It's not, though. And you're absolutely wrong on this one. Hume famously discussed the example of a key at the bottom of a wine barrel. Those with more discerning tastes could detect the subtle difference in flavor, while others could not. So, taste, for Hume, is the ability to make comparisons or detect subtleties. There are "standards of taste," as that example points out. It's not natural-- it needs refinement and practice.
Bordieu would argue that taste is a matter of upbringing-- and that a certain superiority is conferred on those with better taste. Yes, and yes.
taste CAN be relative if you consider that people like music for different reasons. some like music because of the lyrics. others like it because of the harmonies and rhythms. so while you might say someone has bad taste, maybe you are "tasting" different aspects of music.
Thinking that good music is the sum of 'complex' mathematics + 'authentic' experience isn't merely bad taste, it's some kind of disease. OCD or asperger's or something.
By my reckoning, you don't have to *like* Neil Young or Dylan (as has been discussed taste is subjective, and everyone is free to be wrong) but if you don't give them their due respect then you simply showing your ignorance of who they are and what they've done.
I recently saw Dylan in a small club setting and, on one level it could have been one of the worst gigs I've ever been to (intentionaly bad singing and confrontationally re-arranged versions of classic hits) but on another level it makes my neck hairs stand on end and brings a smile to my face every time I think about it, which probably makes it one of the best gigs ever.
Shawn's list missed out " Only Love Can Break Your Heart", an indisputably lovely song. While no one could claim that he has a great voice he does have a unique one, often as heartbreaking as can be. Though over the many years he has released some duff stuff but you can't dispute his breadth of work, folky, rocky, even electronica.
It's fun listening to a bunch of Atlantic Monthly dedicates talk about taste as some unfaltering absolute. The fact is simple: your precious "taste" is merely the ability for one person to be able to understand why a thing can be held in high regard. Certainly can I understand why other people like Neil Young, given that it does have meritable elements, but I question why, since I find his music to be non-stimulating. That is, the meritable elements don't impress me.
To qualify taste as an absolute, a preferential disposisition that one either has or hasn't, is in most cases absurd. For example, your noble Hume would probably think little of Neil Young, given the dynamics of his culture and time. Does that mean that you definer of taste has no taste? Perhaps by your understanding it does.
But I digress. In America, what lies in good taste is defined not by an authority, but by wealth. Scott mentions a liking of bluegrass. I use this as an example because it wasn't really until the 90's that bluegrass was considered "tasteful" by any kind of artistic or otherwise snobby community. Its rise to prominance may largely be credited to a few, snobby, upper class liberals in the Washington DC area. Before then it was just hillbilly music, which is not to measure the quality of it, but it does brand it with a culture (West Virgina, Appalachia) that the same, snobby liberals love to lambast. It's funny how trends change.
You should really step back for a second from the culture you seem to be infatuated with, and realize just how silly it really is, to make you consider a set of preferences to be absolute. I have spent most of my life in the presence of personalities that might make the same absolutist argument that you did, except that in my case they were indeed the wealthy snobs that invent and disseminate the cultural qualifications that you end up absorbing so readily. Am I evil for choosing not to listen to the peers that I have often bested?
The fact is simple: your precious "taste" is merely the ability for one person to be able to understand why a thing can be held in high regard.
No. That is not what taste is at all. Taste is the ability to see a thing and know that it worthy of being held in high regard despite what the barbarians of the world with their Britney Spears CDs say. Taste is the ability to recognize genius and wit when one is presented with it.
Quote:
To qualify taste as an absolute, a preferential disposisition that one either has or hasn't, is in most cases absurd.
Ah, but not in all cases, I see. Here's the deal: taste is like luck. You either have it or you don't. You can learn it, certainly, but that would require an education in it, which is also possible.
Quote:
For example, your noble Hume would probably think little of Neil Young, given the dynamics of his culture and time. Does that mean that you definer of taste has no taste? Perhaps by your understanding it does.
