# Manipulative music?



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

There is a critical (more popular than academic) term that I seem to have come across a lot over the last few days applied to books and films - manipulative. It seems mostly to be used to imply that our emotions and sympathies have been enlisted is a way that is somehow cheap and insincere rather than genuine. Perhaps it sometimes means sentimental. I wonder if any of you have a view about the use of the term to criticise music. 

Is it useful? Is it sufficiently precise? Does its use imply that music is about emotions and is not abstract?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I suspect a composer manipulates his/her own music to reveal the emotional state felt at the time or is wanted to be imbued into the music. If that same music manipulates our (the listeners') emotions in the same way as felt by the composer, perhaps that's a success.

Some contemporary composers of the abstract schools probably intend no emotional manipulations on their own. What their music does to a listener is beyond their control.

Interesting topic.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

We imagine the composer as a sort of Svengali, with magic powers to make us feel. It doesn't sound right, because it's not what the composer does which elicits a response, it's what the performer does with it.

Is op 131 manipulative? It is in the Lindsay Quartet's first recording, it is less so if at all in the Budapest Quartet's first recording.

The initial post talks about sincerity, but I think this is a different issue. Irony in music is something I'd like to understand better, Heine's irony in Dichterliebe and whether it remains in the Schumann, I don't know.

There may be some examples of early polyphonic motets where the meanings of the poems are so at odds with each other that it's hard to see how the motet as a whole could be saying anything sincere or authentic -- maybe in Machaut, I'll have to think.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Some composers certaqinly want some of their music, or some parts of their music to evoke feelings -- whether that can be called manipulative is up to you. Especially prominent in opera and ballet. Certainly the term can be applied to much film music, where composer and director agree to heighten a desired mood musically. An interesting experiment would be to watch a film with the music turned off (if you could do it) and compare.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Manipulative music techniques are pretty much a given for film composers.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> The initial post talks about sincerity, but I think this is a different issue. Irony in music is something I'd like to understand better, Heine's irony in Dichterliebe and whether it remains in the Schumann, I don't know.


I was paraphrasing what I thought people meant when applying the word as a criticism of fiction or film. But you are right: I _am_ wondering if the term can be used in the same way towards music (or whether it might have different connotations with music).


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> The initial post talks about sincerity, but I think this is a different issue. Irony in music is something I'd like to understand better, Heine's irony in Dichterliebe and whether it remains in the Schumann, I don't know.


I think irony is in the ear of the hearer, and is probably dependent on extra-musical knowledge or connotations. The irony in the film "The Tsar Sleeps" is in the screenplay and only comes out in Prokofiev's score in relation to it.

I know people disagree, but when I first heard the Shostakovich Fifth (live, when I was sixteen), the Stalinesque Soviet bluster (and Dimi's ambivalence to it) was readily apparent to me -- but would I have felt that without knowledge of Stalin, Soviet Realism, WWII, amd the predations of the Soviet Composer's Union?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A strange idea as applied to music. I'd say that if music doesn't manipulate me, I'm not interested!

I can understand this as a criticism of representational arts - painting, sculpture, literature, drama and film - where the artist may go for a cheap emotional effect using words, gestures and images which seem designed to get a reaction not justified by the subject or situation. We might even find a song manipulative if simple lyrics or a simple tune has been gussied up with harmony and orchestration that try to make it more than it is. I sometimes feel this cheapness and insincerity in pop music when I'm unlucky enough to find myself within earshot of it.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

And then there are the manipulative conductors ... but that is another can of worms!


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Well, some composers like Liszt and Chopin are very erotically driven so I guess in that sense the music can be manipulative. Scriabin is another that evokes interesting emotions that sway more to the narcissistic, while Wagner and Mahler make you want to invade and rule the world.

Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Bach touch the divine the most, which I believe is why they're widely considered the best.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> ... Irony in music is something I'd like to understand better....





MarkW said:


> I think irony is in the ear of the hearer, and is probably dependent on extra-musical knowledge or connotations.


The topic of irony in music interests me. Coming out of a literary academic field I'm much more familiar with the ironies of literature. Sophocles' great _Oedipus_ play is a shrine of irony at which I worship. I don't believe the ironies of Sophocles art disappear when the drama is set to music, as has been done by the likes of Stravinsky and Orff, among others. Or that poetic settings which feature strong irony have that irony lessened or destroyed by musical settings, whether by Schubert or the Beatles. But that seems a different topic to me than irony in music.

I suspect that there are many facets to irony in music (as there are with irony in the other arts). Is Mozart ironical because the music seems (at time), looks (on paper), plays (under the fingers) so simple and easy and yet is so miraculously complex in its depth of expression? Though a first level student may transgress a Mozart score without an error, the _music_ only really surfaces in the hands of the most experienced performer.

Shostakovich's Fifth has always seemed ironical to me -- as a work of music that criticizes and even makes fun of Stalin, pointing out the leader's monstrosities while (on the surface) presenting a pleasing portrait. Of course, I listen to it in my own subjective way, hearing a Shostakovich theme and a Stalin theme, and hearing the Stalin theme strutting in empty pomposity at the start of the work only to be relegated to an undercurrent under the final crushing blows of the Shosty theme at the end of the work. And then there is that wonderful, almost magically spiritual slow movement, so seeming a paean to God in the midst of the God-less.

I hear the brief (oboe solo of mvt. 1) lachrymae of Beethoven's Fifth as ironical -- a single tear drop in the midst of a devastating visitation from Fate delivering most horrifying news. And again, when that same melody is transformed by Tchaikovsky as the lyric theme of the 1st movement of his great Sixth Symphony, where the teardrop becomes a flood of tears to a spirit much less capable of handling Fate than was Beethoven, the irony is clear, especially as the final movement of that symphony plays, casting off the glory of defiance and triumph so present in the ending of Beethoven's Fifth.

I hear irony in the quietness of music by, say, John Cage and Morton Feldman -- music which seems to say "I'm not that important" in the scheme of things yet begs for the grandest attention to listen, carefully and well, in order to hear and savor.

I hear irony in the loud bombastic pomposity of so much music which has little to say except "Here I am, in a big noisy way!" (The Liszt tone poems, perhaps?) Yet, when a master, like Shostakovich, does this with the ever crescendoing melody of the Seventh Symphony, ironies pile onto ironies, for one hears consciously composed "empty music" trying its best to be important, and yet which _is_ important in the very context of its setting. Bela Bartok was not fooled by that theme, which surfaces, again ironically, in his _Concerto for Orchestra._ Geniuses often read their fellow geniuses much better than do the rest of us lesser minds.

