What has taste got to do with it?

[Gurn Blanston]

Just to get a handle on the question posed in the title of the thread, ask an easier one first.

Imagine someone who said that oenology wasn't a matter of taste. That his preference for cheap Lambrusco was just as valid as my preference for Petrus and Krug.

Well in a way he's be right -- if you prefer Lambrusco to Petrus then that's fine, that's your right. But saying that isn't very interesting.  I can't help feeling that there's much more to be said. The question is, I think, is Petrus a finer wine than cheap Lambrusco? The answer of course is yes.

Years of experience exploring fine wines has given me the acuity to identify components in a tasting which just aren't accessible to people who haven't invested a similar effort. My reading and discussion about wines has helped me acquire some difficult and hard to apply concepts which a more naive drinker just lacks.

Of course my hypothetical interlocutor may prefer the cheap plonk -- in doing so he's preferring an inferior product.

Now mutatis mutandis for music. Taste is a sort of sensory acuity. And  an understanding of evaluative concepts. It's developed by certain sorts of experience:  listening and participation in a musical form of life.

I make no argument either for or against your example, simply ask a question; using your example names foe ease of thinking about; let us say that Lambrusco was, in fact, a relatively complex and tasty wine. The grapes to make it grow abundantly and there is ample supply of it so despite the fact that it's popular, it is still cheap since demand doesn't outstrip supply. Petrus, on the other hand is only marginally superior, but (recall now that this is hypothetical!) it is always in short supply because the grapes are delicate and difficult to grow. Thus is it outrageously expensive.  Now, is someone who prefers Lambrusco simply tasteless or is someone who prefers Petrus merely an effete snob?  I am genuinely curious about this, not trying to stir up any crap. In the real world, this actually happens. 

[Mandryka]

I make no argument either for or against your example, simply ask a question; using your example names foe ease of thinking about; let us say that Lambrusco was, in fact, a relatively complex and tasty wine. The grapes to make it grow abundantly and there is ample supply of it so despite the fact that it's popular, it is still cheap since demand doesn't outstrip supply. Petrus, on the other hand is only marginally superior, but (recall now that this is hypothetical!) it is always in short supply because the grapes are delicate and difficult to grow. Thus is it outrageously expensive.  Now, is someone who prefers Lambrusco simply tasteless or is someone who prefers Petrus merely an effete snob?  I am genuinely curious about this, not trying to stir up any crap. In the real world, this actually happens. 

How do you think posing this question will help us get clear about taste in music?

Unless you really think that there isn't a significant difference between wines.

If you do think that, then choose something else -- cheese maybe. Someone who prefers Dairy Lee to an artisanal roquefort. Or whiskey -- some blended stuff to Laphrohaig. People who prefer the Dairy Lee and Blended whiskey are prefering an inferior product, which is fine of course. 

[Gurn Blanston]

How do you think posing this question will help us get clear about taste in music?

Unless you really think that there isn't a significant difference between wines.

If you do think that, then choose something else -- cheese maybe. Someone who prefers Dairy Lee to an artisanal roquefort. Or whiskey -- some blended stuff to Laphrohaig.

Actually, the entire concept of "taste" in music is nothing more than a metaphor, and using wine (or cheese) as a corollary simply makes it worse. If you will note, ever since the beginning of the thread, repliers have been hung up on the metaphor and not addressing the question to speak of.

Of course I think there is a difference between wines. I also think at least part of the difference (in the taste and the price) is in the mind of the beholder. You must too, since you didn't answer my question. Or else you don't know what a hypothetical is.

As for music, taste has been used for centuries as an insult to spank people who don't like the same stuff I do. "Your taste is deficient". When in fact, my preferences may be different, but taste has nothing to do with it.

To stretch the metaphor a bit further, I have always like the phrase "tastes change, taste doesn't".

[Mandryka]

I think judgements about taste are psychological, but they're not subjective. Like judgements about colours. Secondary qualities.

[some guy]

Gurn's excellent post came as I was doing something else. But here's my take on the matter, anyway.

Imagine someone who said that oenology wasn't a matter of taste. That his preference for cheap Lambrusco was just as valid as my preference for Petrus and Krug.