But David Hume isn't here and we don't know what he would have thought.
Quote:
But I digress.
Indeed.
Quote:
In America, what lies in good taste is defined not by an authority, but by wealth.
Wealth = authority.
Quote:
Scott mentions a liking of bluegrass. I use this as an example because it wasn't really until the 90's that bluegrass was considered "tasteful" by any kind of artistic or otherwise snobby community. Its rise to prominance may largely be credited to a few, snobby, upper class liberals in the Washington DC area. Before then it was just hillbilly music, which is not to measure the quality of it, but it does brand it with a culture (West Virgina, Appalachia) that the same, snobby liberals love to lambast. It's funny how trends change.
Much of this is true, and I assume that you are trying to imply that my enjoyment of bluegrass is a part of this movement, rather than stemming from my upbringing in the sticks of north Mississippi among a family of musicians who dragged me to bluegrass festivals all through the 70s and 80s.
Quote:
You should really step back for a second from the culture you seem to be infatuated with, and realize just how silly it really is, to make you consider a set of preferences to be absolute.
You misunderstand. You can prefer all you like. No problems with your preferences. But if you don't prefer good things, you have no taste.
Quote:
I have spent most of my life in the presence of personalities that might make the same absolutist argument that you did, except that in my case they were indeed the wealthy snobs that invent and disseminate the cultural qualifications that you end up absorbing so readily. Am I evil for choosing not to listen to the peers that I have often bested?
I'm uninterested in talking about your psychology. The fact of the matter is this: I am elitist about this and am unashamed of that. Some art is better than other art, and the more we democratize all of this, the worse that art will be and the more decadent the culture.
I'm uninterested in talking about your psychology. The fact of the matter is this: I am elitist about this and am unashamed of that. Some art is better than other art, and the more we democratize all of this, the worse that art will be and the more decadent the culture.
I wholeheartedly disagree. The most decadent cultures are ones that waste time worrying about taste above more important issue. The archetypal example of this is pre-revolutionary France.
Art will always exist, and it has always been that the best art of an era never really surfaces until the era has passed, when people can step back and see it for what it is, not cast in the light of temporal trends. Furthermore, art has always been the plaything of the elite, for the simple truth that the elite have the time, the money, and the education to want to put value to it. For all time, 99% of musical, decorative, or any sort of possibly artistic expression has not been great. It's the same today, and I don't think that's cause for concern.
Of course, it will be interesting to see just how well Neil Young is remembered once his living constituency dies. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he's just a footnote of the greater folk movement.
It's fun listening to a bunch of Atlantic Monthly dedicates talk about taste as some unfaltering absolute. The fact is simple: your precious "taste" is merely the ability for one person to be able to understand why a thing can be held in high regard. Certainly can I understand why other people like Neil Young, given that it does have meritable elements, but I question why, since I find his music to be non-stimulating. That is, the meritable elements don't impress me.
To qualify taste as an absolute, a preferential disposisition that one either has or hasn't, is in most cases absurd. For example, your noble Hume would probably think little of Neil Young, given the dynamics of his culture and time. Does that mean that you definer of taste has no taste? Perhaps by your understanding it does.
But I digress. In America, what lies in good taste is defined not by an authority, but by wealth. Scott mentions a liking of bluegrass. I use this as an example because it wasn't really until the 90's that bluegrass was considered "tasteful" by any kind of artistic or otherwise snobby community. Its rise to prominance may largely be credited to a few, snobby, upper class liberals in the Washington DC area. Before then it was just hillbilly music, which is not to measure the quality of it, but it does brand it with a culture (West Virgina, Appalachia) that the same, snobby liberals love to lambast. It's funny how trends change.
You should really step back for a second from the culture you seem to be infatuated with, and realize just how silly it really is, to make you consider a set of preferences to be absolute. I have spent most of my life in the presence of personalities that might make the same absolutist argument that you did, except that in my case they were indeed the wealthy snobs that invent and disseminate the cultural qualifications that you end up absorbing so readily. Am I evil for choosing not to listen to the peers that I have often bested?
