The World's Most Popular Atonal Crap

[North Star]

But some like whole grain and some don't, and some like wheat, while some like rye...

[Karl Henning]

Tangentially . . . when I was in So Carolina recently, I happened upon two (count 'em) places whose bar did not stock any rye.

Is it the Apocalypse?

[not edward]

I can tell you what I find to be easy. If Beethoven's opus 111 is playing, I'm listening to Beethoven. Bach in that moment does not even exist for me, nor does any other composer. If the St. Matthew Passion is playing, then in that moment only Bach exists, and not even Bach, but that one piece by Bach.

Agreed, with the proviso that sometimes a piece of music does trigger associations with other pieces: to take a particularly blatant example, if Berio's Sinfonia is playing, I'm listening to Mahler (and, by now, for me, if I'm listening to the third movement of Mahler's Second, I'm listening to Berio as well).

[kishnevi]

Agreed, with the proviso that sometimes a piece of music does trigger associations with other pieces: to take a particularly blatant example, if Berio's Sinfonia is playing, I'm listening to Mahler (and, by now, for me, if I'm listening to the third movement of Mahler's Second, I'm listening to Berio as well).

You're focused on the music while you are listening to it.  Which is what how it should be.  But you do make choices of what you listen to, and are aware of what you're doing when you make those choices.

Some guy seems to be of the opinion that all music is equally good,  and when we don't like a particular piece or performance, the fault lies in our ears, and therefore he simply listens to whatever presents itself to his attention.  This may be a good way to practice Theravada style mindfulness meditation, of course.

As a listener, I am apt to agree. Because, as a composer, my workplace is the threshing floor . . . .

But some composers thresh less expertly or less aggressively  than you (and sanantonio) do.

[Karl Henning]

But some composers thresh less expertly or less aggressively than you (and sanantonio) do.

Though I hope to be preserved from the vice of Pride, I cannot deny your point.

[jochanaan]

Michael you live in your own world severed from reality. Essentially what you're saying here
is that your approach to music, and perhaps life itself is a mindless one.

It must be nice to live in such a black-and-white world, without varying shades or hues.  I for one can listen very mindfully, with ALL of my mind, without the kind of winnowing, ranking or immediate judgment that happens on these boards.  In fact, my listening is much more mindful if I do NOT keep in mind "This is supposed to be great music!!!"  In the words of Lennon and McCartney, "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream..."  And to paraphrase Francis of Assisi, it is often in turning off our mind that we become most mindful.

As for trying to "reduce" my collection or listening habits to "what is Greatest," that would defeat the main reason I listen to music: to hear something new that will give me a moment of "Wow, what's this?!"  The thrill of discovery is one of the greatest thrills of music.  Why should I limit my listening to what I already know?  I'd rather add to my knowledge than subtract from it.

[Karl Henning]

James said essentially, everybody chug your beer!

[North Star]

Every sound is sacred

[Karl Henning]

It's scientific experiments for the lot of you!

[North Star]

Your post is flippant; but not far from my own idea.  The caveat I will add is that someone somewhere will find the sounds in Work X "sacred" while other people will not, maybe even all other people will not.  So what?  Does that mean the music in question is "crap?  Maybe to those 5.9 billion others but not to that one individual.  And his experience outweighs all the others, IMO.   Cumulatively this can apply to "all sounds".  Of course my example is an exaggeration, but it goes to the center of my own thinking.

Declarations such as James' can only apply to a one-person set.  As soon as the audience expands to 2, 20, 200, 2000, etc, people the decision about which pieces of music are good, better, best will no longer be the same.

And that is as it should be.

Well, my post was only half-flippant. 

[Karl Henning]

As a spokesman for grammarians, I observe that it ought to have been "[ i ]t applies to those who operate within the field...."

[some guy]

To clear up a couple of points, I do not recall saying or even suggesting that my process does not involve choice.

Interestingly enough, I was thinking about this thread and what I had tried to articulate about things I hardly ever think about. (James doesn't seem to understand that if I'm not thinking about one thing that does not mean I'm not thinking about any thing.) A bit from Janacek's Katya Kabanova popped into my head, and I thought (!) "I'll give that listen later." Then I thought of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth and thought maybe I'd listen to that, too. When I opened up my folder of music, it was open in the middle of the H's. I scrolled up to "G" and picked the "Essential Gorecki" folder.

I have so much music; I have listened to it all, several times. Caprice works just fine for playing from my collection.

