Quote:
Originally Posted by almacg
Juji I agree in some way with what you have said, but you have to remember that 'taste' is highly reasoned in many conscious and subconscious ways.
If I listen to something I don't initially enjoy, it would be more profitable for me to musically study it than it would be to research the composers history and philosophy. Ultimately whether or not a composer was fantasically intellectual or had a very specific reason for writing the work that they did or not, it doesn't matter to me. I would prefer to base my opinion of a piece of music on the merits of the piece itself.
If Stephen Hawking wrote a terrible piece of music, I would not go out and buy his books solely on the basis that I should do my research! In my opinion music should speak for itself; it is not the philosophy or the history, but the outcome.
If I found out that Beethoven's 5th symphony was written about a piece of string for example, it wouldn't marr my appreciation of it.
I know this may be off at a tangeant considering the original topic thread, but I thought I'd at least try to add something..!
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Shows you never had to do proper piece analysis.
In an analysis of a piece, you have to know history, context and ideology of the composer and the trends of the time. The whole point of a proper analysis is fit the piece within a historical frame as to understand how it was made, the influences, what it caused, what is similar or different from the pieces of the time. ETC ETC ETC ETC.
I, again, don't think EVERYONE should be so amazingly thorough about each piece of music they come across, but I personally make an effort to do so as all that hard work brings an amazing amount of knowledge to the table you would not otherwise have.
About the other thing, I think that a piece has to be given a "first view" without any explanation or lecture. Just the sound. It can then come with an explanation, or you can read some about it and then listen to it again and you may see it entirely different than the first time unless you automatically create a bias.
I don't really care how you pick and choose the music you like or don't like, I'm talking about actual study of music and how the attitude shown by a lot of members recently simply will put them in a uphill struggle until they realize that they have to pay mind to things they don't like too or they'll never get further in the craft.
I'm not going to bother going into "A good piece of..." argument because "good" music doesn't exist. Only music exists.