
> In this case, your argument fails on both fronts. The premises aren't all true, nor would the premises, if true, support the conclusion:
> 
> a. Premise 3 is false. I think it's obviously false and a lengthy explanation of why is not needed.
> b. The premises don't support the conclusion. People respond positively to lots of things, including really really dumb art. In fact, more people respond positively to this art than to intelligent and 'competent' art. On your logic, then, dumb and incompetent art is Good art. This directly contradicts your actual conclusion.


If we're talking about flaws in logic, at the end you used the fact that people respond positively to really dumb art to prove that there can be no inherent quality in art; please explain to me how you defined really dumb art since, evidently, you belive all art to be of inherently equal quality and intelligence (namely none).


----------



## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> I'm sorry. You've lost me. Maybe I'm just tired.


If you say so...


----------



## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> If we're talking about flaws in logic, at the end you used the fact that people respond positively to really dumb art to prove that there can be no inherent quality in art; please explain to me how you defined really dumb art since, evidently, you belive all art to be of inherently equal quality and intelligence (namely none).


I'm defining dumb art according to whatever definition Woodduck has of it. He would surely think Cardi B and Nicki Minaj make dumb are. Well, the number of people who enjoy it dwarf the number of people who like Mahler. So, if 'what people respond positively to is necessarily Good' (an implicit premise he seems to need to secure his conclusion) .... you know the rest.


----------



## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> I'm defining dumb art according to whatever definition Woodduck has of it. He would surely think Cardi B and Nicki Minaj make dumb are. Well, the number of people who enjoy it dwarf the number of people who like Mahler. So, if 'what people respond positively to is necessarily Good' (an implicit premise he seems to need to secure his conclusion) .... you know the rest.


I think you should re-read Wooduck's post if you think he said that people liking to dance to certain music on Friday nights is indictive of artistic greatness in said music.


----------



## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> I think you should re-read Wooduck's post if you think he said that people liking to dance to certain music on Friday nights is indictive of artistic greatness in said music.


Ok, then why did Woodduck say "People everywhere and through all time respond positively to art displaying intelligence and competence"...

... if the reality of people responding positively to something isn't part of the logical basis for that thing being Good in his argument.

I think you should offer your interpretation of Woodduck's argument, which takes into account everything he said in the relevant post.

I am happy to be corrected about the logical structure of his argument if I misunderstood it. Heck, I'm even happy for Woodduck to modify the argument even if I interpreted it correctly, but he has a better one.

The idea that there are objective standards for artistic taste is so obviously false to me that I would welcome the challenge.

No one has yet presented the faintest whiff of a good argument - for criteria that would bind every art consumer and judge his tastes to be either good or bad: that would render his judgement that some art work is Good or Bad factually _mistaken_. For that is what the objectivist is after, isn't it?

But, alas, so far they've only managed personal opinion under the guise of The Absolute - preference dressed up as Logos. "To me great art is...".

All tip and no iceberg.


----------



## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> Ok, then why did Woodduck say "People everywhere and through all time respond positively to art displaying intelligence and competence"...


Woodduck did not say that ALL people, etc. Please don't put words in the duck's beak.

Evidence for what he actually said is necessarily circumstantial, since people everywhere and through all time are not available for comment. What is available is historical documents telling us what artists were patronized and lionized in past eras, as well as a vast quantity of art hanging in museums, covering the walls and ceilings of churches, and sounding in the spaces of concert halls and opera houses. We know that it's only a fraction of what has actually been produced, and the main reason we don't hear the larger percentage of, say, 18th-century operas is that they aren't as good as the ones we do hear and people reasonably don't want to put the time and money into producing them. A lot of clearly inferior paintings are spending eternity buried in the vaults of museums. Tons of really incompetent art has hung on the walls of private residences and ended up in attics, basements, yard sales and landfills. Time doesn't always deliver justice to art, but on the whole it seems to.



> if the reality of people responding positively to something isn't part of the logical basis for that thing being Good?


It isn't. It's merely a likely consequence, playing out over and over down through the ages. Haydn and Mozart survive the centuries and conquer the world. Myslivecek and Jommelli fade into history. Why?



> I am happy to be corrected about the logical structure of his argument if I misunderstood it. Heck, I'm even happy for Woodduck to modify the argument even if I interpreted it correctly, but he has a better one.


That's good. He wants you to be happy. He wants everyone to be happy.



> The idea that there are objective standards for artistic taste is so obviously false to me that I would welcome the challenge.


No one here, to my knowledge, has said that there are objective standards for TASTE. That is very much NOT my position. Taste has no need for standards of any kind. If it turns you on, go for it, and if anyone complains that your taste is abysmal, tell them where to stick it.



> No one has yet presented the faintest whiff of a good argument - for criteria that would bind every art consumer and judge his tastes to be either good or bad: that would render his judgement that some art work is Good or Bad factually _mistaken_. For that is what the objectivist is after, isn't it?


No.

Musicians and scholars can and do talk endlessly about the virtues of Mozart, but ultimately Mozart has to make his own argument that he's a better composer than Salieri. Like any argument, it will never convince anyone who can't comprehend the language in which it's delivered. And it will certainly never convince anyone who has decided in advance that art can be neither good nor bad.

Mozart and Salieri both knew whose music was better, and they were both right.



> But, alas, so far they've only managed personal opinion under the guise of The Absolute - preference dressed up as Logos. "To me great art is...".
> 
> All tip and no iceberg.


Brrrrrrrrrrrr!


----------



## Boychev

I used to think "no" for a while, but then again nobody can tell me precisely what I *must* listen to and even the people who yammer on and on about objective greatness in music give you the "Well you have to develop your own taste for yourself, there's no one fixed way to go about exploring classical music man" excuse for a response when you ask for specific directions as to what you absolutely must teach yourself to enjoy if you are to be a good listener and properly appreciate music, so I concluded that the notion itself is of no practical importance.

If I wanted to teach myself physics, I could ask a friend for a list of books, topics, skills, etc that are absolutely mandatory if you want to delve into the subject, and there is a natural progression there in which some topics build on others so while the process itself may be difficult and take years, it's fairly easy to know where to start, where you're going with it and how to know you're doing something wrong. Same with any other non-artistic interest - there are obvious points to start on, on which you can then build, and there are obvious directions in which to expand your knowledge.

If I wanted to explore classical music though, do I start with, say, Strauss' waltzes and build towards more complicated forms? Well no, because Strauss' waltzes are supposed to be in bad taste - nobody must listen to them and the people who do must simply be bad at it. Do I just listen to the most acclaimed works then? Well no, because I cannot possibly begin to understand something like the WTC or Schubert's symphonies on my own - you don't just read War and Peace again and again and again in order to understand it when you don't know a word of Russian and likewise you can't just listen to WTC again and again and again hoping it will magically "click" somehow when you don't already have an idea what's going on. Am I supposed to study theory before I understand the actual music then? Well if that's the case, how are the concert halls full of people who have no theoretical background and most of the time no experience even playing an instrument? Surely those people who are fanatical about classical music but are not trained musicians or composers must know something I don't know. Yet, when you ask them "Which is the correct point to start on? Which are the correct recordings to listen to? What composers do I have to like? How do I learn to enjoy a work that doesn't interest me? How do I become a better listener?" you get the same "See what you enjoy and explore from there" answer instead of specific directions. Nobody can logically explain to you how to like Wagner's operas if you don't already like them, or how the process of exploration is supposed to work when you don't have clearly defined steps to take and chances are you're about as likely to end up with Wagner as your favourite operatic composer as you are with any other. And yet there he is on the number 1 spot of the TalkClassical charts - why? How? What is that supposed to mean?

So, supposing there is such a thing as an objective standard in music, nobody seems to be willing to enforce it. Nobody wants to chastise and antagonize people for listening to the supposedly wrong music, and nobody is interested in explaining the formula to what makes the best music in clear and precise terms. In other words, it's as good as having no standard at all. Either that, or you people are really goddamn exclusive about your hobby and I have to enter into it like a Zen monastery or something.


----------



## Handelian

Boychev said:


> I used to think "no" for a while, but then again nobody can tell me precisely what I *must* listen to and even the people who yammer on and on about objective greatness in music give you the "Well you have to develop your own taste for yourself, there's no one fixed way to go about exploring classical music man" excuse for a response when you ask for specific directions as to what you absolutely must teach yourself to enjoy if you are to be a good listener and properly appreciate music, so I concluded that the notion itself is of no practical importance.
> 
> If I wanted to teach myself physics, I could ask a friend for a list of books, topics, skills, etc that are absolutely mandatory if you want to delve into the subject, and there is a natural progression there in which some topics build on others so while the process itself may be difficult and take years, it's fairly easy to know where to start, where you're going with it and how to know you're doing something wrong. Same with any other non-artistic interest - there are obvious points to start on, on which you can then build, and there are obvious directions in which to expand your knowledge.
> 
> If I wanted to explore classical music though, do I start with, say, Strauss' waltzes and build towards more complicated forms? Well no, because Strauss' waltzes are supposed to be in bad taste - nobody must listen to them and the people who do must simply be bad at it. Do I just listen to the most acclaimed works then? Well no, because I cannot possibly begin to understand something like the WTC or Schubert's symphonies on my own - you don't just read War and Peace again and again and again in order to understand it when you don't know a word of Russian and likewise you can't just listen to WTC again and again and again hoping it will magically "click" somehow when you don't already have an idea what's going on. Am I supposed to study theory before I understand the actual music then? Well if that's the case, how are the concert halls full of people who have no theoretical background and most of the time no experience even playing an instrument? Surely those people who are fanatical about classical music but are not trained musicians or composers must know something I don't know. Yet, when you ask them "Which is the correct point to start on? Which are the correct recordings to listen to? What composers do I have to like? How do I learn to enjoy a work that doesn't interest me? How do I become a better listener?" you get the same "See what you enjoy and explore from there" answer instead of specific directions. Nobody can logically explain to you how to like Wagner's operas if you don't already like them, or how the process of exploration is supposed to work when you don't have clearly defined steps to take and chances are you're about as likely to end up with Wagner as your favourite operatic composer as you are with any other. And yet there he is on the number 1 spot of the TalkClassical charts - why? How? What is that supposed to mean?
> 
> So, supposing there is such a thing as an objective standard in music, nobody seems to be willing to enforce it. Nobody wants to chastise and antagonize people for listening to the supposedly wrong music, and nobody is interested in explaining the formula to what makes the best music in clear and precise terms. In other words, it's as good as having no standard at all. Either that, or you people are really goddamn exclusive about your hobby and I have to enter into it like a Zen monastery or something.


First of all, friend, if you want to teach yourself physics, then good luck to you!

Your point about classical music. I am not a 'fanatic'. Just someone who enjoys CM over a wide range. There is absolutely no objective measure of which composers are 'the greatest' apart from the general agreement of those who love CM. Even there you will find a wide divergence of opinion. The example you give: Wagner. No-one in their right mind would say that Wagner was not an exceedingly talented musician and composer who did incredible things. Whether, however, his works deserve the almost religious awe in which they are held in some quarters is a matter of opinion and sharply divides the music world. Hence you have the objective and subjective running in parallel. Objectively Wagner is an incredible musician and composed some remarkable works. Whether what Wagner did with his undoubted musical genius is to everyone's taste and fancy even among CM lovers - is the subjective element. 
Of course, the same coupled be said of every composer. Beethoven reckoned that Handel was the greatest composer ever. Haydn listened to his younger colleague, Mozart, and gave the palm to him. So we could go on.
There is some guy on here who greatly appreciates Britten's music. Apart from two or three works it does little for me. He might say, though, the same about Handel. No-one is right and wrong. Just different. Why endless arguing about 'the greatest' is somewhat pointless as it is like trying to put your finger on a blob of mercury.


----------



## Strange Magic

> Woodduck: "There's only a little music that you like?"


Now here is a tiny sentence that could open doors (again) on another of our TC Perennial, Perpetual subjects for discussion: How much Good Art/Music is Out There, Really? Sturgeon's Law https://effectiviology.com/sturgeons-law/ tells us that 90% of everything is crap, and many believe that Theodore Sturgeon was an incurable optimist. A thesis could be put forward that everyone has a finite modicum of capacity to truly absorb and enjoy materials from the myriad genres of artworks, and this capacity is summed among all the various inputs.

So in one extreme hypothetical case, a CM enthusiast may love--richly, deeply, widely--many works among the thousands of examples of CM, but loathes most or all other forms of music. Maybe only listens to three composers. Many variations on this. My case in the arts is different, and likely mirrors that of a large fraction: I listen and love widely among CM, but with nowhere near the enthusiasm in a narrow band as the first example. Instead my capacity extends out through a number of other musical genres--Rock, Pop, World, Flamenco, Blues, Latin, etc., and is filled up from many diverse sources.

None of this bears directly on the question of whether there exists "greatness" within art objects or whether "greatness" is a noun and "great" an adjective that can be applied to things/experiences that are absorbed for pleasure and pastime, or perhaps as a lubricant for other ideas (ways of getting through rough patches, etc.).

But we can think about people, including of course ourselves, who are alert, well-educated, discriminatory (in a good sense) who yet find perhaps wildly different things and quantities of things to like, love, admire, respect within the general genre of CM or any other category of music or art (or wine or ice cream).

Maybe a whole 'nother thread. Is 90 (or tather 95%) of everything crap?


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> ...The idea that there are objective standards for artistic taste is so obviously false to me that I would welcome the challenge.
> 
> No one has yet presented the faintest whiff of a good argument...


*Premise 1: Truth, as opposed to confusion, is good. Meaningfulness, as opposed to meaninglessness, is good. Profundity, as opposed to superficiality, is good. Transcendence, as opposed to pain, is good. Etc. *
These claims are so obvious, so bound up in the definition of the word "Good" as things that are morally correct and should be aimed for, and so much part of most working moral systems that any refutation must immediately start from a very strange philosophical position.
Note that this claim does not necessarily require one to accept that truth or meaningfulness is intrinsically good, only that the contact of people with such qualities is a good act.

*Premise 2: The degree to which a work of music can embody these qualities is heavily dependent on its own form. *
Music is created as an experiential structure, and the composer's conception of its form is inseparable from the composer's conception of the experience of the listener. Usually, the artist is directly working this way, but even academic artists are working on the grounds of a perceptual ordering structure, and so the experience is assumed.

*Conclusion: Goodness, while not quantifiable, is not equally present in all music. From here, greatness is just a matter of definition.*

I have an idea of the lines along which counterarguments can run, but I'd rather hear it from your own words.


----------



## Boychev

Handelian said:


> First of all, friend, if you want to teach yourself physics, then good luck to you!
> 
> Your point about classical music. I am not a 'fanatic'. Just someone who enjoys CM over a wide range. There is absolutely no objective measure of which composers are 'the greatest' apart from the general agreement of those who love CM. Even there you will find a wide divergence of opinion. The example you give: Wagner. No-one in their right mind would say that Wagner was not an exceedingly talented musician and composer who did incredible things. Whether, however, his works deserve the almost religious awe in which they are held in some quarters is a matter of opinion and sharply divides the music world. Hence you have the objective and subjective running in parallel. Objectively Wagner is an incredible musician and composed some remarkable works. Whether what Wagner did with his undoubted musical genius is to everyone's taste and fancy even among CM lovers - is the subjective element.
> Of course, the same coupled be said of every composer. Beethoven reckoned that Handel was the greatest composer ever. Haydn listened to his younger colleague, Mozart, and gave the palm to him. So we could go on.
> There is some guy on here who greatly appreciates Britten's music. Apart from two or three works it does little for me. He might say, though, the same about Handel. No-one is right and wrong. Just different. Why endless arguing about 'the greatest' is somewhat pointless as it is like trying to put your finger on a blob of mercury.


Yes, I agree with all of this, but in the end none of it helps me understand music better either. How do you know what to listen to and even more importantly what to listen _for_? It seems like everyone received a memo on how to interpret music and I missed it. I still don't get what a layman is supposed to derive from music aside from pure fun in which case it makes no difference if the music in question is classical, or country, or club or whatever. If it's all subjective, what do you make of it? I don't want to make whatever I want of it, I want to know what I'm making of it is the correct thing. And likewise - back to great composers and all - I don't want to just enjoy some composer, I want to know I'm validated in doing so. Otherwise I'd personally rather listen to secondary and relatively unknown composers any day rather than try to listen to Beethoven's quartets or Mahler or whatever. But then again I absolutely must be missing something if everyone recommends those great works and composers, and yet I've no framework to understand and nobody seems to explain what makes them so special except in purely technical terms which on their own don't mean much... I mean who cares how innovative those late quartets were, the point should be to explain the message contained in them. But it always boils down to just different and more elaborate ways of saying "This sounds great". It's maddening.


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## SanAntone

Boychev said:


> I still don't get what a layman is supposed to derive from music aside from pure fun in which case it makes no difference if the music in question is classical, or country, or club or whatever.


You got it.


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## science

RogerWaters said:


> I'm defining dumb art according to whatever definition Woodduck has of it. He would surely think Cardi B and Nicki Minaj make dumb are. Well, the number of people who enjoy it dwarf the number of people who like Mahler. So, if 'what people respond positively to is necessarily Good' (an implicit premise he seems to need to secure his conclusion) .... you know the rest.


To be fair, I don't think the question is whether Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are better than Mahler. They're trying to do such completely different things that comparing and contrasting them is almost bizarre -- like arguing about whether a herpetologist or a snake handler is a better herpetologist. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are not trying to get people to sit still for an hour listening to how they can transform a motif or explore subtle gradations of emotion or whatever. Mahler is not trying to make people want to shake their hips suggestively.

The question probably ought instead to be how well Cardi B and Nicki Minaj do what they are trying to do -- and I'd guess they do it much better than most other people who are trying to do that -- and how well Mahler does what he is trying to do.

Or, which I would advocate, we could just forego all of that judging and instead simply consider what Cardi B and Nicki Minaj and Mahler mean and have meant to various people. After all, when person A says "I like X better than Y" and person B says "I like Y better than X," we learn nothing or almost nothing about X or Y but a lot about A and B.


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## Handelian

Boychev said:


> Yes, I agree with all of this, but in the end none of it helps me understand music better either. How do you know what to listen to and even more importantly what to listen _for_? It seems like everyone received a memo on how to interpret music and I missed it. I still don't get what a layman is supposed to derive from music aside from pure fun in which case it makes no difference if the music in question is classical, or country, or club or whatever. If it's all subjective, what do you make of it? I don't want to make whatever I want of it, I want to know what I'm making of it is the correct thing. And likewise - back to great composers and all - I don't want to just enjoy some composer, I want to know I'm validated in doing so. Otherwise I'd personally rather listen to secondary and relatively unknown composers any day rather than try to listen to Beethoven's quartets or Mahler or whatever. But then again I absolutely must be missing something if everyone recommends those great works and composers, and yet I've no framework to understand and nobody seems to explain what makes them so special except in purely technical terms which on their own don't mean much... I mean who cares how innovative those late quartets were, the point should be to explain the message contained in them. But it always boils down to just different and more elaborate ways of saying "This sounds great". It's maddening.


Quite simple. You listen to what you like - what pushes your buttons. No need to be validated by anyone. They are not listening - you are. Sometimes we have to be a bit patient and wait for music to dawn on us - like it might be better to listen to Beethoven's earlier quartets rather than start with the late ones. There is no message btw contained in the late quartets as far as I know - for us at least. Beethoven often had a message but usually kept it to himself except in works like the Pastoral Symphony. But music is music. Whatever pleases you go for that no matter what anyone says. Read 'The Bluffers Guide to Music' to keep up with the 'in' crowd in the pub but leave it at that


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## SanAntone

science said:


> To be fair, I don't think the question is whether Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are better than Mahler. They're trying to do such completely different things that comparing and contrasting them is almost bizarre -- like arguing about whether a herpetologist or a snake handler is a better herpetologist. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are not trying to get people to sit still for an hour listening to how they can transform a motif or explore subtle gradations of emotion or whatever. Mahler is not trying to make people want to shake their hips suggestively.
> 
> The question probably ought instead to be how well Cardi B and Nicki Minaj do what they are trying to do -- and I'd guess they do it much better than most other people who are trying to do that -- and how well Mahler does what he is trying to do.
> 
> Or, which I would advocate, we could just forego all of that judging and instead simply consider what Cardi B and Nicki Minaj and Mahler mean and have meant to various people. After all, when person A says "I like X better than Y" and person B says "I like Y better than X," we learn nothing or almost nothing about X or Y but a lot about A and B.


IMO, it comes down to some music is aimed at the body while other music aims for the mind. I think both are valuable, and really neither is "greater" than the other. This thread is on a classical music forum, so of course Mahler will be held in higher regard than Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, but that means nothing in the Big Picture.


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## Mandryka

SanAntone said:


> IMO, it comes down to some music is aimed at the body while other music aims for the mind. I think both are valuable, and really neither is "greater" than the other. This thread is on a classical music forum, so of course Mahler will be held in higher regard than Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, but that means nothing in the Big Picture.


Does this aim for the body or does it aim for the mind?


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## Woodduck

science said:


> To be fair, I don't think the question is whether Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are better than Mahler. They're trying to do such completely different things that comparing and contrasting them is almost bizarre -- like arguing about whether a herpetologist or a snake handler is a better herpetologist. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are not trying to get people to sit still for an hour listening to how they can transform a motif or explore subtle gradations of emotion or whatever. Mahler is not trying to make people want to shake their hips suggestively.
> 
> The question probably ought instead to be how well Cardi B and Nicki Minaj do what they are trying to do -- and I'd guess they do it much better than most other people who are trying to do that -- and how well Mahler does what he is trying to do.


I agree that we must always remember, if we're evaluating things, what KINDS of things they are. In the case of created things, including art, it matters to our evaluation of them what they were created FOR. I would guess (since I don't know her work) that Cardi B's music is not intended to capture the feeling of sorrowful yet rapturous and grateful contemplation of life's transience as experienced by a poet bidding a final farewell to a friend as they walk together in the mountains in autumn. In fact, I would guess that Cardi would be completely incapable of creating a work like that, and would probably never even think of such a thing (though I'll happily apologize if I underestimate her). Therefore, if I were at a Cardi B concert (does she give concerts?), I would certainly not be thinking, "Well, Mahler is better." But that doesn't mean that Mahler is not, in some sense, and probably in several senses, better.

Different kinds of art may be equally enjoyable and even equally necessary to a person's happiness, but that doesn't make them achievements of equal artistic distinction or equal value to mankind, in the large view and in the long run. Cardi B will, I presume, have her time in the spotlight and will eventually (maybe very soon) be replaced by the next popular purveyor of easy fun. Mahler is irreplaceable.


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## etipou

Boychev said:


> x


I am sympathetic to your frustrations, Boychev. For most people, quite naturally, learning about music in the abstract follows from loving some particular music. They find a piece they like, they read the liner notes or Wikipedia page, which mention some other things they like, and so on. Perhaps eventually they buy a book of musical history, or one about their favourite composer. As they listen their understanding of music grows, their preferences change, they develop a distinct aesthetic outlook, which might bear more or less relation to "good taste" as it is commonly understood.

Your position sounds quite different. Either you don't love anything in particular, but are curious about classical music as a grand but opaque cultural edifice which is talked of in the most exalted and elevated terms; or you have managed to acquire somehow so deep a suspicion of your own preferences that you are afraid to follow them where they lead. If the first, that is fine and admirable.

If it is the second, I do not think this kind of worry is totally ill-founded, but for now you ought to ignore it as much as possible. You cannot learn anything about music without listening to lots of it, and you will listen to more of it if you listen to things that you like. If you keep in the back of your mind the idea that there is good and bad and you'd like to be able to tell them apart, that is enough. It can't be an end in itself. The only real justification for listening to music is to enjoy it, not to label it as good or bad.

With this necessary preface, I will try to answer some of your questions.

1. I still don't get what a layman is supposed to derive from music aside from pure fun in which case it makes no difference if the music in question is classical, or country, or club or whatever.

"Fun" is not very specific. Of course it is true that most of the time, we listen to music to enjoy it - and turn it off if we don't. But the specific experience of listening to different types of music are just different, like apple pie is different from chocolate cake. The argument for classical music in particular, especially the canon from Bach to Brahms & Wagner, is that it encompasses a range of styles with exceptional capacities for giving varied and powerful aesthetic experiences. It is very unsatisfactory to describe aesthetic experiences in words, but to be more concrete I might single out _grandeur_, _wit_ (as distinct from comedy), and _tragedy_ (as distinct from melancholy) as a few examples of experiences which are not easy to find at all in other types of Western music. And though you will find plenty of melancholy in country music, it is very different again from Mozartean melancholy, though we don't have words for either.

2. I mean who cares how innovative those late quartets were, the point should be to explain the message contained in them.

This is exactly right, people far too often talk about musical history when they mean to talk about musical aesthetics. The trouble is that music cannot be translated into prose. And as I have said, our language for talking about music is very limited, and few people are good doing so. (I certainly am not among them.) In the English language at least, there are only two writers worth a damn on the topic that I know of - Donald Francis Tovey and Charles Rosen.

Tovey brings up the difficulties of talking about aesthetics all the time. You have to use ridiculous contortions like "the modulation to the dominant in preparation for the second subject" to describe a _sensation_ that everyone who has listened attentively to a single work of Mozart or Haydn would recognise instantly. The trouble with these writers is that for exactly this reason, you need to be able to read music, and to be familiar with a lot of dusty terminology, to understand their aesthetic commentary. Which brings me to...