As for the remark that apparently I think that "all music is equally good," I have addressed that many times. I hate to do it again. Maybe this time I'll put a stamp on it, too, and send it away. Ahem. I could only think that all music is equally good if I thought that ranking was a valid exercise. I do not. There are things I like better than I like other things, sure, but I don't even pay all that much attention to that. (I like the two operas I mentioned much more than anything by Gorecki, even that nice pre-symphony three avant garde stuff on that album. But the fact remains, I'm listening to Gorecki right now. And that's fine.)

What I do think is that the proper activity for a listener is listening, not judging, not ranking, not constructing elaborate critical structures for how one should approach "great" music. Listening. Is all music equally good? That question is im-pertinent. It doesn't belong in this discussion. All music is music. And what music is for is for listening.

And that's what I do with it.

(That means, to take up one other point, that since I'm familiar with a lot of music, practically everything I listen to reminds me of something else I've listened to. For me that means that what I would like to hear some time is something that reminds me of nothing else I've ever heard. I used to get that all the time. No more. The sorrow of knowledge, eh?)

[Karl Henning]

Bottoms up!

James said essentially, everybody chug your beer!

[Madiel]

As for the remark that apparently I think that "all music is equally good," I have addressed that many times. I hate to do it again. Maybe this time I'll put a stamp on it, too, and send it away. Ahem. I could only think that all music is equally good if I thought that ranking was a valid exercise. I do not. There are things I like better than I like other things, sure, but I don't even pay all that much attention to that. (I like the two operas I mentioned much more than anything by Gorecki, even that nice pre-symphony three avant garde stuff on that album. But the fact remains, I'm listening to Gorecki right now. And that's fine.)

What I do think is that the proper activity for a listener is listening, not judging, not ranking, not constructing elaborate critical structures for how one should approach "great" music. Listening. Is all music equally good? That question is im-pertinent. It doesn't belong in this discussion. All music is music. And what music is for is for listening.

And that's what I do with it.

Here. Have One Direction's latest album. It's for listening to.  And then Metallica. And then this bloke I found on Youtube strumming away in his bedroom. It's all for listening to.

I think you are far too hung up on the word 'ranking' as if it implies some kind of objective universal standard that all 6 billion people on the planet are expected to comply with. (And many of the responses to James seem to treat it in the same way.)

It doesn't. I would think that was obvious, but it seems it needs to be stated explicitly. I have my own personal loose system of 'ranking'. It's called having favourite pieces, or favourite composers. Every single person on this thread who's ever participated in one of the board's polls or 'Top 11s' or anything of that nature had indicated some form of ranking preference.

And saying that you pick more or less randomly from your collection misses the point that 'your collection' is itself a process of deciding that some things go in the collection and some things don't. I actually have a spreadsheet set up to try and ensure that I distribute my listening across the whole of MY collection, but I don't kid myself that my collection is actually representative of the world of music as a whole.  The very act of putting music in my collection gives it a higher 'rank' than anything that I didn't put in my collection.

And unless you buy every CD issued, when it is issued, you are engaging in ranking all the time.

[some guy]

Many of the things in my collection are there because I have bought something I wanted to explore. Many are there because I had already done some exploring elsewhere and was now ready for the relative comfortableness of multiple relistens.

The two-CD set of Becker, for instance, the one with the oboe concerto on it. Sure, the words "elektronische modulierte" caught my eye. But dividing the world into likes and dislikes isn't much of ranking. I bought that because I didn't know anything about Becker. Then I did. Then I bought some more Becker.

You see? I think that you're just trying to force each of my actions into a black box or a white box. In the meantime, my real life is not only full of all shades of grey but of reds and yellows and greens and blues and purples and oranges and so forth.

It's not so difficult. I do not think of ranking when I add things to my collection. I do not think of ranking when I listen to any particular piece in my collection. (When I listen to Khachaturian's third symphony, I don't think, "this isn't as good as Gerhard's third symphony." When I listen to Gerhard's third symphony, I don't think, "this is much better than Khachaturian's third." As you can see, I DO think that. But while I'm listening? No. And does my thinking that affect my enjoyment of either? No. In fact, do I ever think about things like that unless I'm online on a music discussion site? No.)