Wow . . . you are incredibly full of mallarcky aren't you . . .
Yeah who ever heard of David Grisman and Jerry Garcia and the musicians who influenced them froom the great tradition of Bluegrass music before the 'Latte sippers' got to them?!?!?
Yeah, no body here ever even heard of 'blue-grass' till we picked up a copy of the Atlantic Monthley in the 90s!!
Oh yeah . . . and who ever recognized the relationship of bluegrass and folk to Niel Young's music?!?!
Um gee . . . .
*
Mathematics and music . . . . nuff said . . . end of argument . . . throw the boy a shovel . . . . give him a hand, he's stuck!!!
*
Taste is one thing, art is another:
Discernment in both is a mixture of taste and insight: which means to say that taste (inter-subjective) is guided by the reflection that art provides)
*
The band Yes is far far far superior to Rush . . . they may be willfully complex in song writing, they may even have moments of pretentiousness . . . but they don't confuse the math for the music . . . their most ponderous works (Tales of Topographic Oceans) still are motivated by a love of Rock and Roll --meaning: enthusiasm (in-theos) and movement and energy. . . . they also imbue their gigantic constructions with the spirit of experimentation . . . and even the most weighted pieces still have a bit of the funky in them . . . (all of this dissapeared, however, when Steve Howe left and 90621 happened, then they just became lame)
and
what's best about Yes: an absurd Optimism . . . even if they are really just Crypto-Christians . . . . their spirit is positive and moves with joy
King Chrimson - they had some good albums. My favorite (Starless And Bible Black) is good because it has improv and is not afraid to be imperfect . . . at this point in their career, it isn't all about being the most bad-ass set of precision instrumentalists . . . they seem to still be making music
Some of the stuff with Belew is still music . . . but then they simply become theory and forget about music . . . they devolve into the pleasures of technique and 'complexity' . . . and, consequenty the music suffers . .
but Rush doesn't come close to either band, Rush, in comparison, is like the WallMart of Progressive Rock, whereas, Yes and King Chrimson are like really good Hardware stores . . . or, they think that their 1980 Camarow is cool because its black ---
I merely said that I prefer Rush to Neil Young. Get over it, since it's not central to the discussion. If you think I'm less of a person for prefering Rush to Neil Young, also know that I prefer most Opera music to Neil Young, or for that matter that I don't think Neil Young is worse that pop music. It's just that I expected a lot more than I got.
Quote:
Mathematics and music . . . . nuff said . . . end of argument . . . throw the boy a shovel . . . . give him a hand, he's stuck!!!
You are a fool to think that music is not as much about math as it is about anything else. The entire structure of verse, the arrangement of notes and chords, and everything else is an intricately prepared table of equations. Furthermore, heavy mathematic analysis is involved in any sort of instrument making. You can take a self-absorbed road and say something silly like "music is all about the soul," and you'll be nothing but wrong. "soulful" input can create emotional value, but in the end it's just a string of notes. The whole effort of the classical movement of the 18th century was to make the least soulful music possible. Some of it is very good. Perhaps folk music is about making the most soulful music possible. The point here is that good music can be soul-less, but no music can be math-less.
So my point is that I prefer music that answers a mathematic puzzle, be it a simple puzzle or a complex puzzle, rather than music that doesn't attempt any puzzle. If that falls outside your absolutist views of taste and art, then you are free to end this dialogue, confident that you are indeed better than I am, and I will never again challenge you based on that reference point.
Please, don't make assumptions. It only serves to prove your ignorance.
And then go on to say this:
Quote:
Originally posted by tonton
[B]You'r [sic] so bigoted against people who don't like Neil Young that you just assume that our CD collections are all filled up with Britney and Beyoncé.
