Is Good Music Really Completely SUBJECTIVE?
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
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There's an interview with ?uestlove where he basically says that he doesn't believe music is "good" or "bad", but rather effective vs. ineffective.
good and bad are not intrinsic to anything, they are merely shorthand for "does x accomplish y goal." if x accomplishes y, x is good, if not, it is bad. the problem with just using good and bad is that it completely assumes everyone is working with the same y goal, which is never true. this is why everything is subjective given the infinitely varied goals between individuals. its only objective once a goal has been established, and examined within that framework alone. i wish more people were as wise as questlove, ah well
Great topic! You are spot on in my humble opinion. The style of music is a biggie for sure. I think giving people enough of what they expect to hear but with a new twist. So, follow the rules or at least know them but never be afraid to break them when it feels right or just works, sort of like the "IT" factor. Lastly, I truly believe elements of any style lets say Pop since, that is the style here, can be applied to ANY other style of many styles if done correctly. A good thing to mention here also is to at least listen to many styles and FIND things you do like and apply it to what you are doing. So, if all you do is listen to metal and write metal, I feel that is a severe handicap to your songwriting development. However, add classical to it and voila you have Yngwie! You are also right about solos in music. Even guys like Steve Vai can't get air play and has to tour overseas to make a living But, write a memorable 3 minute banger and it's like gold dust! `Jeff
Great comment, Jeff, thanks! I agree whole-heartedly. Your mention of
metal music reminded me of Katy Perry's ET, where you can hear Max
Martin's background in metal music.
Jeff Whitner completely agree, having a broader influence helps ur writing a lot!
Yeah, and it gives you more music to enjoy because you know you will find some new stuff you like or missed. There is so much cross over appeal with writing techniques. Like going into to half time is a Heavy Metal staple BUT, Elvis used that technique on the song Suspicious Minds. In both cases it grabs you by the ear because it is a very powerful sounding change. Cool stuff!
I love this channel so much. It's really grown on me. I may not be writing "Commercial Music" but the amount of refinement in Modern Pop songwriting really helps ANY style of music, and your channel does such an interesting job of teaching those essential concepts.
It's interesting that Dangerous Woman and Exs and Ohs both have guitar solos
i love your channel dude, keep on going!
Question :) -- How do you write songs to share a moral message without making the audience feel like you're preaching?
Laura Kaye Music 8 Don't tell us "4." Tell us "2+2" then we'll think four on our own and it won't be preachy.
That's great advice!! Seriously, concise and perfect way to say it, thank you 😊
Laura Kaye Music 8 I heard it from a ted talk methinks, but you're welcome.
I like how it's ordinary sound that doesn't make me feel anything at all bad or good.
What do think about all the heavy use of Auto Tune?
Pop music is really hitting it hard?
I'm a 27 year old guy and I enjoy Shawn mendez. I'm a little embarrassed lol
Not that I'm judging but Shawn Mendez seems to be a weird case, because I know people who, like you, like him, despite the remaining music that they listen has nothing to do with Shawn xD
he makes GOOD MUSIC though
There's way too much philosophy that belies a question like this, but in short, every piece of music, every song, every note, every frequency, literally every material thing in existence is objective. They all exist, objectively (as long as we assume our abilities to perceive them are reliable). Conceptualizations (in the case of music, these would be "the arrangements of those material sounds that make good or bad songs') are not material, and they are borne out of value systems. So, the question gets metaphysical in that it asks "are values objective?" I don't think it's fair for anyone to assert with any kind of certainty whether values are truly subjective or objective. We know we see trends in human behavior. We know we see exceptions in human behavior. We know obviously that different people place different amounts of value on the same things. But then, different people are composed of entirely different variables and circumstances.
So, it's like, are we looking at a world where objective values exist (which explains majority trends) and there are unexplained variances? Or are we looking at a world made entirely of subjective values (explains the variance) that for unknown reasons contains enough objectivity to reliably translate into trends? I believe it's too complicated to simply claim the book is closed and that we know one way or the other whether or not human value systems are coming from an objective place that we can't perceive. We certainly observe both subjectivity and objectivity in value systems.