If it helps you sleep at night to point to all those shades of grey and all those other colors and insist that I'm inconsistent because I have other options besides black and white, then by all means keep on doing it. My only point was simple: when I'm listening to music, I'm engaged with that piece. I'm not thinking about whether that piece is better or worse than any other piece. Better or worse doesn't enter into it. It's im-pertinent. Each piece is just exactly itself. Some of those selves please me, some irritate me, some intrigue me, some puzzle me. There. I just ranked all music....

[Madiel]

Some of those selves please me, some irritate me, some intrigue me, some puzzle me. There. I just ranked all music....

You did. And that is precisely my point.

[Karl Henning]

Oh, godamercy, but this thread is God's gift to unintentional humor! ". . . really what you are trying to tell us is that you are not really a critical thinker." Next time, Michael, don't mince words: Let us know outright that you're not a critical thinker, and stop teasing James so!

And James, try harder: you could really have fit more reallys into that sentence. Apply yourself a little, dammit!

[Pat B]

Really?

[kishnevi]

La dee la!  The ruckus I have raised (alright, I admit I had a hand in making it bigger) in trying to make a point about proximity bias.  Let me try to restate it, more precisely and fruitfully. Or at least, less controversially.

First off,  let me point out that all of us, when listening to any piece of music new to us or any particular performance of a work we already know,  react in one of three ways:  positive, negative, or neutral.  And those reactions guide our future listening--whether it be "I want more of that" or "I never want to hear that again" or "interesting,  glad I heard it but I could live without it", and sometimes "why did I ever think that was so great" and sometimes "Hmm, let me listen to that again, and see if it was as bad as I remember it being". And of course a wide variety of other possible responses.  Even if you don't get into the "greatest X" game, you do at least that much.

Now the actual point I tried to make was this--when we listen to, for instance,  music from c. 1800, our choice of music is already influenced and to some degree limited by the listening habits of previous generations of listeners,  who reacted to the music of, f.i., Dittersdorf less positively than they did to that of Haydn, and that shaped our attitude to Dittersdorf--if we have a positive reaction to his music, it's with the knowledge that we are disagreeing with those preceding generations, and we are in a way rescuing him from their neglect.  It also means that there are fewer recordings of music by Dittersdorf than of music by Haydn, and often enough those musicians are of less celebrity [which of course is a far different thing from saying they are of less quality] than those who routinely record Haydn, which means when they do record Dittersdorf, their recordings may be harder to acquire--or even to be aware of.  When I used the term "winnowing" that's what I had in mind.  And every time we listen to Dittersdorf, we are in a way saying that preceding generations made a "mistake" in "winnowing" him out of the listening line up.

This is almost a physical fact.  And it does have one important consequence--we are apt to accept, under the influence of preceding generations of listeners, the idea that Haydn was a better composer than Dittersdorf, and therefore a (biased?) reaction to Dittersdorf's music that is less positive than our reaction to Hadyn.   Our listening preferences, shaped as they are by those who came before us,  incline us from the start to not listen to music from that period to which we might have a negative reaction (or, in the more brusque phrasing of this thread's title,  might decide it's "crap").

On the other hand, in listening to music by modern and contemporary composers,  that shaping of our habits and preferences by prior generations has not yet kicked in totally.  (It has, of course, in part, especially in regard to composers who flourished in the first half of the 20th century.  Which is why , for instance,  Schoenberg has so many recordings in that Arkivmusic  listing.)  We are therefore more likely to listen to music to which we end up having a negative reaction than we would in listening to music of the Classical period.   And that fact can lead us to mistakenly feeling that modern music has a higher quotient of "crap"--whereas in fact, were we to listen to a greater diversity of c. 1800 music, untrammelled by the listening habits and influence of the intervening generations, we would likely have (albeit for different reasons)  had negative reactions to the same proportion of 1800 music.    Contemporary music is just as likely and unlikely to be as 'crappy' as music from the time of Bach or Beethoven or Brahms, and the fact that we have more negative reactions to music of our own time than to music of those times does not stem from the fact that contemporary music is worse than music of c. 1800--it merely stems from the fact that it is music of our own time.

[Madiel]

Mr Smith, I entirely agree. And forgive me for not saying so the first time around, as there were... other distractions.

History tends to engage in a filtering process. Although, it should also be remembered that history can reverse that filtering process. There were at least a couple of generations who didn't know much about J S Bach for example, although some of his fellow-composers were paying attention.  But I imagine that most folks in the latter half of the 1700s would be most surprised to discover that Leipzig's reasonably competent 3rd choice would end up being as famous as he is now.