That's funny. Did you mean to be ironic there about making assumptions?
I'm not bigoted against people who don't like Neil Young. I simply think that some people have good taste and that others do not. The presence of Britney Spears and her ilk is indicative of the simple fact that far too many people with far too much money have far too little good taste. I would say the same thing about people who put those silly neon lights underneath their cars. I am bigoted against those people who look in the bargain bin at their local megalot CD store (these, of course, overwhelmingly being the graveyard of bad music and therefore a record of bad taste) and find everything they're looking for. Caveat: I have found some extremely good music in bargain bins, but I have to wade through the detritus of people's bad taste to find it.
I merely said that I prefer Rush to Neil Young. Get over it, since it's not central to the discussion. If you think I'm less of a person for prefering Rush to Neil Young, also know that I prefer most Opera music to Neil Young, or for that matter that I don't think Neil Young is worse that pop music. It's just that I expected a lot more than I got.
You are a fool to think that music is not as much about math as it is about anything else. The entire structure of verse, the arrangement of notes and chords, and everything else is an intricately prepared table of equations. Furthermore, heavy mathematic analysis is involved in any sort of instrument making. You can take a self-absorbed road and say something silly like "music is all about the soul," and you'll be nothing but wrong. "soulful" input can create emotional value, but in the end it's just a string of notes. The whole effort of the classical movement of the 18th century was to make the least soulful music possible. Some of it is very good. Perhaps folk music is about making the most soulful music possible. The point here is that good music can be soul-less, but no music can be math-less.
tonton: kudos for not being a wanker.
Knowing the circle of fifths, and what chords resolve to what toni,c and why an augmented seventh feels tense etc, may have mathematical reasons for being but that is not the musical experience . . . . you can get pleasure from knowing these things and advanced music is partly involved with theoretical-pleasure but that pleasure is not the sum total of a profound musical experience
and,
much of the serial music in the early part of the 20th century dealt with mathematical systems before they dealt with the auditory experience,
But in either case (love of music theory as a system and constructed systems of music composition) music should be first
. . . . Phillip Glass turned away from his western roots (Cowell, Schonberg etc) when he heard Indian Music and realized that the dense aparatus that often accompanyed his previous influences got in the way
Just as Steve Reich disavowed the systematic music of Schoneberg and Cage because the pleasure of the system was not itself evident in the music and as music
Falling in love with the description of the mathematics of chord progressions and 'difficult' rhythms (to steal from Allan Watts here)
is like eating the menu and not the meal
You end up Hungry
...
Just one thing I noticed . . . its funny that when you decide to comment on Wanking, you nicely changed your location from reading 'something wanker' . . . was it too close to home?!?!
BTW - Nietszche's fantastic remarks on opera are worth looking at . . . what was it he called it? something like 'silly bourgeois goobledy-gook' . . . . but that's just Nietszche . . . I kind of like opera . . . especially the parts where they are singing lines of dialogue with nary a line of musical accompanyment . . catching up to the plot . . .. that stuff is a laugh riot!!
I wholeheartedly disagree. The most decadent cultures are ones that waste time worrying about taste above more important issue. The archetypal example of this is pre-revolutionary France.
Well, I think what you're talking about is libertinism rather than decadence. But I would ask this: If they were more worried about tase (which, as I have argued above, is directly tied to the national morality), what are these "more important issues"?
Quote:
Art will always exist, and it has always been that the best art of an era never really surfaces until the era has passed, when people can step back and see it for what it is, not cast in the light of temporal trends.
This is largely a result of art and taste being democratized. In such cases, we don't even know what is good when we are saying it is good, and so the absence of good taste requires that we languish among our Britney Spears CDs.
Quote:
Furthermore, art has always been the plaything of the elite, for the simple truth that the elite have the time, the money, and the education to want to put value to it.
Yes. All the more reason to trust them when they tell you what is good and what is not.
