newbie

[Ricky]

Hi Camden,

Yes I have to admit perhaps that to "agree on objective issues" is a bit of an oxymoron. Objective features are there regardless, whether one likes them or not. I believe that science produces objective knowledge - something that Nietzsche and Existentialists would most certainly dispute - but for now relegating THAT extremely interesting question to the domain of philosophy and science, and admitting that we CAN possess objective knowledge, I do think it is possible to extract an objective foundation for the most basic of musical elements. And I think this is a bit more than one can say, for instance, in literature. Art, Picasso once said, is a unification of the intellectual and the emotional. Emotional responses are pretty much completely subjective - and because emotion is half of the art no "neat categorization or ranking" as you put it, will ever be possible.

What I meant to say originally was that BECAUSE there are objective features to music - let's not talk even about such things as "form" or "harmony" for now, but for instance the fact that it is a sound propogating, people, like it or not, must "accept" such statements for they are objective truths. There can be no debate on them.

However, the question is how far can one push these objective statements. Clearly the statement that "music is a propogating sound wave" is not of much worth in determining "musical greatness", it is a statement with no teeth, for the characterization applies equally well to street traffic (which however, John Cage would extol as music) as it does to Beethoven's 9th. That is what I'm trying to figure out.

[Sorrano]

From my own experience with rock music I find it mostly degenerative of values I hold dear as well as of the entire human experiences. (This latter part, of course, may be a result of two world wars and a nuclear arms race.) On the other hand I find the general topics in "classical" music to be uplifting and inspiring in terms of humanity.

[camden]

Originally posted by Ricky:
Hi Camden,


However, the question is how far can one push these objective statements. Clearly the statement that "music is a propogating sound wave" is not of much worth in determining "musical greatness", it is a statement with no teeth, for the characterization applies equally well to street traffic (which however, John Cage would extol as music) as it does to Beethoven's 9th. That is what I'm trying to figure out.

That's funny that you mention Cage, as until reaching your final paragraph I was thinking of him as an example that might refute your grounds of "objective" musical features. I'll try to explain what I mean:

It seems to me that contrary to your suggestion that music is different to the other arts in it's objectivity, I would have said that music history, if anything, supports my claim that aesthetic values are tangible and contingent upon cultural circumstances. Until the 20th cen. I suppose tonality, the primacy of "consonance", and metre would have been considered objective facets of "music".


But of course, those objective values no longer hold true in western classical music after Schoenberg, Bartok and Stravinsky. So now you are forced to claim this objectivity for "physical sound" as the necessary signifier of music. But then Cage refuted even this "absolute" with his 4'33"!

You end up with what's known as an "infinite regression", moving ever backwards to find a solid base for your "objective" assertions, each time having them pulled out from underneath you by some "revolutionary" to come. And even if you could show that "physical sound" was the basis for music, that takes you no closer to defining what constitutes a "good" or "bad" physical sound, which would be necessary if we are to understand what objective "value" means.

So what does this "good" and "bad" mean,....objectively? There are people today that would argue "Beethoven is bad, Kylie is great", not to me, but to them certainly. That's not because they are "objectively" wrong, it means there system of values is a different one to mine. What they mean by bad may mean, I don't know, "bad to dance to". In that case, Beethoven would certainly be inferior as Beethoven is, pretty poor coreographic material. This shows that values are totally contigent on circumstance. They listen to music on a dance floor, me sat down on a chair in a concert hall. For them dancing is important, or useful in their lives, for me it is not...and so our ideas of "good" and "bad" differ accordingly.

[Stephen J. Wade]

Originally posted by Sorrano:
From my own experience with rock music I find it mostly degenerative of values I hold dear as well as of the entire human experiences. (This latter part, of course, may be a result of two world wars and a nuclear arms race.) On the other hand I find the general topics in "classical" music to be uplifting and inspiring in terms of humanity.

