Why Do So Many Smart People Listen to Such Terrible Music?

[arete1952]

Greetings all:

Some months ago, over on the Objectivism Online site, I posted this link:

http://www.unconservatory.org/articles/smartpeople.html

which generated some very interesting and, ahem, passionate responses.

Best to all,

Ken

Edited November 6, 2008 by arete1952

[BaalChatzaf]

Greetings all:

Some months ago, over on the Objectivism Online site, I posted this link:

http://www.unconservatory.org/articles/smartpeople.html

which generated some very interesting and, ahem, passionate responses.

Best to all,

Ken

There is an objective standard for arithmetical accuracy and for logical correctness in proof and argument. There is an objective standard for grammatical correctness of spoken and written language. There is an objective standard for good nutrition and bad nutrition.

Is there a standard for music rooted in the neurophysiology of hearing? Is their an objective biological basis for saying this music is good and that is bad? If so, what is the standard? If not, then the judgment good and bad applied to music is purely subjective. In short, people like what they like and they dislike what they dislike.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

There is an objective standard for arithmetical accuracy and for logical correctness in proof and argument. There is an objective standard for grammatical correctness of spoken and written language. There is an objective standard for good nutrition and bad nutrition.

Not exactly. There is a requirement that an individual consume sufficient quantities of the proper nutrients, and avoid others. But each of us varies in those requirements due both to genetic differences and environmental circumstance in the widest sense, environment including activity, health, personal history and choice, etc. Art is even more personal and contingent. And nutrition alone doesn't mandate cuisine. You can get your protein from fish or beans or eggs, you can eat it raw or roasted or stir-fried. Spices may have no nutritional effect, but still make all the difference. That being said, its obviously absurd to apply a standard that doesn't exist for food to something so poorly understood as art. Any prescriptive aestheic science is mere pretense.

The purpose of aesthetics is not primarily to tell us what we should like, but to give us the tools to explore what we can like, why we like it, and how we can enjoy even more.

Radicals for Happiness

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Music involves learning. That isn't the only issue, but it is an obvious one, irrespective of philosophy.

If a person does not speak Chinese, don't be surprised if all he likes about the culture is Chinese noodles.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Music involves learning. That isn't the only issue, but it is an obvious one, irrespective of philosophy.

If a person does not speak Chinese, don't be surprised if all he likes about the culture is Chinese noodles.

Michael

What we learn (mostly) are conventions. The tastes in music and other art we develop are not derived from physical laws, but from choices which are dependent are chance circumstance. There is no physical law based criterion of beauty which is why tastes in music and other are vary so widely.

On the other hand in matters of nutrition, no matter what kind of food we eat and how it is cooked, the food must supply a minimal quantity of vitamins and minerals (along with protein and carbohydrates) for us to live. THAT is a matter of basic underlying biology and is NOT a matter of taste.

So I ask again, what is the connection between artistic beauty and basic underlying physical and biological facts? Is there any? Or is taste in music and other art forms a matter of convention determined by cultural factors?

Ask a thousand people what the sum of 77 and 43 is and at least 998 will answer 120. Ask the same thousand people what the best music is and you will not get anywhere near a uniform answer. The sum of two numbers is determined objectively. Beauty is a matter of taste and opinion. Put another way, we must not speak of beauty as we speak of FACTS.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 6, 2008 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

It's a long question, but beauty can be learned using human nature as a standard. If not, Playboy magazine would never have gotten off the ground (for a popular and obvious example). A magazine with pictures of ugly women in ungainly poses would be just as successful.

People prefer beauty in that case and voluntarily pay good money for it.

Whether one wants one kind of beauty or not can be compared to food, i.e., whether you want a hamburger or caviar. Some people might even think eating hamburgers is a sin, but the nature of a hamburger being nutrition cannot be denied. The same thinking applies to the beautiful nude women in Playboy.

The standard is objective. The choice is subjective. Other values can be added to the mix.

Michael

[arete1952]

There is an objective standard for grammatical correctness of spoken and written language.

What are these standards? Who created them? How were they created?

[Chris Grieb]

Arte; I would quickly suggest that people speaking and writing create these standards. I think this was Mencken's point in The American Language.

[Jonathan]

I read the article that was linked to in this thread's introductory post.

Yawn.

I was hoping to hear samples of Mickie Willis's (the author of the article) original music so that I could get an idea of the type of music that intelligent people should appreciate, but apparently his online samples are no longer available. If anyone finds an active link to free downloads of his work, please post it.

