why is it hard to write good music?

[Mike777]

"good" http://www.dictionary.com/browse/good?s=t

adjective,
...
satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree..
of high quality; excellent.

[Jace-BeOS]

What is good music? What is bad music?

I think it's possible to state that some music is technically more complex, planned, constructed, and accomplished, than other music, when considering music theory.

Taste is entirely different, though. Conflating the two is easy and dangerous, and people do this almost continuously. Drawing a hard and objective line between the two is impossible, as evidenced by all the argument in existence to this day that tries to do it. Trying to do so is probably near universally a point of argument between any number of people, so long as they participate in music appreciation of any kind. No one wants to hear why what they like isn't worthy of respect.

Saying this doesn't mean that "I like it, therefore it's good" is any kind of standard either. That is how we risk equivocation of unlike works. It is fallacious to compare the output of celebrated classical composers to some (for example) random garage punk band. You may like the punk band's output, and you may find it fun and exciting, but that's not a discussion of the technical merits or musical theory utilized in their music. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to like what you like.

There's plenty of "good music" that doesn't move me at all. I love R.E.M., but their last three albums don't move me. It's competent work but it doesn't have a strong or unique character. Those albums don't do what their earlier albums did to make me a fan.

Regardless of the skill present in it, I don't enjoy jazz.

I almost never sit and listen attentively to classical music, though I admire and enjoy quite a lot of it.

My enjoyment says nothing about any objective qualities the music may or may not possess.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

That's going on 'Waco Hits Vol. II'

[imrae]

why is it hard to write good music?

It's hard to write original good popular music because Björk already used all the good ideas.

[Mike777]

If there is no objectively good or bad music, then any and all of JS Bach, or Stravinsky, or... et al has to be considered on the same footing as some track made strictly for money by no-ability-having people who only grabbed some loop off of the internet or Apple Loops or what-have-you in order to 'rap' some prurient garbage over it and knocked a shite export of it out. There is some unbelievably poor music in this world. There is music that is transcendent. And there are people that have no tools for discernment whatsoever so they _like_ utter garbage.
The tone deaf person with no sense of rhythm is just as good a judge of music as anyone, then.

It's a completely vacuous notion, that there is just what you like and don't like. Already answered, there are people whose 'like' factor has evolved with better information and a larger sample base of music to consider.

When I see that I think, 'what a great excuse for avoiding living up to any kind of standard'.

agree. What each person 'likes' is one thing. And you can like a piece of music that is 'bad', and not like certain 'good' music. What people like or not is their own choice. What I consider good or not is does it meet or exceed in quality of music standards of today. Dissonance was once unacceptable (early polyphonic chant).

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Inspiration is essential.

Inspiration disappears. Motivation fades. Dedication's what you need

That takes me back.

Haha! Another old codger from Ol' Blightey. I managed to get in a reference to Grange Hill in another thread, yesterday

[Jace-BeOS]

About laziness and ease of effort:

Thanks to the available tools today:

1. Those of us who find music theory a very difficult topic to absorb aren't crippled (though it likely would help to know theory).

2. Those of us who cannot write down music via notation aren't crippled. In fact, a childhood friend couldn't do a thing on his family's piano without sheet music. What does that mean? An ability to use language does not mean a person has anything to say (or wants to talk). Language enables complex thought. Music has an "unwritten language", in addition to its formally written form. This is an imperfect statement, but I hope my intent is understood.

3. Those of us who cannot perform on any instrument (for whatever reason) aren't crippled. Tech doesn't make a performer out of a non-performer; it lets us bypass instrument performance. This has some minuses to it, of course, but it isn't an absolute obstruction to music creation and it isn't a reason to judge a person's musical final output.

I'm in the above list. It doesn't mean that I can only ever make crap (though that's certainly a taste discussion, not a technical accomplishment discussion).

So the above issues aren't relevant to me "getting it done". I have an interest and some motivation to work at making music... though no sense of reward from the effort; it's much less motivation than musicians who make music constantly. I bet I make fewer "interesting" pieces of music than a prolific creator, just because I make less music (take a thousand photographs and you'll have more "great" photos than a person who takes only fifty).

I have a "feel" for music. Call that "a sense of rhythm", an "unconscious awareness of music theory", or something else. I've observed the difference between myself and those who are convinced they are tone deaf and/or utterly without skill. It's probably all learned behavior; they're assuming I have some magical, genetic gift granted to me, but I don't buy that at all. In most cases, their belief in their lack of "inherent skill" keeps them from trying, and that keeps them from learning.

