What is that to you - coherence?

^ making you opinion sound as if it has some objective basis is one of the great 'tricks' that people try to pull off in music criticism. At the end of the day its mostly subjective but we can obviously argue around that basic point forever and a day because we are PA

richardh wrote: ^ making you opinion sound as if it has some objective basis is one of the great 'tricks' that people try to pull off in music criticism. At the end of the day its mostly subjective but we can obviously argue around that basic point forever and a day because we are PA

Edited by Gerinski - December 02 2014 at 07:37

Gerinski wrote: Angelo wrote: Let's do that then ;-) OK I'l start  richardh wrote: ^ making you opinion sound as if it has some objective basis is one of the great 'tricks' that people try to pull off in music criticism. At the end of the day its mostly subjective but we can obviously argue around that basic point forever and a day because we are PA I'm not so sure. Another thing is that most of us don't have the skills for describing in more technical or accurate terms what we experience with the music. We may be fond of saying that Prog is a genre with a lot of artistic freedom, but if we exclude the most experimental, avantgarde, RIO etc stuff, the reality is that most Prog still conforms to many traditional musical forms and rules (except the 4 minutes max one ). A good musician knows how to evoke certain emotions, moods, atmospheres, how to build tension and how to resolve it successfully, how to create drama, climax, relief, melancholy, joy, sadness, gradual depression into bottom hell, how to create mystery, how to concatenate different elements successfully and so on and on and on. From this point of view an album can be like a sonic novel, but in order to be so the elements need to be arranged in a certain order which follow a certain logic. In a good novel you will not expect to have tension building suddenly followed by melancholy without any previous resolution to the tension's climax, you will not put the tension peak before the building of the tension, nor sadness right after joy without inserting some cause for the shift from joy to sadness in between. From this point of view an album may sound incoherent if the elements are arranged in such a way which seem not to make sense. It can certainly be done so intentionally, the artist is certainly free to do it, but I suspect that there are also cases where when this happens is because the musician was not skillful or careful enough. The very good movie soundtrack specialists are masters at all these techniques precisely because the music has to follow the movie plot, so we will rarely hear a movie soundtrack and perceive it as 'incoherent' (at least in the way it actually plays in the movie, soundtracks on album frequently are not exactly the same as in the movie). I'm sure a very good musician, on hearing an album could tell us a lot about it using entirely objective arguments. We (I mean myself at least) lack those skills so we are content in saying that it's impossible to objectivitize our impressions from the music and that it's all subjective after all, but I think that's in big part only a consequence of our limitations. We as Prog lovers are surely much more open to experimentation and to unusual musical forms and rules that most casual music listeners, but we are humans after all and I guess that our brain still react as expected to many traditional musical triggers, and that we have a certain degree of mental 'coherence'  which still expects the triggered reactions to form some more or less logical patterns in our brain.

rogerthat wrote: ...  It was a technique such writers began to employ because the conventional, ultra-linear 19th century novel had run its course.  I think the act of labelling a work of art that is otherwise professionally and competently rendered only because its structure doesn't seem to fit some pre conceived notions held by the audience, lacks a necessary benefit of doubt required to account for the subjective dimensions of art.   ...

richardh wrote: Gerinski wrote: Angelo wrote: Let's do that then ;-) OK I'l start  [QUOTE=richardh]^ making you opinion sound as if it has some objective basis is one of the great 'tricks' that people try to pull off in music criticism. At the end of the day its mostly subjective but we can obviously argue around that basic point forever and a day because we are PA   Ultimately whether you like something or not (which everyone can determine regardless of their writing skills) will drive your opinion. You cannot force yourself to like something you don't like.

