# When a piece of music judges you...



## Guest (Dec 15, 2011)

I read somewhere long ago something to the effect that it's not so much that we judge great art as it is that great art judges us.

With that in mind, I thought violadude's thread about judging music needed a companion thread.

What do you do when a piece of music judges you?

(Leave off, if you please, the "great" part of it. But feel free to substitute "an unfamiliar" for "a.")

I know in my own listening that me judging a piece of music doesn't get me anything of value. It doesn't help me enjoy anything that initially bores. It doesn't help me understand anything that initially baffles. For my purposes, it is inutile.

The music judging me has been very useful, however, leading me to change the way I listen and thus leading me to the enjoyment of many things I would have initially found worthless.

Arrogance is very precious to many people, I know. I've just found that with art, humility is best, is most rewarding.

Howz about you all?


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Eh? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

I'm not too sure about what you mean about 'judging' but if you mean accepting a work on its own terms and (given that the ensemble, performers, conductor are doing their jobs) 'believing' or being open to the idea that there is something of value there whether it gives it up easily or not, then I totally agree with you. It was the point I hoped to make in my post about the Great Fugue (Beethoven op.130 quartet in Bb). I think all profound works of art are highly inscrutable and require living with them day in day out in the slight hope that one day your mind will open intuitively to some glimpse of the artist's vision. I believe with all my being that you can live 'as a performer' with certain works and never get to the bottom. That's why Glenn Gould recorded the Goldberg Variations again at the end of his life - he felt there was more to be revealed. If we love music, we must have a very high vision of it realizing that the 'great' works endure because they remain unfathomable. Nobody ever 'gets' 'The Mass in B Minor' or 'Brahms Deutsches Requiem' [insert your own great works] - I'm not sure Bach and Brahms 'got' them, they simply strived to be working with a highly developed technique when inspiration struck them - that's why we return to these works again and again.



some guy said:


> I read somewhere long ago something to the effect that it's not so much that we judge great art as it is that great art judges us.
> 
> With that in mind, I thought violadude's thread about judging music needed a companion thread.
> 
> ...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Great Artworks are things; they can't judge, only humans judge. What you're doing when you let a great artwork judge you is in fact letting those who appreciate the great artwork judge you; the great art is a proxy for their taste, a standard by which you measure yourself. 

We only know a great art is great because of its reputation. If you're the only person in the world who thinks that sonata X or symphony Y is great, it's probably just your idiosyncrasy.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I've found that art doesn't so much judge us as act as an expression of the artist's judgment. I don't think I've ever been judged by music as you have. I do, however, agree about humility being the best option in art; it always pains me to see artists get all [law]suit-happy over someone using their art (what I said in the "boycott hip hop" thread was hypocritical and of bad judgment on my part). Fan-artists are the worst of the lot, because they're usually making illegal derivative works in the first place, so getting angry at someone for illegally using their work seems pretty hypocritical. But I digress.



Klavierspieler said:


> Eh?
> 
> (Darn, can't remember the code for that zero-width character)


ampersand pound 8203 semicolon

But it seems that it doesn't work correctly on Opera, so you might want to refrain from using it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I try to take all music on it's own terms. I don't go for the cliches of highbrow, middlebrow or lowbrow. I am of eclectic tastes, all sorts of music are written for different purposes. Even the one composer did different works with different things, eg. different goals, in mind.

Having said that, I dislike composers who always rehash themselves or even worst, rehash other composers. I see it as treating the listening public as fools or like somebody offering you last night's (or last week's) dinner. When I hear a composer offering me rehash, that's when I basically turn off, it's like going through the motions. 

I'm not saying you have to be a high end innovator or move music forward to engage me. Eg. some composers like Stanford didn't move music forward but he had a unique style, he had great technique (esp. in the choral area, his harmonies come across to me as unique), he basically knew what he was doing to the max. This is what I expect, for the composer to offer something different from others, even if it's a little different. & some form of artistic development or difference between his works. Listening to the same symphony or concerto done over and over again, pure regurgitation, I see no point in that as a listener.

So if the composer has SOMETHING to offer, I turn on. But if they offer things like rehash, then I turn off. That's it in a nutshell...


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The OP reminds me of a story of a visitor to an art gallery full of works of unquestioned genius. At the end of the tour, the visitor said, "I don't think much of your old pictures." The attendant answered quietly, "Sir, I would remind you that these pictures are no longer on trial, but those who look at them are." 

At times I've found that if I react negatively to something that has stood the test of time, it really shows my own blindness. I try not to be like that. It took me a year, but I was able to appreciate Mozart and even love many of his works. My new project is to come to terms with Stravinsky's Neoclassical phase; it doesn't grab me, but I know I'm missing something.


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2011)

Manxfeeder reminds us that we're dealing in metaphors here.

It's interesting that our commonest metaphors for dealing with music are either a courtroom (or maybe American Idol) or a schoolroom. We're either judges, with music in the dock, or we're teachers, with music taking various tests (the test of time being the big one I guess, at end of term!).

Any of us who have been deeply moved by a piece, who have been taken out of ourselves, as it were, by a stirring performance, will be uneasy with the implications of these metaphors. We set ourselves over the arts as either judges or teachers? How delightfully haughty and supercilious.