I have what I consider to be "good taste", but no formal skills in, or knowledge of, music theory, notation, or performance. I can possibly judge one piece of music to be more complex and thoughtfully constructed than another, but I'd be hard-pressed to declare what specific tools and methodologies were used to create that music. As a listener, I don't entirely believe those things matter. I'm interested in the process used to get there, but that's only as a musician. As a listener, I only care about my enjoyment of the music.

Technology hasn't made me "lazy" and it hasn't directly caused me to make "bad" or "good" music. It has simply ALLOWED me to create music where otherwise I would be unable.

Even with all the tools available to work around my limitations, I find it difficult to make music.

Maybe it's not that hard? I *could* throw some loops together and call it music, but that's not how I personally define "creating music". My personal taste, values, and work ethics greatly influence what I define as "music" vs "non-music laziness".

Someone may believe my music is "bad" because they know I can't read music or cannot perform any of the instruments I'm using. I am forced to make the same type of judgment at times, as a result of knowing about the ease with which we can make "music" by throwing together premade materials.

It's like comparing 3D artwork to "I made it in five minutes, minus the rendering time, in Bryce". A person who has no awareness of the available tools might think a hastily thrown-together pile of loops is "music enough". It's easy to make "music-like" assemblies of sounds, with today's tools. A non-musician's taste might (or might not) become more discerning or demanding if they acquired a level of knowledge about the process.

Making what I call music is hard work. Maybe I would find it easier to make "good" music if I had all the classical training, but I'm never going to have it. It's outside my privilege and outside my mental processing ability. I don't think I'm remotely alone in this, and many celebrated musicians have proclaimed being unable to read/write notation, etc.

We generally reward enjoyment of an artist's work with reduced demands or expectations for their classical training. So I argue that, as important and useful as formal training may be, it does not define good or bad music, from an enjoyment perspective.

Making "good" music will always be both difficult and subject to argument and interpretation.

[ghettosynth]

Applicable senses of "objective" (from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/objective)

5.not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased:
an objective opinion.
6.intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book.

Applicable senses of "music" (from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/music)

1.an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.
2.the tones or sounds employed, occurring in single line (melody) or multiple lines (harmony), and sounded or to be sounded by one or more voices or instruments, or both.
3.. (there are a few more entries)

The first(1) definition of "music" appears to be incompatible with anything that can be called "objective" (because of the word "emotions"), although the phrase "significant forms" imply that there are musical forms that may be considered to be more scholarly work than others.

Yes, the latter defines all music. To define what is good music you have to link the criterion of content to a measure in some way. You don't even need the definition of "good" per se, what you need is a quality measure for music. For example, we can say that MPG is quality measure of vehicles with respect to fuel efficiency. With that we can compare two vehicles and determine which of the two is "better" with respect to the measure. We can then come to understand what makes for "good" fuel efficiency with respect to what the market offers and what people's needs are. That certainly still has some subjective component to it but it's much closer to a usable definition of "good" that transcends opinion.

Here, maybe you like what W.J. Henderson has to say on the matter?

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr ... &q&f=false

[Hink]

I play guitar, it's been a driving force in my life as a passion since I was a pre-teen. Good is relative and surely has different meanings to every person. I learned in my mid 20's that I am not a showman, that's not my passion but in my early development I felt being a showman would be a means to an end more or less on a few levels. First maybe if I was good enough I would have unfettered use of a studio. Second if people thought that I was good then I was.

Then along came a thing called life, these thoughts I had back then were from a stage in development that I also outgrew. I was in my 20's, yes I had lived through an amazing adult experience serving full time in the military starting less than 60 days after graduating from high school. But even going through how bootcamp in the 70's was geared toward taking children and turning them into adults in a few months the truth was we were kids playing adults. I was still in that stage where the majority of my life experience was experienced through a child's eyes, in a stage where I felt I needed to prove myself and coming from the military where that was the case it was part of me.

I haven't been in a band since 1987, 28 years old. Three or four nights a week practicing with the band, going home and playing to tapes and lps to learn my music so we could go play some gigs. That simply did not do it for me, it does for many which is great because those people have been inspirational for me. Then it took me years to find my path over a rough period of my life which is far from atypical, eventually I came to realize that the reason that didn't work for me is because I play for me, playing for others would not achieve my personal needs. It was actually something my dad said to another about me, "John's an accomplished guitarist".

