# What Role Does "Skill" Play When Evaluating Music?



## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

This is a split from the "Will Atonal Compositions Last..." thread. Though it's difficult to pinpoint where the discussion started, I think this: https://www.talkclassical.com/62933-will-atonal-compositions-last-36.html#post1702949 is a good starting point to understand the context (my first reply is at post #531).

To try to sum up to provoke a discussion here, there are several issues at play, so I'll try to succinctly enumerate them:

1. How big of a role should skill play when determining the value of a work or the greatness of a composer?

2. How much does the assessment of skill depend upon subjective (the impression the work leaves on an audience) VS objective (the ability of an artist to do something, like playing 16th notes at 200bpm) factors?

There are perhaps other issues, but these seem to be the most pertinent ones.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I say skill is paramount in the determination of the greatness of a work or composer, more than taste. Webern was undoubtedly a very skilled composer, and his greatness is not diminished by not being to the taste of most listeners. Opposite end of spectrum: top 40 Billboard is to the taste of many casual listeners, but the skill is not to the level of Webern to say the least. 

Your point #2 seems to mix the skill of a composer with a performer. But concerning the first idea of the impression a work leaves on the audience, it's up to the initiation and sensitivity of the audience to recognize the greatness, that a good impression is made. Sometimes an uninitiated audience is fooled. There is a video by '2 Set Violin' showing how estatic the audience and judges were with a performer doing a simple tremolo on a violin. Also melismatic singing in R&B seems to wow audiences, but on paper is musically pretty banal. 

I would take the subjectivity of general audience recognition out of recognizing greatness, unless the audience is a panel of experts. It may sound like elitism, but it's more fair to recognize the achievements of the composers.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Throughout most of the history of music, in Western and other cultures, composers work with established techniques in creating original works. Those techniques consist of more or less binding principles - principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic organization, along with the effective utilization of sonority - which are the vehicles through which the artwork is perceived as coherent and meaningful by the listener. The ability to create structures, utilizing these principles, which listeners find coherent and meaningful is the essence of the composer's skill, and it's fundamentally important and can in numerous respects be analyzed and evaluated. The ability of the listener to perceive coherence and meaning in the composer's exercise of his skill might also be described as a skill or set of skills - cognitive skills - which, of course, the composer himself had to possess in order to acquire and utilize the specific skills involved in composing. 

The importance of skill as a marker of artistic "greatness," relative to other possible virtues such as imagination, expressiveness and richness of meaning, will vary, depending on the nature of the music. In the composers most often regarded as "great," compositional skills are manifested at a high level but also are employed in strikingly original forms, made possible by the composer's ability to see ways in which his traditional language can be inflected to express new things while retaining its fundamental coherence for the listener.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Your point #2 seems to mix the skill of a composer with a performer.


To address this briefly, I did so because the counter-example I used in the original thread was one in which the composer was also the performer. I also think it's an example where assessing skill is entirely objective; either someone can do that, or they can't.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Webern was undoubtedly a very skilled composer, and his greatness is not diminished by not being to the taste of most listeners. Opposite end of spectrum: top 40 Billboard is to the taste of many casual listeners, but the skill is not to the level of Webern to say the least.


OK, here's two related subjects to this I think are also worth discussing:

1. If the music doesn't sound good to most people, then why should we consider whatever went into composing it skillful?

2. If we're, at least partially, defining "skill" as doing something that is difficult to do, an ability that few people possess, then why should those artists/songwriters that dominate the Billboard top 40 also not be considered skillful? Surely it's also a skill to be able to consistently appeal to casual listeners given that there are thousands attempting to do so but only a handful succeeding.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Throughout most of the history of music, in Western and other cultures, composers work with established techniques in creating original works. Those techniques consist of more or less binding principles - principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic organization, along with the effective utilization of sonority - which are the vehicles through which the artwork is perceived as coherent and meaningful by the listener. The ability to create structures, utilizing these principles, which listeners find coherent and meaningful is the essence of the composer's skill, and it's fundamentally important and can in numerous respects be analyzed and evaluated. The ability of the listener to perceive coherence and meaning in the composer's exercise of his skill might also be described as a skill or set of skills - cognitive skills - which, of course, the composer himself had to possess in order to acquire and utilize the specific skills involved in composing.
> 
> The importance of skill as a marker of artistic "greatness," relative to other possible virtues such as imagination, expressiveness and richness of meaning, will vary, depending on the nature of the music. In the composers most often regarded as "great," compositional skills are manifested at a high level but also are employed in strikingly original forms, made possible by the composer's ability to see ways in which his traditional language can be inflected to express new things while retaining its fundamental coherence for the listener.


I've said much the same thing over time, but you say it so much better. Awaiting the consequences.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

I predict this thread will go nowhere because everyone will have a different interpretation of what skill means and we will have page after page of people talking past one another. Does skill mean just technique, or does it mean skill in creating art? How about skill in entertaining people - Is some hack like Andrei Rieu more ‘skilled’ than some forgotten composer of forgettable but technically accomplished neo-romantic symphonies?


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> I predict this thread will go nowhere...


Thanks, Captain Obvious.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I think I'll stick with my previous expositions--poorly enunciated and unconvincing as they are--of my aesthetics of the primacy and validity of one's unique individual "subjective" experience. I'm positive that _ex post facto_ examples and demonstrations of the mandatory necessity for some definition of skill that is applicable to any given piece will be invoked by others. I would expect no less.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

For me, it's not skill but mastery. There's a difference... Skill can come across as too self-conscious or mechanical, while mastery of all aspects of the art (melody, rhythm, harmony, color and texture) is always inspired. All one has to do is notice it for yourself rather than for the entire world where there's never absolute agreement though there can often great consensus of opinion. There have been many masterful composers and yet I place Bach and Mozart at the top of the heap. Supreme mastery attracts attention and admiration and is also more than that. Evaluation of music is one thing but I also feel that it's also the product of intangibles that can never be exactly measured or entirely pinned down to define greatness. Nevertheless, that doesn't seem to stop people from trying, it seems to me, out of a sense of insecurity with themselves. I gave up trying to pin things long ago while still appreciating what I feel is great mastery in certain composers. There would have to mastery of the art or some of these composers would never have been as productive as they were, oftentimes in a relatively short lifetime... One can't struggle or fight for a lifetime with the medium and be prolific at an extremely high level as a composer. I consider them more as masters than as skilled.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> For me, it's not skill but mastery. There's a difference... Skill can come across as too mechanical, while mastery of all aspects of the art (melody, rhythm, harmony, color and texture) is always inspired. All one has to do is notice it for yourself rather than for the entire world where there's never absolute agreement though there can often great consensus of opinion. There have been many masterful composers and yet I place Bach and Mozart at the top of the heap. Supreme mastery attracts attention and admiration and is also more than that. Evaluation of music is one thing but I also feel that it's also the product of intangibles that can never be exactly measured or entirely pinned down to define greatness. Nevertheless, that doesn't seem to stop people from trying, it seems to me, out of a sense of insecurity with themselves. I gave up trying to pin things long ago while still appreciating what I feel is great mastery in certain composers. There would have to mastery of the art or some of these composers would never have been as productive as they were, oftentimes in a relatively short lifetime... One can't struggle or fight for a lifetime with the medium and be prolific at an extremely high standard as a composer. I consider them masters more than as skilled craftsmen.


One can overthink this and make it more complicated than necessary.

Merriam-Webster gives the synonyms of skill as:

adeptness, adroitness, art, artfulness, artifice, artistry, cleverness, craft, cunning, deftness, *masterfulness*, skillfulness


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I am of the opinion that there is no absolute greatness in Art, only subjective reaction. That being said, I think a group of people could construe a set of objective criteria by which to appraise an individual's talents in a competition against others. So if technical skill with fast notes or intricate lines is important to a listener or a competition, then skill becomes very important.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I am of the opinion that there is no absolute greatness in Art, only subjective reaction. That being said, I think a group of people could construe a set of objective criteria by which to appraise an individual's talents in a competition against others. So if technical skill with fast notes or intricate lines is important to a listener or a competition, then skill becomes very important.


Do you think you could have composed something on a par with Beethoven's quartets? How could anyone have a reaction to them subjective or otherwise if they hadn't been written. Do you care whether you compose skillfully? If not, how can your works be any good? How many late 18th century & 19th century composers can you list whose music was subjectively popular but the music wasn't any good because they weren't skilled in composing?


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Throughout most of the history of music, in Western and other cultures, composers work with established techniques in creating original works. Those techniques consist of more or less binding principles - principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic organization, along with the effective utilization of sonority - which are the vehicles through which the artwork is perceived as coherent and meaningful by the listener. The ability to create structures, utilizing these principles, which listeners find coherent and meaningful is the essence of the composer's skill, and it's fundamentally important and can in numerous respects be analyzed and evaluated. The ability of the listener to perceive coherence and meaning in the composer's exercise of his skill might also be described as a skill or set of skills - cognitive skills - which, of course, the composer himself had to possess in order to acquire and utilize the specific skills involved in composing.
> 
> The importance of skill as a marker of artistic "greatness," relative to other possible virtues such as imagination, expressiveness and richness of meaning, will vary, depending on the nature of the music. In the composers most often regarded as "great," compositional skills are manifested at a high level but also are employed in strikingly original forms, made possible by the composer's ability to see ways in which his traditional language can be inflected to express new things while retaining its fundamental coherence for the listener.


This is all well and good, and I don't disagree with its general thrust. I'd ask two questions (or pose two problems). The first is that the artist's purpose in their creating has to be taken into account - and, consequently, an analysis of the extent to which they have successfully deployed their skill-set in achieving their ends. That takes us towards a consideration of the problem that some works in the CP canon demonstrate a much wider range of skills than in others, or a greater depth of mastery in a particular skill, than in other works, but without necessarily being "greater masterpieces". I'm thinking, for example, of the writing of fugues/fugal passages, and counterpoint.

The other question is about the implications of your "principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic organization". We can see how the CP canon established something about expectations around melody, and we would probably agree that some composers seem to have a particular "skill" in writing a melody. But "principles" seems problematic, as we also know how some composers pushed the boundaries in relation to "principles" - I'm thinking Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, for example - where the skill of exploring rhythmic principles is a quite different skill from the skill of rhythmic organization utilised by, say, Berlioz in Symphonie Fantastique.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I wonder if our assessment of “skill” doesn’t follow our assessment of the work in a more subjective fashion. We ooh and ah over Stravinsky’s skillful use of rhythm in Rite of Spring, but if the work didn’t impress us, we might never think to do so.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> OK, here's two related subjects to this I think are also worth discussing:
> 
> 1. If the music doesn't sound good to most people, then why should we consider whatever went into composing it skillful?
> 
> 2. If we're, at least partially, defining "skill" as doing something that is difficult to do, an ability that few people possess, then why should those artists/songwriters that dominate the Billboard top 40 also not be considered skillful? Surely it's also a skill to be able to consistently appeal to casual listeners given that there are thousands attempting to do so but only a handful succeeding.


Addressing both the same time, skill in composing to me, is achieving something worthwhile in music, whether something creative in expressive, or more technical terms. Pachelbel wrote a great Canon that is technically great and expressive. Webern also wrote a canon (his Symphony), using atonal language that had zero chance of being a popular hit, but still something great technically and expressive in a less obvious sense. That is something what I referred to as the initiated, consider worthwhile in music.

Taylor Swift has skill in sensing what the audience wants and delivers, but her skill in creating something worthwhile in music in expressive, technical terms is not anything special to the initiated.

By confining skill to the music itself, and bringing up the idea of the initiated, I think there is less argument, so that not anything any Joe (or Jane) writes could be considered equal or greater than Beethoven, just because it's a top 40 hit (remembering Right Said Fred).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

What do you make of random music? Things like Music of Changes?

And graphic scores, things like Treatise?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Aside from the question of what we (each) mean by skill, it is clear that there are many different skills involved in composing music and very few (or no) composers excelled in all of them.

But, to think of skill in general, I assume we can all agree that skills alone, no matter how necessary they may be, are not sufficient in themselves to result in great music? We may like to think that our favourite creative artists had great skill but this may be because we lack the confidence to assign value to a piece without being able to "see" the skill?

What is left when skill is removed from the equation are things like vision. But don't you need skills to realise the vision? Obviously you do, so we are left with comparing pieces where (a) the skill requirement (to realise the vision) is greater with those where (b) the required skill (to realise the vision) is far less. Do we think that visions that require a lot of rare skills to realise are intrinsically greater than works that require a little skill? I don't think this can be the case, can it?

Consider art, painting. How much skill did Van Gogh have? There are at least two ways to answer that. One is to go to his earlier works where his painting was more literal and examine how technically good he was. The other is to look at his mature work and ask what skills were needed to achieve it. That could lead you to discovering (or inventing?) new skills that had not been so valued before him.

Or what about Mark Rothko? His early work exhibited a measure of what we conventionally (and figuratively) regard as skill, like this from 1940:









But his later (and, surely, greater) work seems incredibly simple, like this from 1958 (I think):









What skill was involved in making the later painting?

So, to me, vision is necessary and the skill to realise that vision is necessary. But skill alone is not terribly important in assigning value to a piece of music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> realise the vision
> vision is necessary and the skill to realise that vision is necessary.


Vision can just mean "aim", "objective".

One of the most important, influential, pieces of music of the last 150 years has been Satie's vexations. Maybe _the _most important and influential.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Glenn Gould proved in the 1950s that skill matters; he revealed to us The Goldberg Variations. The whole long tradition of piano and violin virtuosi proves that skill (virtuosity) has always been a lynchpin of Western music, especially since the advent of recording technology.
It could also be argued that before the age of recoding, when composers auditioned for royals, that skill mattered; and if Mozart hasn't gotten that appointment, his music might not have flourished.
Remember, before recording, all music was "live" and depended on performance.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Vision _can _mean aim or objective, true. It is even possible to break it down into a hierarchy - vision might be the big picture and aims might be the slightly smaller things that you need to achieve to realise the vision. But let's keep it simple.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> Glenn Gould proved in the 1950s that skill matters; he revealed to us The Goldberg Variations. The whole long tradition of piano and violin virtuosi proves that skill (virtuosity) has always been a lynchpin of Western music, especially since the advent of recording technology.
> It could also be argued that before the age of recoding, when composers auditioned for royals, that skill mattered; and if Mozart hasn't gotten that appointment, his music might not have flourished.
> Remember, before recording, all music was "live" and depended on performance.


You are talking of performing skill rather than creative (composing) skill?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Glenn Gould proved in the 1950s that skill matters; he revealed to us The Goldberg Variations. The whole long tradition of piano and violin virtuosi proves that skill (virtuosity) has always been a lynchpin of Western music, especially since the advent of recording technology.
> It could also be argued that before the age of recoding, when composers auditioned for royals, that skill mattered; and if Mozart hasn't gotten that appointment, his music might not have flourished.
> Remember, before recording, all music was "live" and depended on performance.


The thing about virtuosity is that it makes music undemocratic, because basically you have to acquire it and that costs money, it's an education which isn't open to the working classes.

So if your vision involves a radical social change towards greater fairness, and you want your music to be in line with that vision, it follows that you must find a music which involves no virtuosity. A music which people who have no musical education can become involved in, a music which they can use to realise their talents.

That's why Stockhausen and Cage served imperialism. And why Cornelius Cardew and Howard Skempton didn't.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> The thing about virtuosity is that it makes music undemocratic, because basically you have to acquire it and that costs money, it's an education which isn't open to the working classes. .........


A working class background didn't stop me from achieving a high level of attainment in music which makes me suspicious of your post. What about excellence (virtuosity) in every other conceivable field of endeavour and knowledge, are those achievements a manifestation of undemocratic opportunity too?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If you're saying what I think you're saying, which is equating skill with an elite class, I don't think John Cage is the best example. Also, it could be argued that extreme notational complexity (as in Stockhausen, and Cage's Freeman Etudes) is an attempt to "defeat," challenge, or overcome the skill of the performer.

On the other hand, it could be argued that the entirety of Western Classical music is a genre which requires and favors the educated elite, as opposed to folk and popular music, genres in which every 12-year-old trailer-trash kid is eligible to be the next Eric Clapton, if he/she can afford a $100 electric guitar.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

mikeh375 said:


> A working class background didn't stop me from achieving a high level of attainment in music which makes me suspicious of your post. What about excellence (virtuosity) in every other conceivable field of endeavour and knowledge, are those achievements a manifestation of undemocratic opportunity too?


But you didn't have a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand in your mobile home. Just think what you could have accomplished if you had.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Skill is important but I've heard lots of forgettable music that was skillfully written. It lacked a spark or melody or counterpoint or something that made it memorable. So skill is probably a starting point to greatness but certainly not an ending point.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> But you didn't have a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand in your mobile home. Just think what you could have accomplished if you had.


Ah,but it took great nerve to steal that piano and then to find it didn't fit..... I managed to flog it down the boozer for £50..paid for a few beers and a curry.......the consumption of which incidentally is a great way to train for the music industry and cheaper than all that academic stuff.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Skill is important but I've heard lots of forgettable music that was skillfully written. It lacked a spark or melody or counterpoint or something that made it memorable. So skill is probably a starting point to greatness but certainly not an ending point.

To me it's similar to intelligence in a person. Just because a person has it doesn't make them memorable. They have to apply it in some way to accomplish that.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The only 'skill' I use in evaluating music is how much I enjoy it and how much it moves me. I leave the rest of the skill to the performers who tend to be a lot better at it than me! :lol:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Uit could be argued that the entirety of Western Classical music is a genre which requires and favors the educated elite,


Correct.

Fmecndmnndmnc d,cj


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Skill is necessary but not sufficient to make great music.

The more ambitious the composer's aims, the more skill he or she likely needs to realize them.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> 1. How big of a role should skill play when determining the value of a work or the greatness of a composer?


Um...not readily quantifiable, so I'll not offer a numeric value, but certainly a significant role.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> 2. How much does the assessment of skill depend upon subjective (the impression the work leaves on an audience) VS objective (the ability of an artist to do something, like playing 16th notes at 200bpm) factors.


I think that we could evaluate an opera by Mozart by pointing to certain skills and, by comparing them with how those same skills have been exercised by other composers with the same musical purpose, establish some (semi)-objective criteria and agree that _Don Giovanni _is, in that specific regard, better than, say _The Barber of Seville._

But that would be only part of the evaluation. If one wanted to evaluate the skill level by assessing the impact of the works on the listener, the subjective inevitably comes into play.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Self-centred narcissist.


Not at all. Just being honest.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2019)

DavidA said:


> Not at all. *Just being honest*. I leave the delusions of grandeur to others! :lol:


Just answering a question that wasn't asked. It wasn't about _your _skill in evaluating.:lol:


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

The best composers are those who willingly and with a great insight compose for the most complex instrument of them all: for human psychology.

Effect per second is more impressive than notes per second.

When I am presented with a claim of a composer being great, I expect him or her to smash me, not the keys or strings. Because even if he or she torments (be it personally or via the performer / performing machine) some instrument in a most mechanically impressive way, but it sounds like horrible noise, the type of respect that is due will be something between that for a circus juggler and for a savant who memorized hundreds of digits of pi. There is a difference between 'cool' and 'great'.

Violin, orchestra, or music theory etc. are just tools, like a sharp rock is.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Not at all. Just being honest. I leave the delusions of grandeur to others! :lol:


I shall remove my post, it comes across as too agressive in writing, it's one of the problems with the medium I'm afraid. Anyway, I'm sorry for being so blunt.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

KenOC said:


> I wonder if our assessment of "skill" doesn't follow our assessment of the work in a more subjective fashion. We ooh and ah over Stravinsky's skillful use of rhythm in Rite of Spring, but if the work didn't impress us, we might never think to do so.


Yes, they can be hard to separate.

On the other hand, I can recognize the technical skill of someone like Medtner without thinking his music is all that great.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> I shall remove my post, it comes across as too agressive in writing, it's one of the problems with the medium I'm afraid. Anyway, I'm sorry for being so blunt.


No problem! It is one of the problems of the written word that it can come over as too aggressive. You know how I know that! :lol:

PS I've just edited my reply which was also aggressive!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Just answering a question that wasn't asked. It wasn't about _your _skill in evaluating.:lol:


Never mind! :angel:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

DaveM said:


> Do you think you could have composed something on a par with Beethoven's quartets? How could anyone have a reaction to them subjective or otherwise if they hadn't been written. Do you care whether you compose skillfully? If not, how can your works be any good? How many late 18th century & 19th century composers can you list whose music was subjectively popular but the music wasn't any good because they weren't skilled in composing?


The only par a composer should set is the one they decide for themselves. There is no absolute par by which to compare your works to.

To exemplify, if your goal is to write songs like Dylan and Neil Young, Beethoven's SQs are not the par you are setting for yourself. If writing Romantic Era symphonies is your goal, Beethoven might be a fine par to set for yourself.

You are too set on the idea that there is absolute greatness in art imo.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> The only par a composer should set is the one they decide for themselves. There is no absolute par by which to compare your works to.
> 
> To exemplify, if your goal is to write songs like Dylan and Neil Young, Beethoven's SQs are not the par you are setting for yourself. If writing Romantic Era symphonies is your goal, Beethoven might be a fine par to set for yourself.
> 
> You are too set on the idea that there is absolute greatness in art imo.


You evaded my questions and who said anything about absolute greatness or absolute pars? You are missing the point completely or choosing to evade it. If your goal is to write songs like Dylan and Neil Young, the assumption is that you have skill doing so or they won't be like Dylan and Young.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Skill is to an extent a by-product of a musician with something to say, acquiring the tools necessary to say it. In itself it is not the most important aspect of music, but it has value. I admire skill because to me it shows that the individual cares about their craft, and wants to take it to the highest level they can. It also shows they are aware of the vast possibilities of music and want to explore, discover and branch out as much as they can.

Artists that have lots of natural talent, but seem content with a very basic musical skill set, I generally find boring.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Throughout most of the history of music, in Western and other cultures, composers work with established techniques in creating original works. Those techniques consist of more or less binding principles - principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic organization, along with the effective utilization of sonority - which are the vehicles through which the artwork is perceived as coherent and meaningful by the listener. The ability to create structures, utilizing these principles, which listeners find coherent and meaningful is the essence of the composer's skill, and it's fundamentally important and can in numerous respects be analyzed and evaluated. The ability of the listener to perceive coherence and meaning in the composer's exercise of his skill might also be described as a skill or set of skills - cognitive skills - which, of course, the composer himself had to possess in order to acquire and utilize the specific skills involved in composing.
> 
> The importance of skill as a marker of artistic "greatness," relative to other possible virtues such as imagination, expressiveness and richness of meaning, will vary, depending on the nature of the music. In the composers most often regarded as "great," compositional skills are manifested at a high level but also are employed in strikingly original forms, made possible by the composer's ability to see ways in which his traditional language can be inflected to express new things while retaining its fundamental coherence for the listener.


I agree with MacLeod in not disagreeing with the general thrust of this, but my concern is how to take this very generalized, fuzzy perspective and get precise about quantifying what we're actually talking about. Among my concerns is that I think the kind of skill that's objectively quantifiable, the simple ability of a composer to do whatever it is that can be done, means very little in the final evaluation of music; while the final impact that creation has on listeners means a great deal, and it's very easy for listeners to project our feelings of greatness onto the "skill" of the composer. I also feel like many elements within music, like melody, rely far more on ephemeral inspiration than any cultivated skill. Of course, I agree that listening is a skill as well, but are there not examples of "good" listeners who hear in a work or composer what many consider to be skillful, while still thinking the work or composer bad?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> For me, it's not skill but mastery. There's a difference... Skill can come across as too self-conscious or mechanical, while mastery of all aspects of the art (melody, rhythm, harmony, color and texture) is always inspired.


Interesting point, and I think there's an argument for not considering the kind of inspired mastery you describe as being skillful. It may take skill in order to get to a point where can be masterfully inspired, but they're not the same thing. I think of a composer like Mussorgsky who, by most accounts of those who cared about skill, was not terribly skilled; but few would dispute his inspired mastery in works like Pictures at an Exhibition or Boris Godunov. Similarly, I think it would be difficult to analyze the greatness of a work like Schubert's 21st Piano Sonata purely as an account of skill. Those melodies are so simple yet so effective; I'd think that anyone could've written them if all that was required was the skill to do so, but only one composer managed to.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Addressing both the same time, skill in composing to me, is achieving something worthwhile in music, whether something creative in expressive, or more technical terms. Pachelbel wrote a great Canon that is technically great and expressive. Webern also wrote a canon (his Symphony), using atonal language that had zero chance of being a popular hit, but still something great technically and expressive in a less obvious sense. That is something what I referred to as the initiated, consider worthwhile in music.
> 
> Taylor Swift has skill in sensing what the audience wants and delivers, but her skill in creating something worthwhile in music in expressive, technical terms is not anything special to the initiated.
> 
> By confining skill to the music itself, and bringing up the idea of the initiated, I think there is less argument, so that not anything any Joe (or Jane) writes could be considered equal or greater than Beethoven, just because it's a top 40 hit (remembering Right Said Fred).


Well that's the rub: who decides what's "worthwhile in music?" Clearly, the audience that enjoys Taylor Swift (and I count myself among them) finds her musically worthwhile, and wouldn't do so if they didn't find her expressive. The fact that if we boil what she does down to technical terms and it happens to be simple, even boring, means what, exactly? Plus, is there not a different kind of skill that goes into songwriting than most pure composition? And who said one can't be expressive with great technical simplicity? As I alluded to above, Schubert didn't need the polyphonic wizardry of Bach to be expressive, nor did Mussorgsky need the orchestral scoring wizardry of Rimsky-Korsakov to be expressive. Even theoretically, I find it hard to think of a justification for the notion that things in art that would require great skill would, ipso facto, be more expressive than things that didn't.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

DaveM said:


> You evaded my questions and who said anything about absolute greatness or absolute pars? You are missing the point completely or choosing to evade it. If your goal is to write songs like Dylan and Neil Young, the assumption is that you have skill doing so or they won't be like Dylan and Young.


I'm afraid I'm missing your point. Could you state it differently?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Aside from the question of what we (each) mean by skill, it is clear that there are many different skills involved in composing music and very few (or no) composers excelled in all of them.
> 
> But, to think of skill in general, I assume we can all agree that skills alone, no matter how necessary they may be, are not sufficient in themselves to result in great music? We may like to think that our favourite creative artists had great skill but this may be because we lack the confidence to assign value to a piece without being able to "see" the skill?
> 
> What is left when skill is removed from the equation are things like vision. But don't you need skills to realise the vision? Obviously you do, so we are left with comparing pieces where (a) the skill requirement (to realise the vision) is greater with those where (b) the required skill (to realise the vision) is far less. Do we think that visions that require a lot of rare skills to realise are intrinsically greater than works that require a little skill? I don't think this can be the case, can it?


Great post, and I think this eloquently and potently gets to many of the points I've been making myself. I think your second paragraph here is particularly important and echoes a thought that StrangeMagic had in the last thread; the idea that we consider something skillful more because we like it, rather than liking it because it's skillful.

You offer paintings as an example, let me offer examples from guitar-based music (because I can't have this discussion without hearing the echoes of similar discussions I used to have on guitar forums):

Example one, David Gilmour's solos in Comfortably Numb (2:38 and 5:05) 





Example two, Michael Angelo Batio's Speed Kills:





There's no doubt which of these requires more skill. The former is so simple any first-year guitar player could play it and compose something like it. Break it down technically and there's nothing unusual about it; the second solo, eg, is just B-minor pentatonic blues, the kind of thing we've heard in thousands of blues/rock songs. The second piece is infinitely more technically advanced, the kind of things only the most dedicated and skilled guitarists can play, and being able to compose it would probably require being able to play something close to it just to imagine it. Yet how few people would consider the second piece superior? The former is considered one of the greatest guitar solos ever written, even by people who don't care for guitar solos. Why? Because it seems to illustrate the point that inspiration matters far more than skill, and the ability to be expressive isn't severely limited when working with simple tools and materials.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I agree with MacLeod in not disagreeing with the general thrust of this, but my concern is how to take this very generalized, fuzzy perspective and *get precise about quantifying* what we're actually talking about.


What I wrote may be generalized, but fuzzy it is not. Wash your mouth out with soap, EY!