I feel the very same way about the 'uplifting and inspiring' qualities found in classical music. I can go back now and relisten to some of the rock music I grew up with and it sounds just 'empty' compared to the classical I'm listening to now.

I would agree


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Stephen

[Peter]

Originally posted by camden:

What they mean by bad may mean, I don't know, "bad to dance to". In that case, Beethoven would certainly be inferior as Beethoven is, pretty poor coreographic material. This shows that values are totally contigent on circumstance. They listen to music on a dance floor, me sat down on a chair in a concert hall. For them dancing is important, or useful in their lives, for me it is not...and so our ideas of "good" and "bad" differ accordingly.

So might our ideas of what construes dancing - if you mean jumping up and down simulating sex, then probably Beethoven isn't the right music to do it to!

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'Man know thyself'

[Peter]

Originally posted by camden:

So what does this "good" and "bad" mean,....objectively? There are people today that would argue "Beethoven is bad, Kylie is great", not to me, but to them certainly. That's not because they are "objectively" wrong, it means there system of values is a different one to mine

There are people who would argue Hitler was right - your argument implies that there is no right or wrong, only our own individual perspectives, very dangerous indeed. Cannibals have a different set of values, criminals have a different set of values - surely we can say one person's 'values' are not just different but better than anothers?

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'Man know thyself'



[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 03-20-2002).]

[Ricky]

Originally posted by camden:


It seems to me that contrary to your suggestion that music is different to the other arts in it's objectivity, I would have said that music history, if anything, supports my claim that aesthetic values are tangible and contingent upon cultural circumstances. Until the 20th cen. I suppose tonality, the primacy of "consonance", and metre would have been considered objective facets of "music".

I'm sorry, I lost my message and didn't post correctly, could the moderator please delete my last post? I shall try to remember what I wrote!

Camden,

I think much of what you say is true, and we are much agreement! I merely differ from your point of view in a few aspects. For John Cage (of whom I am an admirer), his life philosophy concerned the circumambience, the ubiquity of music in the everyday world. I think rather he was a PROMOTER of the sound basis of music. The point of 4'33'' is not silence but rather the lack of it. This celebrated piece, (later superseded by 0'00''!) FORCED people to realise that we will always be surrounded by music. You probably know that infamous story, which he was so fond of telling, of his visit to the anechoic chamber of a university. Even in this highly controlled environment, he discerned two "hums": one was his nervous system in operation, and the other was his blood in circulation. Thus in 4'33'', the pianist comes to a concert hall with the usual audience expecting the usual frigid schedule of performance/applause/entr'acte/performance/applause/encore/double applause. Instead the pianist seats himself and pulls out a clock. The audience becomes agitated, nervous, and fidgets in their seats, muttering and whispering. Their expectations of composed music are denied, and that "background noise" - the coughs, the seat shifting, the whispering - moves to the foreground, ineluctably amplified; people are FORCED to become acutely aware of the music that surrounds them. It is a beautiful psychological lesson. And so I feel John Cage is rather about the AFFIRMATION of physical sound than its negation. And indeed he did believe, as many others did and do, that music inhabits an n-dimensional space, parameterized by the usual elements of pitch, attack, timing, timbre etc.

Now as to the question of whether such a general formulation can really bring fruitful comparisons, I am in hearty concurrence with you: I do not think it can have much content. But at least it serves as an objective basis, a starting point, a platform of unification upon which we can stand and start talking.

I do certainly agree with you that the nature of the art has been expanding in its horizons: yet even such a statement implicitly presupposes such a platform of unification - the word "expanding" has a reference, and music is expanding with respect to its "span" in that n-dimensional space.