I'll be blunt. Whenever I've encountered opinions like Willis's in the past, they've come from music composition teachers, students and other academic types who are generally quite mediocre when it comes to creating music, and they seem to resent the fact that others, who haven't studied proper music theory for decades, can spontaneously create music that is much more expressive and powerful than anything that the mediocre snobs could create in a lifetime. I suspect that Willis is probably such a musical mediocrity.

J

[BaalChatzaf]

There is an objective standard for grammatical correctness of spoken and written language.

What are these standards? Who created them? How were they created?

We did. Grammatical correctness is common usage. Language is convention.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

Proper grammatical usage depends upon convention, logic and meaning. Grammar is the logical use of language to convey objective meaning. Proper usage is determined by the objective meaning of concepts. See ItOE. Proper usage is consistent with logic. (One should say what one means, mean what one says, and not contradict oneself or be fatally ambiguous.) And proper usage follows linguistic convention. If you want to use your own unique personal terms or formulations, feel free - but be warned that the word idiot comes from the Greek for by oneself.

It is said that "sign is arbitrary." This is true, in so far as Rand's formulation that you can use any form, but you must use some form (within a range). We could use the world orange to signify the color blue. But we could not have a language with 72 words for different shades of yellow, and one term for all non-yellow shades. If you name your son Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfernschplendenschlittercrasscrenbonfrieddiggerdangledunglebursteinvon-

knackerthrasherapplebangerhorowitzticolensicgranderknottyspelltinklegrand-

lichgrublemeyrpelterwasserkürstlichhimbleeisenbahnwagengutenabendbitte-

einenürnburgerbratwustlerspurtenmitzweimacheluberhundsfutgumberaber-

schönendankerkalbsfleischmittlerraucher von Hautkopft of Ulm he may be dead before he is Christened. The arbitrariness of sign is always subordinate to the needs of clear communication.

[Judith]

Is there a standard for music rooted in the neurophysiology of hearing? Is their an objective biological basis for saying this music is good and that is bad? If so, what is the standard? If not, then the judgment good and bad applied to music is purely subjective. In short, people like what they like and they dislike what they dislike.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's something objectively hard-wired in us, at least with respect to harmonies. I know that when I was in elementary school and heard harmonies I'd never heard before at a piano recital at which Rachmaninoff was played, I jumped up and shouted, making everyone in the audience stare at me. And as I discovered other harmonies, such as those in the work of Vaughan Williams, etc., there were similar "light-bulb" moments.

I agree with the author's sentiments in the article. When I'm in someone's car and I'm a captive audience to, for example, Country and Western music, it makes me want to scream. It's the same old tonic, dominant, sub-dominant chord progressions, over, and over, and OVER, with the occasional switch to the relative minor, until I can't stand it anymore. It's all about the words; the music is just there for background. It makes me feel like I'm watching a TV program for pre-schoolers, and I wonder why adults don't get sick of it and grow up to something better and more complex. There IS better rock music out there, stuff like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and Yes, groups with classically trained people in them who write more sophisticated stuff, but it's not what you hear on the radio most of the time.

Judith

[BaalChatzaf]

I agree with the author's sentiments in the article. When I'm in someone's car and I'm a captive audience to, for example, Country and Western music, it makes me want to scream. It's the same old tonic, dominant, sub-dominant chord progressions, over, and over, and OVER, with the occasional switch to the relative minor, until I can't stand it anymore. It's all about the words; the music is just there for background. It makes me feel like I'm watching a TV program for pre-schoolers, and I wonder why adults don't get sick of it and grow up to something better and more complex. There IS better rock music out there, stuff like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and Yes, groups with classically trained people in them who write more sophisticated stuff, but it's not what you hear on the radio most of the time.

Judith

I am sure you believe your OPINIONS are correct. Can you produce facts or a substantive neurophysiological basis for your opinions? What you have said is purely subjective. Not a shred of objective material backs you up.

What it comes down to is that you like what you like and you dislike what you dislike. Pure subjectivity. What makes your subjectivity -factually- correct?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[arete1952]

I read the article that was linked to in this thread's introductory post.

Yawn.

I was hoping to hear samples of Mickie Willis's (the author of the article) original music so that I could get an idea of the type of music that intelligent people should appreciate, but apparently his online samples are no longer available. If anyone finds an active link to free downloads of his work, please post it.

