"I like this music" vs. "this music's goo

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   ^^^ Who told you mr andu that Tarkovskiy and Fellini movies are GOOD??? And how dare you call these movies good in "an objective sense". IMO Tarkovskiy is Genius and his every movie is a Masterpiece, and this what I call GOOD. As to Fellini - I wasted my time while watching his films (several attempts to get something out of it with no positive effect), and I would never ever call them good, leave alone recommending it to somebody, despite all the critics in the world might praise them to the sky. You obviously mixing up two different things: "critically acclaimed" and "good/like it".  

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eugene Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 30 2005 Location: Ukraine Status: Offline Points: 2703	Posted: November 23 2006 at 07:47
	^^^ Who told you mr andu that Tarkovskiy and Fellini movies are GOOD??? And how dare you call these movies good in "an objective sense". IMO Tarkovskiy is Genius and his every movie is a Masterpiece, and this what I call GOOD. As to Fellini - I wasted my time while watching his films (several attempts to get something out of it with no positive effect), and I would never ever call them good, leave alone recommending it to somebody, despite all the critics in the world might praise them to the sky. You obviously mixing up two different things: "critically acclaimed" and "good/like it".
	carefulwiththataxe

andu Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: September 27 2006 Location: Romania Status: Offline Points: 3089	Posted: November 23 2006 at 07:26
	@Moatilliatta It's not quite simple with the food allegory. Both you and the chef are entitled to state your positions: you, that the food was good, him, the fas was not good. You, because the food suited your taste and hunger; him, because he knows the dish wasn't up to the recipe's standards. So, when someone says something's "good", he needs to also state the criteria he's using, because they may be personal criteria and more objective ones. Some people, like I do, use both type of criteria and making things clear is important. For example, im my case a GOOD movie, in an objective sense, is a movie by Tarkovsky, Fellini, etc. But one night a good entertaining action movie would also be GOOD, don't you think? Lesson: always explain your reasons, don't just throw verdicts (this is not adressed to you, moatilliata ) @NotSoKoolAid "Well, i don't like it but it's definitely good" - I think this kind of reactions define maturity and/or common sense, maybe that's why they're so underrated

Wilcey Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: August 11 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 2696	Posted: November 23 2006 at 07:07
	gosh some very wordy answers to what I percieved to be a simple question! If you like a piece of music, then YOU like it, and YOU can NEVER EVER be wrong, because only YOU can judge wether you like it or not. As to wether it is good or not........ well, there is poorly executed music out there, there really is, but even the poorest can still be enjoyed by people, and that's ok. When I get angry reading comments on the forums, is when someone might say "X" are rubbish, they are no good" when tens or hundreds of thousands of record buyers obviously found something valid in "X" so therefore it should really simply be the case that "X" are not to the taste of that person. I don't mind if someone says they don't like my favourite bands, but I feel justifiably annoyed when folk say my favourite bands are rubbish! P-C x

eugene Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 30 2005 Location: Ukraine Status: Offline Points: 2703	Posted: November 23 2006 at 05:49
	I might have a simplistic approach to this matter, but I honestly believe that when a person saying "I like it" he should mean "It's good" and vice versa, unless this person is utter hypocrite. Any evaluation of piece of art is totally subjective and can't be otherwise, therefore I am always trying to say "it's good IMO" when I like it, and even when omitting "IMO" I definitely mean it. From other hand when I hear somebody stating "Oh, it's soooo good but I don't like a single minute of it" - I conclude that the person is either liar or hasn't got a clue what he is talking about, in a sense that it can't be good for him, unless he likes it. Same goes to the ridiculous statements such as "I respect this band but hate the music they making". What the hell someone would respect a band for, if he hates what they doing??? Once at an exhibition I saw a woman staring at the painting, and she was seemingly enchanted by what she saw, and was declaring something like "Oh, so great expression and skills..." etc etc etc in very technical details, but when after I asked her if she really liked it, - she said "No, hell no.." It was pure flattery towards artist and blatant hypocrisy from her side.
	carefulwiththataxe

MikeEnRegalia Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 21847	Posted: November 23 2006 at 05:00
	I don't really believe in objective criteria to measure the quality of music. Of course these criteria exist, and each one makes sense logically. But even if a piece of music is of high quality as determined by applying these criteria, it doesn't mean that someone will like it. Even people who have a good education in music and know the criteria and what they mean might not like such a piece of "high quality" music ... and they might totally love a piece of music which is of a low quality objectively, breaking most rules established by musical theory. So: While I think that these criteria exist I try to ignore them when "judging" music.
	Release Polls Listened to:

CaptainWafflos Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: August 09 2005 Status: Offline Points: 213	Posted: November 23 2006 at 03:52
	Think of a blade of grass. Most people would agree that grass itself is green, but in fact, it is not inherently green. Grass contains chlorophyll, which tends to reflect certain energy waves that fall under the visible spectrum that most of us see as green. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that all of us see grass as green. Consider someone who has red-green color blindness, for example. They may actually see grass is a different color. Of course, "grass is green" is a bit less wordy than "gee, the chlorophyll in that grass is reflecting waves at a certain wavelength that cause me to have an internal experience allowing me to see green," so it's obvious why simplicity is preferred. Music cannot be inherently bad, nor can it be good, simply because there are so many ways of interpretting the quality of music. There is no rule that states that music that uses creative chord progressions is better than a piece of popular music that relies on I-IV-V alone. Nor is there any rule that states that a piece of music utilizing dissonance for its own sake is superior to another piece of music that does not. Consider the following quote by Nietzsche: "We all think that a work of art, an artist, is proved to be of high quality if it seizes hold on us and profoundly moves us. But for this to be so our own high quality in judgment and sensibility would first have to have been proved: which is not the case." Thus, I suppose an individual could say that calling a piece of music good or bad could be considered arrogant, but I don't think that's usually the intention. I don't think anyone has the belief that they can express an end-all objective opinion on music by simply attempting to judge its inherent quality. I think it's more an issue of semantics than anything. I tend to prefer saying that I enjoy or dislike a work of art rather than attempting to judge its inherent quality because the latter is simply impossible to do. But when I'm listening to others' speech, I pretty much consider the two phrases to mean basically the same thing. Edited by CaptainWafflos - November 23 2006 at 03:52