Quote:
For all time, 99% of musical, decorative, or any sort of possibly artistic expression has not been great. It's the same today, and I don't think that's cause for concern.
I'm not concerned with the production of bad art. At least people are attempting to produce art. I'm concerned that people do not realize, immediately, that it is not good art.
Quote:
Of course, it will be interesting to see just how well Neil Young is remembered once his living constituency dies. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he's just a footnote of the greater folk movement.
That's possible. It's also possible that Bartok will fade from memory as a collector of quaint folk music.
Comments
Originally posted by tonton
Taste is relative.
It's not, though. And you're absolutely wrong on this one. Hume famously discussed the example of a key at the bottom of a wine barrel. Those with more discerning tastes could detect the subtle difference in flavor, while others could not. So, taste, for Hume, is the ability to make comparisons or detect subtleties. There are "standards of taste," as that example points out. It's not natural-- it needs refinement and practice.
Bordieu would argue that taste is a matter of upbringing-- and that a certain superiority is conferred on those with better taste. Yes, and yes.
</late at night>
By my reckoning, you don't have to *like* Neil Young or Dylan (as has been discussed taste is subjective, and everyone is free to be wrong) but if you don't give them their due respect then you simply showing your ignorance of who they are and what they've done.
I recently saw Dylan in a small club setting and, on one level it could have been one of the worst gigs I've ever been to (intentionaly bad singing and confrontationally re-arranged versions of classic hits) but on another level it makes my neck hairs stand on end and brings a smile to my face every time I think about it, which probably makes it one of the best gigs ever.
Segovious: There's a new Kate Bush coming out?
Originally posted by groverat
I like rap music, do I have good taste?
It depends upon what rap music you like, of course.
To qualify taste as an absolute, a preferential disposisition that one either has or hasn't, is in most cases absurd. For example, your noble Hume would probably think little of Neil Young, given the dynamics of his culture and time. Does that mean that you definer of taste has no taste? Perhaps by your understanding it does.
But I digress. In America, what lies in good taste is defined not by an authority, but by wealth. Scott mentions a liking of bluegrass. I use this as an example because it wasn't really until the 90's that bluegrass was considered "tasteful" by any kind of artistic or otherwise snobby community. Its rise to prominance may largely be credited to a few, snobby, upper class liberals in the Washington DC area. Before then it was just hillbilly music, which is not to measure the quality of it, but it does brand it with a culture (West Virgina, Appalachia) that the same, snobby liberals love to lambast. It's funny how trends change.
You should really step back for a second from the culture you seem to be infatuated with, and realize just how silly it really is, to make you consider a set of preferences to be absolute. I have spent most of my life in the presence of personalities that might make the same absolutist argument that you did, except that in my case they were indeed the wealthy snobs that invent and disseminate the cultural qualifications that you end up absorbing so readily. Am I evil for choosing not to listen to the peers that I have often bested?
Originally posted by Splinemodel
The fact is simple: your precious "taste" is merely the ability for one person to be able to understand why a thing can be held in high regard.
No. That is not what taste is at all. Taste is the ability to see a thing and know that it worthy of being held in high regard despite what the barbarians of the world with their Britney Spears CDs say. Taste is the ability to recognize genius and wit when one is presented with it.
To qualify taste as an absolute, a preferential disposisition that one either has or hasn't, is in most cases absurd.
Ah, but not in all cases, I see.
For example, your noble Hume would probably think little of Neil Young, given the dynamics of his culture and time. Does that mean that you definer of taste has no taste? Perhaps by your understanding it does.
But David Hume isn't here and we don't know what he would have thought.
But I digress.
Indeed.
In America, what lies in good taste is defined not by an authority, but by wealth.
Wealth = authority.
Scott mentions a liking of bluegrass. I use this as an example because it wasn't really until the 90's that bluegrass was considered "tasteful" by any kind of artistic or otherwise snobby community. Its rise to prominance may largely be credited to a few, snobby, upper class liberals in the Washington DC area. Before then it was just hillbilly music, which is not to measure the quality of it, but it does brand it with a culture (West Virgina, Appalachia) that the same, snobby liberals love to lambast. It's funny how trends change.