I suspect there is irony in the complexity of music by Ligeti, Boulez, Xenakis, Earle Brown, Elliot Carter -- music which challenges performers, almost, one would think, to the very edge of frustration and abandonment. Yet, only by mastering such difficult elements as the scores provide can the music be experienced, music which otherwise lies silent as scribbles on a page (sometimes literally!).

Irony provides much to contemplate in music. And I suppose it is often listener dependent. Some will gather ironies where others hear only sincerities. But that is all right, too. For art exists for personal interpretation, at least according to the school of thought I buy into. If an artist helps me to achieve the exact interpretation he/she had in mind, well more power to them, but in the end my own interpretation trumps any other and is ultimately all that really matters. Which is why contemporary abstract art pleases me well -- it is thrown out there to be reckoned with as one wishes, and that works for me. Perhaps it is ironical that I should so seek some sense of meaning from what may otherwise be simply meaningless!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Manipulative… Writing something for a purpose or calculated effect that you don’t necessarily feel yourself to achieve a particular end or to serve a purpose, such as a calculated attempt to manipulate the audience into feeling a certain emotion in a film. It’s an artificial creation.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

SONNET CLV said:


> I hear irony in the loud bombastic pomposity of so much music which has little to say except "Here I am, in a big noisy way!" (The Liszt tone poems, perhaps?)


Liszt didn't have the creative genius of other great composers so while perhaps his music sounds superficial, it expresses nonetheless a very genuine feeling. 'Bombastic pomposity' would be the opinion of someone who can't relate to his emotional character and life experiences.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

All art is manipulative. We only use "manipulative" as a pejorative when we become consciously aware of what that manipulation is and feel that it's cheap and/or trite. Ars est celare artem (It's art to conceal art) as Horace said.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

1996D said:


> Well, some composers like Liszt and Chopin are very erotically driven so I guess in that sense the music can be manipulative. Scriabin is another that evokes interesting emotions that sway more to the narcissistic, while Wagner and Mahler make you want to invade and rule the world.
> 
> Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Bach touch the divine the most, which I believe is why they're widely considered the best.


For some reason I've always felt that the "narcissism" in Scriabin's music is very welcoming; in fact I actually enjoy it very much. I see why you'd use that word to describe his music (I've heard it used to describe Franck too, albeit by a somewhat stupid critic), but I think the connotative association we typically make with the word aren't really applicable when listening to Scriabin's music.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> Manipulative… Writing something for a purpose or calculated effect that you don't necessarily feel yourself to achieve a particular end or to serve a purpose, such as a calculated attempt to manipulate the audience into feeling a certain emotion in a film. It's an artificial creation.


Yes, this is the definition I'm used to as well, a negative term. I think there are so many factors that go into the creation of Art that attempting to decipher what parts are authentic and which parts aren't becomes silly. I think a more healthy discussion would be what parts you enjoyed and what parts you didn't enjoy and for what reasons.

Typically, when I enjoy something, I tend to focus on the parts I enjoy about it (if it has parts I dislike at all). And the opposite for when I dislike something!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I don’t believe a composer has to “feel” something to successfully communicate that feeling. Beethoven said, “An artist must be able to assume many humors.” So “manipulative” isn’t necessarily a matter of hypocrisy.

I take the word to mean, attempting to arouse an emotional response by “cheap” or meretricious means. And of course getting caught at it!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Art... Music as pure self-expression for its own sake, in and of itself, is not manipulative... It's the real thing. It's like a Schubert song that was meant to happen regardless of his circumstances and whether he was paid for it or not. When something has to be born as a matter of personal self-expression it generates from itself and is not being manipulated but the initial inspiration is being _shaped and molded_ in a positive way. The idea of manipulation in art suggests something false and negative, something that's not genuine. Works that are real let the audience reaction be as it may without trying to control or manipulate their responses, and the good works may take on a life of their own.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

I was once invited by a music producer to compose music that would make children hypnotized into peaceful behavior . So I made a one second decision and walked home alone .


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

SONNET CLV said:


> I hear irony in the loud bombastic pomposity of so much music which has little to say except "Here I am, in a big noisy way!" (The Liszt tone poems, perhaps?)





1996D said:


> Liszt didn't have the creative genius of other great composers so while perhaps his music sounds superficial, it expresses nonetheless a very genuine feeling. 'Bombastic pomposity' would be the opinion of someone who can't relate to his emotional character and life experiences.


Perhaps I should have said Ries or Philip Glass. My parenthetical addition of Liszt was an addition to the post following my re-reading. I thought I might explain the comment with a further example. Know that I remain an advocate of Liszt as an unparalled master in pieces such as his B-minor Piano Sonata (which I cherish as one of the greatest sonatas in the catalog) and the too often misunderstood _Dante Symphony_, a veritable work of unique genius and compelling understanding of the Dante _Comedy_ on which it is based. Too, one of those "bombastic pomposities" titled _Les Preludes_ continues to delight me after a century of knowing the piece, one of the first works of "classical music" I had the opportunity to hear and one which I have never outgrown my admiration for.

My Liszt collection boasts the Leslie Howard box set of the _Complete Piano Music_:









and the 25-CD SONY box set _Franz Liszt: Master And Magician - The Masterworks Collection_:









As well as sets of the complete tone poems and at least a dozen recordings of the Sonata in B-minor. Too, several booklets of Liszt piano music reside on my scores shelves. I hardly play piano beyond a plunk and a thunk, but I cherish reading through the Liszt scores while accompanied by the likes of Svjatoslav Richter, Martha Argerich, and Jorge Bolet, to name just three artists known to frequent my listening room.

So, I apologize if I have offended any Lisztians out there. I certainly did not mean to be derogatory. I simply do not equate several of the Liszt tone poems with the top echelons of musical creation. But I always do find them quite ... bombastic and pompous. Which is lovely, too.

Perhaps I should have instead picked on Hector Berlioz's _Funeral And Triumphal Symphony_, or Beethoven's _Wellington's Victory_!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I do take the point that all/most music is manipulative because as an abstract form it cannot genuinely be about the emotions it makes us feel. But I am inclined to give music a free pass when the emotion evoked is nuanced and detailed and is situated within an apparent emotional landscape that seems to give it context and apparently more specific (even though not literal) meaning. An example I had in my head was the slow movement of the 2nd Shostakovich piano concerto. It is a piece I like but it seems somehow too easily beautiful. That's OK because it is a light and playful work. But compare it with the more "genuinely" beautiful slow movement of Ravel's concerto in G! 

