Aesthetics as it Pertains to Contemporary Music

Terrapin_Station · 02-10-2016, 12:48 PM

Really, I think the best resource for coming to a better appreciation of pop music (or whatever other genre you want to appreciate better) is spending time talking to and interacting with pop musicians, songwriters, producers, etc.

The more academic approach you're wanting to make won't work near as well, in my opinion. And I say that as someone who has degrees in philosophy where aesthetics was one of my areas of concentration. --But I have degrees in music theory/composition, too, and I've made my living as a musician, composer/songwriter and arranger, often working in genres that are considered "low art" by folks who make such a(n in my opinion nonsensical) distinction.

Get to know some people who are making pop music because it's what they want to make, preferably via some people who aren't just starting out (although of course it's difficult to have access to famous folks, but it's better if you can talk to people who are relatively seasoned). Spend time talking about music with them--why they love pop, how they feel it reflects their craftsmanship as a musician and songwriter, spend some time listening to music with them, etc.

Terrapin_Station · 02-10-2016, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

my aim is to learn to understand, despite my distaste for it, that commercial music still has value for its intended audience.

What's to understand there? People love the music, it resonates with them, it makes them feel good, it might make them want to dance, etc. No papers in aesthetics are going to help you understand that better. And you don't even have to talk to musicians and songwriters for it. It just doesn't make much sense to me why that would seem incomprehensible or difficult to scrutinize to you.

Just out of curiosity, what music did you grow up with? What were your parents listening to when you were, say, 4 or 5 years old? What were you listening to when you first became interested in music yourself at whatever age that was--7, 10, 13 . . . whenever it was?

Terrapin_Station · 02-10-2016, 01:09 PM

Re the "pretentious" thing, by the way, one of the best cures for that is simply coming to a realization that aesthetic judgments, and indeed value judgments period, are not at all objective. There's no fact that Frank Zappa is better than or more musically worthwhile than Justin Bieber, or that Thelonious Monk is better than or more musically worthwhile than Kenny G, or anything like that. It's simply a matter of what someone prefers, what sorts of things appeal to them, where there are no right answers for that.

I definitely prefer Zappa and Monk myself, by the way. I'm especially a huge Zappa fan. He's my second-favorite musical artist, after Stravinsky.

Also, as a Zappa fan, don't you have any intuitive grasp of how Zappa can love both stuff like "Bob in Dacron" and "Valerie" at the same time? That seems essential to being a big Zappa fan in the first place. And if you can understand why Zappa loves stuff like "Valerie", you should already understand something of the attraction of so-called "simpler" pop music.

Mr. Charlie · 02-10-2016, 01:17 PM

^ Agreed. Years ago when I was a kid and into Madonna and Phil Collins and Billy Ocean, the pleasure I got from listening to them was the same pleasure I now feel from listening to The Rolling Stones or Led Zep or Bob Dylan or Van Morrison or Beethoven or Azam Ali or whoever I enjoy.

There really is no such thing as good music or bad music. There's music we like and music we don't like.

Zyrada · 02-10-2016, 01:30 PM

Aesthetic theory is inherently subordinate to/dependent on subjective experience. There is no concrete way to understand how a person perceives music, at least not yet. Once there is, I strongly suspect human art as we know it currently will end, but that's nowhere near our reach right now. Until that point, we will create art in the futile attempt to communicate the incommunicable and have euphoric moments when we think we've achieved a fleeting second of psychic unity.

Tl;dr: Keep talking about why x makes you feel y, but don't get too bent out of shape if someone else's response to x is Þ and you have a hard time getting it.

Which I know from personal experience is easier said than done.

OccultHawk · 02-10-2016, 05:12 PM

Quote:

I have a deep psychological rejection of pop and most rock music, likely stemming from the fact that I associate those genres with the simpleton classmates from my formative years who made my life a living hell.

That's been on my mind since this morning. Just because a sucky person likes certain music doesn't mean the music sucks. I know you know that but considering how much you know about music it's painful for me to think that you're still suffering, even at the heart of something you obviously have an incredibly deep love for. You gotta past this, man. I don't think it's about studying. I really think it's like I said at the get go. Budweiser, AC/DC, and a trashy woman. That's my prescription, son.

innerspaceboy · 02-10-2016, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

That's been on my mind since this morning. Just because a sucky person likes certain music doesn't mean the music sucks. I know you know that but considering how much you know about music it's painful for me to think that you're still suffering, even at the heart of something you obviously have an incredibly deep love for. You gotta past this, man. I don't think it's about studying. I really think it's like I said at the get go. Budweiser, AC/DC, and a trashy woman. That's my prescription, son.

*Stretches out on the therapist's sofa*

Well you see doc, my real beef was my six years of servitude at a mega-corp's retail hell in a ghetto just outside of NYC. I was assaulted for 8 hours a day by a bombardment of "Now That's What I Call Music!" over a tinny MUZAK PA. The same 7-8 songs would loop endlessly for months at a time. Christmas was the worst with what seemed like a direct oscillation between "Simply Having a Wonderful Chistmastime" and Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".

8 hours of 2-minute long saccharine-soaked-country-tinged-radio-fodder drove me to the very limits of my sanity.

When I finally released myself from my own prison and started my career, I channeled all that scared cerebral tissue into a noise piece which served as a representation of my six years of psychological torture. I called it 5' 50" of Pop.