Wait, what?!!! First wrong person to make that judgement, my dad couldn't carry a tune if it had a handle and straps. Second the only thing I had accomplished was years of playing and devotion to my passion, but I never made money or a name for myself.

I have unfettered use of a studio now and one that is beyond my wildest dreams needing no one else to be there while I bask in enjoying my passion. I also learned that I have nothing to prove to anyone and life keeps happening. I'm not in my 20's anymore, in fact in a few days I start the countdown to 60. Now I have been devoted to my passion over the course of 5 decades and a couple of generations, life keeps happening. Here's the thing, the one thing I can count on is music being there adding the technicolor to an otherwise black and white generic life.

I pick up my guitar and play, I drift away to my special place. Life gets me down, I have a means to happiness. Life is good I have a personal way to celebrate. I go to my special place and I feel good, wait, what?!!! Good? Ah, relative, I feel good, better than feeling bad so my music is good, just good for me. Wait, what?!!! That's an awesome accomplishment, dad was right. That's my gift, we all have it but different passions lead us there and mine is playing for my heart and soul, not playing for others.

No I'm not special, I use to think that it was important that people know my name until some moron with my name shot the president. I wont be remembered by the world for my music or anything else, but you know for at least another generation I will be remembered in my family and close circle as someone who loved his guitar and held it dear his whole life. If I want my ego stroked it's easy enough to find people to play a song or two for and get a "wait, what?!!! That's you?" But that is so superficial and really not who I am. My music is indeed good, good for me as over the years it has brought me joy, anger, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of failure, drive, it has just always been MY thing and that is indeed good. Good enough for me at least, I'm good growing at my pace and not to the expectations of others.

Good is relative

[BipTunia]

Anyone can play music.

A small percentage of those people can write a good melody.

Also, a lot of people would rather play new noises than craft something they started into something memorable.

And the immediacy of publishing on the Internet as lead to a glut of first drafts released as final drafts.

There are still people who can write good music, but it can be harder to find them.

All the technology is a great thing. But it can't really write a song for you.....

....yet.

[Nielzie]

Anybody already did a "Why is it so good to write hard music?" thread?

[vurt]

context?

bach would be shit at a rave.

[BipTunia]

context?

bach would be shit at a rave.

lol. Yup.

Except the free VST that plays different Bach melodies when you press one key. THAT might work over something else at a rave. Once. For a minute.

VST is SuperTron. Preset is called "BachIt!"

[jancivil]

What is good music? What is bad music?

I think it's possible to state that some music is technically more complex, planned, constructed, and accomplished, than other music, when considering music theory.

Taste is entirely different, though. Conflating the two is easy and dangerous, and people do this almost continuously. Drawing a hard and objective line between the two is impossible, as evidenced by all the argument in existence to this day that tries to do it.

Regardless of the skill present in it, I don't enjoy jazz..

I can't tell your intention with that last statement, but you just revealed why taste is not through itself relevant. Your enjoyment or not is not relevant to whether or not there is good music in "jazz". Jazz is a broad and diffuse thing to bring in.

Taste, as I indicated - and redundantly to previous (clear) statements - may evolve for people who have the interest in and the curiosity for music. Appreciation is actually taught in school, and probably has for generations (I've been around for like 3 generations, and yeah). So some people not wanting to expand their horizons and learn about music, learn how music works will be upset to find other people with more interest think their tastes are... limited? Ignorant even? This is dangerous to whom, exactly? Some people are information impoverished and evidently some choose that as their path.

I implied is is entirely possible to make a hard and objective line.
I'm gwyne do it right now, easy:
Good:


Bad:


I'd never heard either of these, of either person, nor was my search particularly focused.

It is so easy to reduce this to 'technique' but it's about more than that. Here what I find is the quality of one's consciousness and what one is going for as a criterion. What one is doing in the world. To what extent is one's efforts polluted by the world, does one want to rise above it, is one playing in the muck. Which determines choices... without getting into it because it shouldn't have to be said. The content, though. Really?

If one is going to have difficulty with this kind of discernment I would actually be so bold as to say their notions of taste are not relevant to any discussion like this.
The *good* here is not really my taste and I'm not going to pursue that, much. That isn't it.

[Hink]

context?

bach would be shit at a rave.

relative init?