# When judging a piece of music...



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

When you judge a piece of music, does your criteria for that judgement depend on what you are listening to? Or do your standards regarding the "greatness" of a piece stay more or less the same?

Discuss!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I basically try to take everything on it's own terms, that's the basics of my approach. 

I try to find out as much as is useful about a piece, eg. through the liner notes of the cd, or the program if I'm hearing a live concert. Or just general background reading in books or online, etc. I'm a nerd so it goes without saying :lol:.

I listen to a fairly wide array of classical music, so having a "one size fits all" policy or approach would fall flat in a minute. It just wouldn't work. If I emphasised pre-concieved notions of "greatness" or so-called "good" versus "bad," I would probably get nowhere. & nowhere for me means to be restricted and listen to similar or same things all the time. I like variety in classical music, that's what I'm in "the game" of listening to it, that's the main reasons. Variety is the spice of life as they say...


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Personally, I change my criteria for judging a piece of music all the time, depending on what I am listening to. Even within the same general time frame! For example, I am a guy that loves really beefy theme development, so when I am listening to a Beethoven sonata, for example, that is one of the things I judge the music on is how interesting his theme development is. But I know that if I am listening to something like a Chopin Nocturne, I'm not going to get much of that, so I change by judging criteria and judge that piece more on how much I like the melodies and the harmonies.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'm pretty sure my impression of a piece is colored by all sorts of biases, chiefly ones pertaining to the composer and the type of form that the title of the piece implies. Judging quality works best for me when there are large and stylistically consistent groups of pieces, because I can get into Haydn symphony mode, Chopin Mazurka mode, Medtner skazka mode, or "20th century symphony" mode, ect. 

It just seems like there are so many factors that go into being a consistent judge of quality, Harmonic abilities(you have to be an unusually good listener/score folower to really judge this, and not just assume it because something sounds "harmonically advanced") are often ranked highly, as is the development of themes. Melody, something that is underestimated by many who have learned to be thrilled with harmony and thematic development, and overestimated by those who haven't learned to appreciate those things. A variety of other variables. But the thing is, you have to be able to judge based on feel and not just on knowledgable criteria. 

Are there those who have learned to match their criteria based on their knowledge well with what they simply feel? I certainly haven't learned how to do this. And I'm slightly skeptical of those who claim they can do this, they have to prove themselves to me, and I'm apt to be critical when they **** on my favorite composers.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I'm pretty sure my impression of a piece is colored by all sorts of biases, chiefly ones pertaining to the composer and the type of form that the title of the piece implies. Judging quality works best for me when there are large and stylistically consistent groups of pieces, because I can get into Haydn symphony mode, Chopin Mazurka mode, Medtner skazka mode, or "20th century symphony" mode, ect.
> 
> It just seems like there are so many factors that go into being a consistent judge of quality, Harmonic abilities(you have to be an unusually good listener/score folower to really judge this, and not just assume it because something sounds "harmonically advanced") are often ranked highly, as is the development of themes. Melody, something that is underestimated by many who have learned to be thrilled with harmony and thematic development, and overestimated by those who haven't learned to appreciate those things. A variety of other variables. But the thing is, you have to be able to judge based on feel and not just on knowledgable criteria.
> 
> *Are there those who have learned to match their criteria based on their knowledge well with what they simply feel? I certainly haven't learned how to do this.* And I'm slightly skeptical of those who claim they can do this, they have to prove themselves to me, and I'm apt to be critical when they **** on my favorite composers.


I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> Personally, I change my criteria for judging a piece of music all the time, depending on what I am listening to. Even within the same general time frame! For example, I am a guy that loves really beefy theme development, so when I am listening to a Beethoven sonata, for example, that is one of the things I judge the music on is how interesting his theme development is. But I know that if I am listening to something like a Chopin Nocturne, I'm not going to get much of that, so I change by judging criteria and judge that piece more on how much I like the melodies and the harmonies.


But sometimes, don't you wonder if you've missed the fact that a piece by a composer or in a style you'd typically expect to have one aspect, in fact has another aspect going for it very strong that you couldn't see because you were prejudiced, coming into the piece expecting on thing, and you get it, but not expecting the other, and its there by you missed it because it wasn't up to par with another composer who does that thing better? Sorry, not very concise way of explaining myself.

I sometimes feel annoyed at myself that I think this way, and it takes me a long time to learn how to enjoy something, that really should have been simple to appreciate, but I was too hung up on expectation.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> ...because I can get into Haydn symphony mode, Chopin Mazurka mode, Medtner skazka mode, or "20th century symphony" mode, ect.
> 
> ...


