Philosophical: Technicality does not equate good music

[gaggle of hermits]

I always wondered, why 99 % of the music is crap.

that's just what happens when you listen to it at 10x-100x the speed. because I can't work out how you've listened to everything that's available otherwise.

[soundmodel]

You could of course argue that art analysis is pointless, but tbh "production efficiency" is somewhat measurable. Why do e.g. simple mobile games appeal more than large budget games?

[whyterabbyt]

You could of course argue that art analysis is pointless, but tbh "production efficiency" is somewhat measurable. Why do e.g. simple mobile games appeal more than large budget games?

once you define 'appeal more than' in measurable terms you'll have your answer, ie an insight into why the question is inherently flawed

[himalaya]

"We need emotional content" - Bruce Lee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH1GFaw09hk

[_al_]

Some people don't think in genres.

I find it's mainly producers and musicians who say that

Of all the people I know, who are "normal" and listen to pop etc... I will most likely NEVER get them to appreciate techno, no matter how artistic and well made it is.

And almost all hard techno fans are never going to appreciate the latest Taylor Swift song
(though I do )

And yes, that guy in the vid is good. Everyone will agree.
But most people will listen to it once, and move on. Whereas a musician may have a few listens, and maybe search for more of this guy.

He actually reminds me of myself at 16 years old, playing pots and boxes on my bed, recording it, then playing it back while adding more on top haha.
And now decades later, the rhythms and rings I can get from half full beer can are exquisite lol

[vurt]

Well exactly, and I think that Venetian Snares misses the mark on some tracks.

tbf, anyone with a decent amount of releases is probably going to have a few less than stellar tracks.
even the beatles had when im 64 or yellow submarine.

[soundmodel]

And, tbh, the style of e.g. Venetian Snares has been quickly copied so that it becomes a bit boring to hear many artists trying to be original with "complex sound desigzn and ultra fast beatz".

-> Be original.

[soundmodel]

You could of course argue that art analysis is pointless, but tbh "production efficiency" is somewhat measurable. Why do e.g. simple mobile games appeal more than large budget games?

once you define 'appeal more than' in measurable terms you'll have your answer, ie an insight into why the question is inherently flawed

In this case it means that for the same purchase option people choose a small mobile game instead of a large budget game.

It can also mean that the small mobile game delivers more value since it costs a fraction of the large budget game.

When music is a business, these are valid measures for appeal. When it's not business, we should not even care.

[soundmodel]

Autechre was praised for balancing between non-music and music. Can one have good non-music too ? Does it come with established ideas about technique?

[whyterabbyt]

In this case it means that for the same purchase option people choose a small mobile game instead of a large budget game.

And yet its not the same purchase option in the first place. Nor is it the same people.

It can also mean that the small mobile game delivers more value since it costs a fraction of the large budget game.

Except that mobile games engagement is much much lower, and profits are made from much larger total expenditure by a much smaller number of people.

When music is a business, these are valid measures for appeal. When it's not business, we should not even care.

I dont think you understand either market well enough to be able to say that.

[foosnark]

I like Venetian Snares a lot, and would not call most of his albums emotionless. (Some of them I just don't like for whatever reason, but I wouldn't say lack of emotion is the reason.)

Rossz Csillag Alalt Szuletett is my favorite, and it in particular is very good at tension/release, building up intensity and moments of catharsis. Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding is another favorite, and it's very abstract and weird and has few recognizable samples other than a Speak & Math, but it's got emotional pull for me. I think it takes several repeat listens to really be able to "read" it -- it's definitely not conventional "sad guy with a guitar singing about how terrible love is" music (thankfully) -- but it works.

It's not all about technical prowess -- and really, just about anyone can throw together complex rhythms in a tracker if they put in all the tedious effort, it's not like this makes Venetian Snares a virtuoso. But there's an art to it, to the choice of sounds and how they cluster/fit together, the ebb and flow. Also if you want to argue "technical" vs. looseness, the sample start/end points he chooses are often pretty messy and I'm betting there are a ton of production best practices that he just ignores, and it works.

The other thing is, emotion isn't the be-all and end-all of music.

Emotion isn't something that exists in the medium of music itself. It's something that the creators feel, and something that the listener feels, and there isn't a direct line between them as much as people like to pretend there is.

There's also a disconnect between what emotion music is theoretically supposed to express, what the musician is actually feeling (there's a lot of acting involved), and what the listener actually feels when listening to it. There's a lot of context.

I was a taiko drummer for a couple of years, and the main things I felt on stage -- whether it was a joyful festival song, a fierce-but-happy song, a BERSERKER RAGE!!! song or something more abstract -- were stage fright and exhaustion (with a side of pain). Oddly, there aren't any songs about stage fright or exhaustion in the taiko repertoire. (What the audience felt was a variety of wonder, joy, awe, confusion, boredom, "geez this is loud" and "it's way too f**king hot, I need a drink and some shade.")

