This is an article in progress of sorts. Hopefully some of you are helped along your musical paths by it, hopefully upping the level of discourse and discussion, and at the same time hopefully your comments will be helpful in any re-working or re-writing, or future additions to it I make. :)
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Nicholas R. Andreas
Musical Interpretations and Opinions: Observations and Criticisms
What makes you value one person’s opinions over another? Is it that the person you value is more experienced in a certain field, or is it because the person you disregard is considered stupid? No matter what reason you give for trusting the opinion of one person over another, a very important thing to remember is that either there can be no truly right answer, or in some cases the stupidest, most inexperienced person could come up with the right answer while their counterpart may not. This all remains true when applied to the great subjective field of music. Battles rage over what is music and what is not, and what kinds of music are better than others, and within those genres which performer or band is king. I do not intend to crown anyone with my argument, I simply aim to show that you can not prove or disprove the opinions of myself or others, and there is a civilized manner in which we can all get along and discuss music in order to connect one another with what we wish to hear.
Music plays a unique role in every one of us. In some it is a way of life, often times the means to live, in others the few notes an elevator plays while they descend a few floors is a noisy nuisance. Most people who read this will be the former, however to understand all that follows one must not criticize the latter. Like most other things people should primarily judge something like music in terms of how it affects their lives, and they should not overly concern themselves with how it affects others. I’m sure we all know someone who is caught in disbelief when a friend professes a love or hate or a certain genre of music, I’ve often caught myself wondering how someone can believe such a thing! However it’s important to take a step back and examine a few key points. Firstly, one person does hold some absolute truth in what music is good or bad, and so you must always be open to the fact that the opinion in question has just as much validity as your own beliefs. Next it is important to remember that there is no reason other persons opinions on music have to be compared against your core beliefs. A fan of country who meets a fan of gangster rap probably should not even try to engage in a musical discussion. It is often best to recognize differences and leave well enough alone. Both fans will have little to gain from the other, and they would be best to simply realize that music obviously has different meaning to each of them, and continue on without additional need to argue. Is this to say there is absolutely nothing could be gained by conversation between the two fans? Absolutely not. Between any two genres common ground can be found, however there will always be a point when a threshold is reached and participants must realize that their fundamental approach to music will prohibit much further progress.
But what about those who listen to all types of music? There are those who pride themselves in exploring as many different types of music as possible, and that certainly is a noble goal. One certain benefit is that you may truly find what you enjoy, the more diverse your experiences the more styles you will have to choose from. However it is important to be wary of a superiority complex that often develops from this type of exploration. Although a person may have experienced more bands or styles than another person, this does not make their opinion on a matter any more correct than someone far less experienced. I will show this using a proof that will be seen many times throughout the argument. Let us begin by saying there are three people, A, B, and C. Person A listens to two bands within two genres. Person B listens to those two genres, four bands, however he also listens to an additional band in each genre, and an additional genre with three bands, meaning he listens to three genres and three bands within each genre. Person C likewise listens to four genres and four bands in each genre, including all those person B and A listen to. Person B believes his opinions are automatically superior to person A because he has experienced more music. However person C says the same thing about person B and all three people hold different opinions about the bands and genres they have in common. Two rules can be taken out of this. First, there will always be someone out there who has experienced all the music you have and more, whose opinions will differ from yours, so by your own logic of superiority, you have just proven music to be completely subjective. Secondly, even on the bands that all three people hold common, opinions on the bands material will be different, despite the scope of their experience.