What is it that makes a big emotional gesture in music (any emotional gesture, not just a throbbing heart) valid? It isn't just slapped down in front of us: it comes from the composer having worked to get there and having "taken us on a journey" or, perhaps, creating a situation where the emotional gesture is a release from a tension that has been built up. 

But I also wonder about avant garde music that seems to make the right fashionable gestures but somehow doesn't "earn the right to them" by saying interesting things with them. Is that also not an example of a composer being manipulative? But with music that is so new it may be very hard to recognise such instances and discriminate between them and a composer who is actually "saying something".


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> For some reason I've always felt that the "narcissism" in Scriabin's music is very welcoming; in fact I actually enjoy it very much. I see why you'd use that word to describe his music (I've heard it used to describe Franck too, albeit by a somewhat stupid critic), but I think the connotative association we typically make with the word aren't really applicable when listening to Scriabin's music.


Well you said you were 19, I loved Scriabin at 19 as well. You'll grow out of the narcissism.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> I do take the point that all/most music is manipulative because as an abstract form it cannot genuinely be about the emotions it makes us feel. But I am inclined to give music a free pass when the emotion evoked is nuanced and detailed and is situated within an apparent emotional landscape that seems to give it context and apparently more specific (even though not literal) meaning. An example I had in my head was the slow movement of the 2nd Shostakovich piano concerto. It is a piece I like but it seems somehow too easily beautiful. That's OK because it is a light and playful work. But compare it with the more "genuinely" beautiful slow movement of Ravel's concerto in G!
> 
> *What is it that makes a big emotional gesture in music (any emotional gesture, not just a throbbing heart) valid? It isn't just slapped down in front of us: it comes from the composer having worked to get there and having "taken us on a journey" or, perhaps, creating a situation where the emotional gesture is a release from a tension that has been built up.
> *
> But I also wonder about avant garde music that seems to make the right fashionable gestures but somehow doesn't "earn the right to them" by saying interesting things with them. Is that also not an example of a composer being manipulative? But with music that is so new it may be very hard to recognise such instances and discriminate between them and a composer who is actually "saying something".


Good post! Responding just to the second paragraph, and maybe putting a sharper point on it: Manipulative, "insincere" instrumental music is usually just highly expressive music that is poorly composed. It has nothing to do with whether the composer sincerely felt what the music seems to be expressing. The music of a highly skilled sociopath is always going to sound more sincere and less manipulative than the most heart-felt outpourings of a third rate composer.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

KenOC said:


> I don't believe a composer has to "feel" something to successfully communicate that feeling. Beethoven said, "An artist must be able to assume many humors." So "manipulative" isn't necessarily a matter of hypocrisy.
> 
> I take the word to mean, attempting to arouse an emotional response by "cheap" or meretricious means. And of course getting caught at it!


"Straightaway the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God, and not only do I see the distinct themes in my mind's eye, but they are clothed in the right forms, harmonies and orchestration. I have to be in a semi-trance condition to get such results-a condition when the conscious mind is in temporary abeyance and the subconscious is in control, for it is through the subconscious mind, which is part of Omnipotence, that inspiration comes." -- Brahms

He's right that masterworks come from someplace else. When music sounds 'impure' it's because of the composer not connecting fully with the divine and letting his insecurities seep in.


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## Anna Strobl (Mar 13, 2019)

As a big fan of early music, I detest some recent performances. A friend of mine calls it "ear porn." Overly aggressive, and almost disrespectful.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> I do take the point that all/most music is manipulative because as an abstract form it cannot genuinely be about the emotions it makes us feel. But I am inclined to give music a free pass when the emotion evoked is nuanced and detailed and is situated within an apparent emotional landscape that seems to give it context and apparently more specific (even though not literal) meaning.
> 
> What is it that makes a big emotional gesture in music (any emotional gesture, not just a throbbing heart) valid? It isn't just slapped down in front of us: it comes from the composer having worked to get there and having "taken us on a journey" or, perhaps, creating a situation where the emotional gesture is a release from a tension that has been built up.


You've explained succinctly why most popular music, though it may touch our emotions instantly, seems ultimately superficial, and why film music can move us to tears in the theater and make us run out and buy the soundtrack recording, only to find that that heart-rending melody sounds cheap and sentimental without Garbo caressing the furniture. They are emotional gestures without context.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Using "cheap effects" to elicit emotional response in the listener still isn't manipulative. It's just aiming for a certain effect. It's not meant to deceptively persuade the listener for the benefit of the composer or something. Well, maybe when it's meant to trick the listener into buying the music.  But no, I don't think music can be manipulative unless it's used as a means of propaganda or something.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

1996D said:


> Well you said you were 19, I loved Scriabin at 19 as well. You'll grow out of the narcissism.


He probably had narcissistic personality traits, but to generalize his music like that is just silly. 
Personally, I don't experience his music as narcissistic. In fact, I find it liberating. There is a strong sense of freedom in his music, achieved through both harmony and rhythm. 
Maybe he created his music while feeling like a god-creator in his own mind, having crazy ideas about ultimate self-fulfilment through ecstasy, or transfiguring mankind and what not, but that doesn't really affect me when listening to the music (although it is amusing to know). So, it may have all started in his own narcissistic world, but I experience the end result of his outlandish creative thought processes and ideas: the mystery and the liberating aspects of that.


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## Zofia (Jan 24, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> There is a critical (more popular than academic) term that I seem to have come across a lot over the last few days applied to books and films - manipulative. It seems mostly to be used to imply that our emotions and sympathies have been enlisted is a way that is somehow cheap and insincere rather than genuine. Perhaps it sometimes means sentimental. I wonder if any of you have a view about the use of the term to criticise music.
> 
> Is it useful? Is it sufficiently precise? Does its use imply that music is about emotions and is not abstract?


I brought this up today in another thread I think I reply to Ana. The Jaws theme I would consider highly manipulative I would imagine they worked out that particular sequence of chords invokes a negative response anxiety etc.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> You've explained succinctly why most popular music, though it may touch our emotions instantly, seems ultimately superficial...


Afraid you'll have to speak for yourself on that front. I recognize the manipulative, superficial, "trying to touch our emotions instantly" gestures in pop music and am rarely moved by them, at least beyond the capacity of generally enjoying the song if it happens to be reasonably well-written otherwise. The popular music that manages to move me to tears, however, never seems superficial, even when the techniques it used to achieve its effects are simple. I also don't think these things are any more unique to pop than to classical (or jazz, or any other music out there). Classical has its superficial "pulling at our emotions" gestures as well, while the works/composers capable of profoundly moving us--or at least me--are rare indeed.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Afraid you'll have to speak for yourself on that front. I recognize the manipulative, superficial, "trying to touch our emotions instantly" gestures in pop music and am rarely moved by them, at least beyond the capacity of generally enjoying the song if it happens to be reasonably well-written otherwise. The popular music that manages to move me to tears, however, never seems superficial, even when the techniques it used to achieve its effects are simple. I also don't think these things are any more unique to pop than to classical (or jazz, or any other music out there). Classical has its superficial "pulling at our emotions" gestures as well, while the works/composers capable of profoundly moving us--or at least me--are rare indeed.


I _always_ speak for myself, Your Grace. :tiphat:

If, as you say, you "recognize the manipulative, superficial, 'trying to touch our emotions instantly' gestures in pop music and [are] rarely moved by them, at least beyond the capacity of generally enjoying the song if it happens to be reasonably well-written otherwise," aren't you conceding my point, at least substantially?

Of course one might be moved to tears by popular music (though I can't recall that happening to me). But tears are strange things. People shed them upon a variety of provocations, and sometimes over very little. It can be a mistake to read anything into them without knowing who's shedding them. Shallow or immature or fragile or demonstrative people may cry easily and it signifies next to nothing. Depth of meaning does not correlate with the likelihood that people will cry over it. The most profound art may be, for some, too deep for tears, while the least profound art will undoubtedly make some tender soul reach for the kleenex.

No question, classical music, as well as popular music, can be superficial and sentimental, and seem meretricious. Enthusiast's point (expanded by EdwardBast) was that good art earns its pretentions to emotional significance by providing a context for its gestures. Any number of musical works, works by the greatest masters, contain effects, gestures, phrases which can sound glib taken in isolation, but gain stature heard as part of a larger whole. That's the nature, not only of art, but of life itself: break life down into separate bits of behavior, and it can all look pretty insignificant, mean, or gross, but place those same behaviors in the context of a life's full spectrum of values and goals, and they are transformed into something noble. Take sex, for example...

Most artists can come up with emotional gestures. Popular music has it down to a science - and an industry. The pounding, wailing and brain-numbing repetition moves me greatly - to get out of the supermarket as fast as I can. We live in an age of manipulation on all fronts, and I'm calling it out.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I think music can be manipulative in different ways. I feel Vivaldi and Debussy are manipulative composers that know how to use tonal colours to create moods and images. Beethoven (middle period), Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Puccini are exceptional at creating dramatic arcs with music. John Williams is great at associating certain motifs with certain characters in films. Stravinsky and Xenakis captures violence and savagery well with his music. It doesn't need to be just emotions being projected, but could be other effects. To me Stockhausen is a great manipulator of effects from sound.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

What composer would say "I manipulated the music for this and that effect?" I've never heard the word used that way. Ever. "Created" or "composed" an effect yes. But "manipulated"? It sounds artificial, unnatural, and lacks charm; it's not how most composers refer to their work. The use of the word in music is entirely negative. Most audiences resent being "manipulated" but they are open to feeling an emotion that fits and seems appropriate to the context of the music or story. But evidently, everything a composer writes that strives for a certain emotion is now by a process of "manipulation". So Bach was probably a manipulator... Mozart... Brahms... they were all manipulators. People usually resent manipulators and being manipulated by effects rather than something that sounds real. I question whether that's what good composers do. In Tchaikovsky, the emotions came first from within him rather than his trying to calculate or manipulate an emotional effect on the audience. The word "manipulate" is calculated and lacks accuracy and aesthetic charm. It does not sound natural in the way it's being used.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I agree that manipulation or manipulative are very odd words to use within the context of music. See my previous post no. 27.


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## Zofia (Jan 24, 2019)

I think people miss the point all music manipulation it is why it is altered and rarely just first draft perfect.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DeepR said:


> Using "cheap effects" to elicit emotional response in the listener still isn't manipulative. It's just aiming for a certain effect. It's not meant to deceptively persuade the listener for the benefit of the composer or something. Well, maybe when it's meant to trick the listener into buying the music.  But no, I don't think music can be manipulative unless it's used as a means of propaganda or something.


I think the term would be used critically to suggest that the music (or performance) is in some way superficial while seeming to present itself as "deep". A problematic concept, I agree, but I don't really see why it can't work in communicating criticism of music in just the same way that it works with fiction.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> What composer would say "I manipulated the music for this and that effect?" I've never heard the word used that way. Ever. "Created" or "composed" an effect yes. But "manipulated"? It sounds artificial, unnatural, and lacks charm; it's not how most composers refer to their work. The use of the word in music is entirely negative. Most audiences resent being "manipulated" but they are open to feeling an emotion that fits and seems appropriate to the context of the music or story. But evidently, everything a composer writes that strives for a certain emotion is now by a process of "manipulation". So Bach was probably a manipulator... Mozart... Brahms... they were all manipulators. People usually resent manipulators and being manipulated by effects rather than something that sounds real. I question whether that's what good composers do. In Tchaikovsky, the emotions came first from within him rather than his trying to calculate or manipulate an emotional effect on the audience. *The word "manipulate" is calculated and lacks accuracy and aesthetic charm. *It does not sound natural in the way it's being used.


No, I don't suppose a composer would claim to be manipulating our feelings. But, as a shorthand critical statement, it might communicate the view expressed in the sentence I have highlighted?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> I think *music can be manipulative* in different ways. I feel Vivaldi and Debussy are manipulative composers that know how to use tonal colours to create moods and images. Beethoven (middle period), Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Puccini are exceptional at creating dramatic arcs with music. John Williams is great at associating certain motifs with certain characters in films. Stravinsky and Xenakis captures violence and savagery well with his music. It doesn't need to be just emotions being projected, but could be other effects. To me Stockhausen is a great manipulator of effects from sound.


