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

[Jonathan]

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.

Many people outside of Objectivist circles, including very knowledgeable literary scholars and critics, have thought that Rand's novels were mediocre or bad. In fact, none of the lists that I've seen of the greatest novels of all time, compiled by literary experts, have included Rand's work. Would that mean that her novels are objectively mediocre, and that those who rate them very highly are probably allowing their emotional responses to her novels' philosophical messages to taint their evaluations of her artistry?

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.

I'm curious -- may I ask how many rock, blues and jazz songs, including their solos, you've studied, learned and played on a musical instrument, or otherwise analyzed for their musical structure, skill, complexity and dramatic or emotional expressiveness? How would you suggest that people go about establishing and applying objective standards to evaluate the styles of music that they're naturally inclined to dislike, especially when they are as passionate about their dislikes as you are?

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

I love some operatic works, but there are also some that I greatly dislike, for reasons similar to those Michael Marotta mentions in post #23, and the same is true of art forms other than music. I often don't respond positively to art that I think is overly "proper" or heavily staged or contrived. It often comes across to me as stylistically conformist, artificial, pretentious or overwrought.

Objectivish-types often seem to equate effort, skill and complexity in art with greatness, and they often seem to prefer art that very loudly and clearly spells everything out for them. I don't share their views. I often think that a rough, simple artwork can be greater than a very refined and complex one. For example, I think that Egon Schiele's Sitting Woman with Legs Drawn Up is a far greater work of art than Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne or his Bacchanal of the Andrians. The Titian paintings are much more finely crafted and mimetically convincing, but his figures are also very conspicuously posed and gesticulative. To me they're more like signs, hieroglyphics or some sort of aesthetic-message-serving automatons than living, breathing human beings. I see them as being the visual equivalents of operatic works that I dislike.

Also, when listening to operas, I often can't help but wonder how much of the genre's styles and techniques have been influenced by external forces that have nothing to do with the individual creator's unique perspective on life and existence. I often think that a composer in the genre is more constrained by its rules and traditions -- by the arbitrarily imposed aesthetic tastes of long-dead monarchs and other patrons, and even by technical considerations such as the size of the halls and audiences -- than any architect's expressions might be hampered by historic influences or a building's utilitarian issues.

J

Edited November 13, 2008 by Jonathan

[Brant Gaede]

Many people outside of Objectivist circles, including very knowledgeable literary scholars and critics, have thought that Rand's novels were mediocre or bad. In fact, none of the lists that I've seen of the greatest novels of all time, compiled by literary experts, have included Rand's work. Would that mean that her novels are objectively mediocre, and that those who rate them very highly are probably allowing their emotional responses to her novels' philosophical messages to taint their evaluations of her artistry?

Can you reference some such published criticism? I'd like to read some that isn't just dismissive snears and smears.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Many people outside of Objectivist circles, including very knowledgeable literary scholars and critics, have thought that Rand's novels were mediocre or bad. In fact, none of the lists that I've seen of the greatest novels of all time, compiled by literary experts, have included Rand's work. Would that mean that her novels are objectively mediocre, and that those who rate them very highly are probably allowing their emotional responses to her novels' philosophical messages to taint their evaluations of her artistry?

Can you reference some such published criticism? I'd like to read some that isn't just dismissive snears and smears.

--Brant

No, I haven't saved any of the negative reviews that I've read of Rand's work, but if I come across them again any time soon, I'll post them. And, although I disagree with the critics' views, I wouldn't call them dismissive sneers or smears, especially in comparison to Rand's rather sneering comments on the work of various writers, artists and musicians.

J

Edited November 14, 2008 by Jonathan

[PhysicistDave]

Judith wrote:

>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.

Judith, I am a theoretical physicist (Ph.D., Stanford) and have been interested in this subject for decades. While I am not an expert and am not up on all the latest research, I can tell you that this does seem to be a hot research topic nowadays.

For example, a year or so ago, I saw a paper (sorry, I can’t remember the source) in which the researchers claimed to have shown that it was not so much the ratios between the fundamentals of different notes that gave a feeling of harmony but rather the relationships among the different harmonics of the two notes. We just bought a grand piano, and I’ve come to know some piano techs (fascinating people, at least if you think like a physicist!), and this seems to be something they take for granted.