Certif1ed Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 08 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 7559	Posted: November 23 2006 at 03:19
	It's the difference between expressing your personal taste based on the way a piece of music makes you feel, versus measuring quality based on technical criteria. Obviously, this is not black and white - and cannot be, as even those observing technical criteria to the letter are bound by taste to some extent - it may be that a technique is excercised precisely, but the precision itself is what stops it feeling as musical as it might. The technical criteria you use to judge music are based on your experiences - so someone who has only studied music will use a different, more cerebral set to someone who has only played "from the heart" - and different again to someone who has never studied or played. Also, it depends upon how you excercise these criteria, and the context. There is, for example, no point using the same measurements to assess the quality of ABBA's music that you would use when assessing the music of Beethoven - although one could usefully use an appropriate subset. For example, you wouldn't waste time exploring ABBA's development of themes or motifs, but you might examine the arrangements and harmonic progressions and discover interesting little quirks that make ABBA's compositions stand out from other pop music of the time. So it is useful to decide the context of the piece of music before coming to any judgement of quality; for example, the Sex Pistols wrote great punk rock music, and many fans of the Sex Pistols might think that both Beethoven and ABBA wrote awful music. To sum up, quality is about measurements of technique - such as execution in performance and composition, and originality of thought in the approach to style. If you understand why aspects of technique are one of the most beautiful things you can listen for in compositions, then that is very lucky - as you get something very special out of music that people who don't understand this cannot get. They like it, and that's enough to make it good. And that's a conclusion that educated people can come to as well Edited by Certif1ed - November 23 2006 at 03:21
	The important thing is not to stop questioning.

gong Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: August 07 2006 Location: Neutral Zone Status: Offline Points: 366	Posted: November 23 2006 at 02:43
	i think thats all subjective. for example, so many times i heard/read the interviews given by many of serious musicians who are playing Classical music, where they went to proclaim that they personally like to listen music as ABBA, or something like that; i never heard somebody of them to say, for example, "Oh, I'm crazy for King Crimson!"; ok, many of them like it, i supposed that, but i put this little story only for example. thats all subjective, IMO, and to come apart from an education.

NotSoKoolAid Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: August 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 507	Posted: November 23 2006 at 02:00
	Call me a weirdo, but for me it is easy for me to appreciate something for an artistic quality, even if I don't actually enjoy it and it's not my thing. The average person would not be able to do that, not to be bragadocious. People look at me strange when I say things like "Well its good, but I don't particularly enjoy it." Is that what you mean? It's a hopeless case. Edited by NotSoKoolAid - November 23 2006 at 02:01

Moatilliatta Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Prog Reviewer Joined: December 01 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3083	Posted: November 23 2006 at 00:56
	I have always had a tough time handling this with other people. It's ard to really define the difference, because it is subjective. I could tell everybody they need to quit saying what they like is "good," when any musician and/or prog fan would consider it mediocre. At the same time, I could eat a meal and call it delicious, but then a professional renowned chef can eat the same meal and make so many critiques on the meal, and he obviously knowns better than I do the way certain foods should be cooked. Everything in this world could cause this issue. So, I suppose it's really futile to gripe about it, even if you know you're right on multiple levels. Heck, the people you're trying to get across to won't even accept let alone understand what you would tell them. People get different things out of the same material, and not everybody is open minded. This has been something I've had on my mind now and then, and it's cool to see that someone else has been contemplating it as well.

epictetus1 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Groupie Joined: September 04 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 52	Posted: November 22 2006 at 23:35
	Art is meant to be enjoyed and not rated. Art (including music) is enjoyed through mental processing and each person's perceptions are unique and so is the experience one has in apreciating art. You either have an emotional connection with the music or you do not, regardless of others opinions. It truly is subjective. I do not enjoy Barbara Streisand or opera singers, but intellectually I know they are very skilled and popular. I just do not make that emotional connection.

The T Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 16 2006 Location: FL, USA Status: Offline Points: 17493	Posted: November 22 2006 at 23:11
	What do you think of the expressions: "I think this music is good"... or: "I LIKE this music"... Do you think they are or should be equivalent? Many people (for my pont of view) confuse quality with their subjective feelings towards a work of art. I myself have things I don't like but know them to be good, and things I know are nothing to write your lost uncle about but that somehow entertain me, so I like them. Is it correct to associate one's personal feelings towards a piece of art with the quality level it has? Is it because the term "quality" has also a pure subjective meaning? Or is there true, objective quality? For example, when I see people dance (like in ballet or whatever) I can say "I like that" but I dare not say "oh she's good" because I don't know what the heel I am talking about... Would persons that have studied a subject be more qualified to, again, qualify the artistic merits of a piece of art? Is it everything subjective? What is your opinion?