Sound Science Music Thread: Pass it on!

[bigshot]

It is totally possible to objectively analyze music. You just have to be sure you have a broad enough knowledge of the subject and eliminate the bias of your own personal tastes. Sound familiar? Just to calm your confusion... Stevie Wonder is as good as Queen. But Wonder's a better songwriter, and Freddie Mercury is a better singer.

"There are two kinds of people in this world... MY kind and assholes." ---Mink Stole in Pink Flamingos

P.S. Perahia is a great pianist, but he is the first one I'd go to for Bach. I like him better with Mozart.

 

[Steve999]

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

The source of this quote, is, of course, subject to argument:

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=584438

 

[bigshot]

Writing about music is more of a problem when it crosses the line into thinking that the words are more important than the subject of the words. Film can have that problem too sometimes.

 

[castleofargh]

I love just about all kinds of music. I post what's got my interest at the fleeting moment. I wish more people would post music. As an individual I've tried not to post on this thread more than once a day since the time I saw that was the practice in another part of head-fi. I don't see why we don't share music more. In the end, whether you're listening to vinyl or MP3s or streaming or FLAC, with or without crossfeed, worried about compression, etc.. . . we probably all have one thing in common that we are overlooking--a love of music.

So I love Randy Travis and Sonny Rollins and Bach and Bootsy Collins. . . yes I do. And Eeka Mouse for that matter. I'll have to post Eeka Mouse's Neutron Bomb one day.

https://www.barrypopik.com/index.ph...y_two_kinds_of_music_good_music_and_bad_music

"There are only two kinds of music—good (music) and bad (music)” is a saying associated with Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)—two composers who died in New York City. Armstrong added that he played the “good” kind of music.

Italian composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was credited in 1863 with saying: “My dear sir, there is no such distinction as you suppose between Italian, German, French music; there are only two kinds of music, good and bad.” Rossini has long received credit for the saying, although it’s not certain when he said it.

An English journal in 1846 did not credit Rossini: “William, you see then there are two kinds of music, as there are of everything else, good and bad.”

oh that's how I roll. yum or meh, it's getting beyond that's hard for me. in foobar I've added a rank tag to all my library, it goes from 1 to 3. 1 being stuff I really like(but there is a great deal of 1), 2 being basically, the rest. and 3 are few in numbers like new albums or stuff I never really got into, so I didn't make my mind. and a few times a year, I listen to all the 3s and if I find no reason to promote them in that last chance listening, they get the recycle bin treatment.

but as soon as I try to consider a "best" song, or sorting songs from best to worst, there is just so much choice. sooooooo many songs!!!!!

 

[Steve999]

How big is your library? Mine is about 10,000 songs, which I consider moderately large. Just by mere quantity the task would be very daunting. And I've certainly heard of people with much bigger libraries. I tried rating songs a few times and didn't think about it much and stopped without much thought, but what you're talking about is probably why.

As Bigshot alludes to you can pick out who is better at what in a lot of cases in terms of individuals--writing, singing, their instrument, etc. I can do that pretty easily for my own purposes. In college I was a music minor but I was on the same campus and lived in the same dorm as students from a nationally ranked music school. I ended up taking some classes with the freaky talent music guys [Edit: and gals], on their own turf, including "music appreciation." And the professor would play some garbage 20th century classical music and insist to everyone it was good music and we would all try to hold our laughter. Now in fairness, the same guy could sightread an orchestral score and transpose it for piano (from all of the different kinds of clefs) and play it on piano in real time.

And on our exams he'd drop a needle on a record for about ten seconds and we had to identify the likely period, the likely composer, the techniques in the music, the likely formal structure of the whole piece, etc. etc. etc. I consider part of my characteristic of being able to still enjoy new music I've never heard or is different from past things I like at this age as being in part because I was exposed to and *tried* to play classical and jazz from a youngish age. The point being, if one person in the music is doing something cool, it's got my attention, whether I think much of the music as a whole or not. Or at least that's what I was going to say the point is even though I was not even thinking of that. So what is the point. "Compressing" music from one to three stars, I've tried it, and yes, I had a similar experience, and I don't know a solution. I will make that my point. But along with it you get a bunch of rambling thoughts and reminiscing.