Incidentally, as a child when I learned about the “circle of fifths” I thought it was truly wonderful. One of the first discoveries in physics was the Pythagorean discovery that if you reduce the length of a string by a factor of 2/3 (holding the tension constant), the pitch goes up by precisely a perfect fifth. There is a complicated and fascinating interaction among math, physics, and music in terms of the different tuning methods (Pythagorean, equal temperament, etc.), as well as in the details of everything that affects the “timbre” of a tone (attack, sustain, etc.)

Of course, people who do not think like a physicist (or a piano technician) may not find all this quite so fascinating, but this may be one of the reasons we physicists are so fascinated by superstring theory – the whole universe may just be fundamentals and harmonics!

Judith also wrote:

>A child will have these reactions, without knowing a damned thing about the mathematics of it all.

As someone said earlier on the thread, one’s response to music does seem to depend partly on experience: when I was in college glee club, the choir director warned us that we would initially dislike a new modernist classical piece that we were starting, but that we would come to enjoy it. He was correct: lots of dissonance, but we eventually “saw” how it worked, and I still like the piece. The most famous historical example of this is of course Stravisnsky’s “Rites of Spring.”

On the other hand, it cannot just be a matter of what you are acquainted with. You wrote:

>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.

I had a similar (though quieter) reaction when I first heard a Bach fugue: the polyphonic interweaving among the different lines was immediately fascinating to me.

I have two suggestions as to the objective/subjective aspects of all this.

First, some music is objectively more complex, in an ordered way, than other music. A Bach fugue is more complex than the Beatles’ music. Musicologists can go into some detail in explaining this complexity.

On the hand, with a little googling, you can find explanations by musicologists as to why the Beatles’ use of chord progressions was more complex and innovative than most ’60s rock musicians, which is perhaps why even some of us who are not rock fans prefer some of the Beatles’ tunes to most of the rock that was produced in the ’60s. (To anyone not old enough to remember the ’60s personally, let me say that the “golden oldies” you may hear nowadays are not representative of ’60s rock: thankfully, much of the truly horrible examples of ’60s music has simply died.)

Second, it seems to me that there is a large commonality among human beings in the basic emotions produced by a piece of music. While “training of the ear” does have some effect, I know of no one who hears Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” (as normally played) as a calm, soothing piece suitable to serve as a lullaby. I know of no one who finds Bach's “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” or Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” (as normally played) to be wild, orgiastic music that inflames one’s animal passions.

Of course, people differ wildly in their detailed interpretations of such pieces: you may hear the “Ride” as inspiring and exciting or as pointlessly bombastic. You may find “Jesu” to be beautifully evocative of the highest aspirations of human beings or you may find it to be drearily saccharine.

But, at some level, the “raw feelings” induced by these two pieces among different people seem to be broadly similar. One’s musical experience then does modulate the more complex feelings one gets from these pieces.

On the other hand, I think a big part of the difference is that some people, simply, because of the kind of persons they are, wish to experience certain emotions and not experience other emotions. A Bach fugue gives me the sense of an ordered, complex but understandable, universe. When talking to people who dislike Bach, I find that they get a similar impression: but, unlike me, they do not like to have the sense that the universe is highly ordered in a complex but understandable fashion. Physics gives me the same feeling: again, many people dislike physics precisely because they feel it has a “rigid,” mechanical, impersonal, complexly ordered feel to it.

Physics does indeed have such a feel: that is why I find physics and math beautiful.

Similarly, I find “country/Western” music highly repulsive, not only because it is musically simplistic, but because I find that it gives me almost unbearable feelings of a universe that is “flat”: constrained, simple, lacking in breadth, order, or complexity. Talking to people who like C/W, while I know they would surely use more complimentary terms, I find that their basic reactions are somewhat similar. They simply like to have these emotional reactions: I don’t.

After all, it is clear enough that small towns are, in many ways, more constraining, limited, etc. than big cities (personally, I hate small towns). While not all C/W fans live in small towns, the affinity between C/W and small towns and rural life is obvious (drive down the rural Central Valley of California, and it is hard to find many radio stations except for C/W – quite horrifying!).

