SOUND ON SOUND

[Arpangel]

There are many people of limited ability who have risen, inexplicably, to fame, glory and public adoration. It is frustrating to the many highly skilled and talented musicians and artists who don't 'make it'... but such is life.

This is a difficult one, I don’t find anyone’s success frustrating, and ability and talent come in many forms. I respect Daniel Barenboim as much as I do Brian Eno, the former a "virtuoso" the latter a self confessed "non musician" and there are lots of us in between.

[Humf]

I don’t know about this. I’m inclined to agree with you T, that is to say, I have respect for the musical output and contribution of a massive range of musicians, from Bach through to electronic dance acts such as Orbital. Both stir emotions deep within my creative soul and that’s enough for me.

But at the same time I do see this also from the viewpoint of music educator. This is where I begin to differ in opinion and often use the analogy of food. Quite rightly, we are now all very familiar with making daily judgements about the nutritional quality of food that we put into our bodies and in particular, when teaching children about the importance of a balanced diet we steer them away from foods that we know don’t add to a healthy diet. You won’t find any food technology teacher delivering a series of lessons on making the equivalent of McDonalds Happy Meal with vanilla milkshake.

Of course, that is science. The question in my mind (as others have discussed above) is whether it’s possible to make similar judgements about the quality of music and the contribution it can make to the musical ‘health’ of a child or adult.

In teaching, perhaps as a way to quantify and rationalise the subject and enable delivery more readily, I will often talk about the ‘musical elements’ as building blocks or ingredients of music. In fact, I even make the comparison between my love for cooking and my composing. There is a clear parallel in my opinion.

I’m therefore left wondering whether there is a value judgement to be made about music. It can be very simple but still craft those ingredients into something very beautiful (food analogy I use in the classroom might be Italian salad of mozzarella, tomato and basil). Or it can be incredibly complex and demand a great deal of expertise from the student to break it down and understand the workings of the composer.

I am inclined to think there might be music out there that does neither. Therefore I do wonder whether an entirely open minded and liberal mindset towards the value of music (ie. anything goes) could contribute in some way towards a lessening in the ‘nutritional quality’ of what we listen to. I’m particularly thinking of children here, who’s young minds benefit so enormously from a richness of cultural experience.

I think it then comes down to what your GP would say (and food technology teacher for that matter) - just make sure you’re getting a balanced diet!

Personally I avoid McDs meals entirely and musically, I am inclined to agree with OP. However, it might be worth considering that this sort of music can often be a ‘gateway’ for youngsters to be introduced to music (it has an immediate surface appeal and accessibility) and our job then becomes to gently steer towards other styles and composers than might enrich their musical experience further.

Lastly, I think it’s a shame the OP has the forum rules quoted back at him. I thought his first post clearly stated no intention to cause offence to others.

[CS70]

In fact, I even make the comparison between my love for cooking and my composing. There is a clear parallel in my opinion.

A reasonable analogy! At least in the fact that the most money making food sellers are of the McDonalds sort (of worse: check out Norway's most sold product, a disgusting frozen pizza which has nothing to do with actual pizza).

Unfortunately, the analogy doesn't really help much with an absolute notion of "value". Sure, you can take a specific, measurable perspective but all you get is the value according to that perspective. There's no "absolute" value.

For example, McDonalds is probably not that great if measured on a "healthy for continuous consumption" scale but on a "fun for a 4yo kid and relax for the parents since there's the playground room" beats any gourmet restaurant anytime of the day. Different perspectives, different value scales. This is true a hundred time more for artistic endeavors - where the "objective" perspectives are usually much fewer than for other kind of stuff.

A funny thing is that nothing stops us to arrange also these perspective in a value scale determined by a meta-perspective... and so on and so on. This kind of "recursion" of the idea on itself brings it to a very different of complexity - defining a culture. People belonging to the same culture tend to have and use shared perspectives and therefore value scales (including about the value of different perspectives!)

To assume that our perspective is the only one that matters, or that a group shares it... it's a common pitfall. I bet we all have fallen into it at some time or another. I wouldn't be too harsh.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I do wonder whether an entirely open minded and liberal mindset towards the value of music (ie. anything goes) could contribute in some way towards a lessening in the ‘nutritional quality’ of what we listen to.

I would agree entirely that we should all be discerning in our choices and, indeed, I make my own living from offering thoughtful, respectful critiques of products and technologies. So I have no problem with others doing the same for musical works and performances. But respectful is the key word.

I thought his first post clearly stated no intention to cause offence to others.

He did... but it's hard to imagine how that could possibly be true given the excessive diatribe that followed -- only part of which I highlighted above.