Well, I would say that his preference for cheap Lambrusco is just as valid as your preference for Petrus and Krug. But that's as may be. That is NOT what I postulated in the OP, nor is it what I would argue or have argued.

What I argue is that the validity of preferences is impertinent to the experience of listening to a piece of music. Of course one can evaluate ones listening afterwards and evaluate the piece and the performance. Maybe even while the piece is going on, one might indulge in a spot of evaluating. But even then....

Let's look at some oenologists for a minute. Several oenologists, not just Mandryka's one. All the oenologists share experience and discernment. All the oenologists have the "acuity to identify components in a tasting which just aren't accessible to people who haven't invested a similar effort." All the oenologists
have "acquire[d] some difficult and hard to apply concepts which a more naive drinker just lacks."* Do all of these people agree about everything? No. Maybe about such extremes as Lambrusco and Pétrus (but only maybe), but about everything? Hardly.

Just so with music. How many lofty, all-discerning Oedipuses of critical acuity in music agree with each other about everything? Exactly. None.

Mandryka's proposal only seems to work if you consider one musicologist, one oenologist.

If all of this experience, all of this discernment, all of this acuity goes towards making for a satisfying experience, then good on that. If all of it goes towards setting up distinctions between listeners, if all of it goes towards setting up false categories or excluding styles and philosophies that are simply different from what you have painstakingly constructed as "the worthwhile masterpieces," then I ask, what's the point? This is something that some people, obviously, will never understand. I get a great deal of pleasure out of listening to Bach's St. Matthew Passion. I get a great deal of pleasure out of listening to Xenakis' Persepolis. Are they equally good? No. "Equally good" is impertinent. They are different. They offer different things, things that are not comparable. My enjoyment of them is different, too. I enjoy both, but more to the point, I enjoy each of them for what it has to offer. And I spend no effort at all whinging about the things that either of them does not offer. They are what they are each of them. And I accept what each has to offer.

That's because I have discernment.



*And think, too, about the "difficult and hard to apply concepts" part of it. Perhaps a more naive drinker lacks that level of snootiness (though I have found that snootiness is a pretty common attribute of humans, regardless of experience or expertise--almost a defense mechanism against the unruly and chaotic reality of the real world), but a naive drinker drinking is having a pleasant experience, no? What's the percentage in trying to claim that that person's experience is inferior to the oenologist's refined sipping? It's possibly superior in at least one way. My crack about snootiness notwithstanding, the naive drinker is unlikely to be judging/evaluating/pronouncing than the oenologist. The naive drinker is going to be enjoying, plain and simple.

[Karl Henning]

Aye, even the underinformed have snooty capacity.

[Gurn Blanston]

But about some things, e.g. Beethoven is a great composer, all musicologists do agree.

But if I understand the question at issue, you don't necessarily have no (poor, bad whatever) taste if he doesn't appeal to you. He simply doesn't appeal to you. In his own day, many, many people considered him to be in very poor taste. What does that say about them? 

[Mandryka]

Gurn's excellent post came as I was doing something else. But here's my take on the matter, anyway.
Well, I would say that his preference for cheap Lambrusco is just as valid as your preference for Petrus and Krug. But that's as may be. That is NOT what I postulated in the OP, nor is it what I would argue or have argued.

What I argue is that the validity of preferences is impertinent to the experience of listening to a piece of music. Of course one can evaluate ones listening afterwards and evaluate the piece and the performance. Maybe even while the piece is going on, one might indulge in a spot of evaluating. But even then....

Let's look at some oenologists for a minute. Several oenologists, not just Mandryka's one. All the oenologists share experience and discernment. All the oenologists have the "acuity to identify components in a tasting which just aren't accessible to people who haven't invested a similar effort." All the oenologists
have "acquire[d] some difficult and hard to apply concepts which a more naive drinker just lacks."* Do all of these people agree about everything? No. Maybe about such extremes as Lambrusco and Pétrus (but only maybe), but about everything? Hardly.

Just so with music. How many lofty, all-discerning Oedipuses of critical acuity in music agree with each other about everything? Exactly. None.