There is no precise, applicable unit for the "quantification" of artistic excellence. There is, though, an ability, which many possess in high degree but nearly all possess to some extent, to perceive that any number of the elements constituting an artwork have been handled better or worse by the artist.



> Among my concerns is that I think the kind of skill that's objectively quantifiable, the simple ability of a composer to do whatever it is that can be done, means very little in the final evaluation of music;


I disagree (unless we're going to argue about "objectively" again, which I am not!). I think that in truly great composers - let's just take Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms, my own "big 5" - the sense of a powerful mind in command of great resources is palpable, and I'll say the same for great artists in other mediums. We stand in awe of Bach's ability to search out the possibilities of his material in the most complex contrapuntal textures, the ability of Wagner to press the most flexible and far-flung chromatic harmony into the simultaneous service of psychology and structure, and the ability of Vermeer to see and transmit in paint visual phenomena in a form seemingly more real than reality itself.



> while the final impact that creation has on listeners means a great deal, and it's very easy for listeners to project our feelings of greatness onto the "skill" of the composer. I also feel like many elements within music, like melody, rely far more on ephemeral inspiration than any cultivated skill.


All true, although the ability to spin a fine, memorable, affecting melody rests on a keen sense of form, which may legitimately be called a skill. Art isn't hocus pocus.



> Of course, I agree that listening is a skill as well, but are there not examples of "good" listeners who hear in a work or composer what many consider to be skillful, while still thinking the work or composer bad?


What some people "think" and "consider" isn't necessarily a guide to anything.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Great post, and I think this eloquently and potently gets to many of the points I've been making myself. I think your second paragraph here is particularly important and echoes a thought that StrangeMagic had in the last thread; the idea that we consider something skillful more because we like it, rather than liking it because it's skillful.
> 
> You offer paintings as an example, let me offer examples from guitar-based music (because I can't have this discussion without hearing the echoes of similar discussions I used to have on guitar forums):
> 
> ...


I agree with the thrust of your point, Gilmour's solo is less technical and more moving. But as far as your claim that any first year guitarist could play and compose something like it? No. If that were true we wouldn't consider it so exceptional, few people can put feel into a solo the way he does, and find that sweet balance between melodicism and blues. You just can't teach that. Gilmour is a jedi master at bending strings, few people can play the way he does.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Well that's the rub: who decides what's "worthwhile in music?" Clearly, the audience that enjoys Taylor Swift (and I count myself among them) finds her musically worthwhile, and wouldn't do so if they didn't find her expressive. The fact that if we boil what she does down to technical terms and it happens to be simple, even boring, means what, exactly? Plus, is there not a different kind of skill that goes into songwriting than most pure composition? And who said one can't be expressive with great technical simplicity? As I alluded to above, Schubert didn't need the polyphonic wizardry of Bach to be expressive, nor did Mussorgsky need the orchestral scoring wizardry of Rimsky-Korsakov to be expressive. Even theoretically, I find it hard to think of a justification for the notion that things in art that would require great skill would, ipso facto, be more expressive than things that didn't.


Bad choice of words on my part with the "worthwhile in music", I'll change it to "musically significant". There's nothing bad about Swift, she is an ok to good songwriter. Her music is just not really significant in any way. I agree great music doesn't need to be overly complex. In fact it takes great skill to write something significant and connect with listeners. I heard some people diss Dvorak on this board, but to me he has a rare gift of being able to write more accessibly expressive, and very well put together music. Who determines what is musically significant are those who've heard and analyzed a large part of what's out there (what I call the initiated, after Bane's use in the Dark Knight Rises :lol.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

I wouldn't say Chopin's etudes are the greatest part of his oeuvre.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I think I have a good definition of what constitutes great art: grand design. It's a quality that all acknowledged great works of art share from paintings to poetry, film, music, etc. Something can be simple, and yet exhibit that quality.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Eva Yojimbo said:
> 
> 
> > I also feel like many elements within music, like melody, rely far more on ephemeral inspiration than any cultivated skill.
> ...


I think you let EY off the hook too easily. EY's comment again diminishes one of the great skills of CM composers. It is not easy to come up with a melody that draws people in or create motifs that are developed in much the way an established melody is. My guess is that EY starts off (overall) with the premise that skill isn't required and then comes up with something like 'ephemeral inspiration' to support it.

I can't imagine a composer leaning back in the chair and suddenly having inspiration that is immediately put to paper in finished form. (disclaimer, maybe a Mozart did it periodically). These things take time to flesh out and perfect.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> I think you let EY off the hook too easily. EY's comment again diminishes one of the great skills of CM composers. It is not easy to come up with a melody that draws people in or create motifs that are developed in much the way an established melody is. My guess is that EY starts off (overall) with the premise that skill isn't required and then comes up with something like 'ephemeral inspiration' to support it.
> 
> I can't imagine a composer leaning back in the chair and suddenly having inspiration that is immediately put to paper in finished form. (disclaimer, maybe a Mozart did it periodically). These things take time to flesh out and perfect.


I'm happy to agree with you and with EY too!

"Skill" and "inspiration" are not easy to disentangle in practice, the presence of the former often making the latter possible and the presence of the latter often driving the expansion and refinement of the former. Having had a thirty-some-year career as a piano accompanist for ballet, during which I set myself the strictly unnecessary but challenging and fascinating task of improvising (i.e., spontaneously composing) virtually everything I played, I know first-hand how skill and inspiration can either facilitate or limit each other. Had I been a better pianist technically my inspirations would have been better, but when I was most inspired - while playing an especially responsive instrument, or working with an especially musical dance instructor - the quickness and variety of my musical thinking increased, and with it both the musical interest of my compositions and my digital dexterity.

We might try to break down and define these concepts individually, but a creative artist, when he's working at highest capacity, tends to experience inspiration, skill and technique as an indivisible, synergic whole.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> ... Having had a thirty-some-year career as a piano accompanist for ballet, during which I set myself the strictly unnecessary but challenging and fascinating task of improvising (i.e., spontaneously composing) virtually everything I played, I know first-hand how skill and inspiration can either facilitate or limit each other.


Improvising on the fly is a great skill. I admire anyone who has it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's something to think about when thinking about skill


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I really do not understand what exactly is meant by skill.

Well based on what I think skill means, I have heard many works that are skillful that were duds. But I can not think of a work I am familiar with that was not skillful.

Of course if my understanding of what is meant by skill is bogus


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> But I can not think of a work I am familiar with that was not skillful.


What do you think of that Lamonte Young piece?


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> I really do not understand what exactly is meant by skill.
> 
> Well based on what I think skill means, I have heard many works that are skillful that were duds. But I can not think of a work I am familiar with that was not skillful.
> 
> Of course if my understanding of what is meant by skill is bogus


I would think works lacking skill don't get much circulation.

I can say with confidence that the chorale harmonizations and composition assignments I did in high school were not very skillful.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Here's something to think about when thinking about skill


Why would we want to think about that?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I've just realised, it reminds me of the start of the Rheigold overture!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

It reminds me of an air-raid warning.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Well that's the rub: who decides what's "worthwhile in music?" Clearly, the audience that enjoys Taylor Swift (and I count myself among them) finds her musically worthwhile, and wouldn't do so if they didn't find her expressive.


But Taylor Swift doesn't even write her own songs. They're all written by specialized song-writers like Max Martin, who themselves aren't really musical "creators" in the sense classical music composers are. And most pop singers today _don't even need to be good at singing_: there's all kinds of modern technology to make up for their deficiencies in singing such as Autotune and lip-sync. I believe in order for something to be considered "art", it has to be hard for others to replicate. Modern pop music simply doesn't meet that criterion in my view.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

some "pop songs" that I consider skillfully written:


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> I say skill is paramount in the determination of the greatness of a work or composer, more than taste. Webern was undoubtedly a very skilled composer, and his greatness is not diminished by not being to the taste of most listeners. Opposite end of spectrum: top 40 Billboard is to the taste of many casual listeners, but the skill is not to the level of Webern to say the least.


One's musical skill is only determined by others' musical taste, down to the very last T, so I'm not sure I understand this point.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Ethereality said:


> One's musical skill is only determined by others' musical taste, down to the very last T


I agree... and yet I am puzzled how to reconcile it with my other view, that "taste" is also a skill.

Maybe instead of taste I should say sensitivity to detail, but anyway such sensitivity is often necessary to recognize and/or develop a skill, isn't it?


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I guess taste isn't a skill but a matter of taste. If the human only had one ultimate aspect of life, an 'objective' to reach, life as it's recognized might cease to exist entirely. We depend on the diversity of tastes, a subjective space to move and inquire, as oftentimes it is the novel that's of greatest quality, because we seek discovery and bore of stagnation.

This is because humans as a whole don't conclude an objectivity to the world, but have similar tastes merely from being from a similar seed. This seed is designed to diversify. Start diversifying more and therein exists all possibilities (for taste, consciousness, perspective.) If I can imagine what the highest minds would imagine "objective best art" is, it might sound identical to silence. Or possibly a single note, sounding on. An attempt at science can never capture the heart of every individual.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Ethereality said:


> If I can imagine what the highest minds would imagine "objective best art" is, it might sound identical to silence. Or possibly a single note, sounding on.


These highest minds must be listening to pop music. Comes pretty close to a single note sounding on at times.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> What I wrote may be generalized, but fuzzy it is not. Wash your mouth out with soap, EY!
> 
> There is no precise, applicable unit for the "quantification" of artistic excellence. There is, though, an ability, which many possess in high degree but nearly all possess to some extent, to perceive that any number of the elements constituting an artwork have been handled better or worse by the artist.


I did not mean it as an insult! More just "I can see what you're saying as if through a fog, but precise application of it might prove elusive."

My concern is that "ability to perceive" corresponds less to reality and more to what StrangeMagic called ad hoc justifications for whatever our response has to be. Unlike with the concepts of "good/better/best/masterpiece," I realize that there are aspects of skill that are objective and actually quantifiable, but I'm also skeptical that we're able to distinguish all of those qualities from inspiration, or to separate them from saying "I like X so X is skillful;" and the latter doesn't have to just be an individual response, but in reference to a collective one.



Woodduck said:


> I disagree (unless we're going to argue about "objectively" again, which I am not!). I think that in truly great composers - let's just take Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms, my own "big 5" - the sense of a powerful mind in command of great resources is palpable, and I'll say the same for great artists in other mediums. We stand in awe of Bach's ability to search out the possibilities of his material in the most complex contrapuntal textures, the ability of Wagner to press the most flexible and far-flung chromatic harmony into the simultaneous service of psychology and structure, and the ability of Vermeer to see and transmit in paint visual phenomena in a form seemingly more real than reality itself.


I don't disagree with this in the abstract, again, but it seems like you missed my point. In fact, your response to DaveM about skill facilitating inspiration and inspiration galvanizing skill is close to what I was trying to say; the skill alone isn't enough, it's just a tool set. Great tools don't make great art; great artists do.



Woodduck said:


> All true, although the ability to spin a fine, memorable, affecting melody rests on a keen sense of form, which may legitimately be called a skill. *Art isn't hocus pocus.*


Funny you should say that as last night I watched Steven Colbert's interview with Paul McCartney where the spoke about music being "magic." Paul offered the example of how the melody of Yesterday--supposedly the most covered/recorded song of all time--came to him in a dream, and he initially thought he'd unconsciously plagiarized someone else at first!



Woodduck said:


> What some people "think" and "consider" isn't necessarily a guide to anything.


And yet what is all we do around here, or what critics do in general, but what we/they think and consider?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

tdc said:


> I agree with the thrust of your point, Gilmour's solo is less technical and more moving. But as far as your claim that any first year guitarist could play and compose something like it? No. If that were true we wouldn't consider it so exceptional, few people can put feel into a solo the way he does, and find that sweet balance between melodicism and blues. You just can't teach that. Gilmour is a jedi master at bending strings, few people can play the way he does.


A first year guitarist could certainly play it--I know as it was one of the first solos I learned. As for composing something like it, what I mean is that if you just discuss it from a technical standpoint, pentatonic licks on a B-minor scale at that tempo, then, yes, a 1st year guitarist could also learn to write something like it. The problem is that what they wrote wouldn't be as good. I don't believe the reason it wouldn't be as good would be because of any lack of skill, an inability to put those notes in that order and in time, but because of a lack of inspiration, of artistry, of feeling what notes fit where and when.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Bad choice of words on my part with the "worthwhile in music", I'll change it to "musically significant". There's nothing bad about Swift, she is an ok to good songwriter. Her music is just not really significant in any way. I agree great music doesn't need to be overly complex. In fact it takes great skill to write something significant and connect with listeners. I heard some people diss Dvorak on this board, but to me he has a rare gift of being able to write more accessibly expressive, and very well put together music. Who determines what is musically significant are those who've heard and analyzed a large part of what's out there (what I call the initiated, after Bane's use in the Dark Knight Rises :lol.


I don't think "musically significant" is any better; again we still have the problem of "who decides?" I'd certainly like to think I've "heard and analyzed" (at least to some extent) a good chunk of what's out there across mediums, so do I get to decide? Yay me? I'd rate Swift better than "OK to good" as well, so even on that we disagree, and that seems rather common since even those who've "heard and analyzed" much of what's out there have their biases, preferences, and opinions, and there isn't a hive mind--just look at how even the well-heard/well-educated folks here vigorously disagree!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> A first year guitarist could certainly play it--I know as it was one of the first solos I learned. As for composing something like it, what I mean is that if you just discuss it from a technical standpoint, pentatonic licks on a B-minor scale at that tempo, then, yes, a 1st year guitarist could also learn to write something like it. The problem is that what they wrote wouldn't be as good. I don't believe the reason it wouldn't be as good would be because of any lack of skill, an inability to put those notes in that order and in time, but because of a lack of inspiration, of artistry, of feeling what notes fit where and when.


_Some_ first year guitarists could play that solo if they had natural talent and practiced around 4 to 6 hours a day (or more) during that year. Saying _any_ first year guitarist could do it is in my opinion not true. I've taught guitar for over a decade and I have not encountered any students who reached that level of proficiency in one year. Gilmour is known for his bluesy style of bending and was influenced by Eric Clapton. To be able to acquire the ability to hit notes on big bends like that accurately is very difficult and most guitarists never achieve that ability - to the degree of players like that. Further, post-secondary institutions that focus on classical and jazz, don't put a lot of focus into bending strings. Many jazz and classical performers cannot do that kind of bending. Bending like that creates a lot of strain and wear and tear on the hands. Blues (though simple) is one of the most physically punishing styles of music to play. Players typically find as thin of strings as possible or down tune to avoid causing extensive damage to their hands over time.

Some players learn all the notes of a particular solo and then feel they can play that solo, when in reality the tone and feel they get in their presentation of those notes is no where near the tone and feel of the performer doing the original solo. Sometimes they cheat and also slide to certain notes rather than bending the strings. They may feel they have it right, but they aren't achieving the same tone that is created by the bend nor are they hitting the 'notes between the notes' or microtones that are achieved through bending.

Now there are some players that are exceptional talents that can learn skills like these and play like the 'greats' quickly, but these players are exceptions and not the rules.

When someone says they can perform a certain guitar solo, I would have to hear a recording of it to be convinced they are playing it with the degree of skill as the original. That skill is what makes a player like Gilmour so highly regarded.

All this said I have not attempted to play that particular solo, it is possible it is little easier than some of his others, but I remain skeptical.

On the other hand there is Syd Barrett who in my mind was a more original and innovative guitarist than Gilmour (and I feel his style was a perfect fit for a psychedelic act like Floyd, where Gilmour's bluesy approach as amazing as it is doesn't mesh quite as well), but Barret was less skilled. Who is the better guitarist between those two is also debatable.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> But Taylor Swift doesn't even write her own songs.


That's flat out false. She has solo writing credit on a good chunk of her songs including the entirety of her third album (her best, IMO). When it comes to the songs she's co-written, she's extensively documented exactly how the process happens; she writes the lyrics and melodies, and then her collaborators might tweak a few things in the writing or production phases. Max Martin has literally said that Swift comes to him with essentially "finished" songs and he just does minor tweaks or adds things with his production expertise.



hammeredklavier said:


> They're all written by specialized song-writers like Max Martin, who themselves aren't really musical "creators" in the sense classical music composers are. And most pop singers today _don't even need to be good at singing_: there's all kinds of modern technology to make up for their deficiencies in singing such as Autotune and lip-sync. I believe in order for something to be considered "art", it has to be hard for others to replicate. Modern pop music simply doesn't meet that criterion in my view.


You've posted this before and I've corrected you before. Yes, Martin (and many others) do write songs that are then given to some artists who don't write (much of) their own material; no, this is not an industry-wide consistent but varies from artist to artist. There are artists who write or co-write (most) all of their material (like Swift), and there are artists who write almost none of their material like Ariana Grande, and there are artists who are 50/50 like Kelly Clarkson. Also, this separation of singer/songwriter was how things were done until artists like Dylan and The Beatles came along and popularized the notion of the singer/artist-songwriter, so there's nothing new or scandalous about this.

As for the rest, lip-syncing is easy to spot for those who know what the studio versions sound like, and know what variations to listen for in live performances. Auto-tune isn't magic. It sounds like crap and is easily heard when heavily applied. Most of the competent pop singers apply it lightly both in the studio and live; the former allows for expediency in recording (which is expensive!) and the latter allows them to perform without worrying as much about their vocals. There are vids floating around of most pop artists singing without the aid of either in, eg, personal gatherings, where a mic and electronics aren't even involved. Most of the big names are perfectly capable singers for what they sing. The exceptions tend to be rappers more than pop artists, as the former tend to only "sing" for brief sections of their music to add some melodic parts as contrast to the rhythm.

Finally, the notion that modern pop of the kind Martin (or Swift) creates isn't difficult to replicate is just plain stupid. That you can replicate some superficial aspects (which is all those videos are talking about) isn't the point (you can replicate superficial aspects of any music); go try to write something that millions of people want to listen to and are willing to purchase, and then you can talk about how easy it is. If it was easy, there would be millions of wannabe songwriters as successful as Martin, and there demonstrably is not. You've posted those videos before and I've debunked them before. Apparently, your memory is rather short.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> I think you let EY off the hook too easily. EY's comment again diminishes one of the great skills of CM composers. *It is not easy to come up with a melody that draws people in or create motifs that are developed in much the way an established melody is.* My guess is that EY starts off (overall) with the premise that skill isn't required and then comes up with something like 'ephemeral inspiration' to support it.
> 
> I can't imagine a composer leaning back in the chair and suddenly having inspiration that is immediately put to paper in finished form. (disclaimer, maybe a Mozart did it periodically). These things take time to flesh out and perfect.


I'm not claiming it's easy, but neither do I think it's solely (or even mostly) a product of skill. As I mentioned above, McCartney came up with the melody of Yesterday in a dream. So unless you're going to claim dreaming is a skill, I question as to how you could call the creation of that melody "skillful." Your guess is also wrong; I recognize there are some things in the creation of art that very much require skill, but some things which do not. Distinguishing between them is difficult precisely for the reasons Woodduck described in his response. I can speak to the difficulty in regards to poetry as well, which often involves a lot of sitting around and thinking about a particular line or stanza you're trying to write, waiting for just the right words to hit your brain. Much of that isn't, IMO, skill, it's putting yourself in a position to allow inspiration to hit and being ready to record it when it does.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

tdc said:


> _Some_ first year guitarists could play that solo if they had natural talent and practiced around 4 to 6 hours a day (or more) during that year. Saying _any_ first year guitarist could do it is in my opinion not true. I've taught guitar for over a decade and I have not encountered any students who reached that level of proficiency in one year. Gilmour is known for his bluesy style of bending and was influenced by Eric Clapton. To be able to acquire the ability to hit notes on big bends like that accurately is very difficult and most guitarists never achieve that ability - to the degree of players like that. Further, post-secondary institutions that focus on classical and jazz, don't put a lot of focus into bending strings. Many jazz and classical performers cannot do that kind of bending. Bending like that creates a lot of strain and wear and tear on the hands. Blues (though simple) is one of the most physically punishing styles of music to play. Players typically find as thin of strings as possible or down tune to avoid causing extensive damage to their hands over time.
> 
> Some players learn all the notes of a particular solo and then feel they can play that solo, when in reality the tone and feel they get in their presentation of those notes is no where near the tone and feel of the performer doing the original solo. Sometimes they cheat and also slide to certain notes rather than bending the strings. They may feel they have it right, but they aren't achieving the same tone that is created by the bend nor are they hitting the 'notes between the notes' or microtones that are achieved through bending.
> 
> ...


My first year I probably spent that much time practicing but I really don't think I possessed much natural talent; my playing eventually hit walls I never managed to overcome. As for bending, the accuracy might not be perfect, but even with small-ish hands I've never found it difficult with light-ish (09-10 gauge) strings. That may be because most of the guitarists I started emulating/practicing were all into that bluesy bending so it was always something I worked on (Angus Young was another early influence and he bends a ton). Yes, it's rough on the fingers at first (I was one of those "play until my fingers bled" types early on), but the calluses quickly build and take care of that. Point taken that many classical or jazz players might not be accustomed to such playing, though.

I absolutely agree that learning the notes isn't all there is to a solo, that nailing the tone and feel can be (often is) much more difficult. Gilmour's tone is especially elusive and I've had to make due over the years trying to emulate that big, open, single-coil strat sound with split humbuckers and various peddles; it's nearly impossible! Likewise, a song like Black in Black has another solo that's quite easy, but one I've never quite managed to match the "feel" of no matter how many times I've played it and tweaked my approach. Still, I think these details often come down less to "skill" and either gear (in the case of tone) or playing style (in the case of feel). Most guitarists of the highest technical skill can't emulate other guitarists well either; Stevie Ray Vaughan worshiped Hendrix, eg, but Stevie covering Hendrix still sounded like Stevie, and that was hardly a knock on his skill!


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

The only comment I can make is that a skilful performer can make a mediocre composition to sound great and a bad performer a great one to sound horrible.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

"Players typically find as thin of strings as possible or down tune to avoid causing extensive damage to their hands over time."

A professional musician friend of mine tunes up half a step, to match his voice better. He has a real southern blues style too. Makes me reach for harmonicas I normally never use!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

philoctetes said:


> "Players typically find as thin of strings as possible or down tune to avoid causing extensive damage to their hands over time."
> 
> A professional musician friend of mine tunes up half a step, to match his voice better. He has a real southern blues style too. Makes me reach for harmonicas I normally never use!


I was referring to electric guitar blues players who bend strings a lot. There are plenty of blues players who don't bend strings to the degree I was referring to. For example all acoustic guitar blues players, slide guitar blues etc.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm not claiming it's easy, but neither do I think it's solely (or even mostly) a product of skill. As I mentioned above, McCartney came up with the melody of Yesterday in a dream. So unless you're going to claim dreaming is a skill, I question as to how you could call the creation of that melody "skillful." Your guess is also wrong; I recognize there are some things in the creation of art that very much require skill, but some things which do not. Distinguishing between them is difficult precisely for the reasons Woodduck described in his response. I can speak to the difficulty in regards to poetry as well, which often involves a lot of sitting around and thinking about a particular line or stanza you're trying to write, waiting for just the right words to hit your brain. Much of that isn't, IMO, skill, it's putting yourself in a position to allow inspiration to hit and being ready to record it when it does.


Like in all the situations that have been discussed, you give some limited lip-service to skill, but end up very vague about where it does or doesn't apply. This isn't rocket science. And we're not talking about McCartney's dreams or poetry -btw, it's amazing to me that someone who questions almost everything, would take McCartney's dream story verbatim rather than as the sort of hyperbole entertainers are prone to.

There are always a few people who take these obscure, minority positions on almost any subject, but this one is particularly surprising. The fact that anyone would question the pure fact of original melodic invention and development being anything but an example of compositional skill held by the great classical music composers is beyond me.

And fwiw, the following from your previous post strikes me as from a philosophical exercise that a professor might ask students to hand in on the subject: 'People assume that classical music melodic creation is a skill. Take the opposite view from a philosophic point of view'.
_
'Among my concerns is that I think the kind of skill that's objectively quantifiable, the simple ability of a composer to do whatever it is that can be done, means very little in the final evaluation of music; while the final impact that creation has on listeners means a great deal, and it's very easy for listeners to project our feelings of greatness onto the "skill" of the composer. I also feel like many elements within music, like melody, rely far more on ephemeral inspiration than any cultivated skill.'_


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ Agree. It takes skill to make melody fit between bars at a certain pace, hitting the important notes, and taking out extraneous ones, all the while thinking about the harmony it will involve. If Paul got his melody to Yesterday in a dream, I suspect it was not fully worked out with the harmony, which he did afterwards and involves skill. Even if he had it all figured out, it was subconsciously worked out with skill.


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> A working class background didn't stop me from achieving a high level of attainment in music which makes me suspicious of your post. What about excellence (virtuosity) in every other conceivable field of endeavour and knowledge, are those achievements a manifestation of undemocratic opportunity too?


Yeah, it's a load of malarkey. Plenty of working class and poor people have achieved greatness and virtuosity. It's nothing but unsubstantiated hot air.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If it was easy, there would be millions of wannabe songwriters as successful as Martin, and there demonstrably is not. You've posted those videos before and I've debunked them before. Apparently, your memory is rather short.


Do you honestly think average modern pop music listeners today go through millions, or just hundreds of song-writers or singers to separate the chaff from the wheat and decide for themselves their favorite artists and favorite songs? They don't. Most of them are content listening only to stuff that gets played on the radio and that's the only stuff that corporate companies and broadcasting companies make investment on. I'll go re-read your old argument debunking those videos, but I remember that I was not convinced by it. Rather I think you haven't addressed the points raised in the videos fully. I'm still not convinced how modern pop music requires talent to write and how it can inspire future generations.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> Do you honestly think average modern pop music listeners today go through millions, or just hundreds of song-writers or singers to separate the chaff from the wheat...


It's a different ball game and hits are highly organized team efforts. Here's a *fascinating article* on how hits are made.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

KenOC said:


> It's a different ball game and hits are highly organized team efforts.


"highly organized team efforts" is a vague term, it can mean anything such as "sound engineering", "marketing", all kinds of stuff that don't really have much to do with "musical talent". "Good looks" matter for a pop musician today more than anything. I still think if Taylor Swift was butt-ugly, nobody would have cared about her.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I take it you didn't read the article!


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> .......Much of that isn't, IMO, skill, it's putting yourself in a position to allow inspiration to hit and being ready to record it when it does.


My take on this Eva is similar, however skill does play a role imv. Using technique (skill) to search for music is a well established practice.
One can on paper bend and twist, probe and extend motifs and initial ideas can be examined from all angles to even find harmony, scales, modes and a fresh harmonic language. By keeping oneself open to ideas and suggestions during this (skillful) process, one does encourage inspiration - perhaps sometimes a serendipitous inspiration - by in effect creating conditions mentally and practically to which inspiration can manifest itself, stimulating oneself in effect.

The skillful probing of material in this way reveals nascent, fertile territory that enthuses and encourages and inspires.
I suppose it goes without saying that in art music especially, there is no point in having a great idea if you don't have the skill to dress it up appropriately in order to present it in it's best light to the listener.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Heaven forbid anyone would do a little research before formulating broad opinions based on nothing more than 'I think so.' There is no doubt that these days so much of the pop music high on the charts are created for stars such as Taylor Swift using a formula almost guaranteed to produce the desired results. But that wasn't always true and it's still not true of a few pop artists who have their own following, but don't occupy the top 30 or sometimes anywhere near it.

Back in the day Carol King wrote almost all of her stuff. In fact, she started writing songs for others. Likewise, a lot of Joni Mitchell's stuff was original. The Beatles mostly wrote their own stuff, but increasingly the production was the work of others, sometimes bugging McCartney who preferred his own unplugged versions (particularly the Let It Be album)

And while I'm at it, I can't imagine anyone posting with a straight face something as frivolous and baseless as ' _
'Much of that isn't, IMO, skill, it's putting yourself in a position to allow inspiration to hit and being ready to record it when it does.'_

Edit: unnecessary comment in the 'moment of the heated'  removed.


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2019)

I think it's all "skill". The notion of some ineffable inspiration accounting for a substantial part of the creation of a successful composition is, IMO, still just a measure of skill - just not the overtly technical skill of putting "these sounds in this order."