Perhaps the question is not whether one can find a UNIVERSAL classifier that pigeonholes music into good/bad, but rather a TREE of theories. There are general "scaffold" theories, such as those of the n-space, of which all music must be bound to, but the specific content of such a theory is necessarily limited. However, if one narrows one's optic, say, for instance, to 18th century classical music, one can build more specific, and more powerful bases, a "common-language" is discerned, and we can speak for instance of "tonal harmony", and "sonata form". Continuing, more stronger comparisons and theories can be asserted with even narrower foci: concentration to the Beethoven oeuvre, or to a single "period", or even a work. This type of structure is apparent in the sciences: there are no "Theories of Everything", but there are general scaffold theories of physics, and then more specific, but more powerful and concrete theories of the sub-disciplines such as particle physics, quantum physics, and then continuing on.

Instead of "good/bad" I like to think of music in terms of "consistency" with respect to an axiomatic (value) system. Here we seem to share many ideas. I think this motivates the need for separate theories, of say, 14th century monody, versus a theory of total serialism. Yet they are still bound together by the general theory.

[camden]

Originally posted by Peter:
There are people who would argue Hitler was right - your argument implies that there is no right or wrong, only our own individual perspectives, very dangerous indeed. Cannibals have a different set of values, criminals have a different set of values - surely we can say one person's 'values' are not just different but better than anothers?

Funny you should say my arguments coalesce with Hitler, or Fascism, when I would have said that it was rather that belief in one's privaledged insight into "objective" value was the result of fascistic/elitist tendencies, but nevermind.

I think there are arguments one can posit against Hitler's point of veiw, certainly, but I think it is very difficult to do so on the grounds that it is objectively "bad". If you think about it, for Hitler, the Jews were intrinsically/objectively/whatever inferior to Arians. To him, this was obvious and he saw himself as a hero, no doubt as a "good" man also.

The arguments I would posit against Hitler have nothing to do with my feeling they are "evil", even though disgusting to me, but more that history has demonstrated that they lead to the type of world many, me included, would find painful and uncomfortable to live in. But if someone wants that kind of world, then it's very difficult to persuade them otherwise on the grounds that it is "evil". Far more feasible is just to demonstrate that the consequences for themselves, and those around them might be other than they thought, not GOOD for them (which is in the end, what we really mean when we say GOOD)....and that's a pragmmatic, not a moral argument.

[Peter]

Originally posted by camden:
Funny you should say my arguments coalesce with Hitler, or Fascism, when I would have said that it was rather that belief in one's privaledged insight into "objective" value was the result of fascistic/elitist tendencies, but nevermind.

Let's then take your arguments to their logical conclusion, when nothing is better than anything else. If one of my students plays a scale unevenly, unrhythmically and with 'wrong' fingering, am I being fascist by 'correcting' them? Surely I am imposing my own set of musical values which are no more valid in your view that those of the student? And if this is so, then why bother to teach anyone anything? Your arguments lead us to the ludicrous position where we are unable to distinguish the worth between a child playing chopsticks and Gilels playing the Emperor concerto.

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'Man know thyself'

[camden]

Originally posted by Peter:
Let's then take your arguments to their logical conclusion, when nothing is better than anything else. If one of my students plays a scale unevenly, unrhythmically and with 'wrong' fingering, am I being fascist by 'correcting' them? Surely I am imposing my own set of musical values which are no more valid in your view that those of the student? And if this is so, then why bother to teach anyone anything? Your arguments lead us to the ludicrous position where we are unable to distinguish the worth between a child playing chopsticks and Gilels playing the Emperor concerto.

Absolutely not! It is not the "logical" (either inductive or deductive)conclusion of my argument at all. It just doesn't follow. I pointed out that my argument was pragragmatic. It's your use of the words "good", "great, "bad", "evil" (or though you didn't use this one to be fair, or thought the Hitler reference implied it)with a moral, ethical and evaluative emphasis that I take issue with. Of course you can show a student a particular fingering that may help him/her to execute a particular passage with greater facility than his own. Just like a builder may instruct an apprentice to use a saw for cutting wood rather than a tin of paint. But that's exactly my point: the "goodness", or "badness" of something is totally relative to a particular context. You never hear builders arguing that a saw is objectively superior to a tin of paint. One is simply more useful for cutting wood that the other is. One is "better" for cutting wood not "better" objectively you might say. When you view it like this, I think you may start to see why I find the idea of objective "betterness" just ridiculous and without meaning. I mean, even if you could produce an argument to show that a saw was "objectively superior"....uh, what use would that be?...why?

Furthermore, the first premise in your argument does not entail the latter part: that classical fingering is more useful for Beethoven than two outstretched fingers. I could easily invert that argument (viz a viz the builder example) by saying two outstretched fingers produce a more "authentic" and thus "better" performance of chopsticks than classical piano technique will. (Think also of the Jazz sliding technique of producing appogiaturas, and how that differs from classical technique for a similar effect.One is more "appropriatte for jazz.) What you need to show to proove your argument is that chopsticks is objectively better to the Emporer concerto. Your argument has only shown that one technique facilitates a more typical performane in a particular case. Not why we should prefer one to another. I prefer Beethoven, my little cousin chopsticks. True, I hope that she will one day appreciatte Beethoven, but only that we would have more in common, and would more to talk about and find some source of identification or communality with each other. She no doubt feels the same way towards me when playing chopsticks over and over whith a smile on her face when I am listening to her.

[Peter]

Originally posted by camden:
[BI pointed out that my argument was pragragmatic. It's your use of the words "good", "great, "bad", "evil" (or though you didn't use this one to be fair, or thought the Hitler reference implied it)with a moral, ethical and evaluative emphasis that I take issue with. [/B]

I AM comparing like with like and in the context of all music - the 'musician' Kylie Minogue (or any pop) for example with the musician Beethoven! I'm not saying compared to a chair Beethoven is superior, that is a ludicrous thing to say, especially if you've just walked 20 miles! Of course the Emperor Concerto is superior to chopsticks, but I said in an earlier post that prooving it to someone who refuses to accept the criteria I as a musician would use is nigh on impossible, just as explaining colours to a blind person would be.

Surely as a teacher one has to be evaluative? Am I supposed to say to a student who plays a piece in an unmusical way (by my standards, which according to you are meaningless!) 'never mind, it is your own interpretation, and as such is neither better nor worse than that of Gilels, only different'? Surely one is allowed to say to a student 'that was terrible' or 'that was excellent'? I really don't see what you are objecting to here!

I don't see the need to apologise for implying Hitler was evil. This all comes down to your refusal to accept that some people do have better sets of values than others, because you always have to justify this intellectually - to me it's simply knowing the difference between right and wrong. Your arguments could be used to justify the holocaust and for me that is enough proof that you are wrong!


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'Man know thyself'

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 03-23-2002).]

[camden]

Originally posted by Peter:

I AM comparing like with like and in the context of all music - the 'musician' Kylie Minogue (or any pop) for example with the musician Beethoven! I'm not saying compared to a chair Beethoven is superior, that is a ludicrous thing to say, especially if you've just walked 20 miles! Of course the Emperor Concerto is superior to chopsticks, but I said in an earlier post that prooving it to someone who refuses to accept the criteria I as a musician would use is nigh on impossible, just as explaining colours to a blind person would be.

Surely as a teacher one has to be evaluative? Am I supposed to say to a student who plays a piece in an unmusical way (by my standards, which according to you are meaningless!) 'never mind, it is your own interpretation, and as such is neither better nor worse than that of Gilels, only different'? Surely one is allowed to say to a student 'that was terrible' or 'that was excellent'? I really don't see what you are objecting to here!

I don't see the need to apologise for implying Hitler was evil. This all comes down to your refusal to accept that some people do have better sets of values than others, because you always have to justify this intellectually - to me it's simply knowing the difference between right and wrong. Your arguments could be used to justify the holocaust and for me that is enough proof that you are wrong!

First: If "some people do have better values than others", what makes you certain that you are one of these people? Maybe you have the wrong or inferior values. Maybe I do. How can I know, or you know whose are better? I think your position is dangerous one,I can't stress this enough.

Second: When you claim access to absolute values, debate ends. There is no longer a possibility for discussion.You are "right" and I am "wrong". That's enough for you, not because you have prooved your position, but because you claim it should be "obvious" to everyone.

Thirdly: It is your argument that would justify the Holocaust, not mine, as you do not find it necessary for people to justify their judgments, opinions, evaluations and ultimately their actions, it's enough that they "simply know the difference between right and wrong". No doubt a certain dictator felt he was in the position of "simply knowing the difference between right and wrong", he claimed he was a "hero". He brutally ed millions of people in the name of doing "the right thing".

Finally: I am not saying you are wrong in claiming Beethoven to be superior to Kylie, you may be right. I certianly prefer Beethoven. All I am asking you to do is justify this claim. So far your argument rests on nothing other than that it is "obvious". What I am saying is that it is not obvious to me. Therfore the burden of proof lies with you, not with me, as I am not making any claims. I only ask that you justify your position.

[P.S. I suggest we leave AH out of this from now on. It may upset someone otherwise.]

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by camden:
First: If "some people do have better values than others", what makes you certain that you are one of these people? Maybe you have the wrong or inferior values. Maybe I do. How can I know, or you know whose are better? I think your position is dangerous one,I can't stress this enough.

Well I think a society that cares for its citizens, looks after the old and sick, educates its young has better values than one that persecutes and terrorises its people - surely it is dangerous not to be able to recognise this?

Second: When you claim access to absolute values, debate ends. There is no longer a possibility for discussion.You are "right" and I am "wrong". That's enough for you, not because you have prooved your position, but because you claim it should be "obvious" to everyone.

I think all great art does have an absolute truth and value about it, that is what distinguishes it from the mediocre, that is the extra quality that makes it great - I think it is a spiritual quality. Personally I see it as a gift to be able to appreciate great music, just as it is to be blessed with a talent to perform it. As a performer and teacher myself, I am only too aware of my limitations and of the musical superiority of others - others who have a greater talent than myself. Your arguments wouldn't allow me to recognise this fact. Because I do recognise it I am able to strive to improve rather than merely accept.


Thirdly: It is your argument that would justify the Holocaust, not mine, as you do not find it necessary for people to justify their judgments, opinions, evaluations and ultimately their actions, it's enough that they "simply know the difference between right and wrong".

I don't think so - yes there are people who will twist these values to their own ends. My point is that there is an objective RIGHT and WRONG. It is wrong to kill, it is wrong to steal, it is wrong to harm another human being. If people understood these as TRUTHS we wouldn't have the terrible world we now inhabit.


Finally: I am not saying you are wrong in claiming Beethoven to be superior to Kylie, you may be right. I certianly prefer Beethoven. All I am asking you to do is justify this claim. So far your argument rests on nothing other than that it is "obvious". What I am saying is that it is not obvious to me. Therfore the burden of proof lies with you, not with me, as I am not making any claims. I only ask that you justify your position.

Why should I have to justify it? Isn't it enough that Beethoven gave us such GREAT music? I've mentioned the musical criteria I would use before (and you agreed with me!), however I do accept that to a pop fan those criteria would probably be meaningless - but that is a position of ignorance, and I don't mean that in an offensive way, but if they have no understanding of harmony, rhythm, musical history or simply have never really listened to Beethoven, how can they understand what I am saying?

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'Man know thyself'



[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 03-24-2002).]

[Rod]

I told you guys you're on a road to nowhere with this discussion!

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Rod:
I told you guys you're on a road to nowhere with this discussion!

And not only that, others have gone down the road and made decisions regarding great music and composers. Why else would someone, for example, regard the B quartets as the pinnacle of Western Civilization? Critics have already given labels of greatness--perhaps their criteria bears closer examination in this discussion.