Is It Music or Gibberish ?

[jochanaan]

    That's the distinction that I'd like to make. I just can't quite make it. This suggest that something other than someone saying "this isn't just entertainment, it's art" decides the issue, a definite something that could be agreed upon.

    The example of Shakespeare shows you can climb the ladder of entertaining junk all the way to high art without ever crossing an identifiable line, and this is true for memorable popular music and the Godfather films as well. You could insist on some kind of high art intention but that throws out way too much, doesn't it?

It sounds as if you see "art" and "entertainment" as mutually exclusive.  The more I get involved with the arts, the more I see those two concepts as ends, or rather points on a continuum.  Mark has it right:

...All art is entertainment, but not all entertainment is art.

One can imagine a work of "perfect art" in which there is no "entertainment value" but only pure meaning conveyed in artistic terms--but I've never yet met a work of art that qualifies.  Great paintings have attention-grabbing colors or textures or lines; great poetry has verbal melody and rhythm; great novels have action or romance or suspense; and I've never yet run across a piece of music where the "artistic value" wasn't encased in sounds that didn't grab you with their sensual or striking or haunting qualities.  Yes, even the "gibberish that passes for music" these days. (I trust I'm well-enough known here that everyone realizes I don't use that word seriously. )  And I've met very few works of "entertainment" that didn't have some artistic value.  But then, I'm not in the habit of frequenting "adult" book stores!

[DavidRoss]

One can imagine a work of "perfect art" in which there is no "entertainment value" but only pure meaning conveyed in artistic terms--but I've never yet met a work of art that qualifies. ...And I've met very few works of "entertainment" that didn't have some artistic value.  But then, I'm not in the habit of frequenting "adult" book stores!

Nor in the habit of frequenting "performance art" events, apparently, some of which are not at all entertaining and have no artistic value whatsoever.

[karlhenning]

There is truth in Mark's distinction, but I am short of embracing it.  It seems to me a broad notion of entertainment, to consider Liturgical music 'entertainment'.  (Which is not the same thing as contemning entertainment, of course.)

[Mark G. Simon]

True liturgical music, i.e. chant, does do a beautiful job of evoking spiritual contemplation. I do admire religions which maintain a music of purely liturgical significance, such as the lovely Russian monastery in Jordanville, New York, where they have taken great care to train the monks in the singing of Russian chant. I was lucky enough to stumble upon it one Sunday morning. Driving up a tiny country road, I was amazed to see glistening gilded onion domes atop towers looming ahead of me. I was able to go inside and see the inside of the chapel, all adorned with icons and paintings of bearded saints, with the monks swinging incense and chanting in harmony. Chant binds itself to the function of the worship service so completely that it can hardly survive being separated and listened to independent of worship.

Historically it has been difficult to retain the purity of liturgical music. In the Catholic church, chant had to become elaborately decorated with counterpoint to make it more interesting to listen to. Secular tunes like "L'homme armé" and "Se la face ay pale" found their way in during the middle ages. Composers of the 18th and 19th century set the mass to the same kind of music as operas, and of course the 20th century gave us the much deplored folk mass. Protestantism gave up on the whole idea of purity with Luther's declaration "why should the devil have all the good tunes?" It is clear from Ives' use of quoted music that hymns and popular tunes were commonly sung all together in his day just for entertainment value. And of course, spirituals, gospel music and "praise" music are indistinguishable from popular forms, save for the religious texts. As a Protestant myself, the notion of separating liturgical music from entertainment music carries little resonance, though I can see the appeal that a separate liturgical music like chant has for other branches of faith.

[karlhenning]

True liturgical music, i.e. chant, does do a beautiful job of evoking spiritual contemplation. I do admire religions which maintain a music of purely liturgical significance, such as the lovely Russian monastery in Jordanville, New York, where they have taken great care to train the monks in the singing of Russian chant. I was lucky enough to stumble upon it one Sunday morning. Driving up a tiny country road, I was amazed to see glistening gilded onion domes atop towers looming ahead of me. I was able to go inside and see the inside of the chapel, all adorned with icons and paintings of bearded saints, with the monks swinging incense and chanting in harmony. Chant binds itself to the function of the worship service so completely that it can hardly survive being separated and listened to independent of worship.

The Orthodox Prayer Book we have in English is from a press in Jordanville, and I supposed there must be a monastery there.

[Mark G. Simon]

The Orthodox Prayer Book we have in English is from a press in Jordanville, and I supposed there must be a monastery there.

You should go there, Karl. It's a beautiful place, and but a day's drive from Boston. It's also very close to Cooperstown, home of the Glimmerglass Opera. You could see the monastery and take in an opera.

[DavidRoss]

You should go there, Karl. It's a beautiful place, and but a day's drive from Boston. It's also very close to Cooperstown, home of the Glimmerglass Opera. You could see the monastery and take in an opera.

And visit the Baseball Hall of Fame!

[drogulus]

It sounds as if you see "art" and "entertainment" as mutually exclusive. 

    It seems more like they aren't things but effects that blend into each other. It's about as far from mutually exclusive as you can get. I think everything is "artertainment". Or, as Jerry Fodor once said, "If it's something, it's something else." 

[jochanaan]

Nor in the habit of frequenting "performance art" events, apparently, some of which are not at all entertaining and have no artistic value whatsoever.

None for you, perhaps--but I regularly play for poetry jams at a local organic-foods cafe, and from the audiences' reactions, they are both entertained and "art-ified." Besides, it's fun!

[karlhenning]

Now, jo, he did say some of which . . . .

[greg]

Now, jo, he did say some of which . . . .

that part is easy to miss, somehow- missed it myself when reading the quote.