3. How do I become a better listener?

Since I do not believe it will be useful to tell you to relax and enjoy things more, I will try to give you an answer which is structured like the way you might learn physics.

First, you should learn to read music, and the best way to do this is by learning to play it. I recommend the piano. You do not need to become very good at all, but a year or 18 months worth of lessons once a week will give you the ability to read a musical score along with the rudiments of musical theory. You may wish alternatively (or in addition) to study singing a little, and to join a choir. Either will give you an invaluable view of music "from the inside".

Meanwhile, watch every one of Bernstein's "Concerts for Young People". There are an outstanding educational resource and quite as valuable for older listeners as young ones. If you watch two per week, you'll be able to see them all twice during your year of piano lessons.

Once you have done this, you should buy everything written by Tovey and Rosen that you can get your hands on. In particular, get Tovey's "Essays in Musical Analysis", which are nothing like what their title suggests. They are entertaining and erudite program notes he wrote for the concerts he gave back in the 1920s and 30s. Listen to every work described in them with the aid of the notes. Then read Rosen's "Classical Style" and "Romantic Generation", and do the same with all the works he singles out. Then read all the rest. After this you will understand as much of classical music as any listener ever has.


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## Isaac Blackburn

Boychev said:


> Yes, I agree with all of this, but in the end none of it helps me understand music better either. How do you know what to listen to and even more importantly *what to listen for?*


The basic language of classical music is thematic material and harmony.

Thematic material refers to sequences of pitches arranged into perceivable units of meaning. Pitches are arranged into meaningful units and combinations of thematic material, much like letters are arranged into meaningful words, sentences, and arguments. This element is often called the "horizontal" in music, because it concerns the successive relationship of the pitches to each other.
Harmony is a musical and perceptual quality which emerges from pitch combinations. It has a strange and well-mined connection to emotion. This element is often called the "vertical" in music, because it concerns the simultaneous relationship of the pitches to each other.

Since classical music communicates meaning through these two elements, listeners must be able to perceive them.

Here is a good example to practice perceiving thematic material:
*Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 15 in D, Movement III: Scherzo.*
In the beginning there are two patterns: a series of 4 notes descending by octaves, and quick little da-da-dum figures that get repeated. The first pattern sounds four times (louder on the 3rd and 4th time), and the second pattern, the figures, follow it each time. Then, the octave figures are played again, but this time they follow each other immediately, and there is a new "da da" figure as well. 
There is a faster section in the middle, but the two main patterns return. 
What you want is to be able to mentally "feel" the patterns as not just sets of notes, but actual objects themselves that are manipulated throughout the piece.

And here is a good example to practice perceiving changes in harmony: 
*Schubert, Impromptu Op.90, No.3 in G-flat: Andante. *
What you want is to be able to feel when the quality, color, and level of tension in the music changes.

Now:
Harmony, and thematic material, have movement latent within them. 

When a dominant 7th harmony, for example, is sounded, it implies that a major chord a fifth below will come after it. This is perceived as the dominant 7th "wanting" to go to the major chord a fifth below. 
Likewise, if a theme is stated, it implies its own development, and we perceive that the theme "wants" to move, to expand itself, to travel to new places. It is like if I went to a philosophy forum and posted a single sentence: "Morality is neither subjective or objective". The elaboration, the actual argument, would be expected to follow.

All that the composers of classical music are doing is realizing this movement into being. A good composer knows better what his musical material wants to do, and realizes it more faithfully.

To sum up: the state of the music at any given moment implies a different state of the music which will come after, which is perceived as a tendency to movement. Composers serve the music by satisfying these implications*, and allowing the music to go where it wants to go.

*Even the most dissonant, ironic, and rule-breaking composer, who does not write anything according to convention, is still satisfying the implications of his own music, for its nature, its being, is ironic and the natural motion of such a being will take ironic paths.

The satisfaction of short and long-range implications creates a musical structure. 

A slow melody might imply a faster section to follow, but it will also imply its own return further down the line. Thus, the composer already has a large-scale structure of the form ABA, where A denotes the section with the melody and B denotes the contrasting, faster section. Structure, however, is present at all scales of the music: a succession between two notes, two harmonies, is just as much a structure as the relationship between the beginning and ending keys.

Because structure is created by the satisfaction of the music's impulses, the musical structure is the shape of the nature of the music and a means of perceiving its being. 

Through structure, then, we can perceive emotion. We can perceive the spirit of the time, the soul of the composer, the narrative he wishes to communicate, the abstract qualities of the settings he was inspired by- the capability of musical structure to put us in touch with the abstract, the emotive, and the transcendent is virtually unlimited. To explain further would be too much for this post, but if you can perceive harmony, thematic material, and their arrangement into a structure, you are already halfway there, and all of classical music is open to you.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

SanAntone said:


> I don't even know why _I_ like some music more than other music. Have you ever been asked by someone "why do you love me?"
> 
> Good luck.


You're being obstinate. Sure, you can't answer it entirely - no one can - but you know you have certain preferences and you can at least attempt to generalize these preferences. IIRC you're someone who enjoys ranking composers. Since we listen to pieces, not composers, that's already, in a sense, an abstraction / generalization of your preferences. I'm sure you could go a bit further if you tried...

But whatever. Different discussion for a different time.


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## SanAntone

Mandryka said:


> Does this aim for the body or does it aim for the mind?


I couldn't play the video, but I should have added that some music does both. Peter Gabriel comes to mind, as do many others.


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## Mandryka

SanAntone said:


> I couldn't play the video, but I should have added that some music does both. Peter Gabriel comes to mind, as do many others.


I posted it (a thing by Maja Ratke) because her music, like a lot of recent music, seems to me to work only at a visceral level - she makes sounds, the sounds effect the listener, touch the listener, and that's about it. It's a bit one sided.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> I agree that we must always remember, if we're evaluating things, what KINDS of things they are. In the case of created things, including art, it matters to our evaluation of them what they were created FOR. I would guess (since I don't know her work) that Cardi B's music is not intended to capture the feeling of sorrowful yet rapturous and grateful contemplation of life's transience as experienced by a poet bidding a final farewell to a friend as they walk together in the mountains in autumn. In fact, I would guess that Cardi would be completely incapable of creating a work like that, and would probably never even think of such a thing (though I'll happily apologize if I underestimate her). Therefore, if I were at a Cardi B concert (does she give concerts?), I would certainly not be thinking, "Well, Mahler is better." But that doesn't mean that Mahler is not, in some sense, and probably in several senses, better.
> 
> Different kinds of art may be equally enjoyable and even equally necessary to a person's happiness, but that doesn't make them achievements of equal artistic distinction or equal value to mankind, in the large view and in the long run. Cardi B will, I presume, have her time in the spotlight and will eventually (maybe very soon) be replaced by the next popular purveyor of easy fun. Mahler is irreplaceable.


I don't think there's anything to this beyond the different values of the different audiences. Pop audiences generally want new things, classical audiences generally want old things.

It all comes down to values. Of course you think your values are better than other people's -- that's what we all think, inevitably, and it's probably right that we do. But we can see beyond that intellectually. Nobody loves other people's kids as much as they love their own, but we all know that most other people love their own kids too.


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## SanAntone

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> You're being obstinate. Sure, you can't answer it entirely - no one can - but you know you have certain preferences and you can at least attempt to generalize these preferences. IIRC you're someone who enjoys ranking composers. Since we listen to pieces, not composers, that's already, in a sense, an abstraction / generalization of your preferences. I'm sure you could go a bit further if you tried...
> 
> But whatever. Different discussion for a different time.


My composer rankings change almost day to day, certainly month to month, so don't read too much into that. I just like making lists.

I wasn't being flippant, I really can't articulate why I like the music I do. I guess if pressed, I avoid "big" statements and prefer smaller scale works, chamber music over symphonies, solo piano over concertos. I like composers that have wit and a somewhat piquant style - Stravinsky and Ravel. I like works that exhibit craft, Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, and I like composers who incorporate various styles in their works, Bernstein, Golojov, Gershwin. And I like composers who work outside the lines, Cage, Feldman, and a lot of new music.

Classical music makes up about a 20-30 percent of my listening. I listen to jazz, blues and acoustic roots music probably more than classical on any given day.


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## Woodduck

science said:


> I don't think there's anything to this beyond the different values of the different audiences. Pop audiences generally want new things, classical audiences generally want old things.
> 
> It all comes down to values. Of course you think your values are better than other people's -- that's what we all think, inevitably, and it's probably right that we do. But we can see beyond that intellectually. Nobody loves other people's kids as much as they love their own, but we all know that most other people love their own kids too.


Statements such as "I really don't think there's ANYTHING to this" and "it ALL comes down to [whatever]" feel a bit suspect, at least. It's also insulting to be told that there's NOTHING to what one has just said.

Actually, there is SOMETHING to what I said. Questions of values are not easily disposed of with flawed analogies, and the observation that people prefer what they prefer to what other people prefer is, shall we say, unhelpful. We can, as you say, "see beyond that intellectually."


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> Statements such as "I really don't think there's ANYTHING to this" and "it ALL comes down to [whatever]" feel a bit suspect, at least. It's also insulting to be told that there's NOTHING to what one has just said.
> 
> Actually, there is SOMETHING to what I said. Questions of values are not easily disposed of with flawed analogies, and the observation that people prefer what they prefer to what other people prefer is, shall we say, unhelpful. We can, as you say, "see beyond that intellectually."


I can't tell whether this means anything other than what I wrote upset you. Which is too bad, but then, I probably couldn't tell you to have a nice day without upsetting you.

If you or anyone else could prove that your values are objectively true, you would've done it by now. We've proven the existence of entities from neutrinos to black holes, of phenomena from cognitive dissonance to continental drift. But we've never found proof that objective values exist.

Some work of art _is_ this, it _is_ that, it _is_ another thing. But whether it _ought_ to be any of that is, well, just, like, your opinion, man. I know that hurts because you aspire to be more than just another one of us. And you probably do KNOW more than almost any of us. But that doesn't turn your oughts into is's, no matter how much fancy diction and syntax you dress them up in.


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> I can't tell whether this means anything other than what I wrote upset you. Which is too bad, but then, I probably couldn't tell you to have a nice day without upsetting you.
> 
> If you or anyone else could prove that your values are objectively true, you would've done it by now. We've proven the existence of entities from neutrinos to black holes, of phenomena from cognitive dissonance to continental drift. But we've never found proof that objective values exist.
> 
> Some work of art _is_ this, it _is_ that, it _is_ another thing. But whether it _ought_ to be any of that is, well, just, like, your opinion, man. I know that hurts because you aspire to be more than just another one of us. And you probably do KNOW more than almost any of us. But that doesn't turn your oughts into is's, no matter how much fancy diction and syntax you dress them up in.


I wasn't "upset," but you seem determined to fix that. My "fancy syntax" is something I can't seem to help. It isn't intended to hurt your feelings. It's just what comes out when I've got my thoughts in order and ready to express. But I guess your "value" system, or your ego, or your need to protect the egos of all the world's underdogs, finds that offensive. Or something.

It's perfectly true that no one can prove to anyone else that Mahler is a "greater" practitioner of the art of music than Cardi B, if "greatness" is nothing but an expression of taste as some people want it to be. It IS possible, though, to show all the aspects of music that he's better at, and its possible to show that he has continued to stimulate the interest and devotion of people capable of processing technically and emotionally complex music for a period of time which Cardi B is unlikely even to approximate (which I'm fairly confident in saying despite not having heard a note of her stuff). This doesn't mean that anyone is obligated to prefer Mahler to Cardi B, so you can relax.


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## science

Woodduck said:


> I wasn't "upset," but you seem determined to fix that. My "fancy syntax" is something I can't seem to help. It isn't intended to hurt your feelings. It's just what comes out when I've got my thoughts in order and ready to express. But I guess your "value" system, or your ego, or your need to protect the egos of all the world's underdogs, finds that offensive. Or something.
> 
> It's perfectly true that no one can prove to anyone else that Mahler is a "greater" practitioner of the art of music than Cardi B, if "greatness" is nothing but an expression of taste as some people want it to be. It IS possible, though, to show all the aspects of music that he's better at, and its possible to show that he has continued to stimulate the interest and devotion of people capable of processing technically and emotionally complex music for a period of time which Cardi B is unlikely even to approximate (which I'm fairly confident in saying despite not having heard a note of her stuff). This doesn't mean that anyone is obligated to prefer Mahler to Cardi B, so you can relax.


LOL, I wasn't the one who got snippy, there, bud.


----------



## Roger Knox

Concerning the OP my answer is, "No, I don't believe that," because I don't believe in total subjectivity in anything. Total subjectivity would make everything relative to the individual subject. Relativism is refuted by Roger Scruton and many others before him. If "Truth is relative" then that statement is itself relative, and holds no more validity than any other statement about truth. Unfortunately I don't have the training to argue this position philosophically. But I believe it leaves open the possibility of making substantive judgements that have some element of objectivity, by denying the relativist the possibility of disqualifying them.

What I believe is that people do make substantive judgements, whether or not one uses the word "evaluation." If a question is formulated, like "Shall I listen to this piece or that piece?," "This one" is an answer. If one then considers "why," that is the beginning of a potential substantive judgement on what it is about the piece that causes you to choose it, e.g. "I like the melody." One can then look at melodic shape, phrasing, rhythm, harmonic implications, expressiveness even. All of those are objective except for "expressiveness," but even there, factors that contribute to expressiveness may be identified. If one is in communication with others, intersubjective agreement may occur, even a consensus among a large group. So yes, there is always an element of subjectivity in judgements, but objective factors cannot be ruled out.


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> *Premise 1: Truth, as opposed to confusion, is good. Meaningfulness, as opposed to meaninglessness, is good. Profundity, as opposed to superficiality, is good. Transcendence, as opposed to pain, is good. Etc. *
> These claims are so obvious, so bound up in the definition of the word "Good" as things that are morally correct and should be aimed for, and so much part of most working moral systems that any refutation must immediately start from a very strange philosophical position.
> Note that this claim does not necessarily require one to accept that truth or meaningfulness is intrinsically good, only that the contact of people with such qualities is a good act.
> 
> *Premise 2: The degree to which a work of music can embody these qualities is heavily dependent on its own form. *
> Music is created as an experiential structure, and the composer's conception of its form is inseparable from the composer's conception of the experience of the listener. Usually, the artist is directly working this way, but even academic artists are working on the grounds of a perceptual ordering structure, and so the experience is assumed.
> 
> *Conclusion: Goodness, while not quantifiable, is not equally present in all music. From here, greatness is just a matter of definition.*
> 
> I have an idea of the lines along which counterarguments can run, but I'd rather hear it from your own words.


Again, for an argument to be a good argument a) its premises all need to be correct and b) they need to support the conclusion.

I think your argument fails according the first criterion. It's premises are false.

PREMISE 1:

*Truth*, that life has no inherent meaning, that no God exists to give a **** about human beings, that your life matters not one whit for the universe as a whole, can make people go to peices.

Your wife asks you whether she looks fat in this dress. She does. Do you tell her the truth? Good luck with that.

You do not like someone, but for reasons you cannot quite comphrened. His face, in particular, has your skin crawling. Do you tell him what you really think of him? Of course not.

You are tired and what to go home from work. Your boss comes out with something urgent. Do you tell him the truth about your mood and desires or get cracking?

It is NOT at all clear that '*profoundity*' is good. Many people are just fine remaining on the 'surface' of life and, again, might goto pieces if they did not do this. Prove to me that these people are factually _wrong_ for remaining on the 'surface' of life: watching sitcoms, catching up with friends, running the rat race and nothing more.

PREMISE 2:

Music does not make claims about the world. It does not 'embody truth'. Propositions do this. Music is not a proposition.

OTHER PROBLEMS

Your conclusion is not really on the money. So what if goodness is not present to the same degree in all music? Why is this an interesting conclusion (even if it were true, which it isn't - because the premises it depends on are not)? Why SHOULD goodness be present in music?!

Catching up with friends/sociality might be 'good', but does that mean music needs to "embody" catching up with friends?! After all, it can "embody" socialty to differing degrees just as much as "profundity".

I.e., even if it is granted that music can "embody truth" and that truth is Good, why does this mean music should embody truth?! A time and a place for everything, no?

In short: a highly questionable argument. I give you a C-. At least there was effort.


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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> It's perfectly true that no one can prove to anyone else that Mahler is a "greater" practitioner of the art of music than Cardi B, *if "greatness" is nothing but an expression of taste as some people want it to be.*


It's not a matter of me wanting this. It's a matter of it being, fortunately or unfortunately, the reality of the situation. If you don't think so, PROVE OTHERWISE!



Woodduck said:


> It IS possible, though, to show all the aspects of music that he's better at, and its possible to show that he has continued to stimulate the interest and devotion of people capable of processing technically and emotionally complex music for a period of time which Cardi B is unlikely even to approximate (which I'm fairly confident in saying despite not having heard a note of her stuff). This doesn't mean that anyone is obligated to prefer Mahler to Cardi B, so you can relax.


Of course Mahler is better at some aspects of music than Cardi B.

The problem for your general position is that you have no logical right (unless you care to show otherwise) to claim that those aspects of music are more important than the aspects over which Cardi B has a more superior command.


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## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> Again, for an argument to be a good argument a) its premises all need to be correct and b) they need to support the conclusion.
> 
> I think your argument fails according the first criterion. It's premises are false.
> 
> PREMISE 1:
> *Truth*, that life has no inherent meaning, that no God exists to give a **** about human beings, that your life matters not one whit for the universe as a whole, can make people go to peices....
> 
> PREMISE 2:
> Music does not make claims about the world. It does not 'embody truth'. Propositions do this. Music is not a proposition.
> 
> OTHER PROBLEMS
> I think your argument contains an implicit, unexpressed, premise which is required for the conclusion to follow: that the 'Good' must always and everywhere be strived for/present.
> 
> Catching up with friends/sociality might be 'good', but does that mean music needs to "embody" catching up with friends?! After all, it can "embody" socialty to differing degrees just as much as "profundity". I.e.: even if it is granted that music can "embody truth" and that truth is allways Good, why does this mean music should embody truth?! A time and a place for everything...
> 
> In short: a highly questionable argument. I give you a C-. At least there was effort.


Our disagreement with Premise 1 is now philosophical, and a consequence of our differing moral outlook. I'm not on TC to present Kantian thought so we'll have to sit on that for the time being.

Secondly, music embodies truth, profundity, and the like, through metaphor, and more specifically through structure. The "working-out" of a musical theme is the abstraction of a logical argument, and to listeners, the _experience_ is one of truth. 
Music embodies _values_; it does not present propositions.

Thirdly, I did not say that "Good" must always be strived for with the maximum possible effort. It's not necessary for the argument.


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> Our disagreement with Premise 1 is now philosophical, and a consequence of our differing moral outlook. As I'm not on TC to present Kantian thought, we'll have to sit on that for the time being.
> 
> Secondly, music embodies truth, profundity, and the like, through metaphor, and more specifically through structure. The "working-out" of a musical theme is the abstraction of a logical argument, and to listeners, the _experience_ is one of truth.
> Music embodies _values_; it does not present propositions.
> 
> Thirdly, I did not say that "Good" must always be strived for with the maximum possible effort. It's not necessary for the argument.


I updated my little critique significantly since you quoted it. Especially on the last point.


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> Your conclusion is not really on the money. So what if goodness is not present to the same degree in all music? Why SHOULD goodness be present in music?!
> 
> Catching up with friends/sociality might be 'good', but does that mean music needs to "embody" catching up with friends?! After all, it can "embody" socialty to differing degrees just as much as "profundity".
> 
> I.e., even if it is granted that music can "embody truth" and that truth is Good, why does this mean music should embody truth?! A time and a place for everything, no?


This is a separate discussion though- as I said, the duty composers and listeners have towards good is irrelevant to whether it exists.
My view is that Good must always be strived for. Different kinds of good- having a good time with friends can be just as good as praying in the synagogue, for example. It's impossible and unreasonable for everyone to listen to the most profound music all of the time, or go about life always in some elevated mood. But maybe then they substitute natural joy for profundity; one type of goodness for another.

You brought up, for example, telling white lies to the wife. In that case we simply prioritize feeling over irrelevant fact, the point being that we are still trying to make the "good" decision.



fluteman said:


> Yes, I make a similar distinction when I discuss the difference between classical and popular music (or art), i.e., they have different purposes or goals. The difference between us is, I don't make a value judgment as to the relative worth or importance of the two...


It is perfectly possible, though, to make such a value judgement without diminishing one's enjoyment of pop music, as long as one doesn't start judging it for _not _being the other thing. I can make a judgement that my wedding is more meaningful than watching Terminator 2; it doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy the movie any less.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> Different kinds of art may be equally enjoyable and even equally necessary to a person's happiness, but that doesn't make them achievements of equal artistic distinction or equal value to mankind, in the large view and in the long run. Cardi B will, I presume, have her time in the spotlight and will eventually (maybe very soon) be replaced by the next popular purveyor of easy fun. Mahler is irreplaceable.


Yes, I make a similar distinction when I discuss the difference between classical and popular music (or art), i.e., they have different purposes or goals. The difference between us is, I don't make a value judgment as to the relative worth or importance of the two. Classical and popular art both play important roles in any long-established culture. Those roles differ, sometimes widely, but that doesn't mean we need to judge which plays the more important role. The fact that popular art is relevant to a specific time and place, to be superseded by newer popular art, doesn't necessarily mean it's trivial.


----------



## Ethereality

RogerWaters said:


> It's not a matter of me wanting this. It's a matter of it being, fortunately or unfortunately, the reality of the situation. If you don't think so, PROVE OTHERWISE!


In logic, if you have some sweeping hypothesis, you need all the premises to be true else the whole falls short. Some people here are guided by their subjective feelings instead, in these artsy communities it may be shown that differing philosophies conflict with objective reality. But for some reason, some people are okay with that because it 'feels right.' For them it's perfectly valid to just be descriptive: if something sounds meaningful enough to a few people (typically not many people outside these artsy niches) then the statement is fair and craftily enough to be possible, and that's all that matters to get them to their true 'feeling.' But to us it doesn't feel honest; things need to be factual and logical. When they're not we consider them just interesting ideas, and at worst, totally twisted and dishonest. I'm sure maybe some here even realize their theories don't fit any mainstream or scientific line of reasoning. The key point of contention has been clearly stated so many times, that there's not really much else to argue.


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## Boychev

Thank you for your replies and recommendations. I already have some experience playing piano and guitar, singing in a choir, and having basic knowledge of theory, and like some classical music but my problem is, first, that my taste is not rigid and systematic enough and it doesn't really make any sense - it just seems like I like a set of random pieces, some very famous, a few obscure and nothing leading to any kind of resolve and purposefulness. And furthermore, music in general feels that way too - the emotions and colors are there, as is the sense of horizontal movement and vertical architecture but I find it impossible to make all that add up to something real, tangible, meaningful, something that truly speaks the way a great novel does. I try to conjure up the abstract shapes and see what their interrelations and shifts in form and colour might mean but most of the time I feel like I'm just having some emotion or other without much context to it. Like feeling in love without having that feeling directed towards a specific person, or feeling agitated without a real reason. It's not really a cerebral, but rather a purely visceral, emotional, imaginative experience - which is why I mistrust the idea of objective evaluations of music. It's just too abstract and pure.


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## Isaac Blackburn

Boychev said:


> ... the emotions and colors are there, as is the sense of horizontal movement and vertical architecture but I find it impossible to make all that add up to something real, tangible, meaningful, something that truly speaks the way a great novel does. I try to conjure up the abstract shapes and see what their interrelations and shifts in form and colour might mean but most of the time I feel like I'm just having some emotion or other without much context to it...


I think you might be closer to the mark than you realize. Part of the problem with many "layman explanations" of music is that they reference the workings and meaning of music in comparison to literature, narrative, art, etc. But music is its own thing, and if those explanations obscure the matter more than clarify it, they must be dropped. 
Think of it like you are perceiving the abstract "form" of an emotion. It's not meant to have any specific context, or be directed towards any concrete thing. As you said, it isn't tangible, or meaningful in the way that the words "I love you" are meaningful. In CM meaning is not tethered to anything real, but presented in its purest form. It is meaning itself.


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## etipou

Boychev said:


> Thank you for your replies and recommendations. I already have some experience playing piano and guitar, singing in a choir, and having basic knowledge of theory, and like some classical music but my problem is, first, that my taste is not rigid and systematic enough and it doesn't really make any sense - it just seems like I like a set of random pieces, some very famous, a few obscure and nothing leading to any kind of resolve and purposefulness.


I wouldn't be surprised if this is quite normal. The first year I began listening to classical music, I listened only - and about 100 times each - to Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue, the last two movements of Symphonie Fantastique, the last movement of Shostakovitch's 5th, and the Hindemith Flute Sonata. Everything else I couldn't stand. It took many years to develop what you might call a "healthy diet".



> And furthermore, music in general feels that way too - the emotions and colors are there, as is the sense of horizontal movement and vertical architecture but I find it impossible to make all that add up to something real, tangible, meaningful, something that truly speaks the way a great novel does. I try to conjure up the abstract shapes and see what their interrelations and shifts in form and colour might mean but most of the time I feel like I'm just having some emotion or other without much context to it. Like feeling in love without having that feeling directed towards a specific person, or feeling agitated without a real reason. It's not really a cerebral, but rather a purely visceral, emotional, imaginative experience - which is why I mistrust the idea of objective evaluations of music. It's just too abstract and pure.