Nevertheless, although I was very uncomfortable about that first post, I decided to let it pass (unless other forum members complained) as the apparent emotional outpourings of someone who needed to 'vent'...

Unfortunately, the OP later chose to repeat the denigration, completely unnecessarily, in a second post and so I felt it was necessary to take the OP to task on the matter and reminder him of the forum rules.

We all try to moderate lightly here, but moderate we do specifically to maintain a polite, respectful, and mutually supportive atmosphere -- something which seems to be rather a rare privilege amongst comparable forums and which a great many of our forum members appreciate highly. So I make no apologies for doing what I'm here to do!

And finally, I thank Pianoworld for his apology which I accept. Moving on...

[Humf]

Thanks Hugh. I’ll accept that explanation and must admit my eye had probably glossed over the OP’s second post as I was detecting a need to get something of his/her chest.

Let’s continue with the interesting discussion :thumbup:

[zenguitar]

Lastly, I think it’s a shame the OP has the forum rules quoted back at him. I thought his first post clearly stated no intention to cause offence to others.

If one has no intention to cause offence, it might be wise to not write something that offends. I am old enough to have regularly heard "I'm not racist but..." far to often.

When a moderator tells you that your posts have crossed a line, you take note and think before you post again. You do not respond by repeating or seeking to justify that behaviour. It was the OP's failure to accept moderation that required drawing his attention to the rules.

We moderate with a very light touch here. So people really should take note when they are moderated.

Andy :beamup:

[tacitus]

I’ve always had great faith In the inexplicable success of minor talent but it has to be said it hasn’t struck in my direction yet and I’m running out of time!

I can offer a simple, if partial, explanation of the phenomenon, though. I recently fetched my vinyl collection out of retirement and was interested to notice how much I’m focused on the “better” LPs in my library - it just seems a waste of life to clean, play and stop playing an LP if it only has mediocre content. When Siri or Alexa can do it for you, even a CD, come to that, it seems to lower the bar somewhat. And Alexa will tell you how much you liked what it played and you didn’t really listen to, I dare say.

I can’t explain why some “rubbish” is just not to my taste when other “rubbish” sounds instantly, provably, egregiously bad to my ears, well beyond what I would put down to lack of good taste; “art”, even. Nowadays, we don’t really get taught how to listen, which is all very democratic but leaves us more than ever likely to succumb to popularity and its dominatrix, commerce.

I’d better stop there, I’ve gone all “Sunday morning”!

[Humf]

Great first sentence ...


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[al_diablo]

The worst I could say about the music of Einaudi is that it is a bit boring and repetitive. To me it doesn't develop over time and the motifs get old quite quickly.

But the hallmark of a lot of the stuff I love is boring repetition of the same old cliched sounds (in electronic and rock / metal genres particularly).

This is why the argument about subjective vs objective musical merit is so fascinating, and why somewhere like this forum is so interesting because everyone has different ideas on what music is.

One thing completely ignored by the most vocal critics of composers or musicians like Einaudi is their ability to take a distillate of a style and make it accessible to anyone. From that point, those people may move on to music that might challenge them more and be more interesting, or better in the eyes of elitists.

There is a tendency within classical / traditional music circles (much like other traditional forms of 'culture') to react quite violently to anything that doesn't stand up to their narrow notions of artistic merit. It's an attitude I find excessively elitist and depressing, because it is so entirely at odds with the whole purpose of any creative outlet.

The wider discussion is around who gets to decide what is or isn't culturally relevant and I think its probably fair to say that there is traditionally an affluent, white, male, educated, euro centric bias. Hopefully things are better now, but I'm not sure I'm qualified to have any opinion on that

[CS70]

I’ve always had great faith In the inexplicable success of minor talent but it has to be said it hasn’t struck in my direction yet and I’m running out of time!

It's usually quite explicable. These people may or may not have particularly musical talent according to whatever definition one wants to use, but sure as heck they have huge talent in promotion, business, connecting and networking and general working their asses off.

Yeah, it takes also a bit of luck: if Jimi was born in 1700 Virginia, his guitar talent would have had no possibility of flourishing... but mostly it's really work, in promoting, creating, pushing, marketing, doing all that generates buzz, interest and gives you a chance to get your stuff heard by many people.. some of them will then like it. Invariably. People like absolutely _everything_ in music... the difference is only in the size of the group - with the smallest being, of course, a group of size one. :D

It's not a sure recipe.. but if you work hard enough, the odds are that you will have an audience, and with a bit of luck you will have an audience large enough, that it allows you to make a living..