"Back in the day" (whenever that was) there were song writers doing stuff _for _artists just as there are for some artists now. Even Carol King had collaborators. And if you do your research, you'll find singer/songwriters performing their own compositions now too.

What is overlooked (or scorned it seems in the case of that awful pop music that is just so inferior to high art) is the impact of collaboration on writing. Some writers work alone and they can claim the skills are all their own, but many produce work by starting with rough ideas and fleshing them out by working with others - band members, writers, producers, engineers....

Of course, this doesn't fit with the narrative preferred by some that the only art worthy of consideration is that inspired by the Ineffable and captured by the genius solo artist. I'd rather just listen to what I like, no matter who writes it or how it is produced.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

In the real world of pop music, first place may be worth millions of dollars. You can bet that the competing teams are leveraging every bit of "skill" they can, in every possible areas, to win that contest.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> I think it's all "skill". The notion of some ineffable inspiration accounting for a substantial part of the creation of a successful composition is, IMO, still just a measure of skill - just not the overtly technical skill of putting "these sounds in this order."................................


 There are moments, the "lucky finds" that Stravinsky refers to, when serendipity, chance, luck, will dictate and even determine a future course in the creative process. The right frame of mind is also necessary in order to be receptive to moments like this and for me at least that is dependant on a skillful knowledge, know-how of the possibilities. Skill encourages a willingness and freedom to be open (a bit like a concert pianist say, who never has to worry about getting the notes right because of his skill and can just concentrate on interpretation) and being open to finds ultimatley needs skill to render them with definition and form. 
On the other hand, I tend to agree that in music, a medium that creates its own internal logic, one can concentrate on the artifice and still produce meaningful work however I believe composers do acknowledge, even wait for, moments, the lucky finds, the inspiration if you will, especially if they come as a solution to an encounter with an intractable creative bottleneck.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

KenOC said:


> In the real world of pop music, first place may be worth millions of dollars. You can bet that the *competing teams* are leveraging every bit of "skill" they can, in every possible areas, to win that contest.


The current industry doesn't allow them equal chances and opportunities for success as the ones who've already dominated it.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> ^ Agree. It takes skill to make melody fit between bars at a certain pace, hitting the important notes, and taking out extraneous ones, all the while thinking about the harmony it will involve.


11:28




1:35


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

_Picasso's Incredible Childhood Paintings Reveal a Different Side of the Modern Artist:_
https://mymodernmet.com/picasso-early-work/

Picasso wasn't just doing whatever fk he wanted, in drawing all those grotesque paintings.
He upheld the "conventional traditions" and came up with his own new ways based on those traditions.
There is an old proverb in East Asia: 温故知新 "gain new insights through restudying old material."

The same can be said of Schoenberg in music for example (and pretty much every great composer in music history)









This is the line where I differentiate "real artists" from "mere entertainers", we can basically tell the "depth" of their craft by looking at what they have to say regarding this issue. I think.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

_"Jackson was not even a true Live performer- most of his concerts and TV appearances were MIMED
He could not read music or play instruments- as Bill Wolfer has confirmed"_


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> _"Jackson was not even a true Live performer- most of his concerts and TV appearances were MIMED
> He could not read music or play instruments- as Bill Wolfer has confirmed"_


And yet others 'confirm' that he could play - though not well - and nevertheless composed some of the best pop songs of the last 50 years.

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-incredible-way-michael-jackson-wrote-music-16799



> Rob Hoffman, sound engineer, describes the process (h/t Rhythm Of The Tide):
> "One morning MJ came in with a new song he had written overnight. We called in a guitar player, and Michael sang every note of every chord to him. "'Here's the first chord, first note, second note, third note. Here's the second chord first note, second note, third note', etc etc. We then witnessed him giving the most heartfelt and profound vocal performance, live in the control room through an SM57," says Hoffman.


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2019)

mikeh375 said:


> There are moments, the "lucky finds" that Stravinsky refers to, when serendipity, chance, luck, will dictate and even determine a future course in the creative process. The right frame of mind is also necessary in order to be receptive to moments like this and for me at least that is dependant on a skillful knowledge, know-how of the possibilities. Skill encourages a willingness and freedom to be open (a bit like a concert pianist say, who never has to worry about getting the notes right because of his skill and can just concentrate on interpretation) and being open to finds ultimatley needs skill to render them with definition and form.
> On the other hand, I tend to agree that in music, a medium that creates its own internal logic, one can concentrate on the artifice and still produce meaningful work however I believe composers do acknowledge, even wait for, moments, the lucky finds, the inspiration if you will, especially if they come as a solution to an encounter with an intractable creative bottleneck.


This is where we encounter a difficulty with what we mean by 'skill'. To my mind, 'skill' doesn't only refer to what might be called 'instructional skill' in the sense of something musically technical that can be taught/learned/improved. There are other 'skills', such as the capacity to reflect, to give time and space to thought processes, to give room to imagination and play, to persevere in the face of obstacles, to focus attention and not be distracted by the outside world, to capitalise on the 'lucky finds'.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> But Taylor Swift doesn't even write her own songs. They're all written by specialized song-writers like Max Martin...


 Typical misrepresentation and distortion. It's time to start fact-checking. 'Swift was the sole writer of her 2010 album Speak Now. It debuted at number one in the U.S., and the single "Mean" won two Grammy Awards. Her fourth album, Red (2012), yielded the successful singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". For her fifth album, the pop-focused 1989 (2014), she received three Grammys and became the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice. Its singles "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" reached number one in the U.S., Australia, and Canada. The first two made Swift the first woman in the Billboard Hot 100's history to succeed herself at the top spot. Her sixth album, Reputation (2017), and its lead single, "Look What You Made Me Do", topped the UK and U.S. charts; with the release of Reputation, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. Her seventh album, Lover (2019), spawned two U.S. number-two singles, "Me!" and "You Need to Calm Down".

She's a fine songwriter in her chosen genre, which you obviously don't appreciate, even if she also does songs by others, including Martin... It's called a fact-checking even if you don't care for her music in another of your toxic attacks on anything that you don't care for or understand... She has written her own songs, including an entire album.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> _"Jackson was not even a true Live performer- most of his concerts and TV appearances were MIMED
> He could not read music or play instruments- as Bill Wolfer has confirmed"_


Whatever Jackson's shortcomings were as a musician, I do not agree with these vicious, poisonous, generalized attacks on him or other Pop musicians in a spiteful, condescending manner. He was also a hell of a dancer/performer and wrote some of his own material. It was him singing on his own albums... Not all musicians can read and write music. As a jazz instrumentalist Charlie Parker-someone you would undoubtedly trash too-could not read or write music, but he changed the course of it after the Second World War and influenced modern jazz and countless other musicians. He was considered a genius... Beethoven took from Mozart. No one is totally original and exists in a vacuum. Jackson taking a movement from Elvis is so petty and trivial to criticize. Naturally, he had his influences or no one would ever learn from anyone else. Not to you, of course, but the fact is that he was a pop legend who contributed more to it than he took.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Anybody at the top of a very competitive field (eg, pop music) can be assumed to have loads of skill, though we may argue over what that necessary skillset may be. Michael Jackson was obviously multi-skilled, even though he might not have had the right skills to compose a decent string quartet.

As for "writing their own songs," a little care is called for. Even a minor adjustment to the lyrics by the lead singer gets a co-writing credit and associated monetary reward -- known in the industry as "change a word, get a third." Mostly the singer is the "face" of a talented and hardworking team where all have their roles to play. A lot of detail in *this article*.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Let's say the industry and media promote the songs Roomie create instantly or the Jon Lajoie songs (which I posted earlier) and people are "forced" to listen to them on the radio instead of stuff like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Would people be like "WTF is this stuff? Get Swift and Bieber back on the radio!"

I think the sole reason for Roomie and Lajoie's lack of popularity is their lack of exposure to the public. If they're given the same chances as Swift and Bieber, they'll make better and more interesting songs, get more popularity and love from the public.






So this is my answer to "What Role Does "Skill" Play When Evaluating Music" regarding modern pop music. I don't find any "musical talent or genius" in the kind of content today's major pop artists create. I consider them extremely overrated because in today's pop music, "popularity" has little to do with actual musical talent.

Search for any videos with titles like "pop music sucks" and look at the best comments in those videos, have you ever wondered why people are so critical about pop music these days? You can keep encouraging this "gradual death of pop" all you want. It almost looks as if you enjoy watching it die.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> Let's say the industry and media promote the songs Roomie create instantly or the Jon Lajoie songs (which I posted earlier) and people are "forced" to listen to them on the radio instead of stuff like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Would people be like "WTF is this stuff? Get Swift and Bieber back on the radio!"
> 
> I think the sole reason for Roomie and Lajoie's lack of popularity is their lack of exposure to the public. If they're given the same chances as Swift and Bieber, they'll make better and more interesting songs, get more popularity and love from the public.
> ...
> ...


 You didn't correct your post that Taylor Swift didn't write any of her songs... If you were interested in understanding Pop-which you're obviously not-your opinion would be worth something. But you essentially condemn the entire genre when the quality within it can greatly vary. But what is true is that sometimes the better material does not get on the air because there is a certain control of the radio stations behind the scenes by the record companies who influence them (which is pointed out in the Ken Burns outstanding series on Country Music). So that is very true and you make a very good point. But speaking only for myself, your views have little meaning when you have never pointed out what you consider to be _good_ Pop or Rock or perhaps anything that's not Mozart. _Music itself is bigger than any one genre_ and classical music only represents about 3% of the population at the most. What about the rest of the 97%? What about the rest of humanity and what they find in music that's not classical? I suggest that they're finding something meaningful in it just like those who listen to the classics, at least for where they are in their development. Their tastes can change but not when one genre is unmercifully condemned and poisoned. Some of us are interested in music as a whole and how it affects people, starting with ourselves, and not just the tiny 3%, because we understand that skill, talent and genius can be found anywhere in unexpected places, and sometimes it can be just as moving as the classics because of its energy, rhythm, or soul.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> But speaking only for myself, your views have little meaning when you have never pointed out what you consider to be _good_ Pop or Rock or perhaps anything that's not Mozart.


I'm not sure what you're saying, I consider JS Bach to be greater than Mozart and the worst stuff Schubert wrote is still better in quality than today's pop music.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Like in all the situations that have been discussed, you give some limited lip-service to skill, but end up very vague about where it does or doesn't apply. This isn't rocket science. And we're not talking about McCartney's dreams or poetry -btw, it's amazing to me that someone who questions almost everything, would take McCartney's dream story verbatim rather than as the sort of hyperbole entertainers are prone to.
> 
> There are always a few people who take these obscure, minority positions on almost any subject, but this one is particularly surprising. The fact that anyone would question the pure fact of original melodic invention and development being anything but an example of compositional skill held by the great classical music composers is beyond me.
> 
> ...


You can call it "lip service" if you want, I call it being skeptical about what so many take on faith without any kind of rational reflection of parsing. You say it isn't rocket science, yet you offer no attempts at clarification either, and then shed doubt on something like McCartney's "dream story" without any actual evidence.

I have no idea why you'd think this is either a minority or surprising position. As far as I know, there is no "poll" that's been done to determine what anyone (audiences, composers, artists of any kind) perceive the role of skill VS inspiration to be in art. I've read plenty of artists who've discussed their art, and their perspectives vary greatly, with some mostly crediting inspiration and others crediting a cultivated skill.

Actually, arguing the opposite side just for the sake of it (playing devil's advocate) is a great way to help one establish their own views. By arguing any given side you're in a better position to become aware of the flaws in the arguments for that side, and better able to side with the side with the strongest evidence/arguments. So I'm not opposed to "arguing just to argue" as that process can actually help one form their actual views. This is genuinely a subject I'm undecided on--I have some thoughts/feelings on the matter, but I'm not insistent that they're absolutely true--which is rather different than the subjective/objective arguments that go on around here.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> Do you honestly think average modern pop music listeners today go through millions, or just hundreds of song-writers or singers to separate the chaff from the wheat and decide for themselves their favorite artists and favorite songs? They don't. Most of them are content listening only to stuff that gets played on the radio and that's the only stuff that corporate companies and broadcasting companies make investment on. I'll go re-read your old argument debunking those videos, but I remember that I was not convinced by it. Rather I think you haven't addressed the points raised in the videos fully. I'm still not convinced how modern pop music requires talent to write and how it can inspire future generations.


First, way to completely ignore my post that corrected many of your factual errors.

Second, I don't know what the "average pop music listener today" does. The landscape of how people consume pop music has changed drastically from the days when radio dominated what was heard. These days, sites like YouTube, where people are recommended music based on what they've already searched for/listened to, is as much a factor as anything. Someone like Justin Bieber became a star on YouTube long before he was a pop megastar. Same for Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey. YouTube is very much a grassroots approach to music promotion because if people like what they hear then they'll share it with others, and if people keep liking/sharing then it becomes a "viral sensation." There's little room for labels/corporations to dictate what people hear or don't hear on such streaming platforms. Even with someone like Taylor Swift, she was having tremendous success long before she was being heavily promoted. Her first album, that spawned several hits, was released by a small, independent label called Big Machine, and it was people calling into radio stations requesting her songs that helped promote her. She made the success of that label, not the other way around (and literally everyone who worked there would say the same thing).

As for the rest, the proof that pop music requires talent is in the pudding. There's millions of people trying to be successful in that field, and there's only a few that are actually doing it. It's not easy writing hits, no matter how much promotion one has from labels, and the people making the big bucks are those that are able to consistently do it.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Heaven forbid anyone would do a little research before formulating broad opinions based on nothing more than 'I think so.' There is no doubt that these days so much of the pop music high on the charts are created for stars such as Taylor Swift using a formula almost guaranteed to produce the desired results.


Yes, heaven forbid anyone do a little research or they might learn things like the fact that there is no music "created for Taylor Swift" (she writes her own stuff), or that the notion that there's some "formula for chart success" is complete and utter nonsense.



DaveM said:


> And while I'm at it, I can't imagine anyone posting with a straight face something as frivolous and baseless as ' _
> 'Much of that isn't, IMO, skill, it's putting yourself in a position to allow inspiration to hit and being ready to record it when it does.'_


And while I'm at it, I can't imagine anyone posting with a straight face something as frivolous and baseless as stating something's frivolous and baseless without actually responding to it.

Also, why did you ignore mikeh375 who said the same thing I did, just in much greater detail? https://www.talkclassical.com/63185-what-role-does-skill-7.html#post1706645


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> She's a fine songwriter in her chosen genre, which you obviously don't appreciate, *even if she also does songs by others, including Martin*... It's called a fact-checking even if you don't care for her music in another of your toxic attacks on anything that you don't care for or understand... She has written her own songs, including an entire album.


As far as I know, she's never done a song "by" anyone else. Martin has spoken of her collaboration with Swift, saying that she comes in with completed lyrics/melodies and he mostly just helps with the production. Her first collaborator, Liz Rose, said the same thing: "(My sessions with Swift were) some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks."

For those actually familiar with both Swift and Martin I actually think it's pretty easy and obvious to hear what impact he had on her work. Stuff like the marching-band rhythm and horns of Shake it Off are classic Martin-isms; but the same could be said for other producers/co-writers she's worked with like Jack Antonoff, who also has a pretty identifiable production style. Let's also not forget that even George Martin is often considered "the fifth Beatle." Producers do have a lot of influence over the artists they work with, especially when those artists are receptive to outside input.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> Let's say the industry and media promote the songs Roomie create instantly or the Jon Lajoie songs (which I posted earlier) and people are "forced" to listen to them on the radio instead of stuff like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Would people be like "WTF is this stuff? Get Swift and Bieber back on the radio!"
> 
> I think the sole reason for Roomie and Lajoie's lack of popularity is their lack of exposure to the public. If they're given the same chances as Swift and Bieber, they'll make better and more interesting songs, get more popularity and love from the public.


This is a nice theory, but history (and practice) has shown differently. There have been a ton of acts that were groomed to be successes and given all the promotion and backing in the world and failed because the public just don't like their music. Further, labels and artists have no reason to play favorites with songwriters. If a songwriter submits a song and the label/artist likes it, they're not going to turn it down just because it's from some unknown. There was a time, after all, when nobody knew who the hell Max Martin was. Likewise, if Martin's songs started flopping then labels/artists wouldn't be so keen on hiring/working with him. As far as music goes, you don't get closer to an objective meritocracy than a genre that's measured by financial success.



hammeredklavier said:


> Search for any videos with titles like "pop music sucks" and look at the best comments in those videos, *have you ever wondered why people are so critical about pop music these days? *You can keep encouraging this "gradual death of pop" all you want. It almost looks as if you enjoy watching it die.


I don't wonder, I know: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/favorite-songs.html

Basically, most people's* musical tastes are formed in adolescence when the chemicals their brains are producing perceive everything related to the formation of their identity to be extremely important, and this includes music. The vast majority of casual music listeners end up loving whatever music they loved as a teenager, and then proceed to complain about the music of the next generations. This phenomenon has been consistently observed throughout history in regards to all music. You can find contemporary reviews bashing Elvish, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, pretty much any artist you can think of.

So if you agree with this: "Pop music is just terrible! It's crass and degenerate and everything wrong with capitalist society, just feeding on the stupidity of the masses"

You're basically Theodor Adorno, but he was writing about jazz in the 40s, rather than pop.

*By "most people" I'm excluding those for whom music becomes a passion and are open to finding new, great music long past their teen years.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

KenOC said:


> It's a different ball game and hits are highly organized team efforts. Here's a *fascinating article* on how hits are made.


It depends on the hits, but I'm not sure why people look on the information in that article as scandalous or a "charade." The prioritization of the artist/songwriter was largely an invention of the 60s with the popularity of Dylan and The Beatles. Before then, it was standard that artists/singers and songwriters were separate entities, each appreciated on their own merits. Much of today's pop (not all of it, though) just a return to that pre-60s paradigm, with the addition that producers, who are often the songwriters, are just as crucial in the overall effort.

Also, the information of who writes the songs is freely available to anyone who bothers to read liner notes or look up the songs on Wikipedia or any other site. It's not like this information is hidden or hushed. I've known about Martin, eg, since as far back as The Backstreet Boys. Over the years I've often even played a game where I've tried to pick his (and others') songs out on the radio/online before knowing who wrote a song. I actually think it's interesting to hear how artists' sounds are influenced by such things. With someone like Swift it's typically just a refinement of what she was already doing; other times an artist never produces an individual identity because they're totally dictated and dominated by their songwriters/producers (this is Ariana Grande's problem; she sounds like whomever is writing/producing for her).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, heaven forbid anyone do a little research or they might learn things like the fact that there is no music "created for Taylor Swift" (she writes her own stuff), or that the notion that there's some "formula for chart success" is complete and utter nonsense.


Do some research yourself. When Taylor Swift started out, she wrote her own songs, but with success, she now gets a lot of help. She gets credit for many of the songs on albums, but she is being assisted on many, if not all of them. This is the way it works with many famous singer-songwriters now who are touring and putting out albums.

https://modernmusicmaker.com/blog/who-writes-taylor-swift-songs


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Do some research yourself. When Taylor Swift started out, she wrote her own songs, but with success, she now gets a lot of help. She gets credit for many of the songs on albums, but she is being assisted on many, if not all of them. This the way it works with many famous singer-songwriters now who are touring and putting out albums.
> 
> https://modernmusicmaker.com/blog/who-writes-taylor-swift-songs


First, you had originally said music was "created for Taylor Swift." That was the claim I was disputing. I obviously know she collaborates as I've discussed it previously, so your "she gets a lot of help" sounds like a desperate attempt at moving the goalposts.

Second, what does "gets a lot of help" mean? Max Martin said she came to him with the lyrics and melodies, he just helped with production (Liz Rose said the same thing, but with "editing" replacing "production"). Is this "a lot of help?" How is that any different from what George Martin did with The Beatles? That article provides no new information I didn't already have by looking at the writing credits on her songs (and then looking those people up on Wikipedia). This in no way tells us how much each contributed. I'm going off quotes from those involved, as well as videos and audio clips that have actually documented her writing/production process, which tells us much more than writing credits.

For those actually interested in facts rather than their preconceived biases: 













To avoid flooding the board with videos, you can also look up "Taylor Swift making of a song" on YouTube and there are pretty good documents of how many of the songs on Reputation were written. I'll post one just as an example:





I like this because you can clearly see who's responsible for what. If this video is indicative of their relationship, I think it shows that Swift is at least 70-80% responsible for the final product. Even with the stuff that Martin actually writes, like the keyboard riff, it required Swift saying "I like that" before it made it into the song. This is basically Swift playing the role that a director might on a film.

This isn't the way it works for all other pop artists, of course. Martin has definitely written songs, by himself, that he's then sold to labels and artists where the artists had very little, if any, creative input.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

An interesting example: Here's a song with words and music by my daughter-in-law. Visual track by my son. But the producer made it into something that sounds exciting and polished. Brazilian house music, more or less.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'll post one just as an example:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This video proves more how banal the musical material is to me. This kind of Pop music is all in the production to make it sound more interesting.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> This video proves more how banal the musical material is to me. This kind of Pop music is all in the production to make it sound more interesting.


Different strokes. I still like the vocal hook despite the simplicity. Yes, production makes a big difference, but the production is part of the writing and creative process (even artistry). We can blame The Beatles for their influence in turning the studio into a musical instrument in itself. Even beyond that, pop music has always had "sound" as a crucial aspect of its presentation as that's often how genres and sub-genres form; not based on underlying musical material, but how it's rendered sonically. I'd also argue that matching sound (in the production) to lyrics and melody is a skill (or perhaps "art") in itself, one I find Swift is better at than most contemporaries (or even predecessors).


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I feel like this thread has really gotten away from the topic at hand (I never planned on having to mount a defense for Taylor Swift!), so let me bring it back by offering an example from a different medium I feel addresses some of my concerns. Others have done similar things with painting, but I'm more familiar with poetry having actually studied it. So here's William Carlos Williams's Red Wheelbarrow:



> so much depends
> upon
> 
> a red wheel
> ...


At first it would be hard to define where the skill is in this, despite the fact that it's been so anthologized and is one of the more famous poems of the 20th century. In my own study one of the assignments was analyzing this poem, and while I don't have my original I copied some aspects of it elsewhere. Here's what I had to say (sorry if it reads rough as it was taken from a discussion of form in free verse):


> Here, "barrow" and "water" transform the words that came before-not "wheel" but "wheelbarrow," not "rain" but "rain water". This is contrasted with the first two lines whose break/followup is predictable, as "upon" would logically follow the phrase "so much depends." So the first two lines give us a sense of predictability, of sureness at the natural order of things. This is immediately destroyed in the next two "stanzas," while the final doesn't even pretend towards predictability as we have no way of knowing what might follow "white," as it's clearly an adjective unlike wheel and rain. Even the scattershot rhythm keeps trying to find the meter, a predictable "home" that it never can quite achieve. So you do have this tremendous balance of sameness and pattern on one level (each second line is one word, two syllables, each opening line is three words, that only modulates between four and three syllables), but unpredictability and "imperfection" on another...
> 
> One thing that makes WCW's poem so extraordinary is its compressed bathos that doesn't make itself obvious. Those first two opening lines have a grand, ominous quality about them. "So much depends/ upon," so the reader thinks "wow, whatever follows is going to be monumentally important since SO MUCH depends on it." The next line starts to fulfill this promise, "a red wheel." Now that's an interesting image as wheels ARE important, and red makes us think of blood and urgency and all kinds of things. Maybe we're going to get one of Blake's wheels that drive the universe. But, no, it's just a red wheelbarrow. Well, that's an odd thing for so much to depend on… maybe we'll find out why it's so crucial. But, no again, all we get is more information about it, that it's "glazed with rain / water," that it's "beside the white / chickens." Every subsequent stanza, instead of expanding outward to something grandly important, like the opening lines make us think, contracts inwards towards more and smaller details. The final stanza goes outward a little, but only to tell us that it's surrounded by chickens, which couldn't a less important thing for something that so much depends on.


Now, it would be possible for me to take this analysis--which is mostly of objective facts about the poem, despite a few instances of interpretation of tone via those objective features--and say that WCW was "skillful" in composing it, as if all of this is what he had thought about and intended... but maybe it wasn't? Maybe all this is is me finding patterns in chaos, or maybe WCW was just interested in experimenting with a form that relied on word count (3/1) and the other elements were just accidents. I'm not saying that's the case, I'm saying I/we can't know.

This is not to say we can't ever reasonably infer that skill was involved. I think of instances where many artists in all genres have tried to do things and failed while a few succeeded. In those cases, I think most of the time the difference is largely due to skill, though we can also pick out instances where it's not (or not entirely). I've offered the examples of writing melodies. Can skill be used to sculpt melodies after the "inspired" moment where the melody hits your mind? Yes; but can we distinguish which is more important between the initial inspiration and the skillful sculpting afterward? This is the difficulty. It's not a dismissal of skill, it's a recognition that many important things that we value in the arts can't be reduced to skill alone. The degree is what's to be debated.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> .. I'd also argue that matching sound (in the production) to lyrics and melody is a skill (or perhaps "art") in itself, one I find Swift is better at than most contemporaries (or even predecessors).


Oh now, matching sound to lyrics and melody is a skill, but melody '_relies more on ephemeral inspiration than any cultivated skill.'_ You really don't have any consistent views on these subjects do you. It's all about arguing for the sake of arguing (as you've already admitted you have no problem with).



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Among my concerns is that I think the kind of skill that's objectively quantifiable, the simple ability of a composer to do whatever it is that can be done, means very little in the final evaluation of music; while the final impact that creation has on listeners means a great deal, and it's very easy for listeners to project our feelings of greatness onto the "skill" of the composer. *I also feel like many elements within music, like melody, rely far more on ephemeral inspiration than any cultivated skill.*


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Oh now, matching sound to lyrics and melody is a skill, but melody '_relies more on ephemeral inspiration than any cultivated skill.'_ You really don't have any consistent views on these subjects do you. It's all about arguing for the sake of arguing (as you've already admitted you have no problem with).


A melody can just hit your mind, and so can a production idea; but putting them together would seem to necessitate a conscious choice, would it not?

You accuse me of not having any "consistent views on these subjects" like it's a bad thing. I'm open to having my mind changed. In the meantime I'm arguing to figure out what my mind is. Is that not more admirable than beginning with your mind made up and refusing to be moved by evidence or good arguments to the contrary?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> You accuse me of not having any "consistent views on these subjects" like it's a bad thing. I'm open to having my mind changed. In the meantime I'm arguing to figure out what my mind is. Is that not more admirable than beginning with your mind made up and refusing to be moved by evidence or good arguments to the contrary?


Actually that is one of the benefits and utilities and fun aspects of posting on TC. It's a form of working out in one's mind the outlines and limits and structures of one's own thinking--hammering away at one's notions like a blacksmith at the forge or shaping like a potter at the wheel. Ideas are reinforced, or found wanting or in need of strengthening here and there.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I feel like this thread has really gotten away from the topic at hand (I never planned on having to mount a defense for Taylor Swift!), so let me bring it back by offering an example from a different medium I feel addresses some of my concerns. Others have done similar things with painting, but I'm more familiar with poetry having actually studied it. So here's William Carlos Williams's Red Wheelbarrow:
> 
> At first it would be hard to define where the skill is in this, despite the fact that it's been so anthologized and is one of the more famous poems of the 20th century. In my own study one of the assignments was analyzing this poem, and while I don't have my original I copied some aspects of it elsewhere. Here's what I had to say (sorry if it reads rough as it was taken from a discussion of form in free verse): Now, it would be possible for me to take this analysis--which is mostly of objective facts about the poem, despite a few instances of interpretation of tone via those objective features--and say that WCW was "skillful" in composing it, as if all of this is what he had thought about and intended... but maybe it wasn't? Maybe all this is is me finding patterns in chaos, or maybe WCW was just interested in experimenting with a form that relied on word count (3/1) and the other elements were just accidents. I'm not saying that's the case, I'm saying I/we can't know.
> 
> This is not to say we can't ever reasonably infer that skill was involved. I think of instances where many artists in all genres have tried to do things and failed while a few succeeded. In those cases, I think most of the time the difference is largely due to skill, though we can also pick out instances where it's not (or not entirely). I've offered the examples of writing melodies. Can skill be used to sculpt melodies after the "inspired" moment where the melody hits your mind? Yes; but can we distinguish which is more important between the initial inspiration and the skillful sculpting afterward? This is the difficulty. It's not a dismissal of skill, it's a recognition that many important things that we value in the arts can't be reduced to skill alone. The degree is what's to be debated.