This is a fascinating description, and I'm not sure I even disagree with much of it. I just find those sensations pleasurable. Do you have any experience with opera?


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## Woodduck

fluteman said:


> Yes, I make a similar distinction when I discuss the difference between classical and popular music (or art), i.e., they have different purposes or goals. The difference between us is, I don't make a value judgment as to the relative worth or importance of the two. Classical and popular art both play important roles in any long-established culture. Those roles differ, sometimes widely, but that doesn't mean we need to judge which plays the more important role. The fact that popular art is relevant to a specific time and place, to be superseded by newer popular art, doesn't necessarily mean it's trivial.


I said:

_"Different kinds of art may be equally enjoyable and even equally necessary to a person's happiness, but that doesn't make them achievements of equal artistic distinction or equal value to mankind, in the large view and in the long run. Cardi B will, I presume, have her time in the spotlight and will eventually (maybe very soon) be replaced by the next popular purveyor of easy fun. Mahler is irreplaceable."_

I can't tell how much you agree or disagree. Is the only part of my statement you disagree with this: "that doesn't make them achievements of equal artistic distinction or equal value to mankind, in the large view and in the long run"? If you don't agree with that, and do believe that Cardi B's work is artistically as brilliant and distinguished as Mahler's and that it makes an equivalent contribution to humanity in a manner transcending time and place - I'd like to hear your reasoning.


----------



## Ethereality

To chime further into the new questions now posed since (I'll say, in my opinion) the thread question has been thoroughly resolved, if there _were_ such a category of composers defined as objectively great, I don't think humanity or other composers would be 'pointing their direction' mostly. This just seems wholly counter-intuitive to how deeper intelligence behaves, all the variety in composition and my ongoing personal experience on this hasn't demonstrated anything opposite; while I'm not closed to change my mind, at this point, people are describing what is called 'groupthink.' What I've noticed with top composers like the Big 3 instead, are a lot of similar people who come from the same genetics understand and communicate the same tastes to a degree of correspondence. I see very faint correlation from this, to someone with tremendous experience describe their idea of personal greatness. Most of the similarities are because of average tastes. For unaverage tastes, Bach for instance most-loved Buxtehude, not Monteverdi or Palestrina. Beethoven most-loved Handel, not Mozart or Bach. It's the pop composers who point to Bach and Beethoven, because much of Romanticism was pop-culture Classical. You can't base an objective theory off of it. At most it's an interesting pseudo-science.


----------



## Woodduck

Isaac Blackburn said:


> Think of it like you are perceiving the abstract "form" of an emotion. It's not meant to have any specific context, or be directed towards any concrete thing. As you said, it isn't tangible, or meaningful in the way that the words "I love you" are meaningful. *In CM meaning is not tethered to anything real, but presented in its purest form. It is meaning itself.*


I may disagree with you partially in this. Although I agree that music is not ordinarily "tethered" to particular, nameable objects (physical objects, emotions, or abstract ideas) in the specific, limited, defined way that words are, I think it owes much of its expressive power to its presentation, in purest form as you say, of dynamic shapes and patterns which mimic patterns of both physical and psychological experience. The range of possible referents in reality of any musical effect is potentially broad, but the possibilities for combining these effects - of rhythm, harmony, melody, tonality and timbre - into entities of specific and powerful, yet unnamable, expressivity are effectively endless. That musical expression can be so powerful and incisive while being open-ended and undefinable seems paradoxical until we realize that human psychlogical experience can never be definitively described or communicated in words. Music is called the language of the soul because it bypasses the rigid and clumsy conventions of verbal language and comes closer than anything else to reproducing the dynamics of psychic experience itself.

Visual art also possesses the potential for this "mimetic" patterning, a fact which I assume gave rise to Walter Pater's famous dictum, "All art constantly aspires to the condition of music."


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> I said:
> 
> _"Different kinds of art may be equally enjoyable and even equally necessary to a person's happiness, but that doesn't make them achievements of equal artistic distinction or equal value to mankind, in the large view and in the long run. Cardi B will, I presume, have her time in the spotlight and will eventually (maybe very soon) be replaced by the next popular purveyor of easy fun. Mahler is irreplaceable."_
> 
> I can't tell how much you agree or disagree. Is the only part of my statement you disagree with this: "that doesn't make them achievements of equal artistic distinction or equal value to mankind, in the large view and in the long run"? If you don't agree with that, and do believe that Cardi B's work is artistically as brilliant and distinguished as Mahler's and that it makes an equivalent contribution to humanity in a manner transcending time and place - I'd like to hear your reasoning.


Well, I wasn't making a judgment as to the relative value or merit of Mahler or Cardi B, with whom I am not familiar. Or even between Mahler and Stephen Foster, Robert Johnson, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Paul Simon, David Byrne, Sting, Thom Yorke, Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor, or any number of other popular musicians with whom I am (more or less) familiar. To me, they live in different galaxies of the musical universe. Sadly, in modern Western societies it is the classic arts (not just music) that seem to be getting less understanding and respect than they deserve, as we put less effort and priority into educating our children in our rich cultural heritage.

So, rather than argue for the superiority of the music of Mahler over that of Cardi B (whoever that is), perhaps you and I should be trying to convince the millions of Cardi B fans out there to at least give the music of Mahler (or Mozart) a listen. Otherwise, that part of our cultural heritage may be lost.


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## DaveM

Ethereality said:


> ...if there _were_ such a category of composers defined as objectively great, I don't think humanity or other composers would be 'pointing their direction' mostly.


This makes no sense whatsoever.



> This just seems wholly counter-intuitive to how deeper intelligence behaves, all the variety in composition and my ongoing personal experience on this hasn't demonstrated anything opposite;


Are you claiming some special deeper intelligence?



> What I've noticed with top composers like the Big 3 instead, are a lot of similar people who come from the same genetics understand and communicate the same tastes to a degree of correspondence.


So those who assign greatness to the 'Big 3' have the same genetics? Please reference sources.


> Beethoven most-loved Handel, not Mozart or Bach.


What is your source for that? Beethoven was influenced by several composers, Haydn, CPE Bach, Mozart and yes Handel among others. Don't recall him isolating Handel as his most-loved.


----------



## BachIsBest

DaveM said:


> What is your source for that? Beethoven was influenced by several composers, Haydn, CPE Bach, Mozart and yes Handel among others. Don't recall him isolating Handel as his most-loved.


In his youth Beethoven most adored Mozart and then, as his career went on, increasingly came to admire Handel as the greatest composer. Throughout his career, he admired and played the keyboard works of J.S. Bach but I'm not sure how well acquainted he was to other works of Bach. You can find this information in any reasonably detailed essay on Beethoven's life; see, for example, the one from Jan Swafford's _A Vintage Guide to Classical Music_.


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## Isaac Blackburn

Woodduck said:


> I may disagree with you partially in this. Although I agree that music is not ordinarily "tethered" to particular, nameable objects (physical objects, emotions, or abstract ideas) in the specific, limited, defined way that words are, I think it owes much of its expressive power to its presentation, in purest form as you say, of dynamic shapes and patterns which mimic patterns of both physical and psychological experience. The range of possible referents in reality of any musical effect is potentially broad, but the possibilities for combining these effects - of rhythm, harmony, melody, tonality and timbre - into entities of specific and powerful, yet unnamable, expressivity are effectively endless. That musical expression can be so powerful and incisive while being open-ended and undefinable seems paradoxical until we realize that human psychlogical experience can never be definitively described or communicated in words. Music is called the language of the soul because it bypasses the rigid and clumsy conventions of verbal language and comes closer than anything else to reproducing the dynamics of psychic experience itself.
> 
> Visual art also possesses the potential for this "mimetic" patterning, a fact which I assume gave rise to Walter Pater's famous dictum, "All art constantly aspires to the condition of music."


I completely agree, and I must have expressed myself poorly in the previous post, or you didn't understand it, or both. What you are describing, I think, is music's ability to carry the "spirit" of something- using harmony, form, timbre, etc. as a means of metaphor to communicate a thing or experience's abstract essence.

What I meant with the meaning itself comment is this: that in other languages there is a distinction between symbol and that which is being symbolized- the word "apple" is not the actual concept of apple itself, but merely a phonetic handle for it. The word means something which lies behind it. Whereas in music there is no ultimate distinction between the symbol (the notes) and what is being symbolized (the notes): It _means_ itself.

Edit: The capacity of music to embody spirit and its self-referential meaning are not necessarily contradictory. Music doesn't "tell about" a spirit, it _is_ that spirit, and so its meaning is still _what it is_. In addition, the spirit itself may be a peripheral quality; at the core of the music lies only music.


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## Isaac Blackburn

Duplicate post.


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## DaveM

BachIsBest said:


> In his youth Beethoven most adored Mozart and then, as his career went on, increasingly came to admire Handel as the greatest composer. Throughout his career, he admired and played the keyboard works of J.S. Bach but I'm not sure how well acquainted he was to other works of Bach. You can find this information in any reasonably detailed essay on Beethoven's life; see, for example, the one from Jan Swafford's _A Vintage Guide to Classical Music_.


According to Ries: 'Of all composers, Beethoven valued Mozart and Handel the most, then Sebastian Bach.' However, later in life, a review of my own Beethoven sources confirm that circa 1823-26, he was known to say to at least 3 different people that he considered Handel the greatest composer so hats off to Ethereality on that point. Interesting though that Beethoven seems to have believed in 'greatness'.


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## KenOC

DaveM said:


> According to Ries: 'Of all composers, Beethoven valued Mozart and Handel the most, then Sebastian Bach.' However, later in life, a review of my own Beethoven sources confirm that circa 1823-26, he was known to say to at least 3 different people that he considered Handel the greatest composer so hats off to Ethereality on that point. Interesting though that Beethoven seems to have believed in 'greatness'.


Beethoven and others, during his late years at least. Diabelli announced that Beethoven's huge set of variations was "such a work as only Beethoven, the greatest living representative of true art -- only Beethoven, and no other, can produce." In the same blurb he referred to Beethoven as "our exalted Master", which might have been trowelling it on a bit thick…


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## Luchesi

Ethereality said:


> To chime further into the new questions now posed since (I'll say, in my opinion) the thread question has been thoroughly resolved, if there _were_ such a category of composers defined as objectively great, I don't think humanity or other composers would be 'pointing their direction' mostly. This just seems wholly counter-intuitive to how deeper intelligence behaves, all the variety in composition and my ongoing personal experience on this hasn't demonstrated anything opposite; while I'm not closed to change my mind, at this point, people are describing what is called 'groupthink.' What I've noticed with top composers like the Big 3 instead, are a lot of similar people who come from the same genetics understand and communicate the same tastes to a degree of correspondence. I see very faint correlation from this, to someone with tremendous experience describe their idea of personal greatness. Most of the similarities are because of average tastes. For unaverage tastes, Bach for instance most-loved Buxtehude, not Monteverdi or Palestrina. Beethoven most-loved Handel, not Mozart or Bach. It's the pop composers who point to Bach and Beethoven, because much of Romanticism was pop-culture Classical. You can't base an objective theory off of it. At most it's an interesting pseudo-science.


You know what's great, but you can't put it into words?


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## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> Interesting though that Beethoven seems to have believed in 'greatness'.


You would have to look hard for a well-trained or high-functioning artist who does not recognize levels of excellence in art and pay tribute to greatness, as well as aspire to it. I would guess, based on my experience, that most performing musicians recognize the reality of quality too. Most musicians don't like to waste their precious time playing mediocre stuff unless they have a particular interest in neglected repertoire. But even there they're going to look for the best they can find.

We really can't blame the non-artists for being skeptical. They need to take up composing, painting or writing poetry. I suspect it wouldn't take long for revelation to strike.


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## Woodduck

Isaac Blackburn said:


> I completely agree, and I must have expressed myself poorly in the previous post, or you didn't understand it, or both. What you are describing, I think, is music's ability to carry the "spirit" of something- using harmony, form, timbre, etc. as a means of metaphor to communicate a thing or experience's abstract essence.
> 
> What I meant with the meaning itself comment is this: that in other languages there is a distinction between symbol and that which is being symbolized- the word "apple" is not the actual concept of apple itself, but merely a phonetic handle for it. The word means something which lies behind it. Whereas in music there is no ultimate distinction between the symbol (the notes) and what is being symbolized (the notes): It _means_ itself.
> 
> Edit: The capacity of music to embody spirit and its self-referential meaning are not necessarily contradictory. Music doesn't "tell about" a spirit, it _is_ that spirit, and so its meaning is still _what it is_. In addition, the spirit itself may be a peripheral quality; at the core of the music lies only music.


I suspected we'd agree substantially.


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## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> We really can't blame the non-artists for being skeptical. They need to take up composing, painting or writing poetry. I suspect it wouldn't take long for revelation to strike.


I highly, highly doubt this. I can go into whopping detail on this aspect, but I'll just say, it's true that certain things sell.


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## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> I highly, highly doubt this. I can go into whopping detail on this aspect, but I'll just say, it's true that certain things sell.


On what grounds do you "highly, highly doubt" that practicing an art gives one insight into the nature of art and the demands on one's powers of discrimination that the creative process entails? Are you a serious creative artist? Have you walked the floor nights, struggling to solve a problem of design, or trying to figure out what sort of second movement needs to follow the first?

Based on everything you've said here, I more than "highly, highly doubt" it.


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## etipou

Indeed, I am am reminded of Paul Graham's excellent essay, How Art Can be Good:



> When you're trying to make things, taste becomes a practical matter. You have to decide what to do next. Would it make the painting better if I changed that part? If there's no such thing as better, it doesn't matter what you do. In fact, it doesn't matter if you paint at all. You could just go out and buy a ready-made blank canvas. If there's no such thing as good, that would be just as great an achievement as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.


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## Ethereality

My art is _inherently_ great, it doesn't need to bend to the rules of your limited bottom-up understanding.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> You would have to look hard for a well-trained or high-functioning artist who does not recognize levels of excellence in art and pay tribute to greatness, as well as aspire to it.


Yes, and one could go even further and say that belief in one's greatness as an artist (which necessarily encompasses belief in the concept of greatness) is an all but necessary aspect of a creative artist's psyche in order to achieve at their highest level, regardless of how or whether they express it outwardly. The timid Schubert and the sensitive Chopin (who didn't even like to perform in public) both had that every bit as much as Beethoven, as did Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and all but a very few of the greatest composers. Those whose belief in the greatness of their own work faltered, as in the case of Rachmaninoff, suffered terribly.

But there is an immense amount of cultural context that must be taken as a given before one can even consider the greatness of the music of Handel or Beethoven.


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## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> My art is _inherently_ great, it doesn't need to bend to the rules of your limited bottom-up understanding.


If your post looks like horse pucky, it isn't because of anyone else's limited understanding.


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## Ethereality

fluteman said:


> Those whose belief in the greatness of their own work faltered, as in the case of Rachmaninoff, suffered terribly.


So now we're going the route of subjectivities again. Good.

I'll admit I have my favorite composers and enjoy going to them for lessons.


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## Woodduck

fluteman said:


> Yes, and one could go even further and say that belief in one's greatness as an artist (which necessarily encompasses belief in the concept of greatness) is an all but necessary aspect of a creative artist's psyche in order to achieve at their highest level, regardless of how or whether they express it outwardly. The timid Schubert and the sensitive Chopin (who didn't even like to perform in public) both had that every bit as much as Beethoven, as did Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and all but a very few of the greatest composers. Those whose belief in the greatness of their own work faltered, as in the case of Rachmaninoff, suffered terribly.
> 
> But *there is an immense amount of cultural context that must be taken as a given before one can even consider the greatness of the music of Handel or Beethoven.*


I think I can consider the greatness of Ali Akbar Khan without first studying the culture of India in depth. Some context counts, but much listening counts most.


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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> You would have to look hard for a well-trained or high-functioning artist who does not recognize levels of excellence in art and pay tribute to greatness, as well as aspire to it. I would guess, based on my experience, that most performing musicians recognize the reality of quality too. Most musicians don't like to waste their precious time playing mediocre stuff unless they have a particular interest in neglected repertoire. But even there they're going to look for the best they can find.
> 
> We really can't blame the non-artists for being skeptical. They need to take up composing, painting or writing poetry. I suspect it wouldn't take long for revelation to strike.


I made music with three other people seriously for some 7-8 years, music which sought a somewhat higher level of loftiness than the local 'norm'. I have not yet experienced a better feeling than performing it in front of 100 or so people, and it is something I miss dearly.

I also have a PhD and a bunch of publications in well-regarded academic journals. I am not one to shirk the attempt at 'greatness', however humble my own efforts in the scheme of things.

With this in mind, I can safely say that your comments above require the addendum "great, according to their own standards and the standards of those they respect". Then you would be speaking the truth.

That is the factually correct rub on this issue, fortunately or unfortunately.

For 'Greatness' is a value judgement, and all value judgements are arbitrary when you get down to foundations. Sooner or later, they depend on a basis no firmer than quicksand.


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## science

Woodduck said:


> You would have to look hard for a well-trained or high-functioning artist who does not recognize levels of excellence in art and pay tribute to greatness, as well as aspire to it. I would guess, based on my experience, that most performing musicians recognize the reality of quality too. Most musicians don't like to waste their precious time playing mediocre stuff unless they have a particular interest in neglected repertoire. But even there they're going to look for the best they can find.
> 
> We really can't blame the non-artists for being skeptical. They need to take up composing, painting or writing poetry. I suspect it wouldn't take long for revelation to strike.


This is really just condescension in pretty words.

Of course I want my creations to be "great." Recognizing the reality that the values by which I judge them as "great" or not are subjective (albeit shared by a massive community of people) does not change any of that.

Using fancy words to insult people who disagree with you is fine rhetoric, poor argument.


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## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> I think I can consider the greatness of Ali Akbar Khan without first studying the culture of India in depth. Some context counts, but much listening counts most.


Yes, but you are a highly educated, including musically educated, modern man of the world. Especially since the internet became firmly established in our lives, the music of other cultures, any music really, is readily available for anyone with initiative to study in a good degree of depth from one's armchair. Yet, I daresay not many Americans are very familiar with any music from India, much less Indian classical music. Even fewer would be able to distinguish Ali Akbar Khan from another, less famous Indian classical musician, or even another internationally famous one, like Ravi Shankar.


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## hammeredklavier

fluteman said:


> The timid Schubert and the sensitive Chopin (who didn't even like to perform in public) both had that every bit as much as Beethoven, as did Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and all but a very few of the greatest composers. Those whose belief in the greatness of their own work faltered, as in the case of Rachmaninoff, suffered terribly.


I've been curious how various artists in their creative life overcame their "inferiority complex" toward the masters of the past. When Brahms destroyed his own works that he considered unworthy, and Chopin (in his deathbed) requested his unpublished works be destroyed, were they conscious of their own "inferiority" - did they want to be remembered by the posterity as "infallible" as the masters of the past?


View attachment 130858

"Most revealing in this respect are the passages in Berlioz's criticism that compare Mozart to Haydn. For Berlioz, Haydn is manifestly beneath the level of the 'Great Masters'. He is treated as 'outdated' and someone whose 'boring … phrases … have tired rather than interested the public'. In his earlier critiques he takes care to stress the difference between the two: after commenting on Haydn's obsolete style he speaks of Mozart as 'full of passion and gloominess'. But later he tends to amalgamate the two into one entity, embodying all those features of scholarly Classicism that the Romantic spirit of Berlioz had sworn to overcome and to surpass." 
"I have the strong impression that Berlioz envied Mozart's professional skill as a musician, and was conscious of his own inferiority. Despite the apologetic discourse of Barzun and other Berliozians, his shortcomings in harmony, counterpoint and formal organization are unmistakable even in his mature works. How could he, who grew up at La Côte-Saint-André isolated from any serious music-making until the age of 18, receiving only a rudimentary musical education in his childhood and youth, never mastering an instrument, not encouraged by his family at any stage to understake a musical career, compete with the child of Salzburg, son of a highly skilled musician who devoted his life to his son's musical upbringing and who took him from early childhood all around Europe to meet the greatest masters of his day? Berlioz must have felt this difference, and his often arrogant tone in discussing Mozart's music seems barely to mask a deep-rooted sense of insecurity about his musical abilities. No one more than Mozart could embody for Berlioz the ideal of professional musicianship, so far out of his reach, and thus he remains the ultimate reminder of his shortcomings, and thus a permanent source of irritation. It is this recognition of Mozart's superior mastery of compositional skills that lies behind Berlioz's choice of words: 'this unfailing beauty, always serene and self-assured'. Beethoven, of course, was a perfect musician too, but he had to work hard for it, while for Mozart, the myth had already taken root that his proficiency came with ease. This difference between the two was already evident to Berlioz's generation, and thus Beethoven was conceived as more 'human', and Berlioz could feel closer to him. Gluck, on the other hand, who like Berlioz reached artistic ripeness at a relatively advanced age and whose contrapuntal skills were compared by Handel to those of his cook, was much easier to identify with than the 'enfant prodige' who grew up to become the emblem of perfection."

I think Brahms said the following shortly before death to finally rid himself of the "burden of Beethoven's legacy":

"I always find Beethoven's C Minor concerto (the Third Piano Concerto) much smaller and weaker than Mozart's. . . . I realize that Beethoven's new personality and his new vision, which people recognized in his works, made him the greater composer in their minds. But after fifty years, our views need more perspective. One must be able to distinguish between the charm that comes from newness and the value that is intrinsic to a work. I admit that Beethoven's concerto is more modern, but not more significant!
I also realize that Beethoven's First Symphony made a strong impression on people. That's the nature of a new vision. But the last three Mozart symphonies are far more significant. . . . Yes, the Rasumovsky quartets, the later symphonies-these inhabit a significant new world, one already hinted at in his Second Symphony. But what is much weaker in Beethoven compared to Mozart, and especially compared to Sebastian Bach, is the use of dissonance. Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing. What marvelous dissonance! What harmony! You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like. When Haydn or Mozart wrote on commission, it was the same as their other works." < Composers On Music: Eight Centuries of Writings, Josiah Fisk, Jeff Nichols, Technical Group Leader High Performance Computational Chemistry Group Jeff Nichols | p.134~135 >


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## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> I made music with three other people seriously for some 7-8 years, music which sought a somewhat higher level of loftiness than the local 'norm'. I have not yet experienced a better feeling than performing it in front of 100 or so people, and it is something I miss dearly.
> 
> I also have a PhD and a bunch of publications in well-regarded academic journals. I am not one to shirk the attempt at 'greatness', however humble my own efforts in the scheme of things.
> 
> With this in mind, I can safely say that your comments above require the addendum "great, according to their own standards and the standards of those they respect". Then you would be speaking the truth.
> 
> That is the factually correct rub on this issue, fortunately or unfortunately.
> 
> For 'Greatness' is a value judgement, and all value judgements are arbitrary when you get down to foundations. Sooner or later, they depend on a basis no firmer than quicksand.


I suppose my evaluation of science as being better than witchcraft is just another one of those arbitrary value judgments that are on a basis no firmer than quicksand (maybe the unfirmness of quicksand is just a subjective value judgement as well: who knows?).

Recognising that there are both universal objective value judgments, as well as subjective ones that only apply personally is something that has been obvious to humans across cultures and boundaries for centuries. It seems with the growing influence of cultural relativism and postmodernism the idea of universal values that transcend mere personal opinion on value is becoming more out of vogue in intellectual circles. It all strikes me to have the same sort of hypocrisy that pre-determinism falls victim too; no one actually lives according to the sentiment that free will is false and, similarly, I don't believe anyone actually lives as if all values are arbitrary. It appears to only be those - in what Woodduck has denoted the "higher stupidity" - that tie themselves into knots of confused philosophy, solipsism, and unending vagaries that belive such things rather than any laymen relying on common instinct.


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## Ethereality

hammeredklavier said:


> I've been curious how various artists in their creative life overcame their "inferiority complex" toward the masters of the past. When Brahms destroyed his own works that he considered unworthy, and Chopin (in his deathbed) requested his unpublished works be destroyed, were they conscious of their own "inferiority" - did they want to be remembered by the posterity as "infallible" as the masters of the past?


Very interesting indeed. We still know not if Bach the man from Eisenach ever got over feeling inferior to Grandmaster Buxtehude. Those of us who know of his exalted status, sympathize with these feelings of inferiority on our own terms, while the majority of those who never look to the light have created shadows of themselves whilst it shines onto them, mocking the creator. The one who came to show us the light again, rose above to meet the light, and took on the form of light for us, to not revere but be revered. This man's name was Johannes of Salzburg.


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## SONNET CLV

RogerWaters said:


> ...
> 
> Of course Mahler is better at some aspects of music than Cardi B.
> 
> The problem for your general position is that you have no logical right (unless you care to show otherwise) to claim that those aspects of music are more important than the aspects over which Cardi B has a more superior command.


Call me an ignoramus if you will (you wouldn't be the first ... or the last to do so), but ... prior to this thread I do not recall having ever heard of Cardi B. I certainly was unfamiliar with her "music".

So I did what any seriously minded ignoramus would do, I looked up "Cardi B", specifically for her music. I could find no scores to study, but I did find videos. And so I chose three, randomly, mostly by the opening photo shot, and viewed these.