[greg]

NOT FOR ME! The first time I heard the Art of Fugue (performed on piano) I was blown away and no one had to explain it to me, i liked it a lot on a gut level, how it moved me, and how it sounded. It drew me in and I knew nothing about it's "structure" or any technical or historical jargon about it whatsoever nor did I care about that. I think the way I have always been is when I hear music I don't analyse it all because I must experience it as much like a child as is possible for me....with a pure mind listening to the beauty of the sound & the music with no pre conceived ideas or ecclesiastical associations, not to confuse the experience of the art with intellectualizing....

To me, the real stuff is of substance & depth and usually has content of lasting value, finds lasting meaning in the transient, it stirs our emotions, it stimulates our thoughts profoundly & exclusively, it reveals the nature of our existence, it expresses a point of view and is of a personal perspective which manifests itself through craft, it's on the side of trying to create a better world (not about money or celebrity) and is an unconditional gift to others. It doesn't matter whether art is thin or fat, cold or hot, minimal or baroque; what matters is what it is about. And the meaning of a work of art is locked into it in the process of its creation. This gives true works of art the power to say so much more than objects lifted out of life or than works which are dependent on a non-intrinsic biographical context for their meaning.

Some music is just like this.... really weird how it works, huh?
Stuff like the Penderecki Threnody really blew me away the first time i listened. I thought, "So it really IS all that!" But I'm sure most people would have to warm up to something like that first. (then again, i did see a page from the score before listening......)

Then there's music which somehow leaves you feeling cold but then eventually becomes among your favorites- such as the Rite of Spring, for me. I had been listening to Prokofiev for awhile and was looking forward to this one, since it was "so dissonant", but i wasn't impressed too much on first hearing since i was used to hearing Prokofiev's "charm" in dissonant music and I felt it lacked charm. Sure, but that's not what it was supposed to be about. To warm up to some stuff, you have to break the connection in your mind to something else that's similar and just listen to it for what it is....

[DavidRoss]

None for you, perhaps--but I regularly play for poetry jams at a local organic-foods cafe, and from the audiences' reactions, they are both entertained and "art-ified." Besides, it's fun!

I was thinking of the guy whose "artwork" consisted of him masturbating under the installation floor, or the guys who butchered animals on stage for entertainment.

[M forever]

None for you, perhaps--but I regularly play for poetry jams at a local organic-foods cafe

That's totally what I pictured when I saw you member pic.

[drogulus]

That's totally what I pictured when I saw you member pic.

     You're going to need a bigger poetry cafe.

[jochanaan]

     You're going to need a bigger poetry cafe.

We're working on it.

[Superhorn]

   Many great composers of the past were accused of writing"gibberish",too. There has always been rejection and incomprehension of music when it was new by some.
  In the early 19th century, many people found Beethoven's music as impenitrable as many find Carter's music today. Many considered Wagner the Antichrist of music in the 19th century; Clara Schumann attended a performance of Tristan und Isolde when it was new and was absolutely appalled by it.
  Who knows how people a century or so from now will see the music of our time, assuming that the world has not been destoyed by cataclysmic events?  If we could come back and see what is popular and established, we might be extremely surprised !

[Fëanor]

   Many great composers of the past were accused of writing"gibberish",too. There has always been rejection and incomprehension of music when it was new by some.
  In the early 19th century, many people found Beethoven's music as impenitrable as many find Carter's music today.

Indeed, in the 21st centrury too.  Granted, I'm a musical ignoramous: I don't write, play, or even read music.  Despite that -- or maybe because of it -- Carter's works were more immediately accessible and enjoyable to me than, say, Beethoven's late quartets or the Art of the Fugue.

For me I have and continue to think of Beethoven as the greatest composer.  On that account I persevered with the Late Quartets and have come to appreciate these works in so far as my very limited comprehension permits.  Nevertheless I still much prefer a typical Carter work to the Grosse Fugue, or Art of the Fugue for that matter.  And I don't "give a rat's ass" whether any of it is gibberish or not.

[karlhenning]

Indeed, in the 21st centrury too.  Granted, I'm a musical ignoramous: I don't write, play, or even read music.  Despite that -- or maybe because of it -- Carter's works were more immediately accessible and enjoyable to me than, say, Beethoven's late quartets or the Art of the Fugue.

No musical (or other) reason why that should not be.  My 'elective listening' is much more frequently music of the 20th and 21st centuries, than of Bach or Beethoven.

[drogulus]

On relativism: Do I favor a piece of music because it's good, or is the piece of music good because I favor it?

I'm paraphrasing you know who right here but I feel that a distinction can be drawn here. For instance, sometimes I will favor something, a film, painting, song, that I clearly know is not "good." For instance, Troll 2 is a notoriously bad movie, and that's a fact, not an opinion. Yet at the same time I love that movie - but I recognize its badness. So in this case I favor something not because it's good, and the object is also not in the state of being "good" in which to be favored. Yet so it is favored, in all its badness. This is why there is a difference between favorite and great or best, better art. A favorite can be bad, objectively. And also a favorite can be good, objectively. Something great simply is, love it or hate it.

Can the relativists/subjectivist simply admit that some have better taste than others?

    How can you have good taste without being subjective? What would be yours about it?

    Sure, I can admit that someone else has better taste than me, and in fact I insist on it. Better and worse tastes are like better and worse music. They are underdetermined by any set of facts, except what people express about how they feel. After all the objective features of a piece of music have been weighed, you still have to decide how you feel about it. That's why it's possible to say that you feel Bach is the greatest composer though you don't care for his music very much, and everyone understands what you mean.

    So, favorite is subjective, and so is greatest. The difference is greatest is a judgment made collectively over time, and your personal idea of greatest is an assessment of this collective judgment, and perhaps how you would wish to change it. This is an oversimplification, of course, but I think it hits the main points.