What makes it super complicated is that there will never be a piece of music or art that will be universally beloved or hated no matter how critical acclaimed or reviled it is.
However I firmly believe how good or bad a piece of music is, is entirely subjective and down to the listener, and the influence those critically-acclaimed albums had were because of a bunch of critics agreeing on their own subjective standards of what makes something good (more often than not originality and rebellion against current musical norms, no matter how it sounds) not to mention bandwagoning in almost half of cases
Just my theory tho
Dobstep music was by Kelly Rowland’s song when love takes over
Way down we go has a nice guitar solo and its on the radio.
Kick Bam Well, it was still kept to 4 tiny mesures of solo
Even though I agree with your points, you seem to have deviated a bit from the original question.
Being a rock / metal fan such as me wouldn't you be tempted to say rock / metal musicians have more talent and therefore better music? Because the songwriting itself (not in all cases) and the instruments used are far more advanced and more intellectual than standard pop.
When I was a kid I used to listen to pop and R&B and whatever felt "catchy" in those days, but then again, I didn't pay attention to songwriting nor lyrics, from the moment I started to play guitar, study music and pay more attention to how that music is made and the efforts put into it, I can never listen to it in the same way as before, therefore having progressed towards rock and metal.
In other words, I understand your studies about how artists think and how their way of being influences the music they produce, but would you really say that despite personal taste a Dream Theater song such as Change of Seasons can be just as "good" as Nicki Minaj's Anaconda?
I swear I try to respect the other styles and the artists, but I can't seem to get my around this and accept the latter as "good" music.
Unfortunately yes, it can be as good. I mean this with absolutely no personal offense to you, but Progressive Metal fans are usually some of the worst at accepting other view points. Dream Theater fans, Tool fans, Animals As Leaders fans, etc. The music they make while technically difficult can elicit as little or as much emotion into someone as that person will accept. I like to think of Dream Theater like I think of shoveling snow with a small shovel versus plowing snow with an expensive snow plow-one is more difficult but achieves the same result, and most don't care in the end. That can be for a lot of people how bands like that are. The members of Dream Theater are incredibly talented, but often the progressive sounding parts of their songs don't interest me, they just either bore me or sound like musical ego stroking. And yes I can musically understand what's going on before anyone asks, I have a bachelor's degree in sound recording with full theory training (not from Full Sail ;) ). It's not about being educated though, it's simply what that particular person finds more appealing either in general, or in that moment-the mood their in. I feel your struggle, but unfortunately emotions cannot be truly quantized into some grading rubric. How you walk away from a song feeling, and to what degree, is ultimately what people use to judge most of their listening experiences. To be fair also this may sound like blasphemy lol, but the theory behind most Dream Theater songs is not that complex from a structure standpoint. Look up the harmonic progression for Octavarium for example. It is a lot of minor i to flat vi using mode mixture. The individual parts the musicians play are very skillful and colorful and beautiful, but to actually write that song at it's core-it's structure, and it's melody, etc.-all you need to do is know those chords. It just depends on the extent you want to go to to create the instrumental depth from there.
The short answer is, the skill of the player IS measurable but the quality of the overall song is NOT. THose two things are NOT equivalent either. Hopefully that helped!
I think it's possible to not like a good song. Liking a song doesn't mean it's good. It's hard to pinpoint when a musician is being technical for the sake of being technical vs employing technicality for good effect, but I would say it depends on how most people will initially feel from listening to it.
Let's compare Animals As Leaders to This Town Needs Guns. Both bands play some very technical and complex riffs, but one is a bit more accessible to the majority of people who don't know much about music theory.
Here's a hint: it's the one with singing in it.
I personally don't like Animals as Leaders even though I grew up on heavy metal, but if I took the time to really listen to their stuff, I can consciously notice how Tosin used sweeps and certain scales, go "wow that's interesting," but still not like it.
For most non musicians who listen to music that say a song is good or bad, it's really just short hand for I like this or I don't like that. For musicians though who do know their theory and notice patterns among genres, they get only a bit more authority on objectively saying a song is good or bad.