I _am_ somewhat familiar with the "music" of Gustav Mahler. I've listened to it for years (decades, really) on recordings and in the concert hall. I have studied it through the scores, many of which are in my personal collection, including most, if not all, of the symphonies, and I even had opportunity once to work with a university music student analyzing the Mahler Eighth for a Masters Level Presentation Paper she was preparing. If I may make a presumption, based only upon this particular ignoramus's observations and assessments: Mahler had quite an expansive command of numerable aspects of music, likely even _more_ than my own humble observations and assessments can be aware of.

I admit, I remain unaware of what aspects of music Cardi B. might be "better at" than Mahler, but I will continue considering this issue.

I did note from my video perusals that the "music" of Cardi B. seems inextricably a part of the visual medium she presents it in, and that her "lyrics" (I'm reminded here of my favorite definition of rap music: "swearing over a drum beat") share an equal billing. So that the entire presentation on the video (music, lyrics, visuals) comprises a type of art form itself, one at which Cardi B. might be good at, but one which holds little interest for me as a viewer. (I am reminded of my experience in the theatre and know that I have worked on projects which did not always interest me or appeal to my sense of what is "quality art", but I always attempted to do my best to provide the highest level of art I myself could contribute. Which explains a bit how I view the art of Cardi B.: not so much as "music" per se, but rather as a "visual/theatrical" medium.)

Again, I remain unaware of what aspects of music Cardi B. might be "better at" than Mahler -- (Dang! I wish I could have found access to even one score!) -- but I will ponder this point with alacrity, and if or when I come to some revelation, I will post back with my determinations.

Meanwhile, I will appreciate if no one should hold his/her breath till I respond back. Rather, continue on with your lives: protect yourselves against the Pandemic, eat well, drink moderately, read some quality poetry and prose texts ... and listen to some Mahler. Take care of yourselves, body and soul, please. You all know what is good to do, and not.


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## Woodduck

RogerWaters said:


> I made music with three other people seriously for some 7-8 years, music which sought a somewhat higher level of loftiness than the local 'norm'. I have not yet experienced a better feeling than performing it in front of 100 or so people, and it is something I miss dearly.
> 
> I also have a PhD and a bunch of publications in well-regarded academic journals. I am not one to shirk the attempt at 'greatness', however humble my own efforts in the scheme of things.
> 
> With this in mind, I can safely say that your comments above require the addendum "great, according to their own standards and the standards of those they respect". Then you would be speaking the truth.
> 
> That is the factually correct rub on this issue, fortunately or unfortunately.
> 
> For 'Greatness' is a value judgement, and all value judgements are arbitrary when you get down to foundations. Sooner or later, they depend on a basis no firmer than quicksand.


All values and judgments require context, premises and assumptions. No one is arguing for a theory of value based on some Platonic vision residing in the mind of a disinterested, transcendent deity. No one cares what sort of music beings from other galaxies would like if they came to visit us. When we judge the music of Mozart great, we are necessarily and importantly referring to how well it embodies a certain set of aesthetic premises. We can differ in our taste for the high Classical style in which Mozart and his contemporaries composed (it isn't my favorite period of music, and I'm not too often inclined to listen to even the masterpieces from the period), but if we can hear (perhaps with the help of a bit of study) what composers of the period were trying to do - and beyond that what individual composers were trying to do and what powers they had to possess in order to do it - we can hear distinct levels of accomplishment in how well different composers exploited the possibilities of their art. Moreover, there will be other aesthetic intuitions, of broader application than the particular principles of 18th-century writing, that will inform our judgments, and help lead us to a perception of the excellence or mediocrity of whatever symphony, quartet or opera we're hearing.

When we're first coming to music in unfamiliar styles, we naturally tend to judge it by criteria we've formed by listening to other music we probably already enjoy. If we care enough, we'll listen carefully to the new music, and our brains will adapt to the new style and intuit what its premises are. As that happens our subjective judgments are apt to change, and a more objective view of the composer's accomplishment becomes possible. This can happen very quickly for some people; these are the folks who knew right off that Beetoven's "Eroica," Wagner's _Tristan,_ and Stravinsly's _Rite_ were revolutionary masterpieces. For other folks it takes longer. But these are not "arbitrary" judgments "when you get down to foundations," and what they're based on is "much firmer than quicksand." The probably unanimous opinion of the classical music world that the chamber works of Brahms are greater than the extremely similar works of his admirer Herzogenberg rests on very firm foundations indeed. But of course not everyone who comes upon the works in question will appreciate the difference.

Beethoven was perfectly capable of appreciating that Mozart was greater than Salieri - _and so were Mozart and Salieri._ So am I, and so, I suspect, are you.


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## Woodduck

SONNET CLV said:


> I admit, I remain unaware of what aspects of music Cardi B. might be "better at" than Mahler...but I will ponder this point with alacrity, and if or when I come to some revelation, I will post back with my determinations.


Thanks for giving me the heartiest laugh I've had in a long time. These are unfunny days to be living (or, in some cases, dying) through. I look forward to your determinations, but please don't feel obligated on my account.


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## Woodduck

science said:


> This is really just condescension in pretty words.
> 
> Of course I want my creations to be "great." Recognizing the reality that the values by which I judge them as "great" or not are subjective (albeit shared by a massive community of people) does not change any of that.
> 
> Using fancy words to insult people who disagree with you is fine rhetoric, poor argument.


No condescension was intended or even imagined, and I can't see where you find it. I believe, from personal experience and interaction with artists and non-artists, that actually creating art - which I've spent the greater part of a lifetime doing - is the best way to understand what goes into it. The struggle to create a thing of beauty, and the ease with which a misplaced note, line or word can ruin it, is best understood by one whose job it is to find the right notes, lines, and words. But it's a testament to the transcendent nature of certain aesthetic values that misplaced notes, lines and words can also be spotted by others who take the trouble to open themselves to what a work of art is trying to be and say.


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## science

Woodduck said:


> No condescension was intended or even imagined, and I can't see where you find it. I believe, from personal experience and interaction with artists and non-artists, that actually creating art - which I've spent the greater part of a lifetime doing - is the best way to understand what goes into it. The struggle to create a thing of beauty, and the ease with which a misplaced note, line or word can ruin it, is best understood by one whose job it is to find the right notes, lines, and words. But it's a testament to the transcendent nature of certain aesthetic values that misplaced notes, lines and words can also be spotted by others who take the trouble to open themselves to what a work of art is trying to be and say.


That's all fine, and it represents a classy retreat from the claim that some aesthetic elite can perceive philosophical truths unavailable to other thoughtful people.


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## Woodduck

science said:


> That's all fine, and it represents a classy retreat from the claim that some aesthetic elite can perceive philosophical truths unavailable to other thoughtful people.


Since I never stated the position that some aesthetic elite can perceive philosophical truths unavailable to other thoughtful people, I can't be said to have retreated from that position.

If believing in the reality and perceptibility of artistic merit constitutes an elite view, the elite class on TC seems rather large in relation to the cohort of other thoughtful people. Right now the score is Aesthetic Elite - 57, Other Thoughtful People - 15. And in this thread's companion, "Do you believe in greatness in music?", the difference is even greater: 78 to 9.

But thank you for calling me classy.


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## Roger Knox

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for giving me the heartiest laugh I've had in a long time. These are unfunny days to be living (or, in some cases, dying) through. I look forward to your determinations, but please don't feel obligated on my account.


My first thought was, well, Cardi B. is an entertainer and Mahler was an artist. End of discussion. Second thought was a flashback to when, around 50 years ago, I decided I would study classical music and leave pop music aside as a serious pursuit. Third thought was remembering going to a Frank Zappa concert around the same time. Here were Frank and his virtuosos together with two singers they'd recently added from the Turtles pop group doing a mixture of music -- what the heck was this? Earnestly I thought it represented "as far as pop music could go" in a contemporary classical direction. Now I realize that the whole ironic dimension was far greater than my earnest thinking allowed then. Maybe the 2Oth century became The Age of Irony in the arts and in entertainment. So yeah, Cardi B., Gustav Mahler, whatever turns you on ...


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> Since I never stated the position that some aesthetic elite can perceive philosophical truths unavailable to other thoughtful people, I can't be said to have retreated from that position.


But of course that was the entire point and only meaning of this post:



Woodduck said:


> You would have to look hard for a well-trained or high-functioning artist who does not recognize levels of excellence in art and pay tribute to greatness, as well as aspire to it. I would guess, based on my experience, that most performing musicians recognize the reality of quality too. Most musicians don't like to waste their precious time playing mediocre stuff unless they have a particular interest in neglected repertoire. But even there they're going to look for the best they can find.
> 
> We really can't blame the non-artists for being skeptical. They need to take up composing, painting or writing poetry. I suspect it wouldn't take long for revelation to strike.


So, there's that.



Woodduck said:


> If believing in the reality and perceptibility of artistic merit constitutes an elite view,


That is a shockingly vicious distortion of what I wrote, and I cannot believe that you did anything like that accidentally. Perhaps you should consider how arguing like this reflects on your character.



Woodduck said:


> the elite class on TC seems rather large in relation to the cohort of other thoughtful people. Right now the score is Aesthetic Elite - 57, Other Thoughtful People - 15. And in this thread's companion, "Do you believe in greatness in music?", the difference is even greater: 78 to 9.


This is an argument from the authority of people who have no actual authority.



Woodduck said:


> But thank you for calling me classy.


Well, it was a moment. We see where we are now.


----------



## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> I suppose my evaluation of science as being better than witchcraft is just another one of those arbitrary value judgments that are on a basis no firmer than quicksand (maybe the unfirmness of quicksand is just a subjective value judgement as well: who knows?).
> 
> Recognising that there are both universal objective value judgments, as well as subjective ones that only apply personally is something that has been obvious to humans across cultures and boundaries for centuries. It seems with the growing influence of cultural relativism and postmodernism the idea of universal values that transcend mere personal opinion on value is becoming more out of vogue in intellectual circles. It all strikes me to have the same sort of hypocrisy that pre-determinism falls victim too; no one actually lives according to the sentiment that free will is false and, similarly, I don't believe anyone actually lives as if all values are arbitrary. It appears to only be those - in what Woodduck has denoted the "higher stupidity" - that tie themselves into knots of confused philosophy, solipsism, and unending vagaries that belive such things rather than any laymen relying on common instinct.


What people have found "obvious" is not amgood argument. People once found it obvious that the sun circled the earth and that homosexuality is a sin against a an all powerful, all knowing god.

Why don't you prove that some value you like is "objective" rather than going on a moral diatribe. Come on. Put up or shut up.

Even murder is relative to other values - murder is bad because it violates the inherent dignity of man (say), but so what? Because we value the inherent dignity of man. But why is the dignity of man objectively good? It's not, and only meaningful in relation to some other deeper value which itself is relative.

Hell, even if you believe in God the 'fact' that one shouldn't commit murder is only relative to the deeper value of not transgressing God's rules.


----------



## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> but if we can hear (perhaps with the help of a bit of study) what composers of the period were trying to do - and beyond that what individual composers were trying to do and what powers they had to possess in order to do it - we can hear distinct levels of accomplishment in how well different composers exploited the possibilities of their art.


Whatever you think. This doesn't sound like a coherent set of parameters to judge with to me, it sounds like you're trying to subjectively categorize something for a group of people who may buy into some of it. I myself don't notice great aspects of composers aside from the ones whom are my favorite. I don't infer any unusual obligation to subscribe to a thought or category of composers based on others' trending listening. I've noticed that every work of art is a possibility and perspective of its own, and while people similar to my tastes and experience have provided me good recommendations for growing my compositional perspectives on the possibilities within art, they haven't been better than my own discoveries. So if they sometimes recommend works of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart, I don't hold that as an objective sign towards the path of excellence.


----------



## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> Whatever you think. This doesn't sound like a coherent set of parameters to judge with to me, it sounds like you're trying to subjectively categorize something for a group of people who may buy into some of it. I myself don't notice great aspects of composers aside from the ones whom are my favorite. So I don't see any strange obligation to subscribe to your thought or category of composers based on trending listening.


It's much more elegant just to say simply that you either don't understand my point or that you don't agree with it. But of course neither statement is useful if you can't be bothered to say what it is you don't understand or agree with.

The one meaningful, and revealing, statement in your post is "I myself don't notice great aspects of composers aside from the ones whom are my favorite." Well, I do, and I have plenty of company. I wouldn't presume to guess what you do or don't hear in music, but I find it possibly ironic that you're so eager to deny the meaningfulness and legitimacy of the perceptions of those who seem to be hearing something that you aren't.


----------



## Boychev

Isaac Blackburn said:


> I completely agree, and I must have expressed myself poorly in the previous post, or you didn't understand it, or both. What you are describing, I think, is music's ability to carry the "spirit" of something- using harmony, form, timbre, etc. as a means of metaphor to communicate a thing or experience's abstract essence.
> 
> What I meant with the meaning itself comment is this: that in other languages there is a distinction between symbol and that which is being symbolized- the word "apple" is not the actual concept of apple itself, but merely a phonetic handle for it. The word means something which lies behind it. Whereas in music there is no ultimate distinction between the symbol (the notes) and what is being symbolized (the notes): It _means_ itself.
> 
> Edit: The capacity of music to embody spirit and its self-referential meaning are not necessarily contradictory. Music doesn't "tell about" a spirit, it _is_ that spirit, and so its meaning is still _what it is_. In addition, the spirit itself may be a peripheral quality; at the core of the music lies only music.


Don't you see how huge of a problem that is though? If it doesn't refer to anything but itself, then it can't really express anything, you can't do anything with it. Abstract artworks can certainly be stimulating on a purely sensory level, but I don't see how abstracting to the point where nothing specific is signified can be useful. I mean I also enjoy the smell and taste of my morning coffee a great deal and it means a great deal _to me emotionally_ but it doesn't really _mean_ anything. Or, in terms of craftsmanship, you can devote a lot of effort and resources to decorating your home, but that's nothing more than an empty luxury, it doesn't speak profound truths and so on. Surely music (and abstract art in more general terms) can't be on that level?


----------



## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> The one meaningful, and revealing, statement in your post is "I myself don't notice great aspects of composers aside from the ones whom are my favorite." Well, I do, and I have plenty of company. I wouldn't presume to guess what you do or don't hear in music, but I find it possibly ironic that you're so eager to deny the meaningfulness and legitimacy of the perceptions of those who seem to be hearing something that you aren't.


I'm not eager nor is Bach, or anyone else, to not hear and discover the music which brings them the most joy and meaning. Why you're obsessed with disproving their diverse truths within their own musical genres, calling to unify them to a singularity which clearly doesn't exist, I don't know. If there were a singular definition of greatness, I'd be done listening to it a long time ago. No one piece has ever provoked me to keep obsessing over it with awe, except for some unpopular works and some of the works I've myself written, as I enjoy those most of all and while full of awe, I know best from where to develop them creatively. Music makes enough sense to me, to where I hear new music I like and take special note. It's that simple. No one is being closed here, that process is just the way art works.


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> But of course that was the entire point and only meaning of this post:


My post was simply a way of saying that artists themselves believe in the reality of artistic excellence, as opposed to believing that, as worded in the OP, artistic judgment is totally "subjective", i.e. based on nothing but every individual's feelings and arbitrary preferences. If you want to call artists "some aesthetic elite," go for it. They probably won't mind.



> That is a shockingly vicious distortion of what I wrote, and I cannot believe that you did anything like that accidentally.


Is everything you write so clear that it _cannot_ be that anyone would mistake your meaning?



> Perhaps you should consider how arguing like this reflects on your character.


Perhaps you should stop analyzing my motives and character and worry about your long-standing propensity to play the aggrieved victim and underdog when no one has attacked you.



> This is an argument from the authority of people who have no actual authority.


It wasn't an argument. It was a pointed reflection on the true nature of your "elite."

Not everything is a class struggle, or a battle between the wolves and the lambs.


----------



## Woodduck

Ethereality said:


> I'm not eager nor is Bach, or anyone else, to not hear and discover the music which brings them the most joy and meaning. Why you're obsessed with disproving their diverse truths within their own musical genres, calling to unify them to a singularity which clearly doesn't exist, I don't know.


What singularity? What obsession? Disproving diverse truths? I have to wonder if you've understood a word I've said. I just wrote a longish post discussing the contextual nature of aesthetic judgments. That points to diversity, not to a"singularity." And if number of posts in this thread is any indication, you're just as "obsessed" with the topic as I am.



> If there were a singular definition of greatness, I'd be done listening to it a long time ago. No one piece has ever provoked me to keep obsessing over it with awe, except for some unpopular works and some of the works I've myself written, as I enjoy those most of all and while full of awe, I know best from where to develop them creatively. Music makes enough sense to me, to where I hear new music I like and take special note. It's that simple. No one is being closed here, that process is just the way art works.


That's all fine. No argument. We all approach art in the way that gives us greatest enjoyment.


----------



## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> What people have found "obvious" is not amgood argument. People once found it obvious that the sun circled the earth and that homosexuality is a sin against a an all powerful, all knowing god.


Yes, but these beliefs were not spread across all cultures and time periods. Name a pre-modern culture that didn't believe an artist or a singer could be objectively good or bad.



RogerWaters said:


> Why don't you prove that some value you like is "objective" rather than going on a moral diatribe. Come on. Put up or shut up.


Because I can't; at least, not in the way you want me to.



RogerWaters said:


> Even murder is relative to other values - murder is bad because it violates the inherent dignity of man (say), but so what? Because we value the inherent dignity of man. But why is the dignity of man objectively good? It's not, and only meaningful in relation to some other deeper value which itself is relative.


If you hold nothing to be absolutely true, not even that the murder of your fellow man is absolutely wrong, then I'm afraid I have no basis upon which I can argue against your position.


----------



## Ethereality

Woodduck said:


> I just wrote a longish post discussing the contextual nature of aesthetic judgments. That points to diversity, not to a"singularity."


To me when you're clearing talking about a singularity of greatness, which is happening within all types of different contexts, it just sounds like a black-and-white way of oversimplifying reality for _you_. Why not a singularity of context happening amongst all types of greatness, etc. Or neither? I'm just not sure what you're trying to highlight or do away with, first you say imagination, then you say experience, but these don't seem objective enough to many people. I have doubts that Bach or Beethoven would buy into your social perspective. Mozart and Wagner probably yes, but for myself I don't notice anything universally great in your analysis of quality musical constructs and their apparent champions. I notice I may agree with some of them, but that's not the question or argument we're going so far to make.



Woodduck said:


> And if number of posts in this thread is any indication, you're just as "obsessed" with the topic as I am.


Well you have way more writing and posts in the two threads here. Sorry for using the word 'obsessed.'


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> My post was simply a way of saying that artists themselves believe in the reality of artistic excellence, as opposed to believing that, as worded in the OP, artistic judgment is totally "subjective", i.e. based on nothing but every individual's feelings and arbitrary preferences. If you want to call artists "some aesthetic elite," go for it. They probably won't mind.
> 
> Is everything you write so clear that it _cannot_ be that anyone would mistake your meaning?
> 
> Perhaps you should stop analyzing my motives and character and worry about your long-standing propensity to play the aggrieved victim and underdog when no one has attacked you.
> 
> It wasn't an argument. It was a pointed reflection on the true nature of your "elite."
> 
> Not everything is a class struggle, or a battle between the wolves and the lambs.


Just in case anyone is confused by this obfuscation, I was not the one claiming that there is some artistic elite who can perceive objective truths unknowable to the rest of humanity.

I'm merely pointing out that "unlike me, you're not a good enough artist to perceive the existence of objective aesthetic values" is not actually a very good argument. If that kind of pretension flatters you, you can have it, I suppose, but don't be surprised when skeptics display the same scorn for you that you show for them.


----------



## DaveM

Apparently, greatness can be found at the event horizon.


----------



## Ethereality

DaveM said:


> Apparently, greatness can be found at the event horizon.


These singular explanation topics remind me of ☐☐☐☐

One tries so hard to copy the mindframe or understanding of another but it just becomes a lower quality representation of the original. The whole point of an artist making art is to express their personal meaning. We start shining light on them and they have no longer communicated their perspective, because we're too busy now seeing our own.


----------



## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> Because I can't; at least, not in the way you want me to.
> 
> If you hold nothing to be absolutely true, not even that the murder of your fellow man is absolutely wrong, then I'm afraid I have no basis upon which I can argue against your position.


My "basis" for argument is truth. If you can't argue against my position on _that_ basis, then it's your problem not mine (if you value truth, that is).


----------



## Handelian

RogerWaters said:


> My "basis" for argument is truth. If you can't argue against my position on _that_ basis, then it's your problem not mine (if you value truth, that is).


Oh come off it. You have implied you don't believe in truth and you then say your basis for argument is truth, make up your mind!


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

Boychev said:


> Don't you see how huge of a problem that is though? If it doesn't refer to anything but itself, then it can't really express anything, you can't do anything with it. Abstract artworks can certainly be stimulating on a purely sensory level, but I don't see how abstracting to the point where nothing specific is signified can be useful. I mean I also enjoy the smell and taste of my morning coffee a great deal and it means a great deal _to me emotionally_ but it doesn't really _mean_ anything. Or, in terms of craftsmanship, you can devote a lot of effort and resources to decorating your home, but that's nothing more than an empty luxury, it doesn't speak profound truths and so on. Surely music (and abstract art in more general terms) can't be on that level?


Most music is not like abstract art, because it retains the body, the directly perceivable sounds and harmonies, upon which the abstract patterns play. However, it _is_ similar in that it is nonrepresentational, (although music's nonrepresentation is inherent to the medium, while in the visual arts it is more a function of form):

"The perception of aesthetic content through hearing differs in fundamental ways from the perception of aesthetic content through vision... we do not interpret musical sounds as representations of objects. The preexisting ability to interpret and assign meanings to visual images does not automatically come into play when we hear musical sounds. It appears that music has the capacity to engage our aesthetic sensibility without also engaging the cognition of objects. *This sensibility is linked in complex ways to inner experience, feelings, moods, and emotions....*"

Music communicates the truths, values, and spirit _behind_, or _within_, objects, not just the imperfect physical objects which are their manifestations.
Thus the lack of specific signification is the _reason_ why music is able to communicate profound truths. Specific signification would tie the music down to one thing, one story, and one place and leave the "lesson" to be abstracted out by the listener. Instead music bypasses all that and just presents the abstract "lesson" itself.

Hanslick: "music 'manifests itself on an incomparably higher level of ideality'"

Schopenhauer, who interpreted "will" as the underlying metaphysical reality: "Unlike the other arts, whose significance lies in the ability to capture 'the permanent essential forms of the world,' thus limiting their reach to interpretations of the phenomenal realm, music expresses the will itself, directly and immediately, speaking the 'universal imageless language of the heart.'"

When we listen to music we are listening to some process, argument, conflict, or transformation in the realm of ideas, and that has meaning for us "down below". Again, not meaning in the ordinary, external sense of "affecting lots of things", but internal meaning- that the music is meaningful by virtue of what it is and where it came from (the realm of the ideal).


----------



## etipou

I must admit, the notion of music conveying a truth or a value seems palpably absurd to me.



Boychev said:


> x


Boychev, you have said elsewhere that you like the symphonies of Beethoven. Do they not have an effect on you of quite a different category than the smell of coffee? Can you describe that effect as a verbal idea or meaning?


----------



## Strange Magic

Isaac Blackburn said:


> Music communicates the truths, values, and spirit _behind_, or _within_, objects, not just the imperfect physical objects which are their manifestations.
> Thus the lack of specific signification is the _reason_ why music is able to communicate profound truths. Specific signification would tie the music down to one thing, one story, and one place and leave the "lesson" to be abstracted out by the listener. Instead music bypasses all that and just presents the abstract "lesson" itself.
> 
> Hanslick: "music 'manifests itself on an incomparably higher level of ideality'"
> 
> Schopenhauer, who interpreted "will" as the underlying metaphysical reality: "Unlike the other arts, whose significance lies in the ability to capture 'the permanent essential forms of the world,' thus limiting their reach to interpretations of the phenomenal realm, music expresses the will itself, directly and immediately, speaking the 'universal imageless language of the heart.'"
> 
> When we listen to music we are listening to some process, argument, conflict, or transformation in the realm of ideas, and that has meaning for us "down below". Again, not meaning in the ordinary, external sense of "affecting lots of things", but internal meaning- that the music is meaningful by virtue of what it is and where it came from (the realm of the ideal).


This is the sort of gaseous mush or ink cloud that obfuscates and mystifies the subject. Music is an arranged series of sounds that pleases people. It does this, some, on a purely sensual level, giving rise to _frissons_ of pleasure; some on an intellectual level which we are not necessarily conscious of. It gives rise to emotions on both sensual and intellectual levels, that recall or evoke joy, sorrow, resignation, etc., and sometimes evokes the same sort of experiences as do images, scenes, memories of past emotional states. It is not a transcendent, Platonic pathway to anywhere, and its workings are slowly but surely being worked out in neurology and information theory. The uniquely idiosyncratic nature of each person's individual response to music is further demonstration that we are dealing with a "prosaic", real, earthbound phenomenon. Schopenhauer, Hanslick? No.

Sorry!


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

Strange Magic said:


> This is the sort of gaseous mush or ink cloud that obfuscates and mystifies the subject. Music is an arranged series of sounds that pleases people....


Yes, and people are an "arranged series of molecules". The obvious prosaic description is often very incomplete when dealing with the full nature of complex and meaningful things.