Much of this is true, and I assume that you are trying to imply that my enjoyment of bluegrass is a part of this movement, rather than stemming from my upbringing in the sticks of north Mississippi among a family of musicians who dragged me to bluegrass festivals all through the 70s and 80s.
You should really step back for a second from the culture you seem to be infatuated with, and realize just how silly it really is, to make you consider a set of preferences to be absolute.
You misunderstand. You can prefer all you like. No problems with your preferences. But if you don't prefer good things, you have no taste.
I have spent most of my life in the presence of personalities that might make the same absolutist argument that you did, except that in my case they were indeed the wealthy snobs that invent and disseminate the cultural qualifications that you end up absorbing so readily. Am I evil for choosing not to listen to the peers that I have often bested?
I'm uninterested in talking about your psychology. The fact of the matter is this: I am elitist about this and am unashamed of that. Some art is better than other art, and the more we democratize all of this, the worse that art will be and the more decadent the culture.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by tonton
50 Cent?
I've actually not listened to his stuff, although there is a perfectly soporific profile of him in my latest Newsweek.
Originally posted by midwinter
It depends upon what rap music you like, of course.
Originally posted by midwinter
I'm uninterested in talking about your psychology. The fact of the matter is this: I am elitist about this and am unashamed of that. Some art is better than other art, and the more we democratize all of this, the worse that art will be and the more decadent the culture.
I wholeheartedly disagree. The most decadent cultures are ones that waste time worrying about taste above more important issue. The archetypal example of this is pre-revolutionary France.
Art will always exist, and it has always been that the best art of an era never really surfaces until the era has passed, when people can step back and see it for what it is, not cast in the light of temporal trends. Furthermore, art has always been the plaything of the elite, for the simple truth that the elite have the time, the money, and the education to want to put value to it. For all time, 99% of musical, decorative, or any sort of possibly artistic expression has not been great. It's the same today, and I don't think that's cause for concern.
Of course, it will be interesting to see just how well Neil Young is remembered once his living constituency dies. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he's just a footnote of the greater folk movement.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
It's fun listening to a bunch of Atlantic Monthly dedicates talk about taste as some unfaltering absolute. The fact is simple: your precious "taste" is merely the ability for one person to be able to understand why a thing can be held in high regard. Certainly can I understand why other people like Neil Young, given that it does have meritable elements, but I question why, since I find his music to be non-stimulating. That is, the meritable elements don't impress me.
To qualify taste as an absolute, a preferential disposisition that one either has or hasn't, is in most cases absurd. For example, your noble Hume would probably think little of Neil Young, given the dynamics of his culture and time. Does that mean that you definer of taste has no taste? Perhaps by your understanding it does.
But I digress. In America, what lies in good taste is defined not by an authority, but by wealth. Scott mentions a liking of bluegrass. I use this as an example because it wasn't really until the 90's that bluegrass was considered "tasteful" by any kind of artistic or otherwise snobby community. Its rise to prominance may largely be credited to a few, snobby, upper class liberals in the Washington DC area. Before then it was just hillbilly music, which is not to measure the quality of it, but it does brand it with a culture (West Virgina, Appalachia) that the same, snobby liberals love to lambast. It's funny how trends change.
You should really step back for a second from the culture you seem to be infatuated with, and realize just how silly it really is, to make you consider a set of preferences to be absolute. I have spent most of my life in the presence of personalities that might make the same absolutist argument that you did, except that in my case they were indeed the wealthy snobs that invent and disseminate the cultural qualifications that you end up absorbing so readily. Am I evil for choosing not to listen to the peers that I have often bested?
Wow . . . you are incredibly full of mallarcky aren't you . . .