This brings me to an interesting point, some people’s need to compare music against other music in order to give it any value whatsoever. Now some reasons for comparison are valid, while I find others are of more use as observations than as a basis for rating music. I will use a classic case of a band recreating its own sound again and again. Often it is said that album D is bad because it sounds just like album A, B, and C which came before it. However this is a bad argument. When rating the music of album D one should not take into effect the albums A, B, and C, because you are rating simply the music on album D. This type of criticism should be reserved for the artists, not for individual albums. One should say that album D is very good, but that it is basically the same as the previous work from the artists. In other cases people argue that an album is bad because it does not sound like the earlier work of the band. I believe this is also a mistake, and that a listener should take a new album into consideration objectively, without pre-conceived notions about what it should sound like. I have found it has often been the case that fans of a band often overlook entire albums or sections of a bands career because a few songs on a record strayed from what they thought it should be. It is important to judge a new sound objectively, not automatically judge it bad because it is not what you expected or wanted. Comparing one piece of music to another should be for mainly analytical purposes, to help describe a piece of music. Kevin Martell makes two interesting points about the importance of being able to compare music in a good way when he says, “My natural reaction to, say, POW (Prophets of War, Dream Theater) is that the lyrics aren't very good, why shouldn't I be able to express that? I'm not saying that I could do better than JLB (James LaBrie), I'm just saying that in comparison to the thousands of other lyrics I've heard, I thought that his lyrics were not very good.” The first point is that it is certainly important to be able to compare music when describing what qualities you like and dislike in music, or in this case lyrics. The second point which I shall go more in depth on later is that one must not be a musician to criticize musicians. Not only is their opinion still subjective, but you can actively compare musicians to other musicians without yourself being a musician.
Next we will discuss more in depth discussing music with different groups and types of people. The most common type of ‘elitist’ one might encounter is a musician. Not to say all musicians are snobs or elitists, but many have a tendency to be. Many believe that because they play an instrument their opinion on a piece of music is worth more than someone who has never struck a single note. They are certainly wrong. It is fully understandable that playing an instrument, or multiple instruments can greatly influence how you perceive music, on how you rate music, or how much you like a certain piece of music, but that does not give that person a higher opinion on how good or bad a piece of music may be. Playing an instrument, or knowing how to write or create music may give a person a greater understand of what is going on within a piece of music, to more greatly grasp its composition, however it does not make their ears superior in detecting what is good or bad. In some cases it could even be argued that playing a particular instrument or instruments can bias a person when it comes to rating music. Many guitar players will rate the music of an average band with an amazing guitar player over that of a band with amazing music and an average guitar player. Their understanding of the guitar will lead them to side with the particular aspect of the music instead of their own subverted thoughts on the music as a whole. However one thing it certainly does give them a higher degree of credibility is rating the musicianship of a piece of music. As I said, the end sound is subjective to all ears, but the technical proficiency that went into creating that sound is better rated by musicians. Although I most go back to my opening comments and remind everyone that just because someone with higher credentials says something about the musicianship of an album does not make them correct, the odds are simply in their favor due to a better grasp of the concepts behind the music.
Have you ever met someone who is over-opinionated and confident about their opinions on music? Sure you have, because we’ve all been guilty of it at one point or another. I know I’ve even been guilty of some of the other things I’ve railed against in this paper, as I’m sure most everyone reading it has. However on this point there are certainly those who are persistent in their ignorance. There are those who you approach with an opinion and they return with, “How can you *possibly* believe that?” They find it incomprehensible that someone could even think about holding an opinion so far off from their own. This could be when discussing genres within music, artists within a genre, albums within an artist, or songs within an album. They are a very odd bunch who often draws obscure lines in the sand, having perfect discussion when the opinions vary only slightly from their own, but when you vary farther they are aghast in disbelief. It is once again a case of self-contradiction. It would be one thing if you simply said that your points and opinions are right, and all others are wrong, a type of opinion exclusivism that would need an entirely different paper to counter, but one you’ve opened to the possibility that other opinions are valid, you must consider that all other opinions on a piece of music could reasonably be valid.