Walton Street wrote:   I couldn't dare say anything negative about someone else's love. It would be like saying their kids are ugly

rogerthat wrote: Gerinski wrote: That's true, incoherence is a word which applies better to things or processes which involve some rational logic and interconnection between their components, such as writing. It is easy to tell when we read something incoherent, we have trouble tying the knots and making sense of what is trying to be told, we find contradictions in the different elements or the required logic is violated. I'm not sure if we should expect music to bear also some degree of rationality or not. Perhaps there lies the question, people who do not expect any rationality from music and expect only a triggering of assorted emotions will find the term 'incoherent' not applicable for music, but people who expect a certain degree of rationality in a musical work may perceive incoherence when they can not find it. I am not sure we can generalise that way about all writing.  I would not label stream-of-consciousness writing such as James Joyce as incoherent even if it is not the kind of writing I particularly enjoy reading.  Likewise when I attempted to read Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, I found his style of employing frequent back and forths in the narrative and exploring tangents distracting and gave up.  But I would hardly call it incoherent.  It was a technique such writers began to employ because the conventional, ultra-linear 19th century novel had run its course.  I think the act of labelling a work of art that is otherwise professionally and competently rendered only because its structure doesn't seem to fit some pre conceived notions held by the audience, lacks a necessary benefit of doubt required to account for the subjective dimensions of art.  Speaking of which, I don't know that there is any evidently rational way of appreciating music.  I do know that people are quite capable of seeking rationalisations for their opinions.  Which is fine and I don't care if it makes them want to call a particular album incoherent, but if asked I would have to point out the problems with such an approach.

I really can't stand the general 'it's subjective, we can't talk about it' rhetoric when it comes up. It probably has a lot to do with me being a cognitive science researcher in real life. A cognitive scientist taking that view is tantamount to closing up shop. Stream of Consciousness writing is weird in its origin as well as it's content. It's based on a theory of literature and communication - Deconstructivism - that rejects structure as argued for in Semiotics. It offers a very problematic view of meaning that has made it a total flop as a theory of communication. Deconstructivism has been successful in that it has spawned new art forms. Stream of Consciousness writing is one of them (it's also had some influence in architecture). I would argue that it has only succeeded in creating new alternative structures, which would be a sign of internal failure since it sets out to reject all structure, though one can certainly (attempt to) appreciate its qualities without accepting the theoretical presumptions behind it. Stream of Consciousness is coherent though, just with non-standard schemas. This is strange territory indeed.

Beyond that, I have to agree with most everyone that talented discriminating musicians are unlikely to produce an incoherent album. This doesn't mean that incoherence is logically impossible, just that it doesn't have much application to reviewing music, which is admittedly what this thread is about. My interest is more in the thought processes of creating music (speaking as an amateur guitarist).

Edited by HackettFan - December 02 2014 at 17:40

HackettFan wrote: rogerthat wrote: Gerinski wrote: That's true, incoherence is a word which applies better to things or processes which involve some rational logic and interconnection between their components, such as writing. It is easy to tell when we read something incoherent, we have trouble tying the knots and making sense of what is trying to be told, we find contradictions in the different elements or the required logic is violated. I'm not sure if we should expect music to bear also some degree of rationality or not. Perhaps there lies the question, people who do not expect any rationality from music and expect only a triggering of assorted emotions will find the term 'incoherent' not applicable for music, but people who expect a certain degree of rationality in a musical work may perceive incoherence when they can not find it. I am not sure we can generalise that way about all writing.  I would not label stream-of-consciousness writing such as James Joyce as incoherent even if it is not the kind of writing I particularly enjoy reading.  Likewise when I attempted to read Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, I found his style of employing frequent back and forths in the narrative and exploring tangents distracting and gave up.  But I would hardly call it incoherent.  It was a technique such writers began to employ because the conventional, ultra-linear 19th century novel had run its course.  I think the act of labelling a work of art that is otherwise professionally and competently rendered only because its structure doesn't seem to fit some pre conceived notions held by the audience, lacks a necessary benefit of doubt required to account for the subjective dimensions of art.  Speaking of which, I don't know that there is any evidently rational way of appreciating music.  I do know that people are quite capable of seeking rationalisations for their opinions.  Which is fine and I don't care if it makes them want to call a particular album incoherent, but if asked I would have to point out the problems with such an approach.    I really can't stand the general 'it's subjective, we can't talk about it' rhetoric when it comes up. It probably has a lot to do with me being a cognitive science researcher in real life. A cognitive scientist taking that view is tantamount to closing up shop. Stream of Consciousness writing is weird in its origin as well as it's content. It's based on a theory of literature and communication - Deconstructivism - that rejects structure as argued for in Semiotics. It offers a very problematic view of meaning that has made it a total flop as a theory of communication. Deconstructivism has been successful in that it has spawned new art forms. Stream of Consciousness writing is one of them (it's also had some influence in architecture). I would argue that it has only succeeded in creating new alternative structures, which would be a sign of internal failure since it sets out to reject all structure, though one can certainly (attempt to) appreciate its qualities without accepting the theoretical presumptions behind it. Stream of Consciousness is coherent though, just with non-standard schemas. This is strange territory indeed. Beyond that, I have to agree with most everyone that talented discriminating musicians are unlikely to produce an incoherent album. This doesn't mean that incoherence is logically impossible, just that it doesn't have much application to reviewing music, which is admittedly what this thread is about. My interest is more in the thought processes of creating music (speaking as an amateur guitarist).