Mandryka's proposal only seems to work if you consider one musicologist, one oenologist.

If all of this experience, all of this discernment, all of this acuity goes towards making for a satisfying experience, then good on that. If all of it goes towards setting up distinctions between listeners, if all of it goes towards setting up false categories or excluding styles and philosophies that are simply different from what you have painstakingly constructed as "the worthwhile masterpieces," then I ask, what's the point? This is something that some people, obviously, will never understand. I get a great deal of pleasure out of listening to Bach's St. Matthew Passion. I get a great deal of pleasure out of listening to Xenakis' Persepolis. Are they equally good? No. "Equally good" is impertinent. They are different. They offer different things, things that are not comparable. My enjoyment of them is different, too. I enjoy both, but more to the point, I enjoy each of them for what it has to offer. And I spend no effort at all whinging about the things that either of them does not offer. They are what they are each of them. And I accept what each has to offer.

That's because I have discernment.



*And think, too, about the "difficult and hard to apply concepts" part of it. Perhaps a more naive drinker lacks that level of snootiness (though I have found that snootiness is a pretty common attribute of humans, regardless of experience or expertise--almost a defense mechanism against the unruly and chaotic reality of the real world), but a naive drinker drinking is having a pleasant experience, no? What's the percentage in trying to claim that that person's experience is inferior to the oenologist's refined sipping? It's possibly superior in at least one way. My crack about snootiness notwithstanding, the naive drinker is unlikely to be judging/evaluating/pronouncing than the oenologist. The naive drinker is going to be enjoying, plain and simple.

This is a big post, and if I've missed your point, then I'm sorry. This medium isn't easy.

I think that the more refined the perception is, the more rich the experience is.

I had an experience here on this forum, to do with Art of Fugue. My capacity to enjoy the music was enhanced tremendously because premont took some trouble to explain some ideas, some concepts, some things to look for. It was like a whole new world opened up. The informed experience of listening to AoF was much richer than the naive one. I had a similar experience when Bulldog cajoled me into listening again and again and more openly to expressive performances of baroque music, like David Cates's French Suites.

I'm reminded of a bit of the Nicomachean Ethics where Aristotle talks about how courage is a value which is leaned. At first the soldier feels repelled by danger because he's frightened. But through guidance and experience he can  appreciate and value things about battle which previously passed him by.

Same with me and Art of Fugue.

[mc ukrneal]

But taste is all about judgement and value. We judge artisitc merit by a set of parameters that are known to us (though we don't necessarily share with each other). So I could judge Petrus to be great - but why? It could have something to do with the terroir, the complexity of taste, the way (and length) it was stored in oak, the judgment of the winemaker (when to pick, how long to bottle, etc.), and so on. But ultimately, I need to explain why a certain wine is better. But if I don't value complexity, then I may not judge Petrus as highly.

When it comes to music, it is the same. I have a set of parameters in my head - how something should sound, impact it should and does have, technical execution, etc. They could be called filters. In seconds, I take what I hear through my own filters and pronounce judgment. If people share similar filters, our tastes are probably similar (and people usually call this good taste). If we have different filters (in effect, different values), then people usually refer to this as bad taste. Of course, my knowledge of the subject (and experience) will help beef up my credentials when it comes to accepting my pronouncements, but this can work for and against me (depending on the circles one runs in).

[some guy]

sanantonio has nailed it.

[dyn]

the use of "taste in music" in "given my taste in music, what would i enjoy" seems to be misunderstood as referring to one's favourite music, as opposed to how one actually approaches listening to music in the first place.

a more accurate phrasing of the question would be "given that i am a conservative and narrow-minded listener..."

(an open-minded listener would not ask the question in the first place; they would just listen!)

[Mandryka]

Let's take an example, from a review by Hurwitz of Mustonen's recording of Beethoven PC3:

"Mustonen's "poke and prod" approach to this music yields lumpish, goofy results that are very difficult to take seriously. The C minor concerto is one of Beethoven's more dramatic and turbulent works, particularly in its opening movement. Mustonen makes it sound silly, with random sforzando accents constantly interrupting the music's natural flow. His unconvincing rubato, very noticeable at the opening of the Largo, also destroys whatever momentum Beethoven is trying to create, while his Dadaist flourishes in the opening theme of the finale add insult to injury. It's the same story in the D major concerto, made worse by the thinness of the piano writing and Mustonen's refusal to play legato. His must be the most leaden account of the finale yet recorded.