I'm a very practical person myself and it's good that we're making more headway on the physical workings of music, but that doesn't affect its ideality, etc.


----------



## Handelian

Isaac Blackburn said:


> Yes, and people are an "arranged series of molecules". The obvious prosaic description is often very incomplete when dealing with the full nature of complex and meaningful things.
> 
> I'm a very practical person myself and it's good that we're making more headway on the physical workings of music, but that doesn't affect its ideality, etc.


Interesting. It was belief that people were just an 'arranged series of molecules' that led to some of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century. Next time you put music on, be practical and just use the oscilloscope to view the 'arranged series of sounds'. Just use a simplistic explanation of the rationalist


----------



## Luchesi

DaveM said:


> Apparently, greatness can be found at the event horizon.


If there's no objective value to be found, what's the future of CM?

I am heartened by the number of commenters on YouTube CM videos who are knowledgeable and dedicated. They're mostly old folks?


----------



## SanAntone

I posted this in the John Cage thread. What the 20th century quantum physics discovered is that concrete objectivity is an illusion.

"If you type "indeterminacy" into Google's search engine, you get four categories of response. The first references are to John Cage. The second group cites quantum physics. The third category points to literature; the fourth, philosophy. What do they have in common? *All four systems call into question the all-too-human proposition that we can ultimately know what we're talking about. *

The physics term "quantum indeterminacy" is succinctly summed up in Wikipedia: "Prior to quantum physics, it was thought that (a) a physical system had a determinate state which uniquely determined all the values of its measurable properties, and conversely (b) the values of its measurable properties uniquely determined the state." Newtonian physics was determinate; it suggested that the world could be subjected to precise description. A different picture of the universe was taking shape in the twentieth century. "Precise description" was turning out to be a great cosmic prank. In 1958, as John Cage prepared to present musical indeterminacy to the Darmstadt audience, Werner Heisenberg's autobiographical account of his development of the Uncertainty Principle entered the book market in English translation.

In the 1920s, Heisenberg had noticed that the observer perfectly interpenetrates both with the act of observation and the thing being observed. Nobody knew what to make of it. By that point, "relations of uncertainty" or the "principle of indeterminacy" had displaced Newton's laws of certainty and had obliged Heisenberg to come up with his Uncertainty Principle. Telling the story of his discovery in Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science, Heisenberg described a quantum reality in which "probability functions" rule. He proposed that "observation plays a decisive role in the event and that the reality varies, depending upon whether we observe it or not." In developing the Uncertainty Principle, after long discussions with his mentor Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in 1925, Heisenberg walked off his confusion in a park and repeated to himself "again and again the question: Can nature possibly be as absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?""

- Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson

In the late '40s and early '50s the idea of art as process as opposed to art as an object was being explored. John Cage's work was influential with the Abstract Expressionist painters, whose paintings were described as "events" by Harold Rosenberg in his famous article, "The American Action Painters" which appeared in Art News, December 1952.


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

SanAntone said:


> I posted this in the John Cage thread. What the 20th century quantum physics discovered is that concrete objectivity is an illusion...


When we talk about "objectivity" in music we are usually talking about properties that are intrinsic to the score. Ex. To say something is "objectively" great means that there are features of the score itself that make it so, outside anyone's subjective experience.
Because of that I don't think that the indeterminacy of quantum physics is relevant here; however much photons don't "objectively" exist in a certain place or in a certain form, the score itself is an abstract object and is always going to exist in the same form.
The philosophical theories of indeterminacy, such as Nietzsche's, are similarly inapplicable here...we might not know how the world "really" is, but we know exactly how the score "really is".


----------



## etipou

Good God, quantum physics? The 20th century physicists discovered that fundamental particles seem to obey laws of probability rather than determinacy - very precise and particular laws of probability, ones you can relate and calculate mathematically. Indeed you might well call them "objective". Which has nothing to do with Cage, whose inspiration was from the dubious backwaters of mysticism and superstition, in the form of the _I Ching_, rather than even a hazy notion of contemporary physics.

Which has nothing in turn to do with whether or not music can be good.


----------



## SanAntone

etipou said:


> Good God, quantum physics? The 20th century physicists discovered that fundamental particles seem to obey laws of probability rather than determinacy - very precise and particular laws of probability, ones you can relate and calculate mathematically. Indeed you might well call them "objective". Which has nothing to do with Cage, whose inspiration was from the dubious backwaters of mysticism and superstition, in the form of the _I Ching_, rather than even a hazy notion of contemporary physics.
> 
> Which has nothing in turn to do with whether or not music can be good.


I did not say that Cage was inspired by quantum physics, but the idea of indeterminacy appeared in both spheres. There is nothing dubious about the _I Ching_, Buddhism is not a "backwater" and Cage used it as a method of producing chance procedures.

The idea of objectivity is an illusion, especially as it pertains to art.


----------



## SanAntone

Isaac Blackburn said:


> When we talk about "objectivity" in music we are usually talking about properties that are intrinsic to the score. Ex. To say something is "objectively" great means that there are features of the score itself that make it so, outside anyone's subjective experience.
> Because of that I don't think that the indeterminacy of quantum physics is relevant here; however much photons don't "objectively" exist in a certain place or in a certain form, the score itself is an abstract object and is always going to exist in the same form.
> The philosophical theories of indeterminacy, such as Nietzsche's, are similarly inapplicable here...we might not know how the world "really" is, but we know exactly how the score "really is".


I disagree that there are features of a score that make music objectively great. Those features are interpreted by a human being, who has biases and a cultural context, both of which make any interpretation subjective.


----------



## SanAntone

TC is a classical music forum so it is natural that the achievements of a composer like Beethoven would be trumpeted as "great."

The example of Beethoven developing a small motivic cell into the immense structures of his symphonies appears to be the definition of greatness. However, I think that is cultural bias.

I don't think the music is Beethoven is greater than what the Indian sitarist does when he improvises a raga, or what an African drum ensemble does with their polyrhythmic drones, nor what a Flamenco guitarist and singer create in a Andalusian bar; or what a Appalachian singer-banjoist does with his performance of "The Coo-Coo" - just to name four other human musical expressions.


----------



## etipou

SanAntone said:


> I did not say that Cage was inspired by quantum physics, but the idea of indeterminacy appeared in both spheres. There is nothing dubious about the _I Ching_, Buddhism is not a "backwater" and Cage used it as a method of producing chance procedures.
> 
> The idea of objectivity is an illusion, especially as it pertains to art.


It is hard to avoid the suspicion that quantum physics is brought up in these discussions merely in the hope that it will lend legitimacy and prestige to Mr Cage. They shed no light on each other, their relation is the most superficial one imaginable. It starts and ends with the word "indeterminacy". And perhaps I should say more precisely of divination and the like that it was a primitive backwater _as an intellectual interest in its own right in the mid 20th century_. Anyway, this is rather off-topic.


----------



## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> TC is a classical music forum so it is natural that the achievements of a composer like Beethoven would be trumpeted as "great."
> 
> The example of Beethoven developing a small motivic cell into the immense structures of his symphonies appears to be the definition of greatness. However, I think that is cultural bias.
> 
> I don't think the music is Beethoven is greater than what the Indian sitarist does when he improvises a raga, or what an African drum ensemble does with their polyrhythmic drones, nor what a Flamenco guitarist and singer create in a Andalusian bar; or what a Appalachian singer-banjoist does with his performance of "The Coo-Coo" - just to name four other human musical expressions.


What I think of as greatness is what Bach and Mozart and Beethoven etc. did with the music that they grew up with. Looking at the scores you can immediately see which ones are better than others. We do this all the time, we do this with other subject matter. A horticulturist, a chess expert, a race horse expert on and on. 
But maybe that's not what you're concerned with.


----------



## Luchesi

etipou said:


> It is hard to avoid the suspicion that quantum physics is brought up in these discussions merely in the hope that it will lend legitimacy and prestige to Mr Cage. They shed no light on each other, their relation is the most superficial one imaginable. It starts and ends with the word "indeterminacy". And perhaps I should say more precisely of divination and the like that it was a primitive backwater _as an intellectual interest in its own right in the mid 20th century_. Anyway, this is rather off-topic.


I agree with you, but it does make us think and for me that's what Art can do, as they say, even as Cage 'annoys' people. He doesn't annoy me, he's an explorer. Listeners get too wrapped up. We shouldn't be so high-strung. He knew music, he KNEW Music and Art.

Welcome to the forum. I think you will be appreciated.


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## Strange Magic

When we start bringing quantum physics and, of course, the greatest atrocities of the 20th century, into a discussion of music, I want to bring my metaphorical, metaphysical axe to the grinder-man to be honed to a sharp edge also. Did Pol Pot love music too much or not enough? The wrong kind of music? Let's talk about the 30-Years War and a third of the population of Germany dead from religious enthusiasm. Basta!


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

SanAntone said:


> I disagree that there are features of a score that make music objectively great. Those features are interpreted by a human being, who has biases and a cultural context, both of which make any interpretation subjective.


We're going in circles, and I had a response to this claim many pages back. In any case, my point was not that there are _actually _features of a score which make music great, but merely that this is what people _mean_ when they talk about something being "objectively great". They are talking about the score, which persists as an objective object and is not a quantum object.


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## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> TC is a classical music forum so it is natural that the achievements of a composer like Beethoven would be trumpeted as "great."


By that logic, people here should be trumpeting about John Knowles Paine.



> The example of Beethoven developing a small motivic cell into the immense structures of his symphonies appears to be the definition of greatness. However, I think that is cultural bias.


It isn't the definition of greatness. It's one remarkable thing that music can do, something very difficult to do at the level of excellence Beethoven attained in doing it. It is not cultural bias to perceive, acknowledge and admire this. People from other cultures, learning Western music, also recognize and love Beethoven's achievement - or, rather, achievements. Human beings can, and quite regularly do, learn to appreciate and practice the music of other cultures. Sometimes it doesn't even take much exposure. The first time I heard an Indian sitar player I was riveted, even if the sounds were strange and their laws unfamiliar, and I quickly came to love the music and appreciate its imagination, complexity, and energy. There ARE cultural associations I will surely never identify with as an Indian would, but I have a high appreciation of the genre's artistic richness, as well as some ability to hear when a musician is particularly creative. Were I to spend more time listening to the music and studying its theory, my ability to hear and understand what it contains would be increased, and the greatness of its best practitioners would be still more obvious. This is the way it works with any art people turn their minds to.



> I don't think the music is Beethoven is greater than what the Indian sitarist does when he improvises a raga, or what an African drum ensemble does with their polyrhythmic drones, nor what a Flamenco guitarist and singer create in a Andalusian bar; or what a Appalachian singer-banjoist does with his performance of "The Coo-Coo" - just to name four other human musical expressions.


Why compare the compositions of Beethoven with these radically different forms of music? What does it mean to say that the "Eroica" or the "Pastoral" symphony is more or less great, or no greater than, a flamenco artist? There are great flamenco artists, doing things Beethoven didn't do. On the other hand, it isn't wrong to affirm that Beethoven was greater than Hummel. We don't compare apples with aardvarks.


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## SanAntone

Woodduck said:


> Why compare the compositions of Beethoven with these radically different forms of music? What does it mean to say that the "Eroica" or the "Pastoral" symphony is more or less great, or no greater than, a flamenco artist? There are great flamenco artists, doing things Beethoven didn't do. On the other hand, it isn't wrong to affirm that Beethoven was greater than Hummel. We don't compare apples with aardvarks.


My hypothesis is that ideas of greatness are the product of specific cultures. And while someone from a foreign culture might be able to learn that Beethoven's music is considered great by western societies, they may not be able to hear it intuitively and must take it on faith. Just as a westerner might have difficulty in hearing the greatness of an Indian sitarist's raga.

Saying that Beethoven is greater than Hummel is a subjective statement, and hard, if not impossible, to prove to someone (other than pointing to the cumulative test of time) who has more enthusiasm for Hummel. Judging greatness based on the test of time is the closest thing we have to an objective standard. But again, the test of time is merely a cumulative collection of subjective determinations, many of which were influenced by the judgment of previous generations and what has been taught. Multiplying subjective judgments over time does not produce an objective determination.


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> When we start bringing quantum physics and, of course, the greatest atrocities of the 20th century, into a discussion of music, I want to bring my metaphorical, metaphysical axe to the grinder-man to be honed to a sharp edge also. Did Pol Pot love music too much or not enough? The wrong kind of music? Let's talk about the 30-Years War and a third of the population of Germany dead from religious enthusiasm. Basta!


As someone with a whole armoury of axes ground during this discussion, enough to satisfy the blood-lust of a whole fleet of norsemen, do you really think you have room to talk?


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## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> My "basis" for argument is truth. If you can't argue against my position on _that_ basis, then it's your problem not mine (if you value truth, that is).


I'm glad you put "value truth" in your refutation thereby openly recognising that valuing truth is a value judgement. Recalling this position:



RogerWaters said:


> all value judgements are arbitrary


I can confidently say I do, indeed, have no rational basis upon which to argue against you.


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## Handelian

Isaac Blackburn said:


> *We're going in circles*, and I had a response to this claim many pages back. In any case, my point was not that there are _actually _features of a score which make music great, but merely that this is what people _mean_ when they talk about something being "objectively great". They are talking about the score, which persists as an objective object and is not a quantum object.


An astute observation which is the fate of all such discussions as this. Why not call it a draw?


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> My hypothesis is that ideas of greatness are the product of specific cultures. And while someone from a foreign culture might be able to learn that Beethoven's music is considered great by western societies, they may not be able to hear it intuitively and must take it on faith. Just as a westerner might have difficulty in hearing the greatness of an Indian sitarist's raga.
> 
> Saying that Beethoven is greater than Hummel is a subjective statement, and hard, if not impossible, to prove to someone (other than pointing to the cumulative test of time) who has more enthusiasm for Hummel. Judging greatness based on the test of time is the closest thing we have to an objective standard. But again, the test of time is merely a cumulative collection of subjective determinations, many of which were influenced by the judgment of previous generations and what has been taught. Multiplying subjective judgments over time does not produce an objective determination.


I guess Karajan's 80's Beethoven cycle sold huge quantities in Japan because the Japanese were just taking Beethoven's and Karajan's greatness on faith and didn't actually hear it or enjoy it themselves.


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## fluteman

Strange Magic said:


> This is the sort of gaseous mush or ink cloud that obfuscates and mystifies the subject. Music is an arranged series of sounds that pleases people. It does this, some, on a purely sensual level, giving rise to _frissons_ of pleasure; some on an intellectual level which we are not necessarily conscious of. It gives rise to emotions on both sensual and intellectual levels, that recall or evoke joy, sorrow, resignation, etc., and sometimes evokes the same sort of experiences as do images, scenes, memories of past emotional states. It is not a transcendent, Platonic pathway to anywhere, and its workings are slowly but surely being worked out in neurology and information theory. The uniquely idiosyncratic nature of each person's individual response to music is further demonstration that we are dealing with a "prosaic", real, earthbound phenomenon. Schopenhauer, Hanslick? No.
> 
> Sorry!


I wasn't going to write a post like yours, but since you did, not only will I agree entirely, but I'll make an addition: Kant? No. Kant sought to distinguish between music and the other arts in a way that is not entirely valid, largely for reasons that you briefly allude to in your post. One can hardly blame him, as the science of how humans perceive music is highly complex and only now beginning to be understood, as you say. However, at least one 18th century philosopher succeeded in viewing music from a proper empirical standpoint, perhaps only intuitively, as he didn't have the benefit of modern science either, and that was David Hume.

IMO, anyone who wants to understand exactly how and why one can say, or can't say, that the music of Mahler is 'greater' than that of Cardi B (I still don't know who that is), should read the discussions of aesthetics in Hume's essays, especially Of the Standard of Taste from 1757. Be warned that Hume has a disorganized and scattershot writing style, but of course it's still better than my own attempts to summarize his principles in my own mediocre rambling posts.

The emphatic rejection of Platonic rationalism by Hume and his fellow 18th-century empiricists paved the way for the scientific and technological revolution that enables us to have this online discussion.


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## RogerWaters

Handelian said:


> Oh come off it. You have implied you don't believe in truth and you then say your basis for argument is truth, make up your mind!


When did I say I don't 'believe in truth'?! Please learn to read properly.

I argued previously that truth is not objectively Good. That doesn't mean I can't choose to value it, nor others.


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## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> I'm glad you put "value truth" in your refutation thereby openly recognising that valuing truth is a value judgement. Recalling this position:
> 
> I can confidently say I do, indeed, have no rational basis upon which to argue against you.


What basis would you like to argue on with me?

You seem like someone who places other values above objective truth, a practice that began with religious existentialists like Keirkegaard, which is fine, as long as we are all clear.


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## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> *All values and judgments require context, premises and assumptions. No one is arguing for a theory of value based on some Platonic vision residing in the mind of a disinterested, transcendent deity*. No one cares what sort of music beings from other galaxies would like if they came to visit us. When we judge the music of Mozart great, we are necessarily and importantly referring to how well it embodies a certain set of aesthetic premises. We can differ in our taste for the high Classical style in which Mozart and his contemporaries composed (it isn't my favorite period of music, and I'm not too often inclined to listen to even the masterpieces from the period), but if we can hear (perhaps with the help of a bit of study) what composers of the period were trying to do - and beyond that what individual composers were trying to do and what powers they had to possess in order to do it - we can hear distinct levels of accomplishment in how well different composers exploited the possibilities of their art. Moreover, there will be other aesthetic intuitions, of broader application than the particular principles of 18th-century writing, that will inform our judgments, and help lead us to a perception of the excellence or mediocrity of whatever symphony, quartet or opera we're hearing.
> 
> When we're first coming to music in unfamiliar styles, we naturally tend to judge it by criteria we've formed by listening to other music we probably already enjoy. If we care enough, we'll listen carefully to the new music, and our brains will adapt to the new style and intuit what its premises are. As that happens our subjective judgments are apt to change, and a more objective view of the composer's accomplishment becomes possible. This can happen very quickly for some people; these are the folks who knew right off that Beetoven's "Eroica," Wagner's _Tristan,_ and Stravinsly's _Rite_ were revolutionary masterpieces. For other folks it takes longer. But these are not "arbitrary" judgments "when you get down to foundations," and what they're based on is "much firmer than quicksand." The probably unanimous opinion of the classical music world that the chamber works of Brahms are greater than the extremely similar works of his admirer Herzogenberg rests on very firm foundations indeed. But of course not everyone who comes upon the works in question will appreciate the difference.
> 
> Beethoven was perfectly capable of appreciating that Mozart was greater than Salieri - _and so were Mozart and Salieri._ So am I, and so, I suspect, are you.


Speak for yourself, re the bolded bit.

But thank you. This is progress.

So you believe music can be non-arbitrarily judged based on the "premises" it operates from.

Is your claim that these premises are set up by individual composers and thus the musical 'logic' binds a composer to his own premises, or that a set of premises are provided by the musical style of the time and the musical 'logic' binds different composers to the same premises? (I would assume both, but that you are citing the latter in the current context).

1. Precisely how does Brahms' music fulfil a set of 'premises' shared with Herzogenberg better than the latter, the same with Salieri and than Mozart? In what sense is each set of composers operating using shared premises, such that one out of each set can be 'objectively' ranked greater?

2. Unlike an actual logical argument, in which conclusions are or are not supported by their premises, I fear the link between a musical 'conclusion' and its premises (if we accept such premises exist across a style) is going to be much more tenuous, and that the critic will be injecting much more of his own value judgements into any account of how a musical conclusion does or does not 'follow' from its premises.


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## SanAntone

BachIsBest said:


> I guess Karajan's 80's Beethoven cycle sold huge quantities in Japan because the Japanese were just taking Beethoven's and Karajan's greatness on faith and didn't actually hear it or enjoy it themselves.


Since the end of WWII Japanese culture has been westernized in significant ways. Today there are thousands of Japanese classical artists and composers trained in the classical tradition of the west. My point is that the Japanese, along with all other non-western cultures, took an established fact, i.e. "Beethoven is great composer" and did not question it. They wished to emulate a foreign culture for a variety of reasons. Classical music is not the only western artifact they embraced, jazz, even bluegrass, also have Japanese adherents and fans.

It is impossible today for anyone to prove that Beethoven is a great composer since for a long time it has been assumed that he is. That determination was made long before the 20th century, and made by the 18th century European opinion makers and passed down to all future generations.

The so-called test of time is still a subjective judgment, just one made long ago and continued to be passed along as fact.

It cannot be demonstrably proven using objective criteria, other than the test of time, that Beethoven is a great composer. We cannot even define the meaning of the adjective "great" as applied to music, other than relying on the test of time.


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## Strange Magic

Handelian said:


> As someone with a whole armoury of axes ground during this discussion, enough to satisfy the blood-lust of a whole fleet of norsemen, do you really think you have room to talk?


I have only a single axe in this discussion: I introduced it dozens of posts back, and have posted since only in attempts (repeated) to make it clearer to the meanest understanding. No mention ever of M-M-M-Metaphysics or of vast 20th century atrocities we can attribute to Wrong Thinking About Music and hence Everything Else.

I do love _Immigrant Song_ though....


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## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> What basis would you like to argue on with me?
> 
> You seem like someone who places other values above objective truth, a practice that began with religious existentialists like Keirkegaard, which is fine, as long as we are all clear.


You didn't address my point, which was that either your statements are contradictory, or you don't believe in the value of anything, including "objective truth" which, for the record, I have some degree of confidence you can't define with the same rigour you ask us to define greatness in music.


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> Since the end of WWII Japanese culture has been westernized in significant ways. Today there are thousands of Japanese classical artists and composers trained in the classical tradition of the west. My point is that the Japanese, along with all other non-western cultures, took an established fact, i.e. "Beethoven is great composer" and did not question it. They wished to emulate a foreign culture for a variety of reasons. Classical music is not the only western artifact they embraced, jazz, even bluegrass, also have Japanese adherents and fans.


I'm not sure how any of this supports your point over mine.



SanAntone said:


> It is impossible today for anyone to prove that Beethoven is a great composer since for a long time it has been assumed that he is. That determination was made long before the 20th century, and made by the 18th century European opinion makers and passed down to all future generations.


So lots of people assuming something to be the case in the past is a reason you can't determine something objectively. You could say the exact same thing about Newton's second law for goodness sake.



SanAntone said:


> The so-called test of time is still a subjective judgment





SanAntone said:


> It cannot be demonstrably proven using objective criteria, other than the test of time


I just don't know what to say about this one...


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## Ethereality

RogerWaters said:


> 1. Precisely how does Brahms' music fulfil a set of 'premises' shared with Herzogenberg better than the latter, the same with Salieri and than Mozart? In what sense is each set of composers operating using shared premises, such that one out of each set can be 'objectively' ranked greater?
> 
> 2. Unlike an actual logical argument, in which conclusions are or are not supported by their premises, I fear the link between a musical 'conclusion' and its premises (if we accept such premises exist across a style) is going to be much more tenuous, and that the critic will be injecting much more of his own value judgements into any account of how a musical conclusion does or does not 'follow' from its premises.


I must say, while others here have demonstrated exhaustive writing with lazy thinking, you seem to have exhausted both categories so far. Awesome job, just wanted to pop in and say that. I would love to stay and observe, but I already know where this rabbit hole leads.


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## Tikoo Tuba

When you hallucinate music you may want to objectively examine it for meaningfulness . I recommend practicing this awareness . One : having a curious doubt -suspecting a musical experience is unreal . Two : was it meaningful anyway or maybe just annoying ?


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## Flamme

Aaand Tikoo Tuba has joined the chat...


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## DaveM

Tikoo Tuba said:


> When you hallucinate music you may want to objectively examine it for meaningfulness . I recommend practicing this awareness . One : having a curious doubt -suspecting a musical experience is unreal . Two : was it meaningful anyway or maybe just annoying ?


If you're hallucinating, examining anything objectively is unlikely...


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## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> You didn't address my point, which was that either your statements are contradictory, or you don't believe in the value of anything, including "objective truth" which, for the record, I have some degree of confidence you can't define with the same rigour you ask us to define greatness in music.


Attack is the best form of defence, I guess.

What is the precise logical problem you think is reeking havoc on my position?!

I said there are no objective values, in the sense that all rest on human preferences at some point in the chain of reasoning. I have claimed nothing different with the value of truth. I am only holding you to account on the truthfulness of your positions because I subjectively choose to value truth, and on the assumption you do too. I might be wrong, hence the comment about religious existentialists - who perceived that religious belief and truth were in opposition by the time of the late 19th century, and as a result concluded so much with worse for objective truth, in its "abstractness" and "impersonal" nature.


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## DaveM

SanAntone said:


> The example of Beethoven developing a small motivic cell into the immense structures of his symphonies appears to be the definition of greatness. However, I think that is cultural bias.
> 
> I don't think the music is Beethoven is greater than what the Indian sitarist does when he improvises a raga, or what an African drum ensemble does with their polyrhythmic drones, nor what a Flamenco guitarist and singer create in a Andalusian bar; or what a Appalachian singer-banjoist does with his performance of "The Coo-Coo" - just to name four other human musical expressions


Beethoven's symphonies and other works are considered great works in virtually all the countries of a Europe, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. Lot's of cultures and apparently lots of cultural bias! Doubt that an Indian sitarist improvising a raga, an African drum ensemble, Flamenco guitarists/singers in an Andalusian bar or an Appalachian singer-banjoist performing 'The Coo-Coo' quite rise to that level of worldwide greatness across diverse cultures.