I'll be blunt. Whenever I've encountered opinions like Willis's in the past, they've come from music composition teachers, students and other academic types who are generally quite mediocre when it comes to creating music, and they seem to resent the fact that others, who haven't studied proper music theory for decades, can spontaneously create music that is much more expressive and powerful than anything that the mediocre snobs could create in a lifetime. I suspect that Willis is probably such a musical mediocrity.

J

So the validity of Willis' assertions is determined by his abilities as a composer?

Argumentum ad hominem...and on an Objectivist forum yet.

BIG YAWN...

Best,

Ken

Edited November 7, 2008 by arete1952

[Jonathan]

I read the article that was linked to in this thread's introductory post.

Yawn.

I was hoping to hear samples of Mickie Willis's (the author of the article) original music so that I could get an idea of the type of music that intelligent people should appreciate, but apparently his online samples are no longer available. If anyone finds an active link to free downloads of his work, please post it.

I'll be blunt. Whenever I've encountered opinions like Willis's in the past, they've come from music composition teachers, students and other academic types who are generally quite mediocre when it comes to creating music, and they seem to resent the fact that others, who haven't studied proper music theory for decades, can spontaneously create music that is much more expressive and powerful than anything that the mediocre snobs could create in a lifetime. I suspect that Willis is probably such a musical mediocrity.

J

So the validity of Willis' assertions is determined by his abilities as a composer?

No. I wasn't discussing the criteria by which to establish whether or not Willis's assertions are valid. I was merely speculating about what drives certain pompous assholes to imagine that their aesthetic tastes are superior to others'. Why is it so important to them? Why are musical tastes a competition to them? Why the need to believe that their subjective preferences are somehow objective? What psychological need is being served by imagining that everyone else's tastes are inferior?

I think it's always an amazing coincidence that the "best" music just happens to turn out to be exactly the same music that the pompous assholes preferred prior to "objectively" investigating what the best music is. And the music that they've never liked, and even the stuff that they've never really listened to, just happens to be "objectively" determined to be the worst music.

J

[Judith]

I am sure you believe your OPINIONS are correct. Can you produce facts or a substantive neurophysiological basis for your opinions? What you have said is purely subjective. Not a shred of objective material backs you up.

Nope -- no neurophysiological data. There IS a mathematics to music, however; an octave is exactly half/twice the wavelength of the previous note, etc. There's a mathematical reason why fifths, fourths, major and minor thirds, etc. sound pleasing to the ear, and why a quarter-step, as opposed to a minor second, does not. Or, more precisely, these intervals correspond to certain mathematical ratios, AND the human ear finds them pleasing, which to me is more than a coincidence. A child will have these reactions, without knowing a damned thing about the mathematics of it all. That's why I thought my reaction in childhood was of some significance.

Judith

[BaalChatzaf]

I am sure you believe your OPINIONS are correct. Can you produce facts or a substantive neurophysiological basis for your opinions? What you have said is purely subjective. Not a shred of objective material backs you up.

Nope -- no neurophysiological data. There IS a mathematics to music, however; an octave is exactly half/twice the wavelength of the previous note, etc. There's a mathematical reason why fifths, fourths, major and minor thirds, etc. sound pleasing to the ear, and why a quarter-step, as opposed to a minor second, does not. Or, more precisely, these intervals correspond to certain mathematical ratios, AND the human ear finds them pleasing, which to me is more than a coincidence. A child will have these reactions, without knowing a damned thing about the mathematics of it all. That's why I thought my reaction in childhood was of some significance.

Judith

You are half way there. Now what connects the mathematical structure you have shown to the emotional response that many (but not all) people have? Is it convention and custom or is there something more biologically basic going on?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Judith]

You are half way there. Now what connects the mathematical structure you have shown to the emotional response that many (but not all) people have? Is it convention and custom or is there something more biologically basic going on?

Damned if I know. Rand tried to figure it out and failed, and she was a lot smarter than I am.

Judith

[Barbara Branden]

Ted: "its obviously absurd to apply a standard that doesn't exist for food to something so poorly understood as art. Any prescriptive aestheic science is mere pretense."

Then are you prepared to say you do not consider "Nessun Dorma" to be better music than "Chopsticks," or Shakespeare's sonnets greater literature than "Little Orphan Annie?" I don't believe you would mean it, even if you brought yourself to say it. In the area of literature, standards of excellence have been reasonably well established, and we are not puzzled that some writers are considered great and others mediocre or bad. Although little has been objectively established to justify musical standards, we all do have passionately held standards, and so we need to keep looking for a basis for musical discrimination. It's there, somewhere. I suspect that because of the phenomenal work being done in research on the brain, it will not be long before a partial basis is found, as Judith suggests, in neurophysiology.