Skill in Classical Poetry is more obvious than in Modernist (or especially Postmodern) poetry, anyone can string a few words together and attach some kind of meaning. Its construction may not so apparent with so many variables. Analogy in music is skill in tonal music is much more apparent than in serial music. In chance/aleatoric music, the skill required is clearly less. Same applies to a Rembrandt compared with abstract painting, no matter what kind of meanings may be associated with the latter. I say it takes more skill to express a clear idea or theme than to leave something in ambiguity. I see some skill in the WCW poem (to me the meaning is clear), but not the extent of say John Keats.

I like the imagery of the red wheel barrow poem, not just painting a picture of a farm, but also expressing the importance of the wheel barrow (that fact it's red is just a detail) to the livelihood of the farmer/gardener, in so few words. That takes skill. I also have some of WCW's translations of Classical Chinese poetry. It is the same sort of concept / technique.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> A melody can just hit your mind, and so can a production idea; but putting them together would seem to necessitate a conscious choice, would it not?
> 
> You accuse me of not having any "consistent views on these subjects" like it's a bad thing. I'm open to having my mind changed. In the meantime I'm arguing to figure out what my mind is. Is that not more admirable than beginning with your mind made up and refusing to be moved by evidence or good arguments to the contrary?


That means that when you are arguing a point with someone as you frequently are, you may not really believe what you're arguing, you may be arguing just to figure out what you really believe. This is useful information. Ongoing, I will find it hard to take anything you argue seriously because it is likely coming from a mind that is unsure about the position being taken.

I would also add that 'arguing for the sake of arguing' is unfair to other people. You're just playing with them, calling into question their views when you don't really have fixed views of your own.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> That means that when you are arguing a point with someone as you frequently are, you may not really believe what you're arguing, you may be arguing just to figure out what you really believe. This is useful information. Ongoing, I will find it hard to take anything you argue seriously because it is likely coming from a mind that is unsure about the position being taken.
> 
> I would also add that 'arguing for the sake of arguing' is unfair to other people. You're just playing with them, calling into question their views when you don't really have fixed views of your own.


Are you arguing to change somebody else's mind or view? Or are you arguing to reinforce your own position in your own mind? The point of discussion, or part of the point, is to discuss, to have an exchange of views. Consider the framers of the US Constitution. Minds changed on both sides of any issue. Better to take your interlocutor's position at face value and work with it than to start wondering as a side issue whether at any given moment they might have changed their mind, and might change it again. It could happen, and why not?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Are you arguing to change somebody else's mind or view? Or are you arguing to reinforce your own position in your own mind? The point of discussion, or part of the point, is to discuss, to have an exchange of views. Consider the framers of the US Constitution. Minds changed on both sides of any issue. Better to take your interlocutor's position at face value and work with it than to start wondering as a side issue whether at any given moment they might have changed their mind, and might change it again. It could happen, and why not?


Well, thanks for the lesson professor, but that's not the point. When have you, of all people, argued to reinforce your own position in your own mind? Arguing for the sake of arguing or arguing to figure out your own position is not discussing or exchanging views.

I argue points where I am already sure of my position and am pointing out where (I think) the other person is wrong. That means that I have already thought out what my position is and will be consistent as much as possible on the subject elsewhere. Btw, given your manner of arguing in groups, you are a fine one to be preaching the above to me.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Swift's Bad Blood sounds good to me - Ryan Adam's version sounds great.


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## Guest (Sep 27, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Arguing for the sake of arguing or arguing to figure out your own position is not discussing or exchanging views.


Yes, it is, but so what? We all have our own approaches (and motives) to discussion here. You prefer certainty and the absolute. I prefer ambiguity and the relative (unless I'm being dogmatic). hammeredklavier prefers soapboxing about pop and the overrated Beatles. All variations must be endured (except when they breach the ToS).



Phil loves classical said:


> Skill in Classical Poetry is more obvious than in Modernist (or especially Postmodern) poetry, anyone can string a few words together and attach some kind of meaning. Its construction may not so apparent with so many variables. Analogy in music is skill in tonal music is much more apparent than in serial music. In chance/aleatoric music, the skill required is clearly less. Same applies to a Rembrandt compared with abstract painting, no matter what kind of meanings may be associated with the latter. I say it takes more skill to express a clear idea or theme than to leave something in ambiguity. I see some skill in the WCW poem (to me the meaning is clear), but not the extent of say John Keats.


You're happy to quantify 'skill', but not to define it and, by implication, claim that Keats is better than WCW. This is like some fantasy card game that arbitrarily assigns skill levels to wizards and warriors. You might need to get your hands dirty by showing us an example from Keats' oeuvre and compare and contrast with _The Red Wheelbarrow_. I suspect that all you will be able to demonstrate is that they were two different poets, writing poems in very different ways for different purposes.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> This is where we encounter a difficulty with what we mean by 'skill'. To my mind, 'skill' doesn't only refer to what might be called 'instructional skill' in the sense of something musically technical that can be taught/learned/improved. *There are other 'skills', such as the capacity to reflect, to give time and space to thought processes, to give room to imagination and play, to persevere in the face of obstacles, to focus attention and not be distracted by the outside world, to capitalise on the 'lucky finds'.*


I see what you mean about definitions. One could also call those essential traits you've noted above _experience_, acquired from familiarity with skillful artifice (in the case of a creative artist that is). Instinct honed by study and practice if you will. We can all drift off and fantasise - it's obviously a natural proclivity - but as we are talking about a specific reason for doing so here, one embarked on with exploratory intent, then perhaps imagination, play and more pertinent perhaps, focus, could be considered as a complimentary skill set to artifice.

I would suggest also that the imagination, having been given free reign, is nonetheless partly answerable to technique for if there is no technique, there is no solid ground to leap off and invent. (I'm just talking about concert/art music btw, not pop music).


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> Yes, it is, but so what? We all have our own approaches (and motives) to discussion here. You prefer certainty and the absolute. I prefer ambiguity and the relative (unless I'm being dogmatic). hammeredklavier prefers soapboxing about pop and the overrated Beatles. All variations must be endured (except when they breach the ToS).
> 
> You're happy to quantify 'skill', but not to define it and, by implication, claim that Keats is better than WCW. This is like some fantasy card game that arbitrarily assigns skill levels to wizards and warriors. You might need to get your hands dirty by showing us an example from Keats' oeuvre and compare and contrast with _The Red Wheelbarrow_. I suspect that all you will be able to demonstrate is that they were two different poets, writing poems in very different ways for different purposes.


Not saying better (not falling for that one haha), only that the skill is more obvious in rhyme and meter poetry over free verse or prose, as I already said when the latter's construction may not be so apparent. I think it is safe to say that the skill in this poem by Pound is less obvious than any of Shakespeare's sonnets. Is it more profound? Could be (I think so). But I think is undeniably less time consuming and easier to write.

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough."

Similarly take Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn and compare with the apparent skill of the Red Wheel Barrow. Won't say more than that.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Skills in literature are easy to identify for those with a keen eye. And grading them as one would powers of wizards and warriors is actually feasible if skills are identified as separate, researchable identities. The trick is to not judge the artist, but the particular work, and only infer comparative _suggestions _about artists themselves, with confidence based on how many of their works have been so far analyzed, and how large is the database of other works to which their are compared.

The best writers I have ever encountered were James Joyce, Cyprian Norwid, and George Meredith. Their texts have qualities in places where other writers' don't even have places. Check them out before rashly disagreeing.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Happy to check them out but I think you need to be more specific about what I should be looking for. I confess to being sceptical about your claim that we will all come up with the same assessment of the level of skill used by these writers. But it is always best to have an open mind.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> That means that when you are arguing a point with someone as you frequently are, you may not really believe what you're arguing, you may be arguing just to figure out what you really believe. This is useful information. Ongoing, I will find it hard to take anything you argue seriously because it is likely coming from a mind that is unsure about the position being taken.
> 
> I would also add that 'arguing for the sake of arguing' is unfair to other people. You're just playing with them, calling into question their views when you don't really have fixed views of your own.


Tell me if I'm wrong, but the thrust of your post implies that you no longer choose to dialog with EY because EY might have evolving or sometimes inconsistent views. Are people then to swear an oath that the positions they hold are ones they have held for eternity and that they pledge never to change their minds? I have espoused all sorts of things over a lifetime, and it is through both reflection and discussion that I--and most of us--get to where we are.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

One of the main reasons I participate in this forum is the chance to learn ... and change my mind as a result. I tend to walk away from threads that become adversarial.


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## Guest (Sep 28, 2019)

mikeh375 said:


> I would suggest also that the imagination, having been given free reign, is nonetheless partly answerable to technique for if there is no technique, there is no solid ground to leap off and invent. (I'm just talking about concert/art music btw, not pop music).


Why not pop?



Phil loves classical said:


> Not saying better (not falling for that one haha), only that *the skill *is more obvious in rhyme and meter poetry over free verse or prose,


This is where we need greater precision. The use of particular forms, meters, rhythms, rhymes are the skills - plural - that need to be identified and examined. It's not sufficient to use 'skill' as some undifferentiated whole.

I agree that rhyme and meter are more visible skills than, say, imagery. I also agree that poets drawing on traditional forms - such as Keats' use of the ode - can showcase a particular skill set. But does that mean that the only valid poetry is that which conforms to narrow rules? That only the ode, the sonnet, the epic (and the skills required to write them) are to be given house-room as masterpieces?

Debussy was clearly a rubbish composer as he sought ways to express himself musically without writing traditional symphonies - though it's noticeable that he too couldn't escape the inclination to paly with traditional forms. It seems inevitable that once composers could see they could bend the rules, then break them and still write valid music, that others would roam far and wide from what had been established previously. It certainly makes it more difficult to "spot the skill", especially if one has decided one doesn't like a piece before attempting to analyse it.



Fabulin said:


> Skills in literature are easy to identify for those with a keen eye. And grading them as one would powers of wizards and warriors is actually feasible *if skills are identified as separate, researchable identities.*


Yes - see my response to Phil.

Before judging how skills have been used, however, it's essential to ask to what end is the artist using their skills. Doubtless there are poets from more recent times who have used competition to hone their skills, just as the Romantics competed to write sonnets in order to get better at writing...sonnets.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> Why not pop?..................


Indeed, why not MacL. I was just being specific to what I know best, I do however suspect that some pop artists would lose an edge if they embarked on learning more about composing technique. I for one am grateful that the likes of the Beatles had the sort of gift that needs no instruction, the sort of gift that is rarely bestowed, able to find its own distinctive way.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> This is where we need greater precision. The use of particular forms, meters, rhythms, rhymes are the skills - plural - that need to be identified and examined. It's not sufficient to use 'skill' as some undifferentiated whole.
> 
> I agree that rhyme and meter are more visible skills than, say, imagery. I also agree that poets drawing on traditional forms - such as Keats' use of the ode - can showcase a particular skill set. But does that mean that the only valid poetry is that which conforms to narrow rules? That only the ode, the sonnet, the epic (and the skills required to write them) are to be given house-room as masterpieces?
> 
> Debussy was clearly a rubbish composer as he sought ways to express himself musically without writing traditional symphonies - though it's noticeable that he too couldn't escape the inclination to paly with traditional forms. It seems inevitable that once composers could see they could bend the rules, then break them and still write valid music, that others would roam far and wide from what had been established previously. It certainly makes it more difficult to "spot the skill", especially if one has decided one doesn't like a piece before attempting to analyse it.


I'm saying if and when the meaning or its development becomes less clear cut and more subject to interpretation like the Red Wheel Barrow or the Pound poem (which it often does in modern or postmodern poetry), its skill is less easy to appreciate, which is not that different from what you're saying. So sure there could be masterpieces, though probably harder for many to agree on. Traditional forms have more to fall back on other than the development of meaning: the structure, use of rhyme, rhythm. Its a move toward less entropy.

My analogy in music is the move toward atonal music. I don't believe Debussy is a good example, since his music has great order, clear harmonic patterns. I would say Schoenberg is a better example as the move toward less entropy. The construction (rhythms, harmony) is more loose.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> One of the main reasons I participate in this forum is the chance to learn ... and change my mind as a result. I tend to walk away from threads that become adversarial.


Another reason I will walk away from a discussions is that the posts becomes so esoteric I have not idea what the members are talking about


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Skill in Classical Poetry is more obvious than in Modernist (or especially Postmodern) poetry, anyone can string a few words together and attach some kind of meaning. Its construction may not so apparent with so many variables. Analogy in music is skill in tonal music is much more apparent than in serial music. In chance/aleatoric music, the skill required is clearly less. Same applies to a Rembrandt compared with abstract painting, no matter what kind of meanings may be associated with the latter. I say it takes more skill to express a clear idea or theme than to leave something in ambiguity. I see some skill in the WCW poem (to me the meaning is clear), but not the extent of say John Keats.
> 
> I like the imagery of the red wheel barrow poem, not just painting a picture of a farm, but also expressing the importance of the wheel barrow (that fact it's red is just a detail) to the livelihood of the farmer/gardener, in so few words. That takes skill. I also have some of WCW's translations of Classical Chinese poetry. It is the same sort of concept / technique.


Rather than saying "skill" is more apparent/obvious in classic poetry/tonal music than in modern poetry/atonal music, what I'd say is that the bare minimum of competency is more apparent. In tonal music and classic poetry there are a few basic "rules" to be followed, and one can objectively see if one has followed them; in classic poetry that includes things like meter, rhyme, and form; in tonal music that includes things like harmony, development, and form. When you take away these rules, it becomes more difficult to detect even mere competency because it's often immediately unclear whether one has created new forms, rules, and challenges for themselves, or if they've just randomly thrown words/notes at a page and called it a day. However, I think judging actual skill in either is equally difficult, and that, at least in writing poetry, the difficulty in writing well in each is uniquely difficult.

Classic poetry can be "difficult" in the sense that there are set standards one must comply with; you have to make the meter work, you have to figure out how to get rhymes to fall at the ends of lines, you have to be able to fit the complete idea into whatever fixed form you're working with. However, it's also possible to look at these rules as making things easier precisely because it limits your options. You aren't trying to sift between an unlimited amount of options, but rather are selecting between a few that are pre-chosen because of whatever form you've chosen to work in. Yet the ability to achieve these standards just speaks of a base-level competency, not great skill. In classic poetry I'd actually say "skill" is more judged in knowing when and how to creatively divert from these standards, as it's precisely through the (temporary) breaking or disrupting of form that a poet can achieve certain effects above and beyond the mere pleasing "music" of regular meter and rhyme (Pope wrote about many of the ways to achieve this in his Essay on Criticism). On the other hand, it's also possible to see any given diversion as a flaw--and Ben Johnson thought as much about John Donne, saying he should be "hung" for not keeping the meter.

Free verse is the exact opposite. Yes, it's possible to write free verse by just writing in complete sentences
and then randomly
breaking up the line
and calling it a
day,
but it's also pretty obvious when you're doing this. To write good free verse demands one consider every choice one makes carefully: why break the line here? Why adopt this rhythm here? Or even HOW to establish and divert from rhythmic patterns? Where to break stanzas? Writing free verse gives you no guidelines and thus you're tasked with considering every possible option on its own. WH Auden thought free verse difficult because, paraphrased, one must have a "perfect ear" in knowing where/how to break lines. So while in classic poetry we're often judging skill both by how well poets utilize and creative break form, in free verse we tend to judge skill by how well poets create forms that emerge on their own, not as a part of some pre-determined tradition. I think you can see such formal thought in Red Wheelbarrow, but, again, it's difficult to say how much of that is a result of conscious thought and "skill," and how much is accidental.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> That means that when you are arguing a point with someone as you frequently are, you may not really believe what you're arguing, you may be arguing just to figure out what you really believe. This is useful information. Ongoing, I will find it hard to take anything you argue seriously because it is likely coming from a mind that is unsure about the position being taken.
> 
> I would also add that 'arguing for the sake of arguing' is unfair to other people. You're just playing with them, calling into question their views when you don't really have fixed views of your own.


I neither see how that is a problem, nor how it's useful information. Arguments should be judged on the strengths and weaknesses of their factual content and rational construction, not on the sincerity of those making them. Of course, if you're looking for an easy way to avoid arguments you don't like, it's always easy to dismiss them because of the person making them rather than actually addressing the arguments themselves, so this is, indeed, useful information about you.

How is this "unfair," and why is it wrong to question people's views without having fixed views of your own? Never heard of the Socratic method? That's precisely what I like to do when I am unsure as it helps me rationally analyze the strengths and weaknesses of various arguments for and against certain propositions. I seem to recall you mentioning being involved in science before, but this seems like an awfully un-scientific mind-set you've adopted here.

Of course, it's heartening to see that most everyone here seems to disagree with you; as any rational person should.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

mikeh375 said:


> I see what you mean about definitions. One could also call those essential traits you've noted above _experience_, acquired from familiarity with skillful artifice (in the case of a creative artist that is). Instinct honed by study and practice if you will. We can all drift off and fantasise - it's obviously a natural proclivity - but as we are talking about a specific reason for doing so here, one embarked on with exploratory intent, then perhaps imagination, play and more pertinent perhaps, focus, could be considered as a complimentary skill set to artifice.
> 
> I would suggest also that the imagination, having been given free reign, is nonetheless partly answerable to technique for if there is no technique, there is no solid ground to leap off and invent. (I'm just talking about concert/art music btw, not pop music).


The more I've thought about this, the more I think that skill is, in large part, the act of experience sifting through the choices, techniques, and devices one has creatively used in the past and trying to figure out what has worked, what hasn't, and trying to refine the former while eliminating the latter. Sometimes, an artist's early creativity could be seen as experiments, the trying out of different concepts, devices, techniques, in order to discover what works for them, what seems to open up new roads to explore and what leads to dead ends.

We could also say that skill is the process in which the conscious working out of these creative processes eventually gets into one's unconscious so that they are able to call upon them easily when the time comes while reserving more brain power for other elements that require more conscious attention. This can allow one to more immediately feel when things are working rather than always being preoccupied just with what one's doing.

Of course, there's little that's precise or exact or objective about this; it's mostly just the continual search for that feeling of rightness, of making the creation match the ideal in one's head, or just being satisfied with wherever the creative path leads you.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

janxharris said:


> Swift's Bad Blood sounds good to me - Ryan Adam's version sounds great.


One thing I like about hearing covers of good songs is that it usually reveals how tonally malleable they are. Despite this cover having essentially the same melodic/rhythmic content, the tone is completely different. Adams sounds more sad and regretful; Swift's version is more angry and bitter. Adams is more about reflecting on the pain, and Swift's is more about feeling the pain. In particular, listen to how both sing the "still got scars in my back from your knife;" Adams sings it in a matter-of-fact, understated, almost resigned way, while Swift literally spits the word "back" out, as if she's remembering the pain from the event. Even musically, Adams is all nostalgic, brooding sparkle while Swift's is girded by steely and menacing electronics, as if the music is a callus covering the scar from the event.

Personally, this isn't one of my favorite Swift songs and I don't think I like the Adams version much better, but they do make for a fascinating contrast in understanding how pop artists use sound and delivery to tonally color lyrics.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Rather than saying "skill" is more apparent/obvious in classic poetry/tonal music than in modern poetry/atonal music, what I'd say is that the bare minimum of competency is more apparent. In tonal music and classic poetry there are a few basic "rules" to be followed, and one can objectively see if one has followed them; in classic poetry that includes things like meter, rhyme, and form; in tonal music that includes things like harmony, development, and form. When you take away these rules, it becomes more difficult to detect even mere competency because it's often immediately unclear whether one has created new forms, rules, and challenges for themselves, or if they've just randomly thrown words/notes at a page and called it a day. However, I think judging actual skill in either is equally difficult, and that, at least in writing poetry, the difficulty in writing well in each is uniquely difficult.
> 
> Classic poetry can be "difficult" in the sense that there are set standards one must comply with; you have to make the meter work, you have to figure out how to get rhymes to fall at the ends of lines, you have to be able to fit the complete idea into whatever fixed form you're working with. However, it's also possible to look at these rules as making things easier precisely because it limits your options. You aren't trying to sift between an unlimited amount of options, but rather are selecting between a few that are pre-chosen because of whatever form you've chosen to work in. Yet the ability to achieve these standards just speaks of a base-level competency, not great skill. In classic poetry I'd actually say "skill" is more judged in knowing when and how to creatively divert from these standards, as it's precisely through the (temporary) breaking or disrupting of form that a poet can achieve certain effects above and beyond the mere pleasing "music" of regular meter and rhyme (Pope wrote about many of the ways to achieve this in his Essay on Criticism). On the other hand, it's also possible to see any given diversion as a flaw--and Ben Johnson thought as much about John Donne, saying he should be "hung" for not keeping the meter.
> 
> ...


I don't think the choices in line breaks and rhythm in free verse make that much of an impact. There are some obviously awkward ones, but when you narrow down to a reasonable few, they work about just as well, and it becomes a toss up. This is an interesting piece that shows some of WCW's thought process and various versions of his translations of Chinese poetry. I've read many various translations, and personally don't think WCW's are the greatest of translations.

https://www.wordswithoutborders.org...s-williamss-chinese-experiment-jonathan-cohen


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## Guest (Sep 30, 2019)

mikeh375 said:


> Indeed, why not MacL. I was just being specific to what I know best, I do however suspect that *some pop artists would lose an edge if they embarked on learning more about composing technique.* I for one am grateful that the likes of the Beatles had the sort of gift that needs no instruction, the sort of gift that is rarely bestowed, able to find its own distinctive way.


Interesting idea. As Eva Yojimbo has suggested, one of the "skills" could be that which has become subconscious and flows without effort; what we might otherwise call 'feel' I suppose, acquired through the legendary 10,000 hours practice perhaps? Disrupt the subconscious and it's like thinking about walking: you fall over.



Phil loves classical said:


> My analogy in music is the move toward atonal music. I don't believe Debussy is a good example, since his music has great order, clear harmonic patterns. I would say Schoenberg is a better example as the move toward less entropy. The construction (rhythms, harmony) is more loose.


Well both would be appropriate examples of composers who chose not to write classical symphonies - the only point I was making.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> Interesting idea. As Eva Yojimbo has suggested, one of the "skills" could be that which has become subconscious and flows without effort; what we might otherwise call 'feel' I suppose, acquired through the legendary 10,000 hours practice perhaps? Disrupt the subconscious and it's like thinking about walking: you fall over...


I've had several conversations over the years with composers (in media) who have no formal training - such is the result and impact the advent of the DAW (digital audio workstation) has had in media composing - and some have wondered if they would benefit from learning. Having been privy to some of their work and in some cases, excellent work, it was clear that learning would be a hindrance to their unbounded creativity, stymieing their uniqueness by instilling doubt and uncertainty in their compositional process. My recommendation to those who where convinced they needed to know more, was to tread slowly and with much deliberation along the way. One does not need to know everything there is to learn about composing in order to do it imv, especially in media work and for some, I believe it is far more effective to just learn what you need to in order to be more incisive at producing what you want to say. As one learns, one finds an affinity with certain methods whilst rejecting others as not being personally useful and in this way, one begins to understand more about oneself.

It's important to note though that these composers where working within popular genres and used a common stock of musical language. An attempt at anything more musically complicated did begin to show deficiencies and lack of practical know-how in their approach, often requiring professional help to meet deadlines - things like orchestration and necessary composing (part-writing, spacing, combinations etc.) one associates with competent scoring.

I may have missed Eva's post you refer to, but from what you say, it sounds like what psychologists call 'flow' - which to me means the ability (in composing ) to work almost without thinking. I've experienced this on several occasions and sometimes can't quite recall how the notes that emerge from the rubber marks on the ms got there, let alone make themselves visible through the rubber smears... In mine and other formally trained composers cases no doubt, one ideally feels the secure footing of those many hours of study and practice spent on technique gently and subconsciously advising and informing creative decisions, without demanding too much compliance.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Rather than saying "skill" is more apparent/obvious in classic poetry/tonal music than in modern poetry/atonal music, what I'd say is that the bare minimum of competency is more apparent. In tonal music and classic poetry there are a few basic "rules" to be followed, and one can objectively see if one has followed them; in classic poetry that includes things like meter, rhyme, and form; in tonal music that includes things like harmony, development, and form. When you take away these rules, it becomes more difficult to detect even mere competency because it's often immediately unclear whether one has created new forms, rules, and challenges for themselves, or if they've just randomly thrown words/notes at a page and called it a day. However, I think judging actual skill in either is equally difficult, and that, at least in writing poetry, the difficulty in writing well in each is uniquely difficult.
> 
> Classic poetry can be "difficult" in the sense that there are set standards one must comply with; you have to make the meter work, you have to figure out how to get rhymes to fall at the ends of lines, you have to be able to fit the complete idea into whatever fixed form you're working with. However, it's also possible to look at these rules as making things easier precisely because it limits your options. You aren't trying to sift between an unlimited amount of options, but rather are selecting between a few that are pre-chosen because of whatever form you've chosen to work in. Yet the ability to achieve these standards just speaks of a base-level competency, not great skill. In classic poetry I'd actually say "skill" is more judged in knowing when and how to creatively divert from these standards, as it's precisely through the (temporary) breaking or disrupting of form that a poet can achieve certain effects above and beyond the mere pleasing "music" of regular meter and rhyme (Pope wrote about many of the ways to achieve this in his Essay on Criticism). On the other hand, it's also possible to see any given diversion as a flaw--and Ben Johnson thought as much about John Donne, saying he should be "hung" for not keeping the meter.
> 
> ...


Good post Eva. All one needs to do is substitute "poetry" with "music". Your words on free verse are akin to atonal thinking, except that with atonality, one ideally imv needs even more discipline than tonality to justify one's creative choices and to make the work valid, that is, as opposed to a hands down on the keyboard without regard to sound approach, which of course anyone can do.

The straightjacket of limitation is often the most liberating of all approaches and ensures cohesiveness.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mikeh375 said:


> The straightjacket of limitation is often the most liberating of all approaches and ensures cohesiveness.


Stravinsky agreed emphatically that limits free the imagination. He asked Balanchine for clear guidelines when the latter commissioned ballet music. Tchaikovsky worked within strict limits of meter, tempo and expression specified by his choreographer, Petipa, and found the experience of writing _The Sleeping Beauty_ a particularly happy one. I've experienced the liberating power of limits as a ballet accompanist; I always ask for a clear indication of the desired movement, its character and tempo, in order to stimulate my imagination in improvising an accompaniment. The more specific an artist's goals, the better his work is likely to be.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> I don't think the choices in line breaks and rhythm in free verse make that much of an impact. There are some obviously awkward ones, but when you narrow down to a reasonable few, they work about just as well, and it becomes a toss up. This is an interesting piece that shows some of WCW's thought process and various versions of his translations of Chinese poetry. I've read many various translations, and personally don't think WCW's are the greatest of translations.
> 
> https://www.wordswithoutborders.org...s-williamss-chinese-experiment-jonathan-cohen


I have to fervently disagree with your opening statement. If you're not going to make use of line breaks or nonce rhythms in free verse you might as well be writing prose. Red Wheelbarrow, eg, is a poem which shows how line breaks can be used to manipulate expectation and create surprise, as well as emphasize certain linguistic patterns inherent in whatever is being written.

Thanks for that link, I'll check it out ASAP.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Stravinsky agreed emphatically that limits free the imagination. He asked Balanchine for clear guidelines when the latter commissioned ballet music. Tchaikovsky worked within strict limits of meter, tempo and expression specified by his choreographer, Petipa, and found the experience of writing _The Sleeping Beauty_ a particularly happy one. I've experienced the liberating power of limits as a ballet accompanist; I always ask for a clear indication of the desired movement, its character and tempo, in order to stimulate my imagination in improvising an accompaniment. The more specific an artist's goals, the better his work is likely to be.


This talk of limitations also reminds me of a humorous scene from King of the Hill when Hank reluctantly took up basket weaving and ended up being good at it. The teacher complimented him on his work and asked him to talk about his creative process and Hank said: "Well I just took your materials and tools and the time allotted and this is what I came up with, there was nothing creative about it."