I will say, however, that Mahler was a better composer than "Weird" Al Yankovich. But I like Weird Al Yankovich too. Mahler, three stars. Weird Al Yankovich, one star. Easy.

My only practical suggestion is if you just plain don't like it make it zero stars. Three stars is a pretty compressed scale to rate music you like anyway.

I will say also that 10,000 songs might seem like a lot, but I've had most of them for years, for decades, and it's really not that much to get my arms around. And sometimes I will make myself listen to something I was disappointed in when I first got it, and I will find I like it a lot.

Since the advent of music streaming, my music purchases have trickled to near nothing. About the only thing I get now is stuff that is absolutely precious to me that is not on a streaming service, or maybe a Sammy Davis, Jr., CD, here and there to learn to listen for artifacts. The most recent example of something I could not find on a streaming service that I found absolutely precious so I bought a CD of it is Van Morrison's album "Tupelo Honey," just to give you an example.

I've also become extremely skeptical of music critics. As Bigshot alludes too, some of them love to hear themselves write. Totally unlike me, who only writes with great reticence. Or as Frank Zappa described rock journalists:

"People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read.”

Now that's a bit much, but it gets the point across.

oh that's how I roll. yum or meh, it's getting beyond that's hard for me. in foobar I've added a rank tag to all my library, it goes from 1 to 3. 1 being stuff I really like(but there is a great deal of 1), 2 being basically, the rest. and 3 are few in numbers like new albums or stuff I never really got into, so I didn't make my mind. and a few times a year, I listen to all the 3s and if I find no reason to promote them in that last chance listening, they get the recycle bin treatment.
but as soon as I try to consider a "best" song, or sorting songs from best to worst, there is just so much choice. sooooooo many songs!!!!!

 

[bigshot]

I did a series of guest posts for the blog Boing Boing about music and how to think about it and approach it. The series was designed to try to pry open the minds of people who listened to the same music all the time because they think that's the only thing they "like". When you analyze and think about music you can *understand* and *appreciate* it- which is a million times better than just *liking* it. I posted youtube clips to illustrate my points. I'll share a couple of these...

This is Svlatoslav Richter, a Russian pianist.

Richter was one of the towering figures of classical music in the 20th century with a repertoire as broad as any pianist before or since. He saw himself as a servant of the composer and criticized performers who took liberties with the letter of the score. He disliked recording, and preferred to perform in quickly arranged concerts in almost total darkness.

Richter believed that performing with only a single small light on the piano helped the audience focus on the music. Undoubtedly, it also helped him focus, and in this clip, he very nearly loses his cool. The BBC negotiated for months with Richter to be able to televise one of his performances. He grudgingly agreed, but stipulated that he have total control of the lighting and camera angles. Just after Richter launched into some of the most technically difficult pieces in all of the repertoire for piano, the video director decided to turn up the lights a little, thinking no one would notice. Well, Richter noticed, and in the middle of concentrating on his performance, he flashed a look to the camera that would melt steel. I’ve seen that look before on my dad’s face when I was a kid!

Watch Richter's hands. Think about the contrasts in emotions he's navigating. See how he slows down and speeds up the pacing to emphasize the emotions. Just look at the concentration he is exerting here. This isn't just translating notes on a page mechanically to action on a keyboard. Richter is *creating* the music through his performance. He is transcending the music and raising it to a whole new level. Music has the power to spur performers on to superhuman feats of skill that from the audience just don’t look humanly possible. Here is just such a performance…


Chopin Etudes Op. 10 No. 1-4

Superman is REAL!

 

[Steve999]

Yeah, that was incredible, particularly the fourth Etude. Where anyone goes off calling that an "Etude" (~student piece) I have no idea. I have the full Chopin reportoire by Idil Biret http://www.idilbiret.eu/en/?cat=5 on Naxos, so I am listening to her version of it now. If I understand correctly she doesn't much like being recorded either.

I also have tons of other Chopin. Chopin is my favorite piano composer. And you dissed Murray Perahia earlier (these things are not lost on me!)--I became a permanent fan of his after I bought this as a kid:

Here's the Funeral March:



He looks so young there. And I see it is on a Sony remaster of a Columbia analog recording! (See I didn't forget that either.) I listened to that LP over and over and over and over as a kid. I still have the LP. It was just other-worldly to me. After that he could do no wrong, at least to me.

I read a couple of books about Chopin. Astonishing and painful life story--and relatively small hands!