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## RogerWaters

DaveM said:


> Beethoven's symphonies and other works are considered great works in virtually all the countries of a Europe, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. Lot's of cultures and apparently lots of cultural bias! Doubt that Flamenco guitarists/singers in an Andalusian bar or an Appalachian singer-banjoist performing 'The Coo-Coo' quite rise to that level of greatness.


The problem with this is that you complete omit all the people within all those cultures who do not care for Beethoven. Obviously many exist in this non-caring state due to a lack of exposure, but I would think most just don't like classical music.

Please explain in what sense they are _incorrect_, on their own terms. in not judging Beethoven as 'great'.

If they are only 'incorrect' on _your_ terms, these are no terms at all given the context of this thread.


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## RogerWaters

Ethereality said:


> I must say, *while others here have demonstrated exhaustive writing with lazy thinking, you seem to have exhausted both categories so far*. Awesome job, just wanted to pop in and say that. I would love to stay and observe, but I already know where this rabbit hole leads.


I _think_ this is a compliment! If so, thank you.

I am not as knowledgeable as many around here on topics like music theory and composers' biographies. I am, however, in my element (not all-perfect) when it comes to clear reasoning.


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## DaveM

SanAntone said:


> ..But again, the test of time is merely a cumulative collection of subjective determinations, many of which were influenced by the judgment of previous generations and what has been taught. Multiplying subjective judgments over time does not produce an objective determination.


When I was a young kid and discovered albums of Beethoven and Brahms works stored in the basement and, on my own, played them on an old record player which was the beginning of a life-long appreciation of the greatness of those composers, at no time was that appreciation simply a result of influence by anybody. I have never heard anybody try to float the idea that the test of time is simply due to an influence of judgment of previous generations. It's just silliness.


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## RogerWaters

What amuses me about this thread is the interpretation of the original poll question: *Do you believe in total subjectivity concerning the evaluation of music's merits*

It strikes me that people are interpreting it as follows:

- Do I like some music more than others (does some music fill me with potentially profound emotion more than other music)?
- Are my tastes reflected by a bunch of alive and dead people I respect?
- Is there some vague criteria which makes sense of these shared preferences?

If the reader has answered 'yes' to the above, then they answer the question 'Do you believe in total subjectivity concerning the evaluation of music's merits?' in the negative.

But surely this can't be a refutation of subjectivity in musical evaluation?!

If it IS, then Nicki Minaj and Cari B are objectively great artists. For there are whole _swathes _of people who would answer the above three questions in a way unfavourable to classical music and favourable to what most around here would consider tripe.


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## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> The problem with this is that you complete omit all the people within all those cultures who do not care for Beethoven. Obviously many exist in this non-caring state due to a lack of exposure, but I would think most just don't like classical music.


Suppose for the sake of argument that foreign cultures really, on average, all other factors being equal, liked Beethoven less.

Can you show that this is because Beethoven's music _lacks universal appeal_, as opposed to it merely being _harder to understand_ for someone with a different cultural background? It seems that, as long as there is even a minority of people from that foreign culture who love their Beethoven just as much as the most fervent western devotee, the first position is untenable.



RogerWaters said:


> ...If the reader has answered 'yes' to the above, then they answer the question 'Do you believe in *total subjectivity* concerning the evaluation of music's merits?' in the negative.
> 
> But surely this can't be a refutation of *subjectivity* in musical evaluation?!.


This might be a typing error, or it may be the source of much of our confusion; I am replying based on the possibility it is the latter.

The "objectivists" on this thread have not ever put forth a refutation of subjectivity or even insinuated it was possible. On the contrary, everyone here fully acknowledges the subjective element. The key is that we don't believe the discussion to exist in a state of *total subjectivity*. The question, for example, of which music is "great" is not objective, but neither is it totally subjective, because "great" is a word with a definition.


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## DaveM

RogerWaters said:


> The problem with this is that you complete omit all the people within all those cultures who do not care for Beethoven. Obviously many exist in this non-caring state due to a lack of exposure, but I would think most just don't like classical music.
> 
> Please explain in what sense they are _incorrect_, on their own terms. in not judging Beethoven as 'great'.
> 
> If they are only 'incorrect' on _your_ terms, these are no terms at all given the context of this thread.


Please explain why the fact that Beethoven is virtually adored by so many in several diverse cultures is not significant of greatness and then explain why the fact that not everyone in those cultures cares for or is familiar with Beethoven diminishes the significance.


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## Woodduck

SanAntone said:


> My hypothesis is that ideas of greatness are the product of specific cultures.


That sounds to me like an incomplete theory of artistic greatness (or, as I prefer because it emphasizes the continuum that greatness is on, quality). I'd say the perception of aesthetic quality is influenced by culture but is also innate, as is shown by a number of factors, including the presence of common aesthetic judgments and preferences across cultures and over millennia of time, the ability of people from one culture to understand, enjoy and practice the art of other cultures, and, interestingly, the preference of young children, even infants, for faces adults consider attractive.



> And while someone from a foreign culture might be able to learn that Beethoven's music is considered great by western societies, they may not be able to hear it intuitively and must take it on faith. Just as a westerner might have difficulty in hearing the greatness of an Indian sitarist's raga.


That looks plausible, but there are too many exceptions to make it anything like a rule. Millions of people are musically "multilingual." An Indian sitar player might very well find Bach more comprehensible than might a Westerner raised on rock or country music. I'm convinced that musical perception is partly innate and partly cultivated, and that both factors vary from person to person.



> Saying that Beethoven is greater than Hummel is a subjective statement, and hard, if not impossible, to prove to someone (other than pointing to the cumulative test of time) who has more enthusiasm for Hummel. Judging greatness based on the test of time is the closest thing we have to an objective standard. But again, the test of time is merely a cumulative collection of subjective determinations, many of which were influenced by the judgment of previous generations and what has been taught. Multiplying subjective judgments over time does not produce an objective determination.


Aesthetic judgments, since they take place inside the mind and can't be described or measured quantitatively (mathematically), can NEVER be "proved" in the way that propositions describing the physical universe can (though of course all proofs rest on axioms which themselves can't be proved). We have only evidence, but the evidence, though it might be considered circumstantial, is varied and strong. Common criteria of quality across cultures and over time, the adaptability of the brain to unfamiliar art forms and "laws," the durability of good art through time (and the ephemeralness of the commonplace and trivial), the consensus of the educated, the testimony of creative and performing artists - it's a pretty impressive accumulation of circumstantial evidence that argues for the reasonableness of artistic judgments having a strong basis in reality.


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## etipou

RogerWaters said:


> It strikes me that people are interpreting it as follows:
> 
> - Do I like some music more than others (does some music fill me with potentially profound emotion more than other music)?
> - Are my tastes reflected by a bunch of alive and dead people I respect?
> - Is there some vague criteria which makes sense of these shared preferences?


"If I sit down and write a few bars of music, can I do better in writing the next bar than by simply filling it in at random?"

Realising that the answer is "yes" doesn't imply that there is a single best choice, or that there is a strict ordering among choices (ie for any two choices it is possible to decide which is better). It just means that some possible choices are better than some other ones. And at that point I suggest you are out of the hole of "total subjectivity", however you choose to interpret that phrase.

On the other hand, one worry that seems to motivate those who affirm this position is "Can I be _wrong_ to like what I like?". Of course you can't, and aren't. I don't believe these positions are incompatible.


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## Luchesi

BachIsBest said:


> I guess Karajan's 80's Beethoven cycle sold huge quantities in Japan because the Japanese were just taking Beethoven's and Karajan's greatness on faith and didn't actually hear it or enjoy it themselves.


Are you asking the question, or did it happen?


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> The "objectivists" on this thread have not ever put forth a refutation of subjectivity or even insinuated it was possible. On the contrary, everyone here fully acknowledges the subjective element. The key is that we don't believe the discussion to exist in a state of *total subjectivity*. The question, for example, of which music is "great" is not objective, but *neither is it totally subjective, because "great" is a word with a definition*.


Agree wholeheartedly with you here.

However, it doesn't solve much, as definitions can rely to a large degree on concepts that are themselves vague. Observe Miriam-Webster's relevant definition of 'great':



> 6: markedly superior in character or quality


What is "superior in character or quality" varies among minds just as much as 'great' does.

As a result, the definition of 'great' carries little information.

----

You say you don't believe the discussion exists in a state of total subjectivity, which is helpful. _What, then, are the objective features of greatness according to you_?

Answering this will require noting the subjective features: the 'axioms', if you will, which themselves aren't grounded by which objectively ground the judgements of quality that proceed from them.

I fear that these axioms will pack an embarrassingly large amount in them.


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## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> Agree wholeheartedly with you here.
> 
> However, it doesn't solve much, as definitions can rely to a large degree on concepts that are themselves vague. Observe Miriam-Webster's relevant definition of 'great':
> 
> What is "superior in character or quality" varies among minds just as much as 'great' does.
> 
> As a result, the definition of 'great' carries little information... _What, then, are the objective features of greatness according to you_?


Right, the problem is that the word itself is a fuzzy word, and means different things to different people. It has no precise definition.

I've said before that when you componentize a definition, you make it more objective. In this case we can split apart "great" into "influence" and "depth". Now we have two terms, each of which are somewhat easier to measure and talk about than greatness. We can repeat this process and get more and more objective; the problem we run into is that of _weighing_, through which the subjective element enters. There is nothing telling us whether greatness is 70% influence and 30% depth, which would put older composers higher in the rankings, or if it is the other way around, or any one of the other combinations.

Nevertheless, everyone recognizes greatness as a single word, and the bounds of interpretation are not infinitely wide. Someone arguing for the greatness of Saint-Saens based on how much he detested modern music, and that criterion alone, is having a different discussion, and can be said to be, really, objectively wrong. This is not the "dominant group" imposing their values on the minority, except insofar as definitions themselves are created by common usage.

There is a subjective element and an objective element.

____

Now. While the discussion of greatness may be given an objective grounding in the definition itself, that of merits is far more fundamental. Who is to say that if a piece of music is "great", that it objectively (outside human valuation) has merit? It looks like there is an unbridgeable gap; we cannot get from any statement _about_ music to a statement about its _merits_.

It looks like. But it isn't. First, helping construct the bridge from the other side, is the objective merit of moral qualities such as truth and love. Second, is the recognition that music is created _as an experiential form_ which is able to embody, present, and impart those qualities via experiential contact. I know you disagree with these premises, but if one accepts the premises, then the gap is bridged, and we have reached the ultimate ground upon which we can make partly objective judgements of merit.

Most of the time, however, we do not need to cross this bridge, because when people discuss whether something is great, or profound, they are concerned with how well the work objectively matches the definition, not with the definition itself.


----------



## Woodduck

Has anyone asked yet on which side of the OP's question the evidence is strongest? It seems an obvious question, but I don't recall anyone asking it.

In post #342 I offered as evidence for answering the OP with "no" the following (here slightly expanded):

1. There are many criteria of artistic quality which are common to different cultures, contradicting the idea that all artistic ideas and practices are cultural in nature and origin.

2.The human brain can adapt to the aesthetic peculiarities of the arts of other cultures, and people can appreciate, evaluate, and even acquire proficiency in those arts.

3. The work of artists recognized as exceptional (examples: Michelangelo, Bach, Beethoven) tends to retain, and sometimes even increase, its prestige and popularity over time, while art which is more commonplace - less creative, ambitious, distinctive, or proficient - is forgotten as times and tastes change. Art endures when it expresses something that transcends the tastes of its own time and place.

4. There is substantial unanimity among people educated in the arts as to the virtues and importance of certain artists and works. People who have pursued an area of interest and studied a subject, and have come to similar, widely accepted conclusions, are likely to be onto something real.

5. Creative and performing artists assume that differences in artistic quality exist, and act accordingly.

I would welcome additions to this list. I would also welcome some clearly stated evidence for the opposing position - that the evaluation of artistic merit comes down to personal or cultural taste.


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> we can split apart "great" into "influence" and "depth". Now we have two terms, each of which are somewhat easier to measure and talk about than greatness. We can repeat this process and get more and more objective


Can we? So you would say Bach was not great art until Mendelssohn's rediscovery? That is a strange understanding, I would think.

And how do we define 'depth'?

____



Isaac Blackburn said:


> Now. While the discussion of greatness may be given an objective grounding in the definition itself, that of merits is far more fundamental. Who is to say that if a piece of music is "great", that it objectively (outside human valuation) has merit? It looks like there is an unbridgeable gap; we cannot get from any statement _about_ music to a statement about its _merits_.
> 
> It looks like. But it isn't. First, helping construct the bridge from the other side, is the objective merit of moral qualities such as truth and love. Second, is the recognition that music is created _as an experiential form_ which is able to embody, present, and impart those qualities via experiential contact. I know you disagree with these premises, but if one accepts the premises, then the gap is bridged, and we have reached the ultimate ground upon which we can make partly objective judgements of merit.
> 
> Most of the time, however, we do not need to cross this bridge, because when people discuss whether something is great, or profound, they are concerned with how well the work objectively matches the definition, not with the definition itself.


This didn't really get at my query, which was:

1. What are the axioms of 'great' art (subjective element)
2. what are the objective criteria that follow from these 'axioms' (objective element)


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> Can we? So you would say Bach was not great art until Mendelssohn's rediscovery? That is a strange understanding, I would think.


Partially. It would mean that certain art becomes more (but never less) great over time, although no great art starts out as "not great" because there is still the depth aspect. This is why I have a problem with weighing influence too much in discussions like this, but from speaking to other people this is indeed how they conceptualize greatness.



RogerWaters said:


> And how do we define 'depth'?


Structural integrity, profundity, originality- how well it expresses something deep, transcendent, meaningful, or previously unknown about the world.



RogerWaters said:


> This didn't really get at my query, which was:
> 
> 1. What are the axioms of 'great' art (subjective element)
> 2. what are the objective criteria that follow from these 'axioms' (objective element)


I'm not sure what you mean by axioms. The subjective element comes about through subjectivity within the definition itself, and the axioms of the discussion lie in the shared definition of greatness. Then, we can objectively point to qualities of the music that allow it to satisfy those axioms- harmonic logic, motivic command, etc. Do you mean something different?


----------



## RogerWaters

Woodduck said:


> 1. There are many criteria of artistic quality which are common to different cultures, contradicting the idea that all artistic ideas and practices are cultural in nature and origin.


Which are?

But also, what about the enormous amount of disagreement _within_ cultures?



Woodduck said:


> 2.The human brain can adapt to the aesthetic peculiarities of the arts of other cultures, and people can appreciate, evaluate, and even acquire proficiency in those arts.


Yep.



Woodduck said:


> 3. The work of artists recognised as exceptional (examples: Michelangelo, Bach, Beethoven) tends to retain, and sometimes even increase, its prestige and popularity over time, while art which is more commonplace - less creative, ambitious, distinctive, or proficient - is forgotten as times and tastes change. Art endures when it expresses something that transcends the tastes of its own time and place.


I would agree with this, but that's because my private concept of greatness includes it. Many people's doesn't. Why are they _wrong_?

I get that your position is not that artistic judgement is free of all 'subjective' valuation. However, the supposedly 'objective' part of artistic judgements (which, as you say, should not be expected to be all-exhausting) can't differ among different people!



Woodduck said:


> 4. There is substantial unanimity among people educated in the arts as to the virtues and importance of certain artists and works. People who have pursued an area of interest and studied a subject, and have come to similar, widely accepted conclusions, are likely to be onto something real.


Possibly. However, I also see a massive push currently to include the mundane and ordinary under the aim of reducing the domination of 'dead white males' in art. How on earth do such judgements display unanimity with judgements which produced Bach etc?



Woodduck said:


> 5. Creative and performing artists assume that differences in artistic quality exist, and act accordingly.


Not seeing the relevance of this...

BTW, still keen on your clarifications on Salieri vs Mozart, Brahms vs that other guy.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

DaveM said:


> If you're hallucinating, examining anything objectively is unlikely...


One comes to a confidently clear mind , then examines the memory of it and its context . " Oops , that hallucination was stupid tho why may remain a mystery ."

Could be the mystery of free will .

One thing about free will is clear - I may give it to you . This may be a bit of kindly chaos .


----------



## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> Attack is the best form of defence, I guess.
> 
> What is the precise logical problem you think is reeking havoc on my position?!
> 
> I said there are no objective values, in the sense that all rest on human preferences at some point in the chain of reasoning. I have claimed nothing different with the value of truth. I am only holding you to account on the truthfulness of your positions because I subjectively choose to value truth, and on the assumption you do too. I might be wrong, hence the comment about religious existentialists - who perceived that religious belief and truth were in opposition by the time of the late 19th century, and as a result concluded so much with worse for objective truth, in its "abstractness" and "impersonal" nature.


If you believe there are no objective values, only those which you subjectively decide to value, then I'm not sure how to debate you since you can just claim to subjectively not value whatever point I happen to make.


----------



## BachIsBest

Luchesi said:


> Are you asking the question, or did it happen?


It happened.

other characters


----------



## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> I'd say the perception of aesthetic quality is influenced by culture but is also innate, as is shown by a number of factors, ....


I'd say that too. And for any particular work of art, both 'influences' are always at play. In Western culture, innate influences on aesthetic quality in art, including in music, have long been recognized, but the importance of cultural influences was long underestimated or ignored. Western art or classical music began to flourish in the 17th and 18th centuries, when rigid ideas about aesthetics, often enforced by religious institutions, began to give way to allow greater individuality and expressive freedom.

Had he expressed his ideas about music a few centuries earlier, Hume might have been burned at the stake as a heretic. Your favorite composer Richard Wagner was nearly executed, and was exiled, for his anti-authoritarian views. That same attitude of the primacy of the individual carried through to his art, with his daring harmonies and dissonances, his stories based largely on non-Christian mythology, and his integration of music and drama in a way that was a major departure from the existing classical opera tradition.

Your argument about the innate greatness of certain music is thus eloquently refuted by your champion, Wagner. For while he claimed his work proclaimed the triumph German culture, that was a clumsy attempt at modesty, or to use your words, horse pucky. His work proclaimed the triumph and glory of the individual, the Master Singer, the Seeker of the Holy Grail, the revolutionary, the hero, the artist, i.e., himself, Richard Wagner. And it was a triumph that had been brewing for at least two centuries.

The OP in this thread tries to tilt the issue in the direction he would like by using the words "objective" and "subjective". I've argued that the words "rational" and "empirical" express the distinction more clearly. But one could go with "universal" and "individual", or, if we are to use your word, "innate" (or natural) and "acquired" (or learned). Put it that way, and it's clear that the triumph of the individual is an acknowledgement of the central importance of what is not innate in art. For, physical appearance aside, it is the latter, the acquired or learned, that most significantly distinguishes us as individuals, not the innate or natural.


----------



## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> If you believe there are no objective values, only those which you subjectively decide to value, then I'm not sure how to debate you since you can just claim to subjectively not value whatever point I happen to make.


We've been debating on the basis of truth, and I said I am committed to truth. (I also value 'greatness', I just don't think others necessarily think great what I do). Based on truth, we've been debating whether there are any inherent/objective values in life.

BTW I don't simply decide, on a whim, what values to value - logic and experience both factor heavily. It's just that when I go down far enough down the chain of reasoning, sooner or later contingency rears its head.

Values are not written in the stars. As I said early, even if God(s) proclaimed some, you'd still have to _value_ God's proclamations for them to motivate your actions.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> Has anyone asked yet on which side of the OP's question the evidence is strongest? It seems an obvious question, but I don't recall anyone asking it.
> 
> In post #342 I offered as evidence for answering the OP with "no" the following (here slightly expanded):
> 
> 1. There are many criteria of artistic quality which are common to different cultures, contradicting the idea that all artistic ideas and practices are cultural in nature and origin.
> 
> 2.The human brain can adapt to the aesthetic peculiarities of the arts of other cultures, and people can appreciate, evaluate, and even acquire proficiency in those arts.
> 
> 3. The work of artists recognized as exceptional (examples: Michelangelo, Bach, Beethoven) tends to retain, and sometimes even increase, its prestige and popularity over time, while art which is more commonplace - less creative, ambitious, distinctive, or proficient - is forgotten as times and tastes change. Art endures when it expresses something that transcends the tastes of its own time and place.
> 
> 4. There is substantial unanimity among people educated in the arts as to the virtues and importance of certain artists and works. People who have pursued an area of interest and studied a subject, and have come to similar, widely accepted conclusions, are likely to be onto something real.
> 
> 5. Creative and performing artists assume that differences in artistic quality exist, and act accordingly.
> 
> I would welcome additions to this list. I would also welcome some clearly stated evidence for the opposing position - that the evaluation of artistic merit comes down to personal or cultural taste.


All of that is beside the point. Even if all human beings ever share some aesthetic value (i.e. "order" or "balance") that is still subjectivity.

Objective truths would be true even if human minds didn't exist. They're as true for bats and rocks as they are for us.

Almost all chicken hens probably agree that sitting on an egg is a divinely transcendent experience of the utmost sublimity. The greatest scholars among them would no doubt agree. Rat snakes and humans have somewhat different values. These values are rooted in the nature of our minds, but no matter how widely they're shared among our members of our species, if they cannot be shown to be somehow universal, they're simply not objective.


----------



## Handelian

Are we now going to argue about how many angels are going to balance on a pin?


----------



## DaveM

Handelian said:


> Are we now going to argue about how many angels are going to balance on a pin?


First, we have to discuss whether there are angels.


----------



## Handelian

DaveM said:


> First, we have to discuss whether there are angels.


I live with one


----------



## Boychev

Isaac Blackburn said:


> Most music is not like abstract art, because it retains the body, the directly perceivable sounds and harmonies, upon which the abstract patterns play. However, it _is_ similar in that it is nonrepresentational, (although music's nonrepresentation is inherent to the medium, while in the visual arts it is more a function of form):
> 
> "The perception of aesthetic content through hearing differs in fundamental ways from the perception of aesthetic content through vision... we do not interpret musical sounds as representations of objects. The preexisting ability to interpret and assign meanings to visual images does not automatically come into play when we hear musical sounds. It appears that music has the capacity to engage our aesthetic sensibility without also engaging the cognition of objects. *This sensibility is linked in complex ways to inner experience, feelings, moods, and emotions....*"
> 
> Music communicates the truths, values, and spirit _behind_, or _within_, objects, not just the imperfect physical objects which are their manifestations.
> Thus the lack of specific signification is the _reason_ why music is able to communicate profound truths. Specific signification would tie the music down to one thing, one story, and one place and leave the "lesson" to be abstracted out by the listener. Instead music bypasses all that and just presents the abstract "lesson" itself.
> 
> Hanslick: "music 'manifests itself on an incomparably higher level of ideality'"
> 
> Schopenhauer, who interpreted "will" as the underlying metaphysical reality: "Unlike the other arts, whose significance lies in the ability to capture 'the permanent essential forms of the world,' thus limiting their reach to interpretations of the phenomenal realm, music expresses the will itself, directly and immediately, speaking the 'universal imageless language of the heart.'"
> 
> When we listen to music we are listening to some process, argument, conflict, or transformation in the realm of ideas, and that has meaning for us "down below". Again, not meaning in the ordinary, external sense of "affecting lots of things", but internal meaning- that the music is meaningful by virtue of what it is and where it came from (the realm of the ideal).


Excuse me if my knowledge of philosophy is too basic, but I don't think such a move can be permitted in a Kantian system that distinguishes the phenomenal from the noumenal. If music is a noumenal object then by definition we can know absolutely nothing about it, nor even experience it - like we can't experience the soul, God, the absolute, and so on. Schopenhauer reaching for the will does not help the case of music at all since the will is by his definition blind, irrational, meaningless. Is music supposed to be, in your understanding, something akin to meditation, and yield some kind of inner peace (whether by actively blowing out the metaphorical candle of consciousness, or by way of catharsis and confronting you with the most turbulent aspects of your inner world)?


----------



## Boychev

etipou said:


> I must admit, the notion of music conveying a truth or a value seems palpably absurd to me.
> 
> Boychev, you have said elsewhere that you like the symphonies of Beethoven. Do they not have an effect on you of quite a different category than the smell of coffee? Can you describe that effect as a verbal idea or meaning?


Well, I imagine the music means a lot of things relative to ideas I've had and whatever ideas I have about the composer - Beethoven's odd-numbered symphonies make me think of the grand progress of history, of how ideas spread and evolve and crystalize and so on. But there's no way to verify that, it's all in the realm of subjectivity. I can't expect _you_ to have the same understanding of those symphonies as I do. There's no one right answer, and that's the problem, there has to be. Everything has to have one correct interpretation, or else be cast aside as meaningless. I'd like to find a justification for listening to music, but it's really difficult to say how exactly it doesn't amount to pure self-indulgence. Like, I'm not at all religious or a believer in anything immaterial really, but I really understand why some religious movements shun music completely.


----------



## etipou

Boychev said:


> I'd like to find a justification for listening to music, but it's really difficult to say how exactly it doesn't amount to pure self-indulgence.


I wonder what it might mean to justify any pursuit in the sense you seem to be searching for. Your description of music sounds directly opposed to more concrete, less purely aesthetic fields. Take the reading of literature, and consider this passage from Harold Bloom:



> If we read the canon in order to form our social, political, or personal moral values, I firmly believe we will become monsters of selfishness and exploitation. To read in the service of any ideology is not, in my judgment, to read at all. The reception of aesthetic power enables us to learn how to talk to ourselves and how to endure ourselves....Reading deeply in the canon will not make one a better or a worse person, a more useful or more harmful citizen. The mind's dialogue with itself is not primarily a social reality. _All that the Western Canon can bring one is the proper use of one's own solitude..._.