Actually it can't. Only sentient beings can be manipulative in the relevant sense (Manipulate: to manage or influence [people] by artful skill in service of ones purpose or to gain advantage), a sense which requires a particular intention on the part of the composer. If Vivaldi's, Debussy's, Beethoven's, Stravinsky's et alia's choices about color, drama, and so on are first and foremost aesthetic choices made in meeting their own artistic standards, then this sense of the term manipulative is not applicable. You are describing the manipulation of musical materials by these composers, which is a different phenomenon than that addressed in this thread, to wit, _the manipulation of people_ by musical means.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> What composer would say "I manipulated the music for this and that effect?" I've never heard the word used that way. Ever. "Created" or "composed" an effect yes. But "manipulated"? It sounds artificial, unnatural, and lacks charm; it's not how most composers refer to their work. The use of the word in music is entirely negative. Most audiences resent being "manipulated" but they are open to feeling an emotion that fits and seems appropriate to the context of the music or story. But evidently, everything a composer writes that strives for a certain emotion is now by a process of "manipulation". So Bach was probably a manipulator... Mozart... Brahms... they were all manipulators. People usually resent manipulators and being manipulated by effects rather than something that sounds real. I question whether that's what good composers do. In Tchaikovsky, the emotions came first from within him rather than his trying to calculate or manipulate an emotional effect on the audience. The word "manipulate" is calculated and lacks accuracy and aesthetic charm. It does not sound natural in the way it's being used.


They may not say outright "I manipulated for this effect", but that is basically what they are doing. I don't see it as negative at all, but just a means to an end. Certain choices made by the composer will invariably have a certain effect on the listener. The composer must be aware of that, rather than the effect of the composer's outpouring being entirely mystically transferred or impressed upon the listener. Charm is manipulative, just as in speech.


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## Zofia (Jan 24, 2019)

Again I think people are getting stuck on the negative feeling of manipulating. Not always is this negative if I give Mother or Father a kiss on the cheek and tell them I love them it always make them happy again. This is me manipulating them for good reason same works on me also.

If you write sad music then you will manipulate the listener to feel sad the most of the time no?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I _always_ speak for myself, Your Grace. :tiphat:
> 
> If, as you say, you "recognize the manipulative, superficial, 'trying to touch our emotions instantly' gestures in pop music and [are] rarely moved by them, at least beyond the capacity of generally enjoying the song if it happens to be reasonably well-written otherwise," aren't you conceding my point, at least substantially?
> 
> ...


It's odd, but this discussion reminds me of a discussion we had a while back about Meyerbeer. Without getting too far off track and repeating all of that, Giacomo Meyerbeer created extravagant and elaborate operas that were hugely popular in their day, but are considered relatively minor these days, with only one aria from one opera getting a significant number of performances, afaik. For those of you who use the term "manipulative" to include a cynical and insincere element, it seems that Meyerbeer was accused in his own day of pandering to audiences in a cynical and insincere way to make an immediate impact at the cost of producing anything of real long term value. And though he was famously skewered by Wagner, I don't think Wagner was his only critic.

Of course, from Meyerbeer's point of view, one could say his decision to make the audiences of his own time happy, and not worry about what people of future centuries would think, was a legitimate choice (though apparently he did care about what critics of his own time said, at least in print). And today his work can be appreciated as an interesting example of a cultural fashion that is long gone. But the price of being consistently cynical and insincere is to be judged, at least ultimately, as an artist of minor stature.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> I _always_ speak for myself, Your Grace. :tiphat:
> 
> If, as you say, you "recognize the manipulative, superficial, 'trying to touch our emotions instantly' gestures in pop music and [are] rarely moved by them, at least beyond the capacity of generally enjoying the song if it happens to be reasonably well-written otherwise," aren't you conceding my point, at least substantially?
> 
> ...


I was conceding your point that such gestures are present in pop music, but was disputing what seemed to be your claim that they are uniquely prevalent in pop music as opposed to other music.

Yes, some people are easy criers; I am not, which is why I have a special place for art that moves me to that level. I mention crying mostly because that's my main yard stick for what counts as a work being profoundly moving. The other yard stick is having a feeling of nearly euphoric joy, and works of art that do that are perhaps rarer still.

It's not that I disagree that "good art earns its pretensions to emotional significance by... context," but I would stress that the context for such earning is quite different between classical and pop. The latter is particularly restrained by time so any context must be rather quickly developed and utilize rather small touches--a change in voice, genre/style contrasts, introduction of a new instrument, alteration of tempo, attention to lyrical/sonic pairing, etc.--to create its context rather than the long-form thematic or harmonic development that's available to classical.

I've heard this "popular music has it down to a science" claim before, but have yet to figure out what that formula is or who has it. I've actually heard people try to explain that formula before, and it typically amounts to little more than claiming that composers using sonata form had composing "down to a science." EG, you mention repetition. Most all music uses repetition. The least repetitious music (like serialism) isn't usually well-liked, and most of the most popular classical music is heavy on repetition. Plus, it's also been scientifically proven that humans are innately drawn to repetition in music. Plus, even if we say pop is more repetitious than classical--and I would agree with this, but again with the argument that it's as much a feature of time restraints than anything--that ignores the fact that not all equally repetitious pop is equally popular or acclaimed, and that the same artists/songwriters/musicians are consistently at the top of the charts; which suggests there's still an art to and talent behind making GOOD highly repetitious music as non-repetitious music. If no talent or art was required, if it was mere formula, then you wouldn't expect success to be concentrated in so few.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> All art is manipulative. We only use "manipulative" as a pejorative when we become consciously aware of what that manipulation is and feel that it's cheap and/or trite. Ars est celare artem (It's art to conceal art) as Horace said.


I think this is exactly right. I HATE overly sentimental music. It's never (or very, very, very rarely) a problem with classical music, which always (or very, very nearly always) has some kind of subtlety, but it's one of the main reasons I hate a lot of popular music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I was conceding your point that such gestures are present in pop music, but was disputing what seemed to be your claim that they are uniquely prevalent in pop music as opposed to other music.
> 
> Yes, some people are easy criers; I am not, which is why I have a special place for art that moves me to that level. I mention crying mostly because that's my main yard stick for what counts as a work being profoundly moving. The other yard stick is having a feeling of nearly euphoric joy, and works of art that do that are perhaps rarer still.
> 
> ...


Your disputation is fine enough to pass through cheesecloth. Which is not to say that it tastes like cheese. Not that there's anything wrong with cheese. Unless it's musical cheese.

If I had the formula for success in popular music (musical cheese) I might be rich and loathe myself. As it is, I'm just a classical ballet accompanist, I'm comfortably poor, and I find myself just mildly irritating.