It might be fair to say good music inspires emotion -- if the listener is receptive -- but that emotion might just be satisfaction.

I also feel like one of the emotional responses that music often inspires is the same thing that authoritarians use to get their followers fired up. Of course there's music designed specifically to do that, whether it's patriotic stuff or club music. Something I think about every once in a while.

[soundmodel]

When music is a business, these are valid measures for appeal. When it's not business, we should not even care.

I dont think you understand either market well enough to be able to say that.

The measure is "units sold". And in this sense, aside form subjective preferences, the objective measure for goodness is "units sold".

In this sense, the repetitive pop tunes are more successful than that mozartgenius.

Although, maybe this can be also tuned to be: "number of satisfied consumers / number of potential consumers".

If it's all subjective, then we cannot discuss it.

[Uncle E]

Interesting, but cannot agree specifically. Some of the most memorable tunes I heard from Aphex Twin were demos. Yes they're unpolished, but that's where their character lies. You can hear the player (with real-life imperfections), rather than refining purism by a machine. Managing these two, well I haven't heard it. Well, maybe Datassette. But it means having an ear for "right and wrong imperfections".

You've heard it. You just said it. It's Aphex Twin. His super technical and highly polished compositions are also loaded with character.

Modern examples that embody these qualities are Flume and Polyphia.

[whyterabbyt]

When music is a business, these are valid measures for appeal. When it's not business, we should not even care.

I dont think you understand either market well enough to be able to say that.

The measure is "units sold". And in this sense, aside form subjective preferences, the objective measure for goodness is "units sold".

Nope, that's not an objective measure for 'goodness'. Its an objective measure of commercial success, nothing more. If 'commercial success' is what you mean by goodness, then use that term, which brings with it the appropriate, delimiting context.

It also basically renders your thread subject into tautology. If goodness is commercial sales, then anything which narrows the audience is a restricting factor on that; you get the most sales by appealing to the largest potential audience, which means leveraging the lowest common denominator. Technicality is by definition the opposite of a lowest common denominator.

Perhaps, for example, you could explore why you choose to separate 'units sold' from the timespan over which those sales occur, maybe by explaining whether your claimed 'goodness 'of Black Lace's Agadoo (a song that sold a million copies) was transient to the three months or so in which it sold, or persists to this day.

You also completely ignore that commercial sales of music are driven by factors other than the music itself. If you were able to simultaneously release a completely identical track under the names of Taylor Swift and yourself, your hypothesis would intrinsically demand that Taylor's Swift's was 'gooder.' Because it'll sell better no matter what.

If it's all subjective, then we cannot discuss it.

If you claim the objective measure for 'goodness' is units sold then we cannot discuss.

[Synthman2000]

I always hated this subject, because the reality is, it's all complete bullshit.

Eddie Van Halen, Freddie Mercury, Ronnie James Dio. These are musicians who were incredibly gifted with technical ability and technique. But it was always in service of the song. They never came across like they were showing off, even when they were displaying the heights of technical virtuosity.

this is extremely subjective. for example, Van Halen I believe played solo on "Beat It" by Michael Jackson. to me, that solo always sounded like Eddie was showing off, and the solo made absolutely no sense and had no connection to the rest of the song. I feel that way about a lot of Van Halen's stuff actually.

for some, technicality does mean good music, and music that doesn't take a lot of technical skill to be performed is "boring", "stale", "uninteresting", "been done before", you name it (a lot of listeners of prog metal will feel that way about less technically "interesting" genres, for example), and they're right: music is a craft like any other, and one can go into extreme depths of complexity, compared to which a 4-chord song with a simple structure will be uninteresting and boring.

for others, "technicality" is basically masturbation, and they're correct. no song needs key and time signature changes, complex polyrhythmia, three segments, eleven strings, and a bunch of weird altered chords and augmented scales to perform. you can always just use one acoustic guitar, 4 chords, and a verse-chorus structure, and be happy with it - and literally billions of people are.

the truth is, we just like stuff. we tend to attribute "feel" to things we like, and dismiss stuff we don't like as "lifeless" or "boring". there's no rhyme or reason to it. there's no objective way to measure any of it. so just enjoy your music, and stop thrashing others' tastes.

Clearly you know nothing at all. And even worse no one cares what you thought.

So much showing off the chords are louder than the solo ?
Quincy and the mix engineer kept it in check.

Random nobody critic of world renowned artists and record producer of immense talent.
KVR

Literally one of the worlds best ever pieces of music. Any musician, engineer or producer who knows anything can respect and appreciate immense quality of art in any genre.

The answer to the topic is very long, you need a balance of both. There is technicality of instrument playing and production/mix technicality. There is a shifting balance of needs depending on genre. It all adds up to the art of the situation.

Immensely complex and why some music appears almost as magic. The perfect balance of all skill sets produces an effect that is almost transcendental.