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All music is good music, discuss
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Subject: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: skipy Date: 19 Jul 07 - 04:57 PM Well, what do you think? You often hear it said but is it true? Skipy |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Peace Date: 19 Jul 07 - 04:59 PM That view works for me, skipy. (It may be music I do or don't like, but SOMEone likes it or it wouldn't be 'out' there. Ipso facto, it's good for them what likes it.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Little Hawk Date: 19 Jul 07 - 05:02 PM All types of music can be good...of their type...whether or not you like that type of music. Likewise, they can all be not very good, depending. You could say the same of different types of visual art or clothing design. |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST Date: 19 Jul 07 - 05:12 PM muzak... |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Peace Date: 19 Jul 07 - 05:26 PM OK, GUEST may have the exception. |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Little Hawk Date: 19 Jul 07 - 05:33 PM Possibly. However, muzak's purpose is to soothe people by providing a background noise. That works for some people. Therefore, for them, it's good music. Funny how scared a lot of modern people are of silence, isn't it? I love silence. |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: George Papavgeris Date: 19 Jul 07 - 05:42 PM I'm still on the fence, because I need a couple of provisos: First, I assume we are talking about music as opposed to song - because there are some lyrics with whose objective I would disagree because they are offensive etc. But "pure" music avoids that pitfall. And second, there are some combinations of sounds that I would not term "music", though others might. I am thinking of some of the experimental stuff around - some works for me as music, even if I don't like it, and some I consider just a cacophony of sounds. But generically, yes, all music is good - to someone. And the pursuit of music is generally speaking a good and an ennobling one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: PoppaGator Date: 19 Jul 07 - 05:49 PM I believe that it's NOT "all good," that there is good music and bad music . . . well, good and not-so-good, anyway. That's what Satchmo said, and he was almost always right... What I could assert with more confidnce is that all kinds of music can be "good." No genre has an exclusive claim on quality. Within any category or subcategory of musical style, there are examples of good, inspired, well-played music, and also of worthless noise. Bad music can be the result of cynical pandering to the perceived taste of an audience, I suppose. Often enough, it's just a matter of too much ego vs. not enough intelligence and skill. |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: George Papavgeris Date: 19 Jul 07 - 06:17 PM I think the question only makes sense generically, though, Poppagator. If we stay in the confines of genres, even all genres, we actually exclude future musical departures that might give rise to new genres. Hence my hesitation over some of the experimental music of today: My heart and mind say "it's not even music", but future generations might judge it differently. |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 19 Jul 07 - 06:55 PM If I'm generally fond of a particular style or genre of music, I don't demand that every piece be composed to the highest standards and performed at virtuoso level. As long as the performance seems genuine, I'll enjoy it. I'll certainly listen to styles and genres of which I'm not generally fond if the material is obviously well-composed or performed extremely well, but it's gotta have something that really reaches out and grabs me. In other words, I'll listen to a set of fiddle tunes any time, even if they're old chestnuts performed by a run-of-the-mill fiddler, but a saxophonist better really have his shit together or I'll listen to something else. |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Big Al Whittle Date: 19 Jul 07 - 07:21 PM Whaddya say Skipy? theres a guitarist stuck down a disused mineshaft.....sounds a bit like Martin Carthy with a broken leg.........Wossat! You wanted to know if he was playin' a pibroch, a hornpie or a slip jig, or a lament... so yer pissed on his head to shut the bastard up......... No worries cobber...... he's got a mobile phone..... wossat! Stefan Grossman's down there as well. Have a shit mate!.... til he does the stuff off his first album...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: katlaughing Date: 19 Jul 07 - 07:23 PM atonal and some minimalist is not music, imo, it can be very destructive it depends on the vibratory rate and on the intentions of the musician...some spew such hate, etc. there is no way it can be called "good" there were good reasons the ancient Chinese tuned their instruments each year according to certain guidelines |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Amos Date: 19 Jul 07 - 07:42 PM I think this is much too bald a statement to be debated. It is semantically null. For example, I could listen to the evolving songs of whales for hours, but I can't listen to heavy drugs-and-sex rap for minutes. I think the latter is just plain BAD music. To make a proposition like this meaningful you would have to define "music", no small task in itself. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: M.Ted Date: 19 Jul 07 - 08:03 PM If all music was good music, then the the term "good music" would mean nothing more than the term "music". The concept of "Good music" would be meaningless. And then where would we be? That's why you have to think before you post;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 19 Jul 07 - 08:10 PM "All music is good music" is as true as "all food is good food". |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: Bobert Date: 19 Jul 07 - 08:13 PM No, not all music is all that good... Some of it really sucks... But this ain't as much about style/genre as bad players... Some folks ain't in tune... Others a clueless... Now that makes fir bad music... Okay, yer less apt to find it at the professional level but you sho nuff find it elsewhere... I just got back from Blues Week where I lead this kinda "battel of the bluesmen" and other folks join in various jams and, well, it only takes one very loud inexperienced and outta tune player to screw up a song... That make for bad music... MO, of course... Some folke is tone deft and don't knoew when someone is either out of tune or playing "their own" song instead of the one the others are playing correctly... Nevermind... I'm just tired... I didn't get back to the Cheat River Lodge until 4:00 this morning, then got about 4 hours sleep before loading up and driving home so I'm a tad on the testy side... But most folks played okay last night with the exception of... Nevermind... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: dick greenhaus Date: 19 Jul 07 - 08:43 PM If that statement is true, how do you account for all the lousy music we hear? |
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Subject: RE: BS: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST,SharonA, logged out Date: 20 Jul 07 - 08:43 AM Shouldn't this discussion go above the line? I think it'd get more responses. I don't have time right now to log in and make a full response, but basically I agree with dick greenhaus. Sharon |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Joe Offer Date: 20 Jul 07 - 09:45 AM All music is good music? Well, if I like it, there must be good in it. There may be many flaws in the music I like, but I think I'd agree with the statement. -Joe, moving this to the music section- |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 20 Jul 07 - 11:11 AM Skipy, Let's imagine a situation in which 100% of contibutors to this thread agree with the statement, "all music is good music". Who benefits from such agreement and what, exactly, is moved further forward? What happens if 100% of the contributors to this thread disagree with the statement? Who benefits in this case and what, if anything, is moved further forward? Off the top of my head I can't think of any meaningful answers to these questions. I'd be interested to know what you think. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: redsnapper Date: 20 Jul 07 - 11:23 AM "Good" does not exist of itself, there must be something to compare that value judgement against. And that value judgement will be different for each and every person. By my tastes, a great deal of music is good but there are some genres and types I do not care so much for. RS |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Banjiman Date: 20 Jul 07 - 11:36 AM No! ...and it is probably more to do with the intention of the person producing/ making the music than style, delivery, genre or musical ability. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST,Val Date: 20 Jul 07 - 12:11 PM I'm a bit surprised that nobody has yet specifically voiced the argument whether "good" is and objective or a subjective value. Also it seems there has only been a little mention of whether it is an absolute or relative value. If it is subjective, then for any piece of music SOMEbody may well think it is good, but most likely not EVERYbody will agree. (most of the posts have danced around this idea) If it is relative, then there must be "not-good" in order for "good" to exist (M.Ted made this point). To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, "Music can be good for all the people some of the time, and for some of the people all of the time, but music cannot be good for all of the people all of the time" |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: s&r Date: 20 Jul 07 - 12:13 PM 4'33" Stu |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST,Val Date: 20 Jul 07 - 12:14 PM "If it is relative, then there must be "not-good" in order for "good" to exist (M.Ted made this point)." (And also Redsnapper, who was posting about the same time I was) |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Bernard Date: 20 Jul 07 - 12:21 PM Hmmm... beer... |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST,kenny Date: 20 Jul 07 - 06:29 PM Daniel O'Donnell ? |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Big Al Whittle Date: 20 Jul 07 - 08:36 PM I've got a lot of time for Daniel O'Donnel - he is a great populariser. He's what's missing from the English scene. Imagine if Cliff Richard sang a few folk songs. He would have less trouble in communicating to a mass audience than English folksingers do. You can say - that's not important. But I think more people should know our folksongs, and the present lot (myself included) are a turn off for the mainstream listener. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: dick greenhaus Date: 20 Jul 07 - 08:55 PM By the same logic, all food is good food. All beer is good beer. All art is good art. all taste is good taste. Good and bad have no meaning. This is best described as Wikiality. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Artful Codger Date: 20 Jul 07 - 10:38 PM The argument that popular equates to good doesn't wash. As de Rouchfoucault said, "If fifty thousand Frenchmen do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." There are undoubtedly more people with velvet Elvises on their walls than reproductions of Rembrandt. The typical person is not fit to judge what is musically "good" (in terms of quality) because his sampling for comparison is laughably limited, and his basis for judgement is based on familiarity and hype. It's like asking a little kid to tell you which are the "good-tasting" foods and which the "bad-tasting" ones--he's more apt to judge by color, mushiness and whether his mom wants him to eat them than by actual flavor; a strange food won't even touch his tongue before he spits it out. But if he sees a friend or (better yet) older sibling digging into something, it will instantly become his favorite food. The modern music industry is about sales, not high quality; the corporations' main goal is to push "product" to the most impressionable, most spendthrifty markets. Quality and heavy promotion aren't incompatible, but the latter is in no wise proportional to the former. Nor does "good" equate to "favored by someone", which doesn't even require that it be mediocre. We've seen plenty of no-talents on TV reality shows who thought their singing was da bomb. Undefined in the question are "good by what measure?", "who is to decide?" and "in what context?" It's my view that we DO have people qualified to judge--those who have been exposed to a wide range of music and can actually articulate what it is about a piece of music that works or doesn't. We can't predict what will be considered good music in years to come. But neither are we musically naive. The world has already seen atonalism, quarter-tone music, computer-generated music, minimalism, fusions of all sorts, rap (music without the music), sensory overload, even John Cage's butterfly. Every musical variation has been tried in some experimental form, combined with every medium that exists. There's plenty of room for innovation yet, assimilating these facets into mainstream music, but there hasn't been a true innovation since synthesizer chips and computers made anything musically conceivable actually possible, now, by anyone. Well, except the smellophone, which still requires extra hardware. In short, there's nothing we haven't heard. To shock the musicati, you'd have to orchestrate natural disasters (why do I think of Britney Spears?) No complete concensus is possible, due to personal tastes, and we can't predict what will be good music in the future, but today's bad music is likely to remain in the dustbin for eternity--once the tweenies tire of it. {checks watch} |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Peace Date: 20 Jul 07 - 11:34 PM Remember this: If your food won't mold, don't eat it. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: M.Ted Date: 21 Jul 07 - 01:06 AM Artful Codger--this is you lucky day!!!!!--I am one of those people you say are "qualified to judge"--and I do judge!!!--Here's my verdict: the really good music what they play on the Macedonian Gajda, with a rigorous tupan accompaniment. Not that phoney Bulgarian Gajda stuff, and forget that every-note-played-square-on-the-beat Bulgarian tupan style--the only good stuff is Macedonian!!! And it's even better if it's in 11/16. Everything else is crap. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST, Mikefule Date: 21 Jul 07 - 02:56 AM Music is good if it sounds like the musician wanted it to sound. It is pleasant if the person listening enjoys it. Schultz could convey emotion or make you laugh using a circle, two dots and a straight line for Charlie Brown's face. To achieve the result with such a small number of "tools" took great artistry. There are plenty of "proper" paintings that take 6' of canvas to say less than a Schultz cartoon. Martin Hayes can play the same tune 5 or 10 times through, unaccompanied on a fiddle, and it gets better each time through. Is a solo fiddle playing simple 2 x 8 bar folk melodies less valid than beethoven? Motörhead stick to the standard drums, bass, guitar, blues-based hard rock format, and can still fill venues and sell new albums after 30 years. Someone likes it - including me. My CD collection ranges from William Kimber, to Slaughter and the Dogs, to Modern Jazz Quartet. Most of it is "good music" in that it says exactly what the musician wanted to say, and "good music" in that I enjoy listening to it. I also have some "bad music" in my collection - live recordings of inexpert punk bands with obvious glaring breaks and stumbles in the rhythm, and the musicians being out of time with each other. On the other hand, I have some excellent punk music that many of the people in this forum might regard with scepticism. It's nothing to do with how complex a piece is, but all to do with how well executed it is. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 21 Jul 07 - 05:16 AM skipy has obviously never heard me sing! RtS |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 21 Jul 07 - 06:04 AM M.Ted, Every cloud has a silver lining and my day is a bit sunnier for contemplating the fact that I am not a Bulgarian Gajda player being judged by you ... or a Macedonian, for that matter! |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 21 Jul 07 - 10:12 AM Amos said: To make a proposition like this meaningful you would have to define "music", no small task in itself. True so far. But you also have to define "good", which is even harder. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: SINSULL Date: 21 Jul 07 - 11:09 AM All music is good music ...to someone. My son could listen to hours of crap and love it but he could not endure ten minutes of my "crap". |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: M.Ted Date: 21 Jul 07 - 04:58 PM I'm just kidding, Shimrod--the Bulgarian stuff is good, too. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Bernard Date: 23 Jul 07 - 07:25 AM Hmmm... is the keyword 'executed'?! |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Big Al Whittle Date: 23 Jul 07 - 07:48 AM some days you listen to yourself and you sound rubbish |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: Bert Date: 23 Jul 07 - 09:58 AM Nope. You can listen to a half hour radio show in any genre (even folk) and hear about one or two good numbers. So I'd say about ten to twenty percent of music is god music. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: GUEST,woodsie Date: 23 Jul 07 - 10:04 AM Good music is in the ear of the listener. But there is some crap out there. That shit that you hear when a sun reader's car pulls up blasting "Booom Chink Booom Boom Chink" is an example of crap vibration - can't really call it music. It's a theraputical vibration to numb the sun reader's festering brain. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: autolycus Date: 23 Jul 07 - 11:40 AM There is a difference between merit and enjoyment. You can enjoy what has great value and enjoy what does not. As people have said, popularity is no guide whatsoever to quality. We can all provide innumerable examples of very popular rubbish in many fields of endeavour. Thread title doesn't make much sense. At the very least there is good music and bad. Lots are swerving between "it's all in the ear of the listener", and "There are such things as good and bad music.' Does anyone here never say, "That was marvellous/brilliant/fantastic/great/cool etc." and "That was crap/terrible/rubbish etc."?? i bet everyone does, so debating whether there's quality in music (films, books etc.) seems to me a red herring. We all already know there is. Naturally people will not want to be described as having crap taste And any number of composers, writers, painters etc. who were fabulously popular in their day sank without trace. Ivor |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: John Hardly Date: 23 Jul 07 - 11:48 AM All types of music are good. |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: John Hardly Date: 23 Jul 07 - 11:51 AM except this type |
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Subject: RE: All music is good music, discuss From: autolycus Date: 28 Jul 07 - 06:02 AM Qhite possibly, the best test for whether a piece of music is 'objectively' good, is the test of time. If a work can survive for , ah, how long?, say 100 years, and still be played, like loads of folk music, then it must have some gen-you-ine value. (Bach is an interesting testing of this view) Even if it was either hugely popular or critically acclaimed when contemporary, and subsequently disappears, that would seem to indicate that it met some current need, was part of a current fashion, or there was something in the water. From that point of view, the idea that if it sounds the way the performer intended then it's good seems are a poor argument. likewise the idea that every piece is good to somebody maybe thoroughly true from the point of view of subjectivity and individualism, less satisfactory for a go at the notion of an 'objective' good. the words, 'potato', 'hot' and 'minefield' appear on the brow of the hill. Ivor (Quietly hoping this revives not stifles further discussion)
-Joe Offer- |
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