# Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'...?



## WhateverDude

If not, why not....?
If so, why so.....?


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## Manxfeeder

How do you define "better"? In terms of quality of composition or in terms of fitting a particular mood? And how do you define pop music? Does it include groups like Talking Heads, or is it just Top 40?


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## WhateverDude

Manxfeeder said:


> How do you define "better"? In terms of quality of composition or in terms of fitting a particular mood? And how do you define pop music? Does it include groups like Talking Heads, or is it just Top 40?


Better includes everything... Of more value.

Yes the Talking Heads are pop music of the 80's .... Popular with the aged middle classes yes.... But pure pop nonetheless


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast

pop =/= popular

and no, it's not better, because neither of those two camps are uniform neither in style nor quality. And really, there's hardly a thing as better or worse, it's all a matter of what the artist is trying to achieve, therefore pop and classical (two types of music that have clearly different goals) are incomparable


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## WhateverDude

Yes, by pop we are really saying 'international diluted folk music'.... that which is popular.


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## Manxfeeder

WhateverDude said:


> Better includes everything... Of more value.
> 
> Yes the Talking Heads are pop music of the 80's .... Popular with the aged middle classes yes.... But pure pop nonetheless


Got it. Thanks.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast

WhateverDude said:


> Yes, by pop we are really saying 'international diluted folk music'.... that which is popular.


international diluted folk music? what does that mean? And no, pop is a genre, a few pop artists were/are Elvis Presley, Madonna, Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, One Direction, etc. Talking Heads is post punk/new wave, different genre from pop.


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## Xisten267

In my opinion classical at the moment is "better" in the sense that I think that it's more diverse, more developed and more expressive than the genre of Michael Jackson and Madonna. I don't think that pop as it is now has anything that comes close to the greatness I perceive in Bach's _Mass in B minor_ or Mozart's _Magic Flute_ for example.


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## WhateverDude

Allerius said:


> In my opinion classical at the moment is "better" in the sense that I think that it's more diverse, more developed and more expressive. I don't think that pop as it is now has anything that comes close to the greatness I perceive in Bach's _Mass in B minor_ or Mozart's _Magic Flute_ for example.


'Classical music' or 'serious art music' .... does it and should it aspire to aim higher than 'pop/folk music"... Ashkenazy certainly thought classical music was 'of more value' and more important


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## Merl

These forms of music are incomparable. For example, one day I'll play some early 70s Black Sabbath, one day a bit of 80s reggae (Half Pint, Barrington Levy) , one day Beethoven String quartets, one day some dreamy ist-rock like God is An Astronaut. Which one is better? None! I just play the one I'm in the mood to listen to.


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## mbhaub

Some pop is better than a lot of the crap that's been written since 1950, I'll say that. Go back and listen to some of the amazing songs and arrangements used by the Beatles, Glen Campbell, Richard Harris. Song writers like Henry Mancini could write a tune that a phony like Elliot Carter couldn't come close to. The shows of Andrew Lloyd Webber are better than any opera from the likes of John Adams or Phillip Glass. Of course, I think Rap is the lowest type of musical expression of all time. Leonard Bernstein once admitted that the popular song writers of the 60s were doing better things that most anyone in academia. Go ahead...tear me up.


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## WhateverDude

mbhaub said:


> Some pop is better than a lot of the crap that's been written since 1950, I'll say that. Go back and listen to some of the amazing songs and arrangements used by the Beatles, Glen Campbell, Richard Harris. Song writers like Henry Mancini could write a tune that a phony like Elliot Carter couldn't come close to. The shows of Andrew Lloyd Webber are better than any opera from the likes of John Adams or Phillip Glass. Of course, I think Rap is the lowest type of musical expression of all time. Leonard Bernstein once admitted that the popular song writers of the 60s were doing better things that most anyone in academia. Go ahead...tear me up.


I would certainly put Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the edge of town album above most Haydn symphonies.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Yes, it is. It is better in the same way that quantum physics is better than flying a kite.


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## WhateverDude

I am simply asking 'is one form of music intrinsically better, or aims higher, than another form of music'.... what some people see in 'jazz' escapes me, it sounds like musical ************. But I value the Blues highly. But no matter how much I like the Blues is it of the same value as 'classical music'. The Blues is simple stuff... doesn't classical music aim higher.....?


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## WhateverDude

For some reason you can't use words in the English dictionary without being censored.


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## Barbebleu

To answer the OP. No. Why? Because they are two different species. Jazz, blues, country and electronica are more species none of which are better than any other species. I’m with Merl on this. I listen to what I feel like at any given moment in time. This afternoon Die Walküre, this evening Keaton Henson, then Lucinda Williams. None of them are better than each other. Weird question really. You could as easily ask - What’s better, walking on grass or walking on sand. All subjective.


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## WhateverDude

Walking on sand is good for the feet. I prefer walking on sand.


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## gregorx

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> international diluted folk music? what does that mean? And no, pop is a genre, a few pop artists were/are Elvis Presley, Madonna, Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, One Direction, etc. Talking Heads is post punk/new wave, different genre from pop.


Exactly. Pink Floyd is not pop. Very much like comparing Baroque with Modern or Contemporary.


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## WhateverDude

Of course Pink Floyd are pop music.... They are pure pop


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## MarkW

Is broccoli better than a tuna fish sandwich?


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## WhateverDude

MarkW said:


> Is broccoli better than a tuna fish sandwich?


Are you talking about taste or content. We can measure the nutrition... But can we measure the taste. I prefer the Tuna fish... But hold the mayonnaise


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## Ethereality

According to most avid listeners, collectors, critics etc, 'pop' is greater: That's why it's called pop. That's why it's not a valid genre. A genre is something specifically denoted and much music fits in many genres. Many genres will be loved by different audiophiles, it's not better or worse, it's subjective.


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## Ariasexta

I love all classical music(written before 1780s) but it does not stop me from listening to some modern music, the keyword is "some". As long as nobody can reject all modern music, it is a sufficient confirmation of its value so there is no point to make comparison with classical music. If some people want to debate on this the end of the debate is always the prevailing of the modern counterpart, because in the debate only the vulgariest(the populist sense) will win, it is why classical enthusiasts do not like this topic.


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## WhateverDude

Popular = vulgar..... How middle class


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## Ariasexta

Vulgar was originally a term for the general public in classical literature(from dictionary dot com), not necessarily an invective.


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## Simon Moon

WhateverDude said:


> If not, why not....?
> If so, why so.....?


I can only speak from my subjective opinion.

But for me, based on the attributes that interest me, and get me completely involved in music, yes. The reasons why I listen to classical music, is because I enjoy: a high level of musicianship, complexity, broad range of emotional content, a challenge. Classical music has all of that, pop music has none.

I listen to other genres and subgenres of music too, that have the same attributes (listed above) that I like about classical music. Those being prog, including the subgenres: avant-prog, Zeuhl, chamber-prog, technical-metal. And jazz, including the subgenres: post bop, fusion, chamber jazz, jazz-metal.

Music, like: pop, mainstream rock, mainstream country, hip hop, rap, do not appeal to me, because the vast majority is in: 4/4 time, 3 chords, mediocre musicianship, short songs, verse>chorus>bridge format, simple emotional content, etc. Music in this format bores the hell out of me.


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## BlackAdderLXX

I'll go with:
C. Miles Davis is the G.O.A.T.


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## Simon Moon

mbhaub said:


> Some pop is better than a lot of the crap that's been written since 1950, I'll say that. Go back and listen to some of the amazing songs and arrangements used by the Beatles, Glen Campbell, Richard Harris. Song writers like Henry Mancini could write a tune that a phony like Elliot Carter couldn't come close to. The shows of Andrew Lloyd Webber are better than any opera from the likes of John Adams or Phillip Glass. Of course, I think Rap is the lowest type of musical expression of all time. Leonard Bernstein once admitted that the popular song writers of the 60s were doing better things that most anyone in academia. Go ahead...tear me up.


I'll bet I can start a thread on which city has the best pizza, Naples or NY, and someone on TC will find a way to bash post 1950's classical music by page 2 of the thread.

Well played sir, well played.


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## consuono

Ethereality said:


> According to most avid listeners, collectors, critics etc, 'pop' is greater: That's why it's called pop. That's why it's not a valid genre. A genre is something specifically denoted and much music fits in many genres. Many genres will be loved by different audiophiles, it's not better or worse, it's subjective.


The "subjective" thing interests me. Is a comic book "as good as" or at least "no worse than" a Rembrandt painting?


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## Fabulin

consuono said:


> The "subjective" thing interests me. Is a comic book "as good as" or at least "no worse than" a Rembrandt painting?


I know one that is a masterpiece - "The Watchmen" by Alan Moore. A philosophical novel in disguise. I wouldn't mind if we lost one Rembrandt painting instead of it if I had to choose. :tiphat:

Most comic books though are of not much more value than disposable kitsch paintings.


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## consuono

Fabulin said:


> I know one that is a masterpiece - "The Watchmen" by Alan Moore. A philosophical novel in disguise. I wouldn't mind if we lost one Rembrandt painting instead of it if I had to choose. :tiphat:
> ...


Which one, and why? What about losing two Rembrandts? How about an old Archie comic book?


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## Phil loves classical

Classical is more rigourous than Pop, but not necessarily better, although I think anyone has to admit the quality is way more consistent than in Pop. I've been really hooked onto the Pet Shop Boys lately.


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## qfcbv

Even more simple: depends on which you were nurtured with
i play cello suzuki series, mostly classical, so i like classical better


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## Strange Magic

Is Classical Music better than Pop Music? was the question (yet again). And so we comment wearily..._plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose._

Is 4'33'' CM or is it Pop?


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## ArtMusic

Strange Magic said:


> .[/I]
> 
> Is 4'33'' CM or is it Pop?


_4'33"_ is simply nothing.


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## Nereffid

And the 273-Second Rule strikes again.


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## SanAntone

Béla Bartók: "Competitions are for horses, not artists" one could substitute "music" for "artists." Bartók also wrote, "The _Dance Suite_ is the intimate result of my researches and love for folk music."

_Love for folk music_.


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## amfortas

How much of the popular music from a century ago still holds people's interest now? How much of more recent popular music will still command attention one, two, or three centuries after its release?

"Popular" is inherently of the moment. When that initial enthusiasm fades, there's not always much left to excite future generations.


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## consuono

Is "Revolution 9" from the White Album a classical music piece? Why or why not?


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## WhateverDude

OK it seems most people here are firmly in the 'classical music' and pop music are of the same value, neither is better than the other, they are just different' camp
Therefore we must ask another important question.....


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

WhateverDude said:


> OK it seems most people here are firmly in the 'classical music' and pop music are of the same value, neither is better than the other, they are just different' camp
> Therefore we must ask another important question.....


I don't think anyone in this thread has argued that CM and pop are of the same value, simply because there is no one single value by which to assess musical genres. CM is better than pop in certain aspects and pop is better than CM in others. There are objective statement we can make about both, such as CM is much more complex and abstract while pop is simpler and concrete, but the value statement depends on the assessor. If I value simple songs that make me want to dance and not think too much then pop is more valuable. If I value highly elaborate musical architecture with a wide range of intellectual and emotional content then CM is more valuable.


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## chu42

I think that classical music, on a whole, is far superior to the majority of pop music. 

With that being said, I don't think there is an objective way to measure this and I don't think people are objectively wrong for preferring one genre over the other.


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## Strange Magic

Superiority is in the ear of the auditor. It is nowhere else to be found.


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## WhateverDude

Strange Magic said:


> Superiority is in the ear of the auditor. It is nowhere else to be found.


Then it's public funding should be removed surely...?


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Then it's public funding should be removed surely...?


If enough people vote this way, then yes. Public funding for classical music is scant anyways. It's a tiny portion of the overall picture.


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## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> If enough people vote this way, then yes. Public funding for classical music is scant anyways. It's a tiny portion of the overall picture.


It was big enough for the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra to change its name to the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra though... To secure greater public funding from the state.


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## amfortas

WhateverDude said:


> It was big enough for the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra to change its name to the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra though... To secure greater public funding from the state.


Which only furthers the argument that scant funding is available--since you have to look further to obtain it.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Strange Magic said:


> Superiority is in the ear of the auditor. It is nowhere else to be found.


Superiority is also found in the notes but it must be clearly defined.


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## Haydn70

"Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'...?"

Yes. Western art music is superior to *any *other music.


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## WhateverDude

Haydn70 said:


> "Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'...?"
> 
> Yes. Western art music is superior to *any *other music.


Haydn70 convincingly arguing the case for public funding for classical music


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## Strange Magic

chu42 said:


> If enough people vote this way, then yes. Public funding for classical music is scant anyways. It's a tiny portion of the overall picture.


Life would go on either way, and so would classical music. If I lived in Dead Skunk, Arkansas, I would have little access to live concert CM in person. But if I had access to the Internet and YouTube, and $9.95 a month, I could listen to and watch concert CM 24/7. It's not so much about politico-economic ideology as it is about whether enough people have enough leverage or interest to vote this way or that. Most of America's cultural institutions--zoos, museums, even national parks--survive on a public/private hybrid form of financing--fees, grants, gifts. Many of them were originated by robber barons seeking both actual culture and the appearance of being cultured. It's a jumble out there.


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## Strange Magic

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Superiority is also found in the notes but it must be clearly defined.


Who decides? Let's put it to a vote; take a poll..........


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Strange Magic said:


> Who decides? Let's put it to a vote; take a poll..........


The community of knowledgeable people. It's art so it is subject to personal interpretation. That interpretation is not borne out of a whim, though, it is rooted in knowledge and critical thinking. It is the same as with any other art form. At the individual level, it is subjective but at the community level it is inter-subjective.


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## Strange Magic

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> The community of knowledgeable people. It's art so it is subject to personal interpretation. That interpretation is not borne out of a whim, though, it is rooted in knowledge and critical thinking. It is the same as with any other art form. At the individual level, it is subjective but at the community level it is inter-subjective.


It's like judging fine wines then. Or ice cream. It's all in the choice of the community doing the voting/polling. J. Robert Oppenheimer said it best--the greatest art is that liked by the best people. I like "inter-subjective": that's a favored term of our late companion MR.


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## chu42

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> The community of knowledgeable people.


....who counts as knowledgeable?



TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> It's art so it is subject to personal interpretation. That interpretation is not borne out of a whim, though, it is rooted in knowledge and critical thinking. It is the same as with any other art form. At the individual level, it is subjective but at the community level it is inter-subjective.


I agree with this. There is reasoning and thinking in evaluating music. It's not arbitrary.

With that being said, there are thousands of articles written on Mozart and the Beatles and Sinatra, but you can still dislike the music of any of these artists without being "objectively wrong".


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## WhateverDude

I think you'll find they use a similar method in science.... They get all those with knowledge and experience on the subject. They pay them more and get them to answer questions... But the answers are not judged as fact, they are called 'scientific theory', which can be disproved at a later date


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> I think you'll find they use a similar method in science.... They get all those with knowledge and experience on the subject. They pay them more and get them to answer questions... But the answers are not judged as fact, they are called 'scientific theory', which can be disproved at a later date


In science, there are facts and there are theories. In music, there is only theory. You can prove that water freezes at a certain temperature, but there is no way to prove that Mozart is the greatest composer of all time.


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## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> In science, there are facts and there are theories. In music, there is only theory. You can prove that water freezes at a certain temperature, but there is no way to prove that Mozart is the greatest composer of all time.


Of course you are wrong again. Any temperature water freezes at depends also on 'pressure'.... Water only freezes at 0°C at normal atmospheric pressure. Go high enough up a mountain and your coffee will be cooler than you are used to because the boiling point also changes.


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Of course you are wrong again. Any temperature water freezes at depends also on 'pressure'.... Water only freezes at 0°C at normal atmospheric pressure. Go high enough up a mountain and your coffee will be cooler than you are used to because the boiling point also changes.


...and? Water still freezes at a certain temperature. Just because the temperature changes with altitude doesn't mean you can't prove what the temperature is at any given point. Are you trying to say otherwise?


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## WhateverDude

Impurities in the water also change the boiling/freezing point as any cook who adds salt to the pot knows ... Or any gritter who grits the road..... You see the importance of knowledge now... ???


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Impurities in the water also change the boiling point as any cook knows who adds salt to the pot ... Or any gritter who grits the road.


This is relevant...how? Obviously if there are impurities in water then the boiling point will be different since it's no longer 100% water.

This is like saying that giraffes are bulletproof if you encase them in three meters of steel. Well, duh. It's not some genius observation.

When you change the parameters of the object, it now has different properties.


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## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> This is relevant...how? Obviously if there are impurities in water then the boiling point will be different since it's no longer 100% water.
> 
> This is like saying that giraffes are bulletproof if you encase them in three meters of steel. Well, duh. It's not some genius observation.


I don't think encasing giraffes in 3m of steel is a good scientific option..... You see... This is why we employ scientists to deal with science ... They are worth every penny.


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## Phil loves classical

Chu's right. There are some clear proven facts in Science, especially when it comes to equations. There is no measure to prove Mozart greater than such and such though. Too many variables, parameters, and criteria in assessing Art. But it's also a fact that Classical realizes the potential in music much more than Pop, without saying it's better.


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## WhateverDude

Phil loves classical said:


> Chu's right. There are some clear proven facts in Science, especially when it comes to equations. There is no measure to prove Mozart greater than such and such though. Too many variables, parameters, and criteria in assessing Art. But it's also a fact that Classical realizes the potential in music much more than Pop, without saying it's better.


So it's better... But because you can"t find a scientific law to prove it, you can"t say it...
Now you know how Newton felt before he 'formulated' gravity..... But gravity still existed before we had a human scienty law to describe it.


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> So it's better... But because you can"t find a scientific law to prove it, you can"t say it...
> Now you know how Newton felt before he 'formulated' gravity..... But gravity still existed before we had a human scienty law to describe it.


Yes, gravity exists regardless of whether or people believe it does. That makes it an objective fact.

But someone who does not enjoy Mozart's music has no reason to believe that it's great. If everyone was colorblind, the sunset would not be "beautiful" to humanity. Aurora Borealis would not be some special phenomenon, it would just look like clouds in the sky.

Sorry, I know you want to feel superior to the "libruls" because of classical music, but taste is just collective opinion. Mozart has no inherent meaning without human perception.


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## chu42

Phil loves classical said:


> Chu's right. There are some clear proven facts in Science, especially when it comes to equations. There is no measure to prove Mozart greater than such and such though. Too many variables, parameters, and criteria in assessing Art. But it's also a fact that Classical realizes the potential in music much more than Pop, without saying it's better.


Yes. One can objectively say that classical music explores more forms, more structures, more harmonic ideas than pop music. This is an objective fact. But to say that these elements make classical music inherently superior is completely up for debate.


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## Strange Magic

WhateverDude said:


> Impurities in the water also change the boiling/freezing point as any cook who adds salt to the pot knows ... Or any gritter who grits the road..... You see the importance of knowledge now... ???


This is thin gruel indeed. All that you have "added" to the discussion of the boiling point of water are long-established facts that are factored into any experiments--or should be so factored--by experienced scientists. Art is full of "facts" and data also--the size and weight of art objects, when it was created, the creator, the duration of the piece if it has a temporal component, what its colors are, etc. We have been around this mulberry bush and the weasel has gone "Pop" many, many times. But the purpose of this thread is to troll.... How's the catch?


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## chu42

Strange Magic said:


> This is thin gruel indeed. All that you have "added" to the discussion of the boiling point of water are long-established facts that are factored into any experiments--or should be so factored--by experienced scientists. Art is full of "facts" and data also--the size and weight of art objects, when it was created, the creator, the duration of the piece if it has a temporal component, what its colors are, etc. We have been around this mulberry bush and the weasel has gone "Pop" many, many times. But the purpose of this thread is to troll.... How's the catch?


In the past few months, we have seen about a dozen different attempts at proving the objective greatness of certain music, and all of them have been irritatingly devoid of any syllogistic substance. It's really getting exhausting.

Human perception creates beauty. Human perception judges what is "great". That is all.


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## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> In the past few months, we have seen about a dozen different attempts at proving the objective greatness of certain music, and all of them have been irritatingly devoid of any syllogistic substance. It's really getting exhausting.
> 
> Human perception creates beauty. Human perception judges what is "great". That is all.


Exactly... So one form of music may well be greater than another


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Exactly... So one form of music may well be greater than another


If you believe that then put it to a world vote which kind of music is the greatest. I assure you that classical music will not be in the top 5.


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## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> Yes, gravity exists regardless of whether or people believe it does. That makes it an objective fact.
> 
> But someone who does not enjoy Mozart's music has no reason to believe that it's great. If everyone was colorblind, the sunset would not be "beautiful" to humanity. Aurora Borealis would not be some special phenomenon, it would just look like clouds in the sky.
> 
> Sorry, I know you want to feel superior to the "libruls" because of classical music, but taste is just collective opinion. Mozart has no inherent meaning without human perception.


How can gravity be anything other than a human belief before it is discovered and understood. It it with only with greater human understanding that gravity becomes 'a law to humans'. Science us nothing more than human understanding..... Science is only a human perspective.


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## Phil loves classical

We all know Classical is generally superior to Pop in the aspects that we count as superior in human perception, for those of us who have experienced both. If we didn't exist, then the rocks and trees and other animals can't say one is superior to the other. But whoever says Classical is superior is not wrong.


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> How can gravity be anything other than a human belief before it is discovered and understood. It it with only with greater human understanding that gravity becomes 'a law to humans'. Science us nothing more than human understanding..... Science is only a human perspective.


We came up with terms like gravity and the laws of physics to aid in explaining the objective elements that shape the universe. Without our explanations, these elements still exist.


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## Phil loves classical

WhateverDude said:


> How can gravity be anything other than a human belief before it is discovered and understood. It it with only with greater human understanding that gravity becomes 'a law to humans'. Science us nothing more than human understanding..... Science is only a human perspective.


The apple can fall to the ground without humans around to perceive it.


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## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> This is like saying that giraffes are bulletproof if you encase them in three meters of steel. Well, duh. It's not some genius observation.


Giraffes encased in 3m of steel hear no music


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## Haydn70

WhateverDude said:


> *Giraffes encased in 3m of steel* hear no music


Hmmm, sounds like an artwork which could sell for $$$$$$ and/or get put in any of hundreds of museums....


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## WhateverDude

How about Giraffes encased in 3m 44cm of steel hear no music.... Just background sounds

It looks better as 4 feet 33 inches.... And it saves on steel expenditure


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

No matter how hard I try to come up an objective measure of music that all will agree to, I always must resort to relying on subjective criteria. If I use the objective fact that CM is generally more complex and has a more elaborate structure and more intricate interplay among its elements, I invariably must answer the question so what, why are these criteria more important than simplicity in structure and singable lyrics? It is because it is my subjective opinion that these things make music greater but it is by no means a universal truth. 

In the end, I've decided there are only two things that matter to me in music: music I like and music I don't like. Vast majority of music I like is CM but I also like some pop more than some CM. Is the pop music I prefer better than the CM I don't like? This question is irrelevant to me (and the answer is almost certainly no, if I were hard-pressed for an answer). Is Funky Town better than Tristan and Isolde? I'd rather listen to almost anything but a Wagner opera but that doesn't make Wagner's operas inferior music.


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## WhateverDude

They will build monuments to the composer of Funky Town 200 years from now...... who was it by the way, I've forgotten already...?


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Giraffes encased in 3m of steel hear no music


Sound travels faster through steel than air, but OK.


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## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> Sound travels faster through steel than air, but OK.


Again you fail to understand basic science. 3m of steel has greater insulation properties than 3m of air.


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## HenryPenfold

WhateverDude said:


> Again you fail to understand basic science. 3m of steel has greater insulation properties than 3m of air.


Play the ball, not the man ...


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Again you fail to understand basic science. 3m of steel has greater insulation properties than 3m of air.


It does, and it doesn't mean that a giraffe cannot hear through it. It would depend on where the music is being broadcasted and the proximity to the steel.

Anyways, I do like how you go off on irrelevant tangents when you have completely lost the gist of your arguments.


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## WhateverDude

HenryPenfold said:


> Play the ball, not the man ...


I was simply playing the science...?


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> I was simply playing the science...?


And science would tell you that there is no magical force of greatness in classical music.


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## consuono

chu42 said:


> And science would tell you that there is no magical force of greatness in classical music.


Hate to break it to you, but science can't tell you everything.

Anyway, apropos of absolutely nothing, after, I dunno, 3 or 4 years I still get a kick out of this:


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## WhateverDude

Science is indeed only one human measure


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## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Science is indeed only one human measure


You have been elevating science this entire thread. Science this, science that.

Now you say science isn't relevant to the discussion.

So really, what are you getting at?


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## chu42

consuono said:


> Hate to break it to you, but science can't tell you everything.


We all have our subjective beliefs. I believe classical music is greater than pop in general. I enjoy classical music more.

But if you want to prove something as objective fact, you need science.

P.S. I enjoyed the video too.


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## HenryPenfold

consuono said:


> Hate to break it to you, but science can't tell you everything.
> 
> Anyway, apropos of absolutely nothing, after, I dunno, 3 or 4 years I still get a kick out of this:


Lol!! I'm listening and then I say, hang on, she can't be doing the bass drum, that's the backing tape (I'm watching her hands and the cymbal work). Then, THEN, I see the little box in the bottom left!!!!!!!! This is mad!! Her pedal work is crazy!

P.S. Just a reminder that Henry was the gunvor!

P.P.S. S*it like this is why I gave up drumming!


----------



## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> You have been elevating science this entire thread. Science this, science that.
> 
> Now you say science isn't relevant to the discussion.
> 
> So really, what are you getting at?


Scientists don't elevate science. We simply let science speak...... we are not a religion


----------



## chu42

WhateverDude said:


> Scientists don't elevate science. We simply let science speak...... we are not a religion


What's relevant about this?

Let's get back to the main point. Tell me, how is classical music objectively greater than any other form of music?

If you cannot prove your conclusion, then it's just your opinion and therefore not objective.


----------



## Bulldog

consuono said:


> Anyway, apropos of absolutely nothing, after, I dunno, 3 or 4 years I still get a kick out of this:


Wow! She's a lot more talented than Alma what's-her-name. Eventually, even John Williams will have to step aside.


----------



## WhateverDude

chu42 said:


> What's relevant about this?
> 
> Let's get back to the main point. Tell me, how is classical music objectively greater than any other form of music?
> 
> If you cannot prove your conclusion, then it's just your opinion and therefore not objective.


Most scientific advances are simply called 'theories'... they are not fact, they simply fit and have not been disproved. When scientists talk of 'laws' again we mean, it is the best we have and laws can change. Your search for undeniable truths and non changing views is probably better served by religion.


----------



## consuono

Bulldog said:


> Wow! She's a lot more talented than Alma what's-her-name. Eventually, even John Williams will have to step aside.


She's a good drummer anyway. Alma Deutscher...well yeah I'd rather listen to the kid drummer.


----------



## ArtMusic

chu42 said:


> What's relevant about this?
> 
> Let's get back to the main point. Tell me, how is classical music objectively greater than any other form of music?
> 
> If you cannot prove your conclusion, then it's just your opinion and therefore not objective.


Who cares if it is objective or subjective or God-jective or Universal-tive or whatever. The FACT is that CM say, Mozart's music is greater than John Cage's avant-garde rubbish.


----------



## WhateverDude

Good is good. Bad is bad. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows....


----------



## ArtMusic

WhateverDude said:


> Most scientific advances are simply called 'theories'... they are not fact, they simply fit and have not been disproved. When scientists talk of 'laws' again we mean, it is the best we have and laws can change. Your search for undeniable truths and non changing views is probably better served by religion.


Exactly. Just like water boils at different temperatures depending on the air pressure. There is no precise way of measuring the exact temperature of water boiling, it might be 100.00000000000001 degrees Celsius or 100.0000034567 and who cares. All we need to know is water boils at approximately 100 degrees C. at about one earth atmosphere of unit. Similarly, Mozart's music is generally superior to Cage's; fact.


----------



## ArtMusic

WhateverDude said:


> Good is good. Bad is bad. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows....


Pure and simple. It is nothing more than a weak defense against musical/art critique, which many know, hence they adopt an egalitarian leftist ideologue, taught by many art schools since the outdated 1950's.


----------



## janxharris

ArtMusic said:


> Pure and simple. It is nothing more than a weak defense against musical/art critique, which many know, hence they adopt an egalitarian leftist ideologue, taught by many art schools since the outdated 1950's.


A music critique effusing about a classical work is not an objective hierachical pronouncement unless explicitly stated. As the TC most recommended says:

_Naturally, our list represents the knowledge and tastes of the people who have helped build it. We do not claim that it is the single, official objective canon of art music!_

Perhaps you could cite such explicit examples?


----------



## Judith

Yes definitely. To me, pop music is just a noise


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> ...
> But if you want to prove something as objective fact, you need science.
> ...


Really. Science used to state objectively that homosexuality is a mental illness. Now science says there are who knows how many genders. Go figure.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

consuono said:


> Really. Science used to state objectively that homosexuality is a mental illness. Now science says there are who knows how many genders. Go figure.


Well, science, like any human endeavour, can, and is occasionally, wrong.

By the way, science is NOT ambivalent about how many genders there are: there are only two (in humans) and will forever be only two as far as science is concerned. When people raise in question the number of genders, they are not approaching it from a science stance.


----------



## consuono

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> ...
> By the way, science is NOT ambivalent about how many genders there are: there are only two (in humans) and will forever be only two as far as science is concerned. ...


That would probably depend on the political-philosophical orientation of the scientist. So much for science as the font of objective truth.
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

consuono said:


> That would probably depend on the political-philosophical orientation of the scientist. So much for science as the font of objective truth.
> https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/


Science is the closest human creation we have to discovering objective truth. That there exist fringe opinions in science should not be taken as a sign that objective truth is unattainable.


----------



## SanAntone

I don't think any genre is better than any other, none of them are "the best". 

Rock offers something that Jazz doesn't (and vice versa), and Blues offers something Classical doesn't (and vice versa), etc. I listen to them all and like them all. It depends on what I want to hear, right then, which genre I will listen to.

People who try and prove that Classical is better than Pop or Rock or Blues or Country, are just saying that they like Classical better and they don't really like the other genres and so to them Classical is better. But for other people that's not true and there is no way to convince them otherwise.

I've never heard any music, any genre, that I couldn't find something to like, something it has that I can get something positive from and enjoy it.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> That would probably depend on the political-philosophical orientation of the scientist. So much for science as the font of objective truth.
> https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/


Not a great example because there is not yet a set scientific definition of gender. They're still working on it.

But science is quite clear that biological sex is binary.

Regardless of the controversy, the scientific method and peer review is usually the most objective form of reasoning. Even if it sometimes ends up with incorrect conclusions-mistakes can only be found with improved science, no?


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

chu42 said:


> Not a great example because there is not yet a set scientific definition of gender. They're still working on it.
> 
> *But science is quite clear that biological sex is binary. *
> 
> Regardless of the controversy, the scientific method and peer review is usually the most objective form of reasoning. Even if it sometimes ends up with incorrect conclusions-mistakes can only be found with improved science, no?


I took gender = biological sex. If we mean something else by it then I think it goes beyond the realm of science and into the realm of social psychology.


----------



## chu42

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> I took gender = biological sex. If we mean something else by it then I think it goes beyond the realm of science and into the realm of social psychology.


I would say so, yes. I think people are trying to distinguish gender/sex as psychological/biological, respectively.


----------



## Captainnumber36

There certainly exist differences in various genres of music, but to claim superiority of one over the other is silly imo. But, I do believe some music, including the works of many composers, offers more to one who listens with a closer ear and thus more mindfully.

I also believe some music is simply more classy than others, but that doesn't make it better or worse, it just is what it is. 

I simply believe your taste in music tends to define your lifestyle more than anything. 

Those of us on this board that have diverse taste in music probably still claim CM as their number one go to by great majority.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> ...
> Regardless of the controversy, the scientific method and peer review is usually the most objective form of reasoning. Even if it sometimes ends up with incorrect conclusions-mistakes can only be found with improved science, no?


But a follower of scientism might be hard-pressed to determine which of those objective scientific truths might be mistaken at any given moment, no? Especially if said devout follower of scientism is not a scientist.


----------



## consuono

Captainnumber36 said:


> There certainly exist differences in various genres of music, but to claim superiority of one over the other is silly imo. But, I do believe some music, including the works of many composers, offers more to one who listens with a closer ear and thus more mindfully.
> 
> I also believe some music is simply more classy than others, but that doesn't make it better or worse, it just is what it is.
> 
> I simply believe your taste in music tends to define your lifestyle more than anything.
> 
> Those of us on this board that have diverse taste in music probably still claim CM as their number one go to by great majority.


Here's how I'd put it: the best pop is probably on a par with mediocre classical; the best classical leaves pop in the dust. Just sayin'.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> But a follower of scientism might be hard-pressed to determine which of those objective scientific truths might be mistaken at any given moment, no? Especially if said devout follower of scientism is not a scientist.


There are technologies of which the success depends on knowing objective truths. For example, we can't leave the atmosphere without calculating Earth's rotation and pull. Yet we have, so clearly something was figured out and it was definitively correct.

The fact that you can type on your keyboard right now is proof positive of some objective truths in science/engineering. Even something as simple as a pulley requires objective truths in physics.

Other scientific ideas, such as evolution, quantum mechanics, etc. are more contentious and less provable so they are generally called theories until 100% proven to be fact.


----------



## tdc

consuono said:


> Here's how I'd put it: the best pop is probably on a par with mediocre classical; the best classical leaves pop in the dust. Just sayin'.


So why bother ever listening to pop, then? When you are in the mood to listen to pop why not just choose something classical instead every time? Since it is 'better'?

For myself when I am in the mood to listen to pop, classical music doesn't do it for me and vice versa, they appeal to different aspects of the personality. Therefore in my view it doesn't make sense to compare them in an absolute sense as though one is 'better'.

If you say that classical music is 'better' in an absolute sense, and that the best pop doesn't reach above the level of mediocre classical, it logically follows that there is no use at all then for pop in the world. In your ideal world then, every station would play only classical music all the time, because all the pop does is reach mediocrity and is therefore redundant.

But the truth is in my view pop music is not trying to appeal to the same aspects of ourselves that classical music does, so a direct absolute comparison doesn't really make sense. I think the world would be a poorer place musically without a variety of choices and musical styles to listen to.


----------



## Strange Magic

consuono said:


> But a follower of scientism might be hard-pressed to determine which of those objective scientific truths might be mistaken at any given moment, no? Especially if said devout follower of scientism is not a scientist.


It is a matter of probabilities. The "truths" of science can be divided into Facts (the boiling point of pure H2O at defined pressure, etc.) and Theories. The probability of theories is variable, ranging from near-asymptotic certainty for evolution and the expansion of the visible universe, to theories of core-to-crust mantle plumes, much less certain. I like to think that science (or scientism, if properly understood) deals not in truth but in understanding asymptotically approaching certainty. Besides, I find no predicate for believing that there are "other ways" of determining "truth" (leaving pure mathematics aside) beyond gathering evidence, data, information via the senses and augmented as able by instrumentation, and applying the "scientific method" to said data. I certainly find no predicate for supposing the existence of trans-physical or ''supernatural" entities. Who brought them in? And Why? Other than private (or shared) conviction, what is the evidence?


----------



## Ethereality

The irony of the distinction 'classical vs pop' is that classical is more popular than pop, on aveage. In other words, 
maybe 90% of all music this community would consider pop, is not popular at all. I'd forgo this genre 'pop,' and I don't think classical is a solid genre. It has some large diversity of genres/preferences within. Yes, 'pop' is 
a greater music form than classical according to most avid music critics and audiophiles, that's why we might call it 'pop.' But what is 'it'? From what I can tell, there's a lot of pop in classical. Even when we start dividing things into good vs bad, what more people consider good is more popular. For classical fans it's often what's tonal and melodic, what's catchy with decent development. Then there's the argument, on what scientific basis is something more complex, like a Schoenberg work, also greater? I know a lot of classical that isn't that extrinsically complex or busy, but may appeal to hundreds of other features. Does one piece need to include complexity, or can you garner complexity by listening to lots of music? Does one musician need to do it all? Although they never can, on what basis do they need to? Maybe you can have a good and diverse composer, but a faulty genre. (hence many of those heavily involved in music prefer different genes.)


----------



## BachIsBest

chu42 said:


> There are technologies of which the success depends on knowing objective truths. For example, we can't leave the atmosphere without calculating Earth's rotation and pull. Yet we have, so clearly something was figured out and it was correct.
> 
> Other scientific ideas are more contentious and generally they are called theories until 100% proven to be fact.


There are plenty of examples in the history of science of correct things being calculated using incorrect methods.

Science is nothing more (and nothing less) than the best current explanation for human phenomenological realities. It is, roughly, an algorithm for explaining and predicting human observation, not some sort of method to determine absolute truth independent of human perception.

Also, the difference between theories and laws is not how "in contention" they are. Laws are generally straightforward relations or statements, often mathematical, that hold true under a set of assumptions. Theories are general frameworks to explain a larger set of observations; most so-called "theories" in the public sphere are near-universally accepted amongst working scientists.


----------



## chu42

BachIsBest said:


> There are plenty of examples in the history of science of correct things being calculated using incorrect methods.


Yes, like how the alchemists pursuing the elixir of life inadvertently ended up with gunpowder.

But surely something as complicated as a computer requires knowledge of fundamental objective truths that allow for its creation. Landing on the moon is something that takes such precise calculation that an incorrect method would be devastating. An airplane cannot be designed without knowing specific physical properties of the atmosphere and the vehicle material.



BachIsBest said:


> Science is nothing more (and nothing less) than the best current explanation for human phenomenological realities. It is, roughly, an algorithm for explaining and predicting human observation, not some sort of method to determine absolute truth independent of human perception.


I agree. Regardless, science would still be the best way of gathering some sort of objectivity in music. Just because science isn't infallible does not mean that it's not the optimal method.



BachIsBest said:


> Also, the difference between theories and laws is not how "in contention" they are. Laws are generally straightforward relations or statements, often mathematical, that hold true under a set of assumptions. Theories are general frameworks to explain a larger set of observations; most so-called "theories" in the public sphere are near-universally accepted amongst working scientists.


 Yes, you're correct about that.


----------



## DaveM

Ethereality said:


> The irony of the distinction 'classical vs pop' is that classical is more popular than pop, on aveage. In other words, maybe 90% of all music this community would consider pop, is not popular at all. I'd forgo this genre 'pop,' and I don't think classical is a solid genre. It has some large diversity of genres/preferences within. Yes, 'pop' is a greater music form than classical according to most avid music critics and audiophiles, that's why we might call it 'pop.' But what is 'it'?...


Do you have any source for all this or can we file it under the category of 'just off the top of my head..'?


----------



## Ethereality

DaveM said:


> Do you have any source for all this or can we file it under the category of 'just off the top of my head..'?


What are you talking about?


----------



## erki

Classical is no better(but not worse as well) than pop music by any means. The crappy songs in pop equal crappy performance in classic. Often lyrics in pop are better than in classic. Classical music tends to be more complex but not as digestible as such.


----------



## Strange Magic

Always a good hour of Bob Dylan (I like Bob Dylan) is far, far more interesting and involving for me than many an hour (I find another FM station) of "filler'' CM. CM, like every other form of music or art, suffers equally from Murphy's (or Sturgeon's) Law.


----------



## SanAntone

Just like I don't eat the same food every meal, I listen to different kinds of music throughout the day or during the week.

Classical music = a gourmet meal or sushi
Jazz = bowl of gumbo or steak and vegetable
Blues = bar-b-que ribs or fried chicken
Rock = hamburger and onion rings or bowl of chili
Pop would be ice cream or some delicious snack/desert 

(This might be a good thread, what food or meal equals a genre of music?)

All these meals have their time and purpose and each provides satisfying pleasure. Too much of the same kind of meal becomes boring and the food, no matter how good, will lose much of its pleasure providing capability.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Strange Magic said:


> Always a good hour of Bob Dylan (I like Bob Dylan) is far, far more interesting and involving for me than many an hour (I find another FM station) of "filler'' CM. CM, like every other form of music or art, suffers equally from Murphy's (or Sturgeon's) Law.


Well said. I would substitute Bob Dylan (whom I don't like at all) with say, CCR, and could have made the same statement. There is so much boring classical music but people tend to focus on the best of classical when doing the comparisons.

Here is a thought I struggle with coming to grips: intuitively, I know that Bach's WTC is greater music than all of Justin Bieber's output but I can't objectively prove it. And I understand when people feel that classical music is better - they look at its structure, complexity, the endless riches of interplay among its elements, depth of intellectual and emotional content and they this is better than simple, shallow and often banal musical content.


----------



## SanAntone

There's plenty of Classical music which I think is on a lower artistic level then much Pop. 

Nutcracker Suite (almost all of Tchaikovsky)
1812 Overture
Bolero
Sorcerer's Apprentice
Night on Bald Mountain
Peer Gynt Suite

Those compilation albums of "The Greatest Music Ever Written" or "Classical Music for Babies"

I'd rather listen to Motown instead.


----------



## Strange Magic

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Well said. I would substitute Bob Dylan (whom I don't like at all) with say, CCR, and could have made the same statement. There is so much boring classical music but people tend to focus on the best of classical when doing the comparisons.
> 
> Here is a thought I struggle with coming to grips: intuitively, I know that Bach's WTC is greater music than all of Justin Bieber's output but I can't objectively prove it. And I understand when people feel that classical music is better - they look at its structure, complexity, the endless riches of interplay among its elements, depth of intellectual and emotional content and they this is better than simple, shallow and often banal musical content.


Yes, a very human, almost instinctual reaction, to like what we like and to provide for ourselves the reasons. But visualize a Justin Bieber enthusiast listening/watching his/her idol in a state of euphoria, bliss, or just simple pleasure. I happen to like all sorts of absurd, silly things that I see and hear, yet the pleasure is real; the emotions are real, and there ought to be no need to, cap in hand, justify them to The Others. Maybe I am too much the individualist--I don't think so--but I make no apologies for my tastes, which are low, high, and everything in between. If others share my taste in this or that, that's fine, and some always will. But I do not need their approbation. _All esthetics is subjective and personal._

An example of something I really like:


----------



## Mark Dee

Better than/worse than is very much a matter of opinion. Classical is up against every other genre of music, and there is the trite and the pinnacle of excellence in each of them.

Classical is often seen as 'snobbish', appealing to a certain demographic, which is a shame. But then other genres appeal to certain other demographics too. Personally I don't operate on those lines, and can quite happily listen to different genres of music in one sitting.

Chacun à sôn gout - some may only wish to listen to classical, but over the years I can honestly say I have listened without prejudice to most genres and taken something worthwhile from each of them (Jazz, Rock, Blues, Soul, Gospel, CCM, Hymns, Spirituals.)

My cat seems to have a preference for 'Roses from the South' (I don't mean in our garden either), and I won't chastise her for that. She knows what she likes, we know what we like, and that's fine by me!


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

This one goes out to all you relativists and subjectivists

...Enjoy!


----------



## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> This one goes out to all you relativists and subjectivists
> 
> ...Enjoy!


Nice little tune. Mozart, thought so, anyway.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> Nice little tune. Mozart, thought so, anyway.


we've refuted this argument before :tiphat:


----------



## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> we've refuted this argument before :tiphat:


Which part? And where exactly did "we" do this?


----------



## Nereffid

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> This one goes out to all you relativists and subjectivists
> 
> ...Enjoy!


Memorable tune: check.
Enjoyed by children: check.
Lyrics about the distribution of an agricultural product: check.

So it meets all 3 objective criteria for greatness in music.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

but classical music isn't better is it? :lol:


----------



## hammeredklavier

My favorite pop artist of all time:


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> we've refuted this argument before :tiphat:


Not really. Not ever. It all comes down to whether you (and, if your antennae are up, your group you look to for affirmation) like something, or don't. It has nothing to do with "good" or "bad"--how could it? I know--let's take a vote, do a poll!


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

Strange Magic said:


> Not really. Not ever. It all comes down to whether you (and, if your antennae are up, your group you look to for affirmation) like something, or don't. It has nothing to do with "good" or "bad"--how could it? I know--let's take a vote, do a poll!


I'm just pointing out that according to your worldview Mozart's requiem (for example) is not superior/better than Baa baa black sheep.


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I'm just pointing out that according to your worldview Mozart's requiem (for example) is not superior/better than Baa baa black sheep.


I think you may be not grasping the simplicity of the situation: If you choose to prefer the Mozart requiem to Baa Baa Black Sheep, and even to believe that Mozart's requiem is superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, you are not only free to do so, you are encouraged to revel in the value (to you) of your opinion. Each person's appreciation of the arts is both unique and of primary importance and value. You are empowered. But your opinions carry no intrinsic force or merit beyond your own skull. Great, Not Great, Good, Bad in the arts is subjective and personal. If we agree, fine. If not, that's fine also. Uhuru!


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> I think you may be not grasping the simplicity of the situation: If you choose to prefer the Mozart requiem to Baa Baa Black Sheep, and even to believe that Mozart's requiem is superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, you are not only free to do so, you are encouraged to revel in the value (to you) of your opinion...


An individual who thinks Baa Baa Black Sheep is superior is likely to be a 2 year old. There is something called educated opinion.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

Strange Magic said:


> I think you may be not grasping the simplicity of the situation: If you choose to prefer the Mozart requiem to Baa Baa Black Sheep, and even to believe that Mozart's requiem is superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, you are not only free to do so, you are encouraged to revel in the value (to you) of your opinion. Each person's appreciation of the arts is both unique and of primary importance and value. You are empowered. But your opinions carry no intrinsic force or merit beyond your own skull. Great, Not Great, Good, Bad in the arts is subjective and personal. If we agree, fine. If not, that's fine also. Uhuru!


"you are empowered"..."But your opinions carry no intrinsic force or merit beyond your own skull"

makes perfect sense.

I don't believe it is my opinion that Mozart is superior to nursery rhymes. I believe it is a fact.

You believe one isn't greater than the other. At least that's what you say, because you are forced to say that because of your worldview, you really know its far superior.

One worldview (the subjective) says...

if all humans were blind the sunset would not be beautiful

the other worldview (the objective) says...

if all humans were blind the sunset remains beautiful

The first worldview, the subjective one, leads to beauty being down to any individuals opinion and therefore beauty really has no meaning, because you can call literally anything beautiful. It also leads to you having to say that classical music is not superior to nursery rhymes. It leads to absurdity.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> An individual who thinks Baa Baa Black Sheep is superior is likely to be a 2 year old. There is something called educated opinion.


Again, read my post. I realize that WT has given us examples wildly different in length, complexity, etc. in order to try to nullify my position but yet the central position is untouched--in the arts, the autonomy, the authenticity, the validity of our individual views--each and every one of us--is central and primary. Goodness, Betterness, etc. do not inhere within the art object. They are matters of opinion only. Meanwhile, I'll have a dish of my favorite ice cream, Cherry Vanilla.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Again, read my post. I realize that WT has given us examples wildly different in length, complexity, etc. in order to try to nullify my position but yet the central position is untouched--in the arts, the autonomy, the authenticity, the validity of our individual views--each and every one of us--is central and primary. Goodness, Betterness, etc. do not inhere within the art object. They are matters of opinion only. Meanwhile, I'll have a dish of my favorite ice cream, Cherry Vanilla.


Yes I read your post and understand your position. Suggesting that Mozart's Requiem vs. Baa Baa Black Sheep is purely a subjective choice hardly strengthens it.


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> "you are empowered"..."But your opinions carry no intrinsic force or merit beyond your own skull"
> 
> makes perfect sense.
> 
> I don't believe it is my opinion that Mozart is superior to nursery rhymes. I believe it is a fact.
> 
> You believe one isn't greater than the other. At least that's what you say, because you are forced to say that because of your worldview, you really know its far superior.
> 
> One worldview (the subjective) says...
> 
> if all humans were blind the sunset would not be beautiful
> 
> the other worldview (the objective) says...
> 
> if all humans were blind the sunset remains beautiful
> 
> The first worldview, the subjective one, leads to beauty being down to any individuals opinion and therefore beauty really has no meaning, because you can call literally anything beautiful. It also leads to you having to say that classical music is not superior to nursery rhymes. It leads to absurdity.


Again, we have a failure to understand. I, like you, hold opinions as what is superior and what is inferior. We are both free to do so. As I posted before, an hour of Bob Dylan--make that an hour of The Scorpions--is far more enjoyable ("better") than any number of CM time-fillers. But that's literally Just Me. Just like your opinions are Just You. Regarding sunsets and beauty, you have captured my (subjectivist) position perfectly. You got that right.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Yes I read your post and understand your position. Suggesting that Mozart's Requiem vs. Baa Baa Black Sheep is purely a subjective choice hardly strengthens it.


Things in the arts are "good", "better", "bad", etc. if we think they are; if that is our opinion, our reaction. The art just IS. We, individually (or as a group, if we require affirmation) ascribe those descriptors to the inert art object. We quite often disagree. It doesn't bother me. I sing in praise ("Song of Myself") of each person's right and power to be the self-arbiter of taste, choice, selection, decision in the arts.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Things in the arts are "good", "better", "bad", etc. if we think they are; if that is our opinion, our reaction. The art just IS. We, individually (or as a group, if we require affirmation) ascribe those descriptors to the inert art object. We quite often disagree. It doesn't bother me. I sing in praise ("Song of Myself") of each person's right and power to be the self-arbiter of taste, choice, selection, decision in the arts.


Do you think a legitimate opinion as to which of the works in question took more skill to compose can be based on pure subjectivity?


----------



## amfortas

DaveM said:


> Do you think a legitimate opinion as to which of the works in question took more skill to compose can be based on pure subjectivity?


A lot of modern works took tremendous skill to compose. Is that a guarantee of their greatness?


----------



## SanAntone

Which is better?

Rimsky-Korsakov - The Flight of the Bumble Bee

OR

Yes - Close to the Edge

or choose you favorite non-classical music:

The Beatles
Muddy Waters
Miles Davis

The point being, choosing a trivial example of non-classical music (Baa-Baa Black Sheep) and comparing it to a "great" classical work (Mozart Requiem) is intellectually dishonest.

I contend that *the best of non-classical music compares equally well to the best classical music.*


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

SanAntone said:


> Which is better?
> 
> Rimsky-Korsakov - The Flight of the Bumble Bee
> 
> OR
> 
> Yes - Close to the Edge
> 
> or choose you favorite non-classical music:
> 
> The Beatles
> Muddy Waters
> Miles Davis
> 
> The point being, choosing a trivial example of non-classical music (Baa-Baa Black Sheep) and comparing it to a "great" classical work (Mozart Requiem) is intellectually dishonest.
> 
> I contend that *the best of non-classical music compares equally well to the best classical music.*


the music was chosen just to show the folly of your position.


----------



## Nereffid

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I'm just pointing out that according to your worldview Mozart's requiem (for example) is not superior/better than Baa baa black sheep.


According to my personal worldview, Mozart's Requiem is vastly superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep. That's according to the criteria that I use to judge the value of music _to me_. What are those criteria? I have no idea. Maybe they're something along the lines of TwoFlutesOneTrumpet's "structure, complexity, the endless riches of interplay among its elements, depth of intellectual and emotional content" but in reality I don't have any criteria: all I know is that there are some pieces of music that I value much higher than others, and I can point to, say, complexity or emotional content as an after-the-fact explanation but by and large those aren't things that can be evaluated without recourse to my subjective opinion, and really it just comes down to "gut feeling".

Anyway, that's just me. There are billions of other people in the world, and although we have many things in common we certainly don't all respond the same way to music. The under-5s, for example, probably would largely agree that Baa Baa Black Sheep is vastly superior to Mozart's Requiem on the grounds of structure, complexity, endless riches of interplay among its elements, depth of intellectual and emotional content...

But DaveM has pointed out that there's something called educated opinion. True enough. The little tykes need to be educated that we don't mean _that_ structure, _that_ complexity, _that_ intellectual and emotional content, and the interplay among its elements doesn't provide any riches, endless or otherwise, dammit, and besides it's way past your bedtime and mummy's _tired, so tired...._

So that's the uneducated taken care of. But hang on, how did we decide on _which_ structure, _which_ complexity etc etc? Oh wait, we didn't did we? We obviously don't mean _the most_ structure, _the most_ complexity etc etc. No, what we mean is... uh... what do we mean? I guess we simply know great music when we hear it, because we're educated. Unless of course, some of us use our educated opinion to say certain music is great, while others of us use the same educated opinion to conclude that it's garbage.


----------



## SanAntone

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> the music was chosen just to show the folly of your position.


No, you chose a strawman argument.

I never made the claim that even the most superficial example of non-classical music is equal to a sublime example of classical music.

My "position" is that different genres provide different artistic experiences for the listener. I don't always want to listen to Classical music, sometimes I wish to listen to Jazz or Blues or Pop or Rock - in that case, Classical music is not better than those choices.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

Nereffid said:


> According to my personal worldview, Mozart's Requiem is vastly superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep. That's according to the criteria that I use to judge the value of music _to me_. What are those criteria? I have no idea. Maybe they're something along the lines of TwoFlutesOneTrumpet's "structure, complexity, the endless riches of interplay among its elements, depth of intellectual and emotional content" but in reality I don't have any criteria: all I know is that there are some pieces of music that I value much higher than others, and I can point to, say, complexity or emotional content as an after-the-fact explanation but by and large those aren't things that can be evaluated without recourse to my subjective opinion, and really it just comes down to "gut feeling".
> 
> Anyway, that's just me. There are billions of other people in the world, and although we have many things in common we certainly don't all respond the same way to music. The under-5s, for example, probably would largely agree that Baa Baa Black Sheep is vastly superior to Mozart's Requiem on the grounds of structure, complexity, endless riches of interplay among its elements, depth of intellectual and emotional content...
> 
> But DaveM has pointed out that there's something called educated opinion. True enough. The little tykes need to be educated that we don't mean _that_ structure, _that_ complexity, _that_ intellectual and emotional content, and the interplay among its elements doesn't provide any riches, endless or otherwise, dammit, and besides it's way past your bedtime and mummy's _tired, so tired...._
> 
> So that's the uneducated taken care of. But hang on, how did we decide on _which_ structure, _which_ complexity etc etc? Oh wait, we didn't did we? We obviously don't mean _the most_ structure, _the most_ complexity etc etc. No, what we mean is... uh... what do we mean? I guess we simply know great music when we hear it, because we're educated. Unless of course, some of us use our educated opinion to say certain music is great, while others of us use the same educated opinion to conclude that it's garbage.


You have misused the term worldview. Ones worldview has nothing to do with whether they personally think Mozart is superior or not. People in both subjective and objective camps can think that Mozart is superior, that is not the issue. The issue is is it a fact that Mozart is superior to nursery rhymes or is it just a matter of opinion.

I agree with what you said at the end "I guess we simply know great music when we hear it", we are hearing something that* is* great, we don't give it the greatness, we are just identifying it, we just recognise it.

For example we recognise the beauty in a waterfall, but there is no beauty in a filthy messed up bedroom, no matter what modern "artists" tell you.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

SanAntone said:


> No, you chose a strawman argument.
> 
> I never made the claim that even the most superficial example of non-classical music is equal to a sublime example of classical music.
> 
> My "position" is that different genres provide different artistic experiences for the listener. I don't always want to listen to Classical music, sometimes I wish to listen to Jazz or Blues or Pop or Rock - in that case, Classical music is not better than those choices.


isn't it your position that there is no such thing as objectivity?


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Do you think a legitimate opinion as to which of the works in question took more skill to compose can be based on pure subjectivity?


I think that skill can be objectively addressed right along with a discussion of a work's weight, duration, complexity, length, width, odor, color, date of creation, creator, value when last auctioned or otherwise engaged in commerce, size of audience, number of enthusiasts. The paintings of Alma-Tadema, Cot, or Ingres are executed with great skill. I hold many of them to be horrid, kitsch, etc., but they are always found in broad-spectrum art books. I'm positive that somebody likes them and thinks they're Grrreat!


----------



## SanAntone

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> isn't it your position that there is no such thing as objectivity?


Not exactly. My position has always been that I've seen no convincing objective criteria to gauge artistic quality for all forms of music across all periods. There may be technical data for comparing two similar works from the same period and from the same genre, e.g. two piano sonatas from the 18th century - but that data is useless when judging jazz or blues or even classical music from the 20th century.

But, this issue does not really interest me since I view the experience of music to be primarily subjective and transitory. That is, one day I may like the Mozart Requiem more than the next day because my mood changes and I prefer to listen to something entirely different.

Furthermore, I am not at all interested in assessing objective greatness since even if that were possible, having that information would not enhance my enjoyment of any work if its sound did not please me.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

SanAntone said:


> Not exactly. My position has always been that I've seen no convincing objective criteria to gauge artistic quality for all forms of music across all periods. There may be technical data for comparing two similar works from the same period and from the same genre, e.g. two piano sonatas from the 18th century - but that data is useless when judging jazz or blues or even classical music from the 20th century.
> 
> But, this issue does not really interest me since I view the experience of music to be primarily subjective and transitory. That is, one day I may like the Mozart Requiem more than the next day because my mood changes and I prefer to listen to something entirely different.
> 
> Furthermore, I am not at all interested in assessing objective greatness since even if that were possible, having that information would not enhance my enjoyment of any work if its sound did not please me.


I asked you..."isn't it your position that there is no such thing as objectivity?"

to which you responded..."Not exactly"

but then you say "I view the experience of music to be primarily subjective", so its looks like your contradicting yourself.

My point in using the nursery rhyme was just to show that if there is no such thing as objective better music then you cant say Classical music is better, its not a straw man.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> isn't it your position that there is no such thing as objectivity?


You fail to understand that subjectivity doesn't mean that "all things are equal." It means that all things only have value based on what the listener perceives.

I don't think Johann Strauss is equal to Mozart. But somebody may think differently, and they aren't somehow bending the objective laws of the universe. It's called subjectivity.



> My point in using the nursery rhyme was just to show that if there is no such thing as objective better music then you cant say Classical music is better, its not a straw man.


If SanAntone thinks that classical music is more enjoyable and thus better than nursery rhymes, then that's his opinion and he's allowed to have it. I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand about this.


----------



## ArtMusic

SanAntone said:


> Not exactly. My position has always been that I've seen no convincing objective criteria to gauge artistic quality for all forms of music across all periods. There may be technical data for comparing two similar works from the same period and from the same genre, e.g. two piano sonatas from the 18th century - but that data is useless when judging jazz or blues or even classical music from the 20th century.
> 
> But, this issue does not really interest me since I view the experience of music to be primarily subjective and transitory. That is, one day I may like the Mozart Requiem more than the next day because my mood changes and I prefer to listen to something entirely different.
> 
> Furthermore, I am not at all interested in assessing objective greatness since even if that were possible, having that information would not enhance my enjoyment of any work if its sound did not please me.


