Creativity and originality are the most important aspects of making music is a myth? (Article Excerpt)

[Gamma-UT]

[mod edit: This was a response to a post by AngelCityOutlaw that contained not much besides personal abuse, and which has been deleted. AngelCityOutlaw already had two warnings, and has just made his third strike.]

Good....good. Let the hate flow through you.

[herodotus]

Lol yeah. Couple things there: 1 is that Goldsmith was often doing that in the time Schoenberg's twelve-tones was a new concept. 2. I really doubt "Planet of The Apes" is a preferred or even known score among the average film fan who would recognize Goldsmith's work.

ROFL.

You know this is the Goldsmith score that actually got a book written about it, right?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/268 ... -serialism

Also serialism had been around for decades. It just so happened that the late 60s provided an environment when directors and producers would take a chance on riskier scores.

It's brilliant how you pull these assertions out of your arse. Please continue, senator.

What is this threshold of craftsmanship? How is it defined objectively?

The question was in respect to a post about visual arts. Maybe you could try answering it.

I'm a huge fan of Goldsmith's work, and I think Planet of the Apes was one of his best, although my personal favorite is Tora Tora Tora.

And the first serial work is Schoenberg's opus 25, and it was finished in 1923.

[oonabe]

Most people here would not accept the notion that someone who comes in 5th in a race is just as much a winner as who first crossed the line, they wouldn't agree that broken English is as good as fluent English, they wouldn't agree that McDonald's is the same quality as homegrown and prepared meals, but when it comes to music and art "it's all subjective" — for no reason other than because it is something they personally can be judged on.

You're comparing different things here. Music is a way to communicate, a type of art, not a contest. The language comparison might be nearer but also that is subjective and broken English can have a charm that some people might find better than someone who speaks perfect English but sounds pedantic, it is subjective and there is no better here either.

Of course you can judge and be judged, but anyone can do that, that's the easiest part. Who is right with his judgement or not is subjective again.

[oonabe]

The Beatles, Led Zeppelin

the blues may be in led zeppelin but led zeppelin is not in the blues? there's something original in led zeppelin even though they have been sued for song theft a lot.

i can't trigger guysterone listening to howling wolf but i can with the first led zep cd, especially.

my sister says she can't trigger her girlsterone listening to led zeppelin but the beatles sure did it, she said she said.

Exactly, that's what I meant when I talked about music as a way to communicate, I'm glad you can enjoy the way those bands communicate their feelings

[empphryio]

It's not going to collapse society.

It seems like you just really want to find a way to disagree. I agree that it's not going to collapse society. But I do think that good music makes people happier and some people aren't successfully finding as much good music nowadays because of this trend.

[Gamma-UT]

It's not going to collapse society.

It seems like you just really want to find a way to disagree. I agree that it's not going to collapse society. But I do think that good music makes people happier and some people aren't successfully finding as much good music nowadays because of this trend.

I'm not trying to find a way to disagree. I just dislike the whole moral-panic approach of the kinds of article that pop up when googling "millennial whoop" - I had to look it up because I keep forgetting what people mean when they mention it (as it's not what I think of when I see the word "whoop" - I tend to assume it's the classic hip-hop "whoo!" sample until I search for it).

The whole "it all sounds the same" is much like "games are rotting kids' minds" moral panic. Yeah, uh, no. They're not. But you keep angling for those clicks, Mr Writer.

I also fail to see how a repeated third-fifth motif is making it hard to find good music. Maybe you can explain. I have managed to build a large collection of music even over the past few years without any Katy Perry (or millennial whoops). Am I doing something wrong?

[foosnark]

[empphryio]

You're doing conversation on the internet wrong. The point I have made is pretty bland and straightforward and explaining it further would seem silly. Your argument with Mr. "Chopin was an asshole" has nothing to do with me.

[Gamma-UT]

As you published it publicly rather than PMing, I assumed you wanted a discussion about the points you made. If you don't that's fine.

[foosnark]

You're comparing different things here. Music is a way to communicate, a type of art, not a contest.

Agreed.

Comparing different music is like comparing flavors of food, not runners in a race. There is no subjective measurement by which you can prove strawberries are superior to cherries, or that tacos are better than pizza. Likewise, there is no subjective measurement by which you can prove that Bach was better than the Backstreet Boys (I cannot believe I just wrote that...) or Degas was better than Picasso.

It all comes down to personal taste, which includes cultural biases, exposure, education, openness to new experiences, etc.

I'm currently enjoying this, which doubtless violates ACO's definition of "music" in several different ways:



I don't really know that much about gamelan, but some of this reminds me of some pieces for player piano that take advantage of their mechanical sounds and massive weird chord clusters pounding rhythmically... also good music

[raiderpdog]

I still haven't read after all these pages is how is it possible to even objectively prove paintings are better, let alone all other forms of art? What exactly is the foolproof rule that no one disagrees with on this that we can implement?