But in the meantime, I cannot ignore -- or consider it meaningless -- that some music lifts me to the skies, some makes me weep with a mixture of pain and joy, some bores me to the point of physical pain, and some makes me want to run screaming from the room. I spent one memorable evening of my life listening to African music (until I did run from the room, screaming inwardly if not outwardly) and another, very recently, at the Los Angeles Opera's performance of Puccini''s "Il Trittico." I would take a session of waterboarding before I'd suggest that there was any equivalence in my estimate of the two experiences.

My point is that we all do make judgments about music, and we don't need to apologize for it -- while granting that we cannot demand that others share our judgments (unless they are civilized, sane, perceptive, discriminating, fastidious, sensitive, intelligent, and informed).

Barbara

[kiaer.ts]

Ted: "its obviously absurd to apply a standard that doesn't exist for food to something so poorly understood as art. Any prescriptive aestheic science is mere pretense."

Then are you prepared to say you do not consider "Nessun Dorma" to be better music than "Chopsticks," or Shakespeare's sonnets greater literature than "Little Orphan Annie?" I don't believe you would mean it, even if you brought yourself to say it. In the area of literature, standards of excellence have been reasonably well established, and we are not puzzled that some writers are considered great and others mediocre or bad. Although little has been objectively established to justify musical standards, we all do have passionately held standards, and so we need to keep looking for a basis for musical discrimination. It's there, somewhere. I suspect that because of the phenomenal work being done in research on the brain, it will not be long before a partial basis is found, as Judith suggests, in neurophysiology.

But in the meantime, I cannot ignore -- or consider it meaningless -- that some music lifts me to the skies, some makes me weep with a mixture of pain and joy, some bores me to the point of physical pain, and some makes me want to run screaming from the room. I spent one memorable evening of my life listening to African music (until I did run from the room, screaming inwardly if not outwardly) and another, very recently, at the Los Angeles Opera's performance of Puccini''s "Il Trittico." I would take a session of waterboarding before I'd suggest that there was any equivalence in my estimate of the two experiences.

My point is that we all do make judgments about music, and we don't need to apologize for it -- while granting that we cannot demand that others share our judgments (unless they are civilized, sane, perceptive, discriminating, fastidious, sensitive, intelligent, and informed).

Barbara

Well, I didn't even recognize that quote you questioned as my own words. I would certainly qualify "Any prescriptive aesthe[t]ic science is mere pretense."

Let me think out loud here. First, I do believe that for the most part aesthetic judgements can be informed, justified helpful and plausible. I think that one can easily say that Lucia di Lammermoor infinitely outclasses "Happy Birthday to You" or that "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" easily edges out "War, What is it Good For?" But the judgements are relative, since the units are undefined, just as in the way that one can assign relative ranks to emotional responses without having a way to assign them absolute numerical quantities.

The problem that I run into is specific prescriptive commands such as "you shouldn't enjoy rap/rock/Stravinsky/Wagner" or assertions of objectively proven superiority such as "Mozart is obviously superior to Beethoven." The analogy with food here would be that while one can say objectively that one needs protein and that properly-cooked beef is a good source, one cannot say that Filet Mignon is so objectively superior to hamburger that to prefer a hamburger over a steak is an act of immorality.

My "beef" so to speak is then with people who make prescriptive assertions such as "you really shouldn't like X" or that fact that he likes X over Y shows that he is, for example, morally depraved, an imbecile, or - especially - not as good as me.

I prefer to approach aesthetics from the standpoint of two questions - "what makes me like this piece?" and "how can I enjoy this piece?" Questions of "Is X better than Y" are secondary to questions of "what is good about X?" and "what is good about Y?" I find prescriptive assertions, that someone should like X or should not like Y to be wrongheaded and often in bad taste. For example, the title of this thread itself is presumptuous.

Finally, as for African music, I can certainly imagine wanting to run out of the room after listening to, say, certain types of primitive drum music. I know a Sioux Indian who absolutely loves Sioux drum chants. They are totally rhythm driven, with no melody or harmony, and to me un-listenable. Yet she does enjoy the music. And I do not suspect that it is due to any moral or intellectual faiuling on her part.

If you (pl.) would like to hear some African music that will not send you out of the room screaming, I strongly suggest you check out "Festival au Desert" at youtube. (I cannot suggest a specific clip, since I cannot listen to youtube on the computer I am using at the moment.)