HackettFan wrote: rogerthat wrote: Gerinski wrote: That's true, incoherence is a word which applies better to things or processes which involve some rational logic and interconnection between their components, such as writing. It is easy to tell when we read something incoherent, we have trouble tying the knots and making sense of what is trying to be told, we find contradictions in the different elements or the required logic is violated. I'm not sure if we should expect music to bear also some degree of rationality or not. Perhaps there lies the question, people who do not expect any rationality from music and expect only a triggering of assorted emotions will find the term 'incoherent' not applicable for music, but people who expect a certain degree of rationality in a musical work may perceive incoherence when they can not find it. I am not sure we can generalise that way about all writing.  I would not label stream-of-consciousness writing such as James Joyce as incoherent even if it is not the kind of writing I particularly enjoy reading.  Likewise when I attempted to read Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, I found his style of employing frequent back and forths in the narrative and exploring tangents distracting and gave up.  But I would hardly call it incoherent.  It was a technique such writers began to employ because the conventional, ultra-linear 19th century novel had run its course.  I think the act of labelling a work of art that is otherwise professionally and competently rendered only because its structure doesn't seem to fit some pre conceived notions held by the audience, lacks a necessary benefit of doubt required to account for the subjective dimensions of art.  Speaking of which, I don't know that there is any evidently rational way of appreciating music.  I do know that people are quite capable of seeking rationalisations for their opinions.  Which is fine and I don't care if it makes them want to call a particular album incoherent, but if asked I would have to point out the problems with such an approach.    I really can't stand the general 'it's subjective, we can't talk about it' rhetoric when it comes up. It probably has a lot to do with me being a cognitive science researcher in real life. A cognitive scientist taking that view is tantamount to closing up shop. Stream of Consciousness writing is weird in its origin as well as it's content. It's based on a theory of literature and communication - Deconstructivism - that rejects structure as argued for in Semiotics. It offers a very problematic view of meaning that has made it a total flop as a theory of communication. Deconstructivism has been successful in that it has spawned new art forms. Stream of Consciousness writing is one of them (it's also had some influence in architecture). I would argue that it has only succeeded in creating new alternative structures, which would be a sign of internal failure since it sets out to reject all structure, though one can certainly (attempt to) appreciate its qualities without accepting the theoretical presumptions behind it. Stream of Consciousness is coherent though, just with non-standard schemas. This is strange territory indeed. Beyond that, I have to agree with most everyone that talented discriminating musicians are unlikely to produce an incoherent album. This doesn't mean that incoherence is logically impossible, just that it doesn't have much application to reviewing music, which is admittedly what this thread is about. My interest is more in the thought processes of creating music (speaking as an amateur guitarist).

Edited by The Dark Elf - December 02 2014 at 19:59

The Dark Elf wrote: What one might wish to ask is what the musician was trying to do (other than sell albums, of course) with his/her recording. Albums don't have to have a central theme to be coherent, and frankly most albums are not concepts (thank the mythical bearded deity above). Who is the performer trying to reach? If you think the piece in question is incoherent, perhaps you are not the audience they are trying to reach, particularly if other listeners enjoy the album.