While that might be true for your enjoyment of the work, when discussing about the posterity of a work in general, that is a very different matter. When multiplying your admiration of your example of Mozart's _Requiem_, that has tremendous impact on the fate of that work for posterity.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> You fail to understand that subjectivity doesn't mean that "all things are equal." It means that all things only have value based on what the listener perceives.
> 
> I don't think Johann Strauss is equal to Mozart. But somebody may think differently, and they aren't somehow bending the objective laws of the universe. It's called subjectivity.
> 
> If SanAntone thinks that classical music is more enjoyable and thus better than nursery rhymes, then that's his opinion and he's allowed to have it. I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand about this.


your right I don't understand what you mean when you say "subjectivity doesn't mean that "all things are equal.", please clarify?

of course SanAntone can have his opinion. no problem there. But he cant say its *better* than anything else. He is using objective language. he would be appealing to an objective standard, which he doesn't believe in.


----------



## SanAntone

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I asked you..."isn't it your position that there is no such thing as objectivity?"
> 
> to which you responded..."Not exactly"
> 
> but then you say "I view the experience of music to be primarily subjective", so its looks like your contradicting yourself.
> 
> My point in using the nursery rhyme was just to show that if there is no such thing as objective better music then you cant say Classical music is better, its not a straw man.


Apparently you are unable to appreciate nuance. You state everything in black-white terms, but that is not how I experience the world and especially not how I believe art is experienced.



> of course SanAntone can have his opinion. no problem there. But he cant say its better than anything else. He is using objective language. he would be appealing to an objective standard, which he doesn't believe in.


I can certainly say that today Muddy Waters is better than Mozart because I wish to listen to blues and not classical music. But I never would say that one genre of music is _intrinsically better_ than another, since as I said (and you misquoted) the _experience of music _is *subjectve and transitory*. *The experience of the music, not the music itself.*

My appreciation of any music changes from day to day depending upon my mood, and I couldn't care less what you think is better music.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> your right I don't understand what you mean when you say "subjectivity doesn't mean that "all things are equal.", please clarify?
> 
> of course SanAntone can have his opinion. no problem there. But he cant say its *better* than anything else. He is using objective language. he would be appealing to an objective standard, which he doesn't believe in.


Why is "better" objective language? If I think Schumann is better than Mahler, it's not objective. No one else is forced to share my opinion.


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> your right I don't understand what you mean when you say "subjectivity doesn't mean that "all things are equal.", please clarify?
> 
> of course SanAntone can have his opinion. no problem there. But he cant say its *better* than anything else. He is using objective language. he would be appealing to an objective standard, which he doesn't believe in.


Again, the lack of nuance reflecting a difficulty in understanding the argument. I personally eschew the descriptors Good, Bad, Great, Better (or try to, but old habits die hard) and instead rely upon "I like this more than that". When SanAntone says something is better than something else, I take him to mean he prefers X to Y, using "better" as a strictly relative descriptor, and not implying that, objectively, X is actually, objectively, measurably "better" than Y. If X were better than Y, then it is likely that everybody would see this, as all (other than the obvious exceptions) see a square as a square.


----------



## Nereffid

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> your right I don't understand what you mean when you say "subjectivity doesn't mean that "all things are equal.", please clarify?


Subjectively, person A thinks Mozart's Requiem is vastly superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, while person B thinks Baa Baa Black Sheep is vastly superior to Mozart's Requiem. How could this mean that Mozart's Requiem and Baa Baa Black Sheep are equal? They're being evaluated by two different people by two different sets of criteria, so equality doesn't come into it.


----------



## EdwardBast

I can't believe reasonable people — well some of you are most of the time — are discussing this lazy, vague, and pointless question.


----------



## Strange Magic

EdwardBast said:


> I can't believe reasonable people - well some of you are most of the time - are discussing this lazy, vague, and pointless question.


Thank you for attending! But you're right in that we have discussed this subject (both subjectively and objectively) in 1,453 previous posts. Maybe more. But as the comedians say, not new jokes, just new audiences! :lol:


----------



## DaveM

amfortas said:


> A lot of modern works took tremendous skill to compose. Is that a guarantee of their greatness?


That doesn't answer my question specifically about the 2 works I was referring to and nice try trying to make this a discussion involving modern music. And that also goes for Strange Magic for giving it a Like.


----------



## DaveM

I was going to respond further on the subjectivity/objectivity but, at least in this thread, given EdwardBast’s post I won’t.

But, what’s with 4 of you piling on one poster. It’s rather desperate, not to mention the arrogance of some of the posts. And what’s with this whole ‘nuance’ business? The whole issue of nuance can cut both ways.

‘You fail to understand...’
‘Apparently you are unable to appreciate nuance...’
‘Again, the lack of nuance...’


----------



## consuono

Nereffid said:


> Subjectively, person A thinks Mozart's Requiem is vastly superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, while person B thinks Baa Baa Black Sheep is vastly superior to Mozart's Requiem. How could this mean that Mozart's Requiem and Baa Baa Black Sheep are equal? ...


It means they're both equal in that neither has any intrinsic value. Person B's take is as valid as Person A's. How dare you say Baa Baa Black Sheep is somehow inferior to Mozart? That is the gist of 95% of threads here these days. Or so it seems. There is a squeamishness about facing up to logical conclusions, and so "of course we don't really mean *that*, ya silly poo poo head...can't you read?? Did my awesome philosophizing and intellectual prowess zoom right over your head, or what?" And on and on.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> It means they're both equal in that neither has any intrinsic value. Person B's take is as valid as Person A's. How dare you say Baa Baa Black Sheep is somehow inferior to Mozart?


Lol. It's inferior because I enjoy it less. That's all there is to it. Just because there is no intrinsic value doesn't mean that I can't enjoy something more than something else.

If someone enjoys a nursery rhyme more than Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, they are free to do so. Maybe 99% of classical listeners will disagree with them, but so what? Who cares? What objective law of the universe is this person breaking? You can't force someone to enjoy something they can't enjoy just because you think it's "objectively correct".

What if 99% of the classical world flipped around and suddenly said Grosse Fuge was awful and that nursery rhymes were superior? Would that diminish your personal opinion of the work? Would it diminish how much you personally enjoyed it?


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> That doesn't answer my question specifically about the 2 works I was referring to and nice try trying to make this a discussion involving modern music. And that also goes for Strange Magic for giving it a Like.


Are you referring to your post #141, the Mozart requiem v. Baa Baa Black Sheep? I thought I had dealt with that, but we can revisit, if you like. And I cannot but agree with amfortas' suggestion that great skill does not necessarily correlate with much of anything, let alone "greatness". Though I may be misreading him.

What strikes me about these discussions is the need as I see it for lovers of their particular sorts of music or art to root that love in something beyond their own appreciation of it. They seem to need to base it in some sort of extra-personal quasi-Platonic world of Ideal Art and Beauty, or at least in the approbation of peers or "experts". Their own love of an art object or piece of music seems to them to be too slender a reed to alone support their enthusiasm. I happen to love cante flamenco, which years of experience have taught me that 99.72% of auditors loathe it--my mother would ask me when the chicken-strangling would stop. But I did not require her approval (she did like Doo-***!)


----------



## Strange Magic

consuono said:


> It means they're both equal in that neither has any intrinsic value. Person B's take is as valid as Person A's. How dare you say Baa Baa Black Sheep is somehow inferior to Mozart? That is the gist of 95% of threads here these days. Or so it seems. There is a squeamishness about facing up to logical conclusions, and so "of course we don't really mean *that*, ya silly poo poo head...can't you read?? Did my awesome philosophizing and intellectual prowess zoom right over your head, or what?" And on and on.


What is the intrinsic value of either the Mozart requiem or of Baa Baa Black Sheep? I am curious.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> Lol. It's inferior because I enjoy it less. That's all there is to it. Just because there is no intrinsic value doesn't mean that I can't enjoy something more than something else.


So the two are absolutely equal. QED


Strange Magic said:


> What is the intrinsic value of either the Mozart requiem or of Baa Baa Black Sheep? I am curious.


They're both completely equal. Neither has any intrinsic value. Baa Baa Black Sheep = Mozart's Requiem.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> So the two are absolutely equal. QED


Maybe to you! I don't know, you can have your opinions. They certainly aren't equal to me.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> Maybe to you! I don't know, you can have your opinions. They certainly aren't equal to me.


But the one who loves the nursery rhyme disagrees. Your opinion being no worthier, Baa Baa = Requiem.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> But the one who loves the nursery rhyme disagrees. Your opinion being no worthier, Baa Baa = Requiem.


Yeah. My opinion isn't worthier, it's true. Maybe my opinion is more _convincing_, since more people would likely agree with me, but why should I care about what other people's tastes are in music?

I appreciate music for what it brings to me. That's it.

 The fact that millions love and enjoy Ariana Grande doesn't mean much to me, since I don't enjoy her music that much. Opposite to that, if I were the only person on earth who enjoyed Schumann's Kreisleriana, I would still enjoy it despite knowing this fact.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> Yeah. My opinion isn't worthier, it's true. Maybe my opinion is more _convincing_, since more people would likely agree with me, but why should I care about what other people's tastes are in music?
> 
> I appreciate music for what it brings to me. That's it.
> 
> The fact that millions love and enjoy Ariana Grande doesn't mean much to me, since I don't enjoy her music that much. Opposite to that, if I were the only person on earth who enjoyed Schumann's Kreisleriana, I would still enjoy it despite knowing this fact.


So Mozart is really ultimately no better than Ariana Grande. Whoever asked the question "how is Mozart equal to Baa Baa Black Sheep?", there's your answer.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> So Mozart is really ultimately no better than Ariana Grande. Whoever asked the question "how is Mozart equal to Baa Baa Black Sheep?", there's your answer.


Ultimately? By that, you mean Mozart is no better than Grande outside of my perception.

And the answer to that is yes, since I don't _care _about what people think about Ariana Grande or Mozart out of my perception. Why should I care? I don't give it any thought at all, and the fact that you're so fixated on it just strikes me as silly.

Maybe if someone trashes Mozart's music, I can offer my reasons why I enjoy Mozart. Maybe it convinces them, maybe it doesn't, but ultimately, it doesn't matter. They are free to enjoy what they enjoy. I still enjoy what I enjoy, and that can change all the time.

Just focus on what music gives to you. You're not going to enjoy Schoenberg even after a hundred musicologists tell you how great he was, and you're not going to enjoy Ariana Grande even though millions do.

So just drop the objective nonsense.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> Ultimately? By that, you mean Mozart is no better than Grande outside of my perception.
> 
> And the answer to that is yes, since I don't _care _about what people think about Ariana Grande or Mozart out of my perception. Why should I care? I don't give it any thought at all, and the fact that you're so fixated on it just strikes me as silly.
> 
> Maybe if someone trashes Mozart's music, I can offer my reasons why I enjoy Mozart. Maybe it convinces them, maybe it doesn't, but ultimately, it doesn't matter. They are free to enjoy what they enjoy. I still enjoy what I enjoy, and that can change all the time.
> 
> Just focus on what music gives to you. You're not going to enjoy Schoenberg even after a hundred musicologists tell you how great he was, and you're not going to enjoy Ariana Grande even though millions do.
> 
> So just drop the objective nonsense.


No, I mean by that that they're entirely of equal value and no amount of your word salad changes that objective fact.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> No, I mean by that that they're entirely of equal value and no amount of your word salad changes that objective fact.


Uh...equal value to whom? They aren't equal value to me.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Are you referring to your post #141, the Mozart requiem v. Baa Baa Black Sheep? I thought I had dealt with that, but we can revisit, if you like.


You 'liked' a post of someone else who gave a pithy, irrelevant response to my post, so you didn't 'deal' with my post.



> And I cannot but agree with amfortas' suggestion that great skill does not necessarily correlate with much of anything, let alone "greatness".


Really? Beethoven's compositional skill does not correlate in any way with the fact that he is considered one of the great composers?



> What strikes me about these discussions is the need as I see it for lovers of their particular sorts of music or art to root that love in something beyond their own appreciation of it. They seem to need to base it in some sort of extra-personal quasi-Platonic world of Ideal Art and Beauty, or at least in the approbation of peers or "experts". Their own love of an art object or piece of music seems to them to be too slender a reed to alone support their enthusiasm. I happen to love cante flamenco, which years of experience have taught me that 99.72% of auditors loathe it--my mother would ask me when the chicken-strangling would stop. But I did not require her approval (she did like Doo-***!)


Well, it seems that you're painting everyone who doesn't agree with you with a broad brush. It also seems that you are now responding with the same post over and over, albeit with a few words moved around here and there. And I don't think you're really reading what some of us on the other side are posting anymore.

The fact that I love classical music and others close to me don't dismays me, but I know it is due to something unique to me and my brain and therefore is subjective. The fact that I adore the masters of the 19th and 18th century and not so much the composers of the latter 20th century is mainly due to my subjective preference, but there are also objective factors having to do with the fact that some of the latter music has removed elements that I considered the core of traditional classical music or that from 'the common practice period' if that floats one's boat.

But, the fact that many of the masters that I love happen to be masters of classical music is an objective fact. We can have subjective differences about which composers we prefer and the fact that we prefer a particular one over another does not mean that that composer is objectively better than the other. But that being said, there are parameters in the common practice era that provide objective evidence of one composer being more skilled than another.

Those who reject any objectivity whatsoever are rejecting the reality of the importance of skill in any craft and are ignoring the fact that there are composers who spent years developing their skills to master their craft and those skills sometimes produced objective evidence of superior results over other composers.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> Uh...equal value to whom? They aren't equal value to me.


Equal value as in having no real value. I don't care if they're not equal to you. Your opinion means no more than the one who's a rabid Ariana or nursery rhyme fan.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> Equal value as in having no real value. I don't care if they're not equal to you. Your opinion means no more than the one who's a rabid Ariana or nursery rhyme fan.


Yeah. They have no real value outside of individual human perception. This is correct.

I think I've been saying this since the start of the conversation. Glad to see that you've picked up on it.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> Yeah. They have no real value outside of individual human perception. This is correct.
> 
> I think I've been saying this since the start of the conversation. Glad to see that you've picked up on it.


Oh I picked up on that a long time ago, professor. It's the goo we've all been swimming in for decades.

So again, Nereffid (I looked up your comment and name), there's your answer.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> Oh I picked up on that a long time ago, professor. Tell me, what does have real value outside of human perception?


Hmm, the laws of physics. They still work when humans are gone.

Whereas Mozart's music does absolutely nothing. Same with Ariana Grande's.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> Hmm, the laws of physics. They still work when humans are gone.
> 
> Whereas Mozart's music does absolutely nothing. Same with Ariana Grande's.


I guess that's supposed to be profound or something.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> I guess that's supposed to be profound or something.


Ok...?

Thought long and hard and that's what your response was? Not even a rebuttal? I guess you're out of talking points.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> You fail to understand that subjectivity doesn't mean that "all things are equal." It means that all things only have value based on what the listener perceives.
> ...





> Whereas Mozart's music does absolutely nothing. Same with Ariana Grande's.


:lol: So they're equal. It doesn't take a lot of thought.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> :lol: So they're equal. It doesn't take a lot of thought.


Yeah. Equal outside of individual human perception.

I thought you said you picked this up a long time ago, and yet you're still walking in circles around the same exact thing.


----------



## Strange Magic

> DaveM: "Really? Beethoven's compositional skill does not correlate in any way with the fact that he is considered one of the great composers?


You will note that my statement was that great skill does not necessarily correlate with much of anything, let alone "greatness". A very important distinction, as my mention of Alma-Tadema, Cot, and Ingres attests. I certainly affirm that Beethoven had great skill.

Regarding the rest of your criticism, I do agree that a broad brush does cover in a swath or two the entire argument against my subjectivist/personal viewpoint. And I in turn suggest that my arguments are either not read by my critics, or not fully understood.

How important is it that "many of the masters that [you] love happen to be masters (''objective fact") of classical music"? Yet in the very next sentence you write that "We can have subjective differences about which composers we prefer and the fact that we prefer a particular one over another _does not mean that that composer is objectively better than the other._" OK, no prob there. But skill itself is often found, miraculously!, to be a key ingredient in works we like--few can bring themselves to admit that they like a piece and simultaneously affirm it lacks skill.

My point overall is to liberate art lovers from any requirement that they feel that they need to justify their liking any piece of art. We are all worthy of our appreciations. And free.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> ...My point overall is to liberate art lovers from any requirement that they feel that they need to justify their liking any piece of art. We are all worthy of our appreciations. And free.


I don't disagree with that. I would only suggest to the 'subjectivists' that it is possible to 'throw the baby out with the bath water'.

Also, I would suggest that the statement '_great skill does not necessarily correlate with much of anything, let alone "greatness"_' does not exactly suggest to the reader that you attach much importance to 'skill', but given that you affirm that Beethoven had great skill, maybe you do after all.


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## Strange Magic

^^^^I don't know what babies are being thrown out with the bathwater. We are each the best--and only legitimate--judges of the "quality" of our experience of art/music. This reminds me of a bizarre and brief session I once had on a Led Zeppelin thread years ago (not here on TC). I love Led Zep, and I know exactly which songs of theirs are worth listening to repeatedly--something like 42% of their oeuvre, by my strict calculation. When I stated this, I ran afoul of two utter zealots who insisted that I must love everything that the boys ever recorded or I was not really a proper or serious Led Zep fan. And they got ugly, as sometimes happens on such sites. So, of course, I left them to themselves......


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## Nereffid

consuono said:


> It means they're both equal in that neither has any intrinsic value. Person B's take is as valid as Person A's. How dare you say Baa Baa Black Sheep is somehow inferior to Mozart? That is the gist of 95% of threads here these days. Or so it seems. There is a squeamishness about facing up to logical conclusions, and so "of course we don't really mean *that*, ya silly poo poo head...can't you read?? Did my awesome philosophizing and intellectual prowess zoom right over your head, or what?" And on and on.


The word "value" is confusing the issue I think. If I say they don't have any intrinsic value, I'm not saying "Intrinsic value of Requiem = 0; Intrinsic value of nursey rhyme = 0", I'm saying that the concept of "intrinsic value" isn't a measurable property.

Yes, Person B's take is as valid as Person A's. But "How dare you say Baa Baa Black Sheep is somehow inferior to Mozart?" is not something I would say. I disagree with the idea that there exists a single objectively-evaluated set of criteria that can determine the "value" of all music, but I don't get _offended_ by people who think there does, and (and this always gets ignored) _I'm enough of a realist to know that in our society as a whole, Mozart's Requiem is indeed regarded as superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, and to such a degree that in practical terms it might as well be believed to be because of objective criteria._

I like to use an analogy with gymnastics: to be declared the world's greatest gymnast, one has to score the most points in a specified set of activities. We all agree that that's the rule, but the activities in question are ultimately arbitrary and it's easy to imagine a completely different set of activities that, if we brought them in overnight, would produce a completely different "world's greatest gymnast". And the world of music is much more varied than that of gymnastics, so it's even harder to make the argument that one set of criteria is defnitely better than every other set of criteria under all circumstances and for all time.


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## Nereffid

DaveM said:


> I don't disagree with that. I would only suggest to the 'subjectivists' that it is possible to 'throw the baby out with the bath water'.


Hey, _you_ were the one who said the under-5s didn't count! :lol:


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Nereffid said:


> The word "value" is confusing the issue I think. If I say they don't have any intrinsic value, I'm not saying "Intrinsic value of Requiem = 0; Intrinsic value of nursey rhyme = 0", I'm saying that the concept of "intrinsic value" isn't a measurable property.
> 
> Yes, Person B's take is as valid as Person A's. But "How dare you say Baa Baa Black Sheep is somehow inferior to Mozart?" is not something I would say. I disagree with the idea that there exists a single objectively-evaluated set of criteria that can determine the "value" of all music, but I don't get _offended_ by people who think there does, and (and this always gets ignored) _I'm enough of a realist to know that in our society as a whole, Mozart's Requiem is indeed regarded as superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, and to such a degree that in practical terms it might as well be believed to be because of objective criteria._
> 
> I like to use an analogy with gymnastics: to be declared the world's greatest gymnast, one has to score the most points in a specified set of activities. We all agree that that's the rule, but the activities in question are ultimately arbitrary and it's easy to imagine a completely different set of activities that, if we brought them in overnight, would produce a completely different "world's greatest gymnast". And the world of music is much more varied than that of gymnastics, so it's even harder to make the argument that one set of criteria is definitely better than every other set of criteria under all circumstances and for all time.


There are rules in music too, which are not arbitrary and if we go outside of these rules the music will not be as good or as beautiful. Atonal music being a good example.

Good to hear your not offended (sincerely) :tiphat:


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## Captainnumber36

Nereffid said:


> The word "value" is confusing the issue I think. If I say they don't have any intrinsic value, I'm not saying "Intrinsic value of Requiem = 0; Intrinsic value of nursey rhyme = 0", I'm saying that the concept of "intrinsic value" isn't a measurable property.
> 
> Yes, Person B's take is as valid as Person A's. But "How dare you say Baa Baa Black Sheep is somehow inferior to Mozart?" is not something I would say. I disagree with the idea that there exists a single objectively-evaluated set of criteria that can determine the "value" of all music, but I don't get _offended_ by people who think there does, and (and this always gets ignored) _I'm enough of a realist to know that in our society as a whole, Mozart's Requiem is indeed regarded as superior to Baa Baa Black Sheep, and to such a degree that in practical terms it might as well be believed to be because of objective criteria._
> 
> I like to use an analogy with gymnastics: to be declared the world's greatest gymnast, one has to score the most points in a specified set of activities. We all agree that that's the rule, but the activities in question are ultimately arbitrary and it's easy to imagine a completely different set of activities that, if we brought them in overnight, would produce a completely different "world's greatest gymnast". And the world of music is much more varied than that of gymnastics, so it's even harder to make the argument that one set of criteria is defnitely better than every other set of criteria under all circumstances and for all time.


You're logic and thinking in the third paragraph presented here represents my exact thoughts on the subject. You can be the winner of one set of criteria, but that same winner can be the loser of a completely different set of criteria.


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## Coach G

I like a lot of pop music; pop music, easy listening pop, country/western pop, folk music from different countries, Celtic music, Calypso music, Gospel, some Rock music but I draw the line when they start with the loud and long electric guitar solos; so with Rock, it's mostly Motown, Frankie Valli, Simon & Garfunkel, and the Beatles are about as far as I go. Bob Dylan is good. But with pop music or whatever you want to call it, I can only play a song that I like so many times before I get bored with it. Classical music is the opposite where I'm always finding new things to enjoy with each repeated hearing.

Yesterday, for example, I was listening to the Bartok string quartets by the Emersons. When I bought the CD, I couldn't grasp it at all. It was noise to me. But now I'm totally captivated by it, and with each hearing I'm fining new things to enjoy. The same goes for the Brahms' _German Requiem_, which has become a new favorite. With classical there's a joy of discovery. At one time I didn't "get" Stravinsky or Schoenberg, but now I do. At one time I thought I saw Mozart as boring pretty wall-paper music; now I see Mozart as beautiful and balanced and the essence of seamless craftsmanship.

There are of course exceptions, as has already been noted on this thread.

I think that some forms of American jazz, though, approximate the classical music experience, especially when you get to very innovative musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Roland Kirk, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, David Brubeck, etc.


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## Phil loves classical

Pop is watered-down, amplified/synthesized Classical Music by nature. It has fewer ideas per unit of time. But some ideas can be as good as some Classical. The genre doesn't necessarily limit the inspiration.


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## annaw

I admit I haven't read all the preceding 12 pages of this thread, but I'm nevertheless going to contribute my two cents to this discussion.

I think it's quite pointless to discuss the level of goodness or greatness of classical and pop music. Already just because those terms mean very different things to people. On very many levels I find classical music to have more potential - it's more fit to being something huge, noble, and Great. Classical music oftentimes focuses more on art than its entertaining power, while it _tends_ to be the other way around when it comes to pop music. Of course there are very many exceptions but I'm talking about tendency, possibility, and likelihood. Pop music has to sell and entertain, even if it's created by immensely talented artists. There are many pop artists whom I deeply respect for their musical talent, and I cannot see how the type of music they create(d) could change that.

Also, it's not sensible to make such generalisations about classical and pop music in the first place. There's a lot of classical music that is bad and that no one has recorded nor heard of. Is bad classical music better than pop music just because it's classical? No way. Similarly, one should have the guts to admit that even if they don't like a Wagner opera, it's very likely to be a greater artistic achievement than a random pop song I might have recorded in my living room and uploaded on Youtube. And when it comes to the greats of both genres, it very often becomes a matter of opinions and taste.

For some funny reason we often tend to find popular things "cheaper". I'm not innocent in that respect either. Nevertheless, many great artists really craved for popularity, without ever fully achieving that. The fact that an artist is liked by more than the erudite cultural elite _does not_ make their art worse or cheaper in any way.


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## Strange Magic

Phil loves classical said:


> Pop is watered-down, amplified/synthesized Classical Music by nature. It has fewer ideas per unit of time. But some ideas can be as good as some Classical. The genre doesn't necessarily limit the inspiration.


Interesting. I am inclined toward your idea, with the observation that tonal CM is the model that Pop/Rock emulates in miniature. And that both look back to folk music.


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## SanAntone

annaw said:


> I admit I haven't read all the preceding 12 pages of this thread, but I'm nevertheless going to contribute my two cents to this discussion.
> 
> I think it's quite pointless to discuss the level of goodness or greatness of classical and pop music. Already just because those terms mean very different things to people. On very many levels I find classical music to have more potential - it's more fit to being something huge, noble, and Great. Classical music oftentimes focuses more on art than its entertaining power, while it _tends_ to be the other way around when it comes to pop music. Of course there are very many exceptions but I'm talking about tendency, possibility, and likelihood. Pop music has to sell and entertain, even if it's created by immensely talented artists. There are many pop artists whom I deeply respect for their musical talent, and I cannot see how the type of music they create(d) could change that.
> 
> Also, it's not sensible to make such generalisations about classical and pop music in the first place. There's a lot of classical music that is bad and that no one has recorded nor heard of. Is bad classical music better than pop music just because it's classical? No way. Similarly, one should have the guts to admit that even if they don't like a Wagner opera, it's very likely to be a greater artistic achievement than a random pop song I might have recorded in my living room and uploaded on Youtube. And when it comes to the greats of both genres, it very often becomes a matter of opinions and taste.
> 
> For some funny reason we often tend to find popular things "cheaper". I'm not innocent in that respect either. Nevertheless, many great artists really craved for popularity, without ever fully achieving that. The fact that an artist is liked by more than the erudite cultural elite _does not_ make their art worse or cheaper in any way.


Pop is made up of miniatures and comparisons could be made between the music by Erik Satie and many pop songs. Is the song "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys less of an achievement than one of Satie's piano works of the same duration? What about other genres, Jazz, Prog Rock or Metal?

I don't care about greatness in any event - I like all kinds of music and enjoy it all for different reasons. Of course I have my favorites, e.g. *The Beach Boys* _Pet Sounds_, *Miles Davis'* _Kind of Blue_ are favorites along with the *Duruflé* _Requiem_.

And I don't have a psychological need to boost my self-esteem by validating my taste because I prefer, allegedly, the "greatest music ever written" i.e. classical music.


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## amfortas

DaveM said:


> You 'liked' a post of someone else who gave a pithy, irrelevant response to my post, so you didn't 'deal' with my post.





DaveM said:


> Really? Beethoven's compositional skill does not correlate in any way with the fact that he is considered one of the great composers?


Gotta love it. You dismiss my post as irrelevant, then in your very next words you acknowledge how my post anticipated exactly the point you were trying to make. :lol:


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## amfortas

DaveM said:


> But, what's with 4 of you piling on one poster. It's rather desperate, not to mention the arrogance of some of the posts.


It's the difference between a public forum and a private conversation. Fortunately, you have both options here; you just can't have both at once.


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## Nereffid

Phil loves classical said:


> Pop is watered-down, amplified/synthesized Classical Music by nature. It has fewer ideas per unit of time. But some ideas can be as good as some Classical. The genre doesn't necessarily limit the inspiration.





Strange Magic said:


> Interesting. I am inclined toward your idea, with the observation that tonal CM is the model that Pop/Rock emulates in miniature. And that both look back to folk music.


Surely pop is amplified/synthesized folk music? _I Want To Hold Your Hand_ is a lot closer to _Sumer is icumen in_ than it is to... [gestures vaguely at the entire corpus of classical music].


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## Strange Magic

Nereffid said:


> Surely pop is amplified/synthesized folk music? _I Want To Hold Your Hand_ is a lot closer to _Sumer is icumen in_ than it is to... [gestures vaguely at the entire corpus of classical music].


I think it is probably most accurate to suggest that both tonal CM and Pop/Rock are the parallel descendants of folk. They both share their parent's emphasis on melody, in that strong melody is easily remembered by the vast bulk of folk's folk. Here's a fun thought: imagine the Total Serialism of Milton Babbitt as a madman's (or Dadaist's) starting point for a Pop song. :lol:


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## Phil loves classical

Nereffid said:


> Surely pop is amplified/synthesized folk music? _I Want To Hold Your Hand_ is a lot closer to _Sumer is icumen in_ than it is to... [gestures vaguely at the entire corpus of classical music].


I think it could be both amplified folk or Classical. Some Pop arrangements are more elaborate, some less. Some pop musicians like the one guy from ABBA are Classically trained, and it kind of shows.


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## SanAntone

What seems to be argued is that the priorities of classical music are the best priorities and produce the best music. To the extent this is what those who argue that classical music is better than pop believe, then I disagree 100%.

Classical music is the product of a written tradition which allows for, encourages, certain priorities because of the music being captured and described in a written score. However, vernacular musics, like blues, folk, and many world musics, and much pop, are transmitted without a score, and in fact in many cases cannot be accurately captured in a written manuscript. The development of, the attributes, priorities, artistic goals are very different from those found in classical music, and yet produce music of very high quality but that which sounds very different from classical music.

It is for this reason I find any head-to-head comparisons pointless.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^I don't know what babies are being thrown out with the bathwater. We are each the best--and only legitimate--judges of the "quality" of our experience of art/music. This reminds me of a bizarre and brief session I once had on a Led Zeppelin thread years ago (not here on TC). I love Led Zep, and I know exactly which songs of theirs are worth listening to repeatedly--something like 42% of their oeuvre, by my strict calculation. When I stated this, I ran afoul of two utter zealots who insisted that I must love everything that the boys ever recorded or I was not really a proper or serious Led Zep fan. And they got ugly, as sometimes happens on such sites. So, of course, I left them to themselves......


I have a good Led-Zep story: Many years ago, my younger brother and his best friend in the summer before their 12th grade hitched rides across Canada to see Led-Zep in Vancouver. They over stayed and missed returning for school to the point that my uncle had to find my brother and send him back home. My brother's friend stayed and became the Led-Zep road manager for the following years and for the subsequent Page & Plant tours.

My brother passed away prematurely some years later. His friend, the road manager, devastated by his death, called me up when Page-Plant were in San Diego and treated myself and my wife to front row seats and back-stage passes. I particularly remember the strong smell of a 'strange' substance during the concert (not unfamiliar with anyone attending rock concerts, but not classical music concerts).


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## consuono

SanAntone said:


> s the song "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys less of an achievement than one of Satie's piano works of the same duration? What about other genres, Jazz, Prog Rock or Metal?


Is the song "Good Vibrations" less of an achievement than the B flat minor prelude and fugue from WTC II?

Yes.


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## HenryPenfold

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^I don't know what babies are being thrown out with the bathwater. We are each the best--and only legitimate--judges of the "quality" of our experience of art/music. This reminds me of a bizarre and brief session I once had on a Led Zeppelin thread years ago (not here on TC). I love Led Zep, and I know exactly which songs of theirs are worth listening to repeatedly--something like 42% of their oeuvre, by my strict calculation. When I stated this, I ran afoul of two utter zealots who insisted that I must love everything that the boys ever recorded or I was not really a proper or serious Led Zep fan. And they got ugly, as sometimes happens on such sites. So, of course, I left them to themselves......


Your post made me think of the Led Zep songs that I don't care for, and I couldn't think of one! Although, I do struggle with Stairway, only because of overexposure.

up to and including Presence


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## Phil loves classical

consuono said:


> Is the song "Good Vibrations" less of an achievement than the B flat minor prelude and fugue from WTC II?
> 
> Yes.


Interestingly I've heard lots of people commenting Bach's Prelude in C in WTC sounds like modern pop, including one lecturer, except with more extensive chord progressions of course.


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## consuono

Phil loves classical said:


> Interestingly I've heard lots of people commenting Bach's Prelude in C in WTC sounds like modern pop, including one lecturer, except with more extensive chord progressions of course.


Another way of putting that is that pop is going/went over ground that Bach had already gone over a long time ago.


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## Varick

I believe the heart of this argument boils down to a fear. I'm not quite sure how this fear started or where or even when exactly. Somewhere along the line, so many of us have erroneously bought into a notion that if you think "A" is the best, then therefore you must mean that "B" "C" "D" and "E" must suck. Again, I'm not quite sure how this started to become a common narrative in our society. I truly do not understand it either. The fear is by admitting something might be "better" or the "best" you are somehow devaluing the other alternatives. This is not true.

I do believe, on the whole, classical music is "better" than pop music. Is there garbage in CM? Of course there is. Is there greatness in pop music? Of course there is. But this reluctance to make an objective judgement to things that have large amounts of subjective criteria to them is something I just can not abide. I get there are traps and slippery slopes to this, but if you've studied music theory there is no doubt a whole lot more knowledge, skill, and talent went into constructing and goes into performing Beethoven's 5th than Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly." And I LOVE "Learning to Fly." So it is OBJECTIVELY a better piece of music. The fact that you "enjoy" Learning to Fly more than Beethoven's 5th is completely irrelevant. Great! Bully for you! Keep enjoying Learning to Fly more.

There is a thing called the canon. It's there for a reason. We are linked to a long lineage of those who have studied great works of art over the years. Themes, structures, stories, mathematics, archetypes, long forgotten genetic links to nature, etc, etc are there inside of us. Some of us are more in tuned to these things than others. Some more naturally, some nurtured that link, some are rather dispossessed from these links than others and for many reasons.

We have fallen prey to this mentality that you can't "judge" such things and everything is relative. It's done in morality as well. There are plenty of moral 'grey' areas, perhaps more than clear cut areas, but if you can't tell that Albert Schweitzer was a saint and Adolf Hitler was a s0n0fab1tch, then I'm sorry, you're a moral imbecile.

Most of our judgments are obviously not as clear cut as that, and we can all argue about who was the greatest Orchestral composer; Beethoven or Mahler. That kind of argument can be subjective, yet still have objective aspects to it. We have to stop being afraid to make certain value judgments with the silly notion that by making this, we devalue other things in the same realm.

If I say Shakespeare was the greatest English writer, it doesn't mean that I'm inferring Herman Melville or even Stephen King was/is bad. Most of these statements have levels of subjectivity to them, but there are also objective levels as well. We should own up to it confident that we are not disparaging something else or someone else's preferences. If some Tom Petty fan feels attacked because you claim Beethoven was a better composer, than that's on THEM, not you.

V


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## chu42

Ah! A new line of reasoning for objectivity in music. Things are looking up.



Varick said:


> I believe the heart of this argument boils down to a fear. I'm not quite sure how this fear started or where or even when exactly. Somewhere along the line, so many of us have erroneously bought into a notion that if you think "A" is the best, then therefore you must mean that "B" "C" "D" and "E" must suck. Again, I'm not quite sure how this started to become a common narrative in our society. I truly do not understand it either. The fear is by admitting something might be "better" or the "best" you are somehow devaluing the other alternatives. This is not true.


This was never the core of the argument. You will never see me using this is an argument; it is a strawman.



Varick said:


> I get there are traps and slippery slopes to this, but if you've studied music theory there is no doubt a whole lot more knowledge, skill, and talent went into constructing and goes into performing Beethoven's 5th than Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly."


This is generally a weak argument on several grounds:

1. Music theory is a social construct. It is not a scientific one; it is based on the whims and the conventions of a culture or a zeitgeist, built up over time. Basically, it is set up to explain what certain people enjoyed in a certain time. One cannot use music theory to objectively proclaim superiority of anything since it is only the communicator of mass opinions.

2. For example: It is possible to fairly objectively judge Beethoven by the standards of the common practice period. This I agree with.

But the music theory behind Chinese traditional music is not the same as the music theory behind classical music. So you can't judge Chinese traditional music by the standards of the common practice era. I mean, you could, but it would come up short and beg the question-why is common practice music convention more "legitimate" than the convention of Chinese traditional music? Or vice-versa?

You can't answer that question objectively. They are different, that's all.

3. Would you say that a lot of knowledge, skill, and talent when into constructing this:






The canon would certainly say so, considering that this work is considered one of the seminal achievements of the 20th century! Thus, do you think it's objectively better than "Learning to Fly"?

I suspect that the canon that you hold aloft has many works that many objectivists here would not consider objectively great.



Varick said:


> The fact that you "enjoy" Learning to Fly more than Beethoven's 5th is completely irrelevant. Great! Bully for you! Keep enjoying Learning to Fly more.


This weakens your argument. Music only has value in terms of individual human perception. If nobody told you that Beethoven's 5th was a great work, you would have no reason to think it is great unless you enjoyed it to a certain extent, or if you subscribed to a certain convention such as Western music theory.



> There is a thing called the canon. It's there for a reason. We are linked to a long lineage of those who have studied great works of art over the years. Themes, structures, stories, mathematics, archetypes, long forgotten genetic links to nature, etc, etc are there inside of us. Some of us are more in tuned to these things than others. Some more naturally, some nurtured that link, some are rather dispossessed from these links than others and for many reasons.


I'm a classically-trained pianist. I've studied music theory all my life. I have found that my personal evaluation of classical works almost 100% lines up with the canon.

This goes to show that my argument does not come from an "outsider" perspective or a "going against the grain" perspective. It comes from an entirely syllogistic one.

The canon is simply a collection of works that have held critical appreciation over time. That is all. There is nothing magical about it, nothing inherently great about it outside of the opinions of people. Even though I almost 100% agree with it, it's my own individual evaluation that led me to this conclusion. Not the opinions of others or some magical outside objective force.

The fact that many people might agree with the canon says more about the biological tendencies of humans rather than something inherent in the music itself.

If I am missing that certain nucleotide that predisposes me to enjoy Schubert, am I somehow "objectively wrong"? No.



> We have fallen prey to this mentality that you can't "judge" such things and everything is relative. It's done in morality as well. There are plenty of moral 'grey' areas, perhaps more than clear cut areas, but if you can't tell that Albert Schweitzer was a saint and Adolf Hitler was a s0n0fab1tch, then I'm sorry, you're a moral imbecile.


Morality isn't a relevant analogy since morally isn't hinged on pursuing individual enjoyment, whereas music and art is.



> Most of our judgments are obviously not as clear cut as that, and we can all argue about who was the greatest Orchestral composer; Beethoven or Mahler. That kind of argument can be subjective, yet still have objective aspects to it. We have to stop being afraid to make certain value judgments with the silly notion that by making this, we devalue other things in the same realm.
> 
> If I say Shakespeare was the greatest English writer, it doesn't mean that I'm inferring Herman Melville or even Stephen King was/is bad.


Why would anyone think that you're inferring that? And what would the problem be? In the end, it's just your opinion. It doesn't defeat the enjoyment of others.



> Most of these statements have levels of subjectivity to them, but there are also objective levels as well. We should own up to it confident that we are not disparaging something else or someone else's preferences. If some Tom Petty fan feels attacked because you claim Beethoven was a better composer, than that's on THEM, not you.


Again, not sure how this is a relevant argument to make. People will like what they like.


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## Strange Magic

Varick, that is not my focus. I have no interest in determining what is good, better, best, great, not great. These are not important to me; in addition to the fact that these qualities do not reside within the art but are imposed upon it, it is much more central to me that I personally like or dislike this or that and that my tastes and choices are supreme, authentic, valid, purely personal and subjective. I frankly do not care what others think of my choices or decisions--that I have chosen, or not, what they think I should choose. And to turn the tables again, I sense this need within others to somehow justify their tastes by appealing to arguments of greatness, or the approval of the Best People or The Experts. Attack Beethoven, attack Tom Petty, attack Melville, attach Justin Bieber--it is all shadowboxing with the ghosts of other's judgements and opinions. Meanwhile I focus on cultivating my own garden but am delighted, simply as a human being, when somebody also likes what I like.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Strange Magic said:


> Varick, that is not my focus. I have no interest in determining what is good, better, best, great, not great. These are not important to me; i*n addition to the fact that these qualities do not reside within the art but are imposed upon it*, it is much more central to me that I personally like or dislike this or that and that my tastes and choices are supreme, authentic, valid, purely personal and subjective. I frankly do not care what others think of my choices or decisions--that I have chosen, or not, what they think I should choose. And to turn the tables again, I sense this need within others to somehow justify their tastes by appealing to arguments of greatness, or the approval of the Best People or The Experts. Attack Beethoven, attack Tom Petty, attack Melville, attach Justin Bieber--it is all shadowboxing with the ghosts of other's judgements and opinions. Meanwhile I focus on cultivating my own garden but am delighted, simply as a human being, when somebody also likes what I like.


The beauty, the goodness, is not in the art, they are imposed upon it, by us? So when we hear a beautiful pieces of music were not really hearing a beautiful piece of music because its not inherently beautiful, its not in the music, it is actually us who are giving it the beauty?


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## ArtMusic

chu42 said:


> ... If nobody told you that Beethoven's 5th was a great work, you would have no reason to think it is great unless you enjoyed it to a certain extent, or if you subscribed to a certain convention such as Western music theory.


Beethoven's 5th is a great work. It requires more skill to compose it than say _Row, Row, Row Your Boat_. It's so obvious, without anyone telling me. My cousin hates classical music, yet he would agree that Beethoven's symphonies are greater than a common childhood song, both are western musical heritage. There is nothing hard to grasp here.


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## janxharris

ArtMusic said:


> Beethoven's 5th is a great work. It requires more skill to compose it than say _Row, Row, Row Your Boat_. It's so obvious, without anyone telling me. My cousin hates classical music, yet he would agree that Beethoven's symphonies are greater than a common childhood song, both are western musical heritage. There is nothing hard to grasp here.


Mozart sull'aria is quite straightforward too - are you suggesting it's inferior to LVB's 5th? Surely, when attempting to make such objective assertions as you are then you need to compare like with like? If you keep things subjective then you can compare whatever you want.


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## amfortas

Varick said:


> We have fallen prey to this mentality that you can't "judge" such things and everything is relative. It's done in morality as well. There are plenty of moral 'grey' areas, perhaps more than clear cut areas, but if you can't tell that Albert Schweitzer was a saint and Adolf Hitler was a s0n0fab1tch, then I'm sorry, you're a moral imbecile.


At the risk of being a "moral imbecile," I'll entertain your imperfect analogy.

Do I think there's an absolute, objective Good and Evil? Ultimately, no. So far as I can tell, the universe is a cold, dark, mostly empty space that has no concern about such matters. Similarly, in our own world, nature creates and destroys, doles out pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering, with no apparent moral scruples whatsoever.

Human beings, on the other hand, have somehow evolved a notion of morality-there's even current research suggesting infants have an innate sense of fairness. This moral compass is universal enough that all societies have developed markedly similar general moral principles, while it varies enough that different eras and cultures have made starkly different exceptions and exclusions. We even see some people lacking any moral sense at all-they typically end up as recluses, serial killers, or politicians. But they're the exception that proves the rule.

Again, this moral faculty doesn't appear to correspond to anything objective outside of human experience. But for that very reason, I celebrate it as one of the glories of human existence, one of our most precious, defining features. And I see it as so fundamental to who we are that, for all practical purposes, we can treat it as if it were an absolute, objective truth. We have to think of it that way, if we are to survive at all.

I take a similar, though obviously not quite so rigorous, view of aesthetics. The universe as a whole doesn't care about beauty, but human beings do. Whether it be visual, musical, or narrative/dramatic arts, we can identify any number of formal, conceptual, or thematic elements that typically-though never without exception-appeal to viewers and listeners. Even if the evaluation of any given artwork is ultimately subjective, we can still make detailed, objective statements about that work, appealing to largely shared aesthetic principles to make a persuasive case for its "greatness." Such ongoing dialogue may eventually lead others to share that judgment, or at least see the reasons behind it. In that dynamic sense, the appreciation of art is more complex than just a matter of individual "taste."

People here have used the term "inter-subjective," which pretty well encapsulates what I'm saying. Yes, our aesthetic sense, like our morality, is in the final analysis subjective. But those subjective assessments are influenced and warranted within a larger, communal context-necessarily in the case of morality, always at least potentially in the case of aesthetics. For that reason, I'm entirely comfortable saying laws against murder, rape, or slavery are "right" and "just," as I am saying Bach's B Minor Mass, Mozart's Requiem, or Beethoven's 9th are "great"-even if only from an imperfect, fallible human perspective.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> At the risk of being a "moral imbecile," I'll entertain your imperfect analogy.
> 
> Do I think there's an absolute, objective Good and Evil? Ultimately, no. So far as I can tell, the universe is a cold, dark, mostly empty space that has no concern about such matters. Similarly, in our own world, nature creates and destroys, doles out pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering, with no apparent moral scruples whatsoever.
> 
> Human beings, on the other hand, have somehow evolved a notion of morality-there's even current research suggesting infants have an innate sense of fairness. This moral compass is universal enough that all societies have developed markedly similar general moral principles, while it varies enough that different eras and cultures have made starkly different exceptions and exclusions. We even see some people lacking any moral sense at all-they typically end up as recluses, serial killers, or politicians. But they're the exception that proves the rule.
> 
> Again, this moral faculty doesn't appear to correspond to anything objective outside of human experience. But for that very reason, I celebrate it as one of the glories of human existence, one of our most precious, defining features. And I see it as so fundamental to who we are that, for all practical purposes, we can treat it as if it were an absolute, objective truth. We have to think of it that way, if we are to survive at all.
> 
> I take a similar, though obviously not quite so rigorous, view of aesthetics. The universe as a whole doesn't care about beauty, but human beings do. Whether it be visual, musical, or narrative/dramatic arts, we can identify any number of formal, conceptual, or thematic elements that typically-though never without exception-appeal to viewers and listeners. Even if the evaluation of any given artwork is ultimately subjective, we can still make detailed, objective statements about that work, appealing to largely shared aesthetic principles to make a persuasive case for its "greatness." Such ongoing dialogue may eventually lead others to share that judgment, or at least see the reasons behind it. In that dynamic sense, the appreciation of art is more complex than just a matter of individual "taste."
> 
> People here have used the term "inter-subjective," which pretty well encapsulates what I'm saying. Yes, our aesthetic sense, like our morality, is in the final analysis subjective. But those subjective assessments are influenced and warranted within a larger, communal context-necessarily in the case of morality, always at least potentially in the case of aesthetics. For that reason, I'm entirely comfortable saying laws against murder, rape, or slavery are "right" and "just," as I am saying Bach's B Minor Mass, Mozart's Requiem, or Beethoven's 9th are "great"-even if only from an imperfect, fallible human perspective.


If human beings define what is right and wrong, then we can all absolutely anything right. So harming children can be defined as good, since we are making it up, we can define it however we like.

Also no society or country can call another society/country wrong for what they do, because each society/country is just making it up. So you cant say the Nazi's were wrong. You can say they were wrong according to your made up opinion but who cares what you think? Your personal human opinion holds no authority.

In your worldview right and wrong cannot exist.

The same as beauty, if human beings decide what it is it leads to chaos and absurdity. But because you have anti-God commitments I understand that you have to be consistent. Just please be consistent and let everyone see the results of your beliefs.


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## annaw

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> If human beings define what is right and wrong, then we can all absolutely anything right. So harming children can be defined as good, since we are making it up, we can define it however we like.
> 
> Also no society or country cannot call another society/country wrong for what they do, because each society/country is just making it up. So you cant say the Nazi's were wrong. You can say they were wrong according to your made up opinion but who cares what you think? Your personal human opinion holds no authority.
> 
> In your worldview right and wrong cannot exist.
> 
> The same as beauty, if human beings decide what it is it leads to chaos and absurdity. But because you have anti-God commitments I understand that you have to be consistent. Just please be consistent and let everyone see the results of your beliefs.


And here you have very nicely underlined the issue with nihilism, which is likely even more difficult to solve than the current matter in hand, which has to do with the objective-subjective essence of aesthestics. 

But I'm not quite sure that amfortas is that pessimistic - from his argument it seemed that he doesn't deny the existence of moral principles, but believes them to be a social construct that has evolved in time. While my own view of morality is different due to my religious views, I think his analogy worked in that context.

This is a philosophical question which I doubt we'll be able to answer here. The essence of beauty seems to be an ongoing controversy in Western philosophy, which just doesn't seem to get solved no matter how many people attempt that.


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## SanAntone

Morality has nothing to do with making subjective assessments about music. Conflating the two is reductive and yet another strawman argument. No harm will ever come to someone because I may disagree with them on whether classical music is better than pop. 

Over time, mankind has created objective standards concerning morality because so much is at stake over questions such as "is murder wrong?" We do not need objective standards concerning art or music because nothing is at stake, really, just our own preferences, like/dislikes.


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## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> If human beings define what is right and wrong, then we can all absolutely anything right. So harming children can be defined as good, since we are making it up, we can define it however we like.


Some individuals, and some societies, do in fact define harming children as good: "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Others see such behavior as barbarous. But all cultures believe in doing right by children, even if in markedly different ways. So yes, we do define right and wrong "however we like," but in the larger communal sense there is at least a general agreement about principles.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Also no society or country can call another society/country wrong for what they do, because each society/country is just making it up. So you cant say the Nazi's were wrong. You can say they were wrong according to your made up opinion but who cares what you think? Your personal human opinion holds no authority.


Any society or country can call any society/country wrong for what they do. But calling the Nazis wrong is not just my personal "made up opinion," it's the judgment of the world at large, and of history. Yes, there are individuals and societies, both past and present, who would condone what the Nazis did. But they can only maintain their stance by adhering to ignorance about facts and disregarding generally held moral principles.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> In your worldview right and wrong cannot exist.


In my worldview, right and wrong are precisely what make us human.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> The same as beauty, if human beings decide what it is it leads to chaos and absurdity.


"Chaos and absurdity" aptly describes the human predicament when it comes to aesthetics. That's especially the case in the modern art world, but there's never been absolute agreement about what's good or bad, beautiful or ugly. That said, there's enough common ground, even today, to maintain a consensus about many of our finest artistic achievements.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> But because you have anti-God commitments I understand that you have to be consistent. Just please be consistent and let everyone see the results of your beliefs.


If you're going to bring religion into the discussion, please be consistent and let everyone see the results of your beliefs.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

> Some individuals, and some societies, do in fact define harming children as good: "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Others see such behavior as barbarous. But all cultures believe in doing right by children, even if in markedly different ways. So yes, we do define right and wrong "however we like," but in the larger communal sense there is at least a general agreement about principles.


But there's no reason why there should be is there?



> Any society or country can call any society/country wrong for what they do. But calling the Nazis wrong is not just my personal "made up opinion," it's the judgment of the world at large, and of history. Yes, there are individuals and societies, both past and present, who would condone what the Nazis did. But they can only maintain their stance by adhering to ignorance about facts and disregarding generally held moral principles.


what facts?

the "generally held moral principles" are just peoples opinions.

if I have a different opinion than other humans as to what is right and wrong who are you do stop me?

I thought you are all for different opinions?

With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, I think you need to give this topic some more thought.


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## Phil loves classical

chu42 said:


> This was never the core of the argument. You will never see me using this is an argument; it is a strawman.
> 
> This is generally a weak argument on several grounds:
> 
> 1. Music theory is a social construct. It is not a scientific one; it is based on the whims and the conventions of a culture or a zeitgeist, built up over time. Basically, it is set up to explain what certain people enjoyed in a certain time. One cannot use music theory to objectively proclaim superiority of anything since it is only the communicator of mass opinions.
> 
> 2. For example: It is possible to fairly objectively judge Beethoven by the standards of the common practice period. This I agree with.
> 
> *But the music theory behind Chinese traditional music is not the same as the music theory behind classical music.* So you can't judge Chinese traditional music by the standards of the common practice era. I mean, you could, but it would come up short and beg the question-why is common practice music convention more "legitimate" than the convention of Chinese traditional music? Or vice-versa?
> 
> You can't answer that question objectively. They are different, that's all.
> 
> 3. Would you say that a lot of knowledge, skill, and talent when into constructing this:


I'm curious about that bolded statement. I've listened to Chinese Classical all my life, and read a bit into it (from a Western perspective). I think it can be analysed completely in Western terms, the same way Scriabin and others can be analysed with synthetic scales.

Chinese Classical is not really that complex to my ears. I've said this before in other threads, but microtonal variations in other genres are more ornamental and embellishments in performance, and are more tricks-of-the-trade, rather than some elaborate theory.


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## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> But there's no reason why there should be is there?


Why there should be general agreement about moral principles is a whole other question. But the fact remains, there is such agreement.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> what facts?
> 
> the "generally held moral principles" are just peoples opinions.
> 
> if I have a different opinion than other humans as to what is right and wrong who are you do stop me?
> 
> I thought you are all for different opinions?


Yes, "generally held moral principles" are just peoples' opinions. But they *are* generally held opinions, so if you have a different opinion about what's right or wrong, I don't *have* to stop you-society as whole will do that. So what I'm for or against is irrelevant.



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, I think you need to give this topic some more thought.


I would hope it's a topic we all give thought to throughout our lives.


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## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> The beauty, the goodness, is not in the art, they are imposed upon it, by us? So when we hear a beautiful pieces of music were not really hearing a beautiful piece of music because its not inherently beautiful, its not in the music, it is actually us who are giving it the beauty?


Precisely! Congratulations! Your question, as a statement, is exactly my position.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

> If you're going to bring religion into the discussion, please be consistent and let everyone see the results of your beliefs.


I'm not bringing religion into the conversation, the conversation is rooted in religion and ones belief's. Your belief that everything is subjective is a fruit of your atheism.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Strange Magic said:


> Precisely! Congratulations! Your question, as a statement, is exactly my position.


At least your consistent. Unlike some.

Where is the beauty if its not in the music or in the art?

Can we impose beauty on any music/art we chose to?

Is it a conscious decision? "I think I will attribute beauty to this piece of music and not that one"

sorry but its absurd. Atheism leads to absurdity.


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## amfortas

Strange Magic said:


> Precisely! Congratulations! Your question, as a statement, is exactly my position.


My position as well, though only because I take seriously the idea that it's "*us* who are giving it the beauty." That is, my personally finding a piece of music beautiful is a response to inherent features of that music that others--perhaps many others--may find beautiful, too.


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## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I'm not bringing religion into the conversation, the conversation is rooted in religion and ones belief's. Your belief that everything is subjective is a fruit of your atheism.


May I remind all that there is an interesting religious discussion group in the Groups downstairs. It is cunningly named the Religious Discussion Group. Religion, atheism........


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## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I'm not bringing religion into the conversation, the conversation is rooted in religion and ones belief's. Your belief that everything is subjective is a fruit of your atheism.


I would call it agnosticism. If God were to tell us, in no uncertain terms, what is Right or Wrong, what is Beautiful or Ugly, I might have to reconsider. You may believe, of course, that this has already occurred, but I don't share that certainty.


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## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> At least your consistent. Unlike some.
> 
> Where is the beauty if its not in the music or in the art?
> 
> Can we impose beauty on any music/art we chose to?
> 
> Is it a conscious decision? "I think I will attribute beauty to this piece of music and not that one"
> 
> sorry but its absurd. Atheism leads to absurdity.


If one has a head, beauty is located inside it.

We can impose beauty on any music/art we choose to.

Sometimes it is a conscious acknowledgment or acceptance or even an admission that the feelings we experience when exposed to certain artworks, summoned up by a combination of our history, neurology (slowly being more understood), mood, etc., are real mental constructs that we can examine, repeat, and then retroactively analyze (and rationalize).


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## Nereffid

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> The beauty, the goodness, is not in the art, they are imposed upon it, by us? So when we hear a beautiful pieces of music were not really hearing a beautiful piece of music because its not inherently beautiful, its not in the music, it is actually us who are giving it the beauty?


The music is written in a language, and if you understand the conventions of the language then it's straightforward for the composer to write something that you'll interpret a certain way. When writing a new piece, the composer knows that something, call it X, that has been done previously has been considered beautiful. So now the composer can do somthing similar, call it X1, with the reasonable assumption that it too will be considered beautiful, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. And the listener hears X1 and finds it beautiful. So in that sense I suppose you could say the music is "inherently" beautiful, in as much as yes, there's something in the music that people find beautiful. But the beauty is found via an interpretation of whatever that something is, a translation done by the listener.

So it depends on knowing the language, and languages change over time. We might generally agree* that, say, the slow movement of Mozart's piano concerto no.23 is beautiful, but I'm sceptical of the idea that if we somehow travelled back to the time of, say, Machaut, that the listeners of that time would find it beautiful too. It's not something we can ever know, of course, but my scepticism is rooted in the fact that there is a considerable diversity of opinion over whether certain pieces of 20th- and 21st-century music could be called beautiful, or for that matter "good", or even acceptable as proper music, which I suspect might be a problem faced by Mozart in the 14th century too.

* We might _generally_ agree that it's beautiful, but what of those of us who don't find it beautiful? Are they defective? Ignorant? Inexperienced? Any argument that beauty is an inherent property of something should be clear on how to deal with someone who "just doesn't get it".


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## Phil loves classical

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> At least your consistent. Unlike some.
> 
> Where is the beauty if its not in the music or in the art?
> 
> Can we impose beauty on any music/art we chose to?
> 
> Is it a conscious decision? "I think I will attribute beauty to this piece of music and not that one"
> 
> sorry but its absurd. Atheism leads to absurdity.


Other than your last sentence, I agree. I think Beauty generally follows some clear guidelines, even when it is a human perception. When when it comes to smaller variations of criteria, like Kate Moss vs. Kate Winslet vs. Kate Beckinsale, then it does become a certain matter of subjective preference. I think too much as been made of the subjectivity of Beauty.

Some of Boulez's music is beautiful in the way he organizes certain sonorities with certain timbres. It's not the same beauty as Mozart, who does the same, but includes other things like melody. Some don't care for the sonorities without melody, while others do, that is the difference in opinion on Boulez.


----------



## amfortas

Consider the old chestnut: "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

The answer, of course, is that the tree does exactly what it does when plenty of people are around to hear it. So no, it *doesn't* make a sound, it causes vibrations in the air. "Sound" is how the ear and brain experience those vibrations.

So . . . if a tree stands in the forest, and no one sees it, is it beautiful?


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Strange Magic said:


> If one has a head, beauty is located inside it.
> 
> We can impose beauty on any music/art we choose to.
> 
> Sometimes it is a conscious acknowledgment or acceptance or even an admission that the feelings we experience when exposed to certain artworks, summoned up by a combination of our history, neurology (slowly being more understood), mood, etc., are real mental constructs that we can examine, repeat, and then retroactively analyze (and rationalize).


Your contradicting yourself when you say beauty is located in our heads and then you say "it is a conscious acknowledgement". What are you acknowledging? the beauty in your head?


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> Consider the old chestnut: "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"
> 
> The answer, of course, is that the tree does exactly what it does when plenty of people are around to hear it. So no, it *doesn't* make a sound, it causes vibrations in the air. "Sound" is how the human ear and brain experience those vibrations.
> 
> So . . . if a tree stands in the forest, and no one sees it, is it beautiful?


As I've stated before my position is yes it is. My position is that human beings done define beauty.


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## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> As I've stated before my position is yes it is. My position is that human beings done define beauty.


So sound itself doesn't exist without humans, but beautiful music does?


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> So sound itself doesn't exist without humans, but beautiful music does?


I would say beauty does.

I haven't give much thought to sound.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Nereffid said:


> The music is written in a language, and if you understand the conventions of the language then it's straightforward for the composer to write something that you'll interpret a certain way. When writing a new piece, the composer knows that something, call it X, that has been done previously has been considered beautiful. So now the composer can do somthing similar, call it X1, with the reasonable assumption that it too will be considered beautiful, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. And the listener hears X1 and finds it beautiful. So in that sense I suppose you could say the music is "inherently" beautiful, in as much as yes, there's something in the music that people find beautiful. But the beauty is found via an interpretation of whatever that something is, a translation done by the listener.
> 
> So it depends on knowing the language, and languages change over time. We might generally agree* that, say, the slow movement of Mozart's piano concerto no.23 is beautiful, but I'm sceptical of the idea that if we somehow travelled back to the time of, say, Machaut, that the listeners of that time would find it beautiful too. It's not something we can ever know, of course, but my scepticism is rooted in the fact that there is a considerable diversity of opinion over whether certain pieces of 20th- and 21st-century music could be called beautiful, or for that matter "good", or even acceptable as proper music, which I suspect might be a problem faced by Mozart in the 14th century too.
> 
> * We might _generally_ agree that it's beautiful, but what of those of us who don't find it beautiful? Are they defective? Ignorant? Inexperienced? Any argument that beauty is an inherent property of something should be clear on how to deal with someone who "just doesn't get it".


this has all been discussed recently on another post so apologies to those who are seeing it again.

Beauty exists apart from humans. Humans perceive and acknowledge beauty. But human beings also like and enjoy things which are not beautiful or good. Some people are not interested in beauty, their tastes are accustomed to other things, ugly and bad things.


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## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Beauty exists apart from humans. Humans perceive and acknowledge beauty. But human beings also like and enjoy things which are not beautiful or good. Some people are not interested in beauty, their tastes are accustomed to other things, ugly and bad things.


Fortunately, some people see the error of their ways and repent. Like Shostakovich.


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## SanAntone

Yet another _reductio ad absurdum_ discussion on TC: if the appreciation of music is subjective, then everything is subjective, i.e. there is no difference between Ghandi and Hitler.


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## amfortas

SanAntone said:


> Yet another _reductio ad absurdum_ discussion on TC: if the appreciation of music is subjective, then everything is subjective, i.e. there is no difference between Ghandi and Hitler.


There's plenty of objective difference between Ghandi and Hitler. The difference *matters* because, as a species, we deal not just with objective facts, but also with subjective responses.


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## SanAntone

amfortas said:


> There's plenty of objective difference between Ghandi and Hitler. The difference *matters* because, as a species, we deal not just with objective facts, but also with subjective responses.


I am not interested in a discussion of whether morality is objective or subjective (IMO, a sophomoric concern) - I was paraphrasing comments I've seen in this thread given as proof against the idea of the subjective appreciation of art/music.


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Your contradicting yourself when you say beauty is located in our heads and then you say "it is a conscious acknowledgement". What are you acknowledging? the beauty in your head?


Yes. I am acknowledging the beauty in my head. Your position, which is an amalgam of Platonism and theology (it seems), would imply that beauty is inherent in an art object and that any non-diseased person will react equally to that intrinsic, invariant beauty. This is a difficult position to maintain in the face of the variety of human response to any given piece of art, and the Wilhelmian Objectivist must fall back, sputtering, and attempt to explain those varied responses. The usual suspects are ignorance, bad breeding, maybe bad theology or philosophy, loose morals, defective senses, or simple Philistinism.


----------



## amfortas

SanAntone said:


> I am not interested in a discussion of whether morality is objective or subjective (IMO, a sophomoric concern) - I was paraphrasing comments I've seen in this thread given as proof against the idea of the subjective appreciation of art/music.


I'm not sure why the objective/subjective question is sophomoric when it comes to morality but not when it comes to aesthetics (unless you're railing equally against both).

In any case, the aesthetics question is more pertinent to this thread, so I'll try to ease off from my analogy.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

> Yes. I am acknowledging the beauty in my head.


:lol:

if the beauty is in your head what purpose does the music serve?



> Your position, which is an amalgam of Platonism and theology (it seems), would imply that beauty is inherent in an art object and that *any non-diseased person will react equally to that intrinsic, invariant beauty.* This is a difficult position to maintain in the face of the variety of human response to any given piece of art, and the Wilhelmian Objectivist must fall back, sputtering, and attempt to explain those varied responses. The usual suspects are ignorance, bad breeding, maybe bad theology or philosophy, loose morals, defective senses, or simple Philistinism.


this is not my position. My position is that humans, being sinners, fallen, corrupted, perverse creatures, don't always see or appreciate beauty, we like evil, immoral, ugly things.


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## annaw

Hmm, I feel that maybe the religious/moral aspect of this should be left out as it seems to only complicate the original question. Also, human brain reacts to music on partly biochemical basis, without any conscious or moral effort. The extent to which our aesthetic understanding can be connected with our moral one is thus not easy to determine.


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## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> My position is that humans, being sinners, fallen, corrupted, perverse creatures, don't always see or appreciate beauty, we like evil, immoral, ugly things.


So your aesthetic philosophy boils down to, "All we like sheep have gone astray"?


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## Nereffid

Phil loves classical said:


> Some of Boulez's music is beautiful in the way he organizes certain sonorities with certain timbres. It's not the same beauty as Mozart, who does the same, but includes other things like melody. Some don't care for the sonorities without melody, while others do, that is the difference in opinion on Boulez.


This, I think, encapsulates the problem with insisting that beauty (or "greatness") exists apart from human perception. When something new comes along and some people find it beautiful/great but others find it ugly/garbage, what to do? The best approach is probably to wait for the dust to settle and let opinion fall decisively one way or the other. If it turns out the minority who found this new thing to be beautiful/great are now in a substantial majority, well obviously that new thing was beautiful/great all along, and people were too misguided to realise it. Or if the minority dwindles away, well obviously it was never beautiful/great to begin with. But if the jury persistently stays out, well, there's always the option of "it's not the same beauty" - just define beauty/greatness in multiple ways, let everyone choose their preferred option, and hope nobody notices the inconsistency.


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## Strange Magic

Let me recommend the poetry (especially the lyric poetry) of Robinson Jeffers to those interested in the question of the objectivity/subjectivity of beauty. What gives Jeffers' poetry its unique power is his unresolved struggle as both poet and as someone familiar with science (his brother was a respected astronomer) to square these two impulses. In any number of his poems, Jeffers asserts that an intrinsic beauty saturates the non-human universe, but only occasionally can be found in human thought and action. But he cannot fully embrace this view, yet it is in his struggle to do so that we find the heart of his power as an artist. Note: Jeffers labeled his belief system Inhumanism, in that he felt always that humankind spent far too much energy on self-absorption and far too little on admiring (and caring for) the great outer universe all around us.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> So your aesthetic philosophy boils down to, "All we like sheep have gone astray"?


That would be just related to human experience of aesthetics, but not to whether beauty is objective or subjective.


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## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> :lol:
> 
> if the beauty is in your head what purpose does the music serve?
> 
> this is not my position. My position is that humans, being sinners, fallen, corrupted, perverse creatures, don't always see or appreciate beauty, we like evil, immoral, ugly things.


The beauty in my head has the purpose of making me pleased/happy/euphoric/exultant.

Thank you for making my point about the Objectivist explanation of human variation in response to art. Some people are just better than others: less sinful, less vile.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Nereffid said:


> This, I think, encapsulates the problem with insisting that beauty (or "greatness") exists apart from human perception. When something new comes along and some people find it beautiful/great but others find it ugly/garbage, what to do? The best approach is probably to wait for the dust to settle and let opinion fall decisively one way or the other. *If it turns out the minority who found this new thing to be beautiful/great are now in a substantial majority, well obviously that new thing was beautiful/great all along, and people were too misguided to realise it*. Or if the minority dwindles away, well obviously it was never beautiful/great to begin with. But if the jury persistently stays out, well, there's always the option of "it's not the same beauty" - just define beauty/greatness in multiple ways, let everyone choose their preferred option, and hope nobody notices the inconsistency.


This is just mob rule. It doesn't work. it doesn't matter if the majority think something is beautiful. On this logic the majority could decide a garbage dump is beautiful or the sound of a drill is beautiful and according to you they would be right. The majority currently decide that Pop music is better than classical music. This is what they like, which is fine, but it doesn't make it superior. This is why beauty/greatness cannot be defined by humans, because once we are making it up it ceases to have any meaning.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> sorry but its absurd. Atheism leads to absurdity.


Sorry, I don't understand this line of reasoning. Assuming that you subscribe to Judeo-Christian beliefs, all human creation pales in the beauty of God. God is the only objectively perfect standard of beauty and therefore all human creation is flawed and infinitely inferior to perfection.

So even in Judeo-Christian beliefs, worldly beauty has zero metaphysical value.

If Beethoven's 5th and pop songs are both infinitely inferior to the beauty of Heaven, then both Beethoven and a pop song have equal value outside of subjective human perception.

There is no way around it. Secular or religious, beauty is subjective.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

> Sorry, I don't understand this line of reasoning


subjectivity is the child of atheism. If your an atheist you must hold to subjectivity - subjectivity leads to saying and believing absurd things.



> Assuming that you subscribe to Judeo-Christian beliefs, all human creation pales in the beauty of God. God is the only objective standard of beauty and therefore all human creation is flawed and inferior.
> 
> So even in Judeo-Christian beliefs, worldly beauty has zero metaphysical value. God and Paradise is the only true beauty.


God's beauty is reflected, to some degree in his creation.


----------



## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> This is just mob rule. It doesn't work. it doesn't matter if the majority think something is beautiful. On this logic the majority could decide a garbage dump is beautiful or the sound of a drill is beautiful and according to you they would be right. The majority currently decide that Pop music is better than classical music. This is what they like, which is fine, but it doesn't make it superior. This is why beauty/greatness cannot be defined by humans, because once we are making it up it ceases to have any meaning.


If beauty/greatness cannot be defined by humans, who does define it? You'll say it's inherent in the work itself, but that work just exists--it can't *tell* us how great it is. At some point, humans have to make a determination about its merit.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> subjectivity is the child of atheism. If your an atheist you must hold to subjectivity - subjectivity leads to saying and believing absurd things.


I already proved theologically why this isn't true. You have zero basis for this conclusion.



> God's beauty is reflected, to some degree in his creation.


Yet it still infinitely inferior to the beauty of God himself. Or do you think that the perfect beauty of God is somehow attainable by humans?


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> This is just mob rule. It doesn't work. it doesn't matter if the majority think something is beautiful. On this logic the majority could decide a garbage dump is beautiful or the sound of a drill is beautiful and according to you they would be right. The majority currently decide that Pop music is better than classical music. This is what they like, which is fine, but it doesn't make it superior. This is why beauty/greatness cannot be defined by humans, because once we are making it up it ceases to have any meaning.


Do not feel that you need and must have support (divine support?) for your artistic preferences. I would be curious to learn just what art objects have divine sanction, and what do not. How is the revelation expressed? Do not all thus have the intrinsic artistic truth/beauty revealed equally to them? Or are some predestined by a god or gods to be as unfeeling clods?

Again, the Religious Discussion Group would be a great place for you to expand your critique of atheism.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> If beauty/greatness cannot be defined by humans, who does define it? You'll say it's inherent in the work itself, but that work just exists--it can't *tell* us how great it is. At some point, humans have to make a determination about its merit.


God defines what beauty is. Beauty comes from God. Beauty is a gift from God. Man is made in the image of God, therefore he has the capacity to appreciate, recognise and create beauty.

We intuitively recognise the beauty/greatness in music, *this is everybody's actual experience*. Because we are made in the image of God we have the ability to recognise intuitively what is beautiful. We know a waterfall is beautiful and a rubbish dump is not.

Humans can enjoy bad things though, like rubbish pop music, but even they wouldn't call it beautiful or grand music.


----------



## chu42

Strange Magic said:


> Do not feel that you need and must have support (divine support?) for your artistic preferences. I would be curious to learn just what art objects have divine sanction, and what do not. How is the revelation expressed? Do not all thus have the intrinsic artistic truth/beauty revealed equally to them? Or are some predestined to be as unfeeling clods?





Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> God defines what beauty is. Beauty comes from God. Beauty is a gift from God. Man is made in the image of God, therefore he has the capacity to appreciate, recognise and create beauty.
> 
> We intuitively recognise the beauty/greatness in music, *this is everybody's actual experience*. Because we are made in the image of God we have the ability to recognise intuitively what is beautiful. We know a waterfall is beautiful and a rubbish dump is not.
> 
> Humans can enjoy bad things though, like rubbish pop music, but even they wouldn't call it beautiful or grand music.


As far as Judeo-Christian beliefs go, beauty in the face of God is based on _intent_ rather than skill or talent.

To God, a tone-deaf man singing pop-music hymns has more inherent beauty than the greatest opera singer pandering to human desires. Even if the sounds of the man are "ugly" and the sounds of the opera singer are "beautiful".

This is because all human beauty pales in the infinite beauty of God, and therefore intent is the only real measure of beauty.

Or do people presume to understand God and what styles He likes or dislikes? Maybe God likes Stravinsky more than Mozart? God isn't human. He doesn't represent human preferences.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> I already proved theologically why this isn't true. You have zero basis for this conclusion.
> 
> Yet it still infinitely inferior to the beauty of God himself. Or do you think that the perfect beauty of God is somehow attainable by humans?


Yes I would agree its inferior.


----------



## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> God defines what beauty is. Beauty comes from God. Beauty is a gift from God. Man is made in the image of God, therefore he has the capacity to appreciate, recognise and create beauty.
> 
> We intuitively recognise the beauty/greatness in music, *this is everybody's actual experience*. Because we are made in the image of God we have the ability to recognise intuitively what is beautiful. We know a waterfall is beautiful and a rubbish dump is not.
> 
> Humans can enjoy bad things though, like rubbish pop music, but even they wouldn't call it beautiful or grand music.


So presumably, the closer I am to God, the more I'll appreciate true beauty in music.

Which comes as something of surprising, considering what some devout Christians listen to.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Yes I would agree its inferior.


If all human beauty is infinitely inferior to God's beauty, it follows that all human creation has equal metaphysical value.

I.e., equal value outside of the value that humans give it subjectively.


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> God defines what beauty is. Beauty comes from God. Beauty is a gift from God. Man is made in the image of God, therefore he has the capacity to appreciate, recognise and create beauty.
> 
> We intuitively recognise the beauty/greatness in music, *this is everybody's actual experience*. Because we are made in the image of God we have the ability to recognise intuitively what is beautiful. We know a waterfall is beautiful and a rubbish dump is not.
> 
> Humans can enjoy bad things though, like rubbish pop music, but even they wouldn't call it beautiful or grand music.


I think we have reached the inevitable cul de sac, and are now in the realm of pure theological assertion. Further discussion will be _deja vu_ all over again, to quote Yogi Berra.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> As far as Judeo-Christian beliefs go, beauty in the face of God is based in _intent_ rather than skill or talent.
> 
> To God, *a tone-deaf man singing* pop-music hymns has more inherent beauty than the greatest opera singer pandering to human desires. Even if the sounds of the man are "ugly" and the sounds of the opera singer are "beautiful".
> 
> Or does William Theophilus presume to understand God and what styles He likes or dislikes? Maybe God likes Stravinsky more than Mozart? God isn't human. He doesn't represent human preferences.


Yes God isn't Human, but music comes from God. it wasn't invented by humans.


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## amfortas

Strange Magic said:


> I think we have reached the inevitable cul de sac, and are now in the realm of pure theological assertion. Further discussion will be _deja vu_ all over again, to quote Yogi Berra.


I plead _mea culpa_ as well. What can I say? Give me a stick and a dead horse, and I'm happy all day.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> If all human beauty is infinitely inferior to God's beauty,* it follows that all human creation has equal metaphysical value.*
> 
> I.e., equal value outside of the value that humans give it subjectively.


how does that follow?


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Yes God isn't Human, but music comes from God. it wasn't invented by humans.


But that's just false. Music was canonically invented by humans. Did God create music in the seven days of creation? Did I miss that part of Genesis?

If you want to argue that all things created by humans are also God's creation, then rubbish and avant-garde is also God's creation and thus equal to Mozart or Beethoven in God's eyes.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> I plead _mea culpa_ as well. What can I say? Give me a stick and a dead horse, and I'm happy all day.


Maybe you guys just want your echo chamber


----------



## Nereffid

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> This is just mob rule. It doesn't work. it doesn't matter if the majority think something is beautiful. On this logic the majority could decide a garbage dump is beautiful or the sound of a drill is beautiful and according to you they would be right.


No, according to me they wouldn't be right, because I'm a subjectivist, remember? My argument is that right & wrong don't enter into perceptions of beauty.

So your argument is that beauty is an inherent property of a piece of music and is completely independent of human perception, let alone of how many people perceive it. Is it fair to say that it could logically follow that there might exist a beautiful piece of music that is perceived to be beautiful by only one single human? This is certainly a reasonable idea for a subjectivist, and from my understanding of your argument it's theoretically possible for an objectivist too. What makes me doubt the objectivist stance is, if only one person is able to perceive the inherent beauty of something, _how could they or anyone know that this object is indeed inherently beautiful and that the one person who perceives the beauty isn't actually mistaken?_

Seeing as someone's already mention Boulez, I did a quick google search and found references (by people who certainly seem to know what they're talking about) to _Le marteau sans maitre_ and _Pli selon pli_ as "works of... sheer sensuous beauty of sound"; _Notations_ as an example of "orchestration of stunning expressivity and beauty"; and again _Le marteau sans maitre_ as "beguilingly, exotically beautiful". And yet we also know that many people who listen to classical music strongly dislike Boulez's works. So to ask the above question in a different way, _How do we know whether these commentators are right or wrong? Who gets to decide?_



Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> The majority currently decide that Pop music is better than classical music. This is what they like, which is fine, but it doesn't make it superior. This is why beauty/greatness cannot be defined by humans, because once we are making it up it ceases to have any meaning.


But I don't think we're "making it up" when we say something is beautiful. We genuinely do perceive it as beautiful, so it has meaning to us personally. Moreover, we live in a society, and there are probably other people who perceive that music as beautiful too, so there's a shared meaning. Some works are perceived as beautiful by most people, so that's an even bigger shared meaning.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> how does that follow?


It follows because if nothing can possibly reach God's beauty, all attempts to do so are equally meaningless.

Let's hypothetically say that there is a unit that we can use to measure beauty, called "B".

If Beethoven has 1000 B, and Justin Bieber has only 5 B, both are still equally far away from the infinite B of God. And therefore they are equally meaningless compared to God.

B therefore only has value to humans, who subjectively perceive it.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

> But that's just false. Music was canonically invented by humans. Did God create music in the seven days of creation? Did I miss that part of Genesis?


:lol: its part of being made in the image of God. We are creative and musical among other things. Where was music invented? Vienna?  When was music invented?



> If you want to argue that all things created by humans are also God's creation, then rubbish and avant-garde is also God's creation and thus equal to Mozart or Beethoven in God's eyes.


no, man can perverse the gifts God has given him.


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## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Maybe you guys just want your echo chamber


I'm pretty sure it's not the subjectivists who seek complete agreement.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> It follows because if nothing can possibly reach God's beauty, all attempts to do so are equally meaningless.
> 
> Let's hypothetically say that there is a unit that we can use to measure beauty, called "B".
> 
> If Beethoven has 1000 B, and Justin Bieber has only 5 B, both are still equally far away from the infinite B of God. And therefore they are equally meaningless compared to God.


Interesting point. Ill give it some more thought. I would say Beethoven reflects God's beauty much, much more and that Bieber may even be anti-God, or anti beauty.

The same way with morality, if we are good we reflect God if we are evil we don't.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> :lol: its part of being made in the image of God. We are creative and musical among other things. Where was music invented? Vienna?  When was music invented?
> 
> no, man can perverse the gifts God has given him.


So what counts as a perversion of God's gifts? Do you presume to know what God likes and dislikes?

I've explained that theological beauty is based on intent, not human value. Jesus said that the poor woman donating all of her savings is more "beautiful" than the millionaire donating 1% of his earnings. This is because all money pales in comparison to the riches of Heaven. Therefore intent decides its beauty and not human worth.

So like I said: A tone-deaf man singing garbage pop-music hymns has more inherent beauty to God than the greatest opera singer pandering to human desires with Verdi and Puccini. Even if the sounds of the man are "ugly" and the sounds of the opera singer are "beautiful", the ugly sounds have more value to God.

Would you say that the singing of the tone-deaf man is a "perversion" of God's gifts, just because it sounds ugly to us humans?


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## Barbebleu

Surely another thread that needs closed down given that it has sadly degenerated into another religious debate. Politics and religion, pah! Guaranteed to stifle any other debate.


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## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Interesting point. Ill give it some more thought. I would say Beethoven reflects God's beauty much, much more and that Bieber may even be anti-God, or anti beauty.


But that's just your opinion. What if Bieber became a convicted Christian and started writing hymns in praise of God? After all, there are already a dozen Biebers in the Christian music industry.

Also, even if Bieber was negative 1000 B, it is still equally far away from God as Beethoven is.



> The same way with morality, if we are good we reflect God if we are evil we don't.


There are plenty of composers who wrote "beautiful" music who had "ugly" character.


----------



## amfortas

Barbebleu said:


> Surely another thread that needs closed down given that it has sadly degenerated into another religious debate. Politics and religion, pah! Guaranteed to stifle any other debate.


I blame it all on Trump. Or the pope. Discuss. :devil:


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

amfortas said:


> I'm pretty sure it's not the subjectivists who seek complete agreement.


Perfectly happy for you to disagree. But obviously I think I'm right otherwise I wouldn't bother


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Barbebleu said:


> Surely another thread that needs closed down given that it has sadly degenerated into another religious debate. Politics and religion, pah! Guaranteed to stifle any other debate.


Do we get shut down for that?

I assumed people could come and go as they please.


----------



## amfortas

chu42 said:


> What if Bieber became a convicted Christian and started writing hymns in praise of God?


I'd have to believe in an imminent Apocalypse.


----------



## Phil loves classical

amfortas said:


> I'd have to believe in an imminent Apocalypse.


I dunno, have you heard some CCM (Contemporary Christian Music)? Yet, we're still here.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> So what counts as a perversion of God's gifts? Do you presume to know what God likes and dislikes?
> 
> I've explained that theological beauty is based on intent, not human value. Jesus said that the poor woman donating all of her savings is more "beautiful" than the millionaire donating 1% of his earnings. This is because all money pales in comparison to the riches of Heaven. Therefore intent decides its beauty and not human worth.
> 
> So like I said: A tone-deaf man singing garbage pop-music hymns has more inherent beauty to God than the greatest opera singer pandering to human desires with Verdi and Puccini. Even if the sounds of the man are "ugly" and the sounds of the opera singer are "beautiful", the ugly sounds have more value to God.
> 
> Would you say that the singing of the tone-deaf man is a "perversion" of God's gifts, just because it sounds ugly to us humans?


No not a perversion, I would just say he's not been gifted with a good singing voice.


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## Conrad2

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Do we get shut down for that?
> 
> I assumed people could come and go as they please.


If you want to discuss politics and religion then you should move this thread to "Politics and Religion in Classical Music" sub-forum under Religious Music. If you are not discussing about it then you shouldn't be worried.


----------



## amfortas

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Perfectly happy for you to disagree. But obviously I think I'm right otherwise I wouldn't bother


It's encouraging to know you haven't just been pulling our collective legs.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> No not a perversion, I would just say he's not been gifted with a good singing voice.


Yes, but his singing is still more beautiful to God than the singing of an egotistic opera singer.

Again, since both human ugliness and human beauty are equally inferior to God's beauty, intent is the only determining factor. It doesn't matter how talented someone is since no talent can reach the beauty of God.

It thus follows that theologically, all music is of equal value and that intent behind the music is the only possible separation.

A pop song played with strong religious conviction is theologically more beautiful than Beethoven's 9th conducted with self-serving intent.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

> But that's just your opinion. What if Bieber became a convicted Christian and started writing hymns in praise of God? After all, there are already a dozen Biebers in the Christian music industry.


im not for what is called Christian music, but that's another conversation



> Also, even if Bieber was negative 1000 B, it is still equally far away from God as Beethoven is.


as I said I will have to give that some more thought.



> There are plenty of composers who wrote "beautiful" music who had "ugly" character.


that's true.


----------



## milk

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> If human beings define what is right and wrong, then we can all absolutely anything right. So harming children can be defined as good, since we are making it up, we can define it however we like.
> 
> Also no society or country can call another society/country wrong for what they do, because each society/country is just making it up. So you cant say the Nazi's were wrong. You can say they were wrong according to your made up opinion but who cares what you think? Your personal human opinion holds no authority.
> 
> In your worldview right and wrong cannot exist.
> 
> The same as beauty, if human beings decide what it is it leads to chaos and absurdity. But because you have anti-God commitments I understand that you have to be consistent. Just please be consistent and let everyone see the results of your beliefs.


Is something good or beautiful because god says so, for example drowning babies? How is that objective? Or does god say hell or drowning babies or owning slaves is beautiful or moral because it is objectively so - in which case god (as the middleman) is unnecessary?


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Conrad2 said:


> If you want to discuss politics and religion then you should move this thread to "Politics and Religion in Classical Music" sub-forum under Religious Music. If you are not discussing about it then you shouldn't be worried.


What if you have to bring up politics and religion in order to answer the question in this thread?


----------



## chu42

milk said:


> Is something good or beautiful because god says so, for example drowning babies? How is that objective? Or does god say hell or drowning babies or owning slaves is beautiful or moral because it is objectively so - in which case god (as the middleman) is unnecessary?


I guess the theological argument here would be that since God is perfect, God represents objectivity.

I would suspect that even if you disagree, this line of conversation will go nowhere and ought to be abandoned.


----------



## Art Rock

The topic at hand is whether classical music is better than pop music.

Some natural drift will usually occur, but we now have appeared to come into a totally different terrain: objectivity, subjectivity and whether or not there is a divine role in this.

If anyone wants to discuss this further, I suggest opening a thread in the appropriate sub-forum (here).


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> Yes, but his singing is still more beautiful to God than the singing of an egotistic opera singer.
> 
> Again, since both human ugliness and human beauty are equally inferior to God's beauty, intent is the only determining factor. It doesn't matter how talented someone is since no talent can reach the beauty of God.
> 
> It thus follows that theologically, all music is of equal value and that intent behind the music is the only possible separation.
> 
> A pop song played with strong religious conviction is theologically more beautiful than Beethoven's 9th conducted with self-serving intent.


sorry I don't agree


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

milk said:


> Is something good or beautiful because god says so, for example drowning babies? How is that objective? Or does god say hell or drowning babies or owning slaves is beautiful or moral because it is objectively so - in which case god (as the middleman) is unnecessary?


Morality is rooted in Gods unchanging nature, its not arbitrary.

I think we have to stop now, back to pop music


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## milk

It seems that pop music has grown objectively simpler, more often made by committee rather than the inspiration of a single artist, more artificial and derivative and corporate, while “classical” has grown more academic and arguably more parochial - though I admit I could be totally off-base about recent trends in classical. It’s hard for me to follow recent trends in “classical” though I’ll keep trying. I wonder if minimalism was the last chance for classical to reach a wide audience. I’d like to think current classical is doing more than defining limits but that’s probably for another thread.


----------



## chu42

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> sorry I don't agree


It doesn't matter if you agree; what I said represents the theologically affirmed school of thought. If you want to disagree with conventional theology, you are free to do so.

All I'm saying is that you can't objectively presume to know what God likes or dislikes and use it to support your beliefs about music.

Anyways, back to the main topic. I generally enjoy classical more than pop and that's all that matters. Whether it is _objectively_ better or not is meaningless to me and unprovable in my opinion.


----------



## SanAntone

chu42 said:


> I generally enjoy classical more than pop and that's all that matters. Whether it is _objectively_ better or not is meaningless to me and unprovable in my opinion.


Whether classical is better than pop is a dead end question. For some people it is always better, for me "it depends" - on my mood, on the specific example of classical and pop; and pop is not the only non-classical genre I often prefer over classical any given day.

But firstly, I do not care for these questions of relative good, better, best .... great, greater, greatest. And am mystified that so many on TC do care about these questions. What possible added value is it of the idea that a work by Beethoven is said to be "great"? It won't enhance my enjoyment of it any more than if I knew he had a cold when he wrote it.

And ultimately we will never agree and the discussions go on forever, usually ending up with a closed thread because of insults or straying off topic into even more unresolved questions.


----------



## amfortas

SanAntone said:


> What possible added value is it of the idea that a work by Beethoven is said to be "great"? It won't enhance my enjoyment of it any more than if I knew he had a cold when he wrote it.


I find such an attitude mystifying. If there are such things are "great" works, I'd like to know what they are and seek them out, devote attention to them before wasting time (comparatively) on lesser works. On the other hand, if there are no "great" works (in either a purely objective or communally subjective sense), I'm not sure how I'd ever come to encounter Beethoven in the first place, other than some random, unlikely luck of the draw. So it seems disingenuous to say my enjoyment of Beethoven is completely unrelated to anyone else's assessment.

EDIT: And yes, I'm veering back toward forbidden territory. Maybe there's no way to keep the thread from doing so.


----------



## larold

_Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'...? _

The scale probably balances toward pop music today and classical music tomorrow.

I think generally speaking classical music is more complex than popular music and attracts a different kind of person with a longer lasting interest. There's no question pop has more fans and generates more new artists and far more sales and concerts.

So by "better" I suppose if you mean artistically the answer might be maybe; if you mean by popularity or sales or new artist start-ups or any other similar contemporary standard the answer would be no.

However ... it is almost a certainly in another 100 years people will still listen to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart et al. Not sure you'll be able to say that about any of today's top pop artists.

So if you mean by attention over time, over centuries, of course it is better.


----------



## chu42

amfortas said:


> I find such an attitude mystifying. If there are such things are "great" works, I'd like to know what they are and seek them out, devote attention to them before wasting time (comparatively) on lesser works. On the other hand, if there are no "great" works (in either a purely objective or communally subjective sense), I'm not sure how I'd ever come to encounter Beethoven in the first place, other than some random, unlikely luck of the draw. So it seems disingenuous to say my enjoyment of Beethoven is completely unrelated to anyone else's assessment.


The idea is that there are works or composers that humans are predisposed towards, biologically or culturally. If someone recommends Beethoven, it's because many people enjoy Beethoven and thus you might also enjoy Beethoven. It's not because there is inherent greatness to his work.

Or if you enjoy Webern, someone may suggest Berg because he shares elements with the music of Webern and you may enjoy it because they are similar in that respect.

If you enjoy Beethoven just as much as you enjoyed Aboriginal tribal music, why would it matter which one is "greater" if you enjoy them both the same?

Just focus on what music brings to you. Anything outside of that is just mass opinion or speculation.


----------



## chu42

larold said:


> However ... it is almost a certainly in another 100 years people will still listen to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Not sure you'll be able to say that about any of today's top pop artists.


I wonder how many people said the same thing about the Beatles, or Frank Sinatra, or Simon & Garfunkel.

Sure, not all top pop artists will be remembered. But not all top classical composers were remembered either.

Moszkowski, Salieri, Rubinstein, Marschner, and Raff were some of the very biggest names of their respective eras and they are now only occasionally programmed.


----------



## SanAntone

amfortas said:


> I find such an attitude mystifying. If there are such things are "great" works, I'd like to know what they are and seek them out, devote attention to them before wasting time (comparatively) on lesser works. On the other hand, if there are no "great" works (in either a purely objective or communally subjective sense), I'm not sure how I'd ever come to encounter Beethoven in the first place, other than some random, unlikely luck of the draw. So it seems disingenuous to say my enjoyment of Beethoven is completely unrelated to anyone else's assessment.
> 
> EDIT: And yes, I'm veering back toward forbidden territory. Maybe there's no way to keep the thread from doing so.


I don't want someone else to choose the music I listen to. Not only do I reject your statement about wasting time with "lesser" music - much of the music I like the most might have been called "lesser music" or written by a "second rate (or lower) composer" by some "decider" along the way. I simply don't care.

Yeah, I read _Lives of the Great Composers_ as a teenager but quickly found that many of the composers and works did not interest me in the least. After over 50 years of listening to classical music, I absolutely don't care about perceived greatness. What I am looking for does not fit any "deciders" definition of great music - it fits my own very subjective definition.

And that is all I am interested in.


----------



## Barbebleu

Frank Sinatra made his first recordings nearly eighty years ago so let’s see if he is still being listened to in another twenty years which I’m pretty sure he will be. Ditto for the Beatles and S & G. 
I’ll be ninety two so here’s hoping!:lol:

This was a response to post #299 BTW.


----------



## amfortas

chu42 said:


> The idea is that there are works or composers that humans are predisposed towards, biologically or culturally. If someone recommends Beethoven, it's because many people enjoy Beethoven and thus you might also enjoy Beethoven. It's not because there is inherent greatness to his work.
> 
> Or if you enjoy Webern, someone may suggest Berg because he shares elements with the music of Webern and you may enjoy it because they are similar in that respect.
> 
> If you enjoy Beethoven just as much as you enjoyed Aboriginal tribal music, why would it matter which one is "greater" if you enjoy them both the same?
> 
> Just focus on what music brings to you. Anything outside of that is just mass opinion or speculation.


But people don't just want to enjoy. They also want to accomplish and achieve, to do something of surpassing excellence--and to acknowledge and appreciate others who do so. Artists typically seek, not just to create a work, but to hone and refine it to make it the best they can, to make the next work better still, and to develop and improve in their craft over the course of their careers. Even if such self-assessments are, as I believe, ultimately subjective, they stem from a basic impulse to explore the limits of human capability. And it doesn't seem amiss, as a viewer or listener, to approach musical or other artistic works with that same interest in experiencing the best--however tenuously that may be defined.


----------



## EdwardBast

Any hope of a useful response to the OP requires that one address the questions: Better for whom? and Better for what purpose? For example, if one asks: Which style is a better bet for those who value the subtle transformation of melodic ideas over lengthy instrumental structures? then the answer is obvious. Enjoy equal-voiced imitative polyphony? If so, classical music is better. Looking for music with a uniform volume level suitable for a car radio and people with short attention spans who think all musical works should be songs? In that case pop is a better choice.

The lesson is: Specific questions have a better chance of yielding useful information than vague and poorly defined ones.


----------



## amfortas

EdwardBast said:


> Any hope of a useful response to the OP requires that one address the questions: Better for whom? and Better for what purpose? For example, if one asks: Which style is a better bet for those who value the subtle transformation of melodic ideas over lengthy instrumental structures? then the answer is obvious. Enjoy equal-voiced imitative polyphony? If so, classical music is better. Looking for music with a uniform volume level suitable for a car radio and people with short attention spans who think all musical works should be songs? In that case pop is a better choice.


So there's no hidden value judgment there, right?


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## EdwardBast

amfortas said:


> So there's no hidden value judgment there, right?


None whatever. Just providing examples.


----------



## chu42

amfortas said:


> But people don't just want to enjoy. They also want to accomplish and achieve, to do something of surpassing excellence--and to acknowledge and appreciate others who do so. Artists typically seek, not just to create a work, but to hone and refine it to make it the best they can, to make the next work better still, and to develop and improve in their craft over the course of their careers. Even if such self-assessments are, as I believe, ultimately subjective, they stem from a basic impulse to explore the limits of human capability. And it doesn't seem amiss, as a viewer or listener, to approach musical or other artistic works with that same interest in experiencing the best--however tenuously that may be defined.


The artist wants to accomplish. Or-it should be said-some artists want to accomplish. Others want to make money.

This is all irrelevant to what the audience wants, which is to enjoy.


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## Strange Magic

amfortas said:


> I plead _mea culpa_ as well. What can I say? Give me a stick and a dead horse, and I'm happy all day.


Dead horse supplied, plus flail. You're welcome.


----------



## amfortas

chu42 said:


> The artist wants to accomplish. Or-it should be said-some artists want to accomplish. Others want to make money.
> 
> This is all irrelevant to what the audience wants, which is to enjoy.


For many in the audience, enjoyment includes recognizing and appreciating the artist's accomplishment.


----------



## chu42

amfortas said:


> For many in the audience, enjoyment includes recognizing and appreciating the artist's accomplishment.


Yeah, no. If that were true, close to everyone would be listening to classical music, which is simply not reality.

The majority of people attribute accomplishment to how much they enjoyed the music. If it's enjoyable, it's an accomplishment. If it's not enjoyable, most people simply don't care how much time or effort or talent or whatever went into it.

This is even true for classical music fans.

A classical fan who doesn't enjoy opera isn't likely to think much of Wagner even though his achievements in the field of opera are tremendous. Think of all the work that went into writing Die Meistersinger-if you don't enjoy it, then you'll just think that all this work was a waste of time.

A classical fan who doesn't like serialism isn't likely to place Schoenberg in his favorites list even though Schoenberg changed the very face of classical music. A lot of skill and technique went into writing Pierrot Lunaire but someone who doesn't like it is likely going to say it sounds like random garbage.

People will enjoy what they enjoy, and they look for things that may help to justify their enjoyment-which may include observations like "this artist was a prodigy" or "this artist did a lot for this genre".

People won't care about an artist's accomplishments or resume unless it correlates with their personal enjoyment. "Overrated" is one of the most popular words used to describe an accomplished artist that someone doesn't personally enjoy.


----------



## Strange Magic

amfortas said:


> I find such an attitude mystifying. If there are such things are "great" works, I'd like to know what they are and seek them out, devote attention to them before wasting time (comparatively) on lesser works. On the other hand, if there are no "great" works (in either a purely objective or communally subjective sense), I'm not sure how I'd ever come to encounter Beethoven in the first place, other than some random, unlikely luck of the draw. So it seems disingenuous to say my enjoyment of Beethoven is completely unrelated to anyone else's assessment.
> 
> EDIT: And yes, I'm veering back toward forbidden territory. Maybe there's no way to keep the thread from doing so.


Here we are getting into the voting/polling aspect, and who is it who are voting or being polled. There is no necessary link between what we like and what our peers like, but we certainly can consult our peers out of pure curiosity. But doing so does not alter the fact that our preferences continue to be personal and subjective. There is no contradiction between recognizing group preferences as an acknowledged fact, and maintaining one's own autonomy of taste. There are several "universally" lauded pieces of music that leave me cold--I refrain from dissing others' musical choices and so will not name them--yet my assessment of them reigns supreme, as it should. Who can gainsay me? With what legitimacy?


----------



## SanAntone

IMO, a lot of classical music is the musical equivalent of bloviation.


----------



## amfortas

chu42 said:


> Yeah, no. If that were true, close to everyone would be listening to classical music, which is simply not reality.
> 
> The majority of people attribute accomplishment to how much they enjoyed the music. If it's enjoyable, it's an accomplishment. If it's not enjoyable, most people simply don't care how much time or effort or talent or whatever went into it.
> 
> This is even true for classical music fans.
> 
> A classical fan who doesn't enjoy opera isn't likely to think much of Wagner even though his achievements in the field of opera are tremendous. Think of all the work that went into writing Die Meistersinger-if you don't enjoy it, then you'll just think that all this work was a waste of time.
> 
> A classical fan who doesn't like serialism isn't likely to place Schoenberg in his favorites list even though Schoenberg changed the very face of classical music. A lot of skill and technique went into writing Pierrot Lunaire but someone who doesn't like it is likely going to say it sounds like random garbage.
> 
> People will enjoy what they enjoy, and they look for things that may help to justify their enjoyment-which may include observations like "this artist was a prodigy" or "this artist did a lot for this genre".
> 
> People won't care about an artist's accomplishments or resume unless it correlates with their personal enjoyment. "Overrated" is one of the most popular words used to describe an accomplished artist that someone doesn't personally enjoy.


I think you're agreeing with me. I said that recognizing and appreciating an artist's accomplishment was part of people's enjoyment, which (other than your first sentence) is what you're saying as well.

It's the difference between "I really liked that!" and "That was really great!" People say both, probably with about equal frequency, but in the second instance they're not just sharing a personal preference, but asserting some merit in the work itself. It may well be that both responses are equally subjective, but my point is that, rightly or wrongly, people typically view their enjoyment as based on more than just their own individual quirks. That belief is part of the pleasure they derive.


----------



## chu42

amfortas said:


> I think you're agreeing with me. I said that recognizing and appreciating an artist's accomplishment was part of people's enjoyment, which (other than your first sentence) is what you're saying as well.


In a sense, yes.



amfortas said:


> It's the difference between "I really liked that!" and "That was really great!" People say both, probably with about equal frequency, but in the second instance they're not just sharing a personal preference, but asserting some merit in the work itself. It may well be that both responses are equally subjective, but my point is that, rightly or wrongly, people typically view their enjoyment as based on more than just their own individual quirks. That belief is part of the pleasure they derive.


I guess my main point is that it _is_ subjective, and even if most people did attribute inherent greatness to certain works, they aren't necessarily objectively correct in doing so.


----------



## amfortas

chu42 said:


> I guess my main point is that it _is_ subjective, and even if most people did attribute inherent greatness to certain works, they aren't necessarily objectively correct in doing so.


Then we're in agreement again.


----------



## Luchesi

John and Paul, and expecially George, would sit with their guitars and come up with marketable songs. They apparently had very high musical IQs, but if they had been educated for years about music theory and the history of dissonance, and what such serious expression it produced - they never would have put together their songs. 

It's a matter of time and peers and giggly girls. This answers the question, I think.


----------



## Luchesi

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Perfectly happy for you to disagree. But obviously I think I'm right otherwise I wouldn't bother


Really? Maybe you can define what gods are and what they do. If not, then you merely have faith, and other people have their different opinions. So, there's nothing to debate about without reliable descriptions.


----------



## larold

_I wonder how many people said the same thing about the Beatles, or Frank Sinatra, or Simon & Garfunkel._

It hasn't been a century for any of them yet but certainly some of their tunes -- Yesterday, That's Life, Bridge Over Troubled Water, more -- will survive.

They were the creme de la creme of their time as were Bach, Beethoven and Mozart for theirs. I have less certainly for Lady Gaga.


----------



## Luchesi

larold said:


> _I wonder how many people said the same thing about the Beatles, or Frank Sinatra, or Simon & Garfunkel._
> 
> It hasn't been a century for any of them yet but certainly some of their tunes -- Yesterday, That's Life, Bridge Over Troubled Water, more -- will survive.
> 
> They were the creme de la creme of their time as were Bach, Beethoven and Mozart for theirs. I have less certainly for Lady Gaga.


It surprised me that you chose That's Life. I admired Sinatra's talent, but when That's Life came out I wondered what he was doing. Who advised him to sing that song? Or he did ignore the advice of his handlers?


----------



## chu42

larold said:


> _I wonder how many people said the same thing about the Beatles, or Frank Sinatra, or Simon & Garfunkel._
> 
> It hasn't been a century for any of them yet but certainly some of their tunes -- Yesterday, That's Life, Bridge Over Troubled Water, more -- will survive.
> 
> They were the creme de la creme of their time as were Bach, Beethoven and Mozart for theirs. I have less certainly for Lady Gaga.


Yes, that was my point. Ideas and tunes that stay in the public consciousness pervade in all genres of music.

Queen, Abba, Adele, will all be just as likely to be remembered as Brahms or Schubert. To claim objective superiority based on longevity is to be unaware of just how many people are still listening to the pop music of the 80s or the 60s or the 50s.


----------



## SanAntone

Some of my favorite music is by composers that never appear on lists of Great Composers.


----------



## thejewk

I like good music, genre doesn't really interest me particularly. I appreciate idiosyncratic and strong artist voices regardless of the medium. I see no value in comparing Shostakovich's Quartets with The Fall's discography, Mahler with John Coltrane, etc.


----------



## Luchesi

chu42 said:


> Yes, that was my point. Ideas and tunes that stay in the public consciousness pervade in all genres of music.
> 
> Queen, Abba, Adele, will all be just as likely to be remembered as Brahms or Schubert. To claim objective superiority based on longevity is to be unaware of just how many people are still listening to the pop music of the 80s or the 60s or the 50s.


What matters is the scores. Compare the scores of Schubert and Brahms with the song sheets of Mercury, Adell, ABBA, etc. What do we study? The showbiz gimmicks of Queen?


----------



## Andrew Kenneth

Classical and pop music are, in my opinion, false opposites.

The real opposites are what could be described as "art music" (in want of a better moniker); and "entertainment" music.

The former can affect a listener in a profound way; the latter barely makes a lasting impression, however pleasing to listen to or to dance to.

Both categories contain classical & pop/rock/etc... compositions.


----------



## Haydn70

chu42 said:


> Queen, Abba, Adele, will all be just as likely to be remembered as Brahms or Schubert. To claim objective superiority based on longevity is to be unaware of just how many people are still listening to the pop music of the 80s or the 60s or the 50s.


What a ridiculous comment.

The people that are listening to pop music of the 50s, 60s, 80s music are listening because that is the music they grew up with...and there are plenty of people of those generations that are still alive. When they pass, eventually so will their music.

Tell me chu42, anyone you know listening to these tunes? Here are the big hits of 1921:

"Ain't We Got Fun?" w.m. Richard A. Whiting, Raymond Egan & Gus Kahn
"All by Myself" w.m. Irving Berlin
"And Her Mother Came Too" w. Dion Titheradge m. Ivor Novello
"Any Time" w.m. Herbert Happy Lawson
"April Showers" w. B. G. De Sylva m. Louis Silvers
"Baltimore Buzz" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake
"Bandana Days" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake
"Bimini Bay" w. Gus Kahn & Raymond Egan m. Richard Whiting
"Boy Wanted" w. Ira Gershwin m. George Gershwin
"Dancing Time" w.(Eng) George Grossmith, Jr. (US) Howard Dietz m. Jerome Kern US words written 1924.
"Dapper Dan" w. Lew Brown m. Albert Von Tilzer
"Dear Old Southland" w. Henry Creamer m. Turner Layton
"Down South" w. B. G. DeSylva m. Walter Donaldson. Introduced by Al Jolson in the musical Bombo
"Down Yonder" w.m. L. Wolfe Gilbert
"Everybody Step" w.m. Irving BerlinHawaiianChimes.jpg
"Hawaiian Chimes" w. Irving Bibo m. Eva Applefield
"I Ain't Nobody's Darling" w. Elmer Hughes m. Robert A. King
"I Found A Rose In The Devil's Garden" w.m. Fred Fisher & Willie Raskin
"I Wonder If You Still Care For Me" w.m. Harry B. Smith & Francis Wheeler
"I'll Forget You" w. Annelu Burns m. Ernest R. Ball
"I'm Just Wild About Harry" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake
"I'm Missin' Mammy's Kissin'" w. Sidney Clare m. Lew Pollack
"I'm Nobody's Baby" w.m. Benny Davis, Milton Ager & Lester Santly
"Jazz Me Blues" m. Tom Delaney
"Keep Movin'" Helen Trix
"Kitten On The Keys" m. Zez Confrey
"Laughin' Rag" S. Moore, H. Skinner
"Learn To Smile" w. Otto Harbach m. Louis A. Hirsch
"Leave Me With A Smile" w.m. Charles Koehler & Earl Burtnett
"Love Will Find A Way" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie BlakeHomeAgainBlues.jpg
"Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me" w. Sidney Clare m. Con Conrad
"Make Believe" w. Benny Davis m. Jack Shilkret
"Mandy 'N' Me" w. Bert Kalmar m. Con Conrad
"My Sunny Tennessee" w.m. Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby & Herman Ruby
"Peggy O'Neill" w.m. Harry Pease, Ed G. Nelson & Gilbert Dodge
"Sally" w. Clifford Grey m. Jerome Kern
"Say It With Music" w.m. Irving Berlin
"Second Hand Rose" w. Grant Clarke m. James F. Hanley
"The Sheik of Araby" w. Harry B. Smith & Francis Wheeler m. Ted Snyder
"She's Mine, All Mine" w.m. Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby
"Shuffle Along w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake
"Shimmy With Me" w. P. G. Wodehouse m. Jerome Kern from the musical The Cabaret Girl
"Song Of Love" w. Dorothy Donnelly m. Sigmund Romberg
"Strut Miss Lizzie" w. Henry Creamer m. Turner Layton
"Swanee River Moon" w.m. H. Pitman Clarke
"Sweet Lady" w. Howard Johnson m. Frank Crumit & Dave Zoob
"Ten Little Fingers And Ten Little Toes" w. Harry Pease & Johnny White m. Ira Schuster & Ed G. Nelson
"There'll Be Some Changes Made" w. Billy Higgins m. Benton Overstreet
"Tuck Me To Sleep In My Old 'Tucky Home" w. Sam H. Lewis & Joe Young m. George W. Meyer
"Wabash Blues" w. Dave Ringle m. Fred Meinken
"When Big Profundo Sang Low C" w. Marion T. Bohannon m. George Botsford
"When Buddha Smiles" w. Arthur Freed m. Nacio Herb Brown
"When Francis Dances With Me" w. Ben Ryan m. Sol Violinsky
"When Shall We Meet Again" w. Raymond B. Egan m. Richard A. Whiting
"Whip-poor-will" w. B. G. De Sylva m. Jerome Kern
"Yoo-Hoo" w. B. G. De Sylva m. Al Jolson

These songs, a few of which many here will recognize, at least the titles, play no role in the contemporary listening scene. The HUGE majority of listeners under the age of 50 have no idea of these songs. The people that listened to them and enjoyed them have passed...and so has this music.

Very few products of popular culture transcend their own time, their own time defined by the lifespan of the people who grew up with the particular product. True, there are people in their 20s and 30s who like 60s and 70s music--usually because their parents grew up with it, love it and play it and they (the children) grow to love it--but with each passing generation, the music fades out and is eventually of no interest to anyone. Most people in their teens and 20s just care about current music and take that music through their lives.

Or ask yourself this: if a company were to put out a set of recordings of the Greatest Hits from the period 1900-1920 or the period 1920-1940, how many people would buy them? Virtually none.

By 2062 people will KNOW of the Beatles and will know of some of their songs, just as many people now know the names and the melodies of popular songs from the 1910's, 1920s, etc. (And I think the only reason we know them is because of their use in period movies.) We know of the songs but WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THEM OR LISTENS TO THEM? Virtually no one performs such music live and even if it were available on CD who would buy them...some of this music is known to us but doesn't play an active part in our musical culture.


----------



## chu42

Luchesi said:


> What matters is the scores. Compare the scores of Schubert and Brahms with the song sheets of Mercury, Adell, ABBA, etc. What do we study? The showbiz gimmicks of Queen?


Um, yes. That's what people do. Don't be so naive as to think that classical music is the only music that can be studied.


----------



## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> What matters is the scores. Compare the scores of Schubert and Brahms with the song sheets of Mercury, Adell, ABBA, etc. What do we study? The showbiz gimmicks of Queen?


Scores only matter for music with a written tradition. Plenty of music has never used scores and never had a written tradition at all.

In fact, most ethnic folk musics, blues, mountain string band music and other vernacular musics cannot be accurately captured in standard notation. It has been transmitted orally because that is the best, and most efficient way for someone to learn it; not from reading someone's attempt at writing it down.


----------



## Nereffid

Haydn70 said:


> Here are the big hits of 1921:
> 
> These songs, a few of which many here will recognize, at least the titles, play no role in the contemporary listening scene. The HUGE majority of listeners under the age of 50 have no idea of these songs. The people that listened to them and enjoyed them have passed...and so has this music.
> 
> Very few products of popular culture transcend their own time, their own time defined by the lifespan of the people who grew up with the particular product.


I pretty much agree with this, but with one proviso. It's probably reasonable to say that few if any of those hits of 1921 were remembered 50 years later, in 1971. Whereas there's a fair handful of music from 1971 that's still well-known today. Yes, most of the music of 1971 is mostly forgotten now, but I suspect that the social and technological changes that occurred from the 1960s onwards might have brought about a small (but significant) change in the longevity of popular music and how it's remembered. Only time will tell!


----------



## chu42

Haydn70 said:


> Tell me chu42, anyone you know listening to these tunes? Here are the big hits of 1921:


Ooh, you're taking this direction. Very interesting.

Tell me, who listens to the thousands of symphonies and string quartets from Salieri, Krommer, Gryowetz Stamitz, Baguer, Pleyel, Rosetti, Gossec, Kozeluch, Herschel, or Wranitzky?

They were all among the top composers next to Mozart. You can call them "the big hits" of the late 18th century.

Yet they are no longer remembered, not even by classical music fans. Perhaps classical music isn't so different from pop music in that the vast majority of zeit still fade away with the sands of time.

And just as Mozart and Haydn survived out of the hundreds of his time, Sinatra and Fred Astaire will remain well known as pop icons.



Haydn70 said:


> Very few products of popular culture transcend their own time, their own time defined by the lifespan of the people who grew up with the particular product. True, there are people in their 20s and 30s who like 60s and 70s music--usually because their parents grew up with it, love it and play it and they (the children) grow to love it--but with each passing generation, the music fades out and is eventually of no interest to anyone. Most people in their teens and 20s just care about current music and take that music through their lives.


There is something called the Great American Songbook; it has canonized the music which is considered important by folk and jazz artists.

The music that has made it to this canon will survive for posterity, at least as much as the music of the classical music canon.

They will be taught to aspiring jazz musicians, folk singers, Broadway actors-almost anything that has to do with non-classical music.

But you don't know much about non-classical music, do you? So you couldn't possibly imagine how anything non-classical could manage to survive more than a decade a best.



> The HUGE majority of listeners under the age of 50 have no idea of these songs.


Hahahaha. Oh, that's too much. We're on a classical music forum and the irony of this comment really just shot over your head. I don't know how musically talented you are, but in terms of rhetoric, you're definitely tone-deaf.

Ask any young person to name a Schubert lieder. Ask any young person to name a Puccini opera. Hahahaha.

Here's the truth: Most people know a couple of classical works. Most people can name a couple of oldie songs. It's not so different. Pretending otherwise is just hilariously naive.



Haydn70 said:


> Or ask yourself this: if a company were to put out a set of recordings of the Greatest Hits from the period 1900-1920 or the period 1920-1940, how many people would buy them? Virtually none.


They are a niche listening category...just like classical music. How many people buy the complete symphonies by Haydn? How many people buy the complete cantatas of Bach? You want to compare numbers?



Haydn70 said:


> By 2062 people will KNOW of the Beatles and will know of some of their songs, just as many people now know the names and the melodies of popular songs from the 1910's, 1920s, etc. (And I think the only reason we know them is because of their use in period movies.) We know of the songs but WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THEM OR LISTENS TO THEM? Virtually no one performs such music live and even if it were available on CD who would buy them...some of this music is known to us but doesn't play an active part in our musical culture.


Beatles songs are still covered today. All the time. And even in the pop music tradition which places more emphasis on writing and composing original works rather than perform the works of dead people.



Haydn70 said:


> We know of the songs but WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THEM OR LISTENS TO THEM? Virtually no one performs such music live and even if it were available on CD who would buy them...some of this music is known to us but doesn't play an active part in our musical culture.


Wow. The sheer ignorance in this comment is astounding.

The _entire culture of jazz_ revolves around covering songs from the 1920s, 30s, 40s, etc. Every jazz musician is expected to know these songs and be able to comp or improvise on them. They're called standards for a reason.

Let me again direct you to The Great American Songbook:



Haydn70 said:


> What a ridiculous comment.


Your incredibly short-sighted and uneducated series of rebuttals is quite accentuated by this pithy show of arrogance.


----------



## Art Rock

I think this is an interesting discussion. I just would like to remind several posters on both sides of the argument to remain civil to the other posters.


----------



## Haydn70

Nereffid said:


> I pretty much agree with this, but with one proviso. It's probably reasonable to say that few if any of those hits of 1921 were remembered 50 years later, in 1971. Whereas there's a fair handful of music from 1971 that's still well-known today. Yes, most of the music of 1971 is mostly forgotten now, but I suspect that the social and technological changes that occurred from the 1960s onwards might have brought about a small (but significant) change in the longevity of popular music and how it's remembered. Only time will tell!


Yes, technology has, to a certain degree, affected longevity...but not a truly significant level.

That is why I brought up a theoretical about a company putting out a set of recordings of the Greatest Hits from the first four decades of last century. We can say the same about a company in 2060 doing the same. In other words, technology attempts to serve the continuation and ongoing appreciation of pop music of century before. And it will do no good.

And I respectfully disagree about social changes making a difference. People hear a particular song and like it, hate it, love it, etc. Virtually no one is going to take social changes into account when listening to pop song written 100 years ago or 10 days ago.


----------



## ArtMusic

janxharris said:


> Mozart sull'aria is quite straightforward too - are you suggesting it's inferior to LVB's 5th? Surely, when attempting to make such objective assertions as you are then you need to compare like with like? If you keep things subjective then you can compare whatever you want.


Great works can be difficult to compare, for example Bach's _Art of Fugue_ versus _Musical Offering_. It is best reserved for the most able musicians and music professors. But we should be artistically honest that it is not difficult to surmise that both of these works are greater than pop music. So I would encourage posters to be mindful of analogies.


----------



## Haydn70

chu42 said:


> But you don't know much about non-classical music, do you? So you couldn't possibly imagine how anything non-classical could manage to survive more than a decade a best.


I got in my first rock band in 1967 and played in such bands for a couple of decades while I was working on my music degrees. I am happy anytime to discuss popular music with you.

Too bad Art Music posted about keeping things civil...would love to tell you...whatever...


----------



## ArtMusic

Nereffid said:


> I pretty much agree with this, but with one proviso. It's probably reasonable to say that few if any of those hits of 1921 were remembered 50 years later, in 1971. Whereas there's a fair handful of music from 1971 that's still well-known today. Yes, most of the music of 1971 is mostly forgotten now, but I suspect that the social and technological changes that occurred from the 1960s onwards might have brought about a small (but significant) change in the longevity of popular music and how it's remembered. Only time will tell!


Indeed time will tell. If a composition is now mostly forgotten or only listened to by a tiny group of listeners say since fifty plus years from its premiere, then the likelihood of it suddenly being resurrected is small. There is a natural inherent beauty of good music, just like blossoms of beautiful colorful flowers, that attracts ears. The most popular music today by Justine Bieber or a Korean pop-band are most likely to be forgotten in the year 2220.


----------



## chu42

Haydn70 said:


> I got in my first rock band in 1967 and played in such bands for a couple of decades while I was working on my music degrees. I am happy anytime to discuss popular music with you.
> 
> Too bad Art Music posted about keeping things civil...would love to tell you...whatever...


Oh, so you consider yourself well-educated in popular music. That makes this conversation all the more embarrassing then.

Music degrees, rock bands...and somehow you're not aware that the what you call the "forgotten" 1920s and 30s hits are in the essential repertoire for pretty much every jazz and Broadway student.



> We know of the songs but WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THEM OR LISTENS TO THEM? Virtually no one performs such music live and even if it were available on CD who would buy them...some of this music is known to us but doesn't play an active part in our musical culture.


I get it, rock and jazz aren't the same thing. But before you make a silly comment like that...educate yourself.


----------



## Haydn70

chu42 said:


> Ask any young person to name a Schubert lieder. Ask any young person to name a Puccini opera. Hahahaha.


Since most young people are ignoramuses regarding classical music, that is an absurd comment.

You might consider taking a class in logic and learn how to actually hold a rational and logical discussion.


----------



## Haydn70

chu42 said:


> Yet somehow you're not aware that the what you call the "forgotten" 1920s and 30s hits are in the essential repertoire for pretty much every jazz and Broadway student.
> 
> I get it, rock and jazz aren't the same thing. But before you make a silly comment like that...educate yourself.


Ah, the arrogance of the young and ignorant.


----------



## SanAntone

Haydn70 said:


> What a ridiculous comment.
> 
> The people that are listening to pop music of the 50s, 60s, 80s music are listening because that is the music they grew up with...and there are plenty of people of those generations that are still alive. When they pass, eventually so will their music.
> 
> Tell me chu42, anyone you know listening to these tunes? Here are the big hits of 1921:
> 
> "Ain't We Got Fun?" w.m. Richard A. Whiting, Raymond Egan & Gus Kahn
> *"All by Myself" w.m. Irving Berlin*
> "And Her Mother Came Too" w. Dion Titheradge m. Ivor Novello
> "Any Time" w.m. Herbert Happy Lawson
> *"April Showers" w. B. G. De Sylva m. Louis Silvers*
> "Baltimore Buzz" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake
> "Bandana Days" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake
> "Bimini Bay" w. Gus Kahn & Raymond Egan m. Richard Whiting
> *"Boy Wanted" w. Ira Gershwin m. George Gershwin*
> "Dancing Time" w.(Eng) George Grossmith, Jr. (US) Howard Dietz m. Jerome Kern US words written 1924.
> "Dapper Dan" w. Lew Brown m. Albert Von Tilzer
> "Dear Old Southland" w. Henry Creamer m. Turner Layton
> "Down South" w. B. G. DeSylva m. Walter Donaldson. Introduced by Al Jolson in the musical Bombo
> "Down Yonder" w.m. L. Wolfe Gilbert
> "Everybody Step" w.m. Irving BerlinHawaiianChimes.jpg
> "Hawaiian Chimes" w. Irving Bibo m. Eva Applefield
> "I Ain't Nobody's Darling" w. Elmer Hughes m. Robert A. King
> "I Found A Rose In The Devil's Garden" w.m. Fred Fisher & Willie Raskin
> "I Wonder If You Still Care For Me" w.m. Harry B. Smith & Francis Wheeler
> "I'll Forget You" w. Annelu Burns m. Ernest R. Ball
> *"I'm Just Wild About Harry" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake*
> "I'm Missin' Mammy's Kissin'" w. Sidney Clare m. Lew Pollack
> "I'm Nobody's Baby" w.m. Benny Davis, Milton Ager & Lester Santly
> "Jazz Me Blues" m. Tom Delaney
> "Keep Movin'" Helen Trix
> "Kitten On The Keys" m. Zez Confrey
> "Laughin' Rag" S. Moore, H. Skinner
> "Learn To Smile" w. Otto Harbach m. Louis A. Hirsch
> "Leave Me With A Smile" w.m. Charles Koehler & Earl Burtnett
> "Love Will Find A Way" w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie BlakeHomeAgainBlues.jpg
> *"Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me" w. Sidney Clare m. Con Conrad*
> "Make Believe" w. Benny Davis m. Jack Shilkret
> "Mandy 'N' Me" w. Bert Kalmar m. Con Conrad
> "My Sunny Tennessee" w.m. Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby & Herman Ruby
> "Peggy O'Neill" w.m. Harry Pease, Ed G. Nelson & Gilbert Dodge
> "Sally" w. Clifford Grey m. Jerome Kern
> "Say It With Music" w.m. Irving Berlin
> *"Second Hand Rose" w. Grant Clarke m. James F. Hanley*
> *"The Sheik of Araby" w. Harry B. Smith & Francis Wheeler m. Ted Snyder*
> "She's Mine, All Mine" w.m. Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby
> *"Shuffle Along w.m. Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake*
> "Shimmy With Me" w. P. G. Wodehouse m. Jerome Kern from the musical The Cabaret Girl
> "Song Of Love" w. Dorothy Donnelly m. Sigmund Romberg
> "Strut Miss Lizzie" w. Henry Creamer m. Turner Layton
> "Swanee River Moon" w.m. H. Pitman Clarke
> "Sweet Lady" w. Howard Johnson m. Frank Crumit & Dave Zoob
> "Ten Little Fingers And Ten Little Toes" w. Harry Pease & Johnny White m. Ira Schuster & Ed G. Nelson
> *"There'll Be Some Changes Made" w. Billy Higgins m. Benton Overstreet*
> "Tuck Me To Sleep In My Old 'Tucky Home" w. Sam H. Lewis & Joe Young m. George W. Meyer
> *"Wabash Blues" w. Dave Ringle m. Fred Meinken*
> "When Big Profundo Sang Low C" w. Marion T. Bohannon m. George Botsford
> "When Buddha Smiles" w. Arthur Freed m. Nacio Herb Brown
> "When Francis Dances With Me" w. Ben Ryan m. Sol Violinsky
> "When Shall We Meet Again" w. Raymond B. Egan m. Richard A. Whiting
> "Whip-poor-will" w. B. G. De Sylva m. Jerome Kern
> "Yoo-Hoo" w. B. G. De Sylva m. Al Jolson
> 
> These songs, a few of which many here will recognize, at least the titles, play no role in the contemporary listening scene. The HUGE majority of listeners under the age of 50 have no idea of these songs. The people that listened to them and enjoyed them have passed...and so has this music.
> 
> Very few products of popular culture transcend their own time, their own time defined by the lifespan of the people who grew up with the particular product. True, there are people in their 20s and 30s who like 60s and 70s music--usually because their parents grew up with it, love it and play it and they (the children) grow to love it--but with each passing generation, the music fades out and is eventually of no interest to anyone. Most people in their teens and 20s just care about current music and take that music through their lives.
> 
> Or ask yourself this: if a company were to put out a set of recordings of the Greatest Hits from the period 1900-1920 or the period 1920-1940, how many people would buy them? Virtually none.
> 
> By 2062 people will KNOW of the Beatles and will know of some of their songs, just as many people now know the names and the melodies of popular songs from the 1910's, 1920s, etc. (And I think the only reason we know them is because of their use in period movies.) We know of the songs but WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THEM OR LISTENS TO THEM? Virtually no one performs such music live and even if it were available on CD who would buy them...some of this music is known to us but doesn't play an active part in our musical culture.


I've bolded the songs which are still performed today, and I will listen to them somewhat often if they appear on a jazz record or some other recording of singers of theater music. There has been jazz recorded in 1921, and before, that is still listened to, King Oliver, Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and others.

We are coming up to Duke Ellington's and Jelly Roll Morton's recording debuts, 1924 and 1923, respectively. Their music continues to and will continue to be listened to.

"Crazy Blues" w.m. Percy Bradford, recorded by Mamie Smith was released in 1920 - it is a milestone in Blues recordings and appears on most compilations still. Speaking of Blues, the 20s and 30s contain most of the legendary Acoustic Blues recordings:

1923---Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith 
1925/1926---Blind Lemon Jefferson 
1927---Blind Willie McTell
1928---Recording debut of Tommy Johnson, Robert Wilkins, Cannon's Jug Stompers, Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell
1929---Charley Patton
1930---Bukka White & Son House
1933---1st. Leadbelly sides
1935---1st. discs by Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Gary Davis, Casey Bill, Washboard Sam & Poor/Big Joe Williams.
1936---Robert Johnson's 1st. records.

These Blues recordings will continue to be listened to for the foreseeable future.


----------



## chu42

Haydn70 said:


> Since most young people are ignoramuses regarding classical music, that is an absurd comment.


And most young people are ignoramuses regarding 20s and 30s music, so please tell me why it's relevant that young people can't name songs from the 20s and 30s?



Haydn70 said:


> You might consider taking a class in logic and learn how to actually hold a rational and logical discussion.


_Hilarious._ When I just had to explain to you what jazz was. You know, one of the most defining musical cultures of the 20th century.

Keep projecting, my libertarian friend.


----------



## chu42

Haydn70 said:


> Ah, the arrogance of the young and ignorant.


You don't think it's incredibly ignorant to claim that "nobody plays 20s and 30s songs anymore" when it's literally what jazz revolves around doing?

Can you just admit that you didn't even know what jazz standards are?

Let me help you out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_standard

Be glad that there aren't very many jazz musicians in this forum; they would tear you to shreds.


----------



## ArtMusic

chu42 said:


> You don't think it's incredibly ignorant to claim that "nobody plays 20s and 30s songs anymore" when it's literally what jazz revolves around doing?
> 
> Can you just admit that you didn't even know what jazz standards are?
> 
> Let me help you out:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_standard
> 
> Be glad that there aren't very many jazz musicians in this forum; they would tear you to shreds.


I read Haydn70's post as meaning that few people play those songs as they were originally, not as meaning that other genres went into oblivion with it.


----------



## SanAntone

Oh, and I forgot the Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings - these will remain current for many decades to come:

_The Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions _were recorded between 1925 and 1928 by Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five and Hot Seven groups. *According to the National Recording Registry, "Louis Armstrong was jazz's first great soloist and is among American music's most important and influential figures. These sessions, his solos in particular, set a standard musicians still strive to equal in their beauty and innovation." *These recordings were added to the National Recording Registry in 2002, the first year of the institution's existence.


----------



## chu42

Haydn70 said:


> We know of the songs but WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THEM OR LISTENS TO THEM? Virtually no one performs such music live and even if it were available on CD who would buy them...some of this music is known to us but doesn't play an active part in our musical culture.


The most recorded jazz standard today is "Body and Soul" by Jonny Greene, _composed in 1930._

The most recorded jazz standard today composed by a jazz musician is "Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk, _composed in 1944._

Imagine being this wrong and still holding on to your beliefs like a puppy latching onto a stick without even knowing why.

I also remember you being quite speechless when I provided hard evidence for the canonization of certain avant-garde composers. Continue to enjoy that little world that you live in, but try to come outside once in a while.


----------



## hammeredklavier

chu42 said:


> Tell me, who listens to the thousands of symphonies and string quartets from Salieri, Krommer, Gryowetz Stamitz, Baguer, Pleyel, Rosetti, Gossec, Kozeluch, Herschel, or Wranitzky?


There are actually more people listening to these composers than, say, Stockhausen (whose music is more appropriate as horror film OST) on youtube. Gossec's gavotte is still a "big hit" even to this day.



Woodduck said:


> If you like Danzi's wind ensemble pieces, try Franz Krommer's (1759-1831). I think I prefer his works - a little weightier, maybe.


----------



## chu42

ArtMusic said:


> I read Haydn70's post as meaning that few people play those songs as they were originally, not as meaning that other genres went into oblivion with it.


Sorry, that's not what his post said. He said that these works are no longer part of the active musical culture, and many of them clearly are.

He never talked about playing them as they were originally written, which is something that has never _ever _been part of the pop or jazz tradition and therefore would be a moot point.

I'm not sure anybody _at all_ plays pop or jazz in their original conception. People hardly even publish original scores for this kind of music.

Only the original artist ever plays a work as it was written originally, and even the same artist will often change fundamental elements of a work when performing themselves.


----------



## chu42

hammeredklavier said:


> There are actually more people listening to these composers than, say, Stockhausen (whose music is more appropriate as horror film OST) on youtube. Gossec's gavotte is actually still a "big hit" even to this day.


Debatable and would require some hard numbers, but it's conceivably true. Both are highly niche markets.


----------



## Strange Magic

Leaving aside for the moment the issue of what music is "better" than which, we should note again the constant increase in size of the entire musical pie. Most everybody's existing slice of the pie keeps getting smaller both because of the passage of time and the accumulation of past (and passed) genres, but also by the constant addition of new genres featuring new artists. It's just the way things are (the New Stasis). This relentless expansion tends to render less and less important or impactful debates over which genre is "best". This latest observation courtesy of the NYTimes:

"*The new hubs of pop music*

By many measures, Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican reggaeton performer, is the world's biggest pop star. And he's part of a larger shift: the diversification of pop stardom. A realm that's historically been dominated by English-speaking acts - like the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey - no longer is.

"A growing number of the biggest pop stars in the world are from outside the traditional capitals of the continental U.S. and U.K.," Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg writes. According to Bloomberg's most recent Pop Star Power rankings - based on album sales, digital streams, YouTube views and more - five of the 25 biggest current pop stars are from Puerto Rico. Another seven are from Colombia, India or South Korea. YouTube is another place where English-speaking acts are losing their dominance, as Tim Ingham writes in Rolling Stone.

In part, the trend reflects the global popularity of Latin music like reggaeton and of Korean music, notably K-pop. The band BTS, for example, held a two-day online concert event in October that sold nearly a million tickets across almost 200 countries, Variety reported.

The trend also reflects the growth of the world's consumer markets, like India's. When we checked the YouTube ranking yesterday, six of the top 10 artists on YouTube's global charts were from India; the others were from Puerto Rico, Colombia or South Korea."


----------



## SanAntone

chu42 said:


> You don't think it's incredibly ignorant to claim that "nobody plays 20s and 30s songs anymore" when it's literally what jazz revolves around doing?
> 
> Can you just admit that you didn't even know what jazz standards are?
> 
> Let me help you out:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_standard
> 
> Be glad that there aren't very many jazz musicians in this forum; they would tear you to shreds.


I made my living for 20 years as a jazz bassist. Our sets were made up of a mix of originals and many standards, songs written from the 30s-60s. There is a long tradition of using the form and chord progressions of popular songs for new jazz tunes, as well. 'Rhythm changes" were based on the song I've Got Rhythm (Gershwin). Other standards such as Indiana,and How High the Moon were used by Charlie Parker to create new Bebop tunes, Donna Lee (Indiana) and Ornithology (How High the Moon).

The Great American Songbook, popular songs from the 30s-60s make up a canon of its own, and the composer Alec Wilder has written an excellent book about this repertory.

Anyone attempting to show the short shelf life of "pop" songs by citing this body of music only exposes their ignorance.


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## Haydn70

Deleted......................................


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## milk

chu42 said:


> I wonder how many people said the same thing about the Beatles, or Frank Sinatra, or Simon & Garfunkel.
> 
> Sure, not all top pop artists will be remembered. But not all top classical composers were remembered either.
> 
> Moszkowski, Salieri, Rubinstein, Marschner, and Raff were some of the very biggest names of their respective eras and they are now only occasionally programmed.


I have a doubt that the music is made to be remembered for posterity. But I live in Asia where pop music, J-pop and K-pop, is created for youth by middle-aged men at management companies. The members of the performing groups are replaceable. I kind of think the music is made to be deleted and replaced as well. It's like, whose tweets are going to be remembered? Aside from a few obvious ones.


----------



## SanAntone

milk said:


> I have a doubt that the music is made to be remembered for posterity. But I live in Asia where pop music, J-pop and K-pop, is created for youth by middle-aged men at management companies. The members of the performing groups are replaceable. I kind of think the music is made to be deleted and replaced as well. It's like, whose tweets are going to be remembered? Aside from a few obvious ones.


That may describe _some_ pop music, but not all of it. As we have shown, there are some popular standards which have lasting appeal and were written with more care and expertise than the kind you are describing.


----------



## Captainnumber36

Who really cares in the end. You should listen to what you enjoy, once humans are no more, it's not going to matter anyway.


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## ArtMusic

There are more pop music artists today around the world than any specific heyday year of classical music (i.e. any one single year). The vast majority of the pop music artists today will not be remembered to the degree that Mozart, Verdi, Puccini are remembered for operas as an example. Lesser pop groups are manufactured by companies to make profits, and profits alone. Great composers created operas to make profits, steer the genre to their liking and set a lasting legacy. I very much doubt the greatness of Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Handel, Rossini etc. will ever be forgotten for the simple reason that their music are great.


----------



## ArtMusic

Captainnumber36 said:


> Who really cares in the end. You should listen to what you enjoy, once humans are no more, it's not going to matter anyway.


True but it matters to me that I am listening to great works of art.


----------



## RogerWaters

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> If human beings define what is right and wrong, then we can all absolutely anything right. So harming children can be defined as good, since we are making it up, we can define it however we like.
> 
> Also no society or country can call another society/country wrong for what they do, because each society/country is just making it up. So you cant say the Nazi's were wrong. You can say they were wrong according to your made up opinion but who cares what you think? Your personal human opinion holds no authority.
> 
> In your worldview right and wrong cannot exist.
> 
> The same as beauty, if human beings decide what it is it leads to chaos and absurdity. But because you have anti-God commitments I understand that you have to be consistent. Just please be consistent and let everyone see the results of your beliefs.


Translation: "If X is true, then that would be bad, therefore X can't be true".

What terrible reasoning. You are basically saying that:

If morality (or artistic taste, or whatever) is ultimately arbitrary/not defined by God/the Cosmos, then anything could be Good, but this would be awkward so morality (or artistic taste, etc.) CAN'T be arbitrary.

Compare this to:

If madness is caused by brain abnormalities and not demonic possession, then we couldn't cure mad people by taking them to church, but this would be really awkward and would suck for us because we don't yet understand the brain enough to cure madness, so madness CAN'T be cause by brain abnormalities.


----------



## Captainnumber36

ArtMusic said:


> True but it matters to me that I am listening to great works of art.


You're setting an artificial boundary of what defines great art. There is no one objective measure to qualify "great art". Different art achieves different things.


----------



## Captainnumber36

Just because something has shown to be timeless, that doesn't mean it won't someday be forgotten, not that this is an important measure to me as a listener, at least, but it could be for someone else.

The only thing that matters for me is if I love it or not.


----------



## chu42

ArtMusic said:


> True but it matters to me that I am listening to great works of art.


Yes. It matters to me too. There are works that I consider great; but since this distinction is different for everybody, one cannot say that it is objective.

Sometimes the works I really like lines up with the works that other people like. I attribute this to my tastes being similar to that of other people, and not any sort of inherent greatness in the work.


----------



## Captainnumber36

chu42 said:


> Yes. It matters to me too. There are works that I consider great; but since this distinction is different for everybody, one cannot say that it is objective.
> 
> Sometimes the works I really like lines up with the works that other people like. I attribute this to my tastes being similar to that of other people, and not any sort of inherent greatness in the work.


Exactly!


----------



## milk

SanAntone said:


> That may describe _some_ pop music, but not all of it. As we have shown, there are some popular standards which have lasting appeal and were written with more care and expertise than the kind you are describing.


 yes, you're right. (BTW: I was a band guy for many years and tried pretty hard. Touring and such. After I realized I didn't have the goods I continued listening to "popular" (indie) music. Somewhere a long the way I heard the Goldberg Variations and that's where my adventure with classical began.) I personally still find popular music to be indispensable to my life. I have a friend who thinks authenticity, as in what aligns with a composer/performer's real beliefs, emotions and experience can be detected in music. But it doesn't sound more objective than anything else. Does anyone here watch *Rick Beato's* videos? He does address some of the ways chord structure has been simplified in a way that makes lawsuits hard to win - in terms of who's stealing what from whom.


----------



## DaveM

Since others are continuing to repeat their opinion over and over on the 'objectivity and alleged great works' question, I'll repeat mine (adding that I'm referring to the 'common practice period'):
There is objective evidence to support the fact that certain classical works are great works *and it doesn't have to do with whether I like them or think they are great.* I am dismayed that anyone who has had a long, educated experience with classical composers and their music who thinks otherwise.


----------



## Captainnumber36

DaveM said:


> Since others are continuing to repeat their opinion over and over on the 'objectivity and alleged great works' question, I'll repeat mine:
> There is objective evidence to support the fact that certain classical works are great works *and it doesn't have to do with whether I like them or think they are great.* I am dismayed at anyone who has had a long, educated experience with classical composers and their music who thinks otherwise.


What are those objective measures?


----------



## Captainnumber36

Perhaps you stated it earlier in the thread, but I missed it.


----------



## DaveM

Captainnumber36 said:


> Perhaps you stated it earlier in the thread, but I missed it.


I did and you did.


----------



## Captainnumber36

DaveM said:


> I did and you did.


Being that I most likely won't be convinced anyways, I don't think I'll search it out.


----------



## Luchesi

chu42 said:


> Um, yes. That's what people do. Don't be so naive as to think that classical music is the only music that can be studied.


the only music that can be studied? Did you mean to ask that?


----------



## Captainnumber36

I think a solid conclusion to this thread is, if you want to believe there is definitive better art than others go ahead. If you want to remain open to other's tastes and think the only art that is great is what you love, then be it. btw, the latter is way more chill!


----------



## Luchesi

Nereffid said:


> I pretty much agree with this, but with one proviso. It's probably reasonable to say that few if any of those hits of 1921 were remembered 50 years later, in 1971. Whereas there's a fair handful of music from 1971 that's still well-known today. Yes, most of the music of 1971 is mostly forgotten now, but I suspect that the social and technological changes that occurred from the 1960s onwards might have brought about a small (but significant) change in the longevity of popular music and how it's remembered. Only time will tell!


People who study music study the old standards. People who don't study music, I don't know..


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

DaveM said:


> Since others are continuing to repeat their opinion over and over on the 'objectivity and alleged great works' question, I'll repeat mine (adding that I'm referring to the 'common practice period'):
> There is objective evidence to support the fact that certain classical works are great works *and it doesn't have to do with whether I like them or think they are great.* I am dismayed that anyone who has had a long, educated experience with classical composers and their music who thinks otherwise.


While I greatly sympathize with your stance, and I feel the same way about the undisputed greatness of my favourite works in classical music, I do not see a path from personal like to objective evidence. I have looked long and hard and have failed to find any objective measures by which to judge the intrinsic quality of music. We can agree on certain attributes by which to judge music but their selection would be a subjective, not objective, choice.


----------



## Luchesi

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> While I greatly sympathize with your stance, and I feel the same way about the undisputed greatness of my favourite works in classical music, I do not see a path from personal like to objective evidence. I have looked long and hard and have failed to find any objective measures by which to judge the intrinsic quality of music. We can agree on certain attributes by which to judge music but their selection would be a subjective, not objective, choice.


So, why study the achievements of the masters if it's as subjective a topic as favorite foods or favorite spectator sport?


----------



## Captainnumber36

Luchesi said:


> So, why study the achievements of the masters if it's as subjective a topic as favorite foods or favorite spectator sport?


You can study any Artist you choose.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Luchesi said:


> So, why study the achievements of the masters if it's as subjective a topic as favorite foods or favorite spectator sport?


Are you saying the only subject worth studying is that which has undisputed objective measures by which to be judged?


----------



## Luchesi

Captainnumber36 said:


> You can study any Artist you choose.


Are you saying that I should learn merely about what I like? That's not what we do in other fields.


----------



## Luchesi

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Are you saying the only subject worth studying is that which has undisputed objective measures by which to be judged?


Yes. We want to discover why CM is better.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Luchesi said:


> Yes. We want to discover why CM is better.


That's not the question I asked.


----------



## Captainnumber36

Luchesi said:


> Are you saying that I should learn merely about what I like? That's not what we do in other fields.


It depends if you are just a fan or following a scholarly trade.


----------



## Luchesi

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> That's not the question I asked.


I answered, yes. Can we study the triggers of subjective tastes? Whose tastes? An adolescent music lover or an old collector?, etc. etc. You waste your time.


----------



## Luchesi

Captainnumber36 said:


> It depends if you are just a fan or following a scholarly trade.


You're right, a fan would just let the sounds wash over them.


----------



## DaveM

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> While I greatly sympathize with your stance, and I feel the same way about the undisputed greatness of my favourite works in classical music, I do not see a path from personal like to objective evidence. I have looked long and hard and have failed to find any objective measures by which to judge the intrinsic quality of music. We can agree on certain attributes by which to judge music but their selection would be a subjective, not objective, choice.


I'm confused by the 'undisputed greatness' part of your comment. 'Undisputed' infers that no one disputes the greatness of your favorite works which would conflict with your conclusions.


----------



## chu42

DaveM said:


> I'm confused by the 'undisputed greatness' part of your comment. 'Undisputed' infers that no one disputes the greatness of your favorite works which would conflict with your conclusions.


For the sake of the discussion, let's not take it too literally. TwoFlutes merely means the works that have near unanimous approval, such as Beethoven's 9th or St. Matthew's Passion. They can credibly (to use your helpful term) be said to have undisputed approval.

Agreed?


----------



## chu42

DaveM said:


> Since others are continuing to repeat their opinion over and over on the 'objectivity and alleged great works' question, I'll repeat mine (adding that I'm referring to the 'common practice period'):
> There is objective evidence to support the fact that certain classical works are great works *and it doesn't have to do with whether I like them or think they are great.* I am dismayed that anyone who has had a long, educated experience with classical composers and their music who thinks otherwise.


There may be fairly objective evidence in a certain context; perhaps under the common practice period, or maybe certain Gregorian chants are great under medieval voice-leading conventions.

But there will never be one all-encompassing standard that humanity can judge all music by. And that's what's required to be truly objective.

The user William Theophilus bravely tried to take the theological route and portray this standard as God; but this also was a fruitless endeavor since by Judeo-Christian values, all human creation is infinitely inferior compared to God and thus all equally meaningless from a metaphysical point of view.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

DaveM said:


> I'm confused by the 'undisputed greatness' part of your comment. 'Undisputed' infers that no one disputes the greatness of your favorite works which would conflict with your conclusions.


There is no conflict in my statement. I used the term undisputed greatness in the context of my subjective estimation. But I do see how you can interpret "undisputed" to mean objective, which in retrospect was probably not the right word to use. Let's agree that in the context used "undisputed greatness" refers to the consensus among knowledgeable assessors.


----------



## milk

Luchesi said:


> People who study music study the old standards. People who don't study music, I don't know..


I've a musicologist acquaintance who wrote his dissertation on Japanese noise rock. Go figure.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> You're right, a fan would just let the sounds wash over them.


Put me down as a fan of CM (and several other genres)! Most of me lets the sounds wash over me while another part reflects on the experience, context, memories, a whole bunch of the sorts of things that fill the human mind when contemplating/experiencing art. These things come in waves, often triggered by the evolution of the musical flow.


----------



## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> You're right, a fan would just let the sounds wash over them.


You say that as if it were a bad thing.

Listening to music is what I do. I don't care about the process that created it. I don't care about whether it is great music or not. I am interested, excited, captivated, enthralled with the sound of it.

Music is sound to be heard and appreciated by someone in whatever way they choose.


----------



## ArtMusic

Captainnumber36 said:


> You're setting an artificial boundary of what defines great art. There is no one objective measure to qualify "great art". Different art achieves different things.


The fact remains that the words "great works of art" have, and will always be, terms that human being use to describe works of art. It's simply part of the culture of art appreciation.


----------



## ArtMusic

Luchesi said:


> So, why study the achievements of the masters if it's as subjective a topic as favorite foods or favorite spectator sport?


Exactly. It's what art schools now teach since the 1950's, that of "egalitarianism". Why does Mother Nature produce rich, colorful flowers say after a storm in a baking hot dessert, flowers that "miraculously" appeal to insects and the human eye? The same trigger of enjoyment naturally bestows from works of good art.


----------



## milk

chu42 said:


> There may be fairly objective evidence in a certain context; perhaps under the common practice period, or maybe certain Gregorian chants are great under medieval voice-leading conventions.
> 
> But there will never be one all-encompassing standard that humanity can judge all music by. And that's what's required to be truly objective.
> 
> The user William Theophilus bravely tried to take the theological route and portray this standard as God; but this also was a fruitless endeavor since by Judeo-Christian values, all human creation is infinitely inferior compared to God and thus all equally meaningless from a metaphysical point of view.


 that seems a bit Protestant. I suspect there are more philosophical reasons against god as the guarantor of objectivity but I'm not sure what they are.


----------



## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> So, why study the achievements of the masters if it's as subjective a topic as favorite foods or favorite spectator sport?


Because studying the masters is a separate activity to listening to music. The masters are studied in order to teach those who wish to be composers their craft. Or to teach those who wish to be musicologists, or performers, or any professional musician how to analyze a score, the historical context that produced the score, performance practice, and interpretative skills, etc.

But none of that is necessary for someone to listen to a piece of music and get something out of it. We all don't have to go to music school in order to enjoy a Beethoven piano sonata.


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## Phil loves classical

I liken Classical music to poetry, like Shakespeare, Keats, etc. and Popular music in general to prose, as in something more informal and earthy. Classical music is more virtuosic in general. Popular music is more about Attitude, which comes out more crudely and up front than in Classical, which is more calculated or studied. 

Really, how can a Bach fugue compare with 3-chord rock/pop? Or as in a previous example, Bach's Prelude in C in WTC makes better pop music already than easily 95% of Pop.


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## chu42

Phil loves classical said:


> Really, how can a Bach fugue compare with 3-chord rock/pop? Or as in a previous example, Bach's Prelude in C in WTC makes better pop music already than easily 95% of Pop.


This is true from a purely harmonic sense. Pop music is often regressive in its usage of already-developed harmonic ideas, because simpler progressions tend to stick in the minds of more people.

However, there is a great deal of innovation made in the production and the synthesizing of popular music every year, and there is no equivalent to this in classical except perhaps in the very avant-garde.

Another element of popular music that is often neglected in this discussion is the visual aspect of it. Producers and artists put millions of dollars into designing, choreographing, and editing set pieces that are just as much part of popular music as the sounds themselves.

Take a look at this video-perhaps we might not think much of the music, but I believe that the visuals show a lot of artistic thought and require high-end talent and meticulous planning.






A certain group known as much for their dance choreography as the music itself is BTS, which is quite evident in the video below. Anybody who has ever attempted dancing or synchronized dancing knows how incredibly difficult it is to pull off this kind of large-scale setpiece.






Or what about the eccentric visual humor present in a group such as World Order? There are no such equivalents in the classical music experience.






Again, I do prefer classical to pop but I don't think the two can be compared objectively. Different goals, different conventions, different demographics.


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> Interestingly I've heard lots of people commenting Bach's Prelude in C in WTC sounds like modern pop, including one lecturer, except with more extensive chord progressions of course.


I'm not sure if anyone said that about Bach's Prelude in C in WTC (I assume you mean the one from book 1)

Did you actually mean:
"In 2002, pop music producer Pete Waterman described Canon in D as "almost the godfather of pop music because we've all used that in our own ways for the past 30 years"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachelbel's_Canon
Or what Jeremy Denk says about Bach's goldbergs in this video, at 1:05
https://www.npr.org/sections/decept.../148769794/why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not sure if anyone said that about Bach's Prelude in C in WTC (I assume you mean the one from book 1)
> 
> Did you actually mean:
> "In 2002, pop music producer Pete Waterman described Canon in D as "almost the godfather of pop music because we've all used that in our own ways for the past 30 years"."
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachelbel's_Canon
> Or what Jeremy Denk says about Bach's goldbergs in this video, at 1:05
> https://www.npr.org/sections/decept.../148769794/why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations


I saw a video of some guy talking to some kids in fact, like some intro to the piece for beginners. Also some of my relatives commented similarly.


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## Ethereality

Phil loves classical said:


> Or as in a previous example, Bach's Prelude in C in WTC makes better pop music already than easily 95% of Pop.





chu42 said:


> This is true from a purely harmonic sense.


More harmonies doesn't mean more sophisticated or opportune placement of harmony, considering how many other musical facets there are that complicate the dimensions of harmonic use. This just shows how little people know about writing in other, advanced styles; and advanced depends on the subjective niche of elements one is drawn to. So it's not a bad or a good thing. One may devalue the appearance of certain flowers or sunsets, that doesn't mean they're in denial. It just means they're different. There's certainly no logical reason one would come up with to appreciate a flower or a sunset, let alone some sounds from a keyboard. It's all just personal. The appreciation of complexity? Or the appreciation of root fundamentals? Bach Prelude in C? A large enough sample of audiophiles would laugh at that being compared to great modern music, but if another (Classical) group admits to favoring the work more, admitting it's subjective, there's nothing bad to say.


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## hammeredklavier

I've always found it fascinating. The piece is great as it is by itself, but also works perfectly as "harmony" for another melody:


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## Ethereality

And people saying something is fascinating causes a promotional bias upon certain types. Others apparently have an innate capacity on their own to determine what is great, good, decent, okay, etc.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

milk said:


> that seems a bit Protestant. I suspect there are more philosophical reasons against god as the guarantor of objectivity but I'm not sure what they are.


Excuse me, don't mention the G word please, or you will be going off topic.

what do you mean it seems a bit protestant?

there is no objective truth or beauty without (God), the moderators cant see it if its in brackets


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

chu42 said:


> The user William Theophilus bravely tried to take the theological route and portray this standard as God; but this also was a fruitless endeavor since by Judeo-Christian values,* all human creation is infinitely inferior compared to God and thus all equally meaningless from a metaphysical point of view*.


I still don't understand this but am open to be educated.


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## Art Rock

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I still don't understand this but am open to be educated.


Please educate or be educated in a separate thread in the appropriate forum, as asked before. Not in this thread.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Art Rock said:


> Please educate or be educated in a separate thread in the appropriate forum, as asked before. Not in this thread.


I'm not the one bringing it up. The conversation (which I haven't been involved in since you asked me to stop) keeps naturally going back to these things, maybe its unavoidable in order to answer the question posed in the thread.

The question is which is better. Better alludes to a standard, a measurement. so then we talk about where that standard/measurement comes from, mankind or divine. But were not allowed to because some peopled don't like it. So we cant answer the question.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus

Art Rock said:


> Please educate or be educated in a separate thread in the appropriate forum, as asked before. Not in this thread.


Also I think it would be fairer if you told users chu42 and milk to stay on subject when they're the ones bringing it up.


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## BabyGiraffe

I don't understand how some people can state that a simple keyboard piece is better (from complexity standpoint?) than most pop music. 
I would argue that even keyboard compositions that require virtuoso level of technique are simpler than most modern pop songs, because there are more musical dimensions in pop music (rhythms section, many more timbres, non-musical sound effects and lyrics).
It is sad that potentially the most casual listeners friendly type of classical music - opera - is not popular (because of excessive vibrato overusage?).


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## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Excuse me, don't mention the G word please, or you will be going off topic.
> 
> what do you mean it seems a bit protestant?
> 
> there is no objective truth or beauty without (God), the moderators cant see it if its in brackets


This invitation to fully air one's religious convictions, and to have others critique them, in the Religious Discussion Group downstairs remains always open.


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## Phil loves classical

BabyGiraffe said:


> I don't understand how some people can state that a simple keyboard piece is better (from complexity standpoint?) than most pop music.
> I would argue that even keyboard compositions that require virtuoso level of technique are simpler than most modern pop songs, because there are more musical dimensions in pop music (rhythms section, many more timbres, non-musical sound effects and lyrics).
> It is sad that potentially the most casual listeners friendly type of classical music - opera - is not popular (because of excessive vibrato overusage?).


You mean Bach's Prelude in C? Easy, it constantly evolves, unlike most Pop (a few chords for verse, a couple for chorus, another verse, chorus, bridge, chorus till fade). Those musical dimensions in Pop is just added layers of effects in production, idiosyncrasies in the singing, which can be the most interesting part, but doesn't really change much of the simple nature of the music.


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## janxharris

Phil loves classical said:


> You mean Bach's Prelude in C? Easy, it constantly evolves, unlike most Pop (a few chords for verse, a couple for chorus, another verse, chorus, bridge, chorus till fade). Those musical dimensions in Pop is just added layers of effects in production, idiosyncrasies in the singing, which can be the most interesting part, but doesn't really change much of the simple nature of the music.


You don't find the repetition of the figure used throughout the C major prelude irritating?


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## BabyGiraffe

Phil loves classical said:


> You mean Bach's Prelude in C? Easy, it constantly evolves, unlike most Pop (a few chords for verse, a couple for chorus, another verse, chorus, bridge, chorus till fade). Those musical dimensions in Pop is just added layers of effects in production, idiosyncrasies in the singing, which can be the most interesting part, but doesn't really change much of the simple nature of the music.


Music doesn't have to "evolve" at all. Anyway, you ignored the rhythm section and timbres part. 
The less compositional parameters you have, the more you have to work to make your composition not sound boring. A solo keyboard piece is always potentially more boring than a piece, performed by a whole music group (or something generated on a computer where you basically have no limitation in terms of performance or timbre control). You are right that pop music is usually formulaic, but this can be said for most baroque and classical music, so I don't see any problem - music is not a contest in originality.


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## Nereffid

Haydn70 said:


> Yes, technology has, to a certain degree, affected longevity...but not a truly significant level.
> 
> That is why I brought up a theoretical about a company putting out a set of recordings of the Greatest Hits from the first four decades of last century. We can say the same about a company in 2060 doing the same. In other words, technology attempts to serve the continuation and ongoing appreciation of pop music of century before. And it will do no good.
> 
> And I respectfully disagree about social changes making a difference. People hear a particular song and like it, hate it, love it, etc. Virtually no one is going to take social changes into account when listening to pop song written 100 years ago or 10 days ago.


I agree, if a company _now_ puts out a selection of songs from 100 years ago, there will be no interest. But I don't see that we can make the same claim for the future. Social changes, when combined with technological changes, will I think make a difference. The "invention" of teenagers, the increased availability of recordings rather than reliance on the radio, the cultural dominance of popular music, the rise of the internet and services such as Spotify, the increased interest in "nostalgia" and reference back to culture of the recent past, and so on indicate to me that the circumstances now for keeping alive the music of 50 years ago are very different from those that were in play in 1971. That's why I'd expect a bit more of the music to survive, and to survive for a bit longer.

Right now, my 18yo son is upstairs strumming the riff from Bowie's _Jean Genie_, which was released 29 years before he was born. This would be equivalent (chronologically speaking) to an 18yo Bowie in 1965 being interested in - what? George M Cohan's _Over There_, maybe?


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## SanAntone

Nereffid said:


> I agree, if a company _now_ puts out a selection of songs from 100 years ago, there will be no interest. _Over There_, maybe?


Willie Nelson will release his second collection of songs written in the 30s and 40s next week (not quite 100 years old, but will be in a few years). And it will no doubt sell more copies, and be streamed more, than the latest recording of a Beethoven symphony.

Artists regularly release these kinds of records, this music has proven to have lasting appeal.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

SanAntone said:


> Willis Nelson


Something about that is just too funny.


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## SanAntone

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Something about that is just too funny.


Yeh - it's still early for me. Corrected.


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## chu42

Haydn70 said:


> That is why I brought up a theoretical about a company putting out a set of recordings of the Greatest Hits from the first four decades of last century.





Nereffid said:


> I agree, if a company _now_ puts out a selection of songs from 100 years ago, there will be no interest.


A selection of songs from 80-100 years ago. 8.3 million views.






Classical musicians don't realize that these old songs are studied and required for repertoire in jazz/Broadway auditions much like how a Mozart sonata is required at a music conservatory.

They aren't just old songs that people listen to. They are an active part of the performing and improvisation culture in American non-classical music.


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## Nereffid

SanAntone said:


> Willie Nelson will release his second collection of songs written in the 30s and 40s next week (not quite 100 years old, but will be in a few years). And it will no doubt sell more copies, and be streamed more, than the latest recording of a Beethoven symphony.
> 
> Artists regularly release these kinds of records, this music has proven to have lasting appeal.


Yes, of course. Now that I think of it, I was more focused on original recordings rather than the songs themselves.

A few years ago I was very impressed with "The American Epic Sessions", which used 1920s technology for new versions of old songs. Nas's version of "On the Road Again" in particular was a reminder of how older songs can still seem contemporary.


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## SanAntone

Nereffid said:


> Yes, of course. Now that I think of it, I was more focused on original recordings rather than the songs themselves.
> 
> A few years ago I was very impressed with "The American Epic Sessions", which used 1920s technology for new versions of old songs. Nas's version of "On the Road Again" in particular was a reminder of how older songs can still seem contemporary.


That American Epic project was a documentary which also released a 100 track box. There has also been renewed interest in the _Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music_, which came out in 1952 containing songs, some of which date over 200 years back. New versions of about 20 of the songs were done by current artists.

I don't mean to harp on this, but there seemed to be some ignorance expressed by several members here concerning popular music from the early 20th century and how current it remains today.

The recording technology only became practical in the 20s and 30s, but much of the music dates from earlier decades, from the end of the 19th century, which was only documented when the technology was sufficiently developed. The first things recorded were Classical sides, Caruso and others. It was later that the recording companies focused on Blues, Jazz and Old Time Country music.


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## ArtMusic

Pop music is perhaps the largest umbrella term to describe a "genre". It is so diverse that it is logically impossible to suggest that every song written will ever be remembered by future masses to the extent that great classical music works are. Gangster rap music played in the hood come and go, but American jazz heritage maybe even of the same location, are here to stay. Something must be right about the latter and any other classical music that have stood the test of times.


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## larold

There seems to be a misperception that popular music only started in the 20th century. It existed long before that. 

If you ever sang "Aura Lee" in high school choir you know a song both sides sang around campfires during America's Civil War in the middle 1800s. If you know Aaron Copland's song "Long Time Ago" you know a (then called) Negro tune that slaves sang, a remembrance of life back home in Africa before they were kidnapped beginning in the 1700s. 

A great many American composers created compositions based on popular tunes of their day including Dvorak's New World symphony with its caricature of the tune "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" from the 1800s.

These examples only come from USA. In Europe in the 1700s a guy named Beethoven wrote a bunch of country dances that were popular in their time. Today we call them contradances.

Popular music didn't just arrive yesterday...though it did expand greatly with the growth of leisure time and electronics in the 20th century.


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## DaveM

One of my favorite 'pop' songs dating back as far as 1666.  What a melody!


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## SanAntone

larold said:


> There seems to be a misperception that popular music only started in the 20th century. It existed long before that.
> 
> If you ever sang "Aura Lee" in high school choir you know a song both sides sang around campfires during America's Civil War in the middle 1800s. If you know Aaron Copland's song "Long Time Ago" you know a (then called) Negro tune that slaves sang, a remembrance of life back home in Africa before they were kidnapped beginning in the 1700s.
> 
> A great many American composers created compositions based on popular tunes of their day including Dvorak's New World symphony with its caricature of the tune "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" from the 1800s.
> 
> These examples only come from USA. In Europe in the 1700s a guy named Beethoven wrote a bunch of country dances that were popular in their time. Today we call them contradances.
> 
> Popular music didn't just arrive yesterday...though it did expand greatly with the growth of leisure time and electronics in the 20th century.


This is true, and I mentioned it in earlier posts. I have been studying the history of the transplantation of the music from Scotland, Ireland and England to the Appalachian mountains when the early settlers brought it over. Coincidentally, Haydn and Beethoven set 100s of these same folk songs.

After a period of 100-200 years, this music formed the seedbed for Country and Old Time String Band music (20s & 30s), which led to Bluegrass (40s and beyond), Shaped-note singing, which became Gospel (early-19th century and beyond). Blues (late 19th century and beyond) was founded on different roots, a mixture of African roots, medicine shows and minstrels, and some hillbilly, all which also predate the 20th century.

The primary instruments were the fiddle, banjo and guitar.

Other ethnic musics also contributed, Mexican in Texas, German and other Eastern European in the mid-Atlantic states, Cajun (Acadian) in Louisiana. Nordic fiddle music is played in Minnesota and elsewhere in the Northwest.

These roots musics branched off to create all of America's popular music including Rock 'n' Roll, Modern Country, R&B, Jazz, and even Hip-Hop.


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## Ethereality

The famous song by Whitney Houston,_ I Will Always Love You_, shows one great example of the starkness in quality difference that exists between 'popular pop' like this, and all the diversity of higher quality music people tend to forget about. Most music is not that popular: At _500_ times less popularity than the Houston version, most music critics would agree that the original song is better in almost every way. But to imagine the original wasn't covered, nobody would remember it.

This is just an example of a common phenomenon: We can see from extrapolating this phenomenon at a more intricate and analytical level, there's a lot more unknown music of quality out there that is even less obvious, whether it be Classical or Pop. 'Pop' already comes with a negative stereotype that isn't as warranted as it seems. In other words, things that become 'popular' are not always that great: It doesn't need to be in a pop song, but excellence can be found in the most unusual places. Many greater composers and artists come to mind.


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## Alinde

DaveM said:


> One of my favorite 'pop' songs dating back as far as 1666.  What a melody!


Some of the loveliest songs are the popular songs that have lasted for centuries. I sing songs like "Barbara Allen", I play an arrangement of it for piano. Another favourite resource is the Great American Songbook.

I'm not claiming to be a particularly sophisticated listener/performer but, for real nourishment, I crave more complex music, more surprises, more development (as we can find in "Classical" music). BTW, I think "Classical" music, like the devil, also has the best tunes and, when it pinches popular tunes, it creates New Worlds from them.


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## fbjim

longevity isn't really the thing. there have been enormously influential musical aesthetic movements that have lasted a blip in real time but produced astonishing works, and periods which represented massive periods of static non-growth. a lot of what we consider musical longevity is just informed by social factors which bias sacred music (eg old plainchant/polyphonal masses) and music which gets passed on via social tradition (folk tunes). what's "right" about this music is that it fills its role but that's a separate question from aesthetic judgment


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## SanAntone

fbjim said:


> longevity isn't really the thing. there have been enormously influential musical aesthetic movements that have lasted a blip in real time but produced astonishing works, and periods which represented massive periods of static non-growth. a lot of what we consider musical longevity is just informed by social factors which bias sacred music (eg old plainchant/polyphonal masses) and music which gets passed on via social tradition (folk tunes). *what's "right" about this music is that it fills its role but that's a separate question from aesthetic judgment*


Exactly right.

Those people arguing that classical music is superior because it is "more complex" or uses development of ideas to create large works, are missing the point. While those attributes may be important to them, and provide them will more enjoyment than other forms of music, it is irrelevant.

Classical music occupies about 5% of the global music market. Obviously 95% of the time, people are listening to other kinds of music for different reasons and deriving much enjoyment from it. It is a subjective determination that classical music is superior to 95% of all other music.

It doesn't matter. We listen to music for our own reasons and no reason is better than any other. Whether we want to listen to rock because of the excitement we feel and how it makes our bodies move, or blues because of the quality it evokes in us, or jazz or classical - we listen to music for reasons that we cannot get from any other thing. Music is important to us. And it is wrong to claim that one music is superior to another music based on one set of criteria.


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## fbjim

ArtMusic said:


> Exactly. It's what art schools now teach since the 1950's, that of "egalitarianism". Why does Mother Nature produce rich, colorful flowers say after a storm in a baking hot dessert, flowers that "miraculously" appeal to insects and the human eye? The same trigger of enjoyment naturally bestows from works of good art.


i guess the obvious response here is what to do about great art music that is seemingly intentionally designed to repel.

I think "Tetras" by Xenakis is a great work. Rock is based on the electronic distortion of natural sounding guitar chords. The western musical scale adds dissonance to the natural pentatonic scale. Etc, etc, etc.


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## fbjim

SanAntone said:


> Exactly right.
> 
> Those people arguing that classical music is superior because it is "more complex" or uses development of ideas to create large works, are missing the point. While those attributes may be important to them, and provide them will more enjoyment than other forms of music, it is irrelevant.
> 
> Classical music occupies about 5% of the global music market. Obviously 95% of the time, people are listening to other kinds of music for different reasons and deriving much enjoyment from it. It is a subjective determination that classical music is superior to 95% of all other music.
> 
> It doesn't matter. We listen to music for our own reasons and no reason is better than any other. Whether we want to listen to rock because of the excitement we feel and how it makes our bodies move, or blues because of the quality it evokes in us, or jazz or classical - we listen to music for reasons that we cannot get from any other thing. Music is important to us. And it is wrong to claim that one music is superior to another music based on one set of criteria.


probably the most accurate thing i've heard about what art criticism is- a critic's job is to place a work into some form of context. this can just be the context of if the work is "good" in any given context of aesthetics, demonstrating the importance of the work in the context of wider artistic movements, discussing the cultural context of the work from a historical, or (especially in film criticism) feminist or Marxist perspective, etc. and that's why it's so difficult to just place classical music and popular music side by side and compare - the cultural context around the work and _the context with which listeners engage with the work_ is entirely different.

you even see this within classical music. the context of why a Baroque orchestral piece was written and why a Mahler symphony was written are completely different - string quartets went from being works intended for small audiences to being intended for large-scale concert hall performance - and so on.

i don't think this means it's actually necessary to evaluate a work strictly on how well it fulfills its purpose, otherwise we'd have to be Catholic to appreciate a Mass. the context of "I want to listen to things I, a westerner with all musical understanding and cultural biases of a 21st Century westerner, find aesthetically pleasing" is a completely valid way to approach this. but aesthetic pleasure is completely different from longevity, complexity, naturalism, etc - it's a whole mess of subjectivity and cultural biases that is just so hard to articulate in any objective terms - i mean, it's been however many thousands of years of music and we still have no clue what a "good melody" is.


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## amfortas

fbjim said:


> It's been however many thousands of years of music and we still have no clue what a "good melody" is.


As United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, "I can't define a good melody, but I know it when I see pornography."


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## Luchesi

fbjim said:


> probably the most accurate thing i've heard about what art criticism is- a critic's job is to place a work into some form of context. this can just be the context of if the work is "good" in any given context of aesthetics, demonstrating the importance of the work in the context of wider artistic movements, discussing the cultural context of the work from a historical, or (especially in film criticism) feminist or Marxist perspective, etc. and that's why it's so difficult to just place classical music and popular music side by side and compare - the cultural context around the work and _the context with which listeners engage with the work_ is entirely different.
> 
> you even see this within classical music. the context of why a Baroque orchestral piece was written and why a Mahler symphony was written are completely different - string quartets went from being works intended for small audiences to being intended for large-scale concert hall performance - and so on.
> 
> i don't think this means it's actually necessary to evaluate a work strictly on how well it fulfills its purpose, otherwise we'd have to be Catholic to appreciate a Mass. the context of "I want to listen to things I, a westerner with all musical understanding and cultural biases of a 21st Century westerner, find aesthetically pleasing" is a completely valid way to approach this. but aesthetic pleasure is completely different from longevity, complexity, naturalism, etc - it's a whole mess of subjectivity and cultural biases that is just so hard to articulate in any objective terms - i mean, it's been however many thousands of years of music and we still have no clue what a "good melody" is.


Yes, but I think we know what bad music is. If we're musicians and we don't know - then I would be puzzled by that musician and his background.. The casual listeners? I don't know, I've never been one. What is it that they hear? what can they evaluate?

Welcome to the forum


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## fbjim

well, *do* we know what "bad" music is? especially given how much the defintion of that changes over time? (see: disco)

you could say badly performed music, but even then you have people who will prefer the aesthetics of a sincere, "badly" sung piece over technical perfection (in terms of classical, Charles Ives was known for saying this)

and the funny thing is that actual musicians, i've found, frequently have the weirdest tastes as far as music goes.


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## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> Yes, but I think we know what bad music is. If we're musicians and we don't know - then I would be puzzled by that musician and his background.. The casual listeners? I don't know, I've never been one. What is it that they hear? what can they evaluate?


Musicians disagree about music and other musicians probably more than the average listener. How often do we read about composers or conductors criticizing other composers and conductors? It is subjective for musicians just as it is for everyone else. We all have our preferences and likes/dislikes.


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## Roger Knox

Luchesi said:


> Yes, but I think we know what bad music is. If we're musicians and we don't know - then I would be puzzled by that musician and his background.. The casual listeners? I don't know, I've never been one. What is it that they hear? what can they evaluate? ... Welcome to the forum


Yes, musicians can't function without notions of good and bad in music. Imagine the music student saying to the teacher: "Well, I like my scales bumpy, and you can't prove that smooth scales are better." Or the graduating pianist insisting on playing one work only -- Satie's _Vexations_ -- in the final recital, grieving every rejection up to the level of the President of the University, on the grounds that as a devout worshipper of Satie it was a personal requirement to play the piece, and that there were no objective grounds, or any grounds whatsoever, for rejection.


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## fbjim

some of the greatest artists are in fact those who specifically rejected institutionally-taught ideas of "correct" artistic practice


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Yes, but I think we know what bad music is. If we're musicians and we don't know - then I would be puzzled by that musician and his background.. The casual listeners? I don't know, I've never been one. What is it that they hear? what can they evaluate?


Yes. We each Individually know what, for us as individuals, "bad" music is. I know I do. I know what "good" music is also. No casual listener, I. I know exactly what I hear and evaluate. I was a casual listener when a small child, though.


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## SanAntone

Roger Knox said:


> Yes, musicians can't function without notions of good and bad in music. Imagine the music student saying to the teacher: "Well, I like my scales bumpy, and you can't prove that smooth scales are better." Or the graduating pianist insisting on playing one work only -- Satie's _Vexations_ -- in the final recital, grieving every rejection up to the level of the President of the University, on the grounds that as a devout worshipper of Satie it was a personal requirement to play the piece, and that there were no objective grounds, or any grounds whatsoever, for rejection.


This is a strawman argument.

Executing scales is a one tool used in learning to play an instrument, there is a right way and wrong way to play them. But that is very different and has nothing to do with one pianist saying that Erik Satie writes worthless music and ignoring his repertory and another pianist disagreeing, and going on to establish themselves as a specialist in the music of Satie. And students are not free to do what they please, but must conform to the curriculum and expectations of their professors. However, once they are out on their own and planning their careers, they are the captains of their own ship.

And, btw, there have been concerts of Satie's _Vexations_, not by one pianist but by a group taking turns over a 18 hour period to complete all 840 repetitions.

While there are established methods of performing the music from each period, that tells us nothing about the intrinsic quality of any of the music.


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## fbjim

if i had to reconcile this, i think that art *has* to be appreciated in some sort of context- but "good/bad" in terms of, e.g. technical proficiency, or the generally accepted standards of "good music" as determined by a general consensus of classical music listeners, is only one possible context to appreciate art by. it's a really common one, but it doesn't mean there aren't other lenses for someone to view and appreciate any given work by.


----------



## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> Musicians disagree about music and other musicians probably more than the average listener. How often do we read about composers or conductors criticizing other composers and conductors? It is subjective for musicians just as it is for everyone else. We all have our preferences and likes/dislikes.


But just tell me this. Why should we care what's liked or disliked? Does it matter to us today what some music fans thought of LvB's works back then? 
How are the preferences of a cross section of all ages and experiences relevant? It's not helpful, it's just confusing. The goal of analysis and objectivity is to save time and help people. If after so many decades of performing and teaching I say it's actually merely all relative, it's how I feel (whatever that means, I can't tell you). That would not help my students..


----------



## Haydn70

fbjim said:


> well, *do* we know what "bad" music is? especially given how much the defintion of that changes over time? (see: disco)
> 
> you could say badly performed music, but even then you have people who will prefer the aesthetics of a sincere, "badly" sung piece over technical perfection (in terms of classical, Charles Ives was known for saying this)
> 
> *and the funny thing is that actual musicians, i've found, frequently have the weirdest tastes as far as music goes*.


Amen to that! What I have found with a majority of actual musicians who are primarily (or solely) performers is that they judge the quality of a particular piece of music based on how well it "works" for their instrument or voice. Or for those who like a challenge, how challenging it is. Another thing I have come to realize is that many performers care more about performing per se than what music they are performing.


----------



## fbjim

Luchesi said:


> But just tell me this. Why should we care what's liked or disliked? Does it matter to us today what some music fans thought of LvB's works back then?
> How are the preferences of a cross section of all ages and experiences relevant? It's not helpful, it's just confusing. The goal of analysis and objectivity is to save time and help people. If after so many decades of performing and teaching I say it's actually merely all relative, it's how I feel (whatever that means, I can't tell you). That would not help my students..


there are objective measures for which works are generally considered important (and more crucially) influential in the development of musical art, that's what we call the Canon. but the western classical Canon isn't equal to what is Good Music because otherwise we'd all agree, and I'd sound like a lunatic for saying "I think the Eroica has a weak finale movement" or something.

(also this doesn't really relate to pop vs classical directly, pop has its own canon, after all)


----------



## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> But just tell me this. Why should we care what's liked or disliked? Does it matter to us today what some music fans thought of LvB's works back then?
> How are the preferences of a cross section of all ages and experiences relevant? It's not helpful, it's just confusing. The goal of analysis and objectivity is to save time and help people. If after so many decades of performing and teaching I say it's actually merely all relative, it's how I feel (whatever that means, I can't tell you). That would not help my students..


You concern yourself with one tiny subset of music, classical music. Your "cross section of all ages and experiences" is actually not that important on the global scale. It seems important to you because that is the area to which you have devoted your life. But there is so much more music out there, music that is revered by a much larger cross section of people and periods.

What you are teaching is a fraction of the music that has been created. You have inflated its importance, and have even come to believe that classical music is the greatest music ever created. Fine. That's your universe and you are teaching classical music and continuing that tradition.

But it is only one tradition among many.

The difference between us is that I am not interested in figuring out what is "the greatest music" because plenty of music is fantastic. I have heard so much "great" music, from all kind of genres and cultures and periods that to limit that qualification to classical music is ridiculous.


----------



## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> You concern yourself with one tiny subset of music, classical music. Your "cross section of all ages and experiences" is actually not that important on the global scale. It seems important to you because that is the area to which you have devoted your life. But there is so much more music out there, music that is revered by a much larger cross section of people and periods.
> 
> What you are teaching is a fraction of the music that has been created. You have inflated its importance, and have even come to believe that classical music is the greatest music ever created. Fine. That's your universe and you are teaching classical music and continuing that tradition.
> 
> But it is only one tradition among many.
> 
> The difference between us is that I am not interested in figuring out what is "the greatest music" because plenty of music is fantastic. I have heard so much "great" music, from all kind of genres and cultures and periods that to limit that qualification to classical music is ridiculous.


You're easily impressed by music which is intended to be light, commercially successful and attractive or sexy. You like it. How does that help anyone else? 
I find most pop fare to be silly, short, repetitive and often annoying. Modern jazz walks a very thin line between cleverness/newness and a mess of note sequences which quickly dissolve into uninteresting blather. So, there's some higher quality pop and jazz (always has been), but they're exceptions. And none of it rises to the level of the greatest music which was intended to further the art. But we shouldn't expect them to, because just ask the composers what they intended when they were composing pop or jazz. That should be authoritative enough for us to decide.


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## Ethereality

Luchesi said:


> Just ask the composers what they intended when they were composing pop or jazz. That should be authoritative enough for us to decide.


Just because 'a Big 3,' or Big 20 or 100, intended to write in a style or purpose _you_ deem as great, doesn't mean they can do it. Especially if SanAntone says they couldn't pull it off always effectively, (s)he's seems to lean towards that opinion.



Luchesi said:


> You're easily impressed by music which is intended to be light, commercially successful and attractive or sexy. You like it.


Isn't that putting words in others' mouths? As far as I know, how you define greatness is your own opinion: What are the other parameters for trusting your opinion, than to just claim you state the deciding factors? I don't hear any facts... I hear your opinion on what makes something great.

As an example, I've heard that musicians with the highest experience and tradition in studying music tend to write the best music. According to whom? Maybe those who intuit it's a science? It could be the majority opinion here on Classical, it wouldn't seem to have any bearing on those who believe something else.

For all we know, great music has nothing to do with intention or work, but a natural ear for sound and the right timing.


----------



## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> You're easily impressed by music which is intended to be light, commercially successful and attractive or sexy. You like it.


I generally am not impressed with music "which is intended to be light, commercially successful and attractive or sexy." If that is your idea of most non-classical music then you are woefully ignorant.



> How does that help anyone else?


The kind of music I like has nothing to with helping people, which I do in other ways.



> I find most pop fare to be silly, short, repetitive and often annoying.


I deduced that from your first sentence. None of this music is monolithic. Just as there are myriad kinds of classical music the same holds true for non-classical music. Your reductive thinking is the problem, not the music.


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## Bill Schuster

I just survived this thirty page thread in one go, and I still don't know whether I want to listen to ABBA or Mahler...


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## Xisten267

Bill Schuster said:


> I just survived this thirty page thread in one go, and I still don't know whether I want to listen to ABBA or Mahler...


Listen to whatever you wish, but know that any Mahler symphony is a better product than an ABBA album: it has more depth, more complexity, more historical influence, less repetitive patterns, much more development, a much stronger structure - it's just better music overall, no matter what the politically correct total relativists here (that are *a minority in this community* by the way) tell you or if you like it or not.

Greatness in the arts exists, even if we can't see it clearly sometimes, and if it's relative to a certain extent (not completely relative), like concepts such as beauty or intelligence for example.


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## Haydn70

Allerius said:


> Listen to whatever you wish, but know that any Mahler symphony is a better product than an ABBA album - it has more depth, more complexity, more historical influence, less repetitive patterns, much more development, a much stronger structure - it's just better music overall, no matter what the polically correct total relativists here (that are *a minority in this community* by the way) tell you or if you like it or not.
> 
> Greatness in the arts exists, even if we can't see it clearly sometimes, and if it's relative to a certain extent (not completely relative), like concepts such as beauty or intelligence for example.


Excellent post, Allerius. Thank you.


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## Haydn70

Allerius said:


> Listen to whatever you wish, but know that any Mahler symphony is a better product than an ABBA album: it has more depth, more complexity, more historical influence, less repetitive patterns, much more development, a much stronger structure - it's just better music overall, no matter what the politically correct total relativists here (that are *a minority in this community* by the way) tell you or if you like it or not.
> 
> Greatness in the arts exists, even if we can't see it clearly sometimes, and if it's relative to a certain extent (not completely relative), like concepts such as beauty or intelligence for example.


Here is an excellent post from 2018 by Woodduck which addresses this:

https://www.talkclassical.com/55350-assumption-greatness-4.html#post1447873


----------



## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> Listen to whatever you wish, but know that any Mahler symphony is a better product than an ABBA album: it has more depth, more complexity, more historical influence, less repetitive patterns, much more development, a much stronger structure - it's just better music overall,


However, ABBA is not trying to achieve those attributes. They are interested in very different things and have a different goal: to create a catchy melody with a chorus that is especially infectious, and all put across with a precision of arrangement and performance. The song has been written with a specific tempo and rhythmic pulse in order to inspire joyful movement in the audience. The entire production is designed to produce elation and joy. It is a remarkable miniature offering a wonderful musical achievement.

For its purposes an ABBA song is every bit as successful as a Mahler symphony. The ABBA song composers exhibited great skill in their composition and offer something unique to their audience.

Because you may prefer the attributes exhibited by a work by Mahler represents your personal preference. But the attributes found in a work by Mahler are not the the only valuable ones, and those exhibited by a song by ABBA are not found in Mahler. consequently any fan of ABBA will find Mahler equally lacking and of a lower quality.


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## Xisten267

SanAntone said:


> However, ABBA is not trying to achieve those attributes. They are interested in very different things and have a different goal: to create a catchy melody with a chorus that is especially infectious, and all put across with a precision of arrangement and performance. The song has been written with a specific tempo and rhythmic pulse in order to inspire joyful movement in the audience. The entire production is designed to produce elation and joy. It is a remarkable miniature offering a wonderful musical achievement.
> 
> For its purposes an ABBA song is every bit as successful as a Mahler symphony. The ABBA song composers exhibited great skill in their composition and offer something unique to their audience.
> 
> Because you may prefer the attributes exhibited by a work by Mahler represents your personal preference. But the attributes found in a work by Mahler are not the the only valuable ones, and those exhibited by a song by ABBA are not found in Mahler. consequently any fan of ABBA will find Mahler equally lacking and of a lower quality.


It requires far less skills to make pretty songs with catchy tunes that appease teenagers than to make entire symphonies that will change history, even when we're talking about a musical phenomenon such as ABBA. You're right that the purposes are different and that both ABBA and Mahler are successful in achieving what they wanted to, but the latter's accomplishment is much more ambitious and complete in my view - it's more artistic. Just as the Taj Mahal is an artistic achievement far greater than a middle class house in the world, even if that house is better at supporting a modest family.


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## Fabulin

Writing a Mahler symphony is actually easier than a full album of hit ABBA songs.


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## Xisten267

Fabulin said:


> Writing a Mahler symphony is actually easier than a full album of hit ABBA songs.


No, it's not. It takes years of intense study of theory just to have the _know how_ to make one, then there's more than an year just to compose a single symphony, and then there's the test of time... it's quite complex.


----------



## Strange Magic

Allerius said:


> Listen to whatever you wish, but know that any Mahler symphony is a better product than an ABBA album: it has more depth, more complexity, more historical influence, less repetitive patterns, much more development, a much stronger structure - it's just better music overall, no matter what the politically correct total relativists here (that are *a minority in this community* by the way) tell you or if you like it or not.
> 
> Greatness in the arts exists, even if we can't see it clearly sometimes, and if it's relative to a certain extent (not completely relative), like concepts such as beauty or intelligence for example.


As a card-carrying relativist, I note that beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Intelligence is another story, so do not attempt to conflate the two. Your enumeration of some of the traits of a Mahler symphony are quantifiable--complexity, influence within the CM community, fewer repetitive patterns, much more development (longer than an ABBA song by a country mile). But much of the rest--depth (what is depth? Is it like length?), stronger structure?, better product?, better music? I note the repeated use of "better", as if that makes it actually better, and it is better, _if you think it is._ All esthetics is, however, personal and subjective. I know how difficult this is to accept, but it is true. Art just is. We make of it, individually, uniquely, what we will.


----------



## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> It requires far less skills to make pretty songs with catchy tunes


You don't know what you are talking about.

Writing a really good song takes a huge amount of skill and talent. And I used ABBA as an example because it was the one chosen by another poster. Still, the kind of talent needed to write their songs is, IMO, not to be belittled.

All of the skill is in compression, every line in a song is like a scene in a play, and every verse is an act. Songs are both words and music, and the symbiotic marriage is greater than a sum of the parts. The music must match the meaning and mood of the lyric, while at the same time being something extremely attractive to the average listener but at the same time at a level of uniqueness and quality to be meaningful to sophisticated listeners.

Writing songs is extremely hard, good songs, great songs, are written by only a small number of very talented songwriters.

Writing songs requires a specific kind of talent, and requires different abilities and intellect from writing a long form classical work like a symphony. Although Mahler wrote symphonies, he could not write a song at the level of the composers of ABBA, or The Beatles, or Guy Clark, or Jackson Browne, or Karla Bonoff.

In the case of ABBA, and many others, the production and performance of the song are also part of the entire presentation, the creation of the artifact, the record.

Not all great art is meant for posterity but it is still very valuable and, IMO, as valuable as anything in the classical canon.

It is obvious you are biased and cannot appreciate what goes into writing a song.


----------



## RogerWaters

Strange Magic said:


> As a card-carrying relativist, I note that beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Intelligence is another story, so do not attempt to conflate the two. Your enumeration of some of the traits of a Mahler symphony are quantifiable--complexity, influence within the CM community, fewer repetitive patterns, much more development (longer than an ABBA song by a country mile). But much of the rest--depth (what is depth? Is it like length?), stronger structure?, better product?, better music? I note the repeated use of "better", as if that makes it actually better, and it is better, _if you think it is._ All esthetics is, however, personal and subjective. I know how difficult this is to accept, but it is true. Art just is. We make of it, individually, uniquely, what we will.


You're all having a semantic debate, if you ask me (which you probably don't). I.e. whether you are right or wrong depends on the meaning of concepts.

In this case, 'better music', or 'artistic excellence'.

IF (note the if) the meaning of those concepts includes complexity, fewer repetitive patterns, more development, and elicitation of profound feelings, then Beethoven just IS better music/artistically more excellent than ABBA. If the meaning of those concepts does not include those features, then ABBA is not necessary worse.


----------



## Xisten267

Strange Magic said:


> Your enumeration of some of the traits of a Mahler symphony are quantifiable--complexity, influence within the CM community, fewer repetitive patterns, much more development (longer than an ABBA song by a country mile). But much of the rest--depth (what is depth? Is it like length?), stronger structure?, better product?, better music? I note the repeated use of "better", as if that makes it actually better, and it is better, _if you think it is._ *All esthetics is, however, personal and subjective*. I know how difficult this is to accept, but it is true. Art just is. We make of it, individually, uniquely, what we will.


The essence of our divergence is what is in bold. I don't think that aesthetics are _totally_ subjective. It may be difficult (perhaps impossible) to quantify two works of comparable "greatness", but to me it's clear that a recording of a cat walking in a piano, or of traffic noise, or of a guy eating mushrooms, is not in the same level as an artistic achievement as, say, Brahms' piano concerto no. 2, a great, original work of art that took a lot of skill and creativity to compose. Just because some characteristics of music are subjective to a certain extent (musicality, expressiveness, quality of melody and harmony, etc.) it doesn't mean that they don't exist or that they can't be perceived by experienced people with talent (I say "with talent" because, just like in any other field of human interaction such as maths, biology, chemistry, linguistics etc. I believe that there are people more naturally gifted to learn and create the arts, music included, than others - I don't believe that J.S. Bach and Justin Bieber are on the same level as composers).



Strange Magic said:


> As a card-carrying relativist, I note that beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder.


Entirely? I guess not. Just like music's aesthetics.


----------



## Xisten267

SanAntone said:


> You don't know what you are talking about.
> 
> Writing a really good song takes a huge amount of skill and talent. And I used ABBA as an example because it was the one chosen by another poster. Still, the kind of talent needed to write their songs is, IMO, not to be belittled.
> 
> All of the skill is in compression, every line in a song is like a scene in a play, and every verse is an act. Songs are both words and music, and the symbiotic marriage is greater than a sum of the parts. The music must match the meaning and mood of the lyric, while at the same time being something extremely attractive to the average listener but at the same time at a level of uniqueness and quality to be meaningful to sophisticated listeners.
> 
> Writing songs is extremely hard, good songs, great songs, are written by only a small number of very talented songwriters.
> 
> Writing songs requires a specific kind of talent, and requires different abilities and intellect from writing a long form classical work like a symphony. Although Mahler wrote symphonies, he could not write a song at the level of the composers of ABBA, or The Beatles, or Guy Clark, or Jackson Browne, or Karla Bonoff.
> 
> In the case of ABBA, and many others, the production and performance of the song are also part of the entire presentation, the creation of the artifact, the record.
> 
> Not all great art is meant for posterity but it is still very valuable and, IMO, as valuable as anything in the classical canon.
> 
> It is obvious you are biased and cannot appreciate what goes into writing a song.


Perhaps we just have different opinions, eh? If catchy tunes are that hard to compose, then why there are so many bands with members who can do them but can't even read music?

Also, I meant some commercial songs, not every song on Earth. A song by my neighbor doesn't hold the same quality as one created by Genesis.



RogerWaters said:


> You're all having a semantic debate, if you ask me (which you probably don't). I.e. whether you are right or wrong depends on the meaning of concepts.
> 
> In this case, 'better music', or 'artistic excellence'.
> 
> *IF (note the if) the meaning of those concepts includes complexity, fewer repetitive patterns, more development, and elicitation of profound feelings, then Beethoven just IS better music/artistically more excellent than ABBA*.


I think that the evaluation of music's quality should always include the concepts you cited. When I'm talking about "better music" at least I'm including these.


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## fbjim

I mean you even see it in classical. There's artists who had to steal their best themes, and then there's people like Schubert who seemingly couldn't sneeze without it becoming another amazing melody. It's a dark art thst nobody really can quantify, but it sure isn't easy.


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## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> Perhaps we just have different opinions, eh? If catchy tunes are that hard to compose, then why there are so many bands with members who can do them but can't even read music?
> 
> Also, I meant some commercial songs, not every song on Earth. A song by my neighbor doesn't hold the same quality as one created by Genesis.


Reading music is irrelevant. Most of the music in history has been created and transmitted without a written tradition. But, I could turn it back on you. If Mahler's music is so much better than ABBA, why is it that many millions more people have gotten joy and fulfillment from the music by ABBA than have by Mahler's symphonies?

What you seem to refuse to accept is that the priorities and intention behind a Mahler symphony or most classical music is vastly different from that that goes into the creation of popular songs. And I do not accept that the priorities and intention behind a Mahler symphony are any better than those which went into the creation of a song like "How Deep Is Your Love" by the Bee-Gees. That song is a masterpiece of writing, and production of the record.


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## fbjim

The Bee-Gees/Disco is almost certainly more culturally relevant than a Mahler symphony is these days, too, given it's offspring include basically the entire genre of electronic.


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## Xisten267

SanAntone said:


> Reading music is irrelevant. Most of the music in history has been created and transmitted without a written tradition.


And most has been forever lost until someone invented recording technologies. Being able to read music nowadays is still important to better understand certain features of this art.



SanAntone said:


> But, I could turn it back on you. If Mahler's music is so much better than ABBA, why is it that many millions more people have gotten joy and fulfillment from the music by ABBA than have by Mahler's symphonies?


Perhaps most of them have not taken the trouble of _actively_ listening to more sophisticated pieces of music that require more effort to be assimilated? Millions can't understand calculus or quantum physics either.


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> Writing a really good song takes a huge amount of skill and talent. And I used ABBA as an example because it was the one chosen by another poster. Still, the kind of talent needed to write their songs is, IMO, not to be belittled.









SanAntone said:


> Blah, blah, blah - John Williams writes movie soundtracks. Period.


----------



## fbjim

I also think people are confusing the idea of absolute relativity with the fact that art can not be removed from the context within with it is intended to be engaged with. My definition of greatness depends on completely different criteria when I'm listening to Mahler, versus when I'm listening to an electronic dance track, versus a pop album. This doesn't mean I can't find one classical work crap and another great, but it does mean that, at least to some extent, it's very difficult to actually compare works which were intended for completely different purposes. 

And really a lot of the idea of it being an exalted form of music over others comes from it being associated with the Church, aristocracy and upper class culture.


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## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> And most has been forever lost until someone invented recording technologies. Being able to read music nowadays is still important to better understand certain features of this art.


Not really. A song like "Barbara Allen" has existed for hundreds of years without the need of a score. Indian ragas are transmitted virtually intact for hundreds of years orally. I am not saying that notation is not a great achievement, but its importance is limited to Western classical music. However, there is so much vernacular music that is equally great, that I do not attribute extraordinary value to notated music.

Jazz developed without it, Blues also, as did all folk forms, from every nation on Earth. So I do not elevate notation as high as you seem to.



> Perhaps most of them have not taken the trouble of _actively_ listening to more sophisticated pieces of music that require more effort to be assimilated? Millions can't understand calculus or quantum physics either.


You claim Mahler is "more sophisticated" to which I say ABBA is differently sophisticated. The sophistication of a Robert Johnson blues performance has nothing much in common with a Mahler symphony, but it is no less sophisticated.

Those fans of ABBA would most likely be bored by Mahler, just as you are bored with ABBA's music. It is all relative and subjective, but the talent, skill, and artistic intent are present in both examples.


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## SanAntone

Here's a couple of clips from 2015-2016. One classical the other roots music.











Which is better?

I like them both.


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## Captainnumber36

Classical Music, as a whole, tends to offer more for the listener that uses their mind while listening, especially for those of us who focus on instrumental music when compared to lyrical music. It also tends to be associated with, and further, appeal to, a classier crowd.

The former is a prominent reason for my interest in the genre.


----------



## Strange Magic

Allerius said:


> The essence of our divergence is what is in bold. I don't think that aesthetics are _totally_ subjective. It may be difficult (perhaps impossible) to quantify two works of comparable "greatness", but to me it's clear that a recording of a cat walking in a piano, or of traffic noise, or of a guy eating mushrooms, is not in the same level as an artistic achievement as, say, Brahms' piano concerto no. 2, a great, original work of art that took a lot of skill and creativity to compose. Just because some characteristics of music are subjective to a certain extent (musicality, expressiveness, quality of melody and harmony, etc.) it doesn't mean that they don't exist or that they can't be perceived by experienced people with talent (I say "with talent" because, just like in any other field of human interaction such as maths, biology, chemistry, linguistics etc. I believe that there are people more naturally gifted to learn and create the arts, music included, than others - I don't believe that J.S. Bach and Justin Bieber are on the same level as composers).


All you state is well and good on an individual basis. If we find others who agree and we find we share similar views on what artworks are "great" for us personally, that's putting things to a vote, polling, an accumulation of similar individual responses. We both (clearly) like Brahms' second PC. That does not make it objectively "great"--how could it? It is more accurate to state that we both appreciate the same work. There seems to be a real difficulty in having people deal with the idea that art/music floats there in space and time--inert, neutral--like a distant planet, neither good nor bad until each of us, uniquely, animates it with our perception and reaction to it. The artist may have put his or her own desires and impulses into it, but often an auditor or viewer perceives something else entirely. If _Moby Dick_ is a great novel, why doesn't everybody, without exception, think so?


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## Ethereality

I see the same people siding with subjectivity, and many who support the objective cause have walked off and aren't heard from again in these topics. Nothing wrong with that, but I think such recurrent appreciation shows the substantiality of the subjective argument. I don't expect many to adore the sounds of a guy eating mushrooms or a random cat pouncing on a piano in some unique fashion, but those who do aren't 'wrong' to feel so. Moreover, if these scant agreeable want to form their own society where these sounds are an aspect of predominant art, I don't forsee any functional failures impending given the cosmic and biological factors of their society mechanize to their perpetual well-being.


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## BachIsBest

Ethereality said:


> I see the same people siding with subjectivity, and many who support the objective cause have walked off and aren't heard from again in these topics. Nothing wrong with that, but I think such recurrent appreciation shows the substantiality of the subjective argument. I don't expect many to adore the sounds of a guy eating mushrooms or a random cat pouncing on a piano in some unique fashion, but those who do aren't 'wrong' to feel so. Moreover, if these scant agreeable want to form their own society where these sounds are an aspect of predominant art, I don't forsee any functional failures impending given the cosmic and biological factors of their society mechanize to their perpetual well-being.


Or those supporting the objective argument thought they had presented their arguments on this forum well enough and thought debating in the same circles over and over again was not particularly constructive?


----------



## Ethereality

BachIsBest said:


> Or those supporting the objective argument thought they had presented their arguments on this forum well enough and thought *debating in the same circles over and over again was not particularly constructive?*


A smaller defeat, but one nonetheless. By that I mean if it's not constructive, it's probably for the good.

Given, I don't think subjecting ourselves to hear about 'other' music is necessarily that beneficial to our Talk Classical community, but those who do enjoy similar music should also share their differences with great acceptance and understanding. That's part of the package.

Anyone's own controversial feelings on minorities here are not that appreciated.

Maybe that's what you're referring to?


----------



## Bulldog

Captainnumber36 said:


> Classical Music, as a whole, tends to offer more for the listener that uses their mind while listening, especially for those of us who focus on instrumental music when compared to lyrical music. It also tends to be associated with, and further, appeal to, a classier crowd.


Yes, the classier crowd. Those are the folks who have their clothes custom-made instead of buying off the rack.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern

Bulldog said:


> Yes, the classier crowd. Those are the folks who have their clothes custom-made instead of buying off the rack.


Yeah, it makes me think of froufrou socialite types who go to the opera for the social status. While I'm sure a lot of them genuinely like it and some even true hardcore opera aficionados, it's just facts that a lot of them just go for the image, it's just a "classy" thing to do. On the flipside, some of the most down-to-earth people I know are classical musicians and enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, that whole "elitist", "socialite", "stuffy and fussy" connotation really gives people who are ignorant of classical music the wrong image and prejudice against it.


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## Captainnumber36

Bulldog said:


> Yes, the classier crowd. Those are the folks who have their clothes custom-made instead of buying off the rack.


Just for the record, I'm with the subjectivists. .


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## Captainnumber36

I like a lot of the Classical "hits" and haven't dug very deep into the less popular composers. But, I feel full enough on what I've heard, and will continue to check out different versions of my favorites.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern

In regards to the OP, I think classical music and popular music serve different functions for me and are basically impossible to compare. The idea of either one being "better" is just a concept I don't really apply to this situation. I personally enjoy popular music artists than certain classical composers just because of my specific preferences. For example, I can't stand Nielsen, a top-tier composer whose ability and mastery of his craft no one can deny, yet I _love _ Joy Divison, a post-punk band of ragtag musicians who had been barely playing their instruments for a year and had a singer limited to one octave who couldn't sing in tune to save his life. I think it's something that makes art very unique and special, there's always some intangible factor that makes music appealing or connect with it more that almost impossible to pigeonhole with words.

I'll touch on the compositional process though, which I think is a separate discussion from "who's objectively better" or the subjective listener experience or personal preferences. If someone is looking for advanced compositional mastery, Classical and Jazz reach the highest heights of complexity and transcendence, if you ask me. But 'popular music' (what a generic term!) also reaches great heights of musical ability and composition. And even when it doesn't (like Joy Division or Motörhead, just for random examples) it still brings great enjoyment and connects deeply with many people.

However, I will admit, I find myself very indifferent to a lot of popular music because if we're being real, anyone with an ounce of talent can make music that sounds good. It's actually pretty stupidly easy. If you know a couple chords on guitar and have some musical sense/intuition and a decent voice, there you go, BAM! You wrote a passable song. That's why there's loads, I would even say a surplus, of music that is at a very baseline "good" that I could really care less about. There's even legitimately great, original artists who don't interest me. For example, I really respect Johnny Cash and recognize his tremendous talent and unique gift, but I have next to no interest in his music. I guess it really boils down to whether something speaks to me in a certain way or not, impossible to explain with hard science.


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## Captainnumber36

SanAntone said:


> Here's a couple of clips from 2015-2016. One classical the other roots music.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which is better?
> 
> I like them both.


I checked out the roots tune and didn't care for her voice, but am certainly open to all kinds of music, I just have to enjoy what I'm hearing. And that's really the bottom line in this thread, the human ego would love to make it much more than just liking it because it does it for you.


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## Captainnumber36

Bulldog said:


> Yes, the classier crowd. Those are the folks who have their clothes custom-made instead of buying off the rack.


But, I won't be so foolish to deny that some genuinely classier people are attracted to classical music. Not that there aren't phonies too though.


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## Captainnumber36

Captainnumber36 said:


> I like a lot of the Classical "hits" and haven't dug very deep into the less popular composers. But, I feel full enough on what I've heard, and will continue to check out different versions of my favorites.


And this is because, a few of the smaller names didn't speak to me as much. I thought I liked Shostakovich, but I was forcing it. I don't care for Mahler either. I enjoy the Rite of Spring, but not much else by Stravinsky that I've heard. Debussy and Ravel aren't popular in the mainstream, but they are two I enjoy very much.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern

Captainnumber36 said:


> And this is because, a few of the smaller names didn't speak to me as much. I thought I liked Shostakovich, but I was forcing it. I don't care for Mahler either. I enjoy the Rite of Spring, but not much else by Stravinsky that I've heard. Debussy and Ravel aren't popular in the mainstream, but they are two I enjoy very much.


I've always thought of classical music as having a learning curve of sorts. On one hand there's composers and pieces that are instantly accessible and easy to get into, while on the other hand I feel there's others that take more seasoned listening experience to truly appreciate. Though it's far form being some universal formula, everybody's brain is different.



Captainnumber36 said:


> *Debussy and Ravel aren't popular in the mainstream*, but they are two I enjoy very much.


That impression is false. They're very popular with a wide range of listeners.



Captainnumber36 said:


> I like a lot of the Classical "hits" and haven't dug very deep into the less popular composers. But, I feel full enough on what I've heard, and will continue to check out different versions of my favorites.


Wait, I'm actually kinda confused. You say you're relatively new to classical but you have 6,000 posts and have been here for 4 years?! What am I missing here? :lol:


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## Captainnumber36

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> I've always thought of classical music as having a learning curve of sorts. On one hand there's composers and pieces that are instantly accessible and easy to get into, while on the other hand I feel there's others that take more seasoned listening experience to truly appreciate.


See, I just don't believe in that argument. I like enjoying something right away, and not having to "work" to "get" it. Now, it's a different story if you are drawn to a work, and with continued listens (because you are curious about it) you gain deeper appreciation for it; I'm ok with that process.

Anything else feels forced to me.


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## Captainnumber36

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> I've always thought of classical music as having a learning curve of sorts. On one hand there's composers and pieces that are instantly accessible and easy to get into, while on the other hand I feel there's others that take more seasoned listening experience to truly appreciate. Though it's far form being some universal formula, everybody's brain is different.
> 
> That impression is false. They're very popular with a wide range of listeners.
> 
> Wait, I'm actually kinda confused. You say you're relatively new to classical but you have 6,000 posts and have been here for 4 years?! What am I missing here? :lol:


Here is a list of my favorites:

Symphony 6 - Beethoven
Rondo Alla Turca - Mozart
Rite of Spring - Stravinsky
The Brandenburg Concertos - Bach
Complete Works for Piano - Debussy
Complete Works for Piano - Ravel
Jupiter Symphony 41 - Mozart
Symphony 1 - Beethoven
Gymnopedie for Piano - Satie
Nocturnes - Chopin
Waltzes - Chopin
On the Blue Danube - Strauss
Rhapsody in Blue - Gershwin
Piano Concerto 1 - Beethoven (which wasn't really composed first).
Complete Piano Sonatas - Mozart


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## Captainnumber36

My estimation of Debussy and Ravel is that they aren't household names like Bach Mozart and Beethoven.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern

Captainnumber36 said:


> See, I just don't believe in that argument. I like enjoying something right away, and not having to "work" to "get" it. Now, it's a different story if you are drawn to a work, and with continued listens (because you are curious about it) you gain deeper appreciation for it; I'm ok with that process.
> 
> Anything else feels forced to me.


To each their own, for sure. Like I said, I don't think it's an objective formula that's set in stone. Mozart is considered on of those composers who belong to the former group of "easily accessible", "impossible not to love" and I actually struggled with his music and still do in some ways, it took me a while to truly appreciate the beauty and subtleties he has to offer. In addition, I got really into Arnold Bax back in the fall and I think if I tried to listen to him even just a couple years ago I would've found him too dense and hard to follow and hard to appreciate.

I started listening to classical at an early age (like 13 or 14, I'm currently 23) and I still find myself constantly developing as a listener. It's a lifelong pursuit


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## Captainnumber36

I can clear your confusion. I've been on a long and winding road (nod to the beatles, ) in discovering my musical identity. My opinions have been forced due to thinking I SHOULD like something vs just allowing myself to enjoy what I enjoy.

I, like many music obsessives, want to ensure I'm listening to the best of the best possible, but that's a subjective and very personal evaluation.

I studied classical piano, so I have a background in it. I don't have favorite genres or artists anymore, just favorite works/albums.


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## Captainnumber36

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> To each their own, for sure. Like I said, I don't think it's an objective formula that's set in stone. Mozart is considered on of those composers who belong to the former group of "easily accessible", "impossible not to love" and I actually struggled with his music and still do in some ways, it took me a while to truly appreciate the beauty and subtleties he has to offer. In addition, I got really into Arnold Bax back in the fall and I think if I tried to listen to him even just a couple years ago I would've found him too dense and hard to follow and hard to appreciate.
> 
> I started listening to classical at an early age (like 13 or 14, I'm currently 23) and I still find myself constantly developing as a listener. It's a lifelong pursuit


I wouldn't be against a "refresher" listen a few years as I age to see how the music speaks to me then.


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## Captainnumber36

As us subjectivists being open to other genres, it's hard to devote all my listening hours to just one genre/artist (even though I did just that in high school and college, Dave Matthews Band & Phish respectively).


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## SanAntone

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> In regards to the OP, I think classical music and popular music serve different functions for me and are basically impossible to compare. The idea of either one being "better" is just a concept I don't really apply to this situation. I personally enjoy popular music artists than certain classical composers just because of my specific preferences.


I agree. These threads are pointless and only repeat the same pointless arguments.



> However, I will admit, I find myself very indifferent to a lot of popular music because if we're being real, anyone with an ounce of talent can make music that sounds good.


I agree there's a lot of mediocre pop, but also some truly remarkable music which takes more than passable talent (unless you consider most people equal to Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, etc.).

But the same is true of classical and any genre. To be honest, most of anything humans do is mediocre, or worse. But for the purposes of this thread, and others like it, I am comparing what I consider the best examples, IMO, of a genre.


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## SanAntone

Captainnumber36 said:


> As us subjectivists being open to other genres, it's hard to devote all my listening hours to just one genre/artist (even though I did just that in high school and college, Dave Matthews Band & Phish respectively).


Classical is about one-third of my listening, although that will go up or down throughout periods. The rest is split among a number of genres with jazz, roots and world music being the most prominent.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern

SanAntone said:


> I agree. These threads are pointless and only repeat the same pointless arguments.
> 
> I agree there's a lot of mediocre pop, but also some truly remarkable music which takes more than passable talent (unless you consider most people equal to Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, etc.).
> 
> But the same is true of classical and any genre. To be honest, most of anything humans do is mediocre, or worse. But for the purposes of this thread, and others like it, I am comparing what I consider the best examples, IMO, of a genre.


Unlike you though (i definitely understand and respect the views you have and I think it's a great breath of fresh air on here) I do believe in some level of objectivity in music, even if it doesn't correspond to my personal list of preferences. For example, I love Telemann but if I were to think of him objectively I'd say he's a 2nd tier composer, borderline 3rd. He's not anything particularly remarkable or inventive.

I think the same about popular music in regards to artists I like and dislike. I'll even admit I genuinely like some objectively bad music more than objectively good music. What really only matters at the end of the day is the subjective listening experience, ones personal enjoyment and fulfillment.


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## fbjim

Captainnumber36 said:


> As us subjectivists being open to other genres, it's hard to devote all my listening hours to just one genre/artist (even though I did just that in high school and college, Dave Matthews Band & Phish respectively).


It goes in periods of hyperfocus for me. there's months where i hardly listen to classical and dive mostly into stuff like techno, for instance. had a weird classic country period too! (Lefty Frizzell's compilation album is highly recommended)


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## SanAntone

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet about popular music is its relevance to the culture. Songs during the '60s addressed social unrest and brought people together, and focused society on issues in a way that political speeches or news articles could not. 

A song like "What's Going On" was incredibly powerful. Blacks and Whites came together to dance to the same music while there were police using clubs and fire hoses in the street. Popular music was a force for change and unity. 

Songs like "Blowin' in the Wind", and "A Change is Gonna Come", and throughout each decade there have been important artists who've voiced their conscience about human rights, the environment, government abuse, prejudice, violence, on every social issue.

This is an important aspect of pop music which I think classical music cannot match.


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## fbjim

as far as class goes, you definitely see a shift in cultural focus from music mostly associated with the ruling class and academics to far more focus on music by common and marginalized people. remember what Dvorak said about black music?

even techno, for all its association with dour Germans, was spawned from the same era of black music that resulted in hip-hop, almost certainly the most culturally relevant genre of music in the last two or three decades.


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## Simon Moon

Captainnumber36 said:


> See, I just don't believe in that argument. I like enjoying something right away, and not having to "work" to "get" it. Now, it's a different story if you are drawn to a work, and with continued listens (because you are curious about it) you gain deeper appreciation for it; I'm ok with that process.
> 
> Anything else feels forced to me.


I know everyone is different, but this sounds almost sad to me.

Many of the artists, bands and composers that are among my favorite, were not immediately enjoyable. Some took years, not of constant listening, but trying them from time to time to see if I can appreciate them. After all, my tastes tend to change over time.

I would not at all call it 'work' to enjoy and appreciate music, that took me a while to get into. It's an exploration.

When I look at the various genres and subgenres of music I listen to, and mentally eliminate all the bands and composers that took me a while to enjoy, all that incredible music that I would not have loved over the years, I almost want to meet my former self and thank him for 'working' at it.


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## Captainnumber36

Simon Moon said:


> I know everyone is different, but this sounds almost sad to me.
> 
> Many of the artists, bands and composers that are among my favorite, were not immediately enjoyable. Some took years, not of constant listening, but trying them from time to time to see if I can appreciate them. After all, my tastes tend to change over time.
> 
> I would not at all call it 'work' to enjoy and appreciate music, that took me a while to get into. It's an exploration.
> 
> When I look at the various genres and subgenres of music I listen to, and mentally eliminate all the bands and composers that took me a while to enjoy, all that incredible music that I would not have loved over the years, I almost want to meet my former self and thank him for 'working' at it.


I did say I would be alright with coming back to a work after some time has passed to take a "refresher listen."


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> I agree there's a lot of mediocre pop, but also some truly remarkable music which takes more than passable talent (unless you consider most people equal to Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, etc.).
> 
> But the same is true of classical and any genre. To be honest, most of anything humans do is mediocre, or worse. But for the purposes of this thread, and others like it, I am comparing what I consider the best examples, IMO, of a genre.


I told myself not to get sucked into another one of these threads but this post exemplifies one of my fundamental problems with the subjectivist crowd.

How do you declare that some music is mediocre without believing in objective musical evaluation? How do you make a statement "truly remarkable music"? If you just mean truly remarkable to you, yourself, then this response to someone else's expression of taste is borderline nonsensical. If it is truly all subjective, there is no point in this response.

It is ultimately very similar to people claiming to be pre-determinists. People may say they are pre-determinists, but nobody lives in the day to day truly thinking their actions are pre-ordained.

"The problem with pre-determinists is that that still look both ways when they cross the street".


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## SanAntone

BachIsBest said:


> How do you declare that some music is mediocre without believing in objective musical evaluation? How do you make a statement "truly remarkable music"? If you just mean truly remarkable to you, yourself, then this response to someone else's expression of taste is borderline nonsensical. If it is truly all subjective, there is no point in this response..


Everyone decides for themselves what music is remarkable and that which is mediocre. I am not an absolutist, i.e. I have never been convinced by people explaining their idea of objective criteria for judging musical works, across all periods and genres. So, when I speak of mediocre popular music I am describing songs which do not capture my interest as much as other songs.

I believe we all do the same thing.

I posted a roots clip that I thought was remarkable. Someone later said they didn't like the singer.

No problem.


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## Captainnumber36

SanAntone said:


> Everyone decides for themselves what music is remarkable and that which is mediocre. I am not an absolutist, i.e. I have never been convinced by people explaining their idea of objective criteria for judging musical works, across all periods and genres. So, when I speak of mediocre popular music I am describing songs which do not capture my interest as much as other songs.
> 
> I believe we all do the same thing.
> 
> I posted a roots clip that I thought was remarkable. Someone later said they didn't like the singer.
> 
> No problem.


Spot on, we all have a tendency to speak in a way that comes off the wrong way when referencing our opinions.


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## SanAntone

Some pure Pop that I think is good.


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> Everyone decides for themselves what music is remarkable and that which is mediocre. I am not an absolutist, i.e. I have never been convinced by people explaining their idea of objective criteria for judging musical works, across all periods and genres. So, when I speak of mediocre popular music I am describing songs which do not capture my interest as much as other songs.
> 
> I believe we all do the same thing.
> 
> I posted a roots clip that I thought was remarkable. Someone later said they didn't like the singer.
> 
> No problem.


But you were correcting someone who thought pop music was mediocre (or worse). On what basis could you correct them if you believe that to just be their personal subjective preference.

In the following example conversation, I took your actual conversation and replaced music with something I'm sure we can all agree belongs to a very subjective realm: colour.

"However, I will admit, I find myself very indifferent to a lot of bright colours because if we're being real, anyone with an ounce of talent can make colours that look good."

"I agree there are a lot of mediocre bright colours, but also some truly remarkable bright colours which take more than passable talent to produce.

But the same is true of duller colours and any type of colours. To be honest, most of anything humans do is mediocre, or worse. But for the purposes of this thread, and others like it, I am comparing what I consider the best examples, IMO, of a type of colour."

I mean, this conversation would obviously be silly; one of the reasons it isn't silly when applied to music is that there is an implied basis of shared understanding of musical quality which is not present to the same degree with "colour quality".


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## fbjim

someone mentioned ABBA so here's their greatest work in the genre in which they excelled the best, the Sad Dance Song


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## chu42

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> I do believe in some level of objectivity in music, even if it doesn't correspond to my personal list of preferences. For example, I love Telemann but if I were to think of him objectively I'd say he's a 2nd tier composer, borderline 3rd. He's not anything particularly remarkable or inventive.


But...why? Doesn't that require that you subscribe to the opinions of others in order to make that assessment? What's objective about the idea that Telemann isn't remarkable?


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## chu42

BachIsBest said:


> But you were correcting someone who thought pop music was mediocre (or worse). On what basis could you correct them if you believe that to just be their personal subjective preference.
> 
> In the following example conversation, I took your actual conversation and replaced music with something I'm sure we can all agree belongs to a very subjective realm: colour.
> 
> "However, I will admit, I find myself very indifferent to a lot of bright colours because if we're being real, anyone with an ounce of talent can make colours that look good."
> 
> "I agree there are a lot of mediocre bright colours, but also some truly remarkable bright colours which take more than passable talent to produce.
> 
> But the same is true of duller colours and any type of colours. To be honest, most of anything humans do is mediocre, or worse. But for the purposes of this thread, and others like it, I am comparing what I consider the best examples, IMO, of a type of colour."
> 
> I mean, this conversation would obviously be silly; one of the reasons it isn't silly when applied to music is that there is an implied basis of shared understanding of musical quality which is not present to the same degree with "colour quality".


It is true that humans have a more complex shared understanding of musical quality. It does not make it any less subjective.

There are a large number of people who would agree that a certain color is ugly, or that a certain color is beautiful. Same with music, except you throw in a hundred other factors like rhythm, tone, structure that all can be appraised at different levels.

Such appraisal is still not objective, just more complicated.

It seems that I must remind the forum users not to fall trap to Bacon's 4 Idols:

1. The idols of the Tribe is the tendency to treat human observation and reason as infallible, forgetting that all humans are finite beings who distort what they perceive.

2. The idols of the Cave is the individual human tendency to treat our own ideas or truths as objective and true and not to take into account that all individual human wisdom is subjective and colored by one's own experiences and biases.

3. The Idol of the Marketplace is the debasement of words and their misuse. We today might refer to this catering to the "vulgar" in its broadest form as propaganda. Twisting words this way obscures truth.

4. The Idols of the Theatre is the belief in dogmas or systems of philosophy that distort reality. Like plays, these systems are approximations or models of truth and not truth itself.

All four of these Idols are commonly accepted as examples of fallacious human reasoning. It seems that many TalkClassical users are still bound by these idols, especially the 2nd and the 4th.


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## HenryPenfold

I think that CM is better than pop because you must be much cleverer to create CM compositions than pop ones. Also, the audience for CM is much cleverer than the pop audience. Many CM fans are university graduates and are familiar with the classics and can read and write music, whereas most pop fans only have basic schooling and tend not to go to university. CM fans tend to be older and therefore more worldly wise and this leads to a better understanding and appreciation of music. It is much more complicated to write say, Beethoven's Klammerhavier piano sonata than Don Mclean's 'American pie" or John Lennin's 'Imogen'. It is also true that CM is better because it is more enduring - everyone knows the finale of Beethoven's 9th, but not many people know The Beatles' 'Love me Do'.


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## SanAntone

BachIsBest said:


> But you were correcting someone who thought pop music was mediocre (or worse). On what basis could you correct them if you believe that to just be their personal subjective preference.


I wasn't correcting somebody, I was acknowledging their point while pointing out that I focus on the best of a genre, IMO, not the mediocre or bad. If you wish to believe there is objective criteria for assessing greatness in music, that's your prerogative. I am not interested if there is or not. My experience informs my personal _belief_ that 1) it is subjective and 2) it doesn't matter.

I have found plenty of music which I find remarkably enjoyable. And much of that music is not classical. So, a thread asking the question "Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'..." I will answer no, I don't think it is, based on my experience of listening to both genres, and have given my reasons why I think that.


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## Phil loves classical

Proof not all Classical (or Classical Eras) are equal. Which is more complex? I say the PSB's song is more complex (also great use of dissonance) than Hildegard here.


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## Strange Magic

HenryPenfold said:


> I think that CM is better than pop because you must be much cleverer to create CM compositions than pop ones. Also, the audience for CM is much cleverer than the pop audience. Many CM fans are university graduates and are familiar with the classics and can read and write music, whereas most pop fans only have basic schooling and tend not to go to university. CM fans tend to be older and therefore more worldly wise and this leads to a better understanding and appreciation of music. It is much more complicated to write say, Beethoven's Klammerhavier piano sonata than Don Mclean's 'American pie" or John Lennin's 'Imogen'. It is also true that CM is better because it is more enduring - everyone knows the finale of Beethoven's 9th, but not many people know The Beatles' 'Love me Do'.


I am in awe of this reasoning. But how do we explain those older, worldly-wise, exceedingly clever university graduates who also appreciate the popular musics? I am at a loss.


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## SanAntone

It appears some here think of popular music as "one thing". Here's a variety of it.


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## hammeredklavier

Tchaikov6 said:


> that's silly. There are plenty of rap albums I enjoy more than certain 19th century sleep-inducing Romantic symphonies. Comments like these are what make other genre lovers look upon classical fans as snobs.


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## SanAntone




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## SanAntone




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## SanAntone




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## fbjim

E) wrong thread


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> I wasn't correcting somebody, I was acknowledging their point while pointing out that I focus on the best of a genre, IMO, not the mediocre or bad. If you wish to believe there is objective criteria for assessing greatness in music, that's your prerogative. I am not interested if there is or not. My experience informs my personal _belief_ that 1) it is subjective and 2) it doesn't matter.
> 
> I have found plenty of music which I find remarkably enjoyable. And much of that music is not classical. So, a thread asking the question "Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'..." I will answer no, I don't think it is, based on my experience of listening to both genres, and have given my reasons why I think that.


If someone says "I don't find any pop music very good" to reply "I only listen to what I find to be the best of every genre" is a rather silly non sequitur. You also claim something doesn't matter that you have spent 35 pages reading and posting about; I'm not sure how seriously to take this new claim.


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## BachIsBest

chu42 said:


> It is true that humans have a more complex shared understanding of musical quality. It does not make it any less subjective.
> 
> There are a large number of people who would agree that a certain color is ugly, or that a certain color is beautiful. Same with music, except you throw in a hundred other factors like rhythm, tone, structure that all can be appraised at different levels.
> 
> Such appraisal is still not objective, just more complicated.


That there can be shared understanding would seem to imply the existence of objectivity. If I may remind everyone, the dictionary definition of objectivity is not "independent of human bias" but "independent of personal bias" (to use it otherwise might involve, dare I say it, the Idol of the Marketplace). If you have a shared understanding amongst a large enough group of people then, to a certain extent, it becomes free of any one persons' biases and involves an objective component. Please note that I am not claiming this shared understanding is necessarily correct, but merely that it ceases to be a completely subjective issue.



chu42 said:


> It seems that I must remind the forum users not to fall trap to Bacon's 4 Idols:
> 
> 1. The idols of the Tribe is the tendency to treat human observation and reason as infallible, forgetting that all humans are finite beings who distort what they perceive.
> 
> 2. The idols of the Cave is the individual human tendency to treat our own ideas or truths as objective and true and not to take into account that all individual human wisdom is subjective and colored by one's own experiences and biases.
> 
> 3. The Idol of the Marketplace is the debasement of words and their misuse. We today might refer to this catering to the "vulgar" in its broadest form as propaganda. Twisting words this way obscures truth.
> 
> 4. The Idols of the Theatre is the belief in dogmas or systems of philosophy that distort reality. Like plays, these systems are approximations or models of truth and not truth itself.
> 
> All four of these Idols are commonly accepted as examples of fallacious human reasoning. It seems that many TalkClassical users are still bound by these idols, especially the 2nd and the 4th.


Although Bacon's understanding of scientific truth was obviously flawed and limited, these are probably good things to keep in mind. I have never claimed that my own tastes in music are "the best" and try my best to avoid philosophies that distort reality; I can not hope to be totally successful (no one is), but in my less self-critical moments I would like to think I'm as good as most.


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## chu42

BachIsBest said:


> If I may remind everyone, the dictionary definition of objectivity is not "independent of human bias" but "independent of personal bias" (to use it otherwise might involve, dare I say it, the Idol of the Marketplace).


This is where you miss a crucial portion of the dictonary definition.

From Oxford:



> (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing *facts*.


From Merriam-Webster:



> of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having *reality *independent of the mind.


From Cambridge:



> based on *real facts* and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings:


From Dictionary.com:



> not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on *facts*; unbiased:


So by the way I understand it; the major well-regarded dictionaries make it quite clear that objectivity can only be reflected when there are facts and reality involved.

And I'm sure that you'll agree that anybody who claims to represent fact in the value judgment of an artwork is merely falling victim to the first or second idol. Regardless of how many people agree or disagree.



BachIsBest said:


> If you have a shared understanding amongst a large enough group of people then, to a certain extent, it becomes free of any one persons' biases and involves an objective component. Please note that I am not claiming this shared understanding is necessarily correct, but merely that it ceases to be a completely subjective issue.


This begs the question: So the opinion of two people is surely subjective, but shared opinion of billion, or even a million people suddenly becomes objective? I don't see how there can be a magical cutoff where an opinion suddenly becomes objective just because enough people believe it. Like you said, it may not be necessarily correct and that's where the objectivity is lacking because they don't purport to represent facts.

If you are instead arguing that subjectivity is a spectrum where a subjective statement can be more arbitrary or less arbitrary based on how much value it has to other people; then we are on the same page.

I just don't think that objectivity can ever be reached in value judgments and to me it just sounds wrong to even use the word "objective" in the context of ranking art.


----------



## adriesba

Probably already been said a million times (sorry if I unintentionally copy someone, I'm not reading this whole thread), but anyway... We are essentially comparing apple trees to grape vines. You don't go to the apple tree to pick grapes. The two genres are different worlds with different aesthetics. They are there to satisfy different types of cravings and give different results. Just like we probably don't listen to a Leroy Anderson piece in the same manner as we do a Beethoven symphony. The criterion they meet to be satisfactory within their realms are too different to make a fair comparison.

Besides, as Strange Magic points out, plenty of people like both. Many people (including me) do not want to listen to something as extensive as Beethoven's 9th everyday.


----------



## adriesba

HenryPenfold said:


> It is also true that CM is better because it is more enduring - everyone knows the finale of Beethoven's 9th, but not many people know The Beatles' 'Love me Do'.


I don't know about that. "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Oh Susannah" among other things are pretty timeless and well known at this point.


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## Alinde

Strange Magic said:


> I am in awe of this reasoning. But how do we explain those older, worldly-wise, exceedingly clever university graduates who also appreciate the popular musics? I am at a loss.


It leaves me at a loss too. [Edited to say that I missed the "also" which rather disqualifies my comment but I'll leave it stand for what it's worth].

I think of the wonderful physicist, Brian Cox, as an striking instance, among others. ...

I can actually think of more examples of colossally brainy people who are passionate about classical music but that could be because it pleases me when people love what I love so I guess it's easier for me to remember them.


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## Art Rock

Am I the only one who read HenryPenfold's post as a spoof of some others' opinions?


----------



## BachIsBest

chu42 said:


> This is where you miss a crucial portion of the dictonary definition.
> 
> From Oxford:
> 
> From Merriam-Webster:
> 
> From Cambridge:
> 
> From Dictionary.com:
> 
> So by the way I understand it; the major well-regarded dictionaries make it quite clear that objectivity can only be reflected when there are facts and reality involved.
> 
> And I'm sure that you'll agree that anybody who claims to represent fact in the value judgment of an artwork is merely falling victim to the first or second idol. Regardless of how many people agree or disagree.


The Merriam-Webster definition is the most problematic for my position as it mentions reality. I don't like this definition (although my opinion counts little compared to a well-established dictionary), but it seems to be in a minority if your sample can be trusted. The inclusion of the word fact does little to harm my argument since my argument is that factual statements can be made about musical quality. I left out the word fact (or truth) because I assumed that it would be implied in the context of arguing over whether something was true (or factual).



chu42 said:


> This begs the question: So the opinion of two people is surely subjective, but shared opinion of billion, or even a million people suddenly becomes objective? I don't see how there can be a magical cutoff where an opinion suddenly becomes objective just because enough people believe it. Like you said, it may not be necessarily correct and that's where the objectivity is lacking because they don't purport to represent facts.
> 
> If you are instead arguing that subjectivity is a spectrum where a subjective statement can be more arbitrary or less arbitrary based on how much value it has to other people; then we are on the same page.
> 
> I just don't think that objectivity can ever be reached in value judgments and to me it just sounds wrong to even use the word "objective" in the context of ranking art.


This "where exactly do you draw the line" style of argumentation isn't correct. To be very concrete, I'm sure everyone knows the famous result that the difference between "wave" and "particular matter" is a spectrum rather than a dichotomy. When this was realised, no one argued that the concept of "wave" and "particular matter" suddenly became meaningless because one couldn't determine a magical cutoff between wave and particle. Everyone instead recognised that there are things that are obviously waves, things that are obviously particles, and a lot of grey area in between.

In many other emergent phenomena, the exact number of individual objects required to create is vague; what matters is that there are cases where there are obviously enough individual objects to create it.

Regardless, I have now been sucked in. Oh well. Just to be clear, I don't agree that classical music is strictly "better" than pop. One would have to get much more specific about "better" and in what generalities we are speaking to have a remotely reasonable statement.


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## mikeh375

Art Rock said:


> Am I the only one who read HenryPenfold's post as a spoof of some others' opinions?


No ArtR. It made me laugh even more when I imagined his voice as an 8 year old girl shyly and stumblingly reading it from a script.


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## janxharris

Art Rock said:


> Am I the only one who read HenryPenfold's post as a spoof of some others' opinions?


Ah - that would explain why a straight reading of it felt a little wonky.


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## HenryPenfold

Art Rock said:


> Am I the only one who read HenryPenfold's post as a spoof of some others' opinions?


I think I provided enough clues, but maybe a chat about irony could help ......


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## Art Rock

I lost it at Lennin's hit Imogen....


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## Strange Magic

BachIsBest said:


> That there can be shared understanding would seem to imply the existence of objectivity. If I may remind everyone, the dictionary definition of objectivity is not "independent of human bias" but "independent of personal bias" (to use it otherwise might involve, dare I say it, the Idol of the Marketplace). If you have a shared understanding amongst a large enough group of people then, to a certain extent, it becomes free of any one persons' biases and involves an objective component. Please note that I am not claiming this shared understanding is necessarily correct, but merely that it ceases to be a completely subjective issue.


Again, as a card-carrying relativist, I can satisfy easily the objectivists' hunger for facts about artworks: Their physical and temporal properties can be analyzed and documented with great accuracy--creator, date of creation, duration (if applicable), dimensions, weight, color(s), odor, sizes of audiences of auditors or viewers and their socio-economic status, price/"value" (auction or for insurance purposes), complexity, degree of enthusiasm for or against as determined by GSR or polling. More.....

Only we can't establish, objectively, that an art object is inherently, intrinsically Good, Bad, or Ugly.


----------



## Strange Magic

HenryPenfold said:


> I think I provided enough clues, but maybe a chat about irony could help ......


What threw me is the fact (and it is a fact) that the TC membership is highly varied (to our credit), and many responses and utterances are truly "wonderful"! :tiphat:


----------



## SanAntone

HenryPenfold said:


> I think I provided enough clues, but maybe a chat about irony could help ......


Or maybe a chat about the difference between irony, sarcasm and parody.


----------



## adriesba

Art Rock said:


> Am I the only one who read HenryPenfold's post as a spoof of some others' opinions?





HenryPenfold said:


> I think I provided enough clues, but maybe a chat about irony could help ......


Oh, I see. I'm just really bad at discerning sarcasm online. Sorry!


----------



## HenryPenfold

adriesba said:


> Oh, I see. I'm just really bad at discerning sarcasm online. Sorry!


There is no need to apologise.

Sarcasm, the highest form of wit and a central plank of British humour, has always had a bad press ...
_

noun_



the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.


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## SanAntone

Which do you prefer?


----------



## Xisten267

HenryPenfold said:


> I think that CM is better than pop because you must be much cleverer to create CM compositions than pop ones. Also, the audience for CM is much cleverer than the pop audience. Many CM fans are university graduates and are familiar with the classics and can read and write music, whereas most pop fans only have basic schooling and tend not to go to university. CM fans tend to be older and therefore more worldly wise and this leads to a better understanding and appreciation of music. It is much more complicated to write say, Beethoven's Klammerhavier piano sonata than Don Mclean's 'American pie" or John Lennin's 'Imogen'. It is also true that CM is better because it is more enduring - everyone knows the finale of Beethoven's 9th, but not many people know The Beatles' 'Love me Do'.


Mock those who don't share your opinion as you wish, and keep believing that you're clever for doing so, but know that doing this won't invalidate our points nor bring you any closer to truth (if there's one).



SanAntone said:


> Which do you prefer?


Quality and taste are not the same thing.


----------



## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> Quality and taste are not the same thing.


I disagree with you 100%. We only have our personal taste to decide on which music we think is good and what we choose to listen to. It takes a second judgment to decide if it is of "high quality". But that is an unnecessary judgment, and one I don't waste time on since all I am interested in is finding the music I like to listen to. I don't care if it is considered good or great by anyone else, or in the abstract.

I prefer Sheila Kay Adams vastly more than the classically trained singer. Which do _you_ prefer?


----------



## HenryPenfold

Allerius said:


> Mock those who don't share your opinion as you wish, and keep believing that you're clever for doing so, but know that doing this won't invalidate our points nor bring you any closer to truth (if there's one).


I don't have an opinion on the matter, and you will find I have not offered one on these pages - what I'm gently mocking, is the silly idea that one can be objective about entirely subjective matters. Ultimately, there is no solid rationale to believe that a banana is better than a washing machine (be like me, I'd rather not like to do without either).


----------



## Bulldog

SanAntone said:


> Which do you prefer?


I like both about the same. As for quality, I like both about the same.


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## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> Which do you prefer?


Wouldn't this also mean film music composers (which you described as being just film composers, not classical music composers) are also 100% classical music composers? 
Stuff like Beethoven's battle symphony was the film music of his time. The "greats" wrote plenty of that stuff in their times.


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## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> Wouldn't this also mean film composers (which you described as being just film composers, not classical music composers) are also 100% classical music composers?
> Stuff like Beethoven's battle symphony was the film music of his time. The "greats" wrote plenty of that stuff in their times.


What about those two clips made you relate them to film composers?

If you wish to think of film composers are writing classical music, I won't argue with you. I amended my opinion of John Williams after it was pointed out to me he wrote concert pieces. In fact, I like his _Concerto for Alto Sax_ (based on the music for the film _Catch Me If You Can_), and nominated it in the game of works for saxophone and voted for it every round. Unfortunately, it did not make the cut since others did not support it enough.


----------



## Xisten267

HenryPenfold said:


> I don't have an opinion on the matter, and you will find I have not offered one on these pages - what I'm gently mocking, is *the silly idea that one can be objective about entirely subjective matters*. Ultimately, there is no solid rationale to believe that a banana is better than a washing machine (be like me, I'd rather not like to do without either).


The idea that quality in music is an "entirely subjective matter" is an opinion, already implicit in an early post of yours here (post #497). I have the opposite opinion, that quality in music is _not_ an entirely subjective matter, and I don't think that it's silly to believe this - actually, it's difficult to me to understand how could one think that traffic noise is as good as the music of Mozart and Beethoven.


----------



## HenryPenfold

Allerius said:


> The idea that quality in music is an "entirely subjective matter" is an opinion, already implicit in an early post of yours here (post #497). I have the opposite opinion, that quality in music is _not_ an entirely subjective matter, and I don't think that it's silly to believe this.


Well you are not the only one that thinks that way, maybe I need to be less dismissive. I did read a most excellent article a few years ago by Roger Scruton who set out a very powerful argument that supports your view. I still struggle with that view, and I can't help thinking we're comparing apples with pears.


----------



## chu42

BachIsBest said:


> The Merriam-Webster definition is the most problematic for my position as it mentions reality. I don't like this definition (although my opinion counts little compared to a well-established dictionary), but it seems to be in a minority if your sample can be trusted. The inclusion of the word fact does little to harm my argument since my argument is that factual statements can be made about musical quality.


How can factual, provable, statements be made about the quality of a work (i.e., whether it is good or bad)? One can only judge a work objectively in the context of certain conventions;for example, it is impossible to objectively analyze didgeridoo music by the standards of the common practice era.

Furthermore, why is the word fact not synonymous with reality, when our only (limited) understanding of reality is based around what we call facts?


----------



## HenryPenfold

chu42 said:


> How can factual, provable, statements be made about the quality of a work? Furthermore, why is the word fact not synonymous with reality, when our only understanding of reality is based around facts?


Isn't reality based around 'truths' rather than facts?


----------



## adriesba

Allerius said:


> The idea that quality in music is an "entirely subjective matter" is an opinion, already implicit in an early post of yours here (post #497). I have the opposite opinion, that quality in music is _not_ an entirely subjective matter, and I don't think that it's silly to believe this - actually, it's difficult to me to understand how could one think that traffic noise is as good as the music of Mozart and Beethoven.


I used to argue this but have since had a change of mind. For a good explanation, see post 509 by chu42. Quality of music can't be objective because it's not something that can be separated from personal opinions. Quality of music is a product of the human brain. Even if everyone agrees that a piece of music is good, that says more about human psychology than about the music itself.


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> The idea that quality in music is an "entirely subjective matter" is an opinion, already implicit in an early post of yours here (post #497). I have the opposite opinion, that quality in music is _not_ an entirely subjective matter, and I don't think that it's silly to believe this - actually, it's difficult to me to understand how could one think that traffic noise is as good as the music of Mozart and Beethoven.


And again I have to bring up 2 of the fallacious idols of Francis Bacon:

1. The idols of the Tribe is the tendency to treat human observation and reason as infallible, forgetting that all humans are finite beings who distort what they perceive.

2. The idols of the Cave is the individual human tendency to treat our own ideas or truths as objective and true and not to take into account that all individual human wisdom is subjective and colored by one's own experiences and biases. That is, even when we think we are being objective, we are still bound by the influence of opinion in one way or another.

The idea that Mozart is inherently greater than traffic music is an idea that is much more arguable and less arbitrary because it pertains to most people's understanding of music. That doesn't make it any more objectively correct.

It is a fact that objective reality does not distinguish between traffic noise and Mozart. Most people simply enjoy one more than the other, and there are complicated reasons for it that are rooted in culture, biology, and genetics. None of which makes such enjoyment any more "objectively correct." There is no magical inherent force in Mozart that is not present in traffic noise.


----------



## chu42

HenryPenfold said:


> Isn't reality based around 'truths' rather than facts?


Facts represent what we believe to be truths, whether we are correct or not.


----------



## HenryPenfold

chu42 said:


> Facts represent what we believe to be truths, whether we are correct or not.


I'll take that as _yes?_


----------



## Xisten267

SanAntone said:


> I disagree with you 100%. *We only have our personal taste to decide on which music we think is good and what we choose to listen to.* It takes a second judgment to decide if it is of "high quality". But that is an unnecessary judgment, and one I don't waste time on since all I am interested in is finding the music I like to listen to. I don't care if it is considered good or great by anyone else, or in the abstract.


I think that what is in bold is the essence of our disagreement here. I believe that there _are_ criteria other than taste that we can use to judge the greatness of a piece - quality of melody and harmony, diversity of texture, effectiveness of orchestration (I prefer the term "timbristics" because some instruments can emulate many different sounds), details of form, development of thematic material, originality, expressiveness etc. In my opinion, these are only _partially_ relative.


----------



## hammeredklavier

SanAntone said:


> What about those two clips made you relate them to film composers?
> If you wish to think of film composers are writing classical music, I won't argue with you. I amended my opinion of John Williams after it was pointed out to me he wrote concert pieces. In fact, I like his _Concerto for Alto Sax_ (based on the music for the film _Catch Me If You Can_), and nominated it in the game of works for saxophone and voted for it every round. Unfortunately, it did not make the cut since others did not support it enough.


You said modern pop songwriters can be considered "classical music composers" because classical music composers of the past also wrote songs. I'm just applying the same logic to film music composers. A lot of what the greats of the past wrote were for the theater and stage. Come on, let's not delude ourselves.
Many film music composers today are actually direct followers of late Romantic orchestral music. Listen to Sibelius or Glazunov.


----------



## SanAntone

hammeredklavier said:


> You said modern pop songwriters can be considered "classical music composers" because classical music composers of the past also wrote songs. I'm just applying the same logic to film music composers. A lot of what the greats of the past wrote were for the theater and stage. Come on, let's not delude ourselves.
> Many film music composers today are actually direct followers of late Romantic orchestral music. Listen to Sibelius or Glazunov.


When did I say that? It doesn't sound like something I would say.

In any event, I don't care if film composers are called classical composers or not.


----------



## Xisten267

chu42 said:


> And again I have to bring up 2 of the fallacious idols of Francis Bacon:
> 
> 1. The idols of the Tribe is the tendency to treat human observation and reason as infallible, forgetting that all humans are finite beings who distort what they perceive.
> 
> 2. The idols of the Cave is the individual human tendency to treat our own ideas or truths as objective and true and not to take into account that all individual human wisdom is subjective and colored by one's own experiences and biases.* That is, even when we think we are being objective, we are still bound by the influence of opinion in one way or another.*


Are we? I believe that there's an inner logic that rules everything in our reality. I also believe that this logic can be perceived by reason and by our other senses, and that humanity can ultimately comprehend most of it through science if we have time enough. I think that human truths can be false or true, and that "true truths", the ones that follow this inner logic, are factual. Facts are objective truths; they aren't bound by the influence of opinion. For example, it's a fact that our world is approximately spherical in it's geometry. This couldn't be proven five thousands of years ago, and by then different people could have had different ideas of how is Earth's shape; it was still approximately spherical nonetheless, regardless of anyone's opinions.

Similarly, I believe that there _is_ greatness in the arts, and that it can be perceived using certain criteria. There's the problem that many of these criteria are subjective to an extent, and that the weight of these is not well-defined. Yet, they _can_ be perceived, and it seems that there's a convergence on _how_ they are perceived by different listeners (I think that few people would consider Giazotto's _adagio_ as being happy, sunny music for example. Most of us agree that it's not the case, we can _feel_ it, even if we can't prove it.). So, I assume that they _are_ relative, but not _totally_ relative. Just like 2+2 _is_ some value between -4 and 4 if we're talking about real vector magnitudes in Euclidean geometry: we know that there are infinite possibilities of results for this sum, but we also know that there are infinite possibilities that _can't_ be the result of it.



chu42 said:


> The idea that Mozart is inherently greater than traffic music is an idea that is much more arguable and less arbitrary because it pertains to most people's understanding of music. That doesn't make it any more objectively correct.
> 
> It is a fact that objective reality does not distinguish between traffic noise and Mozart. Most people simply enjoy one more than the other, and there are complicated reasons for it that are rooted in culture, biology, and genetics. None of which makes such enjoyment any more "objectively correct." *There is no magical inherent force in Mozart that is not present in traffic noise.*


I think that there is. If we accept that music is a language (Bernstein argued this if I remember correctly), then we should agree that there's always some kind of message, idea or logic being transmitted through it, even if we can't express with words what it is. Mozart could express magistrally what he wanted through this language; there's logic and structure governing his pieces. But this is not the case with traffic noise: it's just a bunch of random sounds that mean nothing.



adriesba said:


> I used to argue this but have since had a change of mind. For a good explanation, see post 509 by chu42. Quality of music can't be objective because it's not something that can be separated from personal opinions. Quality of music is a product of the human brain. Even if everyone agrees that a piece of music is good, that says more about human psychology than about the music itself.


I think that _what_ and _how_ music communicates matters, and that those who have experience and talent (I'm not necessarily including myself among these) can understand these attributes and evaluate them (how they will evaluate will be partially relative, as it will depend upon many factors, their tastes included). And even if the musical "code" is decoded in the human brain, this doesn't mean that it's random or meaningless, or totally relative.


----------



## Strange Magic

Allerius said:


> I think that what is in bold is the essence of our disagreement here. I believe that there _are_ criteria other than taste that we can use to judge the greatness of a piece - quality of melody and harmony, diversity of texture, effectiveness of orchestration (I prefer the term "timbristics" because some instruments can emulate many different sounds), details of form, development of thematic material, originality, expressiveness etc. In my opinion, these are only _partially_ relative.


Having these qualities be _partially_ relative is like being partially pregnant. "Quality" of melody and harmony, diversity of texture, "effectiveness" of orchestration, details of form, etc., etc. are all about as subjective as concepts as can be imagined, and, as such, are a hymn to the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of individual taste and opinion. If others agree, it is a summing of diverse opinions, a polling, a voting.


----------



## Xisten267

Strange Magic said:


> Having these qualities be _partially_ relative is like being partially pregnant. "Quality" of melody and harmony, diversity of texture, "effectiveness" of orchestration, details of form, etc., etc. are all about as subjective as concepts as can be imagined, and, as such, are a hymn to the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of individual taste and opinion. If others agree, it is a summing of diverse opinions, a polling, a voting.


I don't believe that the results of this summation of opinions is totally random, particularly when it comes from enthusiasts of music that devote great effort in exploring and assimilating new works. There's no smoke without fire, they say: I don't think that it's just a coincidence that Tchaikovsky always does well in polls about melodists, Chopin does well in polls about harmonists, the same with Mahler when the matter is orchestration etc.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I think pop music is better pop music than classical


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> I don't believe that the results of this summation of opinions is totally random, particularly when it comes from enthusiasts of music that devote great effort in exploring and assimilating new works. There's no smoke without fire, they say: I don't think that it's just a coincidence that Tchaikovsky always does well in polls about melodists, Chopin does well in polls about harmonists, the same with Mahler when the matter is orchestration etc.


Clearly it's not random. There are genetic, cultural, and biological reasons behind the way each human being perceives music.

This does not mean that Tchaikovsky is objectively a good melodist just because he does well in these polls. I don't see how a poll can indicate anything objective at all. Someone who doesn't like Tchaikovsky's melodies isn't objectively incorrect just because many people disagrees.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> ...
> It is a fact that objective reality does not distinguish between traffic noise and Mozart. ...


Objective reality does distinguish random noise from something that displays purposeful workmanship. It's like saying objective reality does not distinguish a Shakespeare sonnet from random letters picked out of a Scrabble set. Whether that Shakespeare sonnet or Mozart symphony is "good" or "enjoyable" is up to you.


----------



## Xisten267

chu42 said:


> Clearly it's not random. There are genetic, cultural, and biological reasons behind the way each human being perceives music.
> 
> This does not mean that Tchaikovsky is objectively a good melodist just because he does well in these polls. I don't see how a poll can indicate anything objective at all. Someone who doesn't like Tchaikovsky's melodies isn't objectively incorrect just because many people disagrees.


There's no way to rigorously prove that Tchaikovksy is a great melodist. We couldn't prove this same statement for McCartney either. But... they are. The hipothetical person disagreeing is just plain wrong, I don't know why, and I know that there can be many reasons for this to be argued by her; but the person is just wrong. The fact that I can't prove that x = 16 doesn't mean that x _is_ _not_ 16. It's possible for one to cite examples of remarkable themes by Tchaikovsky and McCartney; and through the creation of polls, we can see that there will be a convergence of people considering them impressive melodists. These are _evidences_ of the fact that they are remarkable melodists. But the proof can't be given. The listener will have to understand that by himself if he can.


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> There's no way to rigorously prove that Tchaikovksy is a great melodist. We couldn't prove this same statement for McCartney either. But... they are. The hipothetical person disagreeing is just plain wrong, I don't know why, and I know that there can be many reasons for this to be argued by her; but the person is just wrong. The fact that I can't prove that x = 16 doesn't mean that x _is_ _not_ 16. It's possible for one to cite examples of remarkable themes by Tchaikovsky and McCartney; and through the creation of polls, we can see that there will be a convergence of people considering them impressive melodists. These are _evidences_ of the fact that they are remarkable melodists. But the proof can't be given. The listener will have to understand that by himself if he can.


Objective fact: Many people enjoy Tchaikovsky's melodies.

Subjective opinion: Tchaikovksy's melodies are remarkable.

The only evidence you've cited was in support for the idea that many people like Tchaikovsky's melodies or Paul McCartney's songs. When many people hold the opinion that Tchaikovsky's melodies are attractive, that does not make it any less of an opinion. Opinions do not magically become fact when enough people agree with them.

Is Citizen Kane an objectively good film? Is chocolate an objectively good flavor? Is Horowitz an objectively good interpreter?

You have to realize that how humans feel about certain art and certain tastes entirely have to do with our cultural and biological dispositions, rather than any inherent greatness in the art itself.

Remove a certain gene from the human gene pool and maybe chocolate is disgusting to most people rather than delicious. The same could be done with Tchaikovsky, although I'd imagine that the process is much more complex.

So does the inherent greatness of a certain composer or work just boil down to whether or not you have the correct biological/cultural dispositions to enjoy them? That seems incredibly sterile and simply meaningless.

This is why I don't care at all what other people think about the music I enjoy. Do other people like Tchaikovsky's melodies? Who cares, since I enjoy them, and that's enough for me. You might derive some kind of enjoyment or superiority from knowing that you follow basic human trends, but I don't.

Just focus on what music brings to you. All else seems superfluous and self-serving.


----------



## chu42

consuono said:


> Objective reality does distinguish random noise from something that displays purposeful workmanship. It's like saying objective reality does not distinguish a Shakespeare sonnet from random letters picked out of a Scrabble set.


You're right; objective reality also distinguishes Mozart's Symphony No.40 from Mozart's Symphony No.41 because the literal sound particles and frequencies are different. But you probably already know that I mean in terms of inherent greatness, which doesn't exist in objective reality.



consuono said:


> Whether that Shakespeare sonnet or Mozart symphony is "good" or "enjoyable" is up to you.


Exactly right. Glad we can agree.


----------



## janxharris

Allerius said:


> There's no way to rigorously prove that Tchaikovksy is a great melodist. We couldn't prove this same statement for McCartney either. But... they are. The hipothetical person disagreeing is just plain wrong, I don't know why, and I know that there can be many reasons for this to be argued by her; but the person is just wrong. The fact that I can't prove that x = 16 doesn't mean that x _is_ _not_ 16. It's possible for one to cite examples of remarkable themes by Tchaikovsky and McCartney; and through the creation of polls, we can see that there will be a convergence of people considering them impressive melodists. These are _evidences_ of the fact that they are remarkable melodists. But the proof can't be given. The listener will have to understand that by himself if he can.


It's possible to have valid reasons to not agree with the consensus view. Averring that they are wrong as you do sounds very much like elitism and intolerance.


----------



## ArtMusic

The problem with the discussion here is an assumption that "rigorous scientific proof" is the only way to validate whether a composition is objectively good or weak. Well, you cannot apply a Geiger counter to measure whether Mozart's operas are inherently superior or not. That is obvious. Rather, artistic criteria are needed to do so. It is flawed to argue that there is no objective proof. Of course there is not in the scientific sense, simply because we are not talking about science; we are talking about art, and artistic criteria are applicable. This includes a general wide consensus from people in 1750, 1850, 1950 and 20201, from Germany, England, United States, Japan, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and all who overwhelmingly and consistently agree that Mozart (for example) was a composer of enormous talent and wrote great works. Pure and simple. To say that there needs to be shown or there is in fact no "objective proof" is as hilarious as thinking to use a Geiger counter to measure whether Mozart's works are great.


----------



## adriesba

ArtMusic said:


> The problem with the discussion here is an assumption that "rigorous scientific proof" is the only way to validate whether a composition is objectively good or weak. Well, you cannot apply a Geiger counter to measure whether Mozart's operas are inherently superior or not. That is obvious. Rather, artistic criteria are needed to do so. It is flawed to argue that there is no objective proof. Of course there is not in the scientific sense, simply because we are not talking about science; we are talking about art, and artistic criteria are applicable. This includes a general wide consensus from people in 1750, 1850, 1950 and 20201, from Germany, England, United States, Japan, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and all who overwhelmingly and consistently agree that Mozart (for example) was a composer of enormous talent and wrote great works. Pure and simple. To say that there needs to be shown or there is in fact no "objective proof" is as hilarious as thinking to use a Geiger counter to measure whether Mozart's works are great.


We can assess quality of a piece of music in various ways, but to say that any of these ways are "objective" is a misuse of the word "objective". I think where people get caught up is not on whether there is any way to assess music, but on terminology. I've seen the word "objective" misused elsewhere too.


----------



## Strange Magic

Allerius said:


> I don't believe that the results of this summation of opinions is totally random, particularly when it comes from enthusiasts of music that devote great effort in exploring and assimilating new works. There's no smoke without fire, they say: I don't think that it's just a coincidence that Tchaikovsky always does well in polls about melodists, Chopin does well in polls about harmonists, the same with Mahler when the matter is orchestration etc.


It is not a coincidence that Tchaikovsky does well as a melodist, etc. Votes show this as an objective fact when the relevant audience is polled. What is missing still from the understanding of this discussion is a realization that each individual brings to their assessment of music/art _their own internalized criteria for "greatness", "quality", "excellence"_ If others are found who agree, the impulse to attribute these qualities and "virtues" to something inherent in the music/art is very strong--people just "know" it's not Just Them; it is--it must be--something exuded like a gas by the music/art that all--if they were properly sensitive and not subject to some pathology--would recognize. The difference in views is reflected by the need of some for outside validation of their esthetic decisions by either a peer group or an ideological appeal to a Platonic outer Excellence. I bring instead self-validation.


----------



## Strange Magic

ArtMusic said:


> The problem with the discussion here is an assumption that "rigorous scientific proof" is the only way to validate whether a composition is objectively good or weak. Well, you cannot apply a Geiger counter to measure whether Mozart's operas are inherently superior or not. That is obvious. Rather, artistic criteria are needed to do so. It is flawed to argue that there is no objective proof. Of course there is not in the scientific sense, simply because we are not talking about science; we are talking about art, and artistic criteria are applicable. This includes a general wide consensus from people in 1750, 1850, 1950 and 20201, from Germany, England, United States, Japan, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and all who overwhelmingly and consistently agree that Mozart (for example) was a composer of enormous talent and wrote great works. Pure and simple. To say that there needs to be shown or there is in fact no "objective proof" is as hilarious as thinking to use a Geiger counter to measure whether Mozart's works are great.


A strong argument for the strength of the polled consensus. But, but again, the objective polling data and whatever consensuses are derived or established from it, should not be confused as indicating properties of "greatness" within the music/art other than what percentages of voters like it and what do not. Subjectivists do not need "objective proof" and are not looking for it. I'm gled we agree we're not going to find it. Polled "artistic criteria" as a substitute for "objective proof" are just that: polled data of a peer group and will not get us any closer. We each bring our own individual, unique subjective "artistic criteria" to any esthetic decision, and that, literally, is good enough for me.


----------



## consuono

chu42 said:


> You're right; objective reality also distinguishes Mozart's Symphony No.40 from Mozart's Symphony No.41 because the literal sound particles and frequencies are different. But you probably already know that I mean in terms of inherent greatness ....


That isn't what you said. You seem to have problems with clarity.


----------



## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> I don't believe that the results of this summation of opinions is totally random, particularly when it comes from enthusiasts of music that devote great effort in exploring and assimilating new works. There's no smoke without fire, they say: I don't think that it's just a coincidence that Tchaikovsky always does well in polls about melodists, Chopin does well in polls about harmonists, the same with Mahler when the matter is orchestration etc.


Polls are not reliable. First not everyone participates, and secondly, on TC the sample sizes are usually relatively small.

For the record, I listen to Tchaikovsky (never), Chopin (never) and Mahler (hardly ever) because after sampling their music I did not find it a worthwhile use of my time.

So, either I am not an "enthusiast of music that devotes great effort in exploring and assimilating new works" (I am, and do everyday) or these composers are not objectively better at melody, harmony and orchestration.

Your polls are made from self-selected groups of classical music buffs who largely share a similar taste in 19th century music: Completely subjective, and for the purposes of the point you are trying to make, meaningless.


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## chu42

consuono said:


> That isn't what you said. You seem to have problems with clarity.


It's not what I said and I apologize. I should have clarified.


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## chu42

Allerius said:


> Quality and taste are not the same thing.


Taste is how a work matches up to your own subjective opinions.

Quality is how a work matches up to other people's subjective opinions.

I fail to see how one can be objective while another is not. Either way, it's opinion.


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## consuono

chu42 said:


> It's not what I said and I apologize. I should have clarified.


It's ok and I have a problem with responding with civility, and I apologize also.


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> I don't believe that the results of this summation of opinions is totally random, particularly when it comes from enthusiasts of music that devote great effort in exploring and assimilating new works. There's no smoke without fire, they say: I don't think that it's just a coincidence that Tchaikovsky always does well in polls about melodists, Chopin does well in polls about harmonists, the same with Mahler when the matter is orchestration etc.


TC members can be somewhat unreasonably biased on certain topics though. In this poll on the "greatest string quintet", where 220 members participated, the Schubert C major quintet alone gets 60% of the vote, while each of the other 7 candidates gets 2~9%: What is the greatest string quintet?

I think Chopin's harmonies are surprising and satisfying, but there are also some aspects that can be controversial, for example, there are sections of Chopin's music that are continuous passages of diminished seventh chords, (such as the ending of prelude Op.45), or pieces made up of parallel eighths (preludes Op.28 nos.14, 18, 21). Whether stuff like that is great can depend on subjective interpretation by individuals.
Of course the "numerous fans" (ones like Larkenfield or Eva Yojimbo, who don't come to TC anymore) will always say "they're all great", while describing Mendelssohn and Schumann as if they're "mundane".
I think Chopin's harmony is kind of like Berlioz's orchestration; "innovative", but not quite "balanced" in the strict sense. If Chopin was given the task of writing a four-part chorale like the ones the Esterhazies' kapellmeister, J.N. Hummel did, would he have done them convincingly? 
So the meaning of "great harmonist" in the case of Chopin, means something else, from, say, that of Bach.
But at the same time, I won't deny the merits of Chopin's harmony, and there's certain truth in what Larkenfield said in defense of Chopin; 
"Virtually the entire range of human experience was expressed in the full measure of his many works, including the heroic, love, death, joy, humor, spirit, war, tenderness, the sarcastic, the intellectual, melancholy, depression, the darker side of life, and yet his critics can't see that because their distorted image of a great composer is only someone like Wagner driving down the highway in his full-size diesel Mercedes."


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## Bulldog

hammeredklavier said:


> TC members can be somewhat unreasonably biased on certain topics though. In this poll on the "greatest string quintet", where 220 members participated, the Schubert C major quintet alone gets 60% of the vote, while each of the other 7 candidates gets 2~9%: What is the greatest string quintet?


I see that this controversial poll still occupies your mind. My conclusion about the poll is that the competition wasn't strong.


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## Luchesi

A CM forum in which the value of CM isn't understood to be greater than that of other categories of music.
I wouldn't have believed it. I could understand it in a pop forum for teenagers, with their posturing and their inexperience and their young egos. No one denies that this is how people start out, but older members have been convinced by the growing relativism all around them, in literature, music and the visual arts. It borders on self-doubt. So, if the people with the high level of intelligence I find in here are correct, then it's MY ego that I should explore and question. Perhaps THAT'S what's disconcerting to me..


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## Art Rock

I think we are all here on this forum because we love classical music. The difference is that some of us listen to practically nothing else, while others also enjoy other types of music, and may or may not consider those just as good as classical music. I don't see why this should be a problem to anyone.


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## consuono

Art Rock said:


> I think we are all here on this forum because we love classical music. The difference is that some of us listen to practically nothing else, while others also enjoy other types of music, and may or may not consider those just as good as classical music. I don't see why this should be a problem to anyone.


I think it's the apples-oranges thing. I can't really judge Motown, Hendrix, the Beatles etc, which I love, by the music of Bach which I also love (probably above all other music). They're too different in form and intent to judge side by side.


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## Art Rock

For me 'A is better than B' means that I like A better than B (I'm in the subjectivists' team - which does NOT mean that everything has the same value), since in my experience there is no way that A is objectively better than B. I have no problem comparing selected pop/rock works with selected classical works in that sense. For instance:

I like Mahler's 9th symphony better than The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album.
I like Pink Floyd's Wish you were here album better than Beethoven's 3d symphony.

And of course numerous comparisons where it would be too close to call.

Taken as a whole (pop/rock versus classical - which is 'better') is of course far more difficult. But it is certainly not an automatic answer for me that it is classical. I love both genres.


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## Luchesi

Art Rock said:


> I think we are all here on this forum because we love classical music. The difference is that some of us listen to practically nothing else, while others also enjoy other types of music, and may or may not consider those just as good as classical music. I don't see *why this should be a problem to anyone*.


I've been having this debate since the early 70s, but now it's become more of a concern to me because of the problematic future for CM.

All these years I've taught youngsters and beginning adults the objective attributes of all kinds of music and I've seen what lasting benefit there has been for CM enthusiasts, through the decades. There's nothing I can think of that compares to it when you actually examine what's available for them. People might not realize it, but what compares to it? Maybe someone in here knows of a good replacement for this developmental aid (as if that was all it offers)?


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## janxharris

Luchesi said:


> I've been having this debate since the early 70s, but now it's become more of a concern to me because of the problematic future for CM.
> 
> All these years I've taught youngsters and beginning adults the objective attributes of all kinds of music and I've seen what lasting benefit there has been for CM enthusiats, through the decades. There's nothing I can think of that compares to it when you actually examine what's available for them. People might not realize it, but what compares to it? Maybe someone in here knows of a good replacement for this developmental aid (as if that was all it offers)?


Perhaps your definition of pop music is not as broad as that of other members.


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## Luchesi

janxharris said:


> Perhaps your definition of pop music is not as broad as that of other members.


I remember that my time (before my career job) was consumed by my passion for pop music starting with the clever songs before The Beatles and then those of the 70s and 80s. I rarely come across a song that I haven't heard before - from those decades.

I stopped paying attention when Grunge came out in the 90s, because I could see right through it . And I could see why the young men were interested in that type of expression. It was very simple music but to them it had the ambiguity and 'power' that they were searching for ...and living through. 
So perhaps you know of something I've missed since those 90s, which could give me with a more helpful 'definition'.


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## janxharris

Luchesi said:


> I remember that my time (before my career job) was consumed by my passion for pop music starting with the clever songs before The Beatles and then those of the 70s and 80s. I rarely come across a song that I haven't heard before - from those decades.
> 
> I stopped paying attention when Grunge came out in the 90s, because I could see right through it . And I could see why the young men were interested in that type of expression. It was very simple music but to them it had the ambiguity and 'power' that they were searching for ...and living through.
> So perhaps you know of something I've missed since those 90s, which could give me with a more helpful 'definition'.


Your definition is broader than I thought. If you are implying that all popular music is too simplistic then I doubt that you have heard as much as you think you have. Of course whether a piece is simple or complex need not determine it's appeal unless that is your focus (which, of course, is yours to determine). Still mystified as to why this troubles you. Sturgeon's law would imply that at least some popular music is superior to classical...for some people at least.


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## Zhdanov

pop is not music, to begin with.

neither is jazz and other mass culture products.

music is in fact a narrative that produces images and symbols.


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## Barbebleu

HenryPenfold said:


> I think that CM is better than pop because you must be much cleverer to create CM compositions than pop ones. Also, the audience for CM is much cleverer than the pop audience. Many CM fans are university graduates and are familiar with the classics and can read and write music, whereas most pop fans only have basic schooling and tend not to go to university. CM fans tend to be older and therefore more worldly wise and this leads to a better understanding and appreciation of music. It is much more complicated to write say, Beethoven's Klammerhavier piano sonata than Don Mclean's 'American pie" or John Lennin's 'Imogen'. It is also true that CM is better because it is more enduring - everyone knows the finale of Beethoven's 9th, but not many people know The Beatles' 'Love me Do'.


:lol::lol::lol:xxxxxxxxxx


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## Strange Magic

Zhdanov said:


> pop is not music, to begin with.
> 
> neither is jazz and other mass culture products.
> 
> music is in fact a narrative that produces images and symbols.


We've reached the end of the thread.


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## arpeggio

I do not know.

There is much pop music that I like: Beetles, Fleetwood Mac, Dave Matthews, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Willie Nelson, _etc._

I really do not think one can compare _Sargent Pepper_ and a Beethoven symphony. They are completely different.

Classical music includes many forms: Symphonies, Concertos, Operas, Chamber Music, Art Songs _etc._

Maybe one can try to compare pop songs to Verdi arias or art songs? Since my knowledge of Verdi and art songs are wanting, I do not have the wherewithal to answer.


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## Strange Magic

One could easily consider many of Bob Dylan's songs to be Art Songs. I do.


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## Art Rock

arpeggio said:


> I really do not think one can compare _Sargent Pepper_ and a Beethoven symphony. They are completely different.


One can compare though which one finds more satisfactory to listen to.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> I've been having this debate since the early 70s, but now it's become more of a concern to me because of the problematic future for CM.
> 
> All these years I've taught youngsters and beginning adults the objective attributes of all kinds of music and I've seen what lasting benefit there has been for CM enthusiasts, through the decades. There's nothing I can think of that compares to it when you actually examine what's available for them. People might not realize it, but what compares to it? Maybe someone in here knows of a good replacement for this developmental aid (as if that was all it offers)?


I can think of no good reason why you cannot keep teaching others whatever you will about CM. The fact that others do not believe, say, in one's own religion hardly prevents people from continuing to believe in their own. Anyway, the mechanics of teaching CM appreciation should remain unchanged, given that exposure is key, and that people will end up liking what they will, based upon a whole array of neurological, historical, and often even random factors. I ended up loving Luminist art from the happenstance of somebody--a complete stranger--giving me a book out of the blue that seized my imagination.


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## arpeggio

Art Rock said:


> One can compare though which one finds more satisfactory to listen to.


I agree.

But the OP asked, "Is classical music better than pop?"

That I do not know the answer to.


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## Art Rock

Looking at 578 posts, I think no-one has. Just some people think they have the answer.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> We've reached the end of the thread.


Many musicians see pop as taking advantage of some memorable and of course, salable gimmicks. Its intention involves profit (from inexperienced people looking for Art).

Jazz was a derogatory term. Jazz and jazz harmony grew from a cultural change in harmony. I don't subscribe to the extreme stance that it violates the theory of music theory, but some musicians do.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I can think of no good reason why you cannot keep teaching others whatever you will about CM. The fact that others do not believe, say, in one's own religion hardly prevents people from continuing to believe in their own. Anyway, the mechanics of teaching CM appreciation should remain unchanged, given that exposure is key, and that people will end up liking what they will, based upon a whole array of neurological, historical, and often even random factors. I ended up loving Luminist art from the happenstance of somebody--a complete stranger--giving me a book out of the blue that seized my imagination.


I can hear Cat Stevens sing "but what about the children? what about the future?


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## SanAntone

luchesi said:


> many musicians see pop as taking advantage of some memorable and of course, salable gimmicks. Its intention involves profit (from inexperienced people looking for art).
> 
> Jazz was a derogatory term. Jazz and jazz harmony grew from a cultural change in harmony. I don't subscribe to the extreme stance that it violates the theory of music theory, but some musicians do.


lol

...........................


----------



## BachIsBest

Art Rock said:


> Looking at 578 posts, I think no-one has. Just some people think they have the answer.


To be honest, the question seems so vague as to preclude an actual answer; the account of the OP has since been banned.


----------



## ArtMusic

Strange Magic said:


> We each bring our own individual, unique subjective "artistic criteria" to any esthetic decision, and that, literally, is good enough for me.


That's good. That is also a required criteria for me.

However I also want to know the heritage of a composition, its historical significance and influence, and place in posterity today. Now this does not necessarily mean that I cannot enjoy a composition regardless of what this shows. I have always maintained that enjoyment and artistic merit are two separate things. This is precisely why for example, a newly recorded Telemann violin concerto that has been forgotten for 300 years can be new and enjoyable today, even though it was totally forgotten since its premiere and probably had little or zero place in historical value.


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## Xisten267

janxharris said:


> It's possible to have valid reasons to not agree with the consensus view. Averring that they are wrong as you do sounds very much like elitism and intolerance.


It's not about consensus. It's about acknowledging very basic, self-evident assertions. Tchaikovsky _is_ a remarkable melodist. The St. Matthew Passion _is_ a great artistic achievement, while a simple recording of traffic noise _is not_. These are simple axiomatic truths that show that the notion of total relativity in the evaluation of the arts is false, and that the total relativists seem to not accept. I don't think that it's elitism or intolerance to acknowledge simple truths as facts - is it elitism or intolerance to acknowledge that in Euclidean geometry through any two points, there is exactly one line? I don't think so.

My position is that total relativism is a bad mentality that is damaging the arts. If "everything we do is music", if anything a composer creates is equally valid, then why should he try to improve? Why should he spend time and effort trying to make something more complex, more original, more profound? Why would a Beethoven spend many years creating a _Fidelio_, or a J.S. Bach composing his _Mass in B minor_, if the quality of what they create is totally relative and should be judged only by mere taste? Better to just make a _Despacito_, it's equally valid isn't it?

...


----------



## Xisten267

.................................



Strange Magic said:


> It is not a coincidence that Tchaikovsky does well as a melodist, etc. Votes show this as an objective fact when the relevant audience is polled. What is missing still from the understanding of this discussion is a realization that each individual brings to their assessment of music/art _their own internalized criteria for "greatness", "quality", "excellence"_ If others are found who agree, the impulse to attribute these qualities and "virtues" to something inherent in the music/art is very strong--people just "know" it's not Just Them; it is--it must be--something exuded like a gas by the music/art that all--if they were properly sensitive and not subject to some pathology--would recognize. The difference in views is reflected by the need of some for outside validation of their esthetic decisions by either a peer group or an ideological appeal to a Platonic outer Excellence. I bring instead self-validation.


If we can agree that these "internalized criteria" of greatness involve more than just personal taste, and that among them there should be basic valid criteria such as those I exemplified in post #539, then I think that we can consider ourselves on the same side. I don't believe that musical evaluating is totally objective either - I couldn't tell who is the greatest composer between J.S. Bach and Beethoven, and I think that arguments in favour of one or the other are equally valid, even if I obviously have my own preferences regarding who is my favorite. But I _can_ tell that both are greater composers than Justin Bieber, even if I can't prove that they are and can't objectively quantify greatness.



adriesba said:


> We can assess quality of a piece of music in various ways, but to say that any of these ways are "objective" is a misuse of the word "objective". I think where people get caught up is not on whether there is any way to assess music, but on terminology. I've seen the word "objective" misused elsewhere too.


They are not objective, but they aren't totally relative either.


----------



## Barbebleu

Allerius said:


> .................................


As cogent a post as you will see on this thread!

I refer of course to the original blank post not the edited one!


----------



## hammeredklavier

I personally think certain late 19th-century/ early 20th-century symphonists get way too much love on this forum (https://www.talkclassical.com/orchestral-music/poll-289-pick-up-three-3-a.html I think earlier guys like Schumann deserve more credit), the ones that are "hazy" in their expressions, where there's nothing particularly "memorable" over half-hours, but just incessant "meanderings" to create "atmospheres", similar to general film music of today. (At least Wagner has his fabulous "excerpts") but I know that for many, the music of these composers is pure gold.

I sympathize with this person (although I don't listen to rap):


Tchaikov6 said:


> that's silly. There are plenty of rap albums I enjoy more than certain 19th century sleep-inducing Romantic symphonies. Comments like these are what make other genre lovers look upon classical fans as snobs.


I also know janxharris has a negative opinion on stuff like:




and it's perfectly acceptable.

I also think that the "greatness" of the so called "great composers" is not quite completely objective. They're only great in the context of western classical music in terms of influence, impact and stuff, - and even in that, there are other composers who still deserve recognition.
On the flip side, I think there should be more logically fair criteria on what can be discussed and what cannot be, in this *"classical music" forum*. For example, I don't necessarily think avant-garde music is a "bad art", but clearly, not all of it belongs in classical music, at least not any more than John Williams or Joe Hisaishi does. (Even in visual arts, there are two separate categories: classical art vs. contemporary art)


----------



## hammeredklavier

Bulldog said:


> I see that this controversial poll still occupies your mind. My conclusion about the poll is that the competition wasn't strong.


I couldn't think of a better example of "unreasonably biased poll results" than that one. Even if the Schubert quintet is a masterpiece, the outcome of that poll seems extreme. It makes the other candidates look like garbage.
Do you have any other examples of what you consider "unreasonably biased poll results", Mr. Bull?


----------



## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> It's not about consensus. It's about acknowledging very basic, self-evident assertions. Tchaikovsky _is_ a remarkable melodist. The St. Matthew Passion _is_ a great artistic achievement, while a simple recording of traffic noise _is not_. These are simple axiomatic truths that show that the notion of total relativity in the evaluation of the arts is false, and that the relativists seem to not accept. I don't think that it's elitism or intolerance to acknowledge simple truths as facts - is it elitism or intolerance to acknowledge that in Euclidean geometry through any two points, there is exactly one line? I don't think so.


You are stating your opinion that Tchaikovsky is a remarkable melodist, i.e. better than most other composers, not "axiomatic truth". And your repeated comparing a classical work like the St. Matthew Passion with traffic noise as if anyone here is making that claim they are equally valuable as music, is a strawman.



> My position is that total relativism is a bad mentality that is damaging the arts. If "everything we do is music", if anything a composer creates is equally valid, then why should he try to improve? Why should he spend time and effort trying to make something more complex, more original, more profound? Why would a Beethoven spend many years creating a _Fidelio_, or a J.S. Bach composing his _Mass in B minor_, if the quality of what they create is totally relative and should be judged only by mere taste? Better to just make a _Despacito_, it's equally valid isn't it?


Beethoven and Bach were motivated by their aesthetic integrity and I doubt were affected by any outside opinions on the relative value of their work. You describe these composers as if they were snowflakes.

And you keep conflating the opinion that the appreciation of music is subjective with saying that everything is equal, or to use your term, valid. Just because John Cage may have thought that traffic noise is equally pleasing, to him, as a Beethoven sonata does not mean that I or any other of the "relativists" are arguing that premise. Some people may agree with Cage, I am not one of them because in my subjective opinion traffic noise is not as pleasing to me as a Beethoven sonata.

I don't consider the term "valid" as relevant to this discussion. The effort that goes into composing a work is valid for the composer. What other people think of his work is their opinion, nothing more.

But that is not the subject of this thread. This thread is about whether classical music is inherently better than popular music.

I have said that when I approach this question I am comparing the best of each genre to the best of the other, and do not think that the best (IMO) of classical music is better than the best (IMO) of popular music.

Some classical works are better, IMO, than some popular music examples, but the opposite is also true, IMO. And I have seen no "objective" criteria to prove to me wrong, only other subjective responses, like yours, which you try to dress up as "axiomatic truths."


----------



## Xisten267

SanAntone said:


> Polls are not reliable. First not everyone participates, and secondly, on TC the sample sizes are usually relatively small.
> 
> For the record, I listen to Tchaikovsky (never), Chopin (never) and Mahler (hardly ever) because after sampling their music I did not find it a worthwhile use of my time.
> 
> So, either I am not an "enthusiast of music that devotes great effort in exploring and assimilating new works" (I am, and do everyday) or these composers are not objectively better at melody, harmony and orchestration.
> 
> Your polls are made from self-selected groups of classical music buffs who largely share a similar taste in 19th century music: Completely subjective, and for the purposes of the point you are trying to make, meaningless.


You don't need to like these composers to acknowledge that their music have certain merits, and the results of a poll of music enthusiasts _can be_ an interesting evidence of a "true truth" but proves nothing.



SanAntone said:


> You are stating your opinion that Tchaikovsky is a remarkable melodist, i.e. better than most other composers, not "axiomatic truth". And your repeated comparing a classical work like the St. Matthew Passion with traffic noise as if anyone here is making that claim they are equally valuable as music, is a strawman.


I'm acknowledging Tchaikovsky's obvious talent as a melodist, a talent that not all people have and that is not totally relative. And Cage, a composer you and the other total relativists seem to love and agree with, compared traffic noise favourably to the music of Mozart and Beethoven (change "St. Matthew Passion" for "Don Giovanni" if you wish), so my point stands.



SanAntone said:


> And you keep conflating the opinion that the appreciation of music is subjective with saying that everything is equal, or to use your term, valid. Just because John Cage may have thought that traffic noise is equally pleasing, to him, as a Beethoven sonata does not mean that I or any other of the "relativists" are arguing that premise. Some people may agree with Cage, I am not one of them because in my subjective opinion traffic noise is not as pleasing to me as a Beethoven sonata.


The point is that a Beethoven sonata is a greater artistic achievement than traffic noise no matter if you, Cage or anyone else likes it or not. It's not about taste, it's about quality.



SanAntone said:


> But that is not the subject of this thread. This thread is about whether classical music is inherently better than popular music.


Yes, and my opinion remains the same as that of post #8.


----------



## Strange Magic

Allerius said:


> It's not about consensus. It's about acknowledging very basic, self-evident assertions. Tchaikovsky _is_ a remarkable melodist. The St. Matthew Passion _is_ a great artistic achievement, while a simple recording of traffic noise _is not_. These are simple axiomatic truths that show that the notion of total relativity in the evaluation of the arts is false, and that the relativists seem to not accept. I don't think that it's elitism or intolerance to acknowledge simple truths as facts - is it elitism or intolerance to acknowledge that in Euclidean geometry through any two points, there is exactly one line? I don't think so.
> 
> My position is that total relativism is a bad mentality that is damaging the arts. If "everything we do is music", if anything a composer creates is equally valid, then why should he try to improve? Why should he spend time and effort trying to make something more complex, more original, more profound? Why would a Beethoven spend many years creating a _Fidelio_, or a J.S. Bach composing his _Mass in B minor_, if the quality of what they create is totally relative and should be judged only by mere taste? Better to just make a _Despacito_, it's equally valid isn't it?


I do not understand the evident need, expressed so often in posts like this above, for external validation of one's artistic preferences. It's almost as if people felt that they would disappear, or Art would disappear, unless some underlying Platonic structure was found to support the whole edifice. We are offered composers throwing up their hands in some sort of philosophical crisis because their art cannot be demonstrated to be some integral part of a (semi-divine?) framework that holds up the universe's entire existence. The singular feature of my flavor of esthetic relativism is that each of us is free to establish our own rules, regulations, criteria, standards for art. It's really nice when others agree with us, or we with them; it's nice to feel one is part of an In-Group of True Connoisseurs, but I'll wager that neither Bach nor Beethoven were concerned overlong with such feelings.

There is much talk of self-evidents and axiomatic truths, but these are commingled with the need that we acknowledge these as "assertions" . Well, I offer instead my counter-assertions, among them that "greatness" in the arts is neither demonstrable within the artwork nor is it required, and is only called into being by the application of each individual's personal and unique criteria.


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## SanAntone

Allerius said:


> You don't need to like these composers to acknowledge that their music have certain merits, and the results of a poll of music enthusiasts _can be_ an interesting evidence of a "true truth" but proves nothing.


I don't put much importance on a TC poll, you're right it doesn't prove anything. The only evidence it provides is that at a given time among a certain group of TC members Tchaikovsky won a poll about melodists. The same poll might render completely different results depending upon the group of composers offered and the makeup of the respondents.



> I'm acknowledging Tchaikovsky's obvious talent as a melodist, a talent that not all people have and that is not totally relative. And Cage, a composer you and the other total relativists seem to love and agree with, compared traffic noise favourably to the music of Mozart and Beethoven (change "St. Matthew Passion" for "Don Giovanni" if you wish), so my point stands.


Many classical composers have a gift for melody. You cannot prove that Tchaikovsky's gift is greater than most composers in this regard. Some might prefer Rimsky-Korsakov, some Mendelssohn, some Liszt, some Chopin, some might prefer Schoenberg.

I do not consider myself a total relativist, that is your term. I have never used that term with assessing music, and the way you use it has nothing to do with my stipulation that I believe that assessing music is subjective. Having a subjective opinion about a work does not mean that I think all works are equal. Just the opposite, I subjectively prefer some works more than others and recognize that others will have their own preferences. No one is saying that all music is equal.

You are making too much of this opinion of Cage and its relevance to the members here who disagree with you. While Cage is free to think that, his opinion in this regard does not represent my own views simply because I enjoy some of his work.



> The point is that a Beethoven sonata is a greater artistic achievement than traffic noise no matter if you, Cage or anyone else likes it or not. It's not about taste, it's about quality.


I will acknowledge that the majority of classical listeners will agree that a Beethoven sonata has more musical value than traffic noise. That's an easy one. But it gets harder when the choice is between a Beethoven sonata with a comparable example from the solo piano music of Debussy.

These questions are all decided by our subjective opinions - there is no "true truth" except our own personal truths about the music we prefer.


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## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> I don't put much importance on a TC poll, you're right it doesn't prove anything. The only evidence it provides is that at a given time among a certain group of TC members Tchaikovsky won a poll about melodists. The same poll might render completely different results depending upon the group of composers offered and the makeup of the respondents.
> 
> Many classical composers have a gift for melody. You cannot prove that Tchaikovsky's gift is greater than most composers in this regard. Some might prefer Rimsky-Korsakov, some Mendelssohn, some Liszt, some Chopin, some might prefer Schoenberg.
> 
> I do not consider myself a total relativist, that is your term. I have never used that term with assessing music, and the way you use it has nothing to do with my stipulation that I believe that assessing music is subjective. Having a subjective opinion about a work does not meean that I think all works are equal. Just the opposite, I subjectively prefer some works more than others and recognize that others will have their own preferences. No one is saying that all music is equal.
> 
> You are making too much of this opinion of Cage and its relevance to the members here who disagree with you. While Cage is free to think that, his opinion in this regard does not represent my own views simply because I enjoy some of his work.
> 
> I will acknowledge that the majority of classical listeners will agree that a Beethoven sonata has more musical value than traffic noise. That's an easy one. But it gets harder when the choice is between a Beethoven sonata with a comparable example from the solo piano music of Debussy.
> 
> These questions are all decided by our subjective opinions - there is no "true truth" except our own personal truths about the music we prefer.


What are the consequences of what you're teaching here?


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## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> What are the consequences of what you're teaching here?


I am not teaching anything here, I am expressing my opinion about the subject of this thread. The only consequences might be to cause someone to rethink their assumptions. It's a long shot, I know, but some people who read this thread may still have an open mind.


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## Luchesi

SanAntone said:


> I am not teaching anything here, I am expressing my opinion about the subject of this thread. The only consequences might be to cause someone to rethink their assumptions. It's a long shot, I know, but some people who read this thread may still have an open mind.


Maybe you don't realize how persuasive you are. Posters will accept that pop is just as relevant as CM to a thinking person.


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## Haydn70

Luchesi said:


> Maybe you don't realize how persuasive you are. * Posters will accept that pop is just as relevant as CM to a thinking person*.


Not this thinking person. Pop music is musical fast food...classical music is musical gourmet dining.


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## Art Rock

Good classical music is like dining in a three Michelin stars restaurant.
Good pop/rock music is like dining in a three Michelin stars restaurant, with a different chef and a different menu.


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## Haydn70

Good classical music is like dining in a three Michelin stars restaurant.
Good pop/rock music is like dining at a good fast food joint...or a great, classic "greasy spoon" restaurant like this one in downtown Los Angeles: https://pantrycafe.restaurant/

(I can't wait until Los Angeles returns to indoor dining...one of my first trips will be to go to the Original Pantry and get their great beef cutlets with a side of home fried potatoes and the best cole slaw on the face of the planet.)


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Why would a Beethoven spend many years creating a _Fidelio_, or a J.S. Bach composing his _Mass in B minor_, if the quality of what they create is totally relative and should be judged only by mere taste? Better to just make a _Despacito_, it's equally valid isn't it?


Bach's B minor mass is mostly a collection of the supposedly "best" (or maybe his own favorite) parts from his cantatas, (which he wrote fast, and consistently throughout his life). It's Baroque-style recycling of old material - a bit similar to how Handel wrote the Messiah in 24 days. Professional composers during that time wrote very fast, it was a requirement of their profession and employment. (That's how Telemann's 1,000+ cantatas, Graupner's 1,400+ cantatas came into being). I don't think we should judge their works by the time they wrote. 
Watch out. Pop fans might use this fact to argue "I like Bach's B minor mass, which is a better part of his output, but given the choice of listening to the greatest pop hits or Bach's lesser cantatas, I would choose the greatest pop hits".


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Maybe you don't realize how persuasive you are. Posters will accept that pop is just as relevant as CM to a thinking person.


Headline of a current NYTimes Op-Ed:

"*Taylor Swift Is Singing Us Back to Nature*

_Her work is overflowing with the language and landscapes of the natural world. As a father and a conservation scientist, I value that._"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/opinion/taylor-swift-grammys-nature-lyrics.html


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## SanAntone

Luchesi said:


> Maybe you don't realize how persuasive you are. Posters will accept that pop is just as relevant as CM to a thinking person.


Maybe you might consider adjusting your opinion of popular music. You might begin by listening to some good pop.



Haydn70 said:


> Not this thinking person. Pop music is musical fast food...classical music is musical gourmet dining.


You are another one who appears to be largely ignorant of the variety of popular music. The popular music I listen to is not the musical equivalent to fast food.



Art Rock said:


> Good classical music is like dining in a three Michelin stars restaurant.
> Good pop/rock music is like dining in a three Michelin stars restaurant, with a different chef and a different menu.


Much earlier in this thread I made a comparison of classical, pop and other genres to food/menus. It is an apt analogy, IMO. I even suggested a possible thread based on the idea.


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## Haydn70

SanAntone said:


> Maybe you might consider adjusting your opinion of popular music. You might begin by listening to some good pop.
> 
> *You are another one who appears to be largely ignorant of the variety of popular music. The popular music I listen to is not the musical equivalent to fast food. *
> 
> Much earlier in this thread I made a comparison of classical, pop and other genres to food/menus. It is an apt analogy, IMO. I even suggested a possible thread based on the idea.


No, I am not...but you will gone on thinking that I am, I am quite sure. Just keep tossing out those _ad hominems_.


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## SanAntone

Haydn70 said:


> No, I am not...but you will gone on thinking that I am, I am quite sure. Just keep tossing out those _ad hominems_.


Only someone who has not listened to the wealth of popular music could say the things you say.

Btw, "ignorant" is not an insult. It just means you lack information about a topic. Saying someone is ignorant is not at all the same thing as saying they are stupid, which is a serious insult. Ignorance is a temporary state and can be easily cured by exposure and education; we are all ignorant at different times of our lives and will always be ignorant about many things. Stupidity is the permanent and incurable lack of intelligence.


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## Barbebleu

“There is no sin except stupidity” - Oscar Wilde. A wise man indeed.


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## Haydn70

SanAntone said:


> Only someone who has not listened to the wealth of popular music could say the things you say.
> 
> Btw, "ignorant" is not an insult. It just means you lack information about a topic. Saying someone is ignorant is not at all the same thing as saying they are stupid, which is a serious insult. Ignorance is a temporary state and can be easily cured by exposure and education; we are all ignorant at different times of our lives and will always be ignorant about many things. Stupidity is the permanent and incurable lack of intelligence.


First off, I agree with your explanation of ignorant. There I stand corrected.

Second off, I completely disagree with: "Only someone who has not listened to the wealth of popular music could say the things you say."

Incredibly presumptuous…and absolutist.

What happened to your ongoing relativism? Your insistence that I will agree with you if only I listened to the wealth of popular music. "Yes, Haydn70, if only you did that you would see that SanAntone is correct!"

Like all relativists you abandon your relativism when it suits you.


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## Ethereality

Wow. Country music has dominated the Top 10 for over 100 years. 






I guess this relates back to my 'Whitney Houston' comment, how the most popular songs can copy forgotten classics.


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## SanAntone

Haydn70 said:


> First off, I agree with your explanation of ignorant. There I stand corrected.
> 
> Second off, I completely disagree with: "Only someone who has not listened to the wealth of popular music could say the things you say."
> 
> Incredibly presumptuous…and absolutist.
> 
> What happened to your ongoing relativism? Your insistence that I will agree with you if only I listened to the wealth of popular music. "Yes, Haydn70, if only you did that you would see that SanAntone is correct!"
> 
> Like all relativists you abandon your relativism when it suits you.


I am not and have never claimed to be a "relativist." This is a label that was used by someone else and one in which I disputed. I do not think all forms of music are equal or that noise is equally musical as a classical sonata. That strawman argument has been repeatedly put forward and again, one in which I disputed as representing my views or even anyone's views I've read on this forum.

I have always said I believe that the appreciation and assessment of music is subjective. But this does not mean that I think all music is equally good. I have also said that for the purposes of this thread I am comparing the best of popular music with the best of classical. I just posted this a few posts previous.

Why do you continue to misrepresent my view?

The only way I can explain your dismissal of the wide variety and wealth of popular music is if we are define popular music differently. You may be using a much narrower definition than I am.

I include all forms of non-classical music as forms of popular culture/music. Within this collection of music is jazz, blues, fada, flamenco, roots music like bluegrass, old time, folk music - as well as rock, and commercial pop. I tend to think you are only describing the last of these styles.

There is a lot of pop music which is produced merely as a commercial product - but even among that kind of music there is music I think is better than others. The Beatles made what I consider high quality pop but which was also very commercial.

I think artists such as Peter Gabriel, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Imogen Heap, among many others produce high quality popular music which is often on a par with classical music. I do not think that all pop is of the same quality, and in fact think much of it is dreck. But there is plenty of non-classical music which I think is on as high an artistic level as classical music.

But that is my subjective opinion.


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> Maybe you might consider adjusting your opinion of popular music. You might begin by listening to some good pop.





SanAntone said:


> I am not and have never claimed to be a "relativist." This is a label that was used by someone else and one in which I disputed. I do not think all forms of music are equal or that noise is equally musical as a classical sonata. That strawman argument has been repeatedly put forward and again, one in which I disputed as representing my views or even anyone's views I've read on this forum.
> 
> I have always said I believe that the appreciation and assessment of music is subjective. But this does not mean that I think all music is equally good. I have also said that for the purposes of this thread I am comparing the best of popular music with the best of classical. I just posted this a few posts previous.


I don't understand. Having an objective component in music evaluation is impossible, but you don't think all music is equally good and believe some music is more musical than other music?

Again, if you just replace "good" with "my favourite", then your responses are ridiculous non-sequitur.


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## Strange Magic

Haydn70 said:


> Like all relativists you abandon your relativism when it suits you.


As one of the original relativists and individualists, I grant to each and every lover of art and music the right and ability to set up _for themselves_ any structure of hierarchy they choose. All can certainly have personal gradations and standards of Good, Bad, Great, Masterpiece. etc. Not only does this not do violence to my relativist and subjectivist viewpoint, it actually enhances it.

Like all Haydn70s, you make sweeping statements that do little to advance your position.


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## Strange Magic

BachIsBest said:


> I don't understand. Having an objective component in music evaluation is impossible, but you don't think all music is equally good and believe some music is more musical than other music?
> 
> Again, if you just replace "good" with "my favourite", then your responses are ridiculous non-sequitur.


See my post above.


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## DaveM

SanAntone said:


> ..I include all forms of non-classical music as forms of popular culture/music. Within this collection of music is jazz, blues, fada, flamenco, roots music like bluegrass, old time, folk music - as well as rock, and commercial pop. I tend to think you are only describing the last of these styles..


It is not typical that all those genres, particularly jazz, are included under the term, pop music, but they might be, as you are doing, included under the term 'popular culture music', so when discussing the subject, everyone has to be on the same page, otherwise discussion can be at cross-purposes.


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## SanAntone

BachIsBest said:


> I don't understand. Having an objective component in music evaluation is impossible, but you don't think all music is equally good and believe some music is more musical than other music?
> 
> Again, if you just replace "good" with "my favourite", then your responses are ridiculous non-sequitur.


I _subjectively_ assess examples of music, both classical and non-classical, and decide if I think they are well-written; please/excite/interest my ear, mind and imagination; are expressing an idea uniquely; and display higher artistic aspirations than other examples which strike me as done for primarily commercial purposes. All IMO.

Since I do not use any objective criteria to make these judgments (I am not aware of any and have never been convinced of any by someone else), I am relying on my subjective opinion which is informed by 50 years of being a musician, both classical and jazz, and as a roots music songwriter (lyrics and music).

My subjective evaluation is based on something more than a superficial idea of "I like it." But it is still a subjective appraisal since someone else might disagree with some or all of my determinations, and I cannot prove to them that mine are the only correct determinations. Nor am I interested in doing so.

My favorite examples exhibit the characteristics I cited to a high degree - which is why they are my favorites.


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## adriesba

Saying that value in music is subjective and not objective is not the same as saying there is no way to see value in music. What I am seeing here is a lot of misunderstanding over what these words actually mean. Saying quality in music is subjective simply means that its quality is a product of human perception. There is nothing in and of the music itself that makes the music good. People have to work out for themselves what value they see in the music. 

You may disagree with someone if they say a piece of music is good or bad, but their position is not something that you can prove or disprove, though you can explain why you personally may see it differently.

Saying that quality in music is objective is like trying to equate its perceived quality to something as concrete as 2+2=4. Someone can say they disagree and that 2+2=100. Then you could demonstrate that no matter what they personally think, they are factually incorrect. They have no room to think otherwise. There is no way to do this with music because it ultimately depends on opinion.

Nevertheless, each one of us can decide by what criteria to judge musical quality by. There may also be overlap in people's opinions. All that means is that those people think alike when it comes to making that assessment. Most would probably agree that Beethoven's 9th is a masterpiece. That doesn't mean that it factually is a masterpiece, but that many people perceive it that way, that many people's brains work similarly in their perception of it, and that their criteria for calling something a masterpiece probably overlap to an extent.

Edit: I hadn't seen the post above mine, but yes, that's what I'm trying to get at.


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## Ethereality

_Message deleted._


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## Ethereality

These are my personal favorite pop/rock excerpts in history. To me, you can feel the beyond-quality in the music, the breaking of standards that nobody thought was possible, so revolutionary to America.

The Quintessential Classic Rock'n Roll:
_Vanity Fair - Hitching A Ride_





The Quintessential Soul music:
_Marvin Gaye - I Heard it Through the Grape Vine_





The Quintessential _Real_ Rock'n Roll (ie. the apex of rock):
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing





The Quintessential Soul-Rock merger:
_Electric Light Orchestra - Evil Woman_





I don't think 3 is better than 1, but that 1 is true _Classic_ Rock'n Roll, while 3 is Real Rock'n Roll at its apex. Two different eras. The tradition and imagination in all of these masterpieces is mind-blowing.


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> I _subjectively_ assess examples of music, both classical and non-classical, and decide if I think they are well-written; please/excite/interest my ear, mind and imagination; are expressing an idea uniquely; and display higher artistic aspirations than other examples which strike me as done for primarily commercial purposes. All IMO.
> 
> Since I do not use any objective criteria to make these judgments (I am not aware of any and have never been convinced of any by someone else), I am relying on my subjective opinion which is informed by 50 years of being a musician, both classical and jazz, and as a roots music songwriter (lyrics and music).
> 
> My subjective evaluation is based on something more than a superficial idea of "I like it." But it is still a subjective appraisal since someone else might disagree with some or all of my determinations, and I cannot prove to them that mine are the only correct determinations. Nor am I interested in doing so.
> 
> My favorite examples exhibit the characteristics I cited to a high degree - which is why they are my favorites.


Okay, then why are you responding to other users who think pop is bad? Arguing about subjective assessments is utterly pointless. You can't (consistently) both argue about musical quality and not believe it exists.


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## Art Rock

I don't think any of us who like 'pop' (in the broadest sense) have a problem with others not liking it. We all have different tastes, even within sub-genres. Of the five artists mentioned by SanAntone, three are among my own favourites, and I don't care at all for the other two. I'm sure everyone here will accept similar differing preferences in classical music without blinking an eye.

The reason why this discussion is continuing is that there are also members here who go a step (several steps) further by effectively stating that other types of music are objectively of lower quality than classical music. Now it is no longer about taste. Of course that attitude is also nothing new - within classical music we see this also, in discussions of e.g. contemporary music versus the canon composers. But that is the attitude that sparks heated discussions that will in the end lead to nothing, because neither side will change their mind.


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## SanAntone

BachIsBest said:


> Okay, then why are you responding to other users who think pop is bad? Arguing about subjective assessments is utterly pointless. You can't (consistently) both argue about musical quality and not believe it exists.


Because they are not saying that it is their _subjective opinion_ that classical music is better; they are claiming that classical music is objectively better. There are two aspects that I disagree with: 1) music can be objectively judged and 2) that classical music is inherently better than popular music.

"It's not about taste it's about quality."

Why should I not challenge these ideas?


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## Zhdanov

Art Rock said:


> Good classical music is like dining in a three Michelin stars restaurant. Good pop/rock music is like dining in a three Michelin stars restaurant, with a different chef and a different menu.


as far as analogies go, classical music is like cuisine, but mass culture is like snacks kinda popcorn; the former is food, the latter is not while being rather a poison stuff then something to eat.


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## Zhdanov

Art Rock said:


> that is the attitude that sparks heated discussions that will in the end lead to nothing, because neither side will change their mind.


those into mass culture will eventually change their mind and regret the time lost and taste damaged sooner or later.


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## Ethereality

Almost everybody I've shared my classic music with (above) have told me how amazing my taste is, want to borrow my albums, etc. Somehow I have a knack for wide appeal, I don't know what it is. It's okay that nobody wants to comment on my recommendations  especially if you're more knowledgeable or experienced in this subjective topic. I'll leave you to (the correct) subjectivity, as it is


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## Strange Magic

Ethereality said:


> Almost everybody I've shared my classic music with (above) have told me how amazing my taste is, want to borrow my albums, etc. Somehow I have a knack for wide appeal, I don't know what it is. It's okay that nobody wants to comment on my recommendations  especially if they're more knowledgeable or experienced in this subjective topic. I'll leave you to (the correct) subjectivity, as it is


Yes, but if I do not share your tastes, what then? Will you demonstrate, objectively, without recourse to polling your peers (and fans) and the published professional esthetes just how your tastes are better than mine? You must realize that we are merely looking at our reflections in a mirror when it comes to esthetics, but some of us realize that it's true..


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## Strange Magic

Zhdanov said:


> those into mass culture will eventually change their mind and regret the time lost and taste damaged sooner or later.


A personal _cri de coeur_? Sighing over the lost years and destroyed potentialities? Actually, I have listened to The Police, Prokofiev, and Pastora Pavon for decades without a sense of self-harm.


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## Ethereality

Strange Magic said:


> Yes, but if I do not share your tastes, what then? Will you demonstrate, objectively, without recourse to polling your peers (and fans) and the published professional esthetes just how your tastes are better than mine? You must realize that we are merely looking at our reflections in a mirror when it comes to esthetics, but some of us realize that it's true..


The first song above especially, Vanity Fair, blows my mind the most still. It's that stereotypical classic electric sound that developed in the 60s still to this day sounds like a perfect American weekend, breeze in your hair, classic red car, girlfriends barbecue and drive-ins, a wholesome life. It's the most 'jammin' experience for sure :angel:

Queen just briefly (very faintly) hinted at this Classic rock sound here in this verse, what do you call this guitar setting?


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## Strange Magic

Ethereality said:


> Almost everybody I've shared my classic music with (above) have told me how amazing my taste is, want to borrow my albums, etc. Somehow I have a knack for wide appeal, I don't know what it is. It's okay that nobody wants to comment on my recommendations  especially if you're more knowledgeable or experienced in this subjective topic. I'll leave you to (the correct) subjectivity, as it is


I do share your tastes as above, and rejoice that our enthusiasms so nicely coincide! :angel:


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## chu42

BachIsBest said:


> Okay, then why are you responding to other users who think pop is bad? Arguing about subjective assessments is utterly pointless. You can't (consistently) both argue about musical quality and not believe it exists.


While Haydn70 is absolutely ignorant on pop music in general, especially popular music from the earlier part of the 20th century, I will never argue with him about whether or not pop is worth listening to. That's up to him to decide.

Unless he proposes that pop music is objectively poor-that is where we will have disagreement even though I personally do not even listen to very much popular music.


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## BachIsBest

SanAntone said:


> Because they are not saying that it is their _subjective opinion_ that classical music is better; they are claiming that classical music is objectively better. There are two aspects that I disagree with: 1) music can be objectively judged and 2) that classical music is inherently better than popular music.
> 
> "It's not about taste it's about quality."
> 
> Why should I not challenge these ideas?


But that is clearly not what your posts were saying. When people claimed pop music was bad you replied that they needed to listen to good pop not that that was just their subjective opinion.


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## chu42

BachIsBest said:


> But that is clearly not what your posts were saying. When people claimed pop music was bad you replied that they needed to listen to good pop not that that was just their subjective opinion.


Yeah, it's definitely not a strong line of reasoning unless one believed in objectivity in music.


----------



## SanAntone

BachIsBest said:


> But that is clearly not what your posts were saying. When people claimed pop music was bad you replied that they needed to listen to good pop not that that was just their subjective opinion.


I responded to someone saying all popular music was like fast food, or superficial, etc., with the suggestion that they had not heard a variety of popular music. By painting the entire genre of popular music with that broad brush I saw evidence that they had not sampled the wide variety of popular music. I later qualified that to say, that maybe they are defining popular music narrower that I had been.

For me to reply to someone claiming that their opinion of popular music is based on objective criteria with, no it's subjective, would end up as a circular conversation: it's an objective fact that classical music is better than pop; no, it's a subjective opinion; no, objective, etc.

I have made it clear in many posts that I do not believe there is objective data for judging the quality of music and that it is always a form of subjective assessment. I even outlined my own subjective process in assessing music.

The problem as I see it is that you and others refuse to walk away from the discussion and instead continue beating a dead horse.

So, I will leave you to have any last words, because I am now walking away from this discussion.


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## Haydn70

Art Rock said:


> The reason why this discussion is continuing is that there are also members here who go a step (several steps) further by effectively stating that other types of music are objectively of lower quality than classical music. Now it is no longer about taste.





SanAntone said:


> The problem as I see it is that you and others refuse to walk away from the discussion and instead continue beating a dead horse.


Just a reminder gentlemen, the title of the thread is "Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'...?" And the questions posed by the OP are:

"If not, why not....?
If so, why so.....?

*The nature of the thread title and those questions go beyond "which do you prefer?" No, this thread is about "is classical music better?"*

Those of us who believe "that other types of music are objectively of lower quality than classical music" and made posts to that effect were addressing what this thread is about.

I didn't think discussing the question proposed by a title thread is "beating a dead horse".


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## Art Rock

Can you point out where and on what grounds people have shown that classical music is objectively better than pop music? All I remember is the usual opinions disguised as fact.


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## Strange Magic

"Unless it can be shown that classical music is better than pop, or better than any other music you can think of, the entire structure upon which classical music rests will crash into the abyss and we'll all go mad."

I slightly exaggerate, but so many of these posts and the threads that repeat them, repeatedly assert that classical music is objectively "better" (how much better?, one asks. Is this quantifiable?) than pop or whatever. Yet no proof is offered beyond opinions--personal, group, "experts", voting, polls--opinions all, nonetheless. It's just a feeling in one's bones, though, that it must be better; after all, how could one like it more if it wasn't "better"?

Is some ice cream, or wine, actually "better" than others? Or is it a matter of who likes what?


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## ArtMusic

It is better because it has stood the test of times and of places, which are the objective way of assessing good art (whether visual art or music) for its category. One could still enjoy weak or offensive art as enjoyment and objective art assessment are two separate things.


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## ArtMusic

To demonstrate my point. For example, this:






is objectively better than this (warning: lyrics contain offensive language):


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## Ethereality

I know that some 60s and 70s music has stood the test of time, for now. I hope that my _Vanity Fair_ example on the last page will stand the test of time: because how else will people totally have out-of-body experiences jamming out to one of the classic riffs ever! It sounds extra-traditional, ie:

I can't picture many pop songs that sound so 'precious' and rich in culture. Although, as people have commented on in threads many times, there's also The Beach Boys and others, comparing them to Schubert.

*Winterreise vs. Pet Sounds*


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## Strange Magic

ArtMusic said:


> It is better because it has stood the test of times and of places, which are the objective way of assessing good art (whether visual art or music) for its category. One could still enjoy weak or offensive art as enjoyment and objective art assessment are two separate things.


CM has the advantage of having been written down and hence has survived as a documented music whereas other musics' pasts and contents must be inferred from undocumented sources of information. We can say, similarly, that the surviving writings of Classical Greece and Rome are "better" "objectively" than those masterpieces that we know of as having existed but were lost to posterity (or haven't yet been found). Visual art is another story entirely, and everybody can and does argue endlessly as to the relative merits of this or that artwork or artist. Another "proof", please.


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## Phil loves classical

This thread is still going? I think the litmus test is this: Classical composers can easily write pop music, but pop artists can't compose Classical. You can argue with whether the pop music that Classical composers write are as good as what pop songwriters do, but then it becomes the subjective debate nobody wants to get into.

It's also Classical Composers can easily write film music (just take their music as is, and put in a film), but film composers (like Hans Zimmer) can't nessarily compose Classical.

The disparity between Classical and pop music in 'greatness' is actually wider than Classical and film music, but interestingly no one questions Classical is greater than film music.


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## Chilham

Phil loves classical said:


> This thread is still going? I think the litmus test is this: Classical composers can easily write pop music, but pop artists can't compose Classical....


I'm not convinced that's a litmus test for anything.

Classically trained singers can't sing soul. Where does that get us?


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## Haydn70

Chilham said:


> I'm not convinced that's a litmus test for anything.
> 
> *Classically trained singers can't sing soul.* Where does that get us?


Yeah, I am sure Cecilia Bartoli has had many a sleepless night worrying about her inability to sing soul.


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## Chilham

Haydn70 said:


> Yeah, I am sure Cecilia Bartoli has had many a sleepless night worrying about her inability to sing soul.


Yeah, about as many sleepless nights as Aretha had worrying about her inability to play Rosina or Dorabella.


----------



## Bulldog

ArtMusic said:


> To demonstrate my point. For example, this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> is objectively better than this (warning: lyrics contain offensive language):


The only thing you've demonstrated is that you prefer Bach to Nicki. Further, Bach vs. Nicki? If you posted a Raff or Hanson symphony, I'd go with Nicki.

You and your like-minded TC members keep saying this or that is objectively superior to something else but never are able to prove the superiority. It's a little pathetic - you always lose but continue to trot out a loser hand.


----------



## Barbebleu

ArtMusic said:


> To demonstrate my point. For example, this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> is objectively better than this (warning: lyrics contain offensive language):


What does this comparison actually prove? I wouldn't give either of them house room but that's just my personal taste. No objectivity in sight.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Chilham said:


> I'm not convinced that's a litmus test for anything.
> 
> Classically trained singers can't sing soul. Where does that get us?


You're talking individual performers rather than the music. How bout this Horowitz can play the keyboard part for any pop song, but Ray Manzarek can't play Liszt if you gave him 100 years.


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## Haydn70

deleted.............


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## Ethereality

Phil loves classical said:


> This thread is still going? I think the litmus test is this: Classical composers can easily write pop music, but pop artists can't compose Classical. You can argue with whether the pop music that Classical composers write are as good as what pop songwriters do, but then it becomes the subjective debate nobody wants to get into.


Has any reknown musician really tried anything but what they know best?

ie. Has anyone after Beethoven tried writing a symphony remotely like his, though possible? Isn't 'simple motif/rhythm' one of his defining features?

Could Monteverdi write in the style of a Beethoven symphony?

Could Beethoven write like the Beach Boys?

The answer to these questions is no, because style and tradition is always evolving. There's nothing in Schubert for instance that implies to my ears that he was writing in the style of Beethoven. Nobody now wants to compose like classics, and classics didn't or couldn't compose great music of the 20th century.


----------



## Barbebleu

Phil loves classical said:


> This thread is still going? I think the litmus test is this: Classical composers can easily write pop music, but pop artists can't compose Classical. You can argue with whether the pop music that Classical composers write are as good as what pop songwriters do, but then it becomes the subjective debate nobody wants to get into.
> 
> It's also Classical Composers can easily write film music (just take their music as is, and put in a film), but film composers (like Hans Zimmer) can't nessarily compose Classical.
> 
> The disparity between Classical and pop music in 'greatness' is actually wider than Classical and film music, but interestingly no one questions Classical is greater than film music.


Which classical composers have easily written pop music and how exactly do you know that pop musicians can't compose classical music. Perhaps it's a simple matter of economics? No money to be made in the classical world compared to the pop world?


----------



## Barbebleu

Phil loves classical said:


> You're talking individual performers rather than the music. How bout this Horowitz can play the keyboard part for any pop song, but Ray Manzarek can't play Liszt if you gave him 100 years.


Again, how do you know this for a fact. Have you heard Horowitz playing any popular music or Ray unsuccessfully attempting Liszt? These sweeping statements don't hold water. Mere opinion with no basis in fact. Like the whole idea that western CM, for that is what we really mean here, is objectively better than other types of music.


----------



## Haydn70

Barbebleu said:


> Which classical composers have easily written pop music and how exactly do you know that pop musicians can't compose classical music. Perhaps it's a simple matter of economics? No money to be made in the classical world compared to the pop world?


Any number of classically trained film composers have written pop music. Alex North wrote "Unchained Melody". Max Steiner wrote "Theme from a Summer Place". Michel Legrand wrote "Windmills of Your Mind." Dimitri Tiomkin wrote "Town Without Pity".

It's up to you to list those pop musicians who have composed classical music. We're waiting.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> As one of the original relativists and individualists, I grant to each and every lover of art and music the right and ability to *set up for themselves any structure of hierarchy they choose*. All can certainly have personal gradations and standards of Good, Bad, Great, Masterpiece. etc. Not only does this not do violence to my relativist and subjectivist viewpoint, it actually enhances it.
> 
> Like all Haydn70s, you make sweeping statements that do little to advance your position.


How could anyone stop that? It's not about what you (personally and subjectively) think for your own rankings.


----------



## Chilham

Haydn70 said:


> Any number of classically trained film composers have written pop music. Alex North wrote "Unchained Melody". Max Steiner wrote "Theme from a Summer Place". Michel Legrand wrote "Windmills of Your Mind." Dimitri Tiomkin wrote "Town Without Pity".
> 
> It's up to you to list those pop musicians who have composed classical music. We're waiting.


I really like that you edited your post to add Windmills of Your Mind. :lol:

Oh! And another edit for a Gene Pitney dirge!

It's such a compelling argument.


----------



## Haydn70

Chilham said:


> I really like that you edited your post to add Windmills of Your Mind. :lol:
> 
> Oh! And another edit for a Gene Pitney dirge!
> 
> It's such a compelling argument.


You're point?

Barbebleu wrote: "Which classical composers have easily written pop music...?" I listed four.


----------



## Barbebleu

Haydn70 said:


> Any number of classically trained film composers have written pop music. Alex North wrote "Unchained Melody". Max Steiner wrote "Theme from a Summer Place". Michel Legrand wrote "Windmills of Your Mind." Dimitri Tiomkin wrote "Town Without Pity".
> 
> It's up to you to list those pop musicians who have composed classical music. We're waiting.


I thought we were talking about proper classical composers. Not pop oriented 'classical' musicians and composers of film music.

Two pop musicians that spring to mind who have written classical music would be Frank Zappa and Paul McCartney. Whether or not it has lasting merit is a subjective question but there's a whole barrowload of classical music that has been consigned to the dustbin of history so that's no guide!


----------



## Chilham

Haydn70 said:


> You're point?...


No, I'm not a point?

Oh! I get it. My point.

You're chasing rainbows.


----------



## Haydn70

Barbebleu said:


> I thought we were talking about proper classical composers. Not pop oriented 'classical' musicians and composers of film music.
> 
> Two pop musicians that spring to mind who have written classical music would be Frank Zappa and Paul McCartney. Whether or not it has lasting merit is a subjective question but there's a whole barrowload of classical music that has been consigned to the dustbin of history so that's no guide!


Zappa is a valid example. McCartney isn't. He hands off melodies to trained musicians who compose his music.

You are 1 for 2.


----------



## Chilham

Haydn70 said:


> Zappa is a valid example. McCartney isn't. He hands off melodies to trained musicians who compose his music....


Is that invalid in the same way North used to get others to orchestrate his work so can't be considered a classical composer?

Asking for a friend.


----------



## chu42

Phil loves classical said:


> I think the litmus test is this: Classical composers can easily write pop music, but pop artists can't compose Classical. You can argue with whether the pop music that Classical composers write are as good as what pop songwriters do, but then it becomes the subjective debate nobody wants to get into.


First of all, I have no doubt that talented, intelligent, individuals in the pop industry could try their hand at classical music and succeed. You have no proof otherwise and it's doubtful that there will ever be such proof considering that the profit margins in writing pop music blow classical music out of the water. No sane pop musician would ever want to make the transition.

Second, why are you so certain that classical composers can easily write good pop music? Pop isn't just about chord progressions and simple melodies. It's about capturing the zeitgeist of a generation. It's about using innovative techniques in the field of sound mixing. It's about creating memorable sequences that can be enhanced by visuals.

"Good pop" nowadays is hardly ever created single composer; it's made by a team of people with millions of dollars and state-of-the-art technology. Don't think that the regressive harmonic aspects of many pop songs signify an "easiness" in development.

Third, the logic in this proposition is simply suspect.

Running, swimming, and cycling are still their own sports despite the fact that triathletes exist who can do all three very well. Being able to play two instruments does not objectively make you a better musician than someone who can only play one instrument.

I still stick with my assessment that pop and classical are too different in content and goals to be compared.


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## Barbebleu

If there are any mods watching this thread I would suggest that this is another thread that has outstayed its welcome! Too many opinions that jibe and the posts are getting ever more hostile.


----------



## Phil loves classical

chu42 said:


> First of all, I have no doubt that talented, intelligent, individuals in the pop industry could try their hand at classical music and succeed. You have no proof otherwise and it's doubtful that there will ever be such proof considering that the profit margins in writing pop music blow classical music out of the water. No sane pop musician would ever want to make the transition.
> 
> Second, why are you so certain that classical composers can easily write good pop music? *Pop isn't just about chord progressions and simple melodies.* It's about capturing the zeitgeist of a generation. It's about using innovative techniques in the field of sound mixing. It's about creating memorable sequences that can be enhanced by visuals.
> 
> "Good pop" nowadays is hardly ever created single composer; it's made by a team of people with millions of dollars and state-of-the-art technology. Don't think that the regressive harmonic aspects of many pop songs signify an "easiness" in development.
> 
> Third, the logic in this proposition is simply suspect.
> 
> Running, swimming, and cycling are still their own sports despite the fact that triathletes exist who can do all three very well. Being able to play two instruments does not objectively make you a better musician than someone who can only play one instrument.
> 
> I still stick with my assessment that pop and classical are too different in content and goals to be compared.


That's the thing, Pop IS about chord progressions and melodies. The production is used to add more interest to it. I read before Taylor Swift (whom I was surprised to see her 1989 album being ranked as one of the greatest albums of the century so far) admitted she couldn't stick through with a more formal musical education, and said something like she learned a few chords and was good to go (can't find it now on a quick search).

I do admit I'm extrapolating a bit, but I believe they're not unreasonable statements. I like Pop too. But I know what the limitations are. The limitations as in repetition, etc. is what makes Pop what it is. If you took Pop and broke down its boundaries as in form, repetition, etc. it can become Classical, or closer to it. If you took a pop hook, and started really playing around with it, it becomes a motif. Until then it is a hook.

With Zappa, he did operate outside of the boundaries.


----------



## Xisten267

SanAntone said:


> Many classical composers have a gift for melody. You cannot prove that Tchaikovsky's gift is greater than most composers in this regard. Some might prefer Rimsky-Korsakov, some Mendelssohn, some Liszt, some Chopin, some might prefer Schoenberg.
> 
> I will acknowledge that the majority of classical listeners will agree that a Beethoven sonata has more musical value than traffic noise. That's an easy one. But it gets harder when the choice is between a Beethoven sonata with a comparable example from the solo piano music of Debussy.


I suppose I can't convince you of my position, but I can at least explain it to you. No, I can't prove that Tchaikovsky is a greater melodist than Dvorak, nor that a Beethoven sonata is a greater achievement than a Debussy solo piano piece, and I'm not trying to do so. Actually, when comparing two works or composers of similar quality, I think that it's very difficult to see what is greater and what isn't. It's possible though to see that they are better than works/composers that aren't so good (if one isn't a "total relativist" in the arts, this is).

Let me make an analogy with geometry: we can have different solids, with distinct, sometimes very different, shapes, that nonetheless can have a similar volume. It may be very difficult to an observer to see which is the biggest ("greater") of these solids of similar volume without quantifiable tools (we don't have these in the arts), so it's possible to argue that one solid is greater than the other depending on the perspective. In this case, I think that it's reasonable to think that these solids hold the same _level_ or _degree_ of volume (or "quality" in the case of the arts), even if each of them have different geometries (or kinds of qualities in our analogy). To me, this is the case when we compare two random _London_ symphonies by J. Haydn for example: we have two works similarly great, but with different qualities that may have different weight depending on the perspective. In other words, I think that they are _on the same level or degree_ as art, like the solids had similar volume despite having distinct shapes, and that to argue that one or the other is greater depending on certain parameters is equally valid. But most should be able to acknowledge that the Moon is much greater than a house, no matter it's shape, as I think most should be able to also discern that Beethoven's _Ninth_ is a greater achievement as art than _Für Elise_, even if it's possible to like more the latter: there are certain parameters (quality of melody, harmony, texture, tone color, expressivity, originality etc.) that can show this, I believe.

The thing is, I consider the weighting system for these parameters relative only to _a certain extent_, while others will say that they are totally relative (your position I believe). I can acknowledge that Tchaikovsky has pieces with "quality of melody" for example that go much beyond my own, even if I may prefer to listen to my own music depending on my mood. Your position, I think, would be to state that "quality of melody" is irrelevant because it's "totally relative" depending on who perceives it and that therefore I should have to consider only my "internal parameters" (personal taste) when trying to compare the "quality" of the pieces I have in mind, or, better yet, that I should not compare them. Both our positions are logic, and neither can be proven, so I guess that this discussion must end in a draw: we will have to agree to disagree here.


----------



## Xisten267

Art Rock said:


> Can you point out where and on what grounds people have shown that classical music is objectively better than pop music? All I remember is the usual opinions disguised as fact.


The opinion that classical music isn't better than pop music because quality and taste are equivalent is nothing but an opinion also being disguised as a fact here.



Bulldog said:


> You and your like-minded TC members keep saying this or that is objectively superior to something else but never are able to prove the superiority. It's a little pathetic - you always lose but continue to trot out a loser hand.


I disagree. I understand that there are two main views being debated on this thread, and that neither side "always lose" because neither can be proven true nor false. Better to just agree to disagree IMO, as I stated in the previous post.



Strange Magic said:


> *I do not understand the evident need, expressed so often in posts like this above, for external validation of one's artistic preferences.* It's almost as if people felt that they would disappear, or Art would disappear, unless some underlying Platonic structure was found to support the whole edifice. We are offered composers throwing up their hands in some sort of philosophical crisis because their art cannot be demonstrated to be some integral part of a (semi-divine?) framework that holds up the universe's entire existence. The singular feature of my flavor of esthetic relativism is that each of us is free to establish our own rules, regulations, criteria, standards for art. It's really nice when others agree with us, or we with them; it's nice to feel one is part of an In-Group of True Connoisseurs, but I'll wager that neither Bach nor Beethoven were concerned overlong with such feelings.


Because the lack of external parameters means artists making whatever they wish (they are to consider only their "internal parameters", or taste, to what they do after all) and so we may have to end with them "creating" vulgar stuff (in my view) like white paintings or urinals instead of extraordinary art (in my opinion) such as this:





(I mean both the music of J.S. Bach and the paintings of Michelangelo in the sistine chapel)


----------



## adriesba

Haydn70 said:


> Any number of classically trained film composers have written pop music. Alex North wrote "Unchained Melody". Max Steiner wrote "Theme from a Summer Place". Michel Legrand wrote "Windmills of Your Mind." Dimitri Tiomkin wrote "Town Without Pity".
> 
> It's up to you to list those pop musicians who have composed classical music. We're waiting.


If I'm misunderstanding, you can tell me, but what I'm getting from this is the idea that music that takes more effort or skill to compose is somehow better.

Well, consider lieder for voice and piano vs symphonies. One only requires music two be composed for two soloists while the other requires music to be composed for a whole orchestra. Does the extra step of orchestration make symphonies better than Lieder? Surely Lieder is at least to some extent simpler. Are Schubert's Lieder inferior to his symphonies?

Are composers like Chopin inferior because they didn't dip their feet very deep into genres outside their main one?

I personally don't like this sort of criterion for judging music because it can lead one to dismiss a lot of great stuff. Plus sometimes simplicity is part of the charm of a piece or a particular musician.


----------



## Xisten267

adriesba said:


> If I'm misunderstanding, you can tell me, but what I'm getting from this is the idea that music that takes more effort or skill to compose is somehow better.
> 
> Well, consider lieder for voice and piano vs symphonies. One only requires music two be composed for two soloists while the other requires music to be composed for a whole orchestra. Does the extra step of orchestration make symphonies better than Lieder? Surely Lieder is at least to some extent simpler. Are Schubert's Lieder inferior to his symphonies?
> 
> Are composers like Chopin inferior because they didn't dip their feet very deep into genres outside their main one?
> 
> I personally don't like this sort of criterion for judging music because it can lead one to dismiss a lot of great stuff. Plus sometimes simplicity is part of the charm of a piece or a particular musician.


In my opinion: yes, a symphony tends to be (not necessarily is) a greater achievement than a simple song. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't listen to songs, nor that I can't enjoy more a particular song than an entire symphony.


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> The opinion that classical music isn't better than pop music because quality and taste are equivalent is nothing but an opinion also being disguised as a fact here.


But that's simply illogical. How would one even go about presenting evidence for the lack of evidence of something?

No one needs to prove that unicorns _don't_ exist. That's just silly.

Likewise, I don't need to prove that pop music _isn't_ worse than classical music.

Since there is no objective evidence for the superiority of classical music, I will simply continue to believe that it is not superior. Simple as that.

The burden of proof is on those who believe that there exists said evidence, just as the burden of proof is on Bigfoot hunters to provide evidence that Bigfoot is out there somewhere.


----------



## mmsbls

Several posts were removed due to personal comments and replies. Please do not comment negatively on other members.


----------



## Xisten267

chu42 said:


> But that's simply illogical. How would one even go about presenting evidence for the lack of evidence of something?
> 
> No one needs to prove that unicorns _don't_ exist. That's just silly.
> 
> Likewise, I don't need to prove that pop music _isn't_ worse than classical music.
> 
> Since there is no objective evidence for the superiority of classical music, I will simply continue to believe that it is not superior. Simple as that.
> 
> The burden of proof is on those who believe that there exists said evidence, just as the burden of proof is on Bigfoot hunters to provide evidence that Bigfoot is out there somewhere.


The burden of proof exists when there's a _status quo_, when one claim is an universal consensus and thus is agreed to have more substance than the other. It's not the case here. There aren't unicorns being discussed here. Actually, it seems that the majority of TC agrees with the partially relativist position more than with the total relativists of art.


----------



## Ethereality

Idk. Anybody who doesn't see Stevie Ray Vaughan here as the Beethoven/Bach of Rock, is a criminal to me. This is LEGENDARY. If this doesn't last the next 100 years, I have lost faith in humanity.


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> The burden of proof exists when there's a _status quo_, when one claim is an universal consensus and thus is agreed to have more substance than the other. It's not the case here. There aren't unicorns being discussed here. Actually, it seems that the majority of TC agrees with the partially relativist position more than with the total relativists of art.


What TC agrees with is not relevant. Ask a thousand people if they think aliens exist, maybe 60% will say yes; this has zero bearing on whether or not aliens actually exist.

Or if you want to talk about universal consensus; a tiny website like TalkClassical that receives minute traffic is hardly signification of a "universal" consensus. Polls, numbers, and sales overwhelmingly demonstrate that the average person prefers pop music over classical music.

Therefore, if there is indeed a status quo, it's certainly suggestive that pop music is superior to classical music rather than vice-versa.

So it's probably best for your argument's sake that you abandon this line of reasoning. I don't think "universal consensus" is proof of anything and neither should you.

A consensus is just mass opinion. Objective facts cannot be derived from consensus. Scientists don't decide the laws of physics based on nationwide polls.

Gravity still exists even if zero people believe that it does. Whereas the "greatness" of Mozart or Bach means nothing if no one believes in it.


----------



## Xisten267

chu42 said:


> So it's probably best for your argument's sake that you abandon this line of reasoning.


There's no _status quo_ in this discussion here. You're stating you believe that x = y and I'm stating that I believe that x is not the same as y. Both sides can provide arguments for their claims, and both sides can't prove their views. There's no proven right or wrong here. Just opinions.


----------



## hammeredklavier




----------



## DaveM

Ethereality said:


> Idk. Anybody who doesn't see Stevie Ray Vaughan here as the Beethoven/Bach of Rock, is a criminal to me. This is LEGENDARY. If this doesn't last the next 100 years, I have lost faith in humanity.


That's funny. I was just thinking that anybody who doesn't think that Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 is legendary is a criminal to me.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> How could anyone stop that? It's not about what you (personally and subjectively) think for your own rankings.


That is exactly my point--that anybody is free and encouraged to set up their own hierarchies. That is what it's all about.


----------



## Strange Magic

Ethereality said:


> Idk. Anybody who doesn't see Stevie Ray Vaughan here as the Beethoven/Bach of Rock, is a criminal to me. This is LEGENDARY. If this doesn't last the next 100 years, I have lost faith in humanity.


Every time I click on this link, I get Jimi and not SRV. What am I doing wrong?


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> There's no _status quo_ in this discussion here. You're stating you believe that x = y and I'm stating that I believe that x is not the same as y. Both sides can provide arguments for their claims, and both sides can't prove their views. There's no proven right or wrong here. Just opinions.


My opinion is that there is no evidence.

Your opinion is that there is evidence, but you just can't seem to quantify it or put it in words.

Where there is no evidence for something, the person who believes that there is no evidence is more correct until evidence arises.

For the record, I do believe that classical music is greater than pop music. But since I can't find objective evidence for it, I don't think my assessment is objectively correct until otherwise proven. It's just like how someone can believe in the existence of God or aliens without necessarily having scientific proof.


----------



## Strange Magic

Allerius said:


> Because the lack of external parameters means artists making whatever they wish (they are to consider only their "internal parameters", or taste, to what they do after all) and so we may have to end with them "creating" vulgar stuff (in my view like white paintings or urinals[/URL] instead of extraordinary art (in my opinion)


You have far far less faith in artists and what drives them to create art than do I if you think they require external parameters to do what they do. Besides, the world has been full of wretched (in my view, and in yours) art since art began to be created, external parameters or no. Many indeed listen only to their "inner voices" to tell them what to compose or to paint. Or is it your assertion that we can tell both what is extraordinary art and that it was created in conjunction with external parameters? Tell that to J.M.W. Turner or Albert Pinkham Ryder. Or to Scriabin.


----------



## Xisten267

chu42 said:


> My opinion is that there is no evidence.
> 
> Your opinion is that there is evidence, but you just can't seem to quantify it or put it in words.
> 
> Where there is no evidence for something, the person who believes that there is no evidence is more correct until evidence arises.
> 
> For the record, I do believe that classical music is greater than pop music. But since I can't find objective evidence for it, I don't think my assessment is objectively correct until otherwise proven. It's just like how someone can believe in the existence of God or aliens without necessarily having proof.


It can't be proven that God exists nor that it doesn't ("God" isn't even well-defined most of the time), so for this the logical position in my view should be that "we don't know". It's possible to have faith that it exists or that it doesn't though, and I think that both positions should be respected. Similarly, I think that we should respect each other's opinion here, agreeing to disagree: you have your reasons to believe that your side of the discussion is the one right, and I also have my reasons to think that I'm the one correct.

Your opinion that "not X" is not better (in terms of logical validity) than mine of "X" since there's no _status quo_ and both our propositions can't be proven.


----------



## ArtMusic

Bulldog said:


> You and your like-minded TC members keep saying this or that is objectively superior to something else but never are able to prove the superiority. It's a little pathetic - you always lose but continue to trot out a loser hand.


Posterity is rarely wrong. Please enjoy whatever you please, as posterity marches on regardless. My friends (in real life) enjoy Nicki Minaj, while I enjoy Bach, we all get along just fine. They acknowledge that Bach's music is objectivity superior from a musical point of view. Yet, they are not bothered with that because their idea of art appreciation is separate to what they enjoy listening to. Art schools have been teaching us and our own critical thinking faculties are not hindered by egalitarianism from the 1950s. We welcome 2021.


----------



## Ethereality

Strange Magic said:


> Every time I click on this link, I get Jimi and not SRV. What am I doing wrong?


In Baroque times, a fairly original tribute was called a new composition. Now because of copyright mindset, people give too much credit to the original. This is SRV's composition based on Jimi, it's the best video quality that was on YT. But you can find the same track on YT under SRV just as commonly. Jimi don't sound like this.



DaveM said:


> That's funny. I was just thinking that anybody who doesn't think that Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 is legendary is a criminal to me.


I have no complaints or over-praises about the whole composition. I just found the 3 minute portion I quoted here to be skill-less/uninspired. It is really infantile melody and cliche harmony.


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> It can't be proven that God exists nor that it doesn't ("God" isn't even well-defined most of the time), so for this the logical position in my view should be that "we don't know". It's possible to have faith that it exists or that it doesn't though, and I think that both positions should be respected. Similarly, I think that we should respect each other's opinion here, agreeing to disagree: you have your reasons to believe that your side of the discussion is the one right, and I also have my reasons to think that I'm the one correct.


My position regarding classical vs pop is "we don't know". Yours is "we do know". You can see how my position has more logical weight here even if I do respect your opinion.



> Your opinion that "not X" is not better (in terms of logical validity) than mine of "X" since there's no status quo and both our propositions can't be proven.


The status quo is that something does not objectively exist until there is objective evidence for its existence.

Again, I don't have to prove my position that there is a lack of evidence regarding objectivity in music. It is self-evident that there is a lack of evidence when others fail to present said evidence.


----------



## Xisten267

Strange Magic said:


> You have far far less faith in artists and what drives them to create art than do I if you think they require external parameters to do what they do. Besides, the world has been full of wretched (in my view, and in yours) art since art began to be created, external parameters or no. Many indeed listen only to their "inner voices" to tell them what to compose or to paint. Or is it your assertion that we can tell both what is extraordinary art and that it was created in conjunction with external parameters? Tell that to J.M.W. Turner or Albert Pinkham Ryder. Or to Scriabin.


I can't tell this to be true for every great artist, but to me it seems that most of them had an impressive technique _learned_ over years of training and that they applied these external notions (learned, therefore external) to their works of art, that in turn required great skill and commitment to create. At least to me, if a piece can be easily reproduced by a lay person, it isn't truly great art, and this is one of the fundamental reasons for me to think that the paintings of the sistine chapel are unique and great while a white painting isn't.

It's difficult to change the rules of the game for better if one doesn't know the game and doesn't have external parameters that may guide him, even if it may happen when this one is talented enough I guess. Yet, a _true_ artist is not only talented but also a professional who knows the rules in my opinion.



chu42 said:


> My position regarding classical vs pop is "we don't know". Yours is "we do know". You can see how my position has more logical weight here even if I do respect your opinion.
> 
> The status quo is that something does not objectively exist until there is objective evidence for its existence.
> 
> Again, I don't have to prove my position that there is a lack of evidence regarding objectivity in music. It is self-evident that there is a lack of evidence when others fail to present said evidence.


Your position is that quality of the arts is totally relative. Mine is that it isn't. Or, perhaps, we could reformulate*** that my position is that quality of the arts is partially relative, while yours is that it isn't. So, it's about "X" and "not X". Again, there's no _status quo_ involved here, only opinions. I see that you're trying to use alleged logic as a shortcut to not need to prove your personal truth regarding this discussion, but I don't agree with your reasoning.

***: Technically, the two propositions are different. But I'm on purpose disconsidering the case in which "the quality of the arts is totally objective" (not totally nor partially relative) because no one here seems to be arguing that.


----------



## DaveM

Ethereality said:


> I have no complaints or over-praises about the whole composition. I just found the 3 minute portion I quoted here to be skill-less/uninspired. It is really infantile melody and cliche harmony.


Silly ole Beethoven! He had the makings of a perfectly good piano concerto and went and messed it up.


----------



## RogerWaters

The problem with the 'objective vs subjective' debate around here is that each side has different demands of the concept of 'objectivity'.

Those who think Bach objectively better than Cardi B (or whoever) have a relatively human-centric view of objectivity.

They seem to rely, in my experience, on the following two premises combined:

1. Group consensus
2. Historical visibility

An artist who (1) titillates the enjoyment of a wide group of people, but who has also (2) survived the test of time (ruling out pop music) is objectively better than one who hasn't.

Obvious counter-intuitive consequences aside (imagine a composer who wrote 'great' music but who has not survived for posterity, from some freak accident of history. This composer's music is objectively worse than Cardi B's), the problem with this view, according to the _other side of the debate_, is that objectivity should be, well, more _objective_!

It should rest on more than the mere preference of human beings, taken as a group and over time ('human nature'). Bach cannot be _objectively _amazing simply because his music taps into sensory and cognitive biases in human beings qua a particular biological species with such power. This would be like saying orgasm is objectively better than pain, or laughter objectively better than sorrow.

It reeks of the human, all too human, and does not answer to the stars in the way, for instance, mathematics does. If all human beings suddenly died, our best mathematical models of, for instance, the big bang, would still be objectively true. Bach being great, on the other hand, would have no meaning (let alone be 'true') in the absence of human beings.

Until everyone agrees on the definition of 'objectively true', this debate will be a continual logjam.


----------



## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> That's funny. I was just thinking that anybody who doesn't think that Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 is legendary is a criminal to me.


Even tdc likes that one



tdc said:


> I voted for piano concerto no. 4


----------



## Ethereality

RogerWaters said:


> Until everyone agrees on the definition of 'objectively true', this debate will be a continual logjam.


The subjectivists are debating whether objective greatness is important, while the objectivists are debating whether it exists.

BUT if subjectivists don't feel it's important, then its not great in the first place. See the point? I'll elaborate:



Ethereality said:


> I don't expect many to adore the sounds of a guy eating mushrooms or a random cat pouncing on a piano in some specific favorable fashion, but those who do aren't 'wrong' to feel so. Moreover, if these scant agreeable want to form their own society where these sounds are an aspect of predominant art, I don't forsee any functional failures impending given the cosmic and biological factors of their society mechanize to their perpetual well-being.


For all I know, this in quotes has already happened and is our societal tradition of music. The other side has the burden of proof to show it's not, I don't have a burden of proof to show it could be. Since it could be, I have no incentive to care about what may or may not be musically objective, since my own taste and experience steers my listening.

People have such a problem with us using the word 'great.' Well stop using it yourself to describe what other people think, and I'll stop using it to describe what I think. Rarely do I hear anyone irl use the term 'great' in an objective fashion (note I didn't say universal fashion); it occurs within arbitrary groups who already have a similar mindset: ie. A rock forum will have much less disagreement on greatness between the participants and devise their own reasoning why, just like Classicists use the word timeless like it's the only meaningful descriptive term they could convene. There's nothing remarkably better about either way to go abouts it: The various groups disagree, under different frames of time, and that's that. Timelessness has no necessitating value to one's notion of appreciation. If a jester of ancient Babylon played a lovely tune, I wouldn't expect anyone but myself to enthrall over it and try to influence others about what I heard. What I enjoy will inevitably cease. If it carries beyond my death, its of no value to me. My appreciation was finite.

Therefore, as stated in P3, if most people are wrong about music, I wouldn't factually know and neither would you. For all I know, our common art music _IS_ bad and superficial. Hence, what's one to do, but to ignore the notion of 'it is' or 'isnt' and simply enjoy what one likes.

The question is one of values, not logic. Objective greatness exists to objectivists, but subjectivists don't see any necessity for it in music. So how is it great? I have a set of ears.

I haven't anywhere used the term universal. We are sticking to objective.

Final conclusion: Objective tastes exist, but there's nothing to show that they're great. Only objectivists think they're great. Since there's no proof that it (objective 'greatness') even exists, its existence is an opinion.


----------



## BachIsBest

Allerius said:


> It can't be proven that God exists nor that it doesn't ("God" isn't even well-defined most of the time), so for this the logical position in my view should be that "we don't know". It's possible to have faith that it exists or that it doesn't though, and I think that both positions should be respected. Similarly, I think that we should respect each other's opinion here, agreeing to disagree: you have your reasons to believe that your side of the discussion is the one right, and I also have my reasons to think that I'm the one correct.
> 
> Your opinion that "not X" is not better (in terms of logical validity) than mine of "X" since there's no _status quo_ and both our propositions can't be proven.


Have you ever heard of Russel's Teacup? The basic proposition is this: somewhere in space, orbiting around the sun is a perfect china teacup. Current methods could not detect such a small object ergo, we just don't know if there are hundreds of perfect little teacups orbiting around the sun in the outer reaches of our solar system.

This is, of course, ridiculous; the philosophical point is that any idea with no evidence for it should, roughly speaking, default to false.

Fortunately, I would argue the shocking amount of consensus, even across cultures, as to what constitutes the most imaginative, enlightening, and moving music of the classical canon points towards the fact there are measures of quality independent of any one persons' feelings, thoughts, or opinions: i.e., objective measures.


----------



## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> The problem with the 'objective vs subjective' debate around here is that each side has different demands of the concept of 'objectivity'.
> 
> Those who think Bach objectively better than Cardi B (or whoever) have a relatively human-centric view of objectivity.
> 
> They seem to rely, in my experience, on the following two premises combined:
> 
> 1. Group consensus
> 2. Historical visibility
> 
> An artist who (1) titillates the enjoyment of a wide group of people, but who has also (2) survived the test of time (ruling out pop music) is objectively better than one who hasn't.


Yes, I do have a human-centric view of objectivity. I'm a human. You're a human. We only, by definition, know things that humans know. Talking about things independent of humans is an epistemological black hole of doom since we are humans.

Please look up "objective".



RogerWaters said:


> Obvious counter-intuitive consequences aside (imagine a composer who wrote 'great' music but who has not survived for posterity, from some freak accident of history. This composer's music is objectively worse than Cardi B's), the problem with this view, according to the _other side of the debate_, is that objectivity should be, well, more _objective_!


There is no issue here. If we have never heard a composers music then we can't determine any of its properties let alone that is worse than some pop artists.



RogerWaters said:


> It should rest on more than the mere preference of human beings, taken as a group and over time ('human nature'). Bach cannot be _objectively _amazing simply because his music taps into sensory and cognitive biases in human beings qua a particular biological species with such power. This would be like saying orgasm is objectively better than pain, or laughter objectively better than sorrow.


Look at us crazy folks over in the objective camp who believe stupid things like laughter being better than sorrow or orgasms being better than pain. Aren't we so silly!



RogerWaters said:


> It reeks of the human, all too human, and does not answer to the stars in the way, for instance, mathematics does. If all human beings suddenly died, our best mathematical models of, for instance, the big bang, would still be objectively true. Bach being great, on the other hand, would have no meaning (let alone be 'true') in the absence of human beings.
> 
> Until everyone agrees on the definition of 'objectively true', this debate will be a continual logjam.


Mathematics is a mental construct made by humanity. Unless you are a platonist (and this would be very problematic to your argument) then it dies with humanity.

Again, talking about things independent of humans is an epistemological black hole of doom since we are humans and can only know things dependant upon us being here; i.e. the act of knowing itself is dependant on the existence of a "knower".


----------



## Ethereality

> Look at us crazy folks over in the objective camp who believe stupid things like laughter being better than sorrow or orgasms being better than pain. Aren't we so silly!


Has nothing to do with _artistic_ greatness, which can hold almost any perspective. Not sure why Roger brought literal suffering up.

Artistic depictions of suffering can surely be great. It's up to your ears and mind to decide.


----------



## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> Yes, I do have a human-centric view of objectivity. I'm a human. You're a human. We only, by definition, know things that humans know. Talking about things independent of humans is an epistemological black hole of doom since we are humans.


Your views on this are rather strange. No one in their right mind would think the proposition '1+1=2' depends on human beings for its truth!

Of course, human beings are required to express the statement 1+1=2 (in English, in this case), but the truth of the proposition expressed does not depend on human beings!

You (seem to) continue to confuse the act of expressing a proposition (completely mind-dependent) with the truth or falsity of the proposition (not completely mind-dependent).



BachIsBest said:


> Please look up "objective".


Please settle down. I was presenting two sides of the debate, I wasn't even weighing in, in that post at least.



BachIsBest said:


> Look at us crazy folks over in the objective camp who believe stupid things like laughter being better than sorrow or orgasms being better than pain. Aren't we so silly!


Better, but only according to the first notion of 'objectivity' I attempted to describe in the post you quote from. I.e. a very different kind of objectivity than mathematical truth, or scientific truths like 'the earth is round'!



BachIsBest said:


> Mathematics is a mental construct made by humanity. Unless you are a platonist (and this would be very problematic to your argument) then it dies with humanity.
> 
> Again, talking about things independent of humans is an epistemological black hole of doom since we are humans and can only know things dependant upon us being here; i.e. the act of knowing itself is dependant on the existence of a "knower".


I'd love to see the reaction of astronauts who have gone to the moon and back, as you sit in front of them espousing your dubious Kantian/idealistic beliefs. Mathematics _simply _a human construct, indeed!

Human constructs that don't correspond to mind-independent reality don't allow biological organisms to leave their atmosphere, enter the vacuum of space, and return alive.

The idea of Bach being 'better' than Cardi B, on the other hand, corresponds in no comparable way to mind-independent reality as does the mathematics enabling space exploration.


----------



## chu42

Allerius said:


> Your position is that quality of the arts is totally relative. Mine is that it isn't.


Let's talk about this for a moment.

I think there are hierarchies in music. I believe in the Big Three (Beethoven, Bach, Mozart) and my hierarchy generally follows that of most "informed experts".

What I don't believe is that this hierarchy has any sort of meaning outside of human perception. If you want to compare music, you always have to put it in some kind of human context for there to be even a slightly objective result.

For example, I can kind of compare Brahms and Schumann and Mozart and Bach because they all composed under the common practice period and many of their values were similar and their rules follow a certain pattern. I can make fairly objective observations on the voice-leading, texture, harmonic structure, etc. of any of these composers' works and compare them to the aesthetic values set by the common practice period.

What I can't compare is Monteverdi and Xenakis, and even less so didgeridoo music with a Gregorian chant. Their rules and goals are so dissimilar that any sort of attempt at objective comparison is essentially meaningless.

In the same vein, I can't find any evidence that pop music is inferior to classical music because these two genres are nothing alike.

What is there to compare?

Sure, pop music tends to bank off of repetitive structures and basic chord progressions. But complexity and advanced harmony were never elements that pop artists strive for.

Likewise, classical music can be brutally long and overwhelming and bore the average person. But pleasing mainstream audiences often was not the goal of classical composers.

So how can I say that one is worse than the other when they have different targets and different ideals? Wouldn't you only be able to judge works within a genre based on how well they embody the ideals of a said genre?

And even then it's extremely difficult if not impossible to judge with absolute objectivity.


----------



## Ethereality

Just take note that objectivity is what refers to humans, while universality is what refers to science. In this thread, we're talking of the former. So chu, you are a musical objectivist. Please take note of my former post which refutes your position.


----------



## RogerWaters

Ethereality said:


> Just take note that objectivity is what refers to humans, while universality is what refers to science.


Where on earth did you get this distinction from?


----------



## Phil loves classical

chu42 said:


> My opinion is that there is no evidence.
> 
> Your opinion is that there is evidence, but you just can't seem to quantify it or put it in words.
> 
> Where there is no evidence for something, the person who believes that there is no evidence is more correct until evidence arises.
> 
> For the record, I do believe that classical music is greater than pop music. But since I can't find objective evidence for it, I don't think my assessment is objectively correct until otherwise proven. It's just like how someone can believe in the existence of God or aliens without necessarily having scientific proof.


I remember the objective and definitive proof for 1+1=2 in Principia Mathematica is 45 pages long. Yet somehow even an elementary student can sense the truth. I believe the same is with Classical vs Pop. All musical elements in Pop are encapsulated and exceeded by Classical Music to a higher degree, except certain perspectives of lyrics and stylistic gestures, which carries a certain identity, attitude, swagger or earthiness. That is what makes Pop more immediately relatable especially to younger audiences over Classical. It is more relevant to the immediate needs of more listeners (catchiness, hooks, drumbeats, lyrics), and has a stronger or clearer message. At some point every Classical music fan has made a choice to go beyond the glitz, glamour, catchiness of Pop to something with more musical depth as in harmony, structure, etc.

There is no doubt Classical is deeper in harmony, structure, etc. than Pop. The question is whether that makes it greater than the catchiness, smooth production, instant gratification, attitudes, and immediate appeal of Pop. Pop fans that don't like Classical hear the music (at least some eras such as a lot of Baroque) as disembodied, and without personality (that they could relate to).


----------



## Ethereality

RogerWaters said:


> Where on earth did you get this distinction from?


From normal ancestors of the English / American revolution who had to use correct words to survive and cooperate in stressful environments.


----------



## Zhdanov

the very premise of this thread is misleading, if not deliberately provocative, and intended to cause discussion where there can be none... this is outrageous that now it has to be explained why, say, aerospace engineering is better than skateboard's... those who advocate mass culture and its agenda could do it elsewhere but not here.


----------



## adriesba

Ethereality said:


> Just take note that objectivity is what refers to humans, while universality is what refers to science. In this thread, we're talking of the former. So chu, you are a musical objectivist. Please take note of my former post which refutes your position.


Still misusing the word objective.

From Merriam-Webster:

Objective



Merriam-Webster said:


> based on facts rather than feelings or opinions : not influenced by feelings
> 
> _philosophy_ : existing outside of the mind : existing in the real world


Subjective



Merriam-Webster said:


> characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind
> 
> relating to or being experience or knowledge as conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states
> 
> peculiar to a particular individual : PERSONAL


----------



## Ethereality

I'm really not. But I'll grant your topic of discussion.


----------



## janxharris

Zhdanov said:


> the very premise of this thread is misleading, if not deliberately provocative, and intended to cause discussion where there can be none... this is outrageous that now it has to be explained why, say, aerospace engineering is better than skateboard's... those who advocate mass culture and its agenda could do it elsewhere but not here.


I can't see this has anything to do with 'mass culture' - if by pop music we are talking about popular as opposed to classical then we are comparing pieces from each. You seem to think that all classical is more complex (expertise of an aerospace engineer compared to that of a skateboard) and therefore 'better'. Some popular music is more complex than some classical pieces, so if I have your definition of better (ie more complex) right, then you have contradicted yourself.

Of course, nothing in art is necessarily 'better' because it is more complex.


----------



## HerbertNorman

another pointless discussion ... sigh


----------



## Strange Magic

HerbertNorman said:


> another pointless discussion ... sigh


No, not if you are a Platonist. The spirit of Plato and of Idealism lives on, because a certain portion of humanity must have external sanction for its artistic choices. Some are content with the mutual reinforcement of the peer group; others seek to find templates for the legitimacy of their preferences somewhere in the free space between created objects--universal laws like gravitation, perhaps. But artworks are things created by people for their own or others' benefit/enjoyment, yet do not contain within them properties of "goodness" or "badness", lesser or greater, than what is determined by the opinions of others, individually or in groups. If the selected, accepted peer group agrees with our own assessment, then the Platonists (erroneously, in my view, and obviously so) ascribe this consensus to an adherence to an objective template or internal skeleton of Excellence, Greatness, etc. _Yet there is not a scintilla of evidence that such a template exists._ There are surely group enthusiasms which can pass for objective truths, in the sense that the polling results constitute a Fact, yet the approach to Art and excellence in Art bears a striking resemblance to the structure upholding another of humanity's curious obsessions, hence the devotional quality of the faith in the objective excellence of some Art over others.


----------



## Zhdanov

janxharris said:


> so if I have your definition of better (ie more complex) right,


you got it all wrong, better is better as the result.

ape is not equal to man, a fool is not equal to a sage.

mass culture, pop or jazz, is not equal to classical music.


----------



## Zhdanov

as for 'more complex' etc.

you take mass culture, do it complex all you want, still to no avail.

as the record shows, there were many attempts to dignify it, but alas, no way.


----------



## janxharris

Zhdanov said:


> you got it all wrong, better is better as the result.


Not following you



> ape is not equal to man, a fool is not equal to a sage.
> 
> mass culture, pop or jazz, is not equal to classical music.


You are stating your opinion that a priori, all non-classical (whatever that means) is inferior. That's an extraordinarily cynical position if you don't mind me saying. Why are you tarring music that you have *not* heard with the same brush?

Nothing in your post that remotely makes an objective case.


----------



## Zhdanov

janxharris said:


> Why are you tarring music that you have *not* heard


what makes you think i never heard that stuff ?

i'm a former mass culture fan, i played in a garage band.

i do know what's what and that is why i speak as an expert here.


----------



## janxharris

Zhdanov said:


> what makes you think i never heard that stuff ?
> 
> i'm a former mass culture fan, i played in a garage band.
> 
> i do know what's what and that is why i speak as an expert here.


Okay - you have heard _every _piece of non-classical music and it's all inferior in your opinion to classical music. It's your opinion.


----------



## EdwardBast

Zhdanov said:


> the very premise of this thread is misleading, if not deliberately provocative, and intended to cause discussion where there can be none... this is outrageous that now it has to be explained why, say, *aerospace engineering is better than skateboard's*... those who advocate mass culture and its agenda could do it elsewhere but not here.


You're making the same mistake as those who take the opposite position. Aerospace engineering is better if one wishes to, say, land a rover on Mars. If one wants an affordable diversion and a challenge to ones coordination and balance, skateboards are infinitely superior. The moral is: Unless one specifies for whom and for what purpose a thing is better, stating that one thing is better than another is silly and meaningless.


----------



## Zhdanov

EdwardBast said:


> for whom and for what purpose a thing is better,


for humanity, of course, who else.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Zhdanov said:


> for humanity, of course, who else.


I think there are some intuitive and consensual terms among most listeners of what makes a piece of music better. Honestly I do like pop music for variety, and need a break from Classical at times. But we all know Classical is 'better' on those consensual terms, except I do have some relatives that judge music solely on how catchy it is, and incidentally they don't want to acknowledge what is better.


----------



## Strange Magic

Phil loves classical said:


> I think there are some intuitive and consensual terms among most listeners of what makes a piece of music better. Honestly I do like pop music for variety, and need a break from Classical at times. But we all know Classical is 'better' on those consensual terms, except I do have some relatives that judge music solely on how catchy it is, and incidentally they don't want to acknowledge what is better.


We _individually_ all know things about art but we don't "all" know that anything is better objectively in the arts. I am reminded of the Bandar-Log in Kipling's Mowgli stories in the _Jungle Books_: "We all say so, so it must be true!" If you (or I) feel that classical music is better, then it is better. If not, then not. But it's really OK to like what you like, without apology or the need to gain validity from some sort of Authority Figure, whether it be The Crowd or Philosophical Necessity.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Strange Magic said:


> We _individually_ all know things about art but we don't "all" know that anything is better objectively in the arts. I am reminded of the Bandar-Log in Kipling's Mowgli stories in the _Jungle Books_: "We all say so, so it must be true!" If you (or I) feel that classical music is better, then it is better. If not, then not. But it's really OK to like what you like, without apology or the need to gain validity from some sort of Authority Figure, whether it be The Crowd or Philosophical Necessity.


What's sort of telling is that people either say Classical is better than Pop, or that they are equal. Both valid statements on their own terms. But nobody in their right mind could say Pop is better, except record executives since one obviously sells better.


----------



## Chilham

Phil loves classical said:


> What's sort of telling is that people either say Classical is better than Pop, or that they are equal.....


No, they're not saying that.


----------



## chu42

Phil loves classical said:


> What's sort of telling is that people either say Classical is better than Pop, or that they are equal. Both valid statements on their own terms. .


On this forum, a tiny forum for niche music enthusiasts called Talk*Classical*, you might be right.

Literally anywhere else, you are completely wrong.

I don't know how old you are or who you associate yourself with, but the vast majority of people I know would advocate for the superiority of popular music, whether it be American pop, or K-pop, or hip-hop (if you consider that popular music).



> But nobody in their right mind could say Pop is better, except record executives since one obviously sells better


If most people think pop isn't superior to classical, I wonder why it overwhelmingly sells better? People vote with their wallet. People actively choose what they want to listen to. If they thought classical music was equal or better then it would be doing equal or better in the sales department, but it very obviously isn't.


----------



## EdwardBast

Zhdanov said:


> for humanity, of course, who else.


Aerospace engineering produced ICBMs capable of carrying nuclear warheads and extinguishing the species. Skateboards only, and rarely, tend to kill or maim the individuals riding them. Are you sure you've thought this through? 



chu42 said:


> If most people think pop isn't superior to classical, I wonder why it overwhelmingly sells better?


Some have theorized that "the public is an a$$."


----------



## chu42

Ethereality said:


> Just take note that objectivity is what refers to humans, while universality is what refers to science. In this thread, we're talking of the former. So chu, you are a musical objectivist. Please take note of my former post which refutes your position.


I believe that objective greatness does not exist in science nor humans.

I think there are ways to objectively rank music by certain standards, but the standards themselves are subjective.

Like I said, you can compare Schumann with Brahms by a certain standard but who gets to decide the standard? Who gets to decide what kind of voice leading is "good" or what kind of texture is "good"? Therefore it's still just opinion.

But for the sake of discussion, I and other forum members can agree on certain standards on which to rank music and come up with conclusions that have meaning to humans.


----------



## Zhdanov

chu42 said:


> On this forum, a tiny forum for niche music enthusiasts called Talk*Classical*


thank God someone finally noticed...



chu42 said:


> If most people think pop isn't superior to classical, I wonder why it overwhelmingly sells better?


because most people are ignorant fools?


----------



## Zhdanov

EdwardBast said:


> Aerospace engineering produced ICBMs capable of carrying nuclear warheads and extinguishing the species.


don't worry, do not be afraid, the worst has already happened.


----------



## Zhdanov

man is god like.

this can lead him to his death.

and its much better than ride skateboards,

or like apes climb tree branches, which is the same.


----------



## Strange Magic

Zhdanov said:


> man is god like.
> 
> this can lead him to his death.
> 
> and its much better than ride skateboards,
> 
> or like apes climb tree branches, which is the same.


Again, we have reached the end of the thread.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Again, we have reached the end of the thread.


Aw, c'mon, we were just about to discuss whether skateboards are the same as apes climbing tree branches.


----------



## Phil loves classical

chu42 said:


> On this forum, a tiny forum for niche music enthusiasts called Talk*Classical*, you might be right.
> 
> Literally anywhere else, you are completely wrong.
> 
> I don't know how old you are or who you associate yourself with, but the vast majority of people I know would advocate for the superiority of popular music, whether it be American pop, or K-pop, or hip-hop (if you consider that popular music).
> 
> If most people think pop isn't superior to classical, I wonder why it overwhelmingly sells better? People vote with their wallet. People actively choose what they want to listen to. If they thought classical music was equal or better then it would be doing equal or better in the sales department, but it very obviously isn't.


Sells better because more people like it, but I never heard anyone say Pop or popular music is better than Classical, unless it's like "Rock RULES!!" sort of blind allegiance, rather than a specific comparison. They usually try to avoid talking about what's better. I liked Pop better than Classical at one point, and never entered my mind that the music was superior, but more like I wasn't ready to take on Classical, or it didn't mean anything to me at the time, or Pop is more ear-friendly, and less demanding.

I doubt anyone could say Avatar or Titanic is better than the Godfather, just because they like it more, or that it made more money.


----------



## Strange Magic

Zhdanov said:


> man is god like.
> 
> this can lead him to his death.
> 
> and its much better than ride skateboards,
> 
> or like apes climb tree branches, which is the same.


Upon further reflection, I believe we are seeing here a new haiku-like form of poetry. It has a quiet beauty that grows upon me


----------



## Andrew Kenneth

This skateboarder seems to like classical music just fine =>


----------



## chu42

Phil loves classical said:


> Sells better because more people like it, but I never heard anyone say Pop or popular music is better than Classical, unless it's like "Rock RULES!!" sort of blind allegiance, rather than a specific comparison. They usually try to avoid talking about what's better. I liked Pop better than Classical at one point, and never entered my mind that the music was superior, but more like I wasn't ready to take on Classical, or it didn't mean anything to me at the time, or Pop is more ear-friendly, and less demanding.


Yeah, this is just wrong. Plenty of music fans think that their own genre is the end-all-be-all of human achievement, just as classical music fans think that Bach, Mozart, etc. are the greatest accomplishments of mankind.

Your own biases about classical music have led to you to the conclusion that nobody could possibly think that classical music isn't the greatest genre, even though this is entirely incongruent with what many people actually think.



Phil loves classical said:


> I doubt anyone could say Avatar or Titanic is better than the Godfather, just because they like it more, or that it made more money.


Again, I don't know where you are getting these ideas. There are many, _many_, people who don't think the Godfather is a good film. There are also many people who think that Titanic is the greatest film of all time. There are people who think Shakespeare is dull and turgid compared to Harry Potter. There are many people who don't distinguish taste from "quality" and thus whatever they enjoy is whatever they think is "great". Not everyone thinks the same as you or your peers.

Your own demographic and your peers may trend towards certain ideas about music and literature, while my own demographic/peers trend towards other ideas. Despite this, you've been fallaciously presenting your own worldview as if it is objective and undeniable.

I'd redirect you again to Bacon's 4 Idols. Your personal experiences are limited and distorted. What you may think to be true is not necessarily shared by others even though you think they are objective ideas.


----------



## Phil loves classical

chu42 said:


> Yeah, this is just wrong. Plenty of music fans think that their own genre is the end-all-be-all of human achievement, just as classical music fans think that Bach, Mozart, etc. are the greatest accomplishments of mankind.
> 
> Your own biases about classical music have led to you to the conclusion that nobody could possibly think that classical music isn't the greatest genre, even though this is entirely incongruent with what many people actually think.
> 
> Again, I don't know where you are getting these ideas. *There are many, many, people who don't think the Godfather is a good film. There are also many people who think that Titanic is the greatest film of all time.* There are people who think Shakespeare is dull and turgid compared to Harry Potter. There are many people who don't distinguish taste from "quality" and thus whatever they enjoy is whatever they think is "great". Not everyone thinks the same as you or your peers.
> 
> Your own demographic and your peers may trend towards certain ideas about music and literature, while my own demographic/peers trend towards other ideas. Despite this, you've been fallaciously presenting your own worldview as if it is objective and undeniable.
> 
> I'd redirect you again to Bacon's 4 Idols. Your personal experiences are limited and distorted. What you may think to be true is not necessarily shared by others even though you think they are objective ideas.


I think that is an exaggeration itself. An overwhelming majority (those that feel strongly enough to state their opinion) think the Godfather is great. A minority may think overrated and just good, but there are definitely not "many, many, people who don't think the Godfather is a good film". Also those inclined towards Titanic say it is their _*favourite*_ movie of all time, not the greatest. I believe you're projecting what "many people" say or think. I did talk to many people of different generations, cultures, etc. Not projecting what my only peers think. 
Never encountered someone young or old, that said Pop is better than Classical. They would acknowledge they don't know Classical enough to make the statement, or they just don't care what is better. But they treat Classical with a sort of respect, or even fear.


----------



## mmsbls

Phil loves classical said:


> I think that is an exaggeration itself. An overwhelming majority (those that feel strongly enough to state their opinion) think the Godfather is great. A minority may think overrated and just good, but there are definitely not "many, many, people who don't think the Godfather is a good film". Also those inclined towards Titanic say it is their _*favourite*_ movie of all time, not the greatest. I believe you're projecting what "many people" say or think. I did talk to many people of different generations, cultures, etc. Not projecting what my only peers think.
> Never encountered someone young or old, that said Pop is better than Classical. They would acknowledge they don't know Classical enough to make the statement, or they just don't care what is better. But they treat Classical with a sort of respect, or even fear.


I think it's a bit difficult for any of us to know definitive answers to these questions. The Titanic did win more Oscars than The Godfather did though that doesn't really tell us which movie is considered better. I know many people are aware that classical music is considered superior music by various groups, but I don't know that they actually believe classical music is better. Many people think it's boring, too long, and you can't sing or dance to it. So I'm not sure I would say with confidence that most people believe classical is better.


----------



## Strange Magic

Phil loves classical said:


> Never encountered someone young or old, that said Pop is better than Classical. They would acknowledge they don't know Classical enough to make the statement, or they just don't care what is better. But they treat Classical with a sort of respect, or even fear.


Two interesting statements: A) the importance to the poster that they never encountered someone saying Pop is better than CM; is this to be taken as something beyond anecdote? I have met and spoken with those who have said the opposite. B) the imputation of feelings of respect for or fear of CM to those who do not ascribe betterness to CM due to ignorance or apathy. This reveals, if true, and I believe it to be true, the failure of CM to free itself from relying upon its appeal to a "hi-falutin" niche audience, much like the energy exhibited here to keep the impression that we are dealing with something that the sweating masses could not learn to like.


----------



## RogerWaters

Phil loves classical said:


> I remember the objective and definitive proof for 1+1=2 in Principia Mathematica is 45 pages long. Yet somehow even an elementary student can sense the truth. I believe the same is with Classical vs Pop. *All musical elements in Pop are encapsulated and exceeded by Classical Music to a higher degree*, except certain perspectives of lyrics and stylistic gestures, which carries a certain identity, attitude, swagger or earthiness. That is what makes Pop more immediately relatable especially to younger audiences over Classical. It is more relevant to the immediate needs of more listeners (catchiness, hooks, drumbeats, lyrics), and has a stronger or clearer message. At some point every Classical music fan has made a choice to go beyond the glitz, glamour, catchiness of Pop to something with more musical *depth *as in harmony, structure, etc.
> 
> There is no doubt Classical is *deeper *in harmony, structure, etc. than Pop. The question is whether that makes it greater than the catchiness, smooth production, instant gratification, attitudes, and immediate appeal of Pop. Pop fans that don't like Classical hear the music (at least some eras such as a lot of Baroque) as disembodied, and without personality (that they could relate to).


I wonder what you mean by saying 'all musical elements in Pop are encapsulated and exceeded by Classical Music to a higher degree'?

What does a 'higher degree' of encapsulation mean? Do you mean more complicated? If so, there is an inferential leap from complicated to _better_ that isn't necessarily warranted by the notes on the page. All the notes answer to is (perhaps) 'more complicated'. The jump to 'better' is subjective.

A similar problem with your post, in my view, is your use of the word 'depth'. What do you mean by this?

I fear you are smuggling in value judgements that aren't, strictly speaking, warranted by the music as opposed to some people's preferences about the music.


----------



## Strange Magic

Killing several birds with one stone, this 1983 NYTimes article gives an overview of the success of the Soviet Union's efforts to have CM be a Peoples' Art. I am not interested in going beyond this into the many sins and evils of the Soviet state, but their record, through very low pricing for concert seats and a general thrust to have large populations comfortable with classical music did wonders in reducing if not eliminating the "hi-falutin" aura surrounding CM in the USA especially.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/04/arts/music-lightens-the-rigors-of-life-in-moscow.html


----------



## ArtMusic

The Soviet Union, as far as CM is concerned, promoted much of classical music and acceptable 20th century newly composed music. Composers like Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Myaskovsky to name a few are good examples. The regime certainly determined that composed art music to be more acceptable and better for society than western popular music.


----------



## Ethereality

Saying there's great art and then favorite art, two separate, doesn't get you anywhere, because you cannot make a two-brained evaluation on the experience of both. You're contradicting when saying something is your favorite, but that you know something else is greater. You don't know anything about what is greater--you're assuming, based on an experience you never had or verified for yourself.

We can usually rely on social objectivity for matters of right and wrong, but when it comes to the 'greatness' of something, like art, there is no experiential standard we could ever use or propagate. We can only ever go by our own experiences.


----------



## DaveM

Ethereality said:


> Objective greatness isn't a feasable term..


Within the realm of traditional classical music there are objective reasons why a Beethoven is considered a great composer and if after saying that, someone on a classical music forum is going to still say, 'it's all subjective.' or 'give me the objective reasons'. then I question how much that person knows about classical music and what distinguishes one composer from another. And this has nothing to do with 'favorites'.


----------



## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> Your views on this are rather strange. No one in their right mind would think the proposition '1+1=2' depends on human beings for its truth!
> 
> Of course, human beings are required to express the statement 1+1=2 (in English, in this case), but the truth of the proposition expressed does not depend on human beings!
> 
> You (seem to) continue to confuse the act of expressing a proposition (completely mind-dependent) with the truth or falsity of the proposition (not completely mind-dependent).
> 
> Please settle down. I was presenting two sides of the debate, I wasn't even weighing in, in that post at least.
> 
> Better, but only according to the first notion of 'objectivity' I attempted to describe in the post you quote from. I.e. a very different kind of objectivity than mathematical truth, or scientific truths like 'the earth is round'!
> 
> I'd love to see the reaction of astronauts who have gone to the moon and back, as you sit in front of them espousing your dubious Kantian/idealistic beliefs. Mathematics _simply _a human construct, indeed!
> 
> Human constructs that don't correspond to mind-independent reality don't allow biological organisms to leave their atmosphere, enter the vacuum of space, and return alive.
> 
> The idea of Bach being 'better' than Cardi B, on the other hand, corresponds in no comparable way to mind-independent reality as does the mathematics enabling space exploration.


I was about to break this up and respond to each part and parcel; however, I have a key issue with your viewpoints. You claim that mathematics exists independently of humans. Where is it? Why does it exist? Importantly: what evidence do you have for this existence that allows us to conclude it exists, but couldn't be applicable to the existence of musical quality.

Please note I'm talking about abstract mathematics, not scientific results on reproducible phenomenological observations; math makes no predictions and can not be experimentally verified.

I also wish to clarify my beliefs are not entirely Kantian. I believe in objective truth, and believe it can be determined in many cases. My (major) point of agreement with Kant is that, epistemologically, his so-called "absolute reality" can not be known; but humans, strictly speaking, being unable to know things totally independent of human existence, is a virtual tautology.


----------



## RogerWaters

BachIsBest said:


> You claim that mathematics exists independently of humans. Where is it? Why does it exist? Importantly: what evidence do you have for this existence that allows us to conclude it exists, but couldn't be applicable to the existence of musical quality.


I wouldn't say mathematics exists independently of humans, just like science doesn't. Both are human endeavours/disciplines. However, the truths many mathematical propositions hit on _obviously_ exist independently of humans. If they didn't, we couldn't use mathematics to make televisions, rockets, computer chips, lasers, meth (hi Walter White), anything you can think of (this is a pragmatic vindication of mind-independent truth, that uses success to determine which judgements are objective true).

When it comes to music, there is no comparable pragmatic test to sort out which propositions are objectively true and which are not. '1+1=2' is a (mathematical) proposition which is objectively true, because if it wasn't, arithmetic would kill us not save us from disease, cold, global warming, etc. On the other hand, 'Beethoven is better than Cage' is NOT an (aesthetic) proposition which is objectively true, because there is no real-world test for it.

When it comes to highly abstract mathematical truth, talking about 'success' criteria in the material world is obviously problematic. However, abstract mathematical propositions are surely_ logically connected_, in some sense, to the mathematical propositions that _can_ be tested pragmatically in the material world?



BachIsBest said:


> I also wish to clarify my beliefs are not entirely Kantian. I believe in objective truth, and believe it can be determined in many cases. My (major) point of agreement with Kant is that, epistemologically, his so-called "absolute reality" can not be known; but humans, strictly speaking, being unable to know things totally independent of human existence, is a virtual tautology.


This is a straw man you keep bringing out, as far as I can tell.

No one thinks knowledge is mind-independent. Knowledge obviously involves both a knower and a known, in the right kind of relation. Those who believe we can know objective truths think that knowledge _latches onto_ that which is mind-independent: the 'known' part of the knowledge relation.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Within the realm of traditional classical music there are objective reasons why a Beethoven is considered a great composer and if after saying that, someone on a classical music forum is going to still say, 'it's all subjective.' or 'give me the objective reasons'. then I question how much that person knows about classical music and what distinguishes one composer from another. And this has nothing to do with 'favorites'.


Your statement that there are objective reasons why a Beethoven is considered a great composer is narrowly true. These reasons are found in neurology, group dynamics, psychology of decision-making. But the statement that Beethoven is a great composer is purely subjective and is pure assertion without evidence. I happen to agree with the assessment of Beethoven, but, literally, that's just me. You and me agreeing.



> *BachIsBest*: Please note I'm talking about abstract mathematics, not scientific results on reproducible phenomenological observations; math makes no predictions and can not be experimentally verified.


There may be exceptions to your assertion: the dropping-off of the intensity of fields, radiation, gravitation from a source falling away as the square of the distance is a simple matter of the geometry of spheres. This is an inherent "prediction" of mathematics that confounds if and when it is discovered to be violated. Likewise the paths of many astronomical or ballistic objects will be found to hold as ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolas whether we're here to observe them or not.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Your statement that there are objective reasons why a Beethoven is considered a great composer is narrowly true. These reasons are found in neurology, group dynamics, psychology of decision-making. But the statement that Beethoven is a great composer is purely subjective and is pure assertion without evidence. I happen to agree with the assessment of Beethoven, but, literally, that's just me. You and me agreeing.


I anticipated that response and responded to it in the post you quoted so I'll just leave it at that.


----------



## Zhdanov

mmsbls said:


> I think it's a bit difficult for any of us to know definitive answers to these questions. The Titanic did win more Oscars than The Godfather did though that doesn't really tell us which movie is considered better. I know many people are aware that classical music is considered superior music by various groups, but I don't know that they actually believe classical music is better. Many people think it's boring, too long, and you can't sing or dance to it. So I'm not sure I would say with confidence that most people believe classical is better.


the movies Titanic & Godfather, even though the former is rubbish and the latter a masterpiece, belong to same field & are from the same league where, say TV ads only have a restricted access, despite movies do contain product placement or political agenda themselves, but still films are films and ads are ads - to not be confused.

identically, classical is to not be compared with mass culture, for they are from different class; the former is music as the word translates 'art of the Muses' from Greek, and the latter is not because intrinsically unable to deliver high quality narrative and the images with symbols the narrative prtoduces, for pop has no technology classical music has.


----------



## BachIsBest

RogerWaters said:


> I wouldn't say mathematics exists independently of humans, just like science doesn't. Both are human endeavours/disciplines. However, the truths many mathematical propositions hit on _obviously_ exist independently of humans. If they didn't, we couldn't use mathematics to make televisions, rockets, computer chips, lasers, meth (hi Walter White), anything you can think of (this is a pragmatic vindication of mind-independent truth, that uses success to determine which judgements are objective true).
> 
> When it comes to music, there is no comparable pragmatic test to sort out which propositions are objectively true and which are not. '1+1=2' is a (mathematical) proposition which is objectively true, because if it wasn't, arithmetic would kill us not save us from disease, cold, global warming, etc. On the other hand, 'Beethoven is better than Cage' is NOT an (aesthetic) proposition which is objectively true, because there is no real-world test for it.
> 
> When it comes to highly abstract mathematical truth, talking about 'success' criteria in the material world is obviously problematic. However, abstract mathematical propositions are surely_ logically connected_, in some sense, to the mathematical propositions that _can_ be tested pragmatically in the material world?


I agree with your pragmatic real-world tests in determining the truth of science since that is how truth in science is defined. Defining mathematical truth that way runs counter to how every real-world mathematician establishes mathematical truth and, regardless, is inherent to the scientific theory and not the mathematics it uses. If a scientific theory can have multiple mathematical formulations, which is true? What about physical theories that use incorrect mathematics to predict correct results?

I can also assure you that there are mathematical statements that are proven (you appear to accept logical truths as objective truths only in so far as they pertain to phenomenological statements so I wish to clarify here that I use proven in the logical sense and make no claims about truth) to be independent of all real-world mathematics used in science.

I generally consider it axiomatic that all us humans are independent "thinking things" (as Descarte would say) effectively able to communicate in some environment that exists in some sense (if you don't accept this, then I don't know how to establish any common basis to argue upon). As I have stated before, in the strictest epistemological sense, from this, albeit vague, axiom, I don't consider it possible to derive that physical reality as we experience it exists independently from ourselves; however, if every known physical model that produced experimentally verifiable results operated under this assumption I believe there would be a strong argument for accepting it as axiomatic. This is clearly not the case. Current physical models of reality operate under the assumption that observation of reality fundamentally alters its nature. In these circumstances, I'm not sure how one is reasonably supposed to talk about "unobserved reality"; in serious science, for the obvious epistemological reasons, "unobserved reality" is considered entirely unknowable.



RogerWaters said:


> This is a straw man you keep bringing out, as far as I can tell.
> 
> No one thinks knowledge is mind-independent. Knowledge obviously involves both a knower and a known, in the right kind of relation. Those who believe we can know objective truths think that knowledge _latches onto_ that which is mind-independent: the 'known' part of the knowledge relation.


This is obviously a flawed understanding of knowledge. If the knowledge concerns the mind itself then it hasn't latched onto anything mind-independent.

To clarify, my argument is not metaphysical, it is epistemological. All knowledge (and I realise I sound somewhat Kantian here) must involve a knower and therefore knowledge independent of a knower is impossible. Any metaphysical claims about the "known" are, fundamentally, assumptions, which, as I have argued previously, I don't find justifiable.

I hope this clarifies my position.


----------



## mmsbls

Phil loves classical said:


> All musical elements in Pop are encapsulated and exceeded by Classical Music to a higher degree, except certain perspectives of lyrics and stylistic gestures, which carries a certain identity, attitude, swagger or earthiness. That is what makes Pop more immediately relatable especially to younger audiences over Classical. It is more relevant to the immediate needs of more listeners (catchiness, hooks, drumbeats, lyrics), and has a stronger or clearer message.


I understand generally what you are saying and might argue elsewhere that classical music pleases me on more levels than pop, but doesn't the above passage suggest an answer to how pop adherents would view pop music as better? Pop music has a stronger message, is more immediately relatable, is more relevant to listeners needs, carries a superior identity and swagger, and is easier to sing. Those criteria are more important to them than your criteria are.


----------



## mmsbls

Zhdanov said:


> ...identically, classical is to not be compared with mass culture, for they are from different class; the former is music as the word translates 'art of the Muses' from Greek, and the latter is not because intrinsically unable to deliver high quality narrative and the images with symbols the narrative prtoduces, for pop has no technology classical music has.


I'm not sure what it means to say that two things are "not to be compared." Human brains are designed to compare many things that are not necessarily similar (e.g. which is more important at the moment: sleep, sex, gathering food, finding shelter, etc.?). Comparing different types of music seems quite reasonable to me, and I'm not surprised that many people do so.


----------



## Zhdanov

mmsbls said:


> Pop music has a stronger message,


hmm, not really, in fact not at all.



mmsbls said:


> is more immediately relatable,


that is true.



mmsbls said:


> carries a superior identity and swagger,


but not as much as Adolf Hitler does.



mmsbls said:


> and is easier to sing.


that's for sure.


----------



## janxharris

DaveM said:


> Within the realm of traditional classical music there are objective reasons why a Beethoven is considered a great composer and if after saying that, someone on a classical music forum is going to still say, 'it's all subjective.' or 'give me the objective reasons'. then I question how much that person knows about classical music and what distinguishes one composer from another. And this has nothing to do with 'favorites'.


Lots of music lovers consider Beethoven as their favourite composer - but please cite where anyone has explicitly expressed such in objective terms with valid supporting arguments.


----------



## Nereffid

> Adolf Hitler


Maybe NOW we've reached the end of the thread?


----------



## Strange Magic

We're getting close. Some of our posters are venturing far, far from the inherent simplicities of the original discussion--whether esthetic judgments on the arts of the form "good", "great", etc. imply inherent properties of "objective" goodness or greatness within the artwork, or are rather matters of subjective individual opinion(s). To repeat: my position, seemingly still poorly understood, is that all such valuations of the "worth" of art are purely subjective, individual, unique, and personal. Attempts to imbue art with objective value as the result of lots of the proper sort of people liking it and appreciating it are nothing but the summing of "votes" that that process clearly implies: "We all say so, so it must be true!"

My position frees each individual to enjoy and to grade and to label art in any way that s/he chooses, with all such choices self-validating. No need to seek the imprimatur of The Others or of some contrived Platonic ideal or necessity to authenticate our individual preferences, though human nature seems to enjoy agreement with peers, and the bonding thus expressed. Art just is, with many objectively measurable qualities and quantities to be sure, but goodness or greatness are only inferred upon them by the mental processes and histories of their auditors or viewers.

Are we finished now?


----------



## amfortas

Strange Magic said:


> Are we finished now?


Are you taking bets?


----------



## hammeredklavier

Nereffid said:


> Adolf Hitler
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe NOW we've reached the end of the thread?
Click to expand...

Except another name needs to be mentioned, to signify a real finale:
Richard Wagner


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern

Nereffid said:


> Maybe NOW we've reached the end of the thread?


What about Hitler singing pop music though? We've hardly scratched the surface of this discussion!


----------



## Serge

WhateverDude said:


> Is 'classical music' better than 'pop music'...?


It better be. But - the caveat - results may vary.


----------



## amfortas

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> What about Hitler singing pop music though? We've hardly scratched the surface of this discussion!


Now that the true greatness of pop music has finally been established . . .


----------



## Barbebleu

At the start of this thread I would not have said that one was better than the other but now I would definitely say that ‘pop’ is better. No evidence given, none required.

But it would appear from most of the posts on this thread such a statement would be the norm. 

Sheer snobbish superiority would be the only justification for any pronouncement that classical is better than pop or vice versa. Time surely to give this thread a rest particularly when mention is made of Wagner and Hitler for no justifiable reason. Blimey!


----------



## janxharris

Barbebleu said:


> But it would appear from most of the posts on this thread such a statement would be the norm.


I didn't notice that....where?


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

Were not allowed to mention Hitler or talk about him?


----------



## Barbebleu

Perhaps ‘more’ over-eggs the pudding but there are plenty of posts that make objective statements but purport to be subjective. I’ve followed this thread since it appeared although it’s architect has disappeared and it’s clear to me that it’s impossible to empirically state that one genre is better than the other. Each has its own merits and followers as they should.


----------



## Strange Magic

Barbebleu said:


> At the start of this thread I would not have said that one was better than the other but now I would definitely say that 'pop' is better. No evidence given, none required.
> 
> But it would appear from most of the posts on this thread such a statement would be the norm.
> 
> Sheer snobbish superiority would be the only justification for any pronouncement that classical is better than pop or vice versa. Time surely to give this thread a rest particularly when mention is made of Wagner and Hitler for no justifiable reason. Blimey!


The central idea is that one (each of us) is free to assert any notion about the arts that they choose to believe, providing that it is understood--by themselves and by others-- that they speak only for themselves. Hence I can state either that Pop is greater, the same as, or lesser than CM or Flamenco or Folk or Whatever, and grade things up and down and sideways, and label them however I choose. All of the Mozart is "better" than Beethoven enthusiasts can certainly share their views and argue it out with their arch-foes, the Brahms is better than Anybody crowd. But in the backs of their minds, it's all opinions--idiosyncratic, subjective, yet personally--but only personally--valid.


----------



## Barbebleu

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Were not allowed to mention Hitler or talk about him?


Why would he be mentioned in this thread? To what end if not to provoke or derail the thread? Start a thread if you want to talk about him.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

Barbebleu said:


> Sheer snobbish superiority would be the only justification for any pronouncement that classical is better than pop or vice versa.


LOL you know everyone's reason for saying classical is better?


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

Barbebleu said:


> Why would he be mentioned in this thread? To what end if not to provoke or derail the thread? Start a thread if you want to talk about him.


someone mentioned him and people have a panic attack. Stop the thread!


----------



## Strange Magic

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> LOL you know everyone's reason for saying classical is better?


Yes. They say it's better because they think it's better.


----------



## Wilhelm Theophilus

Strange Magic said:


> Yes. They say it's better because they think it's better.


and they think its better because their snobs.


----------



## Strange Magic

Official End of Thread. :lol:


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> We're getting close. Some of our posters are venturing far, far from the inherent simplicities of the original discussion--whether esthetic judgments on the arts of the form "good", "great", etc. imply inherent properties of "objective" goodness or greatness within the artwork, or are rather matters of subjective individual opinion(s). To repeat: my position, seemingly still poorly understood, is that all such valuations of the "worth" of art are purely subjective, individual, unique, and personal. Attempts to imbue art with objective value as the result of lots of the proper sort of people liking it and appreciating it are nothing but the summing of "votes" that that process clearly implies: "We all say so, so it must be true!"
> 
> My position frees each individual to enjoy and to grade and to label art in any way that s/he chooses, with all such choices self-validating. No need to seek the imprimatur of The Others or of some contrived Platonic ideal or necessity to authenticate our individual preferences, though human nature seems to enjoy agreement with peers, and the bonding thus expressed. Art just is, with many objectively measurable qualities and quantities to be sure, but goodness or greatness are only inferred upon them by the mental processes and histories of their auditors or viewers.
> 
> Are we finished now?


What you always ignore is the fact that within specific categories of the arts, in this case, traditional or 'common era' classical music there are artists, in this case composers, who have skills, a skill-set and accomplishments that exceed and are superior to others. For instance, Beethoven's innovation, ability to compose in many different formats works that have impacted probably more people in the classical music realm than any other composer and his influence on composers and musicians perhaps more than any other composer over almost 200 years are objective facts.

I don't understand why those on this extreme 'subjective' kick in this forum can't seem to distinguish between favoritism of a given composer which is subjective and the results of skill and accomplishment which are objective. Outside of this forum, I've never heard anything like it. Over many years of hearing lectures by professional musicians and musicological experts and reading countless books on classical music, I have never once read something like 'This book is about the composers Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms not because they are particularly great -we can't say they are because that would be a subjective opinion- but because they are a lot of people's favorites.'

Now we're finished.


----------



## amfortas

DaveM said:


> Beethoven's innovation, ability to compose in many different formats works that have impacted probably more people in the classical music realm than any other composer and his influence on composers and musicians perhaps more than any other composer over almost 200 years are objective facts.


Yes, it's indisputable that Beethoven has been, as you so aptly put it, "a lot of people's favorite."


----------



## DaveM

amfortas said:


> Yes, it's indisputable that Beethoven has been, as you so aptly put it, "a lot of people's favorite."


Good job quoting out of context.


----------



## mmsbls

Barbebleu said:


> Perhaps 'more' over-eggs the pudding but there are plenty of posts that make objective statements but purport to be subjective. I've followed this thread since it appeared although it's architect has disappeared and it's clear to me that it's impossible to empirically state that one genre is better than the other. Each has its own merits and followers as they should.


Did you mean to say there are plenty of posts that make subjective statements but purport to be objective? "Classical music is better than Pop" would be an example. Maybe we're saying the same thing (or meaning the same thing).


----------



## amfortas

DaveM said:


> Good job quoting out of context.


Thank you. 

My point being, of course, that "impact" and "influence" don't *prove* Beethoven was "great"--only that a lot of skilled, knowledgeable people thought he was. Which, to be fair, is probably about as close to a definition of "greatness" as we're likely to find.


----------



## mmsbls

Zhdanov said:


> hmm, not really, in fact not at all.
> 
> that is true.
> 
> but not as much as Adolf Hitler does.
> 
> that's for sure.


I think you are missing the point of my post. I do not claim those things about Pop music. I was simply pointing out that someone who makes those claims (e.g. Phil loves classical in his post) was actually giving an argument that Pop is better. I know, of course, that Phil was not trying to make that argument.


----------



## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> What you always ignore is the fact that within specific categories of the arts, in this case, traditional or 'common era' classical music there are artists, in this case composers, who have skills, a skill-set and accomplishments that exceed and are superior to others. For instance, Beethoven's innovation, ability to compose in many different formats works that have impacted probably more people in the classical music realm than any other composer and his influence on composers and musicians perhaps more than any other composer over almost 200 years are objective facts.
> 
> I don't understand why those on this extreme 'subjective' kick in this forum can't seem to distinguish between favoritism of a given composer which is subjective and the results of skill and accomplishment which are objective. Outside of this forum, I've never heard anything like it. Over many years of hearing lectures by professional musicians and musicological experts and reading countless books on classical music, I have never once read something like 'This book is about the composers Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms not because they are particularly great -we can't say they are because that would be a subjective opinion- but because they are a lot of people's favorites.'
> 
> Now we're finished.


I have followed this general argument in several threads. My gut feeling is that most people on both sides of the argument actually agree on most points. I suspect that "subjectivists" would agree that there are objective criteria experts use to assess composers. I also think most "objectivists" agree that there is a subjective component when making overall evaluations of composers. Sorry for the terms subjectivist and objectivist, but I assume you know what I mean.

I generally agree with the points you make. There are objective criteria, and experts can talk about influence, innovation, and other factors in making assessments. These assessments are critical in creating canons and deciding what to teach in music classes. I think it's reasonable to use collective assessments from experts as a way to argue about greatness.

On the other hand, I believe that ultimately no assessment or collection of assessments can truly be objective. There are many factors used in assessments, and the only way to have a completely objective assessment would be to weight these factors objectively. Is influence more important than innovation. If so, is it 5% more, 20% more? Without a method of objectively determining the weighting of factors, no assessment can be truly objective.

A hypothetical example would be: Michael Jackson's music is vastly inferior to Beethoven's in almost every factor, but his music is much better as dance music. Danceability outweighs all other factors such that Jackson is better than Beethoven. I have no doubt that for some people (perhaps relatively few) that is true.


----------



## ArtMusic

^ Art is much more complex. It appeals (or not) to human senses. Human senses give the work meaning (or lack of). The level of craftsmanship differs in the creation of the work. Some compositions take years, other might take a few days or less; as in the case of improvisation, it is spontaneous. Art can be analyzed to show it is objectively a more complex work that has without a doubt taken much more creativity and craftsmanship than another. One may then conclude this work can be more creative and impactful on posterity by contributing to its future development of the genre. On a personal enjoyment level, none of this prevents it from being enjoyable or not.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> What you always ignore is the fact that within specific categories of the arts, in this case, traditional or 'common era' classical music there are artists, in this case composers, who have skills, a skill-set and accomplishments that exceed and are superior to others. For instance, Beethoven's innovation, ability to compose in many different formats works that have impacted probably more people in the classical music realm than any other composer and his influence on composers and musicians perhaps more than any other composer over almost 200 years are objective facts.
> 
> I don't understand why those on this extreme 'subjective' kick in this forum can't seem to distinguish between favoritism of a given composer which is subjective and the results of skill and accomplishment which are objective. Outside of this forum, I've never heard anything like it. Over many years of hearing lectures by professional musicians and musicological experts and reading countless books on classical music, I have never once read something like 'This book is about the composers Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms not because they are particularly great -we can't say they are because that would be a subjective opinion- but because they are a lot of people's favorites.'
> 
> Now we're finished.


Dave, my thoughts are fully and clearly expressed in the paragraphs you quoted in your post #759. It is certain that in any given category of music, there are those with more skill, skill sets, and accomplishments than some others--these all fall into the category of measurable things like size, shape, duration of the artwork, color. We have age of the artist, their weight, education, eye color, etc., etc. These result, or can result, in each of us forming an individual opinion of a piece--like it, impressed by it, moved by it. The work may closely match our often not fully understood internal criteria. But all this is a far cry from a work itself being "intrinsically", inherently "great". If something is truly "great" then only pathology would prevent all from immediately recognizing it as such. But "de gustibus non disputandum est" continues to be the signature hallmark of esthetics in actual practice.

It may be also that these "subjectivist" views expressed here indicate the Emperor's absence of clothing, suddenly(?) discovered.


----------



## Roger Knox

DaveM said:


> What you always ignore is the fact that within specific categories of the arts, in this case, traditional or 'common era' classical music there are artists, in this case composers, who have skills, a skill-set and accomplishments that exceed and are superior to others. For instance, Beethoven's innovation, ability to compose in many different formats works that have impacted probably more people in the classical music realm than any other composer and his influence on composers and musicians perhaps more than any other composer over almost 200 years are objective facts.
> 
> I don't understand why those on this extreme 'subjective' kick in this forum can't seem to distinguish between favoritism of a given composer which is subjective and the results of skill and accomplishment which are objective. Outside of this forum, I've never heard anything like it. Over many years of hearing lectures by professional musicians and musicological experts and reading countless books on classical music, I have never once read something like 'This book is about the composers Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms not because they are particularly great -we can't say they are because that would be a subjective opinion- but because they are a lot of people's favorites.'
> 
> Now we're finished.


Yes, I would say that in my years on TC the most astonishing thing by far has been the sheer weirdness of the doctrine of the subjective. At some point I hope to be able to work up a response to it, but that would involve more time and trouble than I have now. In the meantime, I'm inwardly rolling my eyes every time I indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" along with 99+ others who also indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" about the same piece, each of us wrapped up in our purely subjective individuality but for some reason arriving at the same conclusion.


----------



## chu42

DaveM said:


> I don't understand why those on this extreme 'subjective' kick in this forum can't seem to distinguish between favoritism of a given composer which is subjective and the results of skill and accomplishment which are objective.





Roger Knox said:


> Yes, I would say that in my years on TC the most astonishing thing by far has been the sheer weirdness of the doctrine of the subjective. At some point I hope to be able to work up a response to it, but that would involve more time and trouble than I have now. In the meantime, I'm inwardly rolling my eyes every time I indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" along with 99+ others who also indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" about the same piece, each of us wrapped up in our purely subjective individuality but for some reason arriving at the same conclusion.


My favorite composer to listen to is Schumann. The composer I consider to be the greatest is Bach.

Why is one assessment any more objective than the other? Do people not each have their own subjective criteria for "greatness", even if it doesn't correspond with why exactly they like listening to that composer?

Perhaps someone thinks that Beethoven is the greatest because of his influence and innovation.

But maybe I think Bach is the greatest due to his vast volume and uniform high quality. Maybe I value quality over innovation and thus that's why I think Bach is the greater composer.

Keep in mind that even the idea of "high quality" is subject to the context of common practice rules of counterpoint/voice-leading. I can only "objectively" assess Bach's music under the context in which he was practicing composition. I can't assess it by the standards of Mongolian throat-singing.

So tell me, how is it that people can objectively compare pop and classical music when the rules, goals, and target audiences are so dissimilar?

How can anyone call a person's assessment of greatness objective?


----------



## DaveM

chu42 said:


> ..Keep in mind that even the idea of "high quality" is subject to the context of common practice rules of counterpoint/voice-leading. I can only "objectively" assess Bach's music under the context in which he was practicing composition. I can't assess it by the standards of Mongolian throat-singing.
> 
> So tell me, how is it that people can objectively compare pop and classical music when the rules, goals, and target audiences are so dissimilar?


I specifically opened my post indicating that I was referencing specific categories of the arts, in this case 'common era' (aka common period) music. Although I know absolutely nothing about Mongolian throat-singing, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there is such a thing as one of the greatest in that category.

I have not commented at all on 'objectively comparing pop and classical music' and have no interest in doing so.


----------



## Strange Magic

Roger Knox said:


> Yes, I would say that in my years on TC the most astonishing thing by far has been the sheer weirdness of the doctrine of the subjective. At some point I hope to be able to work up a response to it, but that would involve more time and trouble than I have now. In the meantime, I'm inwardly rolling my eyes every time I indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" along with 99+ others who also indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" about the same piece, each of us wrapped up in our purely subjective individuality but for some reason arriving at the same conclusion.


What is so strange about groups of people liking the same thing? Is this a wonder, and a proof of objective greatness? More people liked--as has been noted--the artistry of Michael Jackson, The King of Pop, than that of any number of CM composers or their works. Let's have an eye-rolling exhibition all around. After all, more people like vanilla ice cream than any other flavor. Or do they? The weirdness of the objective "betterness", "greatness" of art that masses of people like is far greater than the weirdness of the contrary position, which has been regarded as a commonplace for thousands of years.

People like what they like, and it's really OK.


----------



## chu42

DaveM said:


> I specifically opened my post indicating that I was referencing specific categories of the arts, in this case 'common era' (aka common period) music. Although I know absolutely nothing about Mongolian throat-singing, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there is such a thing as one of the greatest in that category.


Therefore greatness only has meaning within a certain frame of human perception. In Bach's case it's the common practice period, and in Mongolian throat-singing it's whatever conventions that Mongolian throat-singing has.

It follows that "greatness" in music has no inherent meaning outside of human context. There is no objective standard that all music can be judged by.



DaveM said:


> I have not commented at all on 'objectively comparing pop and classical music' and have no interest in doing so.


Well, that is what this thread is about. The very idea of objectivity in music stipulates that there is a rational way to compare classical music and pop music.


----------



## DaveM

chu42 said:


> Therefore greatness only has meaning within a certain frame of human perception. In Bach's case it's the common practice period, and in Mongolian throat-singing it's whatever conventions that Mongolian throat-singing has.
> 
> It follows that "greatness" in music has no inherent meaning outside of human context. There is no objective standard that all music can be judged by.


Why are you simply repeating what I said in my post and then implying I said or inferred something I didn't?



> Well, that is what this thread is about. The very idea of objectivity in music stipulates that there is a rational way to compare classical music and pop music.


So what? I don't care to compare the two. Are you by any chance the thread-topic police?


----------



## Strange Magic

Here is an important question for the House: Why is it that so many threads here in TC-Land discuss whether CM is better than Pop? Or for that matter, why not Country & Western? Or Salsa? or World Music? Or any number of other genres of music? I have been on Flamenco forums for decades, yet the subject of whether Flamenco is better than whatever other genre never comes up and never came up. I would extrapolate that to include Internet forums for any other genre you can think of. Fans of other musics appear to be entirely comfortable in their choice of genre to be involved with--there is no sense of questioning, nervous or otherwise, about whether they are truly at the pinnacle of the musical art, needing to be validated and confirmed by show of hands and by ideological necessity that their choice of CM was the right and only one. I grew up listening to opera, jazz, Latin, Flamenco, Doo-***, Tin Pan Alley, Big Band, Rock 'n' Roll, Folk, Broadway, and Classical music, and never experienced the phenomenon of questioning that typifies some threads here regarding the choice of CM as the genre that most interests.

Just wondering.


----------



## chu42

DaveM said:


> Why are you simply repeating what I said in my post and then implying I said or inferred something I didn't?


I didn't infer anything. I extended your line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. If there is any logical fault in that conclusion, please point it out.

Simply put:

Do you agree that we can only compare artwork without bias in the context that it was made?

If you don't agree with me on this, then we will go back and find another common line of understanding. If you do agree, then surely you will have to agree with its logical conclusion-that music has no inherent meaning outside of human context.



DaveM said:


> So what? I don't care to compare the two. Are you by any chance the thread-topic police?


I am not, and obviously you are free to comment what you like.

But if you cannot determine whether or not classical music and pop music can be objectively compared, it simply suggests to me that you don't have a strong belief in your own arguments.

If there is objectivity in music, then they can be compared. If there isn't, then they can't. Simple as that. Whether or not you care to compare the two is immaterial.


----------



## DaveM

chu42 said:


> ..I am not, and obviously you are free to comment what you like.
> 
> But if you cannot determine whether or not classical music and pop music can be objectively compared, it simply suggests to me that you don't have a strong belief in your own arguments.


Since I've chosen not to express an opinion, you have no idea what I can or cannot determine nor how strong or weak my argument might be. You also have to consider the possibility that I don't choose to discuss it with you.


----------



## adriesba

Roger Knox said:


> [...]I'm inwardly rolling my eyes every time I indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" along with 99+ others who also indicate somehow "my personal favourite is" about the same piece, each of us wrapped up in our purely subjective individuality but for some reason arriving at the same conclusion.


As I said earlier, this ultimately speaks more to probable commonalities of human psychology than the music itself. The fact that others may also like a piece shows that there are likely some common factors, whatever they may be, influencing their preferences.


----------



## Zhdanov

Strange Magic said:


> Why is it that so many threads here in TC-Land discuss whether CM is better than Pop?


first of all because this is a provocation, that some might feel an urge to bring their subjective views into the objective truth of classical being the only music ever obtained, in order to justify themselves as to why are they unable to ditch their old habits of litening to mass culture products like rock, pop, latino, jazz, rap, metal - all those vile names etc.


----------



## janxharris

Zhdanov said:


> first of all because this is a provocation, that some might feel an urge to bring their subjective views into the objective truth of classical being the only music ever obtained, in order to justify themselves as to why are they unable to ditch their old habits of litening to mass culture products like rock, pop, latino, jazz, rap, metal - all those vile names etc.


An objective truth that you have failed to demonstrate here Zhdanov. Vile? Clearly you express subjective opinion that few I suspect would share.

You mentioned complexity earlier as being a factor - is Oldfield's _Tubular Bells_ simple? Not, of course, that that confers greatness (as I said), but you seem to think so.

Genesis's _Supper's Ready_ or _Natural Science_ by Rush?


----------



## Zhdanov

janxharris said:


> An objective truth that you have failed to demonstrate here


demonstrated many times already, read the thread.


----------



## Strange Magic

Zhdanov said:


> first of all because this is a provocation, that some might feel an urge to bring their subjective views into the objective truth of classical being the only music ever obtained, in order to justify themselves as to why are they unable to ditch their old habits of litening to mass culture products like rock, pop, latino, jazz, rap, metal - all those vile names etc.


One must clearly go through an intense ritual of purification and mind-cleansing as a rigorous self-discipline before one can think oneself fit to listen (exclusively, of course) to classical music. Such is the central teaching of Zhdanovism, it would appear. Quite authoritarian. Almost a cult. But it doesn't really answer my question about why so many of such threads appear on CM sites.


----------



## Roger Knox

Strange Magic said:


> It is certain that in any given category of music, there are those with more skill, skill sets, and accomplishments than some others--these all fall into the category of measurable things like size, shape, duration of the artwork, color. We have age of the artist, their weight, education, eye color, etc., etc. These result, or can result, in each of us forming an individual opinion of a piece--like it, impressed by it, moved by it.


Do you actually know anything about music analysis or composition? The reductionism in your argument causes it to miss the mark altogether.


----------



## EdwardBast

Strange Magic said:


> One must clearly go through an intense ritual of purification and mind-cleansing as a rigorous self-discipline before one can think oneself fit to listen (exclusively, of course) to classical music. Such is the central teaching of Zhdanovism, it would appear. Quite authoritarian. Almost a cult. *But it doesn't really answer my question about why so many of such threads appear on CM sites.*


Just a theory, but it might be because a number of otherwise sane people take the bait and contribute 50 of their own posts to them.


----------



## Strange Magic

Roger Knox said:


> Do you actually know anything about music analysis or composition? The reductionism in your argument causes it to miss the mark altogether.


Talk about reductionism. We have here a pure tautology that links alleged expertise in musical analysis and composition with in-group, peer group approval of certain works and composers. Self-fulfilling prophecy, if one subscribes to this notion, and entirely predictable--"I like this because the composer is skilled." There is a big difference here between art/music judgment which is 100% opinion and, say, surgery, where skill and experience differences among surgeons directly correlate in a cause and effect link with operative and post-operative death rates.

I do not compose music. I sometimes enjoy reading musical analyses, but find that they have almost no bearing on whether or how much I like the musics I like.


----------



## Strange Magic

EdwardBast said:


> Just a theory, but it might be because a number of otherwise sane people take the bait and contribute 50 of their own posts to them.


So true! I enjoy these threads, as should be clear to the meanest understanding by now.


----------



## Zhdanov

Strange Magic said:


> "I like this because the composer is skilled."


and what's wrong with that?.. being skilled is a must, high quality is great, classical is king, so why deprive oneself of the best life has on offer?


----------



## Chilham

Zhdanov said:


> demonstrated many times already....


Niet. ....................


----------



## amfortas

Zhdanov said:


> and what's wrong with that?.. being skilled is a must, high quality is great, classical is king, so why deprive oneself of the best life has on offer?


I don't think anyone here has suggested you should deprive yourself of anything.


----------



## chu42

DaveM said:


> Since I've chosen not to express an opinion, you have no idea what I can or cannot determine nor how strong or weak my argument might be. You also have to consider the possibility that I don't choose to discuss it with you.


Very true. But it's like someone claiming to be a Christian yet refusing to answer the question, "Do you believe that Jesus existed?"

Likewise, I asked you a question that is fundamental to the stances that you are taking. Your refusal to answer suggests a lack of confidence in your stance.

If you believe music can be objectively measured, then obviously classical music and pop music can be objectively compared.

If you don't believe music can be objectively measured, then classical and pop cannot be objectively compared.

There's no way around it.


----------



## Barbebleu

A general question. Who is objectively the best string quartet composer? Beethoven, Mozart, Bartok, Haydn or Shostakovich? And what method led you to a conclusion if you have one. If it’s impossible to say who is better here then how is it possible to objectively say which is better between classical and pop.


----------



## Strange Magic

Zhdanov said:


> and what's wrong with that?.. being skilled is a must, high quality is great, classical is king, so why deprive oneself of the best life has on offer?


All the music I like is great and of high quality--I guarantee it!


----------



## Strange Magic

Barbebleu said:


> A general question. Who is objectively the best string quartet composer? Beethoven, Mozart, Bartok, Haydn or Shostakovich? And what method led you to a conclusion if you have one. If it's impossible to say who is better here then how is it possible to objectively say which is better between classical and pop.


This indeed is the Achilles Heel of the Objectivists' argument. If a reply is attempted, be prepared for hemming, hawing, escape clauses, exceptions, or assertions that they are all equally good--you can add Dvorak, Ravel, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Borodin, and Prokofiev to the list, but it will be pointed out that these latter didn't write so many SQs, hence including sheer quantity as a stand-in for "greatness". Many relatively obscure symphonists would suddenly leap into major contention for best such, using this parameter.


----------



## amfortas

Barbebleu said:


> A general question. Who is objectively the best string quartet composer? Beethoven, Mozart, Bartok, Haydn or Shostakovich?


A little unfair to Mozart, who was better as a string *quintet* composer.

Objectively, of course.


----------



## SanAntone

chu42 said:


> Very true. But it's like someone claiming to be a Christian yet refusing to answer the question, "Do you believe that Jesus existed?"
> 
> Likewise, I asked you a question that is fundamental to the stances that you are taking. Your refusal to answer suggests a lack of confidence in your stance.
> 
> If you believe music can be objectively measured, then obviously classical music and pop music can be objectively compared.
> 
> If you don't believe music can be objectively measured, then classical and pop cannot be objectively compared.
> 
> There's no way around it.


I've been reading this thread and not commenting for about a week. I have begun to see what those who claim some objective basis for classical music being better than pop might mean. Within every community of practitioners of any genre of music there is criteria that is used when evaluating the creations of our peers.

But I am reminded of something one of my publishers said: "a song must be undeniable in order for it to get cut." We lived and breathed songwriting, 24/7 and generally agreed when a song was good, great and then those few that are undeniably better than all the rest.

But that criteria is limited to, in my case, the songs being written in Nashville during the 1990s and 2000s.

But there is different criteria for jazz. When I was working as a jazz bassist the same thing happened. All of the other musicians knew who the great players were, who was writing great jazz tunes, etc.

But again, the criteria for jazz meant nothing for rock music, or rap, or country ... or classical.

With classical music I think we are using the judgments of the classical music community that surrounded every great composer and have inherited a body of music that has been considered undeniably good. Plus there has been a filtering process because of the passage of time.

*But these judgments are still subjective* - only that the more experience in a style someone has, their opinion is more informed about the nuances of a style and convert the subjective opinion into a more objective opinion, so to speak.

Knowledge and experience in a style of music allow us to have an informed opinion: 1) we know more about what has been done before and 2) we can tell how something new compares with all the music that has come before, and 3) since we have been performing the style for years we know what it takes to rise above the mediocre.

So, what I have cone to believe is that *informed subjectivity* creates a quasi-objective basis for assessing a specific genre style of music. But the criteria used for classical music means nothing for judging jazz or country or pop. And I still believe that the best jazz or the best country or the best pop is as good as the best classical. Note I said "the best" as determined by that community of practitioners for each genre, their informed subjective opinion decided what music of their peers was the best.

Creating "the best" in any genre takes enormous talent, skill, experience/knowledge of the history of the genre and a huge dose of artistic discernment. It doesn't matter if the chosen field is classical or pop, those artistic standards that create "the best" are equally high and rare.


----------



## DaveM

chu42 said:


> Very true. But it's like someone claiming to be a Christian yet refusing to answer the question, "Do you believe that Jesus existed?"
> 
> Likewise, I asked you a question that is fundamental to the stances that you are taking. Your refusal to answer suggests a lack of confidence in your stance.
> 
> If you believe music can be objectively measured, then obviously classical music and pop music can be objectively compared.
> 
> If you don't believe music can be objectively measured, then classical and pop cannot be objectively compared.
> 
> There's no way around it.


I'm surprised to see the various Likes to the post above, particularly SM who should know better. Any comments I've made about objectivity in music in this thread have been about common practice period classical music where the subject came up off-topic. I've made it clear that there can be objective parameters within specific categories of music.

So why would I decide to compare CM with popular music? This is a classical music forum. I think it's a waste of time comparing the two. Besides, the above poster is indulging in baiting and I have no interest in responding to him specifically.


----------



## amfortas

DaveM said:


> So why would I decide to compare CM with popular music? This is a classical music forum. I think it's a waste of time comparing the two.


Perhaps, but that's the topic of this particular thread. Why bother posting here at all?


----------



## Strange Magic

^^^^SanAntone, I can agree with this recognition of a consensus about what Our Kind of People prefer in any given genre as being a useful guide to what to listen to first. It is an objective fact that the results of a poll or vote are what they are. But we must never lose sight of the fact that it is a poll or vote. Much of the music and other artworks I really love are not on the usual radar of group consensus, and, given my assertion of the primacy and validity of personal choice and experience, the central subjectivity of esthetics remains inviolate.


----------



## Zhdanov

Barbebleu said:


> A general question. Who is objectively the best string quartet composer? Beethoven, Mozart, Bartok, Haydn or Shostakovich? And what method led you to a conclusion if you have one. If it's impossible to say who is better here then how is it possible to objectively say which is better between classical and pop.


because classical is music, and pop is not.


----------



## Strange Magic

Now might be a great time to end the thread.


----------



## Serge

Zhdanov said:


> because classical is music, and pop is not.


Wait a minute, so The Beatles wasn't the music?  OK, Uncle Joe...


----------



## chu42

DaveM said:


> I'm surprised to see the various Likes to the post above, particularly SM who should know better. *Any comments I've made about objectivity in music in this thread have been about common practice period classical music* where the subject came up off-topic.


Sorry, that's not how objectivity works. Objective truths don't require subscription to certain human contexts to become reality.

Gravity works whether you believe in it or not. The laws of thermodynamics still function for those who don't understand them.

Yet you say Bach is only "objectively great" in a certain context. It requires the person to subscribe to common practice conventions of tonality, music theory, etc.

Therefore it's quite literally _subject_ to human thinking, where the truth of the statement depends entirely on the mindset of each individual person evaluating the music.

In fact, by limiting your own discussion to the parameters of classical music, you are affirming the idea that music cannot be judged objectively. You have to create a bubble and truths can only be materialized when people choose to enter the bubble.



DaveM said:


> I've made it clear that there can be objective parameters within specific categories of music.


Nobody disagrees with this.

Parameters can be objective. The value of each parameter is not.



DaveM said:


> So why would I decide to compare CM with popular music? This is a classical music forum. I think it's a waste of time comparing the two. Besides, the above poster is indulging in baiting and I have no interest in responding to him specifically.


This reminds me of a debate I watched recently where one participant complained that the other was baiting him into "saying something racist". Pardon me, but if you think you can be baited into saying something racist then you might very well be racist!

So what exactly are you afraid of saying when I bait you? Are you not confident enough in your own thought processes that you suspect you might be baited into saying something illogical?

If that's the case, you might want to reevaluate your arguments.


----------



## Barbebleu

Post #798. Easily the most hilariously inane post ever on this forum. Subjectively speaking of course!


----------



## janxharris

Zhdanov said:


> because classical is music, and pop is not.


How about this: 




?


----------



## chu42

janxharris said:


> How about this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ?


Or even better:






Music or not music?


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## janxharris

chu42 said:


> Or even better:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Music or not music?


is that the white stripes?


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## chu42

janxharris said:


> is that the white stripes?


Yes; the subject of the fugue at least.


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## Barbebleu

Where do we stand on composers like Bernstein or Korngold who straddled both worlds? (I would consider film music/musicals to be a sub-set of popular music.)


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## DaveM

amfortas said:


> Perhaps, but that's the topic of this particular thread. Why bother posting here at all?


Because I responded to an off-topic subject. I assume from your post that you would never post off-topic. Good for you. Besides my opinion which is on-topic is that comparing the two is a waste of time.


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## Serge

chu42 said:


> Yes; the subject of the fugue at least.


Sorry, but this is Bruckner. The 5-th symphony, I think.


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## Fabulin

Barbebleu said:


> Where do we stand on composers like Bernstein or Korngold who straddled both worlds? (I would consider film music/musicals to be a sub-set of popular music.)


Since when is "film music" a homogenous genre instead of an application of music? Film music can mean electronic music, sound design, pop songs, folk, jazz, classical music, or any combination thereof.

Korngold - operatic
L. Bernstein - jazzy operetta


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## Barbebleu

Fabulin said:


> Since when is "film music" a homogenous genre instead of an application of music? Film music can mean electronic music, sound design, pop songs, folk, jazz, classical music, or any combination thereof
> 
> Korngold - operatic
> L. Bernstein - jazzy operetta


So film music is an application of music just like opera or symphonies? 

You know what I was getting at. Both composers looked to compose in the western classical tradition and also in the western popular music tradition. Both of them with some success. Korngold's film scores were written to make money that his less successful, outwith their own niche, classical compositions didn't. Bernstein did the same with his scores for stuff like On the Town, West Side Story and On the Waterfront.

Actually I'm done with this thread. Too much like hard work so from me this is


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## DaveM

IMO, some pop music can be as moving as classical music:


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## DaveM

chu42 said:


> ...So what exactly are you afraid of saying when I bait you? Are you not confident enough in your own thought processes that you suspect you might be baited into saying something illogical?


Yes, it could be that I'm a timid, wilting violet or it could be that the reason you keep baiting me to respond is because you're desperate for my attention and approval.


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## Luchesi

DaveM said:


> Yes, it could be that I'm a timid, wilting violet or it could be that the reason you keep baiting me to respond is because you're desperate for my attention and approval.


Well, that's a good thing..

..unless she's a she and she's stalking you


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Now might be a great time to end the thread.


Which is better for your brain, CM or commercial music?


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## Serge

Luchesi said:


> Which is better for your brain, CM or commercial music?


That which my brain can connect with is good enough. :tiphat:


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## Luchesi

Serge said:


> That which my brain can connect with is good enough. :tiphat:


That's one thing that's never mentioned in the TC forum. - that I've seen..


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## hammeredklavier

Luchesi said:


> commercial music


you mean stuff like:


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## chu42

hammeredklavier said:


> you mean stuff like:


I much prefer:


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## Roger Knox

Luchesi said:


> That's one thing that's never mentioned in the TC forum. - that I've seen..


Do you mean commercial music or the brain? Either would be a good topic.


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## arpeggio

“Good music is good, no matter what kind of music it is.” – Miles Davis


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## Chilham

Luchesi said:


> Which is better for your brain, CM or commercial music?


Some people have a poor understanding of history.


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## Zhdanov

Serge said:


> That which my brain can connect with is good enough.


what if it won't connect with a masterpiece that shouldn't be missed out on?


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## Chilham

Zhdanov said:


> what if it won't connect with a masterpiece that shouldn't be missed out on?


Who has defined what should, and what shouldn't be missed out on?


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## Zhdanov

Chilham said:


> Who has defined what should, and what shouldn't be missed out on?


ah, rhetorics?.. this is not how to conduct a discussion.


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## Strange Magic

The thread is now in its death spiral.......


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## Serge

Zhdanov said:


> what if it won't connect with a masterpiece that shouldn't be missed out on?


Can't jump over its head, can it?


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## Zhdanov

Serge said:


> Can't jump over its head, can it?


this is not how one talks classical.

should punch above ones weight here.


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## Serge

Zhdanov said:


> this is not how one talks classical.
> 
> should punch above ones weight here.


Since you seem to have the experience, does wishful thinking work?


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## Zhdanov

Serge said:


> Since you seem to have the experience, does wishful thinking work?


this is not how you see things, it should be for real.


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## amfortas

DaveM said:


> Because I responded to an off-topic subject. I assume from your post that you would never post off-topic. Good for you. Besides my opinion which is on-topic is that comparing the two is a waste of time.


I've often been known to go off topic, but I don't make a habit of repeatedly announcing a thread topic to be pointless. That, to me, seems like a waste of time. But of course, we're each free to use our time as we see fit.


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## Luchesi

Roger Knox said:


> Do you mean commercial music or the brain? Either would be a good topic.


The brain. I was thinking about what we're able to hear at the age of five and 10 and 15, -- 25, 45 and 60.

From my own life, and from what my young students have told me, I can see that it determines which music we favor at those developmental stages.


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## DaveM

amfortas said:


> I've often been known to go off topic, but I don't make a habit of repeatedly announcing a thread topic to be pointless. That, to me, seems like a waste of time. But of course, we're each free to use our time as we see fit.


Personally, I don't make a habit of criticizing posters out of context. For some reason, I was repeatedly challenged by a single poster to compare CM with popular music. Each time, I said it was a waste of time to do so. Don't you have a better way to use your time?


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## Luchesi

DaveM said:


> Personally, I don't make a habit of criticizing posters out of context. For some reason, I was repeatedly challenged by a single poster to compare CM with popular music. Each time, I said it was a waste of time to do so. Don't you have a better way to use your time?


Straightening this out once and for all would be a good use of time


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## Nereffid

This thread has strayed away from the original topic and nothing of relevance is now being added.

*The thread is now closed.*


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