Yeah who ever heard of David Grisman and Jerry Garcia and the musicians who influenced them froom the great tradition of Bluegrass music before the 'Latte sippers' got to them?!?!?
Yeah, no body here ever even heard of 'blue-grass' till we picked up a copy of the Atlantic Monthley in the 90s!!
Oh yeah . . . and who ever recognized the relationship of bluegrass and folk to Niel Young's music?!?!
Um gee . . . .
*
Mathematics and music . . . . nuff said . . . end of argument . . . throw the boy a shovel . . . . give him a hand, he's stuck!!!
*
Taste is one thing, art is another:
Discernment in both is a mixture of taste and insight: which means to say that taste (inter-subjective) is guided by the reflection that art provides)
*
The band Yes is far far far superior to Rush . . . they may be willfully complex in song writing, they may even have moments of pretentiousness . . . but they don't confuse the math for the music . . . their most ponderous works (Tales of Topographic Oceans) still are motivated by a love of Rock and Roll --meaning: enthusiasm (in-theos) and movement and energy. . . . they also imbue their gigantic constructions with the spirit of experimentation . . . and even the most weighted pieces still have a bit of the funky in them . . . (all of this dissapeared, however, when Steve Howe left and 90621 happened, then they just became lame)
and
what's best about Yes: an absurd Optimism . . . even if they are really just Crypto-Christians . . . . their spirit is positive and moves with joy
King Chrimson - they had some good albums. My favorite (Starless And Bible Black) is good because it has improv and is not afraid to be imperfect . . . at this point in their career, it isn't all about being the most bad-ass set of precision instrumentalists . . . they seem to still be making music
Some of the stuff with Belew is still music . . . but then they simply become theory and forget about music . . . they devolve into the pleasures of technique and 'complexity' . . . and, consequenty the music suffers . .
but Rush doesn't come close to either band, Rush, in comparison, is like the WallMart of Progressive Rock, whereas, Yes and King Chrimson are like really good Hardware stores . . . or, they think that their 1980 Camarow is cool because its black ---
Mathematics and music . . . . nuff said . . . end of argument . . . throw the boy a shovel . . . . give him a hand, he's stuck!!!
You are a fool to think that music is not as much about math as it is about anything else. The entire structure of verse, the arrangement of notes and chords, and everything else is an intricately prepared table of equations. Furthermore, heavy mathematic analysis is involved in any sort of instrument making. You can take a self-absorbed road and say something silly like "music is all about the soul," and you'll be nothing but wrong. "soulful" input can create emotional value, but in the end it's just a string of notes. The whole effort of the classical movement of the 18th century was to make the least soulful music possible. Some of it is very good. Perhaps folk music is about making the most soulful music possible. The point here is that good music can be soul-less, but no music can be math-less.
So my point is that I prefer music that answers a mathematic puzzle, be it a simple puzzle or a complex puzzle, rather than music that doesn't attempt any puzzle. If that falls outside your absolutist views of taste and art, then you are free to end this dialogue, confident that you are indeed better than I am, and I will never again challenge you based on that reference point.
tonton: kudos for not being a wanker.
I like it when you say this:
Originally posted by tonton
Please, don't make assumptions. It only serves to prove your ignorance.
And then go on to say this:
Originally posted by tonton
[B]You'r [sic] so bigoted against people who don't like Neil Young that you just assume that our CD collections are all filled up with Britney and Beyoncé.
That's funny. Did you mean to be ironic there about making assumptions?
I'm not bigoted against people who don't like Neil Young. I simply think that some people have good taste and that others do not. The presence of Britney Spears and her ilk is indicative of the simple fact that far too many people with far too much money have far too little good taste. I would say the same thing about people who put those silly neon lights underneath their cars. I am bigoted against those people who look in the bargain bin at their local megalot CD store (these, of course, overwhelmingly being the graveyard of bad music and therefore a record of bad taste) and find everything they're looking for. Caveat: I have found some extremely good music in bargain bins, but I have to wade through the detritus of people's bad taste to find it.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by Splinemodel
I merely said that I prefer Rush to Neil Young. Get over it, since it's not central to the discussion. If you think I'm less of a person for prefering Rush to Neil Young, also know that I prefer most Opera music to Neil Young, or for that matter that I don't think Neil Young is worse that pop music. It's just that I expected a lot more than I got.
