[removed]
Last edited by Feryl (Feb 19, 2024 8:40 pm)
Offline
San Diego, CA
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/20 … -criticism
You are all correct in the wrong ways always and never
Offline
Feryl wrote:
As far as perception goes, of course everything we know is filtered through our individual beliefs, thoughts, and experiences (since we are ourselves); but does that preclude the notion of objective truth / reality existing on its own, as something we can choose to see or not to see?
According to a certain belief system I'm familiar with, by the time everyone accepts the same objective truth about reality, all living souls will be devoid of bodies and transcending to a higher state of being, away from the cycle of reincarnations. And it also has something to do with the Buddha of future times or something.
it all might be a funny way to say "it's not gonna happen".
Offline
Sweden
Feryl wrote:
boomlinde wrote:Even if you think that the point of expressing an opinion or reviewing music is to establish or maintain some sort of objective means to judge things, you still have to agree that these things fail horribly at that.
Why do I have to agree to that? I often find music reviews to be decently helpful in judging what I should or should not spend my time checking out. Obviously, you'd look for specific things which can be measured objectively, like 1) how repetitive is the album? 2) is there anything particularly interesting or creative about it compared to most other albums of its kind?
How can those thing be measured objectively. I mean, you can definitely measure repetition, but not in the sense that a person will find something repetitive or not. Interesting or creative? Just not objective qualities at all.
Feryl wrote:
That's another thing I'd like to stress... even if (as we haven't agreed, it seems) one song is objectively better-composed than another, than doesn't mean the listener has conditioned himself to enjoy that kind of song (which you can do, by the way... the more you listen to a song or genre, the more you find yourself enjoying it).
Now, the way I understand it, most of you seem to think that music cannot be approached objectively because (in part) its purpose is only to satisfy the different subjective tastes that people have, which are often wildly different from one another.
I agree that music can be approached objectively to some extent, but the objective qualities which we are able to measure say very little about the inherent beauty or praiseworthiness of the music. Even if we come to terms with an objective definition of what it means for music to be interesting, that won't say anything about whether we enjoy it in any other terms.
Feryl wrote:
As far as perception goes, of course everything we know is filtered through our individual beliefs, thoughts, and experiences (since we are ourselves); but does that preclude the notion of objective truth / reality existing on its own, as something we can choose to see or not to see?
It doesn't preclude the notion of objective truth, but more importantly for the sake of this discussion, it makes your apparently strongly held belief that some music is objectively worse than others seem unreasonable and almost religious. That is a fair basis for a personal belief, but as a basis for telling other people that they are wrong it seems both arrogant and ignorant to me. The non-precluded notion that objective truth might exist adds about as much to your argument as the non-precluded notion that there might be an almighty god that decides what is beautiful.
You have only experienced a tiny fraction of what could possibly be experienced in the tiny fraction of time in the tiny fraction of locations that you have visited in this tiny fraction of the universe, and from this limited view you talk about universal beauty as if it is something that you could even comprehend if it existed. You don't have to travel very far to experience cultures where the notion of beauty is utterly incompatible with the one developed in western musical tradition.
Last edited by boomlinde (Dec 25, 2014 3:56 pm)
Offline
spacetownsavior wrote:
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/20 … -criticism
You are all correct in the wrong ways always and never
its hard to see what possible motive a music critic on a music critics website might have for writing a massive piece about why music criticism is super important and vital shit that you have to be really clever to do
Offline
Los Angeles, CA
sandneil wrote:
spacetownsavior wrote:http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/20 … -criticism
You are all correct in the wrong ways always and never
its hard to see what possible motive a music critic on a music critics website might have for writing a massive piece about why music criticism is super important and vital shit that you have to be really clever to do
u sandneil. That Owen Pallett article linked in there is pretty good though.
Offline
San Diego, CA
sandneil wrote:
its hard to see what possible motive a music critic on a music critics website might have for writing a massive piece about why music criticism is super important and vital shit that you have to be really clever to do
come on that's a little reductionist
like tinymixtapes is one of the better sites re: music writing and self-awareness
and the piece reads to me more like a call to action for other websites to step it up, as opposed to attempting to elevate music criticism's social capital
that doesn't really matter though, the point is that both objectivity and subjectivity have their place when evaluating music, and it's important to examine where each fits in
that's all
so all of you are correct
Last edited by spacetownsavior (Dec 25, 2014 6:31 pm)
Offline
Hey. Sorry if it's bad protocol to resurrect a slightly dated thread but I want to say something and I'm just going to anyway.
OP, I've asked myself that question for a long time. It comes down to if you love doing it, like doing it, and where you see yourself in relation to the given culture. You know, I've had my own site for almost four years, I pay my monthly fee to keep my domain, I then give away all of my music such as it is for free. Even in all that time, nobody knows me, I know I'm not particularly talented, and yet I still press on. Why? Because it makes me feel good. What else matters? Would it break your spirit if someone tells you that they listened to your tunes, and found them simple, boring, poor for x number of reasons, etc? If so, that's a good time to consider yourself and the reason you wanted to create music in the first place. It's just my opinion that if the central focus of making music is for praise and recognition, you are not in the best place. If on the other hand you genuinely love electronic and chip music, in particular making your own creation just because you can, then why not? If there's little consideration to gains and losses, it then comes down to self satisfaction. Take me, I don't care if nobody ever knows me, I make chiptune, and am proud to be an active part of that culture. I can look at my tunes at any point and just feel awesome that I did something, created something that I can see and hear that nobody else has.
I'm sorry for the rambling, but basically, if you derive any satisfaction from making your own music, that's all that should really matter. You said you don't much like your own tunes. Based on what metric really? How about using none, make your tune, enjoy the process, and leave it right there? Besides, if you listen to your own tunes and are not satisfied, this is part of the fun. Make it satisfactory enough that you don't mind jamming it in your own car. If you truly find you don't enjoy making your own music, then no, I suppose it makes no more sense than say crafting furniture out of wood but in the end find that you hate using tools or smelling sawdust. I would just urge you that if you love chip music and can in any way enjoy simply making it, don't fret so hard on perceptions of good or not good, just keep doing it. Creation of anything does wonders for the soul.
/end ramble
Last edited by bitpusher2600 (Feb 18, 2015 4:10 pm)
Offline
Chips & Dip :3
ForaBrokenEarth wrote:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You've just gotta fight your way through.”
Ira Glass
^^ THIS ^^