I think it is difficult to deny that this is essentially true, though coloured by the melancholy tone of its author. You might equally say that the only reason for reading great literature is for the sheer love of words and stories and characters. Attempts to deny this always seem to have an air of desperation about them. But isn't this too a kind of self-indulgence?

The position that denies all aesthetic ornamentation at all, or that requires it to be strictly subordinate to some thesis of philosophy or politics, I do not think I can refute. But it so clearly ignores much of what motivates people to create and experience that it will never be a compelling view of life. Tolstoy renounced _Anna Karenina_ and _War and Peace_, though I am sure at some time he understood their greatness; perhaps you can renounce Beethoven after having felt his. I am not sure Tolstoy was wrong, but it didn't seem to do anything for him but exacerbate his worst characteristics.


----------



## Handelian

Boychev said:


> Excuse me if my knowledge of philosophy is too basic, but I don't think such a move can be permitted in a Kantian system that distinguishes the phenomenal from the noumenal. If music is a noumenal object then by definition we can know absolutely nothing about it, nor even experience it - like we can't experience the soul, God, the absolute, and so on. Schopenhauer reaching for the will does not help the case of music at all since the will is by his definition blind, irrational, meaningless. Is music supposed to be, in your understanding, something akin to meditation, and yield some kind of inner peace (whether by actively blowing out the metaphorical candle of consciousness, or by way of catharsis and confronting you with the most turbulent aspects of your inner world)?


Schopenhauer doesn't help us with anything apart from how to be perfectly miserable!


----------



## Bourdon

Handelian said:


> Schopenhauer doesn't help us with anything apart from how to be perfectly miserable!


Schopenhauer is much more than what is suggested here, I'll leave it at this.


----------



## fluteman

science said:


> All of that is beside the point. Even if all human beings ever share some aesthetic value (i.e. "order" or "balance") that is still subjectivity.
> 
> Objective truths would be true even if human minds didn't exist. They're as true for bats and rocks as they are for us.
> 
> Almost all chicken hens probably agree that sitting on an egg is a divinely transcendent experience of the utmost sublimity. The greatest scholars among them would no doubt agree. Rat snakes and humans have somewhat different values. These values are rooted in the nature of our minds, but no matter how widely they're shared among our members of our species, if they cannot be shown to be somehow universal, they're simply not objective.


And that is why, or at least a major reason why, (mis)use of the terms objective and subjective muddies this discussion. The distinction I discussed above, innate or natural versus acquired or learned, has its drawbacks, as scientists still have much work to do distinguishing between the two, but it's safe to say (at least based on the scientific findings I've read about) that the way humans perceive art is always a combination of the two.

I've argued, apparently to the agreement of no one, that the distinction we should be thinking about is that between the rational and the empirical, the greatness of art always ultimately being an empirical issue.


----------



## etipou

Bourdon said:


> Schopenhauer is much more than what is suggested here, I'll leave it at this.


Much more indeed - 1500 dense pages more!

(And who can fit _that_ in between 100 Haydn symphonies, 200 Bach cantatas, and David Hurwitz's 27 recommended recordings of Mahler 3?)


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

Boychev said:


> Everything has to have one correct interpretation, or else be cast aside as meaningless. I'd like to find a justification for listening to music, but it's really difficult to say how exactly it doesn't amount to pure self-indulgence. Like, I'm not at all religious or a believer in anything immaterial really, but I really understand why some religious movements shun music completely.


It seems you've tied yourself into an inextricable knot. You want an external justification for listening to music...of course, there are many external (intellectual, emotional, etc) benefits, but those are mere side effects. Music is music! It is its own thing. The best I can say is that it is the pure condensation of the meaning that undergirds our life, but even that references something external. Music does not exist to serve anyone's self-improvement, it exists only because it is good, and its warrant swells up from within itself.

Of the classical music canon, what are your areas of familiarity and unfamiliarity? Do you listen to lots of different composers, or shun most of them?


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Has anyone asked yet on which side of the OP's question the evidence is strongest? It seems an obvious question, but I don't recall anyone asking it.
> 
> In post #342 I offered as evidence for answering the OP with "no" the following (here slightly expanded):
> 
> 1. There are many criteria of artistic quality which are common to different cultures, contradicting the idea that all artistic ideas and practices are cultural in nature and origin.
> 
> 2.The human brain can adapt to the aesthetic peculiarities of the arts of other cultures, and people can appreciate, evaluate, and even acquire proficiency in those arts.
> 
> 3. The work of artists recognized as exceptional (examples: Michelangelo, Bach, Beethoven) tends to retain, and sometimes even increase, its prestige and popularity over time, while art which is more commonplace - less creative, ambitious, distinctive, or proficient - is forgotten as times and tastes change. Art endures when it expresses something that transcends the tastes of its own time and place.
> 
> 4. There is substantial unanimity among people educated in the arts as to the virtues and importance of certain artists and works. People who have pursued an area of interest and studied a subject, and have come to similar, widely accepted conclusions, are likely to be onto something real.
> 
> 5. Creative and performing artists assume that differences in artistic quality exist, and act accordingly.
> 
> I would welcome additions to this list. I would also welcome some clearly stated evidence for the opposing position - that the evaluation of artistic merit comes down to personal or cultural taste.


I imagine writing an algorithm to quantify historical achievements in the development of music, (I've seen the graphs of the rise of dissonance) and artistic ambiguity put into an agreed upon codeable form. 
'Completely objective.

I would enjoy adding this as an important item to your list, but not everyone will agree. It seems to me it's what we do unconsciously when we admire old music, but the algorithm would take a lot of work..


----------



## SanAntone

This discussion seems to be occurring in a vacuum in which vested interests do not exist: Those institutions and individuals whom stand to make careers and maintain prestige by perpetuating the "masterpiece industry."


----------



## fluteman

SanAntone said:


> This discussion seems to be occurring in a vacuum in which vested interests do not exist: Those institutions and individuals whom stand to make careers and maintain prestige by perpetuating the "masterpiece industry."


Ha! But as an empiricist, I have to respond that there is no such thing as a discussion in a vacuum.


----------



## Luchesi

science said:


> All of that is beside the point. Even if all human beings ever share some aesthetic value (i.e. "order" or "balance") that is still subjectivity.
> 
> Objective truths would be true even if human minds didn't exist. They're as true for bats and rocks as they are for us.
> 
> Almost all chicken hens probably agree that sitting on an egg is a divinely transcendent experience of the utmost sublimity. The greatest scholars among them would no doubt agree. Rat snakes and humans have somewhat different values. These values are rooted in the nature of our minds, but no matter how widely they're shared among our members of our species, if they cannot be shown to be somehow universal, they're simply not objective.


How did we get to our level of development in music? There must have been steps we can explain objectively. It was merely give and take entailing preferences? I don't see that..


----------



## SanAntone

The classical music industry is an ossified museum. The new classical music (which I have defended) cannot find an audience because the composers producing it are writing music that the average classical music fan doesn't like. There are a few composers who have made a dent, the Arvo Pärts and Jennifer Higdons. But their music is essentially a throw back.

The music which finds an audience is not classical, and not serious, which leads me to conclude that it is our culture which has decayed.

I wonder what a Beethoven would be doing today. Would he be writing rap?


----------



## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> The classical music industry is an ossified museum. The new classical music (which I have defended) cannot find an audience because the composers producing it are writing music that the average classical music fan doesn't like. There are a few composers who have made a dent, the Arvo Pärts and Jennifer Higdons. But their music is essentially a throw back.
> 
> The music which finds an audience is not classical, and not serious, which leads me to conclude that it is our culture which has decayed.
> 
> I wonder what a Beethoven would be doing today. Would he be writing rap?


CM is old and serious yes, and it will stay with you your whole life, because there's so much that's high quality. It will help you through the decades as you change, and there's always something new to learn, compared to other topics which seem to run out of material AND inspiration -- like video games and spectator sports and TV sitcoms and all the forms of small talk between friends. CM is something to look up to, no matter how 'smart' and aware you get (because it's an internal process). It's humbling, we need that..

The young people who don't catch on to the interest will need something to take its place, ...something that's lasting.


----------



## etipou

There seems a certain tension in believing simultaneously that there is no great music, and that our preference for a particular kind of new music should be termed "cultural decay".


----------



## SanAntone

etipou said:


> There seems a certain tension in believing simultaneously that there is no great music, and that our preference for a particular kind of new music should be termed "cultural decay".


The cultural decay I described is to acknowledge the fact that the culture that produced the music of Beethoven and Brahms no longer exists. Is Elliott Carter or Pierre Boulez their equal? Is the music of John Williams our version of Mahler?


----------



## fluteman

SanAntone said:


> The classical music industry is an ossified museum. The new classical music (which I have defended) cannot find an audience because the composers producing it are writing music that the average classical music fan doesn't like. There are a few composers who have made a dent, the Arvo Pärts and Jennifer Higdons. But their music is essentially a throw back.
> 
> The music which finds an audience is not classical, and not serious, which leads me to conclude that it is our culture which has decayed.
> 
> I wonder what a Beethoven would be doing today. Would he be writing rap?


Or maybe, the "classical" or "serious" or "long term significant" art being produced today is not yet recognized as such, but will be in the fullness of time.


----------



## SanAntone

fluteman said:


> Or maybe, the "classical" or "serious" or "long term significant" art being produced today is not yet recognized as such, but will be in the fullness of time.


Do you honestly believe that the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, or Elliott Carter (three of the most acclaimed composers of the 20th century) will ever be held to be the equal of Beethoven or Brahms?


----------



## Boychev

Isaac Blackburn said:


> It seems you've tied yourself into an inextricable knot. You want an external justification for listening to music...of course, there are many external (intellectual, emotional, etc) benefits, but those are mere side effects. Music is music! It is its own thing. The best I can say is that it is the pure condensation of the meaning that undergirds our life, but even that references something external. Music does not exist to serve anyone's self-improvement, it exists only because it is good, and its warrant swells up from within itself.
> 
> Of the classical music canon, what are your areas of familiarity and unfamiliarity? Do you listen to lots of different composers, or shun most of them?


I like Beethoven's symphonies, CPE's symphonies, Debussy's piano music, Schoenberg's string quartets, Schubert's Lieder, and a bunch of other music by composers such as Webern, Saint-Saëns, Bartók, Gershwin, Rachmaninoff, some of the flashier and less cerebral minimalism like Glass' Einstein on the Beach and Riley's in C, as well as quite a few pieces on classical radio and YouTube by lesser but very immediately fascinating composers that I can't really remember very well like Ole Bull or Josef Suk. But it seems impossible to follow a system, like I've heard plenty of Bach in my lifetime but despite sitting through the WTC and Kunst der Fuge a few times with different performers, I can't seem to recall much if at all of it; the 6th cello suite is fantastic but the other ones just sound like background music. Most of the canon I can't make myself care for and that's frustrating, because exploring classical music just seems to amount to trial and error. There's no logic behind liking the symphonies but not really being interested in the string quartets of Beethoven, or that loving CPE but not Haydn or Mozart's symphonies, it's just too individual and frivolous and I can't seem to make sense of any of it in terms of something like the history of this music, the different lines of influences and developments, and so on, in other words to develop something like an actual taste instead of just randomly liking bits and pieces of it here and there.


----------



## Strange Magic

Boychev said:


> Well, I imagine the music means a lot of things relative to ideas I've had and whatever ideas I have about the composer - Beethoven's odd-numbered symphonies make me think of the grand progress of history, of how ideas spread and evolve and crystalize and so on. But there's no way to verify that, it's all in the realm of subjectivity. I can't expect _you_ to have the same understanding of those symphonies as I do. There's no one right answer, and that's the problem, there has to be. Everything has to have one correct interpretation, or else be cast aside as meaningless. I'd like to find a justification for listening to music, but it's really difficult to say how exactly it doesn't amount to pure self-indulgence. Like, I'm not at all religious or a believer in anything immaterial really, but I really understand why some religious movements shun music completely.


I listen to music, and have for some 75 years, out of self-indulgence. The baggage that ideologues of various stripes--metaphysicians, "philosophers", self-improvement acolytes or gurus, religious enthusiasts, etc.--is more than the poor beast can or ought to be expected to bear. Where did this impulse come from? The pleasure that we derive from music does not require such anguished introspection and justification. Uhuru! Freedom to enjoy music free of Reasons Why!


----------



## etipou

You have an interesting psychology, Boychev, one that seems very intolerant of uncertainty. It appears to me that you already like enough music to have many years of happy listening, if you could allow yourself merely to do so. 

(I tried to reply to your previous comment but it seems to have disappeared in a moderation queue. Perhaps it will materialise at some point.)


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> I listen to music, and have for some 75 years, out of self-indulgence. The baggage that ideologues of various stripes--metaphysicians, "philosophers", self-improvement acolytes or gurus, religious enthusiasts, etc.--is more than the poor beast can or ought to be expected to bear. Where did this impulse come from? The pleasure that we derive from music does not require such anguished introspection and justification. Uhuru! Freedom to enjoy music free of Reasons Why!


That was why you spend the amount of time you have on this thread discussing it? I too do not have to have a reason to enjoy music. I do it as one of the freedoms given to me as a human being. You are not alone in this!


----------



## Strange Magic

As even a brief examination of this thread will demonstrate, I have been one of the least persistant participants in this thread, though one of the most focused and precise.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> As even a brief examination of this thread will demonstrate, I have been one of the least persistant participants in this thread, though one of the most focused and precise.


And as usual, focused yes, but precisely wrong and in the minority as this poll proves for all eternity.


----------



## RogerWaters

DaveM said:


> And as usual, focused yes, but precisely wrong and in the minority as this poll proves for all eternity.


This is classical music forum. It is entirely to be expected that its participants see this form of music as objectively 'great', without considering the philosophical implications of this judgement.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), truth isn't democratic. It doesn't matter that 80 mostly silent voters have disagreed with the proposition in question when no one has been able to given a good account of where objectivity might lie in the process of musical judgement.


----------



## science

Luchesi said:


> How did we get to our level of development in music? There must have been steps we can explain objectively. It was merely give and take entailing preferences? I don't see that..


"... steps we can explain objectively...."

You mean history that we can (more or less) verify? If that's what you mean, yes, of course there was.

But because of the phrase "level of development" I suspect you have a narrative of progress in mind. We probably disagree about that. The _technology_ of music has progressed (i.e. harpsichords to pianos to electronic organs), but the fact that tastes have changed over time is merely change, not progress. Our technology is better than our ancestors', but we are not, except perhaps in our own near-sighted eyes.


----------



## science

SanAntone said:


> This discussion seems to be occurring in a vacuum in which vested interests do not exist: Those institutions and individuals whom stand to make careers and maintain prestige by perpetuating the "masterpiece industry."


This is actually a really, really great point.

Things have to be sold to consumers, so the things have be puffed up and the consumers have to be flattered.


----------



## adriesba

I didn't want to step into this thread, but OK here I am. In the other thread I said the same thing and hardly got any responses, so I can probably post this and leave without difficulty. 

Music has both subjective and objective elements. Objective value is based on the level of skill that goes into creating the piece. It takes skill to come up with memorable melodies, to orchestrate, to create polyphony, to get the ideas from your head into some medium of expression, etc. This is why someone commissioning a work of art (music or otherwise) will not just pay any person. This is why no one in their right mind can claim that something like "Baby Shark" is better than a Beethoven symphony. But when music approaches the same level of quality (Beethoven vs Mozart etc.) telling which one is objectively better is not really meaningful if even possible. But that is not to say that there is no subjective aspect to music. This is why lower quality music can be popular. Subjective views can also mean that I like Beethoven's symphonies better than those of Mozart.


----------



## science

adriesba said:


> I didn't want to step into this thread, but OK here I am. In the other thread I said the same thing and hardly got any responses, so I can probably post this and leave without difficulty.
> 
> Music has both subjective and objective elements. Objective value is based on the level of skill that goes into creating the piece. It takes skill to come up with memorable melodies, to orchestrate, to create polyphony, to get the ideas from your head into some medium of expression, etc. This is why someone commissioning a work of art (music or otherwise) will not just pay any person. This is why no one in their right mind can claim that something like "Baby Shark" is better than a Beethoven symphony. But when music approaches the same level of quality (Beethoven vs Mozart etc.) telling which one is objectively better is not really meaningful if even possible. But that is not to say that there is no subjective aspect to music. This is why lower quality music can be popular. Subjective views can also mean that I like Beethoven's symphonies better than those of Mozart.


"... no one in their right mind can claim that something like "Baby Shark" is better than a Beethoven symphony."

Loads of 4-year-olds would disagree with you.

A Beethoven symphony definitely has many traits that _most of us recognize as virtues_: complexity, subtlety, inventiveness, and so on. The fact that most of us recognize such things as virtues, however, does not mean that they are objectively so. It means that we share many of our subjective values.

And of course we do. We all have human brains. We more-or-less share a culture: I've heard a lot of the same music you've heard, and with similar cultural associations.

The fact that we sincerely agree about something does not make it an objective truth. It means we sincerely share some subjective values.

But our brains are not exactly the same. I haven't heard exactly the same music as you, and the culture in which I've encountered it must have been at least a little different than the cultures in which you've encountered it.

So of course we're not going to agree completely.

And because it's subjective, it's okay that we don't agree completely. Neither of us are right or wrong, neither of us is better than the other. We're just different people coming from different places, with a lot in common but not everything in common.

It also means that when we both like something, we can feel a camaraderie over it. Not everyone would like this, but _we_ do. We're a little less alone when we recognize that.

If the virtues of art were objective, it'd be mathematics or science. No one bonds over the fact that they both recognize that 7 x 4 = 28; no one bonds over the fact that green light has a certain wavelength. No one _can_ bond over such things, because they're objective truths recognizable by any mind that has the capacity to understand the statements and the tools to check the evidence. Sufficiently intelligent aliens will agree with us about such things.

But art is _human_. It's cultural, it's individual. We can feel passionately about it, and share those passions. When Woodduck recognizes one of his creations as really great, at least some other people will recognize more-or-less the same greatness, affirming that they share certain values, and they will feel a little closer because of it. (Like four-year-olds delightedly discovering that they both love _Baby Shark_!)


----------



## RogerWaters

adriesba said:


> I didn't want to step into this thread, but OK here I am. In the other thread I said the same thing and hardly got any responses, so I can probably post this and leave without difficulty.
> 
> Music has both subjective and objective elements. *Objective value is based on the level of skill that goes into creating the piece*. It takes skill to come up with memorable melodies, to orchestrate, to create polyphony, to get the ideas from your head into some medium of expression, etc. This is why someone commissioning a work of art (music or otherwise) will not just pay any person. This is why no one in their right mind can claim that something like "Baby Shark" is better than a Beethoven symphony. But when music approaches the same level of quality (Beethoven vs Mozart etc.) telling which one is objectively better is not really meaningful if even possible. But that is not to say that there is no subjective aspect to music. This is why lower quality music can be popular. Subjective views can also mean that I like Beethoven's symphonies better than those of Mozart.


Schoenberg probably accumulated more musical skill over dozens of years of music education and applied this creating his highly intricate but, in my opinion, almost meaningless 12-tone works.

Pink Floyd's music is in this sense probably less 'skilful', but it's worlds better to my tastes.

In short, it is not at all obvious that more skilful music is objectively better music.


----------



## DaveM

RogerWaters said:


> This is classical music forum. It is entirely to be expected that its participants see this form of music as objectively 'great', without considering the philosophical implications of this judgement.
> 
> Unfortunately (or fortunately), truth isn't democratic. It doesn't matter that 80 mostly silent voters have disagreed with the proposition in question when no one has been able to given a good account of where objectivity might lie in the process of musical judgement.


Well, actually that's not true. A number of people including myself have given a good account in several threads on the subject. I'm willing to bet that any poll anywhere among long-time classical music listeners would give similar results to this one. You philosophizing subjectivists get so far in the weeds you can't find the marsh.

To make everything subjective is to reject the skill of those who create superior works of art. In your world of subjectivity, if a person familiar with a particular art form appreciates the greatness of a work, you'll reject it as subjective because a person unfamiliar with the art form doesn't think it's great. Thus, the creator of the artwork will never have your appreciation of the creation as a result of superior skill regardless of whether you like it or not. Rather sad if you ask me.


----------



## science

DaveM said:


> To make everything subjective is to reject the skill of those who create superior works of art.


What? Why?

That's ... I mean, I'd like to be charitable, but why the heck would anyone think that?


----------



## adriesba

science said:


> "... no one in their right mind can claim that something like "Baby Shark" is better than a Beethoven symphony."
> 
> Loads of 4-year-olds would disagree with you.
> 
> A Beethoven symphony definitely has many traits that _most of us recognize as virtues_: complexity, subtlety, inventiveness, and so on. The fact that most of us recognize such things as virtues, however, does not mean that they are objectively so. It means that we share many of our subjective values.
> 
> And of course we do. We all have human brains. We more-or-less share a culture: I've heard a lot of the same music you've heard, and with similar cultural associations.
> 
> The fact that we sincerely agree about something does not make it an objective truth. It means we sincerely share some subjective values.
> 
> But our brains are not exactly the same. I haven't heard exactly the same music as you, and the culture in which I've encountered it must have been at least a little different than the cultures in which you've encountered it.
> 
> So of course we're not going to agree completely.
> 
> And because it's subjective, it's okay that we don't agree completely. Neither of us are right or wrong, neither of us is better than the other. We're just different people coming from different places, with a lot in common but not everything in common.
> 
> It also means that when we both like something, we can feel a camaraderie over it. Not everyone would like this, but _we_ do. We're a little less alone when we recognize that.


I doubt many of those four-year-olds have listened to a Beethoven symphony or heard much more than the 5th's opening notes.

Since music is a human creation, I don't see anything incorrect about using certain human standards to determine what about it is good or bad whether people acknowledge these qualities consciously or subconsciously. One can recognize the value in a piece that they don't like. That is something that goes beyond one's personal opinions. That seems to be less subjective than saying one likes or doesn't like a certain piece of music. Everything we observe has to go through the human lens to begin with anyway. Not sure how well I said that, but you do make a good point.


----------



## science

adriesba said:


> I doubt many of those four-year-olds have listened to a Beethoven symphony or heard much more than the 5th's opening notes.
> 
> Since music is a human creation, I don't see anything incorrect about using certain human standards to determine what about it is good or bad whether people acknowledge these qualities consciously or subconsciously. One can recognize the value in a piece that they don't like. That is something that goes beyond one's personal opinions. That seems to be less subjective than saying one likes or doesn't like a certain piece of music. Everything we observe has to go through the human lens to begin with anyway. Not sure how well I said that, but you do make a good point.


For god's sake, what in the world did I write that made you think I was saying something was WRONG with "using certain human standards to determine what about it is good or bad."

Those standards are all we have!



> One can recognize the value in a piece that they don't like. That is something that goes beyond one's personal opinions.


Well, the word "like" here is covering a variety of different experiences (from the shallowest pleasure to the deepest awe), but what you're really saying is that we can recognize that other people would like (or have liked) something.


----------



## adriesba

RogerWaters said:


> Schoenberg probably accumulated more musical skill over dozens of years of music education and applied this creating his highly intricate but, in my opinion, almost meaningless 12-tone works.
> 
> Pink Floyd's music is in this sense probably less 'skilful', but it's worlds better to my tastes.
> 
> In short, it is not at all obvious that more skilful music is objectively better music.


Well, many people like Schoenberg's music. But what any person personally thinks about his music is not the same as acknowledging skill that went into the piece and recognizing the value in that.


----------



## science

adriesba said:


> Well, many people like Schoenberg's music. But what any person personally thinks about his music is not the same as acknowledging skill that went into the piece and recognizing the value in that.


Can you *prove* that skill has value?

Because if you can't, you're talking about a subjective value that you assume we share.

I can PROVE that 4x7 = 28 to any mind capable of understanding the proposition, whether they like it or not. THAT is why 4x7 = 28 is an OBJECTIVE fact.

You can prove that it took skill for Schoenberg to compose his string trio. That's an objective fact. BUT you can't prove that having or displaying such skill matters. Valuing that skill is SUBJECTIVE.

Which, again, is why sharing it matters.

No one has ever said something like, "Wait, you believe 4x7 = 28 too? Oh my god, me too!" But when two people discover that they both admire the skill displayed in the composition of Schoenberg's string trio, they'll like each other a bit more after that.


----------



## RogerWaters

DaveM said:


> Well, actually that's not true. A number of people including myself have given a good account in several threads on the subject. I'm willing to bet that any poll anywhere among long-time classical music listeners would give similar results to this one. You philosophizing subjectivists get so far in the weeds you can't find the marsh.


What is your account? Let's debate it.

And I don't know why you keep raising polls, as if truth were a popularity contest. Flat earth forums probably have lots of polls...



DaveM said:


> To make everything subjective is to reject the skill of those who create superior works of art.


I don't see why. I can appreciate Schoenberg's skill while intensely disliking his art.



DaveM said:


> In your world of subjectivity, if a person familiar with a particular art form appreciates the greatness of a work, you'll reject it as subjective because a person unfamiliar with the art form doesn't think it's great. Thus, the creator of the artwork will never have your appreciation of the creation as a result of superior skill regardless of whether you like it or not. Rather sad if you ask me.


You are committing yourself to the idea that, if exposed to Beethoven, most people would like him.

A strange assumption.


----------



## adriesba

science said:


> For god's sake, what in the world did I write that made you think I was saying something was WRONG with "using certain human standards to determine what about it is good or bad."
> 
> Those standards are all we have!


I didn't say that you said that. Sorry if it seemed that way. As I mentioned, I'm not sure how well I articulated my post.



> Well, the word "like" here is covering a variety of different experiences (from the shallowest pleasure to the deepest awe), but what you're really saying is that we can recognize that other people would like (or have liked) something.


Fair point.

I don't really want to argue with you since it seems I probably actually agree now that I have better thought about and digested what you are saying.


----------



## adriesba

science said:


> Can you *prove* that skill has value?
> 
> Because if you can't, you're talking about a subjective value that you assume we share.
> 
> I can PROVE that 4x7 = 28 to any mind capable of understanding the proposition, whether they like it or not. THAT is why 4x7 = 28 is an OBJECTIVE fact.
> 
> You can prove that it took skill for Schoenberg to compose his string trio. That's an objective fact. BUT you can't prove that having or displaying such skill matters. Valuing that skill is SUBJECTIVE.


Yes, all good points.


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## DaveM

RogerWaters said:


> You are committing yourself to the idea that, if exposed to Beethoven, most people would like him.
> 
> A strange assumption.


That is a false assumption leading to a false conclusion.


----------



## RogerWaters

DaveM said:


> That is a false assumption leading to a false conclusion.


You wrote:

"In your world of subjectivity, if a person familiar with a particular art form appreciates the greatness of a work, you'll reject it as subjective *because a person unfamiliar with the art form* doesn't think it's great. Thus, the creator of the artwork will never have your appreciation of the creation as a result of superior skill regardless of whether you like it or not. Rather sad if you ask me."

I objected to the argument for musical objectivity that rests on a certain amount of cross-cultural agreement on the 'greatness' of certain composers. I cited the probably _greater_ number of people who don't care for these composers, worse still who don't care for classical music at all.

I was interpreting your passage above as a response. If so, it clearly seems to imply that the 'probably greater number of people who don't care for classical music', as I characterised them, would like it if they became familiar with it. In short, the 'greatness' of classical music would be recognised by all if exposed.

This is important because it relates to a very fundamental issue. There are those think classical music great and those who don't. The question then arises. Who is right? They both can't be, if 'greatness' is partly objectively.

One way to vindicate the classical fans is to say those who don't consider classical music to be 'great' are merely ill-informed. I think this is, quite obviously, untrue.

If I am incorrect, feel free to clarify.

Btw, I'm still very interested in your account of objective artistic 'greatness', too. Don't be like Woodduck, who has apparently retreated to the safety of the skies in response to my probing his preliminary attempts at one.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> And as usual, focused yes, but precisely wrong and in the minority as this poll proves for all eternity.


I'm glad we are as one on the importance of polling. It is the beating heart of group consensus on what a defined audience has asserted is to be considered "great" in ice cream, "fine" wines, and the arts.


----------



## Isaac Blackburn

RogerWaters said:


> ...You are committing yourself to the idea that, if exposed to Beethoven, most people would like him.


An interesting point to be made here. I don't think it's _possible_ for someone to fully understand Beethoven and dislike him. The same goes for Brahms, Mahler, and the other greats. Without fail, everyone who dislikes them almost by definition does not understand- no, does not _experience_- what these masters tried and succeeded in doing with their art.

Perhaps that is the true criterion for "greatness"- that you can understand and cannot dislike.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> I'm glad we are as one on the importance of polling. It is the beating heart of group consensus on what a defined audience has asserted is to be considered "great" in ice cream, "fine" wines, and the arts.


They only confirm what the majority already knows to be true, unless Dominion machines are involved.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I listen to music, and have for some 75 years, out of self-indulgence. The baggage that ideologues of various stripes--metaphysicians, "philosophers", self-improvement acolytes or gurus, religious enthusiasts, etc.--is more than the poor beast can or ought to be expected to bear. Where did this impulse come from? The pleasure that we derive from music does not require such anguished introspection and justification. Uhuru! Freedom to enjoy music free of Reasons Why!


??
You sound like an anti-intellectual. It's just like buying your favorite ice cream


----------



## RogerWaters

Isaac Blackburn said:


> An interesting point to be made here. I don't think it's _possible_ for someone to fully understand Beethoven and dislike him. The same goes for Brahms, Mahler, and the other greats. Without fail, everyone who dislikes them almost by definition does not understand- no, does not _experience_- what these masters tried and succeeded in doing with their art.
> 
> Perhaps that is the true criterion for "greatness"- that you can understand and cannot dislike.


This is truly a reductio of artistic 'greatness' if ever I've seen one.


----------



## RogerWaters

DaveM said:


> They only confirm what the majority already knows to be true, unless Dominion machines are involved.


To be clear on your level of intellect, you think if the majority think something is true, this means that it is?


----------



## SanAntone

> An interesting point to be made here. I don't think it's possible for someone to fully understand Beethoven and dislike him. The same goes for Brahms, Mahler, and the other greats. Without fail, everyone who dislikes them almost by definition does not understand- no, does not experience- what these masters tried and succeeded in doing with their art.
> 
> Perhaps that is the true criterion for "greatness"- that you can understand and cannot dislike.


I have no idea what it means to "understand" Beethoven, Brahms or Mahler. They wrote music; Bob Dylan writes music. I enjoy Bob Dylan more than Mahler, and maybe more than Beethoven and Brahms. I have never wondered if I understood what they were doing. I simply listened.

_Understanding_ music doesn't make much sense to me. Music is _listened to,_ not understood.


----------



## SanAntone

I'd trade Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner, Mendelssohn, and who knows who else for Hank Williams.


----------



## DaveM

SanAntone said:


> I have no idea what it means to "understand" Beethoven, Brahms or Mahler. They wrote music; Bob Dylan writes music. I enjoy Bob Dylan more than Mahler, and maybe more than Beethoven and Brahms. I have never wondered if I understood what they were doing. I simply listened.
> 
> _Understanding_ music doesn't make much sense to me. Music is _listened to,_ not understood.


Maybe you're making too much of semantics.



SanAntone said:


> I'd trade Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner, Mendelssohn, and who knows who else for Hank Williams.


What does it matter if none of them are great.


----------



## DaveM

RogerWaters said:


> To be clear on your level of intellect, you think if the majority think something is true, this means that it is?


I was yanking Strange Magic's chain. I'm sure he knew; I guess you didn't.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> ??
> You sound like an anti-intellectual. It's just like buying your favorite ice cream


Actually I am an anti-anti-intellectual, and, as such, have a different sound entirely. When I go onto YouTube for a wonderful concert performance of a favorite work, or hear a new one that I like, it is like buying and enjoying my favorite ice cream.

As I've noted before, I have difficulty sometimes discovering the point of your posts.  I think intellectuals, anti-intellectuals, and anti-anti-intellectuals such as myself enjoy (by definition) their favorite ice creams. Music also. Am I wrong?


----------



## SanAntone

DaveM said:


> Maybe you're making too much of semantics.


Probably not.



> What does it matter if none of them are great.


That's the point: it's not about greatness; it's about what you like.


----------



## etipou

SanAntone said:


> _Understanding_ music doesn't make much sense to me. Music is _listened to,_ not understood.


It's a useful distinction, if somewhat metaphorical. "I understand this music" means something like "I am confident that my attention when listening is generally directed towards those features of the music that the writer intended to be noticed". For example, noticing that the final section of a work in sonata form is a repeat of its opening section - but altered to give a sense of finality rather than departure - is part of understanding it.

So I like and understand Beethoven's 5th. I like but do not understand the music that accompanies Noh theatre. I understand but do not like Debussy's piano music. I neither understand nor like the music of Webern.


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## HerbertNorman

Well , I voted no...BUT:

I will still determine what I think is great to listen to... I am very flexible and open to new things , but some I like and some I dislike.
I am humble and I will agree with someone if he or she says to me that , for example in my case, Mahler was a great and superb composer. But I would choose a work of Beethoven or Schubert over one of Gustav Mahler. I am convinced by his greatness , yet my taste , is my taste...


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## SanAntone

etipou said:


> It's a useful distinction, if somewhat metaphorical. "I understand this music" means something like "I am confident that my attention when listening is generally directed towards those features of the music that the writer intended to be noticed". For example, noticing that the final section of a work in sonata form is a repeat of its opening section - but altered to give a sense of finality rather than departure - is part of understanding it.
> 
> So I like and understand Beethoven's 5th. I like but do not understand the music that accompanies Noh theatre. I understand but do not like Debussy's piano music. I neither understand nor like the music of Webern.


We listen differently. And how you describe understanding is foreign to my way of thinking, although I understand what you are describing. How I "understand" music is through listening to it, I don't consciously separate listening from understanding. Listening to music occurs through a complex process most of which takes place beneath the surface of my consciousness. I understand Webern's music (whereas you say you don't) no differently and equally as well as I understand any music.

The statement that caused my post that you responded to was something like, "if a person understands Beethoven's music it is impossible not to like it," which I think is an inaccurate statement. You said as much with your statement about the piano music of Debussy.


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## Mandryka

For me understanding music is about submission to the music. It means that I’m willing and able to let myself be carried along by the music’s flow through time. It’s akin to sympathetic understanding of another person, where you’re willing to trust someone. There’s even a sexual component - willing to trust someone to ravish you, willing to let the music ravish you. 


For me it’s not at all a cognitive thing - it’s not at all about being able to articulate anything about features of the music.


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## etipou

All of these uses of the word are metaphorical to some degree, but it seems perverse to insist on a usage which is almost the opposite of the ordinary, concrete sense. I am happy to acknowledge that understanding doesn't have to be verbalised or conscious - I am sure anyone on this board understands 18th century harmony pretty well, whether they know a modulation from a leading note or not.


----------



## Handelian

Mandryka said:


> For me understanding music is about submission to the music. It means that I'm willing and able to let myself be carried along by the music's flow through time. It's akin to sympathetic understanding of another person, where you're willing to trust someone. There's even a sexual component - willing to trust someone to ravish you, willing to let the music ravish you.
> 
> For me it's not at all a cognitive thing - it's not at all about being able to articulate anything about features of the music.


Oh goodness no! When I listen to music I am the one in charge. Music is my servant and there for my enjoyment. Music submits to me not me to the music. The composer is my servant.


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## mikeh375

Handelian said:


> Oh goodness no! When I listen to music I am the one in charge. Music is my servant and there for my enjoyment. Music submits to me not me to the music. *The composer is my servant*.


Perhaps you are also at the composer's whim and fancy seeing that you are listening....


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## Handelian

mikeh375 said:


> Perhaps you are also at the composer's whim and fancy seeing that you are listening....


No he is at mine. I have the OFF switch! The enjoyment is more!


----------



## Strange Magic

> Mandryka:
> For me understanding music is about submission to the music. It means that I'm willing and able to let myself be carried along by the music's flow through time. It's akin to sympathetic understanding of another person, where you're willing to trust someone. There's even a sexual component - willing to trust someone to ravish you, willing to let the music ravish you.
> 
> For me it's not at all a cognitive thing - it's not at all about being able to articulate anything about features of the music.





> Handelian:
> Oh goodness no! When I listen to music I am the one in charge. Music is my servant and there for my enjoyment. Music submits to me not me to the music. The composer is my servant.


I see no inherent, serious opposition between these two positions, especially if one considers one's history with a piece of music. Handelian's attitude/emphasis predominates during the ''getting to know you" phase of someone (me) and the piece learning about each other. Later, after love has bloomed, Mandryka's sense of somewhat abandoning oneself to the ravishment of the music is, in my case, also predominant then.


----------



## fluteman

SanAntone asked me: Do you honestly believe that the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, or Elliott Carter (three of the most acclaimed composers of the 20th century) will ever be held to be the equal of Beethoven or Brahms?

My response: Maybe it will be Igor Stravinsky, Kurt Weill and Philip Glass. Or maybe Eric Dolphy, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. Or Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Or Edgard Varese. Or Olivier Messiaen. Or Conlon Nancarrow. Or someone else. 

But yes, the time will certainly come when other, newer music is held to be, not merely equal to, but superior to, the music of Beethoven and Brahms, hard as that may be for some here to understand and accept. Unless, perhaps, the human race manages to destroy itself within a century or two, which is entirely possible at our current rate of self-destruction. Our fundamental cultural frame of reference will in time drift and evolve too far away from that of the 18th and 19th century composers for them to be the most compelling for most people, except perhaps for a tiny clique of specialist / expert / cultural anthropologists. That admittedly slow process has already begun.

But now I'm only repeating myself. My answer here is only a necessary corollary of the analysis of David Hume, especially in his essay, Of the Standard of Taste. Other empiricists, perhaps better and clearer writers, have also addressed the central issue discussed in this thread more briefly or in passing, but Hume's essay is largely devoted to it. Edit: Actually, 1757 seems rather late for someone to say that music can never be reduced to a set of rational principles that can be equally understood and appreciated by all people regardless of cultural or educational background. One might think that argument would have emerged at least 50-100 years earlier, certainly by the time the Italian baroque style swept Europe. It may have to do with the still powerful and only slowly waning control of the Catholic Church over secular culture in Europe during that period.

It may be hard for some of us now to imagine later music 'surpassing' that of Beethoven and Brahms, but there is an old saying, my favorite version of which is: You don't know water until you've left your fishbowl.


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## SanAntone

fluteman said:


> SanAntone asked me: Do you honestly believe that the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, or Elliott Carter (three of the most acclaimed composers of the 20th century) will ever be held to be the equal of Beethoven or Brahms?
> 
> My response: Maybe it will be Igor Stravinsky, Kurt Weill and Philip Glass. Or maybe Eric Dolphy, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. Or Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Or Edgard Varese. Or Olivier Messiaen. Or Conlon Nancarrow. Or someone else.
> 
> But yes, the time will certainly come when other, newer music is held to be, not merely equal to, but superior to, the music of Beethoven and Brahms, hard as that may be for some here to understand and accept.


I hope what you describe would occur since it would require the destruction of the obsolete paradigm that has held sway for 200 years, i.e. the music of the 18th and 19th centuries represents the best music in history. I would love it if Duke Ellington were to replace Beethoven and Robert Johnson eclipsed Schubert.


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## etipou

Venice and Florence still seem to be doing very well after all these years.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Actually I am an anti-anti-intellectual, and, as such, have a different sound entirely. When I go onto YouTube for a wonderful concert performance of a favorite work, or hear a new one that I like, it is like buying and enjoying my favorite ice cream.
> 
> As I've noted before, I have difficulty sometimes discovering the point of your posts.  I think intellectuals, anti-intellectuals, and anti-anti-intellectuals such as myself enjoy (by definition) their favorite ice creams. Music also. Am I wrong?


That's clever funny, maybe you're just putting us on.

Enjoy? You're not supposed to enjoy late Beethoven. It's a tragic landscape. A little joy among all that metaphysics and striving against huge forces.

We should debate with our grandchildren about the greatest musical achievements? Funny.

Try teaching music appreciation with your approach. Of course we don't need music appreciation classes. Why would anyone sign up for one? Nobody's decades of experience is of any value to a neophyte. I mean, they can choose their favorite ice cream, right?.... The preferences of all sorts of people is not a topic we can study.

You know I just rag on you because I know you can take it. You won't leave the forum because I'm being 'mean' to you.


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## mikeh375

Handelian said:


> No he is at mine. I have the OFF switch! The enjoyment is more!


I'm pretty certain that all living composers today probably don't see themselves as _servants_ no matter how exploited they are within certain genres. You have your opinion on what music means to you and seemingly the people with the talent to produce it, my view is different. That's all fine. I just found your language a little insensitive, hence my response. Call it a WOKE moment. Enough said from this end.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi, you are not being "mean" to me; you are being....Luchesi. It's understood and it's fine.


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> I see no inherent, serious opposition between these two positions, especially if one considers one's history with a piece of music. Handelian's attitude/emphasis predominates during the ''getting to know you" phase of someone (me) and the piece learning about each other. Later, after love has bloomed, Mandryka's sense of somewhat abandoning oneself to the ravishment of the music is, in my case, also predominant then.


Oh for goodness sake. Music does not get to know me.


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## Handelian

mikeh375 said:


> I'm pretty certain that all living composers today probably don't see themselves as _servants_ no matter how exploited they are within certain genres. You have your opinion on what music means to you and seemingly the people with the talent to produce it, my view is different. That's all fine. I just found your language a little insensitive, hence my response. Call it a WOKE moment. Enough said from this end.


What do you mean insensitive? When I worked for somebody they regarded me as their servant. As I pay good money for a CD the music is my servant. Or if I pay for a concert the people performing are there for my benefit. That does not lessen my appreciation for good artistry.


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## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> I hope what you describe would occur since it would require the destruction of the obsolete paradigm that has held sway for 200 years, i.e. the music of the 18th and 19th centuries represents the best music in history. I would love it if Duke Ellington were to replace Beethoven and Robert Johnson eclipsed Schubert.


The 18th and 19th centuries don't necessarily represent the best music in history. They represent periods of "classical music". Guys like John Cage (a modern "avant-garde" music artist), Duke Ellington, Robert Johnson won't be "classical music" the same way "modern art" isn't "classical art". 



 This isn't a "general music forum", it's a "classical music forum". Please don't pretend like it's ok to discuss different genres as if they're part of "classical music", in this forum.


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## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> The 18th and 19th centuries don't necessarily represent the best music in history. They represent periods of "classical music". Guys like John Cage (a modern "avant-garde" music artist), Duke Ellington, Robert Johnson won't be "classical music" the same way "modern art" isn't "classical art".
> 
> 
> 
> This isn't a "general music forum", it's a "classical music forum". Please don't pretend like it's ok to discuss different genres as if they're part of "classical music", in this forum.


The slicing and dicing music into genres has always seemed strange to me. Why should we sequester "classical" music away from Duke Ellington or Robert Johnson? However, John Cage is usually included in the category of classical music whether you approve or not.

What is called classical music or jazz or blues are examples of music - all of which can be good or bad or "great" (if you believe in that kind of thing, which I don't) depending upon the artist/composer.

Genres are irrelevant.


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## etipou

The category "classical music" has become a bit of a dumping ground, but there is a coherent idea at its core. It is the music produced in a certain tradition, by a body of people who taught, played and listened to each others music, from which they drew inspiration for their own music, and against which they judged it. Inclusion and exclusion is never very strict in this sort of community process. Some members accept works like those of Cage which are partly inside and partly outside its traditions, and some do not. 

It is a bit hopeless to wish for people not to label and categorise things. There is hardly anything people like to do better, and hardly anything more useful and necessary for good communication and a sense of identity. It is nothing about "sequestering away". The labels are just as useful for people outside the relevant community as those in it. How could it be good to see everything you are not already familiar with as an undifferentiated mass? Genres are maps of music - as are canons of greatness.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I see no inherent, serious opposition between these two positions, especially if one considers one's history with a piece of music. Handelian's attitude/emphasis predominates during the ''getting to know you" phase of someone (me) and the piece learning about each other. Later, after love has bloomed, Mandryka's sense of somewhat abandoning oneself to the ravishment of the music is, in my case, also predominant then.


We've seen it over and over. New members join and make their assumptions about all of you. I would do the same and I have. In the past I've been very wrong about many of you posters.

I'm not much for psychology, but it's very interesting to see the change in new people. We all have our egos and it's somewhat justified by us being CM fans. You all are a high-level group.

I ask myself, where else? I mean, I got censored recently. My posts were vaporized by a good friend of mine who's a mod. It was unexpected, but it only makes things more compelling for me.

As for greatness, it's a cut above the rest with universally enduring value for the future. Can we analyze how it was achieved, piece by piece? Of course we can. There's books written about this. It's what we study as students. We see it when we look at a score. It's not possible to ignore the subtle hierarchies, as in the visual arts.

Or maybe I've fooled myself a long time… if so, what a wild ride it's been.

From sometime yesterday this forum has gotten very very slow! I don't think it's on my side because other websites are responding normally.


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## Luchesi

etipou said:


> The category "classical music" has become a bit of a dumping ground, but there is a coherent idea at its core. It is the music produced in a certain tradition, by a body of people who taught, played and listened to each others music, from which they drew inspiration for their own music, and against which they judged it. Inclusion and exclusion is never very strict in this sort of community process. Some members accept works like those of Cage which are partly inside and partly outside its traditions, and some do not.
> 
> It is a bit hopeless to wish for people not to label and categorise things. There is hardly anything people like to do better, and hardly anything more useful and necessary for good communication and a sense of identity. It is nothing about "sequestering away". The labels are just as useful for people outside the relevant community as those in it. How could it be good to see everything you are not already familiar with as an undifferentiated mass? Genres are maps of music - as are canons of greatness.


Yes, the classical composers intended to write classical, classy, a class above! whatever... Other composers were interested in people dancing, and liking and buying their clever ideas. There's a wide chasm between the two because of intentions and commercial appeal and levels of seriousness (significance).


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## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> Yes, the classical composers intended to write classical, classy, a class above! whatever... Other composers were interested in people dancing, and liking and buying their clever ideas. There's a wide chasm between the two because of intentions and commercial appeal and levels of seriousness (significance).


There are musicians/composers with serious intentions doing music outside of the category of "classical music".


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## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> There are musicians/composers with serious intentions doing music outside of the category of "classical music".


Exceptions to the rule? That's never very convincing.

You don't need strict categories, but people new to the study of music need the guidance of categories. It saves so much time and it keeps it organized in your mind. It's not better or worse or preferences. 
There's a lot of music out there.


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## fluteman

SanAntone said:


> There are musicians/composers with serious intentions doing music outside of the category of "classical music".


Seriousness of intentions, talent, skill and sophistication can be present in almost any genre of music. The distinction I've described in other posts between 'classical' and 'popular' music (imo) makes that clear. Both can be done on a high level.

Having said that, the 18th and 19th centuries on the whole were good times for European 'high' or 'serious' art, music in particular. The restrictions of earlier centuries, of religious institutions and authoritarian political and social systems in particular, had been loosened. Beethoven and Wagner both well understood that, but as their political ideas are often rather muddled or poorly expressed (imo), better to focus on their music.


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## Strange Magic

Handelian said:


> Oh for goodness sake. Music does not get to know me.


I agree. There is, of course, the immediately understood interpretation that it is we who get to know the music. You rejected that, and chose the other? Oh for goodness sake.


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## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> Exceptions to the rule? That's never very convincing.


They are not "exceptions to the rule." When you say that, it exposes the level of your ignorance concerning music other than classical. The artists creating jazz, blues, folk/roots music, and world music have spent years developing technical skills and have serious artistic aspirations for the music they make, just as serious as classical musicians/composers.



> You don't need strict categories, but people new to the study of music need the guidance of categories. It saves so much time and it keeps it organized in your mind. It's not better or worse or preferences.
> There's a lot of music out there.


I am not interested in what facilitates the "study of music" - I am talking about what benefits listeners and practitioners. Many musicians, I daresay most, also reject categorization of their work, as well as, music in general. Artists do not like to be put into boxes.


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> I agree. There is, of course, the immediately understood interpretation that it is we who get to know the music. You rejected that, and chose the other? Oh for goodness sake.


Oh dear! How on earth does your thinking managed to get so confused? How can music get to know me? Please use some logic!


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## Strange Magic

Handelian said:


> Oh dear! How on earth does your thinking managed to get so confused? How can music get to know me? Please use some logic!


Please get in touch with your ophthalmologist. He is concerned. Would you like me to repeat my previous post? Or any of the others?


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> Please get in touch with your ophthalmologist. He is concerned. Would you like me to repeat my previous post? Or any of the others?


No thanks there is no need to add to the confusion you obviously feel. Leave it there.


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## Strange Magic

Handelian said:


> No thanks there is no need to add to the confusion you obviously feel. Leave it there.


I think most members glommed the playful aspect (and the easy musical reference) of my earlier post without leaping to the assumption that the music literally learned from us. But not all.


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> I think most members glommed the playful aspect (and the easy musical reference) of my earlier post without leaping to the assumption that the music literally learned from us. But not all.


A typical failed comic his joke has not come off. Desperately tries to salvage his lead balloon! Mind you we always find the excuse is funnier than the joke! Oh dear! A proper Archie Rice!


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## Luchesi

Handelian said:


> A typical failed comic his joke has not come off. Desperately tries to salvage his lead balloon! Mind you we always find the excuse is funnier than the joke! Oh dear! A proper Archie Rice!


I think you're getting a reputation in here. We have very little info about our members so that what we remember is only what was oftentimes funny or what was minatory.


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## Strange Magic

Handelian said:


> A typical failed comic his joke has not come off. Desperately tries to salvage his lead balloon! Mind you we always find the excuse is funnier than the joke! Oh dear! A proper Archie Rice!


There's always someone in the back row who needs the premise explained--they just didn't get it, and misread/misheard the thing from the beginning. It's Just you in the corner, just you in the spotlight, losing your religion.


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## Handelian

Strange Magic said:


> There's always someone in the back row who needs the premise explained--they just didn't get it, and misread/misheard the thing from the beginning. It's Just you in the corner, just you in the spotlight, losing your religion.


Cue Statler and Waldorf


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