I superimposed 100 music videos by the worst offenders from the MUZAK station, (Daughtry, Nickelback, Rob Thomas, Backstreet Boys, Bieber, Colbie Caillat, Amy Grant, Taylor Swift...) and made one colossal explosion of Pop noise.

It premiered in Buffalo NY in 2013.

As great of an exercise as it was, the shell shock of those six years will take some serious time to heal. Hyperintellectualizing my approach to pop is my way of handling it with surgical gloves.

For the curious, here's the piece. (Appropriately, Warner Music has censored it for view outside of YouTube, so you'll have to view it at YouTube.com.)

DeadChannel · 02-10-2016, 06:17 PM

I'd also look into postmodernism/post-structutalism as it relates to high/low culture.

OccultHawk · 02-10-2016, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Well you see doc, my real beef was my six years of servitude at a mega-corp's retail hell in a ghetto just outside of NYC. I was assaulted for 8 hours a day by a bombardment of "Now That's What I Call Music!" over a tinny MUZAK PA. The same 7-8 songs would loop endlessly for months at a time. Christmas was the worst with what seemed like a direct oscillation between "Simply Having a Wonderful Chistmastime" and Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".

****. I'm surprised you didn't kill yourself.

Seriously.

innerspaceboy · 02-10-2016, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

****. I'm surprised you didn't kill yourself.

Seriously.

Dude... it was a dark time in my life. I was hundreds of miles away from family and all my friends, living with a physically and verbally abusive woman who had me fearing for my life. She was unemployed for years and I had to support us with my meager retail wage, which meant lots of Ramen and cereal.

She was an an asexual agoraphobic hoarder with severe trust issues... and those were her finer qualities.

I mustered up the strength to leave her, got a small flat, job-hunted on foot (as I had no car), landed a fantastic career, met my lovely (and far-less insane) fiance, bought a house, and became the brilliant-but-socially-daft gent you all know and love today.

Lifetime will be airing my story this Sunday.

02-10-2016, 01:09 PM	#13 (permalink)
Terrapin_Station Music Addict Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: NYC Man Posts: 877	Re the "pretentious" thing, by the way, one of the best cures for that is simply coming to a realization that aesthetic judgments, and indeed value judgments period, are not at all objective. There's no fact that Frank Zappa is better than or more musically worthwhile than Justin Bieber, or that Thelonious Monk is better than or more musically worthwhile than Kenny G, or anything like that. It's simply a matter of what someone prefers, what sorts of things appeal to them, where there are no right answers for that. I definitely prefer Zappa and Monk myself, by the way. I'm especially a huge Zappa fan. He's my second-favorite musical artist, after Stravinsky. Also, as a Zappa fan, don't you have any intuitive grasp of how Zappa can love both stuff like "Bob in Dacron" and "Valerie" at the same time? That seems essential to being a big Zappa fan in the first place. And if you can understand why Zappa loves stuff like "Valerie", you should already understand something of the attraction of so-called "simpler" pop music. Last edited by Terrapin_Station; 02-10-2016 at 02:21 PM.

02-10-2016, 01:30 PM	#15 (permalink)
Zyrada Avant-Gardener Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Inside your navel gazing back at you Posts: 163	Aesthetic theory is inherently subordinate to/dependent on subjective experience. There is no concrete way to understand how a person perceives music, at least not yet. Once there is, I strongly suspect human art as we know it currently will end, but that's nowhere near our reach right now. Until that point, we will create art in the futile attempt to communicate the incommunicable and have euphoric moments when we think we've achieved a fleeting second of psychic unity. Tl;dr: Keep talking about why x makes you feel y, but don't get too bent out of shape if someone else's response to x is Þ and you have a hard time getting it. Which I know from personal experience is easier said than done. __________________ dietdeathdrink.flac.fm

02-10-2016, 12:48 PM	#11 (permalink)
Terrapin_Station Music Addict Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: NYC Man Posts: 877	Really, I think the best resource for coming to a better appreciation of pop music (or whatever other genre you want to appreciate better) is spending time talking to and interacting with pop musicians, songwriters, producers, etc. The more academic approach you're wanting to make won't work near as well, in my opinion. And I say that as someone who has degrees in philosophy where aesthetics was one of my areas of concentration. --But I have degrees in music theory/composition, too, and I've made my living as a musician, composer/songwriter and arranger, often working in genres that are considered "low art" by folks who make such a(n in my opinion nonsensical) distinction. Get to know some people who are making pop music because it's what they want to make, preferably via some people who aren't just starting out (although of course it's difficult to have access to famous folks, but it's better if you can talk to people who are relatively seasoned). Spend time talking about music with them--why they love pop, how they feel it reflects their craftsmanship as a musician and songwriter, spend some time listening to music with them, etc.

02-10-2016, 01:17 PM	#14 (permalink)
Mr. Charlie Shoo Thoughts Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: These Mountains Posts: 2,308	^ Agreed. Years ago when I was a kid and into Madonna and Phil Collins and Billy Ocean, the pleasure I got from listening to them was the same pleasure I now feel from listening to The Rolling Stones or Led Zep or Bob Dylan or Van Morrison or Beethoven or Azam Ali or whoever I enjoy. There really is no such thing as good music or bad music. There's music we like and music we don't like.

02-10-2016, 06:17 PM	#18 (permalink)
DeadChannel Music Addict Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Canada Posts: 1,259	I'd also look into postmodernism/post-structutalism as it relates to high/low culture.