Of course, my evidence here is all anecdotal, and I’d love to see some cross-cultural research on all this.

But, I suspect my basic thesis will hold up: the “raw feelings” and the “sense of simplicity vs. complexity” induced by a piece of music in different human beings tend to be broadly similar among different people, though they are significantly modulated by one’s musical education and experience.

Whether or not one enjoys those “raw feelings” and “sense of simplicity vs. complexity” varies wildly, and depends on what kind of person you are. People who are really stupid or intellectually lazy probably have trouble “hearing” music with a high level of complexity. And, to steal a phrase from an author we have all read, one’s “sense of life” dramatically affects how one reacts to the raw feelings induced by C/W music vs. Pachelbel or Bach.

So… am I saying that C/W fans are simpletons with a horrifying perspective on the universe? Well… of course, it is far too simplistic and grossly unfair to judge an entire human being simply by his taste in music.

But, yeah, at the risk of insulting any C/W fans who read this (really – sorry! and I do know there must be some pieces in the genre that are actually good), yes, I do think there is a small grain of truth in that overly simplistic statement.

Now, why do humans react so strongly to music in the first place and why is there some commonality in the “raw feelings” induced by a piece? A huge and still controversial question among scholars, so I should probably end this post here.

Dave Miller in Sacramento

[Daniel Barnes]

Now, why do humans react so strongly to music in the first place and why is there some commonality in the “raw feelings” induced by a piece? A huge and still controversial question among scholars, so I should probably end this post here.

Hey Physicist Dave,

Have I got the book for you (if you haven't come across it already)

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2006/09/05/levitin/

best

Daniel

[PhysicistDave]

Jonathan wrote to Barbara:

I'm curious -- may I ask how many rock, blues and jazz songs, including their solos, you've studied, learned and played on a musical instrument, or otherwise analyzed for their musical structure, skill, complexity and dramatic or emotional expressiveness?

Jonathan, I have not seen anyone here claim that all rock, blues, and jazz music is bad or that a person who likes such music is a bad person.

While I am defending some degree of objectivity in musical judgment and am praising classical music, I do like some rock tunes: one can enjoy both “Nessun Dorma” and the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” you know, while still recognizing that “Nessun Dorma” is more musically complex than “Yesterday” and required more skill to compose. I’m even fond of some Beach Boys’ tunes or Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” and I love “Unchained Melody” (the golden oldie used as the theme for the movie “Ghost”).

Similarly, like most people, I enjoy some of Gershwin or Scott Joplin.

None of this makes me a bad person, and I certainly feel no need to defend my taste in these respects.

(I must admit to a little sheepishness over the fact that I sort of like Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be An American,” even though I know it is musically simplistic and that the lyrics are bombastically chauvinistic. However, anyone who gets to Vegas really should see the Bellagio’s “water symphony” set to the Greenwood song -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgGdQRNLvxo . It’s really spectacular to see it live)

Nonetheless, I do recognize that a Bach fugue is more complex than most of the pop tunes I like. And, I also do draw a distinction between pop tines with a broadly positive theme to them and those pop tunes that seem constructed merely to blot out thought or normal feelings or, worse, to excite twisted and perverse emotions.

No, a person’s musical tastes do not provide a magical readout of the state of his soul, and it is foolish to restrict one’s musical experience to one single genre, even classical music.

But some music really is more complex than most music, and some is rather simple-minded, and some music is aimed at exciting emotions that I would prefer not too see excited in myself or others.

Dave Miller in Sacramento

Edited November 13, 2008 by PhysicistDave

[Jonathan]

Hey Dave,

Welcome to OL.

You wrote,

Jonathan, I have not seen anyone here claim that all rock, blues, and jazz music is bad or that a person who likes such music is a bad person.

Right, and I'm not suggesting that anyone here is claiming that a person who likes such music is bad.

While I am defending some degree of objectivity in musical judgment and am praising classical music, I do like some rock tunes: one can enjoy both “Nessun Dorma” and the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” you know, while still recognizing that “Nessun Dorma” is more musically complex than “Yesterday” and required more skill to compose.