You are a fool to think that music is not as much about math as it is about anything else. The entire structure of verse, the arrangement of notes and chords, and everything else is an intricately prepared table of equations. Furthermore, heavy mathematic analysis is involved in any sort of instrument making. You can take a self-absorbed road and say something silly like "music is all about the soul," and you'll be nothing but wrong. "soulful" input can create emotional value, but in the end it's just a string of notes. The whole effort of the classical movement of the 18th century was to make the least soulful music possible. Some of it is very good. Perhaps folk music is about making the most soulful music possible. The point here is that good music can be soul-less, but no music can be math-less.
tonton: kudos for not being a wanker.
Knowing the circle of fifths, and what chords resolve to what toni,c and why an augmented seventh feels tense etc, may have mathematical reasons for being but that is not the musical experience . . . . you can get pleasure from knowing these things and advanced music is partly involved with theoretical-pleasure but that pleasure is not the sum total of a profound musical experience
and,
much of the serial music in the early part of the 20th century dealt with mathematical systems before they dealt with the auditory experience,
But in either case (love of music theory as a system and constructed systems of music composition) music should be first
. . . . Phillip Glass turned away from his western roots (Cowell, Schonberg etc) when he heard Indian Music and realized that the dense aparatus that often accompanyed his previous influences got in the way
Just as Steve Reich disavowed the systematic music of Schoneberg and Cage because the pleasure of the system was not itself evident in the music and as music
Falling in love with the description of the mathematics of chord progressions and 'difficult' rhythms (to steal from Allan Watts here)
is like eating the menu and not the meal
You end up Hungry
...
Just one thing I noticed . . . its funny that when you decide to comment on Wanking, you nicely changed your location from reading 'something wanker' . . . was it too close to home?!?!
BTW - Nietszche's fantastic remarks on opera are worth looking at . . . what was it he called it? something like 'silly bourgeois goobledy-gook' . . . . but that's just Nietszche . . . I kind of like opera . . . especially the parts where they are singing lines of dialogue with nary a line of musical accompanyment . . catching up to the plot . . .. that stuff is a laugh riot!!
[/devil's_advocate]
Originally posted by Splinemodel
I wholeheartedly disagree. The most decadent cultures are ones that waste time worrying about taste above more important issue. The archetypal example of this is pre-revolutionary France.
Well, I think what you're talking about is libertinism rather than decadence. But I would ask this: If they were more worried about tase (which, as I have argued above, is directly tied to the national morality), what are these "more important issues"?
Art will always exist, and it has always been that the best art of an era never really surfaces until the era has passed, when people can step back and see it for what it is, not cast in the light of temporal trends.
This is largely a result of art and taste being democratized. In such cases, we don't even know what is good when we are saying it is good, and so the absence of good taste requires that we languish among our Britney Spears CDs.
Furthermore, art has always been the plaything of the elite, for the simple truth that the elite have the time, the money, and the education to want to put value to it.
Yes. All the more reason to trust them when they tell you what is good and what is not.
For all time, 99% of musical, decorative, or any sort of possibly artistic expression has not been great. It's the same today, and I don't think that's cause for concern.
I'm not concerned with the production of bad art. At least people are attempting to produce art. I'm concerned that people do not realize, immediately, that it is not good art.
Of course, it will be interesting to see just how well Neil Young is remembered once his living constituency dies. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he's just a footnote of the greater folk movement.
That's possible. It's also possible that Bartok will fade from memory as a collector of quaint folk music.
Cheers
Scott