The question in the OP remains. Maybe I should rephrase it to be more particular. I didnd't want to narrow the discussion to just this, but maybe I should just have fewer wants, eh? 

So what do you do if a piece of music judges your listening to be inadequate?

Or maybe I could do a couple of particular scenarios and let y'all choose from them.

So here's another, what do you do if a piece of music judges you to be prejudiced?

And another, what do you do if a piece of music questions your sense of what music is or should be or can be?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

In Soviet Russia, music judge you!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> ...
> 
> So what do you do if a piece of music judges your listening to be inadequate?
> 
> ...


We've all got different tastes and preferences, so there's limits to what we'll accept or not. Or see or hear as "adequate" or not.

I think as long as I am open to things that initially I don't like or understand or connect with, etc., then my initial judgement or whatever can change.

There are things that I find worth pursuing, others not, or not at this stage. As Manxfeeder gave his example above with Stravinsky, I am similarly now getting into some music of J.S. Bach, and I am reconnecting with it on a deeper level than before. No thanks to any Bach high priests here or elsewhere, but I won't go there.

It's human to have prejudices. We all have them to greater or lesser degree. It's just okay to admit that you're human and you maybe made a mistake and are becoming less prejudiced with something. Before I judged composers like Rodrigo or Saint-Saens for various reasons, not prejudged as I had heard their music (some of it), but now coming back to them, I hear the positives in their music, not the negatives.

So it's like the glass half full/half empty thing. I try to see things as half full as well as I can now...


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2011)

violadude said:


> In Soviet Russia, music judge you!


:lol:

This never gets old, does it?

I can even hear his voice saying this.

Whatever his name is. I can see him and hear him in my head, but I can't think of his name.

(Should I put this post in the identifying comedians subforum?)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

All I want to do is listen to music, and I don't know what it would mean to feel judged by a piece of music.

But I _am_ constantly and incessantly judged by people - and often, whether it is because I like modern music too much or not enough, or because I am not enthusiastic enough about period performance, or Wagner or Mahler or Bruckner, or because I try to squeeze out prioritized recommendations from my fellow listeners -

I am found wanting.

Which of course is the goal.

The fans of modern music are better than I; 
those who reject modern music are better than I; 
fans of period performance are better than I;
fans of Wagner or Mahler or Bruckner are better than I;
those who reject lists are better than I; 
there are probably many others better than I;
and I hate them all, because I just want to listen to music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^I think that's a good poem, science. It sums up what I think basically. There are double standards here as anywhere else, maybe "that's life," but at the same time I don't put up with people who -

1. Treat me as a baby in diapers
2. Say there is something wrong with me if I don't like what they like (or don't value what they value, more accurately)
3. Try shove things down other's throats, eg. I have to like what they like
4. Believe in false dichotomies, eg. "highbrow" vs. "lowbrow," "establishment" vs. "fringe," or even "conservative" vs. "radical," "right" vs. "wrong"
5. Psychobabble, dogma, fossilized canons, gossips, music-as-religion, monument & shrine building, composer cults and fetishists, etc. etc.
6. PUtting words into my mouth
7. Using what I say against me, creating a false dichotomy out of what I do or don't say, eg. "you said this, so the opposite of that is -------." Ape level thinking?...


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## CameraEye (Nov 18, 2011)

Just because we don´t like something it doesn´t mean it´s bad. And if we like it, it doesn´t mean it´s good either. In my opinion, music metahorically judges us when we are unable to appreciate its quality. We may like or dislike any music for one or other reason but that has nothing to do with our appreciating it.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I would substitute the verb challenge for some guy's "judge". Music and art in general can present an intellectual and or moral challenge to the individual. In the case of music, I respect the composer's intelligence and the great deal of thinking and planning that goes into creating a work of art. I may have a preference for listening to more contemporary music over some older styles, but I don't adopt a condescending attitude towards older music. There's too much music to focus on everything, so one has to make choices.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

starthrower said:


> There's too much music to focus on everything, so one has to make choices.


A painful thought.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” 
― Sergei Rachmaninoff...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Sid James said:


> ^^"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music."
> ― Sergei Rachmaninoff...


I envy those who grew up in musical households listening to the classics since early childhood. If I was familiar with a thousand more works composed in the 18th & 19th centuries, I could appreciate and recognize the influence on modern composers to a much greater degree. I'd know all of the pieces Alfred Schnittke is quoting in his various works. So to all of those listeners who stop at 1900. I have to say that it's such a waste of experience!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Well that's why I kind of dip in and out of all the eras and areas, retaining my orbit of basically post-1800 & the chamber area. There are a lot of connections between today's music, or post-1945 music in general, and things of earlier times. Or connections between composers of the same era/time, of course. Bottom line is that you don't have to listen to everything or hundreds and thousands of things to gain a good grasp of the trends, currents, eddies and even the side streets and small alleyways, of the river of classical music development across the ages. But I guess I was fortunate to have my parents being interested in this and other musics as well as the arts in general. But you don't need anything except your ears and some other things like good attitude & a bit of natural inquisitiveness maybe, to get into classical music deeply...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I just need about 20 more years and I'll have a good handle on things. That's about how long it took with the world of jazz music.

But considering my background I've done OK. Coming from a family that doesn't know jack about music, and didn't have any records in the house.


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