If a piece sounds good to me, does that mean it's good?

Originally Posted by robinjessome

Short answer: yes.

Actually, short answer: no.
If the piece sounds good to you, all it means is that the piece sounds good to YOU. It says absolutely nothing about any relative worth of the piece.

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

Actually, short answer: no.
If the piece sounds good to you, all it means is that the piece sounds good to YOU. It says absolutely nothing about any relative worth of the piece.

Then the answer would be "maybe," wouldn't it? Just in case the opinion IS the same as