And now Ms. Biret is on Op. 10 no. 8. . .

Thanks!

I did a series of guest posts for the blog Boing Boing about music and how to think about it and approach it. The series was designed to try to pry open the minds of people who listened to the same music all the time because they think that's the only thing they "like". When you analyze and think about music you can *understand* and *appreciate* it- which is a million times better than just *liking* it. I posted youtube clips to illustrate my points. I'll share a couple of these...

This is Svlatoslav Richter, a Russian pianist.

Richter was one of the towering figures of classical music in the 20th century with a repertoire as broad as any pianist before or since. He saw himself as a servant of the composer and criticized performers who took liberties with the letter of the score. He disliked recording, and preferred to perform in quickly arranged concerts in almost total darkness.

Richter believed that performing with only a single small light on the piano helped the audience focus on the music. Undoubtedly, it also helped him focus, and in this clip, he very nearly loses his cool. The BBC negotiated for months with Richter to be able to televise one of his performances. He grudgingly agreed, but stipulated that he have total control of the lighting and camera angles. Just after Richter launched into some of the most technically difficult pieces in all of the repertoire for piano, the video director decided to turn up the lights a little, thinking no one would notice. Well, Richter noticed, and in the middle of concentrating on his performance, he flashed a look to the camera that would melt steel. I’ve seen that look before on my dad’s face when I was a kid!

Watch Richter's hands. Think about the contrasts in emotions he's navigating. See how he slows down and speeds up the pacing to emphasize the emotions. Just look at the concentration he is exerting here. This isn't just translating notes on a page mechanically to action on a keyboard. Richter is *creating* the music through his performance. He is transcending the music and raising it to a whole new level. Music has the power to spur performers on to superhuman feats of skill that from the audience just don’t look humanly possible. Here is just such a performance…


Chopin Etudes Op. 10 No. 1-4

Superman is REAL!

 

[bigshot]

Didn't Perahiia damage his hands by trying to play Chopin and Liszt? He really is better with the fluid effortless beauty of Mozart than he is the bravura stuff. The king of Chopin is Rubinstein. This concert is astounding. By the end of it, I'm drenched in sweat too!

 

[Steve999]

I'll have to check the Rubenstein out!

I just looked up Murray Perahai's problems with hand damage. That looks like it started in the late 90s. The recording I linked to was made in the mid-to-late 70s I think. So maybe that's where the difference lies. Doesn't sound to me like he's having any problems with virtuosity there. I'll have to check out his Mozart.

Didn't Perahiia damage his hands by trying to play Chopin and Liszt? He really is better with the fluid effortless beauty of Mozart than he is the bravura stuff. The king of Chopin is Rubinstein. This concert is astounding. By the end of it, I'm drenched in sweat too!

 

[gregorio]

And the professor would play some garbage 20th century classical music and insist to everyone it was good music and we would all try to hold our laughter.

This is essentially why there is little discussion in sound science about music. There's not even a fully adequate definition of the word "music", of what music is or what it is for, and without knowing that, how is it possible to judge, even subjectively let alone with any objectivity, what is good or bad (or garbage)? Most people in effect make-up their own definition of what music is and what it's for and then judge against that definition. Some of us have a far broader definition than others and some are able to separate "appreciation" from personal preference (what we "like"). Many people for example have a similar view of C20th classical music and it's a small niche market within classical music, because it does not conform to what many/most feel "music is for". However, taken in it's own context (of what "music is for"), can sometimes reveal genius where before, the only thing that was apparent was "garbage"! "4:33" by John Cage is probably the most obvious and famous/infamous example of this.

G

 

[bigshot]

I'm perfectly comfortable objectively analyzing music and art. I'll define my criteria for judging and support my criticism with clear examples. You may have a different set of criteria and may come to a different conclusion, but that doesn't mean that we both aren't being objective about it. Different criteria will reveal different aspects of the art. Disagreement brings a deeper understanding.

I usually let comments like Steve's comment you quoted slide without comment. People laughed at Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and called it noise when it first came out. It was brand new and different from what they were used to. They didn't understand it. You can't expect them to appreciate it. When people dismiss music out of ignorance, I don't pay much attention to their opinion. That is especially common with people who dismiss country music or rap music or modern classical music. They're usually dismissing something they haven't made the effort to know anything about.