While technicality can make a song a bit more interesting and a bit better, in the end I think a song can be as good as it wants with all those bells and whistles, but it won't guarantee a lot of people will like it.
It all comes down to initial impressions, and how willing people are to set aside their personal preferences since if you are a musician, and you do like certain types of music, you will often be trying to justify the quality of the music you're biased towards anyway.
There’s a difference between saying a song is “good” and saying you “like” the song. A piece of music can be extremely well crafted and beautiful, and yet there will be people who don’t like it or don’t care for it. In the end, whether you like it or not is totally subjective. It depends on the listener. Most of the time when people say a song is “bad” they really just mean they don’t like it. And for most people they are really looking for very basic things to get out of music; they just want a simple, catchy and easy to remember chorus to move and dance to and some lyrics they can connect with. Those qualities alone don’t make a song “good” but just like-able for the vast number of people looking for only that.
I struggled with the same thoughts as you for a while but after a while it made more sense to me when you think of it using an analogy with food. Everyone has different taste for different foods. You can have an extremely well cooked and prepared multi-course meal by a master chef in a 5 star restaurant, but some people will prefer a simple homemade hamburger at a small burger joint downtown. Both will give you sustenance and both will taste good. You can say some people have “good” or “bad” taste, but that’s it, they just have their own personal tastes. Just enjoy the music you like and ignore other people.
The only thing that really annoys me is when people think a song is “bad” just because they don’t like it, and that happens so often.
I think certain genres of music are objectively better than others; but not necessarily likable for everyone. What makes this annoying is people pretending Justin Bieber is really good, it is not, but you can like it.
@@windyhead7960 Agreed, there can be beauty in simplicity, and people can like whatever they want even if it's the most generic thing you've ever heard.
But one really needs to be mature enough to separate personal taste from actual quality.
Even I was only able to break this barrier not so long ago, once I started to listen to rock and metal I turned into an elitist for a while and everything that wasn't these styles was automatically trash for me, took me some more growing up to realise this wasn't true, and I think many people on different points of the genre spectrum still don't know how to make that distinction.
Are there any songs that start with a chorus?
Raphy Blue Counting Stars by OneRepublic.
HAVANA OH NA NA.....
funny, i'm fourteen and i don't listen to shawn mendez, but i listen to slayer. great video!
I really like this video, it's great. I'm a 14 year old girl and I love Shawn Mendes, but my second favourite artist is John Mayer and I would love to hear Shawn put a guitar solo in the bridge!
Max Russellstown , if only there were more...
Simon Kotze There are. I am a 14 year old girl and John Mayer was one inspiration for me to start playing. I look to songs like Slow Dancing in a Burning Room and Who Did You Think I Was for inspiration. I would love for more of the songs I listened to on the radio had more complex chord progressions and instrumental solos of any kind, not just guitar.
A. K. Let the music inspire you ! I love learning his music on guitar, especially when I started playing myself Continuum was a big source of inspiration
Simon Kotze Continuum is probably my favorite album of all time. I like a lot of genres, but that album introduced me to the general idea of blues while still being familiar with what I already listened to.
Max Russellstown Shawn has put a guitar solo in the bridge. Listen to "Ruin". It was inspired by John's "Gravity"
Can you do a video about Oasis?
Songs that have guitar solos, aaand go...
I like Megadeth. I don't like boring. This is my problem.
Did you study musicology? I'm just curious 😈
ThePainkiller1982 Nope but I do have a Bachelor of Music.
Holistic Songwriting quick question but what are the sort of next level degrees after a bachelors of music?
think of B side monster movies that copy each other over & over again ..
Music is community
lets replace mumble rappers with guitar solos then.
There must be some level of objectivity because qualified minds usually come to around about the same conclusions on what is good. There’s some debate of course but in the main they are in agreement
To them Good = Rebellious to the musical landscape of the time. It really means nothing. They base their opinions solely on originality and rebellion against music norms. Therefore it is subjective.
@@Darksider54189 what about musicality?
That's just my interpretation tho.