As I said above, I think the fact that a work of art is more complex than another, or more difficult to create, doesn't mean that it's a greater work of art, or objectively superior art, or however one might want to say it. Paintings by Dru Blair, Audrey Flack, or Chuck Close, for example, require an incredible amount of skill, but that doesn't translate to their being greater works of art than paintings that required less skill (or are less complex) and were created by history's most revered artists.

J

[Jonathan]

(I must admit to a little sheepishness over the fact that I sort of like Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be An American,” even though I know it is musically simplistic and that the lyrics are bombastically chauvinistic. However, anyone who gets to Vegas really should see the Bellagio’s “water symphony” set to the Greenwood song -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgGdQRNLvxo . It’s really spectacular to see it live)

I think I'd prefer the Ocean's Eleven Bellagio package. Speaking of which, though, I've known more than a few music snobs who would dismiss Debussy's "Clair de Lune" as popular trash, and probably "objectively" rate it below Greenwood's "Proud to be An American."

J

[Dragonfly]

I think I'd prefer the Ocean's Eleven Bellagio package.

Oh my, this is a horrible sentimental kitsch version of a beautiful composition.

and probably "objectively" rate it below Greenwood's "Proud to be An American."

That one makes me run screaming from the room...

[Jonathan]

I think I'd prefer the Ocean's Eleven Bellagio package.

Oh my, this is a horrible sentimental kitsch version of a beautiful composition.

and probably "objectively" rate it below Greenwood's "Proud to be An American."

That one makes me run screaming from the room...

How about Freedom Isn't Free?

Better than the Ocean's Eleven Clair de Lune?

J

[Brant Gaede]

I think I'd prefer the Ocean's Eleven Bellagio package.

Oh my, this is a horrible sentimental kitsch version of a beautiful composition.

and probably "objectively" rate it below Greenwood's "Proud to be An American."

That one makes me run screaming from the room...

I'd pay money to see that.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

Better than the Ocean's Eleven Clair de Lune?

Horrible! Then I certainly prefer even a maltreated Debussy.

[Dragonfly]

I'd pay money to see that.

That's an offer I can't refuse.

[Jonathan]

Better than the Ocean's Eleven Clair de Lune?

Horrible! Then I certainly prefer even a maltreated Debussy.

I think that if we're talking about applying Rand's concept of "objective aesthetic judgment," we'd have to conclude that "Freedom Isn't Free" is great art, and that it's great on a couple of levels.

Here's what Rand says:

Now a word of warning about the criteria of esthetic judgment. A sense of life is the source of art, but it is not the sole qualification of an artist or of an esthetician, and it is not a criterion of esthetic judgment. Emotions are not tools of cognition. Esthetics is a branch of philosophy—and just as a philosopher does not approach any other branch of his science with his feelings or emotions as his criterion of judgment, so he cannot do it in the field of esthetics. A sense of life is not sufficient professional equipment. An esthetician—as well as any man who attempts to evaluate art works—must be guided by more than an emotion.

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist’s theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: “This is a great work of art, but I don’t like it,” provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

So, applying Rand's method of objective evaluation to "Freedom Isn't Free":

The singer's voice has a bit of a twang and a drawl to it, which works well with the style of the music in giving the impression that the song is of a genre that would be preferred by simple, rugged, freedom-lovin' "folks like you and me" -- the hard-working, American "common man" -- and not effete, leftist, ivory tower intellectuals. The "folks" the singer is referring to were not born with the advantages of good genes, wealth and education, but they're nonetheless very moral, self-sufficient, and willing to pay their own way -- and then some. The singer is challenging his listeners to show the same courage and devotion as those who died in the past "kickin' some ass" for freedom. They should chip in their "buck O five."

On top of that, the song is clearly a parody, mocking the musical style as well as gently making fun of the folksy patriotism found in blue-collar, right-wing America. It very masterfully reflects it's creator's humorous "sense of life."

So, by Rand's standards, I think the song must be objectively rated as great art because its integrated style and content expertly convey the "artist's theme," and the aesthetic elements quite effectively project his joyous "view of life."