There's a lot of kinds of music that I don't understand. I reserve judgement on it until I've had a chance to fully explore it. I have a bucket list of music that I haven't had the chance to fully explore yet. One of the biggest names on that list is Bach. I've spent a couple of years focusing on the cantatas and keyboard works. I've listened to Bach's contemporaries and relatives' music. I still don't fully grasp it, but I keep trying.

A lot of my favorite music now was stuff I considered junk when I was in high school. I've learned a lot since I started down this road. There's also definitely a few kinds of music that I used to love, but now in retrospect I really hate. I certainly don't "like" everything. But I know all about the music I hate, and I can discuss it from knowledge with people who feel differently than I do. Embracing diversity in music is what gives you the experience to appreciate it.

I 've worked closely with blindingly creative people for the past 35 years. I've been privy to the way great artists speak about other great artists and their work. Creativity isn't something that comes to you in a dream like a dove descending from heaven. It's something that is polished and honed on the anvil of critical analysis. Great artists understand what they're doing and their choices follow a pattern. Being able to discern those patterns of creative choices is what allows a person to understand and appreciate the work.

Music is at its core sound that has been organized to communicate. There are an infinite number of ways to organize and communicate. All human beings are born recognizing very simple patterns and communicate very basic ideas. If we want to move on to a higher level of understanding, we have to lift ourselves up using objective analysis and critical thinking. That requires experience and open mindedness.

 

[gregorio]

I'm perfectly comfortable objectively analyzing music and art. I'll define my criteria for judging and support my criticism with clear examples. You may have a different set of criteria and may come to a different conclusion, but that doesn't mean that we both aren't being objective about it.

Surely that MUST mean that we aren't being objective about it. Your definition of your criteria is your subjective opinion of your definition/criteria, there is no objective definition of music. For example:

Music is at its core sound that has been organized to communicate.

The problem with this definition is that two people having a conversation in the street would have to be classified as "music", as spoken language is "sound that has been organised to communicate" BUT many of the works of great post war composers would NOT be classified as "music", because some are not "organised" (the movement/sub-genre of "indeterminacy" for example) and other pieces are not designed to communicate, (the listener makes-up their own meaning).

Some of the music I appreciate, you would not consider to be "music" (according to your definition), how is that not a subjective opinion rather than an objective analysis? The problem we always ultimately run into is that music doesn't actually exist, it is purely a perception and therefore, any objective analysis is always predicated on a subjective perception.

G

 

[bigshot]

Criteria is your choice. Everybody gets their own point of view. That part is subjective. But the process of analysis is objective. You apply your criteria fairly and come up with an objective judgement. If you gather together enough people's different criteria/judgements and everyone listens and understands what everyone else is judging by, you start seeing the object from all sides. Art is like a faceted diamond. If it speaks, it speaks in different ways to different people, but overall there is an idea at the core. That part comes from the creator.

Spoken words can be musical. That's what singing is. All creative works made by man are organized. That's what we do. I'm sure cave men went around organizing rocks into pleasing patterns that meant something to them.

 

[bigshot]

The process of analysis is that you have to puzzle out the reason why before you decide whether something is good or bad. Most people just look at something blankly and say to themselves "Do I like that?" That limits their judgement to their own taste. Instead, you should define what makes something "good", What are the basic attributes of good art? Or what are the attributes of good art in this particular genre or medium? You start there first, then you apply it and let the chips fall where they may. That way you aren't limited by your personal taste. You're actually discerning why something is good or bad. You can still "like" something that is lousy. But you know it's lousy. You aren't trying to defend your own ignorant tastes.

They don't teach this process in school. They probably should.

 

[gregorio]

Criteria is your choice. Everybody gets their own point of view. That part is subjective. But the process of analysis is objective. You apply your criteria fairly and come up with an objective judgement.

That is self-contradictory. If "you apply your criteria" (which is subjective) then how can you "come up with objective judgement" on something which is subjective?

[1] Spoken words can be musical. That's what singing is.
[2] All creative works made by man are organized.

1. Yes, spoken words can be musical and yes, that's what singing is BUT, according to your definition ALL conversations are music.
2. No, that is incorrect. Look up Aleatoric music and "Indeterminacy". The aforementioned "4:33" by Cage is specifically NOT organised, for example.

G