What is the agreed on criteria all these "judges" would even use now? Is there one? That battle has been fought for a few hundred years, and it seems to me that the creative people in all forms are settling it, by just creating their own work, decade by decade, century by century. By producing the work they see fit in their own day and age, true to their ideas, vision, process. By not adhering to some standard, that is imposed again, by whom, exactly? Why should an artificial standard make them have to match it's vision for their own creative work? Again, who are these experts that we would all agree on, to give them the power to then "allow" us to create works that they deem ok, and the work then meeting it's standards and declared up to code? Maybe several centuries ago, yes, but now it is ridiculous to consider something like this.

We all have one life to live, and not long at that. Should we try to make things we like or must we meet someone else's standard? Even if our stuff is pure crap, why shouldn't we use our time to make ourselves fulfilled creatively? Who are we trying to impress, and why? What is the end result of pleasing some standard to meet that may have zippo to do with your own aims?

There are people around the world who I am sure can't stand Da Vinci, or Shakespeare, or any others we can think of. It means nothing to them, it doesn't reach them, they may be tired of hearing how great it is, whatever. Are they instantly tossed out of any discussion and of less value in discussing creative work? Are they unreachable? Even if we disagree with them, how are they provably wrong? It is not so easy as stated that Da Vinci is better than Van Gogh. To some, yes.
How can you measure, for sure, scientifically, personal taste? Personal taste has driven many prominent artists, critics, etc to madness and drink, but there it is. Always has been, always will be.

40 people in a gallery will probably tell you 40 different things about the work. Why they like it, hate it, are indifferent to it, which is "better" to them, which sucked, why their kid can do better, why the artists is a genius, why the artists biography gave more weight to their viewing, etc.....at the end of that conversation, what? Who was right? How do you prove it? Do they need expert judges to tell them why they are wrong now, why Da Vinci is better than Van Gogh, why they are less intelligent for liking the Starry Night? That sounds like an awesome way to get even more people less interested in art than they already are.

Art is not an Olympic Sport with "judges" to score validity. The viewer themselves will "score" it and that will be that, their own personal like or dislike, not some all-seeing, all knowing expert panel of "judges" to guide us all to most probably their way of thinking. Again, who is right when all is said and done? How do you even create an agreed upon standard, now, in 2020 to base that criteria? That time has come and gone--- art, like all life has moved forward, whatever we think. Change is the only constant. Things we think that are possibly out of whack now, may be looked at in 50 more years as quaint. Everything is accelerating and in flux. This is our time and our burden to deal with as creative people in 2020. Some want it all, now. Some want to go cautiously. Others just do, and make what they want with no thought either way.

yes, standards have changed over time. Some for the worse, some for the better. But art movements have been built on the previous "standards" and reacted against or for, taking what was useful to the next group, and discarding what was not needed or wanted.

As always, what I said may be pure crap to others.

[bmanic]

Some people just live in a literal black and white world where subjectivity doesn't exist. Right or wrong.. nothing in between exists.

Cults are made of this stuff.

[skipscada]

Unfortunately, many today lack even that basic amount of competency, and we get stuff like this. Starts around 1:46





Go ahead and tell us you honestly believe that those two banging some sticks together and mumbling is not inferior to something like this:

Has it occured to you that you may completely have missed the point of that performance? That's what happens when you approach it without basic respect and curiosity. Inferior/superior in what? Your other example is clearly superior in complexity, but the very simplicity and directness of "those two banging some sticks" make their music clearly superior for certain social functions. Beethoven's ninth is superior to me singing lullabies, but me singing lullabies calms (well, calmed) my children more than the Boston Philharmonic would (plus they're expensive and need a lot of space). My point is I know the alternative pop music I like to listen to is pretty simple, derivative and throwaway in many respects, but it happens to connect with me in some inscrutable way that, say, avantgarde jazz, Bach or Brahms just don't. And I like and am in awe of Bach and Brahms.

Music isn't generally about a display of technical or mental brilliance, it's about using sound to evoke feelings, entertain, make you dance, avoid silence, give the brain a minimal stimulus, connect a tribe, mark time, be a medium through which we can express ourselves, verbally or not.

[BONES]

To get back to the original article linked by the OP, it is written with the assumption that popularity is a goal, a measure of artistic value of the work, which does not have to be the case. Art can exist for its own sake, even if it is universally hated. In fact, universally hated art would be preferable to bland art that neither offends nor pleases. Certainly with our music, all we look for is a reaction. If half the people in the room get up and walk out, that is preferable to me than half of them sitting there talking over what we are doing on stage and ignoring us. At the end of the day, all art needs to do is provoke a reaction, be it positive or negative, to be valid. That's why "elevator music" is not art but a droney film score can be.

I do agree about the uselessness/pointlessness of trying to be original but for entirely different reasons. At this point in time, everything worth doing has pretty much been done, so what's left is stuff that is so far out there that it's never going to be worthwhile. It may provoke a reaction but it will only be because it is bad, not because it is genuinely emotive. But that's the only distinction I would draw.

[polarsky]

Its cod philosophy. Its going back to the Victorian Era where moral and religious values were used to justify decimating other cultures. Not much to do with the Enlightenment either, some strands of Enlightenment thought argued that creativity was the basis of free will.