As Rand said, it's irrelevant whether or not you like it or agree with it. It's objectively great art when taking the artist's theme as criterion.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Why is esthetics a branch of philosophy? Is psychology? Sociology? Physics? Anthropology? There are four basic principles of Objectivism and they have a logical vertical integration, two refer to its axioms then come ethics and political philosophy. The "soft" sciences can help inform these last two, but they aren't philosophical as such. The "hard" sciences are linked epistemologically through scietific methodology. There may be an "objective" esthetics, but it will have to reference itself to be "objective"--that is all esthetics are objectively subjective and circular and outside themselves arbitrary.

--Brant

Edited November 14, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Barbara Branden]

I wrote the following in response to Ted’s statement that "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 meaninless -- 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).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is Ted’s response. Ted, I hope you won’t object to my putting my comments in parentheses and italics in the body of your post, since it will make for easier reading.

“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.”

(I do not disagree with this at all. If we are ever able to compare great composers, it will likely be only in specific contexts. That is, we might one day be able to demonstrate that one composer has an emotional depth that another lacks or a greater emotional range than another or that one composer is more original than another, etc. – but then these qualities, too, will be estimated differently by different people. I expect that, ultimately, one will be able to say only that he prefers originality or a wide emotional range, but not that it is objectively superior.)

“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 agree. The idea of ascribing good and evil to esthetic tastes is preposterous. I may have no idea why someone would like, say, heavy metal music, but I certainly would not say that this liking tells me something about the person’s moral character. I have the sense here that you are responding to someone, but not to anything I’ve said.))

“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 failing 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.)”

(I took your advice and listened to one clip. I wanted to run out of the room screaming. It consisted of the repetition of a few bars of sound again and again and again and again.)

“Here is a neat future performane of Lucia di Lammermoor:”

(I couldn’t reproduce this, but anyone interested can go to Ted’s post to hear it. I’ll say only that Maria Callas may rise from her grave to get you, Ted.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barbara

[Dragonfly]

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.

According to those "established" standards Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are great masterpieces and Atlas Shrugged is at most mediocre if not bad. I don't think you'd agree with such standards of excellence.

[Barbara Branden]

Jonathan, I'll respond to your post, as I did to Ted's, within the body of your statement, in italics and parentheses.

Barbara

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.

Many people outside of Objectivist circles, including very knowledgeable literary scholars and critics, have thought that Rand's novels were mediocre or bad. In fact, none of the lists that I've seen of the greatest novels of all time, compiled by literary experts, have included Rand's work. Would that mean that her novels are objectively mediocre, and that those who rate them very highly are probably allowing their emotional responses to her novels' philosophical messages to taint their evaluations of her artistry?

(It's quite true that many literary scholars and critics believe Rand's novels are mediocre or bad. Some probably have standards from which they believe this estimate follows, others are allowing their response to be influenced by their estimate of her ideas. But there is little question that one could argue with the former from the perspective of reasonably well-established standards of literary excellence. One could establish that they are wrong -- even, in many cases, according to their own standards of excellence. And it is relevant that many knowledgeable critics who disagree with her ideas nevertheless recognize that her novels are indeed high art.)

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.

I'm curious -- may I ask how many rock, blues and jazz songs, including their solos, you've studied, learned and played on a musical instrument, or otherwise analyzed for their musical structure, skill, complexity and dramatic or emotional expressiveness? How would you suggest that people go about establishing and applying objective standards to evaluate the styles of music that they're naturally inclined to dislike, especially when they are as passionate about their dislikes as you are?

(None. But I haven't said that I dislike rock, blues, and jazz. I like some examples of each of them, and I dislike others. Again, as with Ted, I have the sense that it is not I but someone else to whom you are responding.)

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

I love some operatic works, but there are also some that I greatly dislike, for reasons similar to those Michael Marotta mentions in post #23, and the same is true of art forms other than music. I often don't respond positively to art that I think is overly "proper" or heavily staged or contrived. It often comes across to me as stylistically conformist, artificial, pretentious or overwrought.

