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Originally Posted by RMR
I agree that all *real* music is 100% subjective to the listeners ears. It is purely a matter of taste; however, there has to be some sort of minimum requirement for what constitutes *real* music. Otherwise, there is certainly categorically bad music.
For example, if I get up and sing karaoke to Bone thugs-n-harmondy- "Crossroads," there is not a person on the planet that would consider it good music; therefore, I would classify my hypothetical karaoke performance as not *real* music. If there is not a minimum requirement of what *real* music is, then the whole subjective argument shatters, and there would certainly be examples of good and bad music at polar opposite ends of the musical spectrum.
This is really a philosophical question, as it applies to all art, and I remember it being discussed ad nauseam in philosophy 101 courses when I was in college.
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^ This is pretty much what I was thinking, too; there are parallel debates about good and bad in every art, which have been going on for years. In fact they were struggling with the same concepts as us back in 1909 when they opened " The world`s greatest museum of Art and Design" in London, and this was the best dictum that they could come up with :-
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One of the last things to be completed was the inscription round the main door arch, which was adapted from Sir Joshua Reynolds: 'The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose'.
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I wonder if your ad nauseam discussions came up with anything better,
RMR ?
I`m really undecided on this issue; I don`t like the idea of people going around labelling music good or bad, or somehow measuring one artist up against another, but there must surely be some way of assessing music, to distinguish a karaoki performance from an orchestral concert. Besides, every time mags like
Rolling Stone publish another "100 best ..." list, aren`t they tacitly declaring that, yes, there is good and bad in music ?
And here`s a question for musicians: when you make an effort to improve your performance, or make a mistake, aren`t you also saying, "This is good music, that was bad, this is better" ?
The concept of good or bad in music may be difficult to pin down, but I`m sure it`s out there somewhere.