Here is a neat future performance of Lucia di Lammermoor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk

[BaalChatzaf]

Here is a neat future performance of Lucia di Lammermoor:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

The is from -The Fifth Element-. A rather interesing Sci Fi motion picture. Gary Oldman's performance therein was wonderful.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Here is a neat future performance of Lucia di Lammermoor:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

The is from -The Fifth Element-. A rather interesing Sci Fi motion picture. Gary Oldman's performance therein was wonderful.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Was he the crazy guy who would as soon shoot you down or blow you up as scratch his nose?

--Brant

[syrakusos]

I spent one memorable evening of my life listening to African music (until I did run from the room, screaming inwardly if not outwardly) and another, very recently, at the Los Angeles Opera's performance of Puccini''s "Il Trittico."

Barbara

Well, I'll give up my Rachmaninoff when they pry my dead, cold fingers from it, but Africa is a big place with a lot of people and they might not all be good composers. Myself, I liked listening to an NPR Show called "Afro-Pop Worldwide." Here close to Dearborn, we can get Middle Eastern music on the radio and, again, I like the popular songs, especially electronic instrumentals. They are complex and balanced and harmonious. I have a CD of traditional lullablies (The World Sleeps) and the two I find most beautiful are the Gaelic and the Hawaiian. The rest are OK: you could put a kid to sleep with them. Those two, however, wake me up.

There is a cross-over "Afro-Celtic" subgenre of world music.

With mass communication, this is inevitable.

I have a four CD set of Chinese music: pop and traditional from Tibet to Shanghai -- most of it does nothing for me and the rest of it is annoying. I had two college classes in Japanese for business and learned to slurp noodles with the best of them while watching The Man with No Name, but I never found anything in the music. So, again, personal taste: de gustibus non est disputandum -- DGNED.

PS Opera does not do much for me: a lot of sopranoes screeching and bassos laughing like Santa Claus. Hard to get into.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[kiaer.ts]

Here is a neat future performance of Lucia di Lammermoor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-xsbppvCk

The is from -The Fifth Element-. A rather interesing Sci Fi motion picture. Gary Oldman's performance therein was wonderful.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Was he the crazy guy who would as soon shoot you down or blow you up as scratch his nose?

--Brant

Who is "he" here? That character does not appear in Fifth Element. Fifth element is a visually stunning comedic sci-fi adventure movie. It's quite a bit to describe. Best just to watch the clip. Here's the wikipedia summary:

\

The Fifth Element

promotional poster

Directed by Luc Besson

Produced by Patrice Ledoux

Written by Luc Besson (story & screenplay)

Robert Mark Kamen (screenplay)

Starring Bruce Willis

Gary Oldman

Milla Jovovich

Ian Holm

Chris Tucker

Music by Éric Serra

Cinematography Thierry Arbogast

Editing by Sylvie Landra

Distributed by GBV (France)

Columbia Pictures (US)

Pathé (UK)

Release date(s) 9 May 1997 (premiere)

Running time 126 minutes

Country France

Language English

Budget $80,000,000

Gross revenue $263,920,180

The Fifth Element is a 1997 science fantasy, action-comedy, techno thriller film directed by Luc Besson, starring Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker. The production design for the film was developed by French comics creators Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières. The costume design was created by French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, who produced 954 costumes for use in the film.

The film's central plot involves the survival of humanity, which becomes the duty of a taxicab driver (and former Special Forces soldier) named Korben Dallas (Willis) when a young woman named Leeloo (Jovovich) falls into his taxicab. She is the Fifth Element, whose appearance was prophesied by Father Vito Cornelius (Holm). Korben's mission is to gather the other four elements before a black planet that represents pure evil collides with Earth. Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Oldman), under the payroll of the Great Evil, hires the Mangalores; slow-witted, shape-shifting warrior mercenary aliens, and assigns them the task of obtaining the four stones.

Although largely set in a futuristic New York City, the film was a French production, with most of the principal photography filmed at Pinewood Studios in England. Some scenes were also shot on location in Mauritania. The concert scenes were filmed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, except for the special effect shots that show the Planet Fhloston through the ship's portholes. The Fifth Element was shot in Super 35 mm film format. Many scenes contain visual effects, and nearly all of visual effects scenes are hard-matted.

And here is the trailer:

A representative scene

[BaalChatzaf]

Was he the crazy guy who would as soon shoot you down or blow you up as scratch his nose?

--Brant

Yes indeed. And he gave good reasons for being so evil, too.

Ba'al Chatzaf