Objectivish-types often seem to equate effort, skill and complexity in art with greatness, and they often seem to prefer art that very loudly and clearly spells everything out for them. I don't share their views. I often think that a rough, simple artwork can be greater than a very refined and complex one. For example, I think that Egon Schiele's Sitting Woman with Legs Drawn Up is a far greater work of art than Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne or his Bacchanal of the Andrians. The Titian paintings are much more finely crafted and mimetically convincing, but his figures are also very conspicuously posed and gesticulative. To me they're more like signs, hieroglyphics or some sort of aesthetic-message-serving automatons than living, breathing human beings. I see them as being the visual equivalents of operatic works that I dislike.

(I don't think -- and I haven't said -- that skill and complexity are equivalent to greatness in art. One of my musical loves is Chopin, whose melodies often are exquisitely simple -- as is another of my favorites, Strauss' "Four Last Songs." As for "spelling everythin out," one of my top literary favorites, Thomas Wolfe (who is the not the present Tom Wolfe) often is accused of complexity to the point of opaqueness, which however, is an estimate with which I disagree.)

Also, when listening to operas, I often can't help but wonder how much of the genre's styles and techniques have been influenced by external forces that have nothing to do with the individual creator's unique perspective on life and existence. I often think that a composer in the genre is more constrained by its rules and traditions -- by the arbitrarily imposed aesthetic tastes of long-dead monarchs and other patrons, and even by technical considerations such as the size of the halls and audiences -- than any architect's expressions might be hampered by historic influences or a building's utilitarian issues.

(Yes, there are conventions that composers of operas abide by -- just as as there are conventions in every art form. But an artist chooses to work in one particular form because he feels that it is within those conventions that he can best express himself. If you listen, say, to Wagner's "Tristsn and Isolde" and Puccini's "Turandot." it will be evident that each composer has magnificently expressed his unique perspective on life and existence.)

[Dragonfly]

(I don't think -- and I haven't said -- that skill and complexity are equivalent to greatness in art. One of my musical loves is Chopin, whose melodies often are exquisitely simple --

Wait a moment... leaving aside for a moment the question whether Chopin's melodies are really simple (I don't agree, most of them are rather complex - how many of his melodies can you really sing? And don't tell me you can't sing... I don't expect a concert performance), this does not mean that his music is simple. In fact it is in general (with a few exceptions) quite complex, with subtle counterpoint and complex harmonic developments.

(BTW, I find it difficult to disentangle who wrote what in your last posts.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have to research the following more, but I keep coming across mentions that music prompts the brain to trigger the release of endorphins, which are hormones that reduce pain and impact emotions ("feel good" hormones). Endorphins are usually released after exercise.

I suspect that there are essentially two poles of positive response to music: a more athletic one that prompts people to dance and feel good (and release a bunch of endorphins), and another more contemplative response that prompts people to go into a daydream like state and emotionally "float." I have not read anything on endorphin release during this last state, but I speculate that a different mix of hormones is released.

I also suspect that people who do not appreciate dance-like music very much bring their contemplative expectations to it, and vice-versa. I know my own life has been enriched after I started using the dance/daydream classification. I used to be a terrible snob about pop music. Nowadays, I no longer try to make a heavy metal song prompt the same things in me that Beethoven does. (I don't care much for heavy metal, but this is because my palate rejects an overdose of mid-range frequencies, not because of the beat. But I do like a great deal of pop music and even some heavy—Black Sabbath's "Changes" comes to mind as one I have liked since I heard it years ago.) I also "push" my mind toward daydream when listening to classical music when I start getting fidgety and soon I am lost to the world.

Rand herself had this distinction with her appreciation of tiddlywink music and classical music. I doubt that she would have characterized herself when she was spinning around listening to beer-barrel bands as drumming her mind out of existence (as she called those who like rock), but she certainly was not contemplative during those moments. I doubt anyone watching her with the sound turned off would have called her "rational" during those times.

This dance/daydream classification is an identification of poles, not strict types. They are end points of the same spectrum. Thus a classical symphony can be somewhere in the middle of this spectrum and have a martial or waltz section as part of the experience, and a pop song can have a great memorable melody that makes people stop during the day when they remember it and sing it to themselves.

Then there is the cognitive element of integrating aural elements into "aural concepts" and "aural entities" and that is a whole other discussion.