Next we will explore how we use other people to further our own musical expansion. Is it wrong to value the opinion of one person over another considering all opinions on music are subjective? Of course not. Assuming yourself as person A, and two friends as persons B and C, consider yourself in the market for buying a CD by a band completely new to you. B and C recommend you two different artists, how do you choose? I would argue it is logical to side with whomever you’ve had best results with, and have similar tastes with. You may say, “But Nick, you’ve spent several pages saying that all opinions should be treated equally. Yes, except when you choose the recommendation of friend B above that of friend C it’s because you believe that friend B’s recommendation has a greater chance of giving you satisfaction, not because his opinion is worth more. You are not saying that you believe that the band in question for recommendation B is automatically greater than the band in question for recommendation B, you are simply stating that you have, based on prior experience and your own personally objective opinions on music, a greater chance of enjoying it. Although it is important to remember that opinions on music within a group are subjective, your singular opinions are still objective. There is nothing wrong with your personal opinions, or how you value the opinions of those around you, it is simply important to remember that in the grand scheme of things, that in an open musical discussion that all the opinions are valid, even if you don’t agree with them.
Now, some people use a valuable tool in furthering their music collection, while others use that same tool in much less effective and often counterproductive manners. This tool is of course genres. With thousands of bands out there it’s hard to be completely against the concept of genres, grouping similar bands together under one banner, but there are certainly reasons some music fans are weary of them. Used properly, genres can be a valuable tool for exploring music, whether you are looking to expand within a genre or into new genres. I think the key to using genres properly is to allow them to be a series of observations about the music, while completely disregarding your personal preferences on those qualities. People can then use these descriptive properties to decide which genres they believe will interest themselves the most and can go on from there. A big problem arises in music discussion when genres are classified as simply good or bad for a multitude of reasons. First off even people who love a genre will generally admit to many bad acts within it, and the opposite is true, they will usually, though are less likely to, admit to good acts within genres they despise. Also people can use this good genre bad genre mantra to easily credit or discredit acts. Even if they don’t fit typical qualities of a genre people are quick to throw bands into a genre they discredit if they don’t like the particular act. Sometimes people even side so far with genres they limit themselves away from acts they would otherwise enjoy. If they feel some people may think an act is a certain genre which they have claimed is worthless, they will not explore that act, even if that particular act has many qualities which in fact they would enjoy. Personally I have had contact mostly with people we eat, drink, and swear by metal, and I find it sad that they take offense to something if you say it is not metal, because they automatically equate it with, “not good”.
One particular genre though, requires special attention, or as I’ll try to point out, no attention. Pop. Simply short for popular music this genre does not have a single underlying, unifying quality except that it is currently popular. This is not a genre, nor should it be an insult amongst fans of real genres that happen to be less popular. It’s important to note that pop can come from any genre and one must look past that superficial label in describing the label. Now I should note that something can have a “pop” sound if using it as a synonym for catchy, but that is not what we’re dealing with here. It amazes me that someone will label something as pop if they want to discredit it. Pop is simply whatever the masses are following at any given time, and it can be in line with qualities you enjoy or those that you don’t, what is important is that you look past that label to the music. Remember, your favorite band, you know, the one that you and a handful of other people are the only die hard fans of… that band could take off tomorrow, become the most popular band in the world… would that make them any worse in your eyes? It certainly shouldn’t, you’d be a fool taking a bands popularity in account when analyzing the music. One might be surprised how often they themselves do this when taking into account bands or songs. Often it is done subconsciously; sometimes we say that we don’t like a song because we’ve heard it on the radio a billion times. Often it is the case that we enjoy the song, it is simply that we are tired of hearing it. Many people rule out a band because of its popularity or because of the type of fan-base it tends to attract. Why? Sure, most of Hannah Montana’s fans are teenage girls, but that alone is not a proper reason to dislike Hannah Montana, however much it might be our first reaction to do so we can not judge the quality of music in a definite sense without ever hearing it. We must hear Hannah Montana’s music, and then most people who are not teenage girls will decide that they do not enjoy her music. This may seem like an unnecessary step for some, saying that everything else they ever saw these girls flocking over was bad, but the point remains to form a proper opinion on the music itself, we must judge only the music itself, not its popularity, following, or genre.