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I neither see how that is a problem, nor how it's useful information. Arguments should be judged on the strengths and weaknesses of their factual content and rational construction,* not on the sincerity* of those making them.


This is a classical music forum where people discuss their likes, dislikes and perspectives about classical music. I assume that someone I spend my time discussing these things with is sincere about their position. I also assume that they are not 'arguing for the sake of arguing' which incidentally in the real world -and not, inexplicably, in your world- is considered to be a pejorative, not positive activity.

You admit that for your own purposes at any given time you may be arguing for the sake of arguing and you don't put any value in being sincere during the process. I'll spend the precious minutes of my life elsewhere.



> Of course, if you're looking for an easy way to avoid arguments you don't like, it's always easy to dismiss them because of the person making them rather than actually addressing the arguments themselves, so this is, indeed, useful information about you.


On this forum, I am not known as someone who avoids difficult issues or arguments even with some of the most argumentative people. But these people tend to have well-thought out opinions that are sincerely theirs and not a [I'm still formulating my true position, but I'm going to mess with him or her by arguing every little detail and parsing every sentence, as if this is my opinion, but is really a constant unannounced devil's advocate, because, well, I'm really not sure about any of this].



> How is this "unfair," and why is it wrong to question people's views without having fixed views of your own? Never heard of the Socratic method? That's precisely what I like to do when I am unsure as it helps me rationally analyze the strengths and weaknesses of various arguments for and against certain propositions.


Again, this is a classical music forum where I don't waste my time with someone trying out their Socratic method and 'arguing for the sake of arguing'. There are others here who will I am sure will be happy to be used for your enjoyment. Carry on.



> Of course, it's heartening to see that most everyone here seems to disagree with you; as any rational person should.


Well of course, there is an absolute groundswell of support here for 'arguing for the sake of arguing' and insincerity. I looked up the definition of 'rational person' and it said 'anyone who agrees with EY'.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Tell me if I'm wrong, but the thrust of your post implies that you no longer choose to dialog with EY because EY might have evolving or sometimes inconsistent views. Are people then to swear an oath that the positions they hold are ones they have held for eternity and that they pledge never to change their minds? I have espoused all sorts of things over a lifetime, and it is through both reflection and discussion that I--and most of us--get to where we are.


Again a nice sequel to your last sermon and just as irrelevant to what's going on here. It's also disingenuous to anyone who sees your manner of 'reflection and discussion' in Groups.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> This is a classical music forum where people discuss their likes, dislikes and perspectives about classical music. I assume that someone I spend my time discussing these things with is sincere about their position. I also assume that they are not 'arguing for the sake of arguing' which incidentally in the real world -and not, inexplicably, in your world- is considered to be a pejorative, not positive activity.


First, I'm sincere and have strong positions about many (if not most) of the things I discuss; second, for everything else I'd call it being unsure more than insincere, and the only "lack of sincerity" would be me making arguments I'm unsure about in order to test them out. I do this as if I was sincere in order to provoke rebuttals that might point out flaws on the argument/position. Third, you ignored my point that it should be more about points (facts/logic), not people.



DaveM said:


> On this forum, I am not known as someone who avoids difficult issues or arguments even with some of the most argumentative people. But these people tend to have well-thought out opinions that are sincerely theirs and not a [I'm still formulating my true position, but I'm going to mess with him or her by arguing every little detail and parsing every sentence, as if this is my opinion, but is really a constant unannounced devil's advocate, because, well, I'm really not sure about any of this].


But again, who cares? If the "I'm still formulating my positions so I'm going to mess with him/her by arguing every little detail and parsing every sentence" person manages to point out a flaw in your position, why does it matter if it came from them or someone who was sincere? The facts and logic stand or fall on their own, and people who are unsure are often in a position to better see the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. One of the values of rationality is precisely that it prevents the kind of dogmatism that comes from people overlooking/glossing over the flaws in their position/beliefs. To be rational is to be open to having your mind changed by evidence, and where that evidence comes from, or who delivers it, shouldn't matter.



DaveM said:


> Well of course, there is an absolute groundswell of support here for 'arguing for the sake of arguing' and insincerity. I looked up the definition of 'rational person' and it said 'anyone who agrees with EY'.


Thus far, StrangeMagic, MacLeod, and Enthusiast have agreed with me; nobody has agreed with you.

Frankly, I'm finding YOU to be disingenuous right now as you clearly have a personal problem with me and are looking for (irrational) reasons to ignore/dismiss me. I know this because others have made the same or very similar arguments I've made in this thread and others and you've ignored them in favor of focusing (antagonistically) on me. Clearly I've gotten under your skin for some reason (perhaps because of your failures to rationally rebut my points?) and you're looking for an out.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> Again a nice sequel to your last sermon and just as irrelevant to what's going on here. It's also disingenuous to anyone who sees your manner of 'reflection and discussion' in Groups.


I hope you change your mind about withdrawing from discussion.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> *But again, who cares? If the "I'm still formulating my positions so I'm going to mess with him/her by arguing every little detail and parsing every sentence" person manages to point out a flaw in your position, why does it matter if it came from them or someone who was sincere? *


Well, obviously you don't care, which just supports (again!) why I won't go down that rabbit hole with someone who operates on the above principles. Fwiw, here's what did you in (with me, that is): In the previous, thread and this one, you kept upping the ante in questioning virtually every aspect of 'skill' in creating or evaluating music, finally in this thread questioning even the creation of melody as a skill. This again, was some kind of philosophical exercise with the other person, at best just there for the ride or, at worst, there to be messed with. The nature of the arguments became so obscure, that I realized that this person was out to find any perceived flaw, argue every little thing and move the goalposts with every post. This was the absolute finale for me:



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm not claiming it's easy, but neither do I think it's solely (or even mostly) a product of skill. As I mentioned above, McCartney came up with the melody of Yesterday in a dream. So unless you're going to claim dreaming is a skill, I question as to how you could call the creation of that melody "skillful.


(Yes, McCartney simplistically says that the melody came in a dream, but when questioned further on it, admits that it took a year and a half to perfect the melody, the lyrics and the song. Your using this as support for the fact that creating the melody of Yesterday was not a skill is well...[insert favorite expletive]).



> Thus far, StrangeMagic, MacLeod, and Enthusiast have agreed with me; nobody has agreed with you.


Wha-a-a-t? You mean the latter two who have been my BFFs before and after the great Gainsborough vs elephant comparison are siding with you? And all three constitute 'everybody'? I'm crushed! How will I ever recover? Incidentally, in all my years on this forum, I have never seen anyone pull the 'everyone agrees with me desperation card' and actually list the posters. My gawd.

Carry on.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Wha-a-a-t? You mean the latter two who have been my BFFs before and after the great Gainsborough vs elephant comparison are siding with you? And all three constitute 'everybody'?


I seem to have been brought back into this discussion. To be clear my main contributions to this thread (and other recent threads that have covered similar ground) have been: 
a) That one of the reasons I personally enjoy discussions here is the chance to test my own ideas and sometimes to change them. I know there are others who come here, as if with firmly held views, who enjoy the chance for intellectual sparing and honing their articulation skills. That really isn't me but I do sometimes find it interesting and instructive when others do it. 
b) That I used to feel that it should be possible to say objectively that a piece of music (or other art) is great but that I have been convinced that doing so remains essentially subjective even though it can be demonstrated that a majority or a consensus among informed listeners have (often over time) had similar feelings.

I don't think the Gainsborough (a man) vs. Phumpuang (an elephant) game changed my views at all. I enjoyed the game. It was obvious there was a trick but that didn't worry me as I just described my feelings at that time about the two works. I continue to find the Gainsborough ugly (at least when reduced to be presented here) and Phumpuang's painting attractive. But I am assuredly not an informed viewer of paintings. I am at the "I know what I like" stage and there are a number of artists through history and across cultures whose work I generally like very much .... and many more who have left me cold so far. But, with music, I do consider myself an informed listener and throughout my listening life I have explored in some depth the work of many composers who I at first did not respond positively to. Some I came to appreciate, others not yet. I feel much more confident with my feelings and views about music and almost always try to go beyond first impressions. But my views about music remain just that - my views - even when they are widely shared by other experienced classical music fans.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Well, obviously you don't care, which just supports (again!) why I won't go down that rabbit hole with someone who operates on the above principles. Fwiw, here's what did you in (with me, that is): In the previous, thread and this one, you kept upping the ante in questioning virtually every aspect of 'skill' in creating or evaluating music, finally in this thread questioning even the creation of melody as a skill. This again, was some kind of philosophical exercise with the other person, at best just there for the ride or, at worst, there to be messed with. The nature of the arguments became so obscure, that I realized that this person was out to find any perceived flaw, argue every little thing and move the goalposts with every post. This was the absolute finale for me:
> 
> (Yes, McCartney simplistically says that the melody came in a dream, but when questioned further on it, admits that it took a year and a half to perfect the melody, the lyrics and the song. Your using this as support for the fact that creating the melody of Yesterday was not a skill is well...[insert favorite expletive]).


Try as I might, I still can't see what problem you see in any of this. Yes, the entire point of this thread was to "question virtually every aspect of 'skill' in creating or evaluating music..." and the problem is? Yes, it's all a "philosophical exercise" in that I'm trying to evaluate arguments rationally to help with the formation of beliefs... and the problem is? The "questioning of every aspect" is designed, specifically, to avoid obscurity, to avoid the kind of big, blanket statements that lump a lot of heterogenous stuff under the same category, so if anything's "obscure," that again says more about you. Absolutely, I'm out to find any perceived flaw in any perspective or argument... and the problem is? I've also not moved any goalposts, but have rather just followed the various tangents that others have brought up.

I must've missed the part where McCartney said it took a year to "perfect" that song, but even if I accept that, so what? It doesn't change the point I made. The creation of the melody didn't require skill even if the "perfecting of the melody/lyrics" did. Which was more crucial to the greatness of the song? Which are you judging when you evaluate the song and how do you distinguish them? These are the issues I wanted to explore in this thread, and you've added nothing, absolutely nothing to it. Your one attempt was the Gainsborough/elephant painting last thread, which ended up blowing up in your face and supporting my (original) position rather than yours.



DaveM said:


> Wha-a-a-t? You mean the latter two who have been my BFFs before and after the great Gainsborough vs elephant comparison are siding with you? And all three constitute 'everybody'? I'm crushed! How will I ever recover? Incidentally, in all my years on this forum, I have never seen anyone pull the 'everyone agrees with me desperation card' and actually list the posters. My gawd.


They constitute "everybody" who has commented on the issue, yes. Feel free to find someone who supports your irrational, butthurt attacks against me. If anyone's desperate it's always the person who diverts the discussion away from issues to attacking the person, and that would be you.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Stravinsky agreed emphatically that limits free the imagination. He asked Balanchine for clear guidelines when the latter commissioned ballet music. Tchaikovsky worked within strict limits of meter, tempo and expression specified by his choreographer, Petipa, and found the experience of writing _The Sleeping Beauty_ a particularly happy one.* I've experienced the liberating power of limits as a ballet accompanist; I always ask for a clear indication of the desired movement, its character and tempo, in order to stimulate my imagination in improvising an accompaniment.* The more specific an artist's goals, the better his work is likely to be.


A fellow composer WD?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Stravinsky agreed emphatically that limits free the imagination. He asked Balanchine for clear guidelines when the latter commissioned ballet music. Tchaikovsky worked within strict limits of meter, tempo and expression specified by his choreographer, Petipa, and found the experience of writing _The Sleeping Beauty_ a particularly happy one. I've experienced the liberating power of limits as a ballet accompanist; I always ask for a clear indication of the desired movement, its character and tempo, in order to stimulate my imagination in improvising an accompaniment. The more specific an artist's goals, the better his work is likely to be.


We often can't be sure how specific an artist's goals might be--the artists themselves may, after the fact, attribute specific goals they were pursuing to guiding the work, but they may be deluding themselves or just not telling us the truth. Two examples of powerful, successful art that arose out of a dog's breakfast of confused, competing, unrelated goals would be Melville's titanic _Moby Dick_, whose checkered and tortured origins have been analyzed by generations of commentators. Another would be the classic _Casablanca_ where a succession of directors each added their own unique overlay to an ongoing project with wonderful final result.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> We often can't be sure how specific an artist's goals might be--the artists themselves may, after the fact, attribute specific goals they were pursuing to guiding the work, but they may be deluding themselves or just not telling us the truth. Two examples of powerful, successful art that arose out of a dog's breakfast of confused, competing, unrelated goals would be Melville's titanic _Moby Dick_, whose checkered and tortured origins have been analyzed by generations of commentators. Another would be the classic _Casablanca_ where a succession of directors each added their own unique overlay to an ongoing project with wonderful final result.


At what point in his work an artist becomes clear about what he wants to do doesn't matter. A work of art can certainly develop reluctantly and undergo many changes, but I don't think that disproves the general observation that limits stimulate creativity. It might even be said to demonstrate it, in that the work comes together effectively only as the artist's choice of goals becomes clear. The process of figuring out what sort of thing a work is going to be is often prolonged and tortured, but thrashing about in a fog of uncertainty produces nothing but headaches and speculation that the muse may have deserted one forever. What gets things going is the act of choice: set down some notes, words, or lines. They may not stand in the end, but they'll suggest a boundary, a limit on what's possible or likely, a framework which allows something definite to happen. That's very comforting to the artist who's been pacing the floor for days, his imagination darting this way and that, crippled by freedom.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mikeh375 said:


> A fellow composer WD?


To a very limited extent. Putting stuff on paper is difficult. Mostly I just sit at the piano and improvise, and at a certain point many years ago discovered that ballet studios would pay me to do it. Alas, nowadays all but the biggest schools use recorded music, and there are none of those nearby. I am obsolete.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> To a very limited extent. Putting stuff on paper is difficult. Mostly I just sit at the piano and improvise, and at a certain point many years ago discovered that ballet studios would pay me to do it. Alas, nowadays all but the biggest schools use recorded music, and there are none of those nearby. I am obsolete.


I was born obsolete. I realized that at an early age, and learned to live successfully despite the handicap.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

DaveM said:


> (Yes, McCartney simplistically says that the melody came in a dream, but when questioned further on it, admits that it took a year and a half to perfect the melody, the lyrics and the song. Your using this as support for the fact that creating the melody of Yesterday was not a skill is well...[insert favorite expletive]).





Eva Yojimbo said:


> I must've missed the part where McCartney said it took a year to "perfect" that song, but even if I accept that, so what? It doesn't change the point I made. The creation of the melody didn't require skill even if the "perfecting of the melody/lyrics" did. Which was more crucial to the greatness of the song? Which are you judging when you evaluate the song and how do you distinguish them?


When I read your conversation, I imagined how glorious this song must be. Perfected over a year? It must be like a Beethoven-grade movement of a symphony.

Afterwards, I found the following wikipedia quote: "George Harrison summed this up when he said: "Blimey, he's always talking about that song. You'd think he was Beethoven or somebody!"

And then I listened to it.

I am baffled.

Could you tell me why do you consider it so good? I can understand other people's appreciation of complex works that have so many elements, that I cannot know them all.

This song, however, is very simple. What makes it even good?


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## Guest (Oct 1, 2019)

Fabulin said:


> When I read your conversation, I imagined how glorious this song must be. Perfected over a year? It must be like a Beethoven-grade movement of a symphony.
> 
> Afterwards, I found the following wikipedia quote: "George Harrison summed this up when he said: "Blimey, he's always talking about that song. You'd think he was Beethoven or somebody!"
> 
> ...


First, I don't believe it was "_perfected _over a year" (not sure where this idea came from). It reportedly took over a year from first being written to release, but not because it took a year of constant working to 'perfect'. Like other artists, The Beatles had many sketches for songs on the go at the same time, some presumably never being released, others being written at one time, but then not being released until well after composition.

No-one has claimed that _Yesterday _is actually comparable to a piece by Beethoven, so it's not necessary to denigrate the song for not being what it plainly isn't. It is a pop song, popular in its day and still popular now. I'm not a particular fan, but I'm happy to accept the fairly widely held view that it is a good song for its type.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Fabulin said:


> ...Afterwards, I found the following wikipedia quote: "George Harrison summed this up when he said: "Blimey, he's always talking about that song. You'd think he was Beethoven or somebody!"


It became a running joke; they called it 'Scrambled Eggs' among themselves.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Fabulin said:


> When I read your conversation, I imagined how glorious this song ["Yesterday"] must be. Perfected over a year? It must be like a Beethoven-grade movement of a symphony.
> 
> Afterwards, I found the following wikipedia quote: "George Harrison summed this up when he said: "Blimey, he's always talking about that song. You'd think he was Beethoven or somebody!"
> 
> ...


"Yesterday," like many great songs, is not as simple as it looks. It's an exceptional melody, original, expressive, and memorable. Just look at how it starts: a simple declaration - "Yesterday" - a firm, two-note affirmation of the tonic chord that we'd be more likely to find at the end of a melody than at the beginning. This is arresting, and it establishes a grave mood of resignation and finality, as if to tell us that yesterday, the past, is over and done, and never to be retrieved or changed. But almost immediately a surprising harmonic transition contradicts this by introducing a rising scale over the dominant seventh of the relative minor, plunging us into a mood of questioning, of poignant yearning, of nostalgia for yesterday, when "all my troubles seemed so far away."

It's a remarkable beginning to a song which I could go on analyzing, but I'm not that ambitious at the moment. I'll just opine that "Yesterday" deserves its place as a classic of popular music, and it would ensure Paul McCartney's immortality even if all his other work should disappear (which, fortunately, it won't).


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> "Yesterday," like many great songs, is not as simple as it looks. It's an exceptional melody, original, expressive, and memorable. Just look at how it starts: a simple declaration - "Yesterday" - a firm, two-note affirmation of the tonic chord that we'd be more likely to find at the end of a melody than at the beginning. This is arresting, and it establishes a grave mood of resignation and finality, as if to tell us that yesterday, the past, is over and done, and never to be retrieved or changed. But almost immediately a surprising harmonic transition contradicts this by introducing a rising scale over the dominant seventh of the relative minor, plunging us into a mood of poignant yearning, of nostalgia for yesterday, when "all my troubles seemed so far away."
> 
> It's a remarkable beginning to a song which I could go on analyzing, but I'm not that ambitious at the moment. I'll just opine that "Yesterday" deserves its place as a classic of popular music, and it would ensure Paul McCartney's immortality even if all his other work should disappear (which, fortunately, it won't).


An analysis can be found here;

http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/y.shtml


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> "Yesterday," like many great songs, is not as simple as it looks. It's an exceptional melody, original, expressive, and memorable. Just look at how it starts: a simple declaration - "Yesterday" - a firm, two-note affirmation of the tonic chord that we'd be more likely to find at the end of a melody than at the beginning. This is arresting, and it establishes a grave mood of resignation and finality, as if to tell us that yesterday, the past, is over and done, and never to be retrieved or changed. But almost immediately a surprising harmonic transition contradicts this by introducing a rising scale over the dominant seventh of the relative minor, plunging us into a mood of questioning, of poignant yearning, of nostalgia for yesterday, when "all my troubles seemed so far away."


Ok, I will believe your word that it looks nice on paper. But It is still far from what I would call _an exceptional melody_. Since millions of people disagree, I am wary of my own judgement at this point, but when I compare it's melody (within popular music) --- to:

Oldies, like: _Poetry In Motion_,_ The Tide Is High_, _Life Could Be A Dream_, _Something Stupid_,_ Ain't That a Hit In The Head_, _You Were Always On My Mind_, _What A Wonderful World_, Marty Robbins country ballads
Some disco hits, like _YMCA_ or _Enigma_
1980s songs like _Final Countdown_, _If You Were A Woman_, _It's Raining Men_, _Felicita _
East-European folk-pop
and especially ABBA songs

I just shrug when I hear this one.

The longer I interact with people on the internet, the more it seems to me that far less things are catchy to me than to others. Either I have a very insensitive melodic sense, or, on the contrary, a very sensitive one (in some way) which results in lots of melodies seeming _clunky _to me, raising my eyebrows, or making me slightly cringe in the worst cases.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Duplicate.......


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Fabulin said:


> Ok, I will believe your word that it looks nice on paper. But It is still far from what I would call _an exceptional melody_. Since millions of people disagree, I am wary of my own judgement at this point, but when I compare it's melody (within popular music) --- to:
> 
> Oldies, like: _Poetry In Motion_,_ The Tide Is High_, _Life Could Be A Dream_, _Something Stupid_,_ Ain't That a Hit In The Head_, _You Were Always On My Mind_, _What A Wonderful World_, Marty Robbins country ballads
> Some disco hits, like _YMCA_ or _Enigma_
> ...


I was with you on a bit of the above -ABBA songs are some of the most underrated- and then you went and added YMCA.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> "Yesterday," like many great songs, is not as simple as it looks. It's an exceptional melody, original, expressive, and memorable. Just look at how it starts: a simple declaration - "Yesterday" - a firm, two-note affirmation of the tonic chord that we'd be more likely to find at the end of a melody than at the beginning. This is arresting, and it establishes a grave mood of resignation and finality, as if to tell us that yesterday, the past, is over and done, and never to be retrieved or changed. But almost immediately a surprising harmonic transition contradicts this by introducing a rising scale over the dominant seventh of the relative minor, plunging us into a mood of questioning, of poignant yearning, of nostalgia for yesterday, when "all my troubles seemed so far away."
> 
> It's a remarkable beginning to a song which I could go on analyzing, but I'm not that ambitious at the moment. I'll just opine that "Yesterday" deserves its place as a classic of popular music, and it would ensure Paul McCartney's immortality even if all his other work should disappear (which, fortunately, it won't).


Good post. Just keep in mind that the melody didn't require any skill.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

DaveM said:


> I was with you on a bit of the above -ABBA songs are some of the most underrated- and then you went and added YMCA.


You know what... I listened to YMCA just before writing that post, and actually thought that it does not fit with other examples, but since I didn't want to have only Enigma in disco category... :lol:

What do you think in general about this issue? The Beatles song, melody, etc.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Fabulin said:


> Ok, I will believe your word that it looks nice on paper. But It is still far from what I would call _an exceptional melody_. Since millions of people disagree, I am wary of my own judgement at this point, but when I compare it's melody (within popular music) --- to:
> 
> Oldies, like: _Poetry In Motion_,_ The Tide Is High_, _Life Could Be A Dream_, _Something Stupid_,_ Ain't That a Hit In The Head_, _You Were Always On My Mind_, _What A Wonderful World_, Marty Robbins country ballads
> Some disco hits, like _YMCA_ or _Enigma_
> ...


I don't know all those songs you mention, but I've listened to the first three (_Poetry In Motion_,_ The Tide Is High_, and _Life Could Be A Dream.) _ To be terse, I find in them virtually none of the harmonic originality, textual sensitivity, or emotional truth that I hear in _Yesterday._ They sound catchy and trite, like a lot of pop songs that were hits in their day. There are plenty of classic popular "standards" more musically interesting than those. Maybe some of the other ones you list are among them?

What does "clunky" music sound like, by the way?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Good post. Just keep in mind that the melody didn't require any skill.


:lol:.........................


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> What does "clunky" music sound like, by the way?







The jump up in 1:51 is endlessly annoying to me. A very imperfect selection of an interval, and at the same time something of a verse imbalance.

And mind you that otherwise I still mildly enjoy this theme, _especially _in the arrangement for Anne Sophie Mutter.






This is a piece that was the only redeeming quality of this score for me, and I like it very much. And yet I don't like the use of pauses in the main melody. They make it _a bit_ clunky.

As for your other points, I guess that philosophically I'm just a catchiness worshipper, and have it as my prime category of assessment at all times.

Edit: an example from "Yesterday"




At 0:15 the "here" moment is just a wrong response to the first verse of the melody to me. Wrong in the sense that if I was improvising/building this melody at the piano, I would think that I need to look further, for some other development, because this one is jarring. _Trite _is the word that comes to my mind in this particular example. If it was an emotional choice based on some musical code of communication, then said code is foreign to me; I only hear an imperfect choice.

There are further problems in this piece down the way, but just like you I don't have time to elaborate more on it. Tigh schedule at work, sorry.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

^Your Star Wars examples are interesting because in both cases the exact thing you don't like sounds to me like the "point" or hook of the tune.

The first tune (which by the way is also played in a lower register by the horns earlier in the clip) is in the Dorian mode and the note you don't like is the characteristic raised sixth. It's strongly foreshadowed by the harmony in the preceding phrase.

In the second one, the "pauses" are what give the melody shape - without rests you'd be left with some noodling stepwise motion up a scale.

Anyway I can't tell you you're "wrong" - you either find something catchy or not.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

isorhythm said:


> ^Your Star Wars examples are interesting because in both cases the exact thing you don't like sounds to me like the "point" or hook of the tune.
> 
> The first tune (which by the way is also played in a lower register by the horns earlier in the clip) is in the Dorian mode and the note you don't like is the characteristic raised sixth. It's strongly foreshadowed by the harmony in the preceding phrase.
> 
> ...


I suppose it could be called a hook because it catches the ear. Whether it catches the brain, may vary. Interesting. That it is the point of the melody... I suppose it is it's peak at least. Or one of it's peaks. In the ASM arrangement the peak is a later moment (after 2:05):




In the second example, I know that pauses have been built-in. I am not saying they should "just be removed". To be frank it is beyond me to say how could the piece be recomposed at this point. But I just don't like the effect that is produced by them.
On the other hand, pauses are great in this piece's _trio_, after 1:54. Williams uses them together with timpani beats and fake-outing melodic phrases to convey the starting of the engines of the aircraft of the pilots that this march represents. (it took me nearly 4 years to deduce this)


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Fabulin said:


> Edit: an example from "Yesterday"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


For interest sake and for a couple of previous posters who seem to need help on the subject ('I think this and think that', 'I don't believe this and don't believe that') of the history of the writing and development of 'Yesterday' over a year or more, the below is from those who were there:
_
"John Lennon, however, remembered the song kicking around for months: "Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn't find the right title. Every time we got together to write songs or for a recording session, this would come up. We called it 'Scrambled Egg' and it became a joke between us.

George Martin's memory was that the song had existed in some form or another for well over a year: "I first heard 'Yesterday' when it was known as 'Scrambled Egg' - Paul's working title - at the George V Hotel in Paris in January 1964."

Paul was still working on it when they were filming their second movie, Help!, in 1965, as director Richard Lester recalls: "At some time during that period, we had a piano on one of the stages and he was playing this 'Scrambled Egg' all the time. It got to the point where I said to him, 'If you play that bloody song any longer I'll have the piano taken off stage. Either finish it or give it up!'"_


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2019)

I'll answer this quest at the level I think most appropriate. I don't give bonus points for skill or difficulty. That would be like those silly gymnastics or figure skating competitions where the athletes get more points depending on the difficulty of a move (i.e., how many points for a triple axel, etc). Skill helps a composer create music and I judge by how much pleasure the music gives. If a simple melody with accompaniment gives as much pleasure as a quadruple fuge in six part counterpoint, so be it.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2019)

DaveM said:


> For interest sake *and for a couple of previous posters who seem to need help* on the subject ('I think this and think that', 'I don't believe this and don't believe that') of the history of the writing and development of 'Yesterday' over a year or more, the below is from those who were there:


Which posters? I don't need any help, thanks.

"The below" comes from the same unreliable sources that the rest of us have used, I think - the people who were there, as they reported at different times, in different interviews, and published on this marvellous interweb in different places.

But, never mind. Whatever the specifics of the history of this particular song, it's a clear example that "skill" was at work - not just inspiration.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2019)

Baron Scarpia said:


> I judge by how much pleasure the music gives. If a simple melody with accompaniment gives as much pleasure as a quadruple fuge in six part counterpoint, so be it.


Exactly so. I listen to _Girl with the Flaxen Hair_ at least as often in a year as I listen to Beethoven's 9th.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> "The below" comes from the same unreliable sources that the rest of us have used, I think..


Ah, there it is, the old 'I think'. I don't know for sure, but I'll even question quotes someone provides and call them unreliable. And why should I bother to spend time looking for evidence that they're unreliable when I can just trot out the old 'I think'.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> We often can't be sure how specific an artist's goals might be--the artists themselves may, after the fact, attribute specific goals they were pursuing to guiding the work, but they may be deluding themselves or just not telling us the truth. Two examples of powerful, successful art that arose out of a dog's breakfast of confused, competing, unrelated goals would be Melville's titanic _Moby Dick_, whose checkered and tortured origins have been analyzed by generations of commentators. Another would be the classic _Casablanca_ where a succession of directors each added their own unique overlay to an ongoing project with wonderful final result.


I've always liked what Neil Gaiman said on the issue: "artists have a right to define what they intended, but not what they created."

As for Casablanca, I would note that the despite the apparent confusion in production, the Classic Hollywood studio system was basically made to combat such things. Directors were interchangeable, teams of writers endlessly worked over scripts. Back then, producers were more the forces that held things together. When we think of the great filmmakers of that era--Hitchcock, Welles, Ford, Wilder, Hawks, Sturges, etc.--we're mostly thinking of anomalies who defined themselves against the homogeneity of the era. That homogeneity is why a guy like Victor Fleming could make both Gone With the Wind and Wizard of Oz in the same year.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know all those songs you mention, but I've listened to the first three (_Poetry In Motion_,_ The Tide Is High_, and _Life Could Be A Dream.) _ To be terse, I find in them virtually none of the harmonic originality, textual sensitivity, or emotional truth that I hear in _Yesterday._ They sound catchy and trite, like a lot of pop songs that were hits in their day. There are plenty of classic popular "standards" more musically interesting than those. Maybe some of the other ones you list are among them?
> 
> What does "clunky" music sound like, by the way?


You haven't lived until you've heard the prime stinky gouda that is The Final Countdown: 





I can smell the hair spray through my PC screen...


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> To a very limited extent. Putting stuff on paper is difficult. Mostly I just sit at the piano and improvise, and at a certain point many years ago discovered that ballet studios would pay me to do it. Alas, nowadays all but the biggest schools use recorded music, and there are none of those nearby. I am obsolete.


I'm intrigued and wondering what sort of music you improvised.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> You haven't lived until you've heard the prime stinky gouda that is The Final Countdown:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What do you think the song is about? What does the audience think it's about?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mikeh375 said:


> I'm intrigued and wondering what sort of music you improvised.


Whatever I felt best supported the dance. It's classical ballet, which has a distinctive style of movement and, in the training phase, a specific repertoire of exercises. Ballet is precise, strong but elegant, sometimes sensual and romantic but always refined, generally light rather than earthy in feeling. Class exercises generally focus on single movements or combinations of movements, sometimes complex in more advanced phases of training, repeated for a specific and regular number of bars (usually multiples of four for simplicity's sake). My Classical-Romantic musical background and temperament make me well-suited to the ballet aesthetic, and an ability to come up with apparently limitless quantities of tunes makes improvisation my work method of choice. Most accompanists carry music around with them. I never do. I like the creative aspect of the work.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2019)

[post withdrawn]


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> You haven't lived until you've heard the prime stinky gouda that is The Final Countdown:
> 
> I can smell the hair spray through my PC screen...


No. You haven't lived until you've heard The Final Countdown played by the LSO


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2019)

Bwv 1080 said:


> I predict this thread will go nowhere because everyone will have a different interpretation of what skill means and we will have page after page of people talking past one another.


It has come to pass, and worse. :lol:


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Baron Scarpia said:


> It has come to pass, and worse. :lol:


In all my years listening to classical music, going to concerts, playing piano and discussing classical music in piano groups and reading books, articles and reviews on the subject of classical music, I never once came across anyone conflicted over the what is and isn't skill in the creation of CM the way some people here appear to be. And if in any of these groups, I had suggested that skill isn't required to create a melody, I would have been laughed out of the room. Most of this was an answer to a question no one asked to solve a problem no one had.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Luchesi said:


> What do you think the song is about? What does the audience think it's about?


Last time I saw heard it it was about the countdown one must endure when heating hot pockets in a microwave.

In all seriousness, the lyrics are pretty straight forward in being about a future when we have to leave Earth... not sure why you'd ask, though.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> I never once came across anyone conflicted over the what is and isn't skill in the creation of CM...


When people don't rationally reflect they tend not to be easily conflicted, and our brains have an invested evolutionary interest in not keeping us conflicted so that even when we are we have numerous defenses to resolve the conflict.

Shame that you couldn't make use of all those years of expertise to have predicted the failure of the Gainsborough/elephant experiment that supported this poor conflicted soul's original point.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

DaveM said:


> In all my years listening to classical music, going to concerts, playing piano and discussing classical music in piano groups and reading books, articles and reviews on the subject of classical music, I never once came across anyone conflicted over the what is and isn't skill in the creation of CM the way some people here appear to be. And if in any of these groups, I had suggested that skill isn't required to create a melody, I would have been laughed out of the room. Most of this was an answer to a question no one asked to solve a problem no one had.


Little children imitate adult singers and they'll quickly make up little melodies as they're play-acting like a singer they've seen. They can barely talk at that age. It's quite confusing or annoying to hear, but you CAN hear that they're making progress with nursery rhyme tonality.

If you think it's a skill, what do you think is involved in this skill?


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Last time I saw heard it it was about the countdown one must endure when heating hot pockets in a microwave.
> 
> In all seriousness, the lyrics are pretty straight forward in being about a future when we have to leave Earth... not sure why you'd ask, though.


The phrase was repeated 13 times and then I lost count.

This is sometimes done to suggest to the audience a salacious phrase.

added;
here's the misheard lyrics


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

What Role Does "Skill" Play When Evaluating Music?
As Brian Eno noted, it is possible to create effective music even if one has no musical skills.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> When people don't rationally reflect they tend not to be easily conflicted, and our brains have an invested evolutionary interest in not keeping us conflicted so that even when we are we have numerous defenses to resolve the conflict.


Most adults, at an early age, have rationally reflected, made decisions and come to conclusions about the most obvious things. Others thrash around in the weeds forever, unable to settle on conclusions about even the most basic questions. Btw, people who are preoccupied with the rationality of others tend to be actually concerned about their own.



> Shame that you couldn't make use of all those years of expertise to have predicted the failure of the Gainsborough/elephant experiment that supported this poor conflicted soul's original point.


Failure? Repeat something you want to be true over and over...just like our president.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Composers put notes together in ways based upon more or less binding principles - principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic organization, along with the effective utilization of sonority - through which music is perceived as coherent and meaningful by the listener. The ability to do this is the composer's skill.

It appears to me that some are trying to define "skill" in a more restrictive way, even perhaps to define it out of existence. Given the question in the OP, I see no reason to do that. If we don't try to narrow the definition, the answer to the OP's question - "What Role Does 'Skill' Play When Evaluating Music?" - will often be "a considerable role," just how considerable depending on the nature of the music.

Simple tunes like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Happy Birthday" pretty obviously require very little skill to compose (although not none at all), and the question of skill doesn't really factor into anyone's appreciation of them. A longer, more complex melody such as "O Danny Boy" or Schubert's "Ave Maria" requires greater skill, and we appreciate how beautifully proportioned such compositions are and how their shape is a vehicle for the emotions expressed in their lyrics. The _Mass in B-Minor_, Beethoven's _9th Symphony_ and _The __Ring of the Nibelung_ required staggering amounts of skill to conceive and realize, and for those capable of appreciating their complexity that skill accounts for much of the reputation such works hold among the masterpieces of music.

A composer may have admirable skill in some _particular_ technique - Palestrina-style counterpoint, for example - and still produce something ineffective. But that's likely to mean that he merely lacks other skills - for example, the ability to create a coherent harmonic scheme for the entire composition, or to achieve an effective balance of unity and contrast. A great deal of what's called "inspiration" is a matter of skill deployed so deftly that it seems spontaneous: the "art that conceals art."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*What Role Does "Skill" Play When Evaluating Music?
*
The OP does not say _whose_ skill, the composer or listener's.
John Cage "defined it out of existence" by placing the listener in the role of composer.
What role does 'skill of listening' play in evaluating music?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> *What Role Does "Skill" Play When Evaluating Music?
> *
> The OP does not say _whose_ skill, the composer or listener's.
> John Cage "defined it out of existence" by placing the listener in the role of composer.
> What role does 'skill of listening' play in evaluating music?


Do you mean your second sentence to factor into an answer to your third? I think it raises a different issue.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Do you mean your second sentence to factor into an answer to your third? I think it raises a different issue.


You want to restrict, I want to expand. Forget about focus on the composer, that goes nowhere.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> You want to restrict, I want to expand. Forget about focus on the composer, that goes nowhere.


Don't tell me what I "want" to do and don't talk in riddles. I'm merely asking what your question actually implies, given the juxtaposition of two sentences which seem to imply different things. If you expect people to take your posts seriously, you're going to have to give evidence of clear thinking. But if that's too great a challenge...


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## Guest (Oct 4, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> *What Role Does "Skill" Play When Evaluating Music?*
> 
> As Brian Eno noted, it is possible to create effective music even if one has no musical skills.


Did he? I'm interested. Can you provide a reference?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Luchesi said:


> The phrase was repeated 13 times and then I lost count.
> 
> This is sometimes done to suggest to the audience a salacious phrase.
> 
> ...


Eh, I think that's really stretching credulity. Occam's Razor would say it's repeated to make it more memorable, and I don't think I could ever hear that title enough to hear "condom" instead of "countdown."


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Most adults, at an early age, have rationally reflected, made decisions and come to conclusions about the most obvious things.


People are innately bad at rationality and are rarely intuitively capable of discerning rationality from rationalizations. This isn't surprising given that evolution has programmed us for survival and reproduction, and there's a lot of useful delusions present in human cognition, many adaptations from environments very different than our current one. Real rationality, the kind that avoids biases, is difficult, and requires time, effort, and vigilance.



DaveM said:


> Failure? Repeat something you want to be true over and over...just like our president.


How was it not a failure? Given your position you clearly posted it to show the importance of skill, juxtaposing the efforts of one of the most skillful painters of his era VS the efforts of an elephant. Despite this, everyone (but me, ironically) picked the elephant. How does that not support my original notion that skill isn't necessarily of great importance in the evaluation of art?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Composers put notes together in ways based upon more or less binding principles - principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic organization, along with the effective utilization of sonority - through which music is perceived as coherent and meaningful by the listener. The ability to do this is the composer's skill.
> 
> It appears to me that some are trying to define "skill" in a more restrictive way, even perhaps to define it out of existence...
> 
> A composer may have admirable skill in some _particular_ technique - Palestrina-style counterpoint, for example - and still produce something ineffective. But that's likely to mean that he merely lacks other skills - for example, the ability to create a coherent harmonic scheme for the entire composition, or to achieve an effective balance of unity and contrast. A great deal of what's called "inspiration" is a matter of skill deployed so deftly that it seems spontaneous: the "art that conceals art."


Your first paragraph seems to address another question I asked in relation to this issue about how much of what we call "skill" is defined merely by what we (either as individuals or as groups) actually like, as opposed to something a composer had to actually learn and work at to achieve. I don't think this is a binary either/or but a spectrum, meaning that it's possible to create standards based on what we like and then it can take skill to compose in a way that succeeds (or even exceeds) those standards. Though greatness is often less defined by such achievements and more by creating new standards people didn't even know they wanted until they heard it (as in what the originals and innovators and mold-breakers manage to do). I'm not sure how in those cases you define skill without first thinking the new good to begin with.

I'm certainly not trying to define skill out of existence, but if you define everything that goes into art as a skill you basically define inspiration and vision and similar qualities out of existence, and that's the problem with saying something like "a great deal of... inspiration is a matter of skill deployed... deftly." OK, even if one is to accept that, then where are you drawing the line between them and how can you tell which you're hearing when judging something?

To me, this issue was well illustrated by the Yesterday example. Paul said the melody came in a dream. DaveM posted information that it took a year to complete the song (though we don't know exactly what/how much was worked on during that year), implying that there was "skill" required in putting it together; so how much of our final judgment of the song is dependent upon whatever inspiration struck Paul in his sleep, and how much is dependent on whatever they did with it in the year after that?


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Inspiration is an influx of knowledge.
Vision is a remix of knowledge.

Both depend on motivation in terms of occuring or not occuring, as well as in terms of whether we pursue them or not.
As to what sort of knowledge is that, when we are dealing with abstract concepts, is dependent on training, which itself is to a varying degree dependent on the intellect.

Carrying ideas out requires another box of skills, however, because ideas oftentimes concern only a function of something, and not a mechanism.

It doesn't take being musically literate to combine known sounds into an imagination of new music. It only really depends on the ability to recall, and the capacity / detailedness of the memory.

Other than that there is improvisation of course. Free, exploratory interaction with a musical instrument. And yet even improvisation in more complex patterns relies on a reportoire of ideas, which typically has to come from somewhere.

The execution of musical ideas, i.e. the construction of an underlying mechanism, requires knowledge, and it used to require skill necessary to test complex passages on an instrument, for example.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Fabulin said:


> Inspiration is an influx of knowledge.
> Vision is a remix of knowledge.
> 
> Both depend on motivation in terms of occuring or not occuring, as well as in terms of whether we pursue them or not.
> ...


Well said. I like this in the abstract, though again there's the difficulty of applying it in practice and determining what aspects are due to what.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

I edited my post. Possibly it answers your question now.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Fabulin said:


> I edited my post. Possibly it answers your question now.


It certainly moves farther in that direction. I fear my "question" is unanswerable in any definitive capacity because, as Woodduck said early in this thread, skill and inspiration (to just use that distinction for the moment) are too intricately tied together in the creation of art to fully untangle them. But I very much like the distinctions you're making.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm certainly not trying to define skill out of existence, but if you define everything that goes into art as a skill you basically define inspiration and vision and similar qualities out of existence, and that's the problem with saying something like "a great deal of... inspiration is a matter of skill deployed... deftly." OK, even if one is to accept that, then where are you drawing the line between them and how can you tell which you're hearing when judging something?


An "inspiration" is simply an artistically interesting idea. Skill, in the broad sense I propose, is the possession and deployment of whatever knowledge and mental and physical powers are needed to: A.) allow an idea to arise, and B.) carry the idea to fruition as an art object. Ideas ("inspirations") arise constantly during the act of making art, but they don't arise from nowhere, even though the initial inspiration for a work may seem to. Ideas arise mainly as a direct result of the mind's skillful accessing of the elements of the art in response to suggestions and problems posed by the shape of the work up to that point. Ideas come and go: many (perhaps most) ideas die, or manifest in altered or compromised form, because the artist lacks the skill to hold, elaborate and fix his ideas in his medium before they degrade or disappear.

An example from my own experience: I have varying degrees of success in deploying my musical skills, and confront the limits of them, when improvising music for ballet classes. Sitting at the piano, I watch the instructor demonstrate a movement in a particular rhythm. Based on the kinetic feel of the movement, I have an idea (an "inspiration") for a 16-bar or 32-bar piece, and my skills - my sense of rhythm, harmony, melodic shape, and the projection of an appropriate "feeling", in interaction with (and within the limits imposed by) my digital technique - kick in and enable me to produce a piece of music that supports the dance. My skills are sufficient to ensure that I'm always successful in providing something at least suitable, but the musical interest of my material varies, depending partly on the quality of my initial idea and partly on whether I can carry the idea forward for the needed length of time and end up with something cohesive and satisfying. If I'm mentally "on," I will be able to access at lightning speed my mental repertoire of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic possibilities and make fresh and arresting combinations of those musical elements; my "higher order" skills will be functioning. if I'm not "on"- if the brain and body are not working as well - I will fall back on "lower order" skills and just do something easy, conventional or repetitive of things I've done before.

You could say that the music I produce for ballet is more or less "inspired," but to me that's just a romantic way of saying that my musical skill is vulnerable to those variables which affect my mental and physical state and which render me more or less capable of producing interesting music.



> To me, this issue was well illustrated by the Yesterday example. Paul said the melody came in a dream. DaveM posted information that it took a year to complete the song (though we don't know exactly what/how much was worked on during that year), implying that there was "skill" required in putting it together; so how much of our final judgment of the song is dependent upon whatever inspiration struck Paul in his sleep, and how much is dependent on whatever they did with it in the year after that?


I don't see that our final judgment of "Yesterday" is dependent upon either "whatever inspiration struck Paul in his sleep" or "whatever he did with it in the year after that." If the entire thing, music and lyrics, had come to him complete in a dream and he'd been able to write it all down in the morning, we might be rather awestruck at his facility for generating and retaining complex musical ideas, but it wouldn't imply that Paul was less skillful as a musician than would his struggling with it for a year - quite the contrary, in fact - and it wouldn't make the song a better song.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> How was it not a failure? Given your position you clearly posted it to show the importance of skill, juxtaposing the efforts of one of the most skillful painters of his era VS the efforts of an elephant. Despite this, everyone (but me, ironically) picked the elephant. How does that not support my original notion that skill isn't necessarily of great importance in the evaluation of art?


I know that you want to be right, but in your zeal to be right, you have forgotten what led up to my little Gainsborough vs elephant test and it wasn't to show the importance of skill. If that had been the aim, it would have been a rather meaningless exercise.

Let's refresh what preceded which, in a nutshell was the subject of subjectivity vs objectivity in evaluating art with Strange Magic leading the charge:



Strange Magic said:


> Actually, I think you may find that I regard as masterpieces many things that others also regard as masterpieces. This should come as no surprise...
> But it is indeed all about what just comes into my head based on my own subjective likes/dislikes. If I happen to share some elements of taste and selection with others, we have something then in common. I don't know how to make my position any more clear.





Strange Magic said:


> It goes on. *It cannot be demonstrated that one piece of art is intrinsically better than another.* What can be demonstrated easily is that one piece of art is different from another. ...What can be personally, individually affirmed is what "we" think about the piece of art--like it, rank it. We can also compare and contrast our reactions to a piece of art with those of others. That's what we do here on TC.


science chimes in with his agreement with the above.



science said:


> #276 This is a great point.





millionrainbows said:


> I'm the one who brought up the idea of "masterpieces," which I do not believe in except as an artifact of bygone times. Yet, everyone seems to be "running" with the idea, trying to define it and apply it to the present. Again, I don't believe the idea of "masterpieces" is still relevant to today's music.


Woodduck, adds these (IMO rather insightful) comments:

In response to 'science':


Woodduck said:


> If you don't see a difference between taste and aesthetic judgment, you may not be too advanced in your perception of aesthetic values or your thinking about aesthetic theory. You might just ask yourself whether you've ever thought a painting, a poem or a piece of music was good without actually liking it. I suspect most of us have had that experience. Why do you think we have?...





Woodduck said:


> Cross-cultural art appreciation and practice - the ability of people raised in one culture to appreciate, compose and perform music (and other arts) of foreign and dissimilar cultures, often very easily and at the highest level of understanding and accomplishment - should go some way toward convincing the "aesthetic subjectivists" that aesthetic values have a high degree of universality transcending cultural traditions and personal tastes. This can only be explained if there are "objective" - i.e. real - physical and psychological factors constituting the human aesthetic sense, factors unaltered at a fundamental level by the accidents of parentage, culture, and other elements of individual experience..





Eva Yojimbo said:


> When it comes to works others perceive as masterpieces that I don't, if it's a medium/genre I generally like, I at least try to understand what others see in it, especially if it's many others or others whose taste I tend to share. Sometimes I will see what they see, but have a different reaction, and other times I won't see it at all. Generally, no matter the outcome, I will simply leave it to them to consider a masterpiece. I do this with, say, Bach's Goldberg Variations. Listened to it many times, heard/read what others have to say about it... it's never clicked with me. If others want to consider it a masterpiece, that's fine. I do not, and that _should be_ fine too.





Eva Yojimbo said:


> *If you claim that masterpieces exist objectively independent of what people think,* that there are masterpieces that are still such even though some don't like it, why are there no masterpieces that (almost) nobody likes?





Eva Yojimbo said:


> *Not without us first deciding that those "objective factors inherent in music" SHOULD serve as a basis for aesthetic judgment, and that decision is (surprise, surprise) a subjective one.*





Strange Magic said:


> ... This has nothing to do with the inherently subjective nature of our opinions about art, "greatness" in art, "masterpieces", etc. The fact remains that value in art is opinion, neither more nor less. And the corollary, for me, is that all aesthetics is subjective, individual, and personal.





Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...But this isn't how many think of music. They think that their biases/sunglasses changes the nature of the music itself, that the music is innately good, bad, mediocre, a masterpiece, etc. They don't seem to understand that, objectively, music is just patterns of sound in time. You can describe these patterns of sound objectively in terms of rhythm, pitch, harmony, etc., but the moment you start calling it "good" or "bad" or "masterpiece" you're speaking to how your biases, your mind, your subjectivity, react to those things. Then, they fool themselves further in thinking that because a lot of people happen to share their reactions that this makes the reactions "more objective" or "closer to being objective" when that's nonsense...


It is at this point that I introduced my 'test' by simply asking which is better, inspired by Strange Magic's
quote bolded above '_It cannot be demonstrated that one piece of art is intrinsically better than another._'

The reason for the test was to show what happens if works of art are based totally on subjectivity. In this case, and no surprise to me, some picked the elephant painting, a couple imbuing it with qualities that almost inferred, remarkably, some artistic intention of the elephant.

It showed that the 'subjectivists' interpret 'better' as what they like and what they would rather hang in their room with no attention to the ability of a human to do what few others can do. A portrait with the qualities of a photograph requiring eye-hand coordination, the ability to put to canvas photographically what they see, the ability to put combinations of colors to match the colors on the subject are thus, to those who reject or ignore objective parameters, no better than a few random brushes of color on a piece of paper by an animal.

This raised the question to me as to what use are the accomplishments of artists or composers if they don't figure in the evaluation of the quality of the artwork or composition? Well, the fact is that the great majority of people who are experienced and/or educated in the arts do use objectivity in evaluating which works are better than another. The little group of subjectivists above, including you, are in your own little bubble outside the Bell curve.

Finally, this has nothing to do with what people like. They can like whatever they want whether by a Gainsborough or an elephant. They just can't conflate 'liking' with 'which is a better work of art'.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Finally, this has nothing to do with what people like. They can like whatever they want whether by a Gainsborough or an elephant. They just can't conflate 'liking' with 'which is a better work of art'.


I think they can. The success of a work depends partly on the extent to which the intent of the artist has been achieved, and also the effect on the viewer. Yes, of course, the skills play a part, but it is not so simple a matter of comparing the range and complexity of skills deployed and making a declaration of 'masterpiece' on that basis alone.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> It showed that the 'subjectivists' interpret 'better' as what they like and what they would rather hang in their room with no attention to the ability of a human to do what few others can do. A portrait with the qualities of a photograph requiring eye-hand coordination, the ability to put to canvas photographically what they see, the ability to put combinations of colors to match the colors on the subject are thus, to those who reject or ignore objective parameters, no better than a few random brushes of color on a piece of paper by an animal.
> 
> This raised the question to me as to what use are the accomplishments of artists or composers if they don't figure in the evaluation of the quality of the artwork or composition? Well, the fact is that the great majority of people who are experienced and/or educated in the arts do use objectivity in evaluating which works are better than another. The little group of subjectivists above, including you, are in your own little bubble outside the Bell curve.


That many said they *prefer *one (the painting by Phumpuang) to the other (an ugly portrait by Gainsborough) did indeed show that they (we, in fact) were using subjective judgment rather than objective. It was clear (surely?) that all were aware of the evident objective skill on the part of Gainsborough. But that didn't make them prefer it. So the "subjectivists" were being true to the philosophy they were arguing for. No surprise there.

It is also the case that we all knew that there probably was a trick: one (science, I think) joked that the abstract painting was probably by a child relative of yours and this was before the "subjectivists" had given their subjective judgments. If we had said "I don't like it but the Gainsborough is objectively better" (thereby accepting that there is an objective better and that the quality difference - in this case, anyway - is explained by skill) then we would indeed have fallen into your "trap". But we didn't.

But part of your point now is that art experts would value the Gainsborough above the Phumpuang and that the "subjectivists" were therefore "wrong" and "outside the bell curve" (which is, of course, impossible). Of course, none of the participants in this would call themselves experienced consumers of art and their subjective tastes were all the more unlikely to mirror the views of the experienced, of experts. Perhaps you should have compared a recording of whale song with a third rate piece from an earlier century? The "bell curve" of inexperienced consumers of art is a different bell curve to the experts' curve.

But what if we had all been as experienced in art as we are in music? Well, our subjective experience in viewing the works would have been very different and we might even have had different preferences. In all likelihood, though, we all would have chosen the same but could also have given a more reasoned argument for why we prefer one over the other (in this case more informed detail on what we don't like about the Gainsborough). We would have been even more aware that the Gainsborough required more skill but would still have answered based on our preferences rejecting, as we all did, your question of which was (objectively) "better".

So what is proved? Maybe you should have asked which needed more skill?

BTW I don't think you can say that Phumpuang had no "artistic intention". Certainly, the website's description of the training given to elephant artists (and even the selection of the talented ones) implies that they might have an intention and some sort of satisfaction in realising it.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> An "inspiration" is simply an artistically interesting idea. Skill, in the broad sense I propose, is the possession and deployment of whatever knowledge and mental and physical powers are needed to: A.) allow an idea to arise, and B.) carry the idea to fruition as an art object.


Again, we're not disagreeing, but the issue I've been trying to discuss is how important each is in the final evaluation. Can all the skill in the world turn a lack of inspiration into a masterpiece? Can inspiration produce a masterpiece even with a deficiency of certain skills? It seems to me, the answer to each is mostly "no" and "yes," respectively. I can't think of a masterpiece that is bereft of inspiration (even if they required great skill to execute whatever the inspiration was), but I can think of plenty of masterpieces full of inspiration in which it's possible to negatively criticize a certain lack of skill in the execution.



Woodduck said:


> I don't see that our final judgment of "Yesterday" is dependent upon either "whatever inspiration struck Paul in his sleep" or "whatever he did with it in the year after that." If the entire thing, music and lyrics, had come to him complete in a dream and he'd been able to write it all down in the morning, we might be rather awestruck at his facility for generating and retaining complex musical ideas, but it wouldn't imply that Paul was less skillful as a musician than would his struggling with it for a year - quite the contrary, in fact - and it wouldn't make the song a better song.


This seems to confuse things for me. Surely if an entire work were to come to one in a dream this would imply that it didn't take skill to create it. We might (rightfully) argue that it required skill in order to be in a position where such a dream could produce such a work to begin with, but this seems very difficult than the conscious (or even semi-conscious) application of skill that is deployed when shaping the piece; say a conscious decision made to utilize one harmony rather than another, or one interval rather than another, or an alteration in rhythm, etc. Of course I don't think such a thing coming in a dream would imply he was less skillful, merely that those skills hadn't been used on that particular song; it was merely a stroke of inspiration.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> It is at this point that I introduced my 'test' by simply asking which is better, inspired by Strange Magic's
> quote bolded above '_It cannot be demonstrated that one piece of art is intrinsically better than another._'
> 
> ...
> ...


All of this is a long way of you saying that you felt "skill," as being something objectively measurable in the case of the two paintings, would lead some (at least the "objectivists") into agreeing that the Gainsborough was better. Surprisingly, they didn't. So I don't see how this wasn't you showing the importance of skill; it's just showing the importance of skill in the context of objectively evaluating art.



DaveM said:


> Well, the fact is that the *great majority of people who are experienced and/or educated in the arts do use objectivity in evaluating which works are better than another*. The little group of subjectivists above, including you, are in your own little bubble outside the Bell curve.


As I've explained countless times (and you've never rebutted), it is impossible to "use objectivity in evaluating which works are better than another" without the subjective agreement that these/those objective qualities are to be used in evaluation to begin with. You (and many others) just blindly overlook this crucial step. You just assume it without rational reflection.



DaveM said:


> They just can't conflate 'liking' with 'which is a better work of art'.


They absolutely can, because "what they like" can be the basis for deciding what qualities are used to evaluate what's better than what else, and this includes what objective qualities they like. If people didn't _like_ realism, then realism would not be considered by anyone to be an "objective" basis for evaluating the quality of a painting.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> That many said they *prefer *one (the painting by Phumpuang) to the other (an ugly portrait by Gainsborough) did indeed show that they (we, in fact) were using subjective judgment rather than objective. It was clear (surely?) that all were aware of the evident objective skill on the part of Gainsborough.


It was not clear at all. Since you were apparently elected by your group or self-appointed as spokesman, the group should pick a new one. You didn't go back and check that thread did you.



> It is also the case that we all knew that there probably was a trick: one (science, I think) joked that the abstract painting was probably by a child relative of yours and this was before the "subjectivists" had given their subjective judgments...


Not true either. These are the posts from your group that followed. Only one, EY, gave some deference to the objective accomplishment of Gainsborough, but even that post was more damning with faint praise. The initial posts show no evidence that 'we all knew that there probably was a trick'.



Mandryka said:


> Based on what I value the abstract one is much better than the portrait. The portrait has no mystery, no élan, no interesting juxtaposition of colour. The abstract is full of life and energy. I'd go as far as to say that based on what I value, the portrait is utterly worthless as a work of art.





science said:


> I'm with Mandryka. One I'd donate to the nearest museum ASAP, the other I'd put in my guest bedroom to show off.





Strange Magic said:


> Sorry, not a fan of either piece. Besides, one can conjur up such comparisons _ad infinitum_, yet the principle remains inviolate. (Picture of big sea-swept rock with boats being dashed to pieces. Turner would be good.)





Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...I'm not a big fan of either, but I'm also not a big fan of the visual arts outside of a select few artists. The former strikes me as a technically quite accomplished but rather boring portrait... I wouldn't be thrilled about hanging either on my wall, but I guess I'll give the edge to the former as at least I can admire the technique.





Enthusiast said:


> .*..I'm with others (who couldn't be?) in thinking it impossible to say which is the "better" work. They are so different, for a start. But noticing that just underlines the extent to which my judgment on the question is very much a personal preference. I do not like the picture of a musician. I almost find it ugly. I do not object to the abstract painting and quite like its airiness and balance and the feeling of an upward trajectory (helped a lot by the black splodges in the middle of the upper part).*


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Fwiw, I think the Gainsborough portrait much better than the elephant print.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> All of this is a long way of you saying that you felt "skill," as being something objectively measurable in the case of the two paintings, would lead some (at least the "objectivists") into agreeing that the Gainsborough was better. Surprisingly, they didn't. So I don't see how this wasn't you showing the importance of skill; it's just showing the importance of skill in the context of objectively evaluating art.


I know what I was testing and I showed plenty of evidence to support it. You can spin all you want, but the posts show what they show.



> As I've explained countless times (and you've never rebutted), it is impossible to "use objectivity in evaluating which works are better than another" without the subjective agreement that these/those objective qualities are to be used in evaluation to begin with. You (and many others) just blindly overlook this crucial step. You just assume it without rational reflection.


I have rebutted it and so have others. You drag these sorts of things -'blindly overlook', 'without rational reflection'- out when you're desperate. In your mind, anyone who doesn't agree with your reasoning is not thinking rationally. Looking at other posters' responses to you, it appears that there's a lot of irrational thinking going on.



> They absolutely can, because "what they like" can be the basis for deciding what qualities are used to evaluate what's better than what else, and this includes what objective qualities they like. If people didn't _like_ realism, then realism would not be considered by anyone to be an "objective" basis for evaluating the quality of a painting.


In determining which work of art is the better, more accomplished work, subjective factors do not trump objective qualities, but there has been a lot of the reverse occurring in your little group. Subjective factors can trump objective factors when it comes to what one hangs in their home or what they listen to or what they choose as an avatar, even if it's by an animal.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2019)

DaveM said:


> I know what I was testing and I showed plenty of evidence to support it. You can spin all you want, but the posts show what they show.
> 
> I have rebutted it and so have others. You drag these sorts of things -'blindly overlook', 'without rational reflection'- out when you're desperate. In your mind, anyone who doesn't agree with your reasoning is not thinking rationally.
> 
> In determining which work of art is the better, more accomplished work, subjective factors do not trump objective qualities, but there has been a lot of the reverse occurring in *your little group*. Subjective factors can trump objective factors when it comes to what one hangs in their home or what they listen to or what they choose as an avatar, even if it's by an animal.


I don't know who the little group is, but I'm puzzled why you would try to reduce the range of answers to your little experiment, which generated a far more nuanced response than the quotes above allow. Outsied of the little group, there was this, from Woodduck:



> [post#525] The portrait of a musician is a dull piece of hack work by a painter who knew better. There are skills in evidence: the facial expression is lively, the upholstery is velvety, the dog is soft and pettable and its form is nicely suggested in the soft shadow. But this is obviously a commissioned portrait of the most mundane sort, and the overall effect is conventional and static. Worse, the background seems to have been filled in in a hurry, and is inexplicable except as a compositional expedient: the brutally dull column, the strange, perspectiveless blue curtain, the way it bulges weightlessly and sticks to the back of the almost legless chair which fails to crash to the floor mainly because it's glued to the cellist's derriere, the cello looking like a cutout pasted onto the picture plane...What was Thomas thinking? It's amateurish.





> Babar's (or is it Dumbo's?) unpretentious effort comes as blessed relief. It's nice the way our painterly pachyderm doesn't bunch any one color in one area, but lets the whole spectrum scatter and float free like blowing leaves, keeping the entire space in vibrant play. The large black mark at top center suggests a question - why is the strongest single mark in so dominant a location? - and we might ask the artist about it if we could expect to get a better answer than being sprayed by a trunk. But never mind. It looks as spontaneous and joyous as it probably was, and although it would be less pleasing if painted by an adult human calling himself an artist, it's still better than a cheap commission painted in a hurry on too little sleep.


There's plenty of "subjective" in here, but at least Woodduck cites some of the specific criteria he is using to make a judgement, and not just asserting the superior of one over the other.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> I don't know who the little group is, but I'm puzzled why you would try to reduce the range of answers to your little experiment, which generated a far more nuanced response than the quotes above allow. Outsied of the little group, there was this, from Woodduck:
> 
> There's plenty of "subjective" in here, but at least Woodduck cites some of the specific criteria he is using to make a judgement, and not just asserting the superior of one over the other.


Well, I'm willing to bet there's a good smattering of tongue-in-cheek in the latter post. The former post is a legitimate opinion based mainly on objective features -things you can see and evaluate positively or negatively in the painting. I accept that as a reasonable approach including parts that are subjective. (I have never denied that some subjectivity will inevitably be part of any evaluation of artworks.)

I will say that I've seen this painting and other Gainsboroughs, including the famous The Blue Boy, several times and contrary to woodduck's view, people viewing the musician painting in question -and incidentally, Gainsborough's other works- look on these works in wonderment. 'In person' they are nothing short of magnificent and are the crown jewels of the museum they are in.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Again, we're not disagreeing, but the issue I've been trying to discuss is how important each is in the final evaluation. Can all the skill in the world turn a lack of inspiration into a masterpiece?


No, but if you have that much skill (or close to it) you'll be much more likely to have "masterpiece"-level inspirations. Artistic ideas manifest themselves largely in terms of the medium in which people work, and to those who apply their skill in that medium. People who can't paint are unlikely to have painterly ideas, or ideas which which are more than rough reminiscences of paintings they've seen. People who don't read, write or perform music are unlikely to come up with anything more than simple, trite tunes. I'm inclined to think that most good ideas come to people who have MORE skills than they would seem to need to come up with them.



> Can inspiration produce a masterpiece even with a deficiency of certain skills?


I suppose so, within the limits of the skills you do have. But offhand I can't think of a masterpiece that exhibits a notable deficiency of RELEVANT skills. I should think that a deficiency of any magnitude would disqualify the work as a masterpiece (but then I'm not generous in my aesthetic judgments ).



> It seems to me, the answer to each is mostly "no" and "yes," respectively. I can't think of a masterpiece that is bereft of inspiration (even if they required great skill to execute whatever the inspiration was), but I can think of plenty of masterpieces full of inspiration in which it's possible to negatively criticize a certain lack of skill in the execution.


What masterpieces are you thinking of, and how great a lack is a "certain lack"? It would be useful to look at concrete examples.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I think the examples I offered of Academy art of both England and France of the 19th century display enormous skill in depicting the most meretricious subjects, thus demonstrating that skill alone cannot guarantee excellence in art, at least to this observer. I will be happy to affirm that Gainsborough was a skillful painter, but a roomful of Gainsborough "masterpieces" might make me yearn for oblivion compared to a roomful of Ryder or Van Gogh. If others choose to love Gainsborough, more power to them considering my aesthetics of the primacy and validity of individual choice. But it is folly to attempt to persuade others that Gainsborough's art ought to be appreciated because of its demonstration of painterly skill. Authority figures regard Gainsborough as a master; they also regard Mark Rothko as a master--what are we to make of this? Does it matter?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> I think the examples I offered of Academy art of both England and France of the 19th century display enormous skill in depicting the most meretricious subjects, thus demonstrating that skill alone cannot guarantee excellence in art, at least to this observer. I will be happy to affirm that Gainsborough was a skillful painter, but a roomful of Gainsborough "masterpieces" might make me yearn for oblivion compared to a roomful of Ryder or Van Gogh. If others choose to love Gainsborough, more power to them considering my aesthetics of the primacy and validity of individual choice. But it is folly to attempt to persuade others that Gainsborough's art ought to be appreciated because of its demonstration of painterly skill.


The folly is not appreciating obvious skill whether you like an artwork or not. The inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the artwork of someone who has a skill that relatively few other humans have, skill fine-honed over a lifetime is either ignorance or some sort of haughty stubbornness that I do not understand.

Given the environment in which I grew up where obvious talent and skill, whether composers, sculptors or artists, were appreciated and not diminished -whether a work was one's preference or not- this sort of attitude in this and the preceding thread is foreign to me. I've never come across it elsewhere either. I can't help but think that members of -what I hope is- just this little group have never given this subject much thought in the past and are making it up as they go along.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> I think the examples I offered of Academy art of both England and France of the 19th century display enormous skill in depicting the most meretricious subjects, thus demonstrating that skill alone cannot guarantee excellence in art, at least to this observer. I will be happy to affirm that Gainsborough was a skillful painter, but a roomful of Gainsborough "masterpieces" might make me yearn for oblivion compared to a roomful of Ryder or Van Gogh. If others choose to love Gainsborough, more power to them considering my aesthetics of the primacy and validity of individual choice. But it is folly to attempt to persuade others that Gainsborough's art ought to be appreciated because of its demonstration of painterly skill. Authority figures regard Gainsborough as a master; they also regard Mark Rothko as a master--what are we to make of this? Does it matter?


It may be relevant to mention that even the finest portrait painters in history - John Singer Sargent being a prime example - tended to regard portraiture as a lesser form of art, a commercial necessity which required a maximum of painterly skill but a minimum of imagination. Most of them (including Gainsborough, I believe) would rather have been out in the field doing watercolor landscapes than sitting in his dingy studio across from the pasty-faced, silk-and-lace furbelowed Lady Hermione Wallingford-Snoot and her unruly brood of brats.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> It may be relevant to mention that even the finest portrait painters in history - John Singer Sargent being a prime example - tended to regard portraiture as a lesser form of art, a commercial necessity which required a maximum of painterly skill but a minimum of imagination. Most of them (including Gainsborough, I believe) would rather have been out in the field doing watercolor landscapes than sitting in his dingy studio across from the pasty-faced, silk-and-lace furbelowed Lady Hermione Wallingford-Snoot and her unruly brood of brats.


In my reading about Gainsborough, I have not been able to determine whether he enjoyed or loathed painting these portraits. However, there is general agreement among those who have studied him that he had an underlying agenda with some of the many aristocrats he painted. For example:
_
'Gainsborough made conscious efforts at subverting the mainstream trends by displaying tendencies of deviation and social satire. For instance, in the work Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, the viewer's presence is not only acknowledged but the figures are also portrayed with uncanny expressions to powerfully convey the condescending attitude of the aristocratic society.'_

Perhaps Gainsborough enjoyed sticking it to them in these subtle ways. It is accepted that he preferred 'natural settings' whenever practical financially and otherwise. Cornard Wood is an example of his talent painting landscapes:


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2019)

DaveM said:


> The folly is not appreciating obvious skill whether you like an artwork or not. The inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the artwork of someone who has a skill that relatively few other humans have, skill fine-honed over a lifetime is either ignorance or some sort of haughty stubbornness that I do not understand.
> 
> Given the environment in which I grew up where obvious talent and skill, whether composers, sculptors or artists, were appreciated and not diminished -whether a work was one's preference or not- this sort of attitude in this and the preceding thread is foreign to me. I've never come across it elsewhere either. I can't help but think that members of -what I hope is- just this little group have never given this subject much thought in the past and are making it up as they go along.


I'm not sure - and I've already done enough fruitless reading back, so I'm not going to check - that "this little group" has refused to acknowledge Gainsborough's skills. They may have dissed the specific painting in your trial (though you invited that with your obvious challenge, and you might have picked a better example of his work).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Cornard Wood is an example of his talent painting landscapes:
> 
> View attachment 124910


I've always wondered what artists of the time had against the color green. It can't be explained merely as the browning of old varnish.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> I'm not sure - and I've done enough reading back, so I'm not going to check - that "this little group" has refused to acknowledge Gainsborough's skills. They may have dissed the specific painting in your trial (though you invited that with your obvious challenge, and you might have picked a better example of his work).


Why are you speculating when first, you aren't going to back up your speculation and second, I took the trouble to list all the pertinent posts above that show how there was only one poster (EY) in that group who gave some deference, however little, to Gainsborough's skills and you are purposely ignoring them. You have this habit of throwing out things off the top of your head and coming to conclusions without substance. It's really annoying.

For instance, '_you might have picked a better example of his work._' Based on what? Do you have special knowledge that that is a poor example of his work? Have you seen that painting in person? I have. I've had experts at the museum where this painting hangs give the history of it and how it is admired along with the other Gainsboroughs there. It isn't considered to be one of his inferior works. Besides, how great a painting is necessary to go up against that of an elephant?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> It may be relevant to mention that even the finest portrait painters in history - John Singer Sargent being a prime example - *tended to regard portraiture as a lesser form of art, *a commercial necessity which required a maximum of painterly skill but a minimum of imagination. Most of them (including Gainsborough, I believe) would rather have been out in the field doing watercolor landscapes than sitting in his dingy studio across from the pasty-faced, silk-and-lace furbelowed Lady Hermione Wallingford-Snoot and her unruly brood of brats.


Yet the greatest of them all - Rembrandt - sure could paint a portrait! I doubt whether he would've agreed.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2019)

DaveM said:


> I took the trouble to list all the pertinent posts above that show how there was only one poster (EY) in that group who gave some deference, however little, to Gainsborough's skills and you are purposely ignoring them.


Not at all. Not one of them dismissed Gainsborough as a painter. They dismissed the specific painting. You didn't include my comment that actually recognised his skill - so I'm not in the little group you have a thing about.



DaveM said:


> You have this habit of throwing out things off the top of your head and coming to conclusions without substance. It's really annoying.


Do I? Oh well, that's my posting style. Shall I comment on yours?



DaveM said:


> Do you have special knowledge that that is a poor example of his work? Have you seen that painting in person? I have.


Oh, yes, very special . No, I've not seen that painting in person, but that seems to me irrelevant. There are others that, IMO, better showcase his skills which _I've_ seen in person - such as _Mr and Mrs Andrews_.

And then this one's not bad either...Thom is quite an abel painter really!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoma...arl_Friedrich_Abel_by_Thomas_Gainsborough.jpg


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> It was not clear at all. Since you were apparently elected by your group or self-appointed as spokesman, the group should pick a new one. You didn't go back and check that thread did you.


Now you've lost me, DaveM. Firstly, I'm not a member of any group and we don't have secret meetings to elect spokespeople! Technically (objectively) that is a slightly paranoid suggestion on your part. I'm an individual participating in a discussion thread. But, aside from that, you accuse me of not going back through the thread for evidence that we were all expressing subjective preferences. I suppose the part you object to was



> It was clear (surely?) that all were aware of the evident objective skill on the part of Gainsborough.


even though none of us expressed this "knowledge". I think we all recognise that Gainsborough had portrayed a person and various objects in a fairly accurate and realistic way. I think we all recognised that this was (objectively) the manifestation of a skill. Did we have to _say _this? Can you really believe that, because we didn't express it, it must be that we hadn't noticed it? Of course, if I had recognised that the activity that seemed like a game was in fact an interrogation by a Kafka-esque investigator then I would have been more careful. But I thought better of you than that.

Then you suggest that none of us had in our minds the suspicion (it was more like a certainty) that you were playing a well-natured trick:



DaveM said:


> Not true either. These are the posts from your group that followed. Only one, EY, gave some deference to the objective accomplishment of Gainsborough, but even that post was more damning with faint praise. The initial posts show no evidence that 'we all knew that there probably was a trick'.


We posted different opinions - so much for the idea that we have been acting as a secret society. But what if everyone had taken the comparison as a serious one between two acknowledged masters? Would that have mattered in the context of the question being asked? In the quotes you provide the opinions expressed by three posters (including me) were clearly and openly subjective. EY narrowly chose the Gainsborough for an objective quality. He expressed this preference grudgingly (he didn't like either work) but you seem to think he should have been full of praise (for that ugly painting!) and to find it significant that he wasn't? SM rejected the premise of the game. What more can you get from our posts if you read them as serious attempts at being art critics instead of as a playful chance to demonstrate the view we (separately and without any hidden collaboration!) were discussing?

But I think we all did recognise that a trick was being played - who watching would not have done? - and you have posted nothing that demonstrates that this might not have been the case. The "suspicion" had been posted by (I think) science and I had replied to that (I responded light-heartedly that it was too good to be a child's painting - an almost objective view that I still hold). The spirit of the thing seemed to me (and, I suspect, others) as a pleasant game. Did you really think - given our knowledge of your posting style and the position you were arguing for - that we all took it for a serious comparison of work by painters of equal stature? It is a little disappointing now to realise that you genuinely expected that rather than that it would be taken for a fun game.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

DaveM said:


> I will say that I've seen this painting and other Gainsboroughs, including the famous The Blue Boy, several times and contrary to woodduck's view, people viewing the musician painting in question -and incidentally, Gainsborough's other works- look on these works in wonderment. 'In person' they are nothing short of magnificent and are the crown jewels of the museum they are in.


I've seen the paintings in person as well. The case of the Blue Boy is perhaps interesting in the light of previous discussions of rules and skill. If Wikipedia can be believed, it is Gainsborough's refutation, in a sense, of a compositional principle laid down by Joshua Reynolds. It's a striking portrait, of course, but it takes on added interest if one reads an informative panel put at some distance from the canvas (a modern invention). Modern music-the most famous examples, at any rate-often has this quality of systematically interrogating a single rule or convention, sometimes enlarging musicians' conception of what can be done with sound. At the least, an avant garde or experimental work, if it is truly original, can take on interest as an event in the history of music.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> The folly is not appreciating obvious skill whether you like an artwork or not. The inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the artwork of someone who has a skill that relatively few other humans have, skill fine-honed over a lifetime is either ignorance or some sort of haughty stubbornness that I do not understand.
> 
> Given the environment in which I grew up where obvious talent and skill, whether composers, sculptors or artists, were appreciated and not diminished -whether a work was one's preference or not- this sort of attitude in this and the preceding thread is foreign to me. I've never come across it elsewhere either. I can't help but think that members of -what I hope is- just this little group have never given this subject much thought in the past and are making it up as they go along.


I sense here a temptation to raise up artisanship--craft--expertise--"skill"--into a substitute for an appreciation of living, breathing Art. I will be happy to occasionally provide examples of great skill of execution lavished upon minutiae, or kitsch, or the long-exhausted, and will await efforts to "explain" the resulting work by those evoking the artists' hidden agendas, as culled from the writings of critics anxious to redeem both the art so produced and the reputation of its creators: "It was done with great skill!". And so I too will acknowledge "appreciating obvious skill" whether I like an artwork or not.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: _Jupiter and Thetis_:


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The Ingres above shows incredible skill, yet is utterly dead (in my opinion). Here is another bit of mythology, _Siegfried and the Rhinemaidens_ by Albert Pinkham Ryder. Ingres could paint circles around Ryder, yet.......


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

A well made point! The Ingres is truly horrible!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> No, I've not seen that painting in person, but that seems to me irrelevant.


It is relevant when it includes history and evaluation of the painting by on-site experts which I mentioned and you ignored. Do you continue to ignore things in black and white because they don't support what you're about to post?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> I sense here a temptation to raise up artisanship--craft--expertise--"skill"--into a substitute for an appreciation of living, breathing Art. I will be happy to occasionally provide examples of great skill of execution lavished upon minutiae, or kitsch, or the long-exhausted, and will await efforts to "explain" the resulting work by those evoking the artists' hidden agendas, as culled from the writings of critics anxious to redeem both the art so produced and the reputation of its creators: "It was done with great skill!". And so I too will acknowledge "appreciating obvious skill" whether I like an artwork or not.


Re: the last sentence: Good for you and I mean it! If memory serves that is your first real acknowledgement that 'obvious skill' is an important factor in the quality of artworks.

As for your first statement, nothing could be further from the truth, at least as far as I'm concerned. The reason why my emphasis has been on skill and craftsmanship is because of posts such as the below. You have maintained a very polarized position which IMO has polarized the discussion as a reaction. Perhaps your post above indicates some moderation.



Strange Magic said:


> ... This has nothing to do with the inherently subjective nature of our opinions about art, "greatness" in art, "masterpieces", etc. The fact remains that value in art is opinion, neither more nor less. And the corollary, for me, is that all aesthetics is subjective, individual, and personal.





Strange Magic said:


> It cannot be demonstrated that one piece of art is intrinsically better than another...


Regarding the two paintings you just posted, you seem to be making a value judgment about them which would conflict with your post above.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Blancrocher said:


> I've seen the paintings in person as well. The case of the Blue Boy is perhaps interesting in the light of previous discussions of rules and skill. If Wikipedia can be believed, it is Gainsborough's refutation, in a sense, of a compositional principle laid down by Joshua Reynolds. It's a striking portrait, of course, but it takes on added interest if one reads an informative panel put at some distance from the canvas (a modern invention). Modern music-the most famous examples, at any rate-often has this quality of systematically interrogating a single rule or convention, sometimes enlarging musicians' conception of what can be done with sound. At the least, an avant garde or experimental work, if it is truly original, can take on interest as an event in the history of music.


I'm having trouble with the last sentence, but it's an interesting perspective.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> Re: the last sentence: Good for you and I mean it! If memory serves that is your first real acknowledgement that 'obvious skill' is an important factor in the quality of artworks.
> 
> As for your first statement, nothing could be further from the truth, at least as far as I'm concerned. The reason why my emphasis has been on skill and craftsmanship is because of posts such as the below. You have maintained a very polarized position which IMO has polarized the discussion as a reaction. Perhaps your post above indicates some moderation.
> 
> Regarding the two paintings you just posted, you seem to be making a value judgment about them which would conflict with your post above.


Alas! It seems I have failed completely to have you understand my position.

First: "Obvious skill" is not necessarily an important factor in the quality of artworks. It may be a factor in some artworks. It is often on conspicuous display in many ghastly artworks. In other words, the circles of "obvious skill" and "great (in my opinion) artworks" only sometimes overlap. But, as I stated, I am happy to acknowledge skill as skill; there is no expressed or implied judgement of artistic greatness or merit.

Second: I constantly am making my own value judgements on artworks, as we all are, I should think. What is different is my insistence upon the primacy and validity of my assessments, overriding the contrary opinions of anyone else commenting on the piece. I absolutely prefer Ryder to Ingres in virtually every instance when the two painters are contemplated concurrently. And I offer to you and others the very same power and mastery that I grant to myself. The fact that all aesthetics is opinion and that no art can be demonstrated to be intrinsically better than another grants me that power and mastery.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

*Le Pétomane*: An example of great skill in a Performing Art.....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Pétomane


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Alas! It seems I have failed completely to have you understand my position.
> 
> First: "Obvious skill" is not necessarily an important factor in the quality of artworks. It may be a factor in some artworks... The fact that all aesthetics is opinion and that no art can be demonstrated to be intrinsically better than another grants me that power and mastery.


Okay, I was mistaken. You're just as polarized as I originally assumed. So a Beethoven does not have obvious skill that is an important factor in the quality of his works. He might as well be a Gustav Lange because his works are not intrinsically better.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> Okay, I was mistaken. You're just as polarized as I originally assumed. So a Beethoven does not have obvious skill that is an important factor in the quality of his works. He might as well be a Gustav Lange because his works are not intrinsically better.


I have no recollection of stating anywhere that Beethoven does not have "obvious skill" that is or may be an important factor in the quality of his work. Why insist that I posted thus? Beethoven has lots of skill; I am a big fan of Beethoven's music, though I prefer Brahms.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> I have no recollection of stating anywhere that Beethoven does not have "obvious skill" that is or may be an important factor in the quality of his work. Why insist that I posted thus? Beethoven has lots of skill; I am a big fan of Beethoven's music, though I prefer Brahms.


Oh c'mon. Do I have to repeat your own words..again!


Strange Magic said:


> Alas! It seems I have failed completely to have you understand my position.
> First: "Obvious skill" is not necessarily an important factor in the quality of artworks. It may be a factor in some artworks... The fact that all aesthetics is opinion and that no art can be demonstrated to be intrinsically better than another grants me that power and mastery.


I used your own words. You diminish 'obvious skill as an important factor in the quality of artworks.'. You say that 'the fact is...no art can be demonstrated to be intrinsically better than another. That is a broad statement with no equivocation and no exception. So it must apply to a Beethoven's works vs. a journeyman's such as Lange.

You don't get away with stating broad conclusions and then deny they apply when challenged using a practical example: Oh, I didn't mean Beethoven!


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2019)

DaveM said:


> It is relevant when it includes history and evaluation of the painting by on-site experts which I mentioned and you ignored. Do you continue to ignore things in black and white because they don't support what you're about to post?


You didn't ask my opinion on what the experts said. You asked if I'd seen the painting and insisted that you had as if your seeing it was of some special significance. If you want me instead to comment on what the expert opinion was, you'll have to provide some detail. Otherwise, all you are asking me to do is to agree that because some experts have provided you with information and opinion about the painting, this confirms it must be...what...a great painting? Very skilful? A good example of Gainsborough's best work?

Why would I need to do that? I am well aware of G's reputation among the cognoscenti and the art loving public. It doesn't mean I am required to agree with it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> Oh c'mon. Do I have to repeat your own words..again!
> 
> I used your own words. You diminish 'obvious skill as an important factor in the quality of artworks.'. You say that 'the fact is...no art can be demonstrated to be intrinsically better than another. That is a broad statement with no equivocation and no exception. So it must apply to a Beethoven's works vs. a journeyman's such as Lange.
> 
> You don't get away with stating broad conclusions and then deny they apply when challenged using a practical example.


I give up. I have totally and completely failed to have you understand my position no matter how simple I make it. Can I not make you understand that skill is neither a necessary nor a sufficient ingredient or precondition for my assessment of artwork being, for me, "great"? Skill will sometimes, maybe often, be present in such artworks. Beethoven's works show much skill. Is this not clear?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Let me now ask a few questions. Is it your position that, if a work exhibits great skill, it must be "great"? Is it your position that, if a (critical) number of critics say some art is great, you think it is great also? Must everyone else, upon receiving the critics' pronouncement, also think (ought to think) that the work is great? If the artwork was transported to T'ang China, would the famed aesthete The Count of T'ang also be required to give his assent? Do you prefer the Ingres to the Ryder? If so, why? If not, why?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> I give up. I have totally and completely failed to have you understand my position no matter how simple I make it. Can I not make you understand that skill is neither a necessary nor a sufficient ingredient or precondition for my assessment of artwork being, for me, "great"? Skill will sometimes, maybe often, be present in such artworks. Beethoven's works show much skill. Is this not clear?


When you make such broad statements without much or any qualifications, you're going to cause confusion when you appear to counter them when asked for specifics (i.e. the Beethoven analogy).

At least _"Obvious skill" is not necessarily an important factor in the quality of artworks_' has progressed to '_Skill will sometimes, maybe often, be present in such artworks.'_


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> When you make such broad statements without much or any qualifications, you're going to cause confusion when you appear to counter them when asked for specifics (i.e. the Beethoven analogy).
> 
> At least _"Obvious skill" is not necessarily an important factor in the quality of artworks_' has progressed to '_Skill will sometimes, maybe often, be present in such artworks.'_


Again, I give up. You have no interest in answering my questions and you do not understand my position. What more is to be said?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Let me now ask a few questions. Is it your position that, if a work exhibits great skill, it must be "great"?