I do believe there's a "science" to writing pop music nowadays. I don't think there's any formula that guarantees a megahit, but you need only Google "pop music production techniques" to find web sites like this

https://www.izotope.com/en/blog/mus...-to-hook-listeners-in-30-seconds-or-less.html

Was someone saying that the term "manipulation" doesn't apply to music?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Art is essentially _not_ manipulative or manipulation … It's self-expressive except when someone wants to be contrary and perverse in their terminology. The use of the word manipulative suggests that all art is somehow fake, false, and contrived. I've never seen it bandied about as it has been on this thread and be poisonous to the whole idea of genuine self-expression. It's also possible to sincerely create bad art or bad music that's not necessarily the result of a contrived manipulation. though a contrivance is always possible but not as a rule or in reference to music as a whole. The word should be dumped. It drags everything down to the ordinary, the corrupt, and the false.

The only way I've ever seen music and manipulation associated with each other is when music has historically been used as a device to control social behavior, where it has operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between competing groups. But that's not the way the word has been used in this thread and what a downer and a turn-off.


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> Art is essentially _not_ manipulative or manipulation … It's self-expressive except when someone wants to be contrary and perverse in their terminology. The use of the word manipulative suggests that all art is somehow fake, false, and contrived. I've never seen it bandied about as it has been on this thread and be poisonous to the whole idea of genuine self-expression. It's also possible to sincerely create bad art or bad music that's not necessarily the result of a contrived manipulation. though a contrivance is always possible but not as a rule or in reference to music as a whole. The word should be dumped. It drags everything down to the ordinary, the corrupt, and the false.


You'll have to define art then.

All musical, literary, and visual productions are ultimately manipulative. It's only when they're sincere that they reek. But even then, really, it's only when they _overtly_ reek of insincerity do most of us detect it.

I have no real idea if Mozart really felt anything in his Requiem, but I can't detect any insincerity, like I can with Max Martin's myriad singles.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

science said:


> I think this is exactly right. I HATE overly sentimental music. It's never (or very, very, very rarely) a problem with classical music, which always (or very, very nearly always) has some kind of subtlety, but it's one of the main reasons I hate a lot of popular music.


I don't hate sentiment, but I'm rather indifferent to it if I don't feel there's some kind of substance, craft or, as you call it, subtlety behind it. As I argue above, though, I don't see a huge difference between classical and pop, though. I think one problem is that when we tend to think of both, we're often thinking of the best classical music has to offer that's been culled from hundreds of years of tradition, VS all the popular music that's out there now or has been out there in the last ~60 years. That's not exactly a fair comparison. We either need to compare the best with the best, or all with all. The latter would require us considering all of Bach's, Mozart's, Beethoven's, etc. far lesser contemporaries that (almost) nobody listens to anymore and probably produced as much empty, superficial, sentimental junk as your average pop artist. That, plus I get the feeling that the kinds of subtleties that distinguishes good pop music from bad, being completely different than those that distinguish good classical from bad, probably isn't appreciated among most classical fans. That's fine as a preference, as long as one acknowledges it as such.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The only way I've ever seen music and manipulation associated with each other is when music has historically been used as a device to control social behavior, where it has operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between competing groups. But that's not the way the word has been used in this thread and what a downer and a turn-off. Find a review or a discussion of any self-expressive and talented composer where the word manipulative or manipulation is used with regard to what he or she does. But certainly audiences can be emotionally manipulated in a cynical way, but that's different than saying that all Art is manipulation or manipulative. It would be more apt and appropriate - not to mention, positive and constructive - to say that Art has a palpable influence and an effect. If an audience feels manipulated, they'll tell you. But what listener would say, " I love Mozart because of the way he manipulates me." I've never seen it happen or read it in print with regard to any composer... and I doubt if anyone else has too. It's an unfortunate word with regard to the Arts as a whole.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Larkenfield said:


> *The use of the word manipulative suggests that all art is somehow fake, false, and contrived.* I've never seen it bandied about as it has been on this thread and be poisonous to the whole idea of genuine self-expression. It's also possible to sincerely create bad art or bad music that's not necessarily the result of a contrived manipulation. though a contrivance is always possible but not as a rule or in reference to music as a whole. The word should be dumped. It drags everything down to the ordinary, the corrupt, and the false.


I don't know where you're seeing it said that all art is fake or false. I don't see anyone implying that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> We either need to compare the best with the best, or all with all. The latter would require us considering all of Bach's, Mozart's, Beethoven's, etc. far lesser contemporaries that (almost) nobody listens to anymore and probably produced as much empty, superficial, sentimental junk as your average pop artist.


I doubt that very much.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I might also add that I don't even think manipulative art and subtlety, substance, craft, etc. are mutually exclusive. I don't know if there's a musical equivalent--perhaps the closest I can think of is Tchaikovsky--but in film I think of the work of Douglas Sirk. Sirk became popular with his 50s melodramas. Superficially, these are the most obviously artificial, manipulative films that one could ever make. Lush technicolor, garish mise-en-scene, overbearingly sentimental music, hammy (over)acting, huge dramatic gestures... They were typically loved by female audiences of the time (my mother and grandmother were both huge fans), and loathed by the critics who only saw these surface gestures. 

Yet these films have gained tremendously in status over the years as people have looked under that surface to find a lot of substantial social commentary on the various notions of the 50s ideal of the American Dream. Roger Ebert even famously said that to understand Sirk "takes more sophistication than to understand one of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message." They've also been influential on many later filmmakers like Fassbinder and Haynes who used the same genre to explore the social issues of their country and times (Haynes, eg, has done with homosexuality what Sirk did for heterosexual gender roles). 

So we ought to be careful when condemning surface manipulation, or claiming that such works lack substance, subtlety or craft.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> I doubt that very much.


Better get to filling out that Dittersdorf collection, then.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

AeolianStrains said:


> I have no real idea if Mozart really felt anything in his Requiem, but I can't detect any insincerity, like I can with Max Martin's myriad singles.


Hmmm... Martin doesn't seem to have much to be insincere about. He typically makes feel-good party anthems. His music would only seem insincere if deep down he was a troubled, depressed soul and he's just pretending life is a big party. It's also hard to tell how much of any given song is him VS his collaborators. He probably writes more for someone like Katy Perry than Taylor Swift.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Better get to filling out that Dittersdorf collection, then.


Silly you. I've listened to plenty of music by dozens, if not hundreds, of lesser and forgotten composers. They are not equivalent, in craft or aesthetic substance, to the "average popular musician" you're so eager to defend. If their music is not always inspired or memorable, neither is it generally cheap and sentimental. They were serious composers who studied their art and tried to do something fine, and many were highly respected in their day by people of cultivated tastes. Of course, if you can't hear the difference...


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Zofia said:


> Again I think people are getting stuck on the negative feeling of manipulating. Not always is this negative if I give Mother or Father a kiss on the cheek and tell them I love them it always make them happy again. This is me manipulating them for good reason same works on me also.
> 
> If you write sad music then you will manipulate the listener to feel sad the most of the time no?


That's a good example and amusing, too. But perhaps you are talking of convention and decorum and even politeness and consideration. Yes, being well mannered (and not just to our parents!) does make people happy. I guess some times we do it for that reason rather than merely to manipulate. Why not be harmonious when, ethically and morally, we can be? But there really is a difference between different pieces of sad - or beautiful or happy - music, isn't there? Like the example I gave earlier of the slow movements of two piano concertos (Shostakovich's 2nd and Ravel's in G): one seems truly beautiful, magically so, while with the other (a work I also enjoy) the beauty seems just too easily achieved ... and therefore not nearly so beautiful. I see the second example as an example where the term (borrowed from criticsm of fiction) manipulative might be appropriate. If not, we do need a term to describe the difference that I think many of us would acknowledge is real.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Here's the plane on which music and 'manipulation' cynically meet to influence the masses, but it's not related to the creation of genuine Art that has its effects and influence but is not trying to manipulate anyone as a means to an ends:

https://bahaiteachings.org/music-manipulate-masses


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Zofia said:


> Again I think people are getting stuck on the negative feeling of manipulating. Not always is this negative if I give Mother or Father a kiss on the cheek and tell them I love them it always make them happy again. This is me manipulating them for good reason same works on me also.
> 
> If you write sad music then you will manipulate the listener to feel sad the most of the time no?


Zofia, I understand what you're saying. But really, who thinks of the love they're expressing to others to make them happy as 'manipulating others with love to make them happy'? The use of the word 'manipulate' is essentially a technical description. It makes the expression of love sound more calculated and impersonal because in human terms the word lacks warmth and spontaneity.

I believe the use of the word is essentially the same in the creation of Art - that most artists do not think of their work in those terms as being manipulative or calculated. There's very little if any spontaneous inspiration and genuine creativity that's usually connected with the word and I wouldn't want to be 'manipulated' under any circumstances even if someone else thought it was for my own good. They could be wrong. I doubt if others wouldn't feel the same way.


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## Zofia (Jan 24, 2019)

Larkenfield said:


> Zofia, I understand what you're saying. But really, who thinks of the love they're expressing to others to make them happy as 'manipulating others with love to make them happy'? The use of the word 'manipulate' is essentially a technical description. It makes the expression of love sound more calculated and impersonal because in human terms the word can lack warmth and humanity.
> 
> I believe the use of the word is essentially the same in the creation of Art - that most artists do not think of their work in those terms as being manipulative or calculated. There's very little if any spontaneous inspiration and genuine creativity that's usually connected with the word and I wouldn't want to be 'manipulated' under any circumstances even if someone else thought it was for my own good, and I doubt if others wouldn't feel the same.


I'm not meaning that I think this way just for example in conversation. I see why you are not liking the term you think manipulate is bad but really to manipulate is to change it is not moral. Can be good or bad as humans we manipulate the world and are manipulated by it constantly.

For an Artist to write a piece of music etc, I think most try to make the listener, reader, viewer feel a certain way. Not malicious but in sharing their feeling expressing via art it was inevitably effect other people.

A good example and perhaps more akin to a way you would agree is advertising. Especially for charity one advert in Germany uses Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt. A sad piece and undoubtedly used to make the viewer feel certain emotions (manipulating how they feel).


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## Anna Strobl (Mar 13, 2019)

Humans are a bundle of chemicals and hormones. We are capable of being poked and tweaked because of our evolution. Some sounds work deeply within our brain to signal danger, such as dissonance. We admire and respond to symmetry, repetition, and the smooth rise and fall of melodic lines that contain a start, middle and finish. Asymmetry in art is jarring. Irregular tempo in music off-putting. Counterpoint is complex and must be unpacked within our brains. We must learn to appreciate such as it isn't entirely natural to us as human beings.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Anna Strobl said:


> Some sounds work deeply within our brain to signal danger, such as dissonance.


A woman animal scream is dissonant , wildly wavering upon a note . So is the baby's cry to which she attends . Her song of comfort is for two heart-beats seeking rest . Asymmetry may seek quietness , and the peace of this does not manipulate its nature .


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Anna Strobl said:


> Humans are a bundle of chemicals and hormones. We are capable of being poked and tweaked because of our evolution. Some sounds work deeply within our brain to signal danger, such as dissonance. We admire and respond to symmetry, repetition, and the smooth rise and fall of melodic lines that contain a start, middle and finish. Asymmetry in art is jarring. Irregular tempo in music off-putting. Counterpoint is complex and must be unpacked within our brains. We must learn to appreciate such as it isn't entirely natural to us as human beings.


Speak for yourself! What is off-putting for some can be stimulating and exciting for others. Our brains make sense out of all sorts of ambiguity (and sense is beautiful).


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Speak for yourself! What is off-putting for some can be stimulating and exciting for others. Our brains make sense out of all sorts of ambiguity (and sense is beautiful).


I think you should reread what she's saying a bit more carefully...


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> I do believe there's a "science" to writing pop music nowadays. I don't think there's any formula that guarantees a megahit, but you need only Google "pop music production techniques" to find web sites like this
> 
> https://www.izotope.com/en/blog/mus...-to-hook-listeners-in-30-seconds-or-less.html
> 
> Was someone saying that the term "manipulation" doesn't apply to music?


Web sites like that are exactly the types I've read before, and it boggles my mind that you think they're talking about a formula as opposed to form. The "formula" they give is basically: Have an interesting intro (like an instrumental hook, or song-material, or something unusual), an early chorus, and be minimalistic. It says very little about what counts as an interesting or hooky intro--the examples given are either not common, or too vague to be of any use; most all pop has always had early choruses--again because of time--from the most to least successful songs; and I'd argue "minimalism" is a relatively recent trend, and then it's mostly in electronic music.

How is this any different than telling a composer using sonata form: "Have an interesting intro (perhaps use later thematic material), have a contrasting A and B theme in the exposition, then develop it, then return to the exposition?" Just like the above with pop it tells you nothing about the difference between a good song/sonata-form work is from a bad or mediocre one. Probably the most crucial factor in a pop song's success is how catchy/hooky its melodies/themes are, and I've never actually seen a decent breakdown of what such things have in common, or how to write them. There's also the fact that different pop genres have different standards for hooks, and that site makes no mention of that.



Woodduck said:


> I've listened to plenty of music by dozens, if not hundreds, of lesser and forgotten composers. They are not equivalent, in craft or aesthetic substance, to the "average popular musician" you're so eager to defend. If their music is not always inspired or memorable, neither is it generally cheap and sentimental. They were serious composers who studied their art and tried to do something fine, and many were highly respected in their day by people of cultivated tastes. Of course, if you can't hear the difference...


I take your second and third statements to be nothing more than asserted opinions that reflect your preference for classical over pop rather than any actual facts, while mentioning I'm no more eager to "defend" pop musicians than you were to attack them. Being serious and studying art and trying to do it is commendable, but rather meaningless if the results are uninspired and unmemorable, and I'll take successful fun over failed seriousness any day. Plenty of pop musicians have been "highly respected in their day by people of cultivated tastes" as well. "Cultivated tastes" means nothing more than having an affinity for something and spending time experiencing/learning about that something, which can be done with any hobby or, in music, any genre. Finally, I do hear a difference, but probably not the difference you think I should hear.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> The only way I've ever seen music and manipulation associated with each other is when music has historically been used as a device to control social behavior, where it has operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between competing groups. But that's not the way the word has been used in this thread and what a downer and a turn-off. Find a review or a discussion of any self-expressive and talented composer where the word manipulative or manipulation is used with regard to what he or she does. But certainly audiences can be emotionally manipulated in a cynical way, but that's different than saying that all Art is manipulation or manipulative. It would be more apt and appropriate - not to mention, positive and constructive - to say that Art has a palpable influence and an effect. If an audience feels manipulated, they'll tell you. But what listener would say, " I love Mozart because of the way he manipulates me." I've never seen it happen or read it in print with regard to any composer... and I doubt if anyone else has too. It's an unfortunate word with regard to the Arts as a whole.


I really don't think Mozart is manipulative at all. Maybe in some passage somewhere, but not usually.

Butterfly Kisses, My Heart Will Go On, Wind Beneath My Wings - that is manipulative, shallow, unintelligent music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mozart may be the least manipulative composer.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> *I'll take successful fun over failed seriousness any day.* Plenty of pop musicians have been "highly respected in their day by people of cultivated tastes" as well. "Cultivated tastes" means nothing more than having an affinity for something and spending time experiencing/learning about that something, which can be done with any hobby or, in music, any genre.


Well, we aren't talking about "failed" anything, are we?

I don't even want to know who your people of cultivated tastes are that respect "average popular musicians" as highly as Frederick the Great respected the now neglected Carl Heinrich Graun.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

AeolianStrains said:


> I think you should reread what she's saying a bit more carefully...


I still don't read anything that makes my post irrelevant, I'm afraid. She may be saying in the last sentence that we need to get over those barriers to enjoy some (a lot) of music but I honestly don't think of it like that. Nor do I recognise the natural tendencies ascribed to us. Tell me what I am missing, please.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> I still don't read anything that makes my post irrelevant ...


_
Asymmetry in art is jarring. Irregular tempo in music off-putting._

Her symmetrical reaction to modern music may be to scream at it .


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## Anna Strobl (Mar 13, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> Speak for yourself! What is off-putting for some can be stimulating and exciting for others. Our brains make sense out of all sorts of ambiguity (and sense is beautiful).


I'm just speaking in general. When listening to a piece of music or looking at a work of art we usually aren't in imminent danger. So we can respond with excitement, appreciation etc etc. Yet we do have a certain hardwiring. Which we can override.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Tikoo Tuba said:


> _
> Asymmetry in art is jarring. Irregular tempo in music off-putting._
> 
> Her symmetrical reaction to modern music may be to scream at it .


That might be a good response in a concert. It could be that we need a new style of concert for our new music (which some posters frequently remind us doesn't get played very much).


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Anna Strobl said:


> I'm just speaking in general. When listening to a piece of music or looking at a work of art we usually aren't in imminent danger. So we can respond with excitement, appreciation etc etc. Yet we do have a certain hardwiring. Which we can override.


Hardwiring? Maybe. But the concept is a metaphor (even if it is widely used in cybernetics). I suspect that our autonomic response to certain sounds is perhaps more complicated and context dependent (including the context that you mention) than the word "hardwiring" implies. Seeing us as the product of our wiring is appealing, especially in an age when we have a rapidly growing ability to measure it, but it is still reductionism. And, as such, it is still crude. It seems to me that if we want to measure an organism's response to a stimulus the best way to do so is through observation. Knowing what is happening in the brain is interesting but comes with the danger of seeming to explain things.


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## Anna Strobl (Mar 13, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> Hardwiring? Maybe. But the concept is a metaphor (even if it is widely used in cybernetics). I suspect that our autonomic response to certain sounds is perhaps more complicated and context dependent (including the context that you mention) than the word "hardwiring" implies. Seeing us as the product of our wiring is appealing, especially in an age when we have a rapidly growing ability to measure it, but it is still reductionism. And, as such, it is still crude. It seems to me that if we want to measure an organism's response to a stimulus the best way to do so is through observation. Knowing what is happening in the brain is interesting but comes with the danger of seeming to explain things.


We also have what some call "a soul." That inexplicable *something* which lifts us as human beings into a dimension higher then the sum of our parts. Music touches this.

I've liked reading your responses.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> That might be a good response in a concert. It could be that we need a new style of concert for our new music (which some posters frequently remind us doesn't get played very much).


_screaming !!_

Anna's idea suggests a physical response of vitality is natural . Having to sit in a chair without squirming about - oo - that's manipulative via repression . Respect the *woo* .


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Well, we aren't talking about "failed" anything, are we?
> 
> I don't even want to know who your people of cultivated tastes are that respect "average popular musicians" as highly as Frederick the Great respected the now neglected Carl Heinrich Graun.


"Uninspired" and "unmemorable" (your words) doesn't exactly sound like "success" to me.

Pretty sure Robert Christgau has championed some pretty average popular musicians over his last 50 years.


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## Subutai (Feb 28, 2021)

1996D said:


> Well, some composers like Liszt and Chopin are very erotically driven so I guess in that sense the music can be manipulative. Scriabin is another that evokes interesting emotions that sway more to the narcissistic, while Wagner and Mahler make you want to invade and rule the world.
> 
> Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Bach touch the divine the most, which I believe is why they're widely considered the best.


Talking of Divinity. Arvo Part.


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