All things previously discussed lead into one focal point of this paper, the concept of close-mindedness. There are many different definitions of it, usually fitting for whomever is currently slugging it around, and there are many situations in which people try to use it, but here now I will try and give my best interpretation of what it is to be close-minded when it comes to music. First I will say that we are all victim to it, there is absolutely no avoiding it at times, we are often consciously and subconsciously close-minded in many of our music related discussions and decisions, it is inevitable. Being close minded is judging music on something other than the music. It is judging a piece of music on the fans it attracts, it is judging a piece of music against your expectations, it is judging a piece of music against prior work of the band. Being close minded is many things, but basically, it is judging music on anything but the music itself. It is not an obvious outward hatred that many people view it is, it is on the other hand an internal struggle between relating what you know to what you are hearing. It would be incredibly difficult to clear your mind to a point where you could listen to a piece of music for the first time without any pre-conceived notions, without any ideas of what sounds good to you, and without any ideas about what you want, and because of that it is almost impossible to listen to a piece of music without some small degree of close-mindedness. Sure, as I have defined it some people are certainly guiltier of than others, if guilty is truly the word for this occasion. For is being guilty of it a bad thing? Not necessarily. I see a strong close-mindedness associated with someone in a time where they want to better explore what they know, what they are familiar with, and what they can expect. On the other hand I view someone who is more open-minded (or as I have defined it, less close-minded), as someone who is willing to simply take more chances, and to take the unexpected. Both these modes of exploration offer great reward, and there is little reason for bickering between those who claim to be one or the other, because at the end of the day both can probably say they are enjoying a great deal of music. Yes, the open-minded people will be enjoying a wider variety of music, there is little reason to try and argue this, but that does not mean that the more close-minded people can’t be enjoying their less diverse music just as much if not more.
Close-mindedness, and its close sibling elitism are often discussed when the issue of growing out of music is brought up. I have found there are typically three types of people regarding the issue at hand. The first type despises everything they used to like. As they expand into new music, most often of different genres they look down upon the music they used to enjoy, and those who still like their old music, often calling them close-minded. A second group tends to be very balanced, expanding into new bands and genres while enjoying everything they had in the past. A third group finds it extremely different to find new sounds and music which can live up to the standard they are used to. Are any of these right or wrong? Inherently no, but there are generally faults to the two extremes. The first group usually suffers from elitism, thinking that if they are not constantly expanding, and finding music that is better than whatever they were listening to last year, they have somehow failed in their musical quest. They are also usually the quickest to offer up snobbery whenever a musical discussion is at hand. The third group usually has a small hard shell that is nearly impossible to break. Set on their style or styles of music it is incredibly difficult for them to gauge a band outside of their safe zone without heavy bias. I think it is important to come from the poles towards the center group. Don’t feel a need to expand, but give new sounds and ideas a fresh and open-minded listen. Also realize that style does not necessarily determine quality, and on the other hand try to keep in mind that what you used to like should in some way be measured on the same scale as what you currently like.
Through all this one thing we should step back and realize is music is generally made to be enjoyed, in one context or another. Because of that there is certainly a time to sit back, relax, and simply enjoy music without analyzing it on a hundred different levels as this article has. Musicians are notorious for over analyzing things, but someone who has never touched an instrument can be just as guilty. There are times we all need to simply forget what we know, forgot what others think completely, and just see if we can enjoy a piece of music at its most basic level. If you can do that, you might just learn new things about music you have, and as an added bonus you might learn a thing or two about yourself.
In the end I’d simply like to say that music isn’t about telling people what the best is, and it is definitely not about telling them what they are supposed to like. Instead music should be looked upon as a journey, and all of those along that journey should look to help others along that journey in whatever way we possibly can. Your own personal opinions and preferences should not be disregarded, it is just that they should not be used to try and overrule the opinions of others. Instead they should be used to forge a common understanding on which both parties can benefit in their exploration.
Edited by Xanadu3737 - February 22 2009 at 22:46
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Musical Interpretations and Opinions: Observations
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Xanadu3737 wrote:
