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> ..those people like who are knowledgeable about and skilled in music themselves? This is an age-old question and implies that aesthetic judgements can only b

> ..those people like who are knowledgeable about and skilled in music themselves? This is an age-old question and implies that aesthetic judgements can only be made through knowledge. The Pop revolution that started in the 1950s pretty much destroyed the argument (only to have Rock music - as opposed to Pop - make similar elitist arguments). Jazz and Classical music continue to make those claims (and then complain they don't attract bigger audiences). Good music is that which moves you. No more, no less. If it doesn't move you, it doesn't make it bad, it just means you need to find something different to listen to.

Bromskloss 10y ago
> The Pop revolution that started in the 1950s pretty much destroyed the argument How so? > Good music is that which moves you. No more, no less. If it doesn't move you, it doesn't make it bad, it just means you need to find something different to listen to. Still, there are some things that almost everybody agrees are better than some other things. For example, someone singing out of tune, or a beginner playing the violin. Musicians and non-musicians alike would say that those things sound bad. Doesn't that mean that there is something more to it than individual taste, or, rather, that all our individual tastes agree on some things, which might be thought of as decidedly good or bad, in some sense?
- HenryTheHorse 10y ago
  Pop simplified musical structures. It made music accessible to both the player and the listener. Anybody could make and enjoy pop and this was a major departure from the previous generation's code. The bands of the 1960s turned their lack of musical training into an asset. > Still, there are some things that almost everybody agrees are better than some other things Within the accepted confines of a genre or style, yes. For instance, if you are playing the blues and cannot do a decent note bend, you are boring the audience. But bending a note is not a criterion in every style. So how does one employ that as an aesthetic criterion for ALL music? The problem with a universal aesthetic criterion is that we run into the same old arguments about how rap is not music, how metal is noise and how free jazz is chaos (or how Philip Glass is just repeating three notes). Does that help?
- Decade 10y ago
  > How so? Because many pop musicians are successful without “knowledge and skill in music” as it was defined at the time. I would push “pop music” even further back to traditional folk music, which has rarely been appreciated by professionals. Though, I guess commercial pop really took off with the invention of the phonograph. > Still, there are some things that almost everybody agrees are better than some other things. For example, someone singing out of tune, or a beginner playing the violin. Put it into a loop, add some other loops, I can work with that. The main problem with poor music performance is the lack of consistency, not the quality of the sound itself. I remember when rock came out, and the old people all said it sounded horrible, who would want to listen to the screeches and distortions of electric guitars. We now have simultaneous islands of knowledge and skill of music. Most successful musicians specialize in a particular genre, and nobody has time to be skilled at all the popular genres, both composition and performance. Then each genre has a tendency to ossify and split, as young people take music in a new direction, and the old practitioners say, that’s not our music. Rock music split off from jazz. In the old days, jazz was rebellious music associated with African Americans. Now, the local community college teaches jazz classes. Amusingly, the freeform jazz musicians there are old white men, and the young African American man teaches a rigid formal version of jazz. When the teachers put on the end-of-semester concerts, the old white men let their students play, but the African American hires professionals from out of state to do the solos. So, no, you can’t extract a category of people ”who are knowledgeable about and skilled in music themselves” to be an arbiter of taste.

Bromskloss 10y ago

> The Pop revolution that started in the 1950s pretty much destroyed the argument How so? > Good music is that which moves you. No more, no less. If it doesn't move you, it doesn't make it bad, it just means you need to find something different to listen to. Still, there are some things that almost everybody agrees are better than some other things. For example, someone singing out of tune, or a beginner playing the violin. Musicians and non-musicians alike would say that those things sound bad. Doesn't that mean that there is something more to it than individual taste, or, rather, that all our individual tastes agree on some things, which might be thought of as decidedly good or bad, in some sense?

HenryTheHorse 10y ago
Pop simplified musical structures. It made music accessible to both the player and the listener. Anybody could make and enjoy pop and this was a major departure from the previous generation's code. The bands of the 1960s turned their lack of musical training into an asset. > Still, there are some things that almost everybody agrees are better than some other things Within the accepted confines of a genre or style, yes. For instance, if you are playing the blues and cannot do a decent note bend, you are boring the audience. But bending a note is not a criterion in every style. So how does one employ that as an aesthetic criterion for ALL music? The problem with a universal aesthetic criterion is that we run into the same old arguments about how rap is not music, how metal is noise and how free jazz is chaos (or how Philip Glass is just repeating three notes). Does that help?
Decade 10y ago
> How so? Because many pop musicians are successful without “knowledge and skill in music” as it was defined at the time. I would push “pop music” even further back to traditional folk music, which has rarely been appreciated by professionals. Though, I guess commercial pop really took off with the invention of the phonograph. > Still, there are some things that almost everybody agrees are better than some other things. For example, someone singing out of tune, or a beginner playing the violin. Put it into a loop, add some other loops, I can work with that. The main problem with poor music performance is the lack of consistency, not the quality of the sound itself. I remember when rock came out, and the old people all said it sounded horrible, who would want to listen to the screeches and distortions of electric guitars. We now have simultaneous islands of knowledge and skill of music. Most successful musicians specialize in a particular genre, and nobody has time to be skilled at all the popular genres, both composition and performance. Then each genre has a tendency to ossify and split, as young people take music in a new direction, and the old practitioners say, that’s not our music. Rock music split off from jazz. In the old days, jazz was rebellious music associated with African Americans. Now, the local community college teaches jazz classes. Amusingly, the freeform jazz musicians there are old white men, and the young African American man teaches a rigid formal version of jazz. When the teachers put on the end-of-semester concerts, the old white men let their students play, but the African American hires professionals from out of state to do the solos. So, no, you can’t extract a category of people ”who are knowledgeable about and skilled in music themselves” to be an arbiter of taste.