These are speculations so far based on my own observations, but I think I am on to something. When I was in college, I projected a work on what I called "musical epistemology." I had a long ways to go before I could tackle that properly. After I finish my Internet Marketing stage, I fully intend to resume this topic, research it in depth and write a work about it.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Dave Miller: "it seems to me that there is a large commonality among human beings in the basic emotions produced by a piece of music. While "training of the ear" does have some effect, I know of no one who hears Wagner’s 'Ride of the Valkyries” (as normally played) as a calm, soothing piece suitable to serve as a lullaby. I know of no one who finds Bach's “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” or Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” (as normally played) to be wild, orgiastic music that inflames one’s animal passions.

"Of course, people differ wildly in their detailed interpretations of such pieces: you may hear the “Ride” as inspiring and exciting or as pointlessly bombastic. You may find “Jesu” to be beautifully evocative of the highest aspirations of human beings or you may find it to be drearily saccharine.

"But, at some level, the “raw feelings” induced by these two pieces among different people seem to be broadly similar. One’s musical experience then does modulate the more complex feelings one gets from these pieces".

"On the other hand, I think a big part of the difference is that some people, simply, because of the kind of persons they are, wish to experience certain emotions and not experience other emotions. A Bach fugue gives me the sense of an ordered, complex but understandable, universe. When talking to people who dislike Bach, I find that they get a similar impression: but, unlike me, they do not like to have the sense that the universe is highly ordered in a complex but understandable fashion.... "

Dave, very interesting observations, which match my own experience.

And I cannot bear Country & Western music.

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

(I don't think -- and I haven't said -- that skill and complexity are equivalent to greatness in art. One of my musical loves is Chopin, whose melodies often are exquisitely simple --

Wait a moment... leaving aside for a moment the question whether Chopin's melodies are really simple (I don't agree, most of them are rather complex - how many of his melodies can you really sing? And don't tell me you can't sing... I don't expect a concert performance), this does not mean that his music is simple. In fact it is in general (with a few exceptions) quite complex, with subtle counterpoint and complex harmonic developments.

(BTW, I find it difficult to disentangle who wrote what in your last posts.)

Drqgonfly, I didn't say that Chopin's music is simple. I said that his melodies often are simple -- and it's often his melodies, not his counterpont and harmonic development, that I respond to.

I don't know why you think it relevant, but I insist on telling you I can't sing.

Sorry if who wrote what wasn't clear in my last posts. I won't use that method again.

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

Dave Miller: "(I must admit to a little sheepishness over the fact that I sort of like Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be An American,” even though I know it is musically simplistic and that the lyrics are bombastically chauvinistic. However, anyone who gets to Vegas really should see the Bellagio’s “water symphony” set to the Greenwood song -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgGdQRNLvxo . It’s really spectacular to see it live)"

Dave, I love that song. I wonder if you are American-born. I once was having dinner in a restaurant with a friend and we were arguing heatedly about this country; he was very aware oif its flaws, I of its great virtues, and I was comparing it favorably to Canada, where I was born and brought up. Our waiter, who spoke with a heavy Eastern-European accent, interrupted to say, pointing at me: "She understands, because she wasn't born here. Maybe you have to come from somewhere else never to forget the miracle that is America."

While that certainly is not always the case, I've found that people like me -- who cannot, for instance, hear "The Star Spangled Banner" without having tears come to my eyes -- often are foreign-born.

Don't feel sheepish!

Barbara

[Dragonfly]

Drqgonfly, I didn't say that Chopin's music is simple. I said that his melodies often are simple -- and it's often his melodies, not his counterpont and harmonic development, that I respond to.

But then I'll quote you more extensively:

"I don't think -- and I haven't said -- that skill and complexity are equivalent to greatness in art. One of my musical loves is Chopin, whose melodies often are exquisitely simple."