For me, there is a significant, but not necessarily 100% correlation between the degree of skill present in the creation of an artwork and the likelihood that it is good, very good and maybe even great, especially (for me) in classical music.



> Is it your position that, if a (critical) number of critics say some art is great, you think it is great also?


I don't know what a (critical) number of critics are.

If a given work appears to be the result of great skill, along with my own assessment -assuming I have experience in the art form- I might be influenced by an educated critic I respect that the work might be great, but to me the ultimate sign of a great artwork is one that has, over decades and centuries, been accepted as such by -for instance in the case of classical music- listeners, other composers, critics and musicologists.



> Must everyone else, upon receiving the critics' pronouncement, also think (ought to think) that the work is great?


 See above. I'll just leave it at that since 'everyone else' is too general.



> If the artwork was transported to T'ang China, would the famed aesthete The Count of T'ang also be required to give his assent? Do you prefer the Ingres to the Ryder? If so, why? If not, why?


In replying to other posts, I had to re-read a number of past posts and you kept referring to the T'ang this and the T'ang that to the point that I began to think there was a long lost Chinese dynasty I'd never heard about. I understand that it has a great significance in your belief system, but this has been addressed by others (I think woodduck) in the past so all I'll say is that what the T'angians or even the Neanderthals in ancient parts of Europe and Asia might have thought is irrelevant to me. What I do think is significant is the major acceptance of western classical music by the very different cultures in China and Japan.

I like both those paintings. My wife wouldn't let me hang the first one and the second one is interesting, but a little creepy.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Again, I give up. You have no interest in answering my questions..


I just spent precious minutes of my life answering your questions.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> You didn't ask my opinion on what the experts said. You asked if I'd seen the painting and insisted that you had as if your seeing it was of some special significance. If you want me instead to comment on what the expert opinion was, you'll have to provide some detail. Otherwise, all you are asking me to do is to agree that because some experts have provided you with information and opinion about the painting, this confirms it must be...what...a great painting? Very skilful? A good example of Gainsborough's best work? Why would I need to do that? I am well aware of G's reputation among the cognoscenti and the art loving public. It doesn't mean I am required to agree with it.


Well what is clear is the level of educated background you had for saying I should have picked a better painting: Nothing!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> For me, there is a significant, but not necessarily 100% correlation between the degree of skill present in the creation of an artwork and the likelihood that it is good, very good and maybe even great, *especially (for me) in classical music.*


This brings up a question that's been on my mind. Does skill, and perceivable skill, correlate with overall quality in music as much as it does in other arts? If so, or if not, why? How can we tell? We're talking a lot about paintings here, in which the physical manipulation of paint is a conspicuous skill in its own right. Isn't it harder to distinguish idea from execution - or "inspiration" from "skill" - in music?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Now you've lost me, DaveM. Firstly, I'm not a member of any group and we don't have secret meetings to elect spokespeople! Technically (objectively) that is a slightly paranoid suggestion on your part. I'm an individual participating in a discussion thread.


Paranoid? In that entire post and in the entire post below you are referring to 'We'. Who is the 'We' you're referring to?: Presumably the people including you who responded with what you must be assuming had a similar perspective, sometimes known as a 'group' and if it wasn't a similar perspective, why again are you using 'We' as if you are all of one mind? And if you are just _'an individual participating in a discussion thread'_, why again are you using 'We'?

Hold on now, it just came to me, I may be mistaken about your reference to a group! You are actually using the royal 'We'. That makes much more sense.



> even though none of us expressed this "knowledge". I think we all recognise that Gainsborough had portrayed a person and various objects in a fairly accurate and realistic way. I think we all recognised that this was (objectively) the manifestation of a skill. Did we have to _say _this? Can you really believe that, because we didn't express it, it must be that we hadn't noticed it?...


Since here you sound like you are speaking for a group, how do you know the workings of other persons' minds if they don't express it? The posts speak for themselves: They were almost universally critical, and not just a little bit, about that painting with not a mention of the skill required to paint it.



> ...But I think we all did recognise that a trick was being played - who watching would not have done? - and you have posted nothing that demonstrates that this might not have been the case.


You keep saying that 'we all did recognized that a trick was being played'. The initial posts show nothing of the kind. You need to stop using 'We'. It implies that you speak for everybody and, in the alternative, you're not royalty.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> This brings up a question that's been on my mind. Does skill, and perceivable skill, correlate with overall quality in music as much as it does in other arts? If so, or if not, why? How can we tell? We're talking a lot about paintings here, in which the physical manipulation of paint is a conspicuous skill in its own right. Isn't it harder to distinguish idea from execution - or "inspiration" from "skill" - in music?


I've listened to classical music and played it for so many years -since age 3- that when it comes to baroque to classical to romantic to even atonal music (which I mostly dislike) I feel as if I have a pretty good sense of skill. To me, idea, execution and inspiration are all part of the skill, Beethoven perhaps being the perfect example.

Fwiw, my recognition of skill in the most abstract/avant-garde -shudder- music (think Ferneyhough) falls apart and I've seen no evidence that there is any skill to evaluate when you remove melody, harmony and most everything else that constitutes classical music as I've known it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Dave, thank you for at least partially answering my questions. Here's the Wikipedia article on the T'ang Dynasty (I've seen it spelled with and without the apostrophe). There was a Count of T'ang, the father of the founder of the dynasty. I cast him as an aesthete, in that on an episode of Antiques Road Show here in the USA, a woman brought in an authentic T'ang sculptured horse that brought Lark Mason, the show's resident expert in Chinese antiques, as close to tears of wonder and joy as I've ever seen him exhibit. So I use the Count as my specimen aesthete far removed from us in space and time, and wonder if he would respond with that universal approbation to our standard "great Western art" that we are assured is triggered in most everyone when presented with it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty

If you like both paintings (equally?), that's just fine with me. Otherwise, we're done here--what's left to say?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> Dave, thank you for at least partially answering my questions. Here's the Wikipedia article on the T'ang Dynasty (I've seen it spelled with and without the apostrophe).


"T'ang" is correct per Wade-Giles romanization, which was widely used prior to the founding of the PRC. The PRC later adopted Pinyin romanization, where it is spelled "Tang" without the apostrophe. That is now the most-accepted standard, including in Wikipedia.

When I was living in that area, anybody using Pinyin romanization in Taiwan was likely to end up on *Green Island*. Not a happy prospect!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> "T'ang" is correct per Wade-Giles romanization, which was widely used prior to the founding of the PRC. The PRC later adopted Pinyin romanization, where it is spelled "Tang" without the apostrophe. That is now the most-accepted standard, including in Wikipedia.


T'arnation! What were Wade and Giles thinking, having us write "Tao" instead of "Dao," and then representing the sound of T with T'? They'd have had astronauts drinking T'ang, which t'astes t'errible, and we'd have had to sing "t'ing t'ang walla walla ping pang." (K'ool sung, pai the wei.)


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Well what is clear is the level of educated background you had for saying I should have picked a better painting: Nothing!


Reduced to casting aspersions on my level of education. 'Nuff said.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Hold on now, it just came to me, I may be mistaken about your reference to a group! You are actually using the royal 'We'. That makes much more sense.


:lol: Recognised at last! On your knees, DaveM!

Or, more seriously, I read the posts that you are arguing with and believe I understood them - something that it seems you were not able to do - so I was able sometimes to say "we". I'm sorry if it frightened you.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> I feel as if I have a pretty good sense of skill. *To me, idea, execution and inspiration are all part of the skill, Beethoven perhaps being the perfect example. *


Ah so "skill" as you are using the word means everything. That's why you are able to insist that skill is so important to your view of whether a work is good or bad.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Reduced to casting aspersions on my level of education. 'Nuff said.


'level of educated _background_' on the subject at hand. If you want to play the victim by leaving out words, go for it. If you're hurt by the fact that IMO you judged my use of that painting based on a limited educated background on the subject, then best to just not respond to my posts. 'Nuff said.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Ah so "skill" as you are using the word means everything. That's why you are able to insist that skill is so important to your view of whether a work is good or bad.


Okay, Beethoven is deciding to compose his 4th Piano Concerto. He comes up with the *idea* to open with the piano, unusual for the day. He ponders and is *inspired* to comes up with lovely original melodies for the 1st movement which he scribbles in his notebook. He then proceeds to *execute* the work by writing out the piano and orchestral parts. Which of these do not involve a skill?


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

DaveM said:


> 'level of educated _background_' on the subject at hand. If you want to play the victim by leaving out words, go for it. If you're hurt by the fact that IMO you judged my use of that painting based on a limited educated background on the subject, then best to just not respond to my posts. 'Nuff said.


You're right. I missed out the word background. My bad. Sorry.

So, how do we get to measure what "educated background" you have and I have, so we can compare and make a definitive ruling? Or is this a nonsense?

_In my opinion_, the painting(s) of Abel are not as good as other paintings by Gainsborough. In fact, I prefer the painting of Abel I'd posted to the one you'd posted.

All of this is increasingly irrelevant to the question of the extent to which we take skill into account when evaluating art (and this in turn distracts from discussing music.)


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Ah so "skill" as you are using the word means everything. That's why you are able to insist that skill is so important to your view of whether a work is good or bad.


And to use your definition of skills for assessing (subjectively, of course) those two paintings I would say that Gainsborough lacked (or failed to use) the skill to design an attractive image and was fairly mediocre in portraying a character. Phumpuang, on the other hand, managed to achieve an airy and happy image with a sense of upwards movement (an interesting idea). It may be that most elephants recognise it as a bountiful forest filled with delicious fruits and the act of moving their trunks upwards to reach for it?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

DaveM said:


> I have rebutted it and so have others.


Please link to any post where you or anyone has refuted it. What I've found is that when people have claimed to have refuted this point (and the similar one made by Hume) people have just assumed the very thing in question and haven't refuted it at all.



DaveM said:


> In determining which work of art is the better, more accomplished work, subjective factors do not trump objective qualities...


The very concept of using "objective qualities" to determine greatness is a subjective judgment (not to mention WHICH objective qualities to choose). Please refute that statement if you can.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> No, but if you have that much skill (or close to it) you'll be much more likely to have "masterpiece"-level inspirations. Artistic ideas manifest themselves largely in terms of the medium in which people work, and to those who apply their skill in that medium. People who can't paint are unlikely to have painterly ideas, or ideas which which are more than rough reminiscences of paintings they've seen. People who don't read, write or perform music are unlikely to come up with anything more than simple, trite tunes. I'm inclined to think that most good ideas come to people who have MORE skills than they would seem to need to come up with them.


This we also agree on. I very much think that skill is required to put one's self in a position to be inspired, and the more the art-form lives and breathes in one's headspace, the more likely they are to find themselves inspired. Of course, that said, we should still recognize that there have been a great many composers and songwriters who developed very similarly skill-wise, at least in terms of learning the same things and techniques from roughly the same texts, but who found themselves very unevenly supplied with inspiration. EG, I think it's difficult to say that the difference between a great composer like Saint-Saens and "one of the greatest" composers like Mozart is due to skill; Saint-Saens seemed a similarly gifted prodigy, and was thought a genius among his pupils, and was clearly someone who lived and breathed (and studied and practiced) music as much as anyone, yet he was never able to compose a groundbreaking work on the level Don Giovanni or a 41st Symphony or 20th Piano Concerto.



Woodduck said:


> What masterpieces are you thinking of, and how great a lack is a "certain lack"? It would be useful to look at concrete examples.


To take one example, Boris Godunov was thought technically deficient enough that both Rimsky-Korsakov and Shotakovich created new scores to correct its "mistakes," yet I've seen few people who would deny it's a masterpiece.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> This brings up a question that's been on my mind. Does skill, and perceivable skill, correlate with overall quality in music as much as it does in other arts? If so, or if not, why? How can we tell? We're talking a lot about paintings here, in which the physical manipulation of paint is a conspicuous skill in its own right. Isn't it harder to distinguish idea from execution - or "inspiration" from "skill" - in music?


Interesting question! My initial inclination is that it may correlate with quality the least in music, but I suspect that inclination is due more to how I relate to music compared with the other arts. For me, music's primary appeal has always been emotional/aesthetic, the fact that it's able to bypass conscious understanding or direct representations of reality and just stir feelings with nothing but the way in which sounds are organized; and given my extremely broad tastes I've come to think that there are a great many feelings that can be stirred a great many ways by a great many different kinds of "sound organization," some that require a great amount of skill to learn/execute, some that can be done by a few punks playing a handful of power chords they learned on day one.

In contrast, my interest in poetry/literature and film is much more intellectual. As opposed to music, I tend to recognize that there are only a few central narratives and/or conceptual ideas, so how those things are rendered becomes of much more interest to me. In poetry and film I therefor find myself paying more attention to form and technique, the skill with which anything is rendered. Of course, I still think there are examples of each where the inspiration is enough that I can overlook some deficiencies in skill--in poetry I think of some Blake and Byron, in film I think of Cassavetes and Bunuel--but I think they're more exceptions to the rule. It's strange that, unlike with film and poetry, I don't find myself becoming easily bored by musical cliches, even though I can also appreciate invention and originality; that may also have a lot to do with it.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> You're right. I missed out the word background. My bad. Sorry.
> 
> So, how do we get to measure what "educated background" you have and I have, so we can compare and make a definitive ruling? Or is this a nonsense?
> 
> ...


Appreciate the adjustment. I do agree that we've taken this issue as far as we can and best to get back to discussing music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Did he? I'm interested. Can you provide a reference?


 Anyone familiar with Eno knows that he is interested in self-generating systems for making music. Almost any interview with him will reference these ideas. Also, he got the idea partly from "punk" rock, in which skill and virtuosity were less valued than 'attitude.'

If you're really interested, you should do the footwork yourself, unless this is just another internet 'challenge.'


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> And to use your definition of skills for assessing (subjectively, of course) those two paintings I would say that Gainsborough lacked (or failed to use) the skill to design an attractive image and was fairly mediocre in portraying a character. Phumpuang, on the other hand, managed to achieve an airy and happy image with a sense of upwards movement (an interesting idea). It may be that most elephants recognise it as a bountiful forest filled with delicious fruits and the act of moving their trunks upwards to reach for it?


Maybe Phumpuang is absolutely giddy in the act of painting, but this is rather upsetting:


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> Anyone familiar with Eno knows that he is interested in self-generating systems for making music. Almost any interview with him will reference these ideas. Also, he got the idea partly from "punk" rock, in which skill and virtuosity were less valued than 'attitude.'
> 
> If you're really interested, you should do the footwork yourself, unless this is just another internet 'challenge.'


Well, I don't believe that what you report he said is quite right. I've not found it in the "footwork" I've done so far, that's why I asked for your help to put me in the right place. Yes, I know he explored alternative systems for generating music, and I know he said - a long time ago - that you don't have to have had training in music to compose - but I don't see where he said you don't have to have any skill. Besides, what he once said and what he once composed may not represent what he believes now.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> To take one example, Boris Godunov was thought technically deficient enough that both Rimsky-Korsakov and Shotakovich created new scores to correct its "mistakes," yet I've seen few people who would deny it's a masterpiece.


Few musically knowledgeable people now, I think, regard the peculiarities in Moussorgsky's style to be faults, although I haven't examined the score of _Boris_ to form a judgment of my own. Of course, my judgment might be as biased as that of Rimsky, who not only "fixed" Mussorgsky's harmony but dressed up parts of its rather austere orchestration in colors he thought more appealing. Some people still prefer his version to the original.

I suppose I'm just questioning whether _Boris_ is really a significantly "flawed masterpiece," though I wouldn't claim that it isn't or that there's no such thing. As far as operas go, Beethoven's _Fidelio_ is sometimes considered flawed, although I've never seen a problem with it. Verdi's _Don Carlo(s),_ with its multiple versions and odd ending, may be a good example. Puccini's unfinished _Turandot_ may be another. It isn't hard to find operas that exhibit a certain unevenness of inspiration or less interesting moments, but then opera is a complex form, and we're talking about two to four hours of music that has to accompany situations and dialogue which may be unequally suited to musical expression. Most of the operas generally called masterpieces solve these problems with fair consistency, which is one reason we call them masterpieces. I find it harder to think of pieces of pure music exhibiting faults of construction or inconsistencies of artistic aim that are called masterpieces in spite of such. I, at least, reserve the term for works that seem consistently to know what they're doing and where they're going, and don't waste notes and time doing it and getting there.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DaveM said:


> Maybe Phumpuang is absolutely giddy in the act of painting, but this is rather upsetting:


A sad business. In general, the best place for animals to be is among their own kind in their natural environment. The exception would be those animals that have, through millennia, co-evolved with humans such that their identities are best expressed within the context of their association with us, and there are no independent but non-feral populations living in the wild.

This has nothing to do with either music or skill. :tiphat:


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> A sad business. In general, the best place for animals to be is among their own kind in their natural environment. The exception would be those animals that have, through millennia, co-evolved with humans such that their identities are best expressed within the context of their association with us, and there are no independent but non-feral populations living in the wild.
> 
> This has nothing to do with either music or skill.:tiphat


No it doesn't. I wasn't aware that this was going on. I had assumed that elephants enjoyed doing this perhaps for the treats they get either while or after they paint. Maybe they did enjoy it back when this started, but now perhaps it's become a lucrative business and what's in the video is how they get results..


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Getting on to lighter music, Andre Previn in his entertaining look at his Hollywood years recalls meeting the great songwriter Irving Berlin. When asked to play some of his songs, Berlin looked a little embarrassed and the reason soon emerged in that he wasn't much of a pianist beyond a bit of honky tonk. Comparing him with Leonard Bernstein Previn reckoned that Bernstein had more sheer musicality in his little finger than Berlin, yet when it came to writing songs, Berlin came out on top. Appears that Berlin's genius for writing a good tune overcame his lack of musical skills.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Getting on to lighter music, Andre Previn in his entertaining look at his Hollywood years recalls meeting the great songwriter Irving Berlin. When asked to play some of his songs, Berlin looked a little embarrassed and the reason soon emerged in that he wasn't much of a pianist beyond a bit of honky tonk. Comparing him with Leonard Bernstein Previn reckoned that Bernstein had more sheer musicality in his little finger than Berlin, yet when it came to writing songs, Berlin came out on top. Appears that Berlin's genius for writing a good tune overcame his lack of musical skills.


Didn't Berlin have a piano with a mechanism of some sort to help his writing? Sorry can't quite remember what I once read.

EDIT...see here..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposing_piano


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Getting on to lighter music, Andre Previn in his entertaining look at his Hollywood years recalls meeting the great songwriter Irving Berlin. When asked to play some of his songs, Berlin looked a little embarrassed and the reason soon emerged in that he wasn't much of a pianist beyond a bit of honky tonk. Comparing him with Leonard Bernstein Previn reckoned that Bernstein had more sheer musicality in his little finger than Berlin, yet when it came to writing songs, Berlin came out on top. Appears that Berlin's genius for writing a good tune overcame his lack of musical skills.


It's curious that Irving Berlin only played in F sharp major.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Maybe Phumpuang is absolutely giddy in the act of painting, but this is rather upsetting:


Well, you chose the art work and source. But you may have been guided to something better than that clip. This is taken from the site that you got your picture from:



> The mahouts who have had the most experience in elephant painting now perform all the teaching themselves. It takes only one day to discover if the elephant has real interest in the activity and any aptitude at art. Once the most promising students have been selected, they then continue to be taught for up to a week before they are considered ready to 'make a living' from it.
> 
> They are taught by first showing them how to hold the paintbrush. While some curl the trunk around the brush instinctively, the preferred method at the Center is to hold the brush in the 'nostril' at the end of the trunk, which gives the artist greater range of movement for the brushstrokes. For this purpose, the paintbrush is modified so as to be the right length and thickness to hold easily and not cause any discomfort.
> 
> ...


[/QUOTE]


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Well, you chose the art work and source.


I thought we were done with this. Do you want to keep trading shots?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ No shot intended. I just wanted to _remind _you that the site you got the picture from claims to work humanely and to allow the elephants to express themselves (rather than forcing them to paint something different) and might therefore be a different case to the clip you posted yesterday. I have no idea if this is a true reflection of their treatment of the animals (most of which were rescued, I think).


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

mikeh375 said:


> Didn't Berlin have a piano with a mechanism of some sort to help his writing? Sorry can't quite remember what I once read.
> 
> EDIT...see here..
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposing_piano


I knew he couldn't read music. I know some years ago the Academy debated whether they could give an Oscar to someone who couldn't read music and someone reminded them of Irving Berlin!
One can go on about musical 'skills' all one likes but if I know if I had written as good songs as Berlin I might die a happy (and rich) man! :lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Luchesi said:


> It's curious that Irving Berlin only played in F sharp major.


A self taught pianist - he played the black notes. My grandfather did the same! Sadly he did not write the songs though!


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2019)

DavidA said:


> I knew he couldn't read music. I know some years ago the Academy debated whether they could give an Oscar to someone who couldn't read music and someone reminded them of Irving Berlin!


I couldn't resist checking out whether this is true. As usual, a number of internet sources simply repeat the statement but with no supporting evidence, sometimes copying from a source which refers you back to square one (eg Cecil Adams).

What I did find was what seems to be a more detailed biography, which doesn't wholly repeat the idea that Berlin "couldn't read music", but offers a more subtle insight into his composing methods and the limits of his skill.

http://www.irvingberlin.com/overture

As you rightly suggest David, his inability to be able to "read music" is quite irrelevant (except for those who insist it is a critical criteria for judging musical "skill") when compared to his output and success. But it's also easy to see how irresistible it is to propagate the simple tale that he created so many tunes without the training or skills of a conventional composer (even Berlin couldn't resist it). It's the Great American Dream - come to America and be a success, whatever your talents or fortunes!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I couldn't resist checking out whether this is true. As usual, a number of internet sources simply repeat the statement but with no supporting evidence, sometimes copying from a source which refers you back to square one (eg Cecil Adams).
> 
> What I did find was what seems to be a more detailed biography, which doesn't wholly repeat the idea that Berlin "couldn't read music", but offers a more subtle insight into his composing methods and the limits of his skill.
> 
> ...


My source was Andre Previn's book, 'No minor chords'. Interesting that Berlin had a 'secretary' to write his music out. As a kid, Previn began his musical career in Hollywood as a 'secretary' for a guy who couldn't read music. Not Berlin, of course.
We might say the secretary had the skill but Berlin had the talent!


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> I couldn't resist checking out whether this is true. As usual, a number of internet sources simply repeat the statement but with no supporting evidence, sometimes copying from a source which refers you back to square one (eg Cecil Adams).
> 
> What I did find was what seems to be a more detailed biography, which doesn't wholly repeat the idea that Berlin "couldn't read music", but offers a more subtle insight into his composing methods and the limits of his skill.
> 
> ...


Thanks, Kern admired Berlin for what he was doing.

Jazz players improvise on Kern songs more than on Berlin songs. Music theory is very interesting.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Few musically knowledgeable people now, I think, regard the peculiarities in Moussorgsky's style to be faults, although I haven't examined the score of _Boris_ to form a judgment of my own. Of course, my judgment might be as biased as that of Rimsky, who not only "fixed" Mussorgsky's harmony but dressed up parts of its rather austere orchestration in colors he thought more appealing. Some people still prefer his version to the original.


I don't think many doubt that Mussorgsky didn't have the skill with orchestration or classic harmony that R-K did, and that's why the work was seen as flawed; but the eventual acceptance of Mussorgsky's orchestration and harmony also goes to the heart of one of the central problems of this whole issue, and that's the ideas that "flaws" due to a deficiency of skill(s) can often lead to works that are more interesting, original, and, sometimes, create their own standards in opposition to (or, at least, in addition to) the previous held standards, essentially redefining (or adding to) what we think of as "skillful." So while we might now say that Mussorgsky's own orchestration and harmony is more original, fits the work, and creates its own kind of standard, we still run into the issue of whether or not we're saying it's skillful only because we like it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Luchesi said:


> Thanks, Kern admired Berlin for what he was doing.
> 
> .


I'd admire anyone who could write a song like this


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

^^^^Absolutely...and this...beautiful.






Mind you, the arranger has added considerably with dreamy strings, and that perfect voice has few equals....


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> So while we might now say that Mussorgsky's own orchestration and harmony is more original, fits the work, and creates its own kind of standard, we still run into the issue of whether or not we're saying it's skillful only because we like it.


We may be doing that, but time has a way of resolving the question. It's human nature to resist what's different and to judge it faulty by established standards. Eventually, when those standards are no longer the norm, a thing that didn't conform is revealed to be either flawed or beautiful in its own way, and in the latter case the artist is seen to have known what he was doing after all.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

I've tried to read most of the posts here, and see many good points. I suppose it's understandable that the focus quickly shifted away from the skill of the listener in evaluating music to the skill of the composer and performer in creating it. But the threshold question that comes to my mind on this subject is "What are the composer's and/or performers goals in creating the work?" Aside from the numerous different genres with shorter or longer traditions, differences in size, scale and scope, artists, very much including musicians, have different goals. 

Some artist seek to capture the zeitgeist or mood of the moment, however transient, and have the greatest possible immediate impact on the largest possible audience. Exactly how long that impact is felt, and whether it leaves echos or aftershocks in our culture in later generations, is usually a secondary goal at best for such artists. It generally takes some skill and talent to accomplish this, and the best art of this type often has great merit imo, if nothing else as a fascinating snapshot effectively illustrating the mood of a particular time and place.

But another, much smaller, group of artists pay little attention to the mood of the moment but rather seek to depict ideas and emotions that are more fundamental, universal and permanent, but of necessity in a new and compelling way, as great artists before them have already addressed these themes. That requires working in a subtle language, visible, verbal or musical, and one with some unique elements yet with enough frame of reference to be recognizable. Fame and fortune are not their goals. The shrewd businessmen among them may do well enough financially, but almost inevitably the full significance of their work is not appreciated, even among academic specialists, critics, other artists and other professional experts, until after they are dead and gone and the totality of their work can be placed in its full historical, social, and of course cultural context. 

It is the latter group that almost invariably produces the great classical composers. Learning their languages is a skill. Fortunately, it is a skill that can be learned almost entirely by informal means, simply by listening, like any language. And like any language, for most this is much more easily accomplished in childhood. It can still be done as an adult, though these adults often lack the natural, almost intuitive understanding that those who have been listeners since early childhood often have.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I consider skill as the composer’s ability to put the music together and get it down on paper in a way that reflects what he’s hearing in his head. That takes skill. It’s huge! Then there are other qualities, such as the gift for melody, harmonic genius, the ability for writing a narrative, if so desired, and other such factors. But I believe the process starts with some type of demand of inspiration to come up with ideas worth putting down on paper, and that’s another story. It’s important to learn one’s craft and I think it’s fairly easy to tell which composers have it because they’re often great orchestrators and one can consistently hear it in the music. Some of the modernists who have the skill to write complex scores do not generally interest me if they cannot touch the emotions and the human experience in some way... In the Romantic era, Joachim Raff was considered to have more technical ability (skill) than genius, and that’s perhaps why his reputation has faded.


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2019)

fluteman said:


> I've tried to read most of the posts here, and see many good points. I suppose it's understandable that the focus quickly shifted away from the skill of the listener in evaluating music to the skill of the composer and performer in creating it. But the threshold question that comes to my mind on this subject is "What are the composer's and/or performers goals in creating the work?" Aside from the numerous different genres with shorter or longer traditions, differences in size, scale and scope, artists, very much including musicians, have different goals.


I agree. I posted briefly on this earlier in the thread. It's not just a question of the 'skills' on display, but the deployment of them as a means to an end.

I'm reminded, after watching England lose to the Czech Republic last night, of the obvious analogy of the football team whose star player has an abundance of dribbling skills. He mesmerises the opposition every time he gets into their penalty area, but he fails to pass when he needs to and constantly loses the ball.



Larkenfield said:


> I consider skill as the composer's ability to put the music together and get it down on paper in a way *that reflects what he's hearing in his head*.


True - similar to purpose. But it can be difficult to tell whether what we end up hearing is what the composer had in his head!



Larkenfield said:


> Some of the modernists who have the skill to write complex scores do not generally interest me if they cannot touch the emotions and the human experience in some way.


Why pick on "the modernists"? Surely there are composers from all eras who don't touch your emotions?


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