Still, with all of these deficiencies, Mustonen can be interesting, often in passagework in the allegros of both concertos, where he illuminates an inner part or draws attention to some harmonic quirk where you least expect it. The problem is that he seems completely unable to distinguish between good ideas and bad, between flashes of insight and the much more frequent episodes of tasteless self-indulgence. Ultimately he sounds as if he's noodling with music that bores him, and the result is that he winds up boring us too. It's a pity. Mustonen remains a hugely talented musician who needs to grow up. Very good sonics and excellent orchestral playing unfortunately add nothing because Mustonen so relentlessly hogs the limelight–to Beethoven's detriment."

Hurwitz helps himself to a number of established performance values in music. Such as preserving momentum, lightness (non leadenness) the idea that rhythmic devices like softened should always have a reason in the music to justify them etc. He argues that in his opinion the Performance does not exemplify these values, and there are no redeeming values which it exemplifies.

Now, we may disagree with Hurwitz  about whether he has correctly applied the value concepts. Maybe the sforzandi  aren't random. And we may disagree with him about his summary dismissal - maybe the lack of momentum has a consequence which is good, and which ultimately justifies Mustonen's approach. It would be a mistake to confuse objectivity with consensus.

But it would be strange to disagree with the set of virtues which Hurwitz helps himself to. It would be odd to say that leadenness or random rubato was a good thing in itself, a performance virtue in itself. If we said that we'd be placing ourselves outside the form of life of music criticism. Our position would be the aesthetic analogue of amorality.

[Mandryka]

I wouldn't say that.  Some people are known for a preference for period instrument recordings, or someone else might have a strong preference for one period over others - so given their taste, it would not make much sense to recommend recordings that do not take those facts into consideration.

How authentic a performer's registration choices are, or their agogics, are examples of objective evaluations. I guess one trait of the people who are into period performance is that they give these sort of values a very high weighting when they're considering a performance.

We had a  discussion along these lines here recently, about Jolanda Zwofferink. For period performance  people, her inauthentic articulation was a deal breaker, whatever the other musical benefits of her performance.

[Florestan]

Now I wonder: who is the Lambrusco of the classical music and who is the Petrus?

Anyway, it's always such a great way to set the records straight by using an analogy to explain a metaphor.

[Karl Henning]

No rubato is random; that, too, is tendentious.

[DavidRoss]

If in fact the performance is leaden.  While these qualities may be described as objective, the judgement of their presence is subjective.  One person may hear leadeness while another listener may hear gravitas.

+1

No rubato is random; that, too, is tendentious.

Have you heard Ms Lim's LvB sonatas?

[Gurn Blanston]

+1
Have you heard Ms Lim's LvB sonatas?

Despite the innate amusement contained in that question, I still have a hard time choking down the concept of random rubato...

[DavidRoss]

Despite the innate amusement contained in that question, I still have a hard time choking down the concept of random rubato...

Ms Lim does for rubato what Rain Man did for autism.

http://www.youtube.com/v/zF7NXgeoejo


What's Rain Man got to do with taste? Good question. Think about it. Especially consider that he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this performance.

Did Ms Lim win a Grammy?

[Mandryka]

If in fact the performance is leaden.  While these qualities may be described as objective, the judgement of their presence is subjective.  One person may hear leadeness while another listener may hear gravitas.

So what is the objective quality that grounds both leaden and full of gravitas. Do you really think this:

Leaden = SLOW + Boo!!!!!
Full of gravitas = SLOW + Hurrah!!!!

[Mandryka]

Now I wonder: who is the Lambrusco of the classical music and who is the Petrus?

Anyway, it's always such a great way to set the records straight by using an analogy to explain a metaphor.

Sometimes when you're faced with a hard question, it helps to consider a related easier question first.