If you deny that skill and complexity are equivalent to greatness in art (I certainly agree that these are not sufficient attributes, but they might still be necessary attributes - but that's not my point here), then you cannot just use only one aspect of Chopin's music (his melodies) as a counterexample, as other aspects may still be very complex and demand an enormous amount of skill. Sometimes it's the other way around: a very simple harmonic scheme and a very complex melody and counterpoint, as in Chopin's Berceuse. Here we have 54 consecutive bars with the same simple slowly rocking tonica-dominant accompaniment in the bass, only at the end there is a short modulation to G flat major. This deliberate monotony is of course related to the character of a lullaby. But the right hand plays a continuous series of variations on a simple theme, that become increasingly complex and that reflect an enormous skill, or in fact real genius on the part of the composer. Almost everyone with some musical ability could have written the left hand, but only Chopin could have written the right hand (even Liszt failed: he wrote also a Berceuse in D flat major that looks like a copy of Chopin's berceuse and is obviously inspired by that work, but it's almost never played). So we may have examples of great music in which one particular aspect of the music may be simple, but that is not relevant for the "simplicity/complexity argument" if the complexity and the skill are reflected in other aspects of that music.

Now you might perhaps object that you only respond to the melodies, but I seriously doubt that. I think that you can perhaps more easily conceptualize (I don't know if that's the right word, but perhaps you'll get my meaning) the melodic aspect, that the workings of harmony and counterpoint are more hidden from your "conscious view", but that doesn't mean that they don't have an effect! I think that if you listened to only the melody, one single voice, that you'd find that it had much less impact on you than the complete composition.

I don't know why you think it relevant, but I insist on telling you I can't sing.

Well, I tried to find a criterion for your "simple melody". When is a melody simple? I think a criterion could be that you can easily sing that melody. Most people can sing children's tunes and the like, even if it may sound horrible out of tune. But the latter is not so important, therefore not being able to sing is not an excuse, unless you're one of those people who really can only utter some weird sounds in which not any constant frequency can be discerned. With a complex melody you can't even pretend that you're singing. Try for example to sing the melody in Chopin's Etude op. 25 no. 2. It is a real melody, not just some complex figuration. Of course the official tempo is absolutely deadly, but even in a very slow tempo it will be practically unsingable, at least for an amateur.

[Jonathan]

Barbara, you wrote,

It's quite true that many literary scholars and critics believe Rand's novels are mediocre or bad. Some probably have standards from which they believe this estimate follows, others are allowing their response to be influenced by their estimate of her ideas. But there is little question that one could argue with the former from the perspective of reasonably well-established standards of literary excellence. One could establish that they are wrong -- even, in many cases, according to their own standards of excellence.

And one could argue that Rand's novels contain things which make them a lesser grade of art according to her own standards. I've seen many people, including Objectivists who love her novels and ideas, complain that some of the speeches that she put into her characters' mouths interrupt the art and veer off into didacticism or something more like propaganda than art.

And it is relevant that many knowledgeable critics who disagree with her ideas nevertheless recognize that her novels are indeed high art.

Sure, I think that most serious critics would agree that her novels are "high art" (as opposed to being something akin to dime store "bodice rippers"), but most critics don't seem to agree with Objectivists that her novels are the greatest ever written, let alone among the top 100.

(None. But I haven't said that I dislike rock, blues, and jazz. I like some examples of each of them, and I dislike others. Again, as with Ted, I have the sense that it is not I but someone else to whom you are responding.)

I was just asking questions to get a better idea of what you think about attempting to establish objective standards for judging music, and whether any of your own judgments and comparisons have been based on anything beyond your emotional responses.

Yes, there are conventions that composers of operas abide by -- just as as there are conventions in every art form. But an artist chooses to work in one particular form because he feels that it is within those conventions that he can best express himself.

But does that square with Rand's (and Howard Roark's) vision of individual artistic creativity? I mean, if an architect felt that the conventions of particular past styles were best suited to expressing himself, I think he'd receive a rather angry lecture from Rand/Roark about not having an independent vision or individual artistic integrity, etc. He might be called a second-hander or postmodernist for creating in styles that have nothing to do with modern materials. Likewise, shouldn't composers and singers who have aesthetic integrity, at least according to Objectivism, make use of all of the textures, volumes and tones of the human voice, rather than conforming to a style which was designed to be heard over an orchestra, and heard all the way to the back seats of a large, echoing performance hall without modern electronic amplification?

J