Which reminds me (a side issue) a lot of how I take in music, incl. how I judge it (etc.), is about my mood and vibe at the time. Eg. now I have gone completely off choral, which I was semi-into the past few years. I'm kind of in the chamber vibe and also light music. Also some other things but choral is off my radar for now. As is more experimental things, which I was highly into the vibe of esp. last year. I can understand people's judgements/criticisms of things like "out-there" experimental music or light music, as I know & like these types of music to some degree, but of course it's not fair if they start pulling down a composer or musician & doing things below the belt or in underhanded manner. & as always, the way we think about music & our values/ideology has big bearing on all this...


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> But sometimes, don't you wonder if you've missed the fact that a piece by a composer or in a style you'd typically expect to have one aspect, in fact has another aspect going for it very strong that you couldn't see because you were prejudiced, coming into the piece expecting on thing, and you get it, but not expecting the other, and its there by you missed it because it wasn't up to par with another composer who does that thing better? Sorry, not very concise way of explaining myself.
> 
> I sometimes feel annoyed at myself that I think this way, and it takes me a long time to learn how to enjoy something, that really should have been simple to appreciate, but I was too hung up on expectation.


We'll if there is very strong theme development in something like a Chopin piece I can usually pick that up pretty well. But I'm usually generally familiar enough with a composers style and preference to know what they liked to focus on in their compositions and I am fairly certain that Chopin wasn't huge on theme development.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> ...
> I sometimes feel annoyed at myself that I think this way, and it takes me a long time to learn how to enjoy something, that really should have been simple to appreciate...


I am also sometimes feeling that I'm slow, it takes me many listens or maybe even years "with" a work to "get" it on some fair level. But that's the beauty of these things, I guess, often hard or very hard to quantify "why" the "oh yes" moment happens or never happens...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

It connects with my last sentence, perhaps it was confusing that I broke what you bolded from the last part with a new paragraph. When I speak of "feel" I have to be honest that I'm a little vague as to what I originally meant by that, perhaps it has something to do with what one might inherently enjoy, just deriving a simple pleasure from a piece. Sometimes I think: if only our listening abilities and ability to respond emotionally, were unhampered by our prejudices and the listening abilities and emotions fine tuned to great sensitivity. Then again, perhaps the emotional reaction from the piece is in and of itself strengthened and made larger than life and therefore more enjoyable by our prejudices. I don't know. That's a new thought. 

As for "criteria based on knowledge," that's what I've been paraphrasing as "prejudice" I guess. Based on what you know about music. Its hard to be more specific. As for both of them combined, "feel" and "criteria based on knowledge," perhaps two things that can strengthen your ability to rate pieces accurately, if there is such a possibility.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

For me it's all about that indescribable "X factor"; either something will arise within me or it won't. I don't go into a piece listening for melody, or harmony or development, but some combination of those factors will come together to produce this effect. It's immediately obvious when this happens. I will never let a piece I am truly enjoying play through undisturbed, I'm always rewinding it because "I have to hear that part again!"


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> We'll if there is very strong theme development in something like a Chopin piece I can usually pick that up pretty well. But I'm usually generally familiar enough with a composers style and preference to know what they liked to focus on in their compositions and I am fairly certain that Chopin wasn't huge on theme development.


Then I'd say you are a pretty solid and devoted listener, more so than me, and yet you still struggle with this rating issue quite a bit.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Couchie said:


> It's immediately obvious when this happens.


I'd not always immediate to me. Sometimes it takes me a while to warm up to a piece, but when I do, I love to replay the parts I love over and over again.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> It connects with my last sentence, perhaps it was confusing that I broke what you bolded from the last part with a new paragraph. When I speak of "feel" I have to be honest that I'm a little vague as to what I originally meant by that, perhaps it has something to do with what one might inherently enjoy, just deriving a simple pleasure from a piece. Sometimes I think: if only our listening abilities and ability to respond emotionally, were unhampered by our prejudices and the listening abilities and emotions fine tuned to great sensitivity. Then again, perhaps the emotional reaction from the piece is in and of itself strengthened and made larger than life and therefore more enjoyable by our prejudices. I don't know. That's a new thought.
> 
> As for "criteria based on knowledge," that's what I've been paraphrasing as "prejudice" I guess. Based on what you know about music. Its hard to be more specific. As for both of them combined, "feel" and "criteria based on knowledge," perhaps two things that can strengthen your ability to rate pieces accurately, if there is such a possibility.


I'll try to address your point as accurately as possible, I think I know what you're saying now. You're saying that true judgement of music should mostly depend on the amount of pleasure you derive from it and therefore it shouldn't be hampered by trying to pick out the more "pseudo-technical things that the composers did well? Well I am the wrong person to ask that question my friend. I am a bit of an outsider when it comes to music in that my first reaction to a piece is hardly ever a visceral emotional one, but a more analytical one. That is just my nature, how I feel toward music. I listen to a piece of music that I think, alright what is the composer doing here? where is he taking me? what techniques is he using? It is probably just the composer in me, that is why I think this way...my emotional reaction to a piece is almost always secondary and comes days or months later once I've "figured a piece out" so to speak. So given that information about me...I'm not entirely sure how to answer your question


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Then I'd say you are a pretty solid and devoted listener, more so than me, and yet you still struggle with this rating issue quite a bit.


hmm well I dont know if it is so much listening devotion. but I have studied lots about composers views on music and general views about music within a given time period.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'd say I'm a confused mixture of Couchie and Violadude on this matter, and perhaps Sid James is too!:lol: Couchie seems to have quick visceral responses, a quick intuitive reaction. Violadude has the intuition working for him, but sometimes he feels its obscured by analysis or doesn't work till the analysis has gone some ways?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I'd say I'm a confused mixture of Couchie and Violadude on this matter, and perhaps Sid James is too!:lol: Couchie seems to have quick visceral responses, a quick intuitive reaction. Violadude has the intuition working for him, but sometimes he feels its obscured by analysis or doesn't work till the analysis has gone some ways?


hm..not sure if obscured is quite the right word. I know what kind of emotion a piece is trying to portray usually pretty easily. But I hardly ever actually _feel_ that emotion in a raw sort of way until I've done all the proper analyzing lol and even then sometimes I just don't feel a work emotionally, but I love listening to it because I know it inside and out now and I feel attached to the piece in that way. Does that make sense?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> hm..not sure if obscured is quite the right word. I know what kind of emotion a piece is trying to portray usually pretty easily. But I hardly ever actually _feel_ that emotion in a raw sort of way until I've done all the proper analyzing lol and even then sometimes I just don't feel a work emotionally, but I love listening to it because I know it inside and out now and I feel attached to the piece in that way. Does that make sense?


Perhaps you are more emotional than you think about music? But yes, I see what you mean.

Sometimes, I get a new perspective on a piece just from talking with someone or playing it for them and hearing their fresh reaction(whether it was a genuine reaction or not). Seeing somebody freshly awed by a piece I already loved makes me love it even more. So I seek that out...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

There are a lot of ways for music to impress me.

Sometimes - especially in baroque, classical and romantic era music - I really enjoy the structural ideas: counterpoint, themes, variations and so on. I almost always rely on my feeling to find the structure; I've analyzed a few scores in music classes, but it is not something I often do.

Other times - especially in medieval, renaissance, romantic and modern music - I really enjoy the harmonies and timbres. I have a theory that timbre is the single key to modern music.

I'm a sucker for a good melody in any era's music. Another theory: we all are suckers for melody.

Interesting rhythms mean something to me as well, although not so often in classical or romantic era music.

One thing, though: I rarely consider myself a judge of music. Assuming we're dealing with any of the few thousand most famous works of music performed by world-class musicians, If I don't get a work, I assume the failure is mine, not the work's or the musician's. Not only that, I'm actually morally against it. If a world-class composer and musician do what they intend to do, and I don't get it, _I_ am not in the position to judge _them_.

It's a matter of acknowledging my ignorance. In literature, a field in which I have a much deeper expertise, I consider myself capable of making judgments, though it's not an easy thing to do: I have to read a work very carefully and often many times before my judgment is worth a darn. But I am someone capable of explaining precisely why _Macbeth_ is better than _Julius Caesar_, or why T. H. White is better than Marion Zimmer Bradley.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Perhaps you are more emotional than you think about music? But yes, I see what you mean.
> 
> Sometimes, I get a new perspective on a piece just from talking with someone or playing it for them and hearing their fresh reaction(whether it was a genuine reaction or not). Seeing somebody freshly awed by a piece I already loved makes me love it even more. So I seek that out...


Well, let me clarify a couple things. I _do_ have initial, visceral non-analytical reactions to music, but they usually aren't emotional. They're reactions as an outside observer of the music, like "Woah that is a sweet rhythm", or "Woah, cool sound!" But it is hardly ever something I feel as an emotion from within the music, if that makes sense.

Also, to me feeling the emotion of the music and feeling its expression are two different things, the latter I am much more inclined towards. One of the things I do love about music is its power to express a wide range of things. Take Sibelius' 4th symphony for example. I love how powerfully expressive of depression and darkness it is. It makes my blood boil just thinking about it. However, this doesn't mean that while I am listening to it, I am feeling that depression and darkness myself, ya know what I mean? I guess my reactions to music are almost always from outside the music.


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2011)

Is it too late (or too disruptive) to mention that music is for listening to and enjoying, not for judging?

Probably is.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

some guy said:


> Is it too late (or too disruptive) to mention that music is for listening to and enjoying, not for judging?
> 
> Probably is.


Generally I agree, but I am more or less talking about personally judgements...for example for composers you are not fond of, I am sure that you have judged reasons you aren't fond of them to a certain extent.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Food and literature and movies and furniture are also for enjoying - and we will judge them according to how much enjoyment we derive from them.

Andrew Wyeth's _Christina's World_ and Warner Sallman's _The Head of Christ_ are both for looking at and enjoying. But one impresses me more than the other.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

violadude said:


> ...Take Sibelius' 4th symphony for example. I love how powerfully expressive of depression and darkness it is. It makes my blood boil just thinking about it. However, this doesn't mean that while I am listening to it, I am feeling that depression and darkness myself, ya know what I mean? I guess my reactions to music are almost always from outside the music.


I am opposite to that. Sibelius' 4th is imo (& others more "in the know") finest symphony of his great cycle. But I don't want to own it because it cuts too close to the bone for me, it depresses me, it puts me in the space he was in when writing it. I find it hard to separate what the composer is feeling and what I feel, in a way. As I always say, this is like a conversation the composer is having with me, he is in the room, in spirit at least.

With recently listening to Elgar's _String Quartet in E minor_, composed after the carnage of WW1, all his "Worcester lads" from his local community who he had seen grow up, by then lying buried in the fields of France, this work does not hold back from overtly expressing anger and it's like an endless questioning - the phrase that goes right through it - of why, why, why. Like a broken record, almost. It is visceral and gut wrenching definitely.

And this kind of thing is not only restricted to romantic-type music. Eg. Bach's _chaconne _from that _Partita for solo violin #2_, written after his first wife died, and things like a work by Peter Sculthorpe, the veteran Aussie, which I just heard now, called _Irkanda IV_, written after his father died. I am about to review it on current listening. These emotions are universally human, and they come out in the music of whatever era, style, genre, techniques, etc...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

violadude said:


> Generally I agree, but I am more or less talking about personally judgements...for example for composers you are not fond of, I am sure that you have judged reasons you aren't fond of them to a certain extent.


No, we have to be like Adorno or Arnold Whittall claimed to be - TOTALLY OBJECTIVE. It's ALL or NOTHING. It's BLACK or WHITE. EMOTION is BAD. Don't get me started, just don't, please...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

It may surprise people to know that I don't actually 'judge' pieces of music! I listen... and then I either like or dislike. I'm never thinking about _how_ good it is; only whether it is good or not.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

If it's an orchestral work I do not know, I go in with ears wide open and not comparing to nor expecting anything at all. It it is a piece for piano I have never heard I will do the same. I know you probably didn't mean this in your OP but if I'm hearing a piano piece I am very familiar with being played by someone I've not heard,...I can be extremely hard on it. If the tempo is 'off' or if they miss one or two phrases or passages or play a trill wrong I start to lose my patience. I will hear the entire piece, however, just to know how terrible the performer truly is and then sit in amazement and wonder when someone claims they are the best. 

Other than that I like to listen to it clean.


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## Oskaar (Mar 17, 2011)

I am not scolared, so my judgement is purely a "in whole" impression of the music. It can change by mood. And bad sound on a recording gan get me limited from full enjoyment of the work, and I may range it lower. I try to separate these thre things, though : sound, work and performance.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Knowing next to nothing about technical details of composition and performance, the only thing I am listening for is whether the piece (in this performance) appeals to me. I would say it is purely an emotional thing.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

violadude said:


> When you judge a piece of music, does your criteria for that judgement depend on what you are listening to? Or do your standards regarding the "greatness" of a piece stay more or less the same?
> 
> Discuss!


I listen, then I judge and I finish by ranking it. I may then come here to TC to express my opinion of it. But to answer your question, my judging and ranking criteria for greatness (no need for inverted commas) do change by genre and by period; so no, my standards for greatness do not remain the same. It also changes over time, when I understand the idiom of the genre and periods better through reading and learning. Why do I do this? Because it is enjoyable and fun. Listening to music is extremely enjoyable. Judging and ranking it are the icing on the cake - make it even more enjoyable.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Not everything composers wrote was intended to be "great" A work does not have to be "great" to be highly enjoyable . 
For example, Saint-Saens was probably not as "great" a composer as Bach,Beethoven, 
Wagner etc , but so what ? He never aimed at profundity . All he set out to do was write elegant, melodious and highly entertaining music . There's nothing wrong with that.
His was successful on his own terms in writing this kind of music .


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

violadude said:


> When you judge a piece of music, does your criteria for that judgement depend on what you are listening to? Or do your standards regarding the "greatness" of a piece stay more or less the same?
> 
> Discuss!


Why don't you just judge it by how much you like the sound it makes and forget the psychobabble ?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^I think music criticism, opinion, history etc., as for all the arts, is founded on a secure base of psychobabble, gossip, building shrines and monuments, huge towering egos, canonical lists, politics and ideologies that fossilise into hard dogmas, & a zillion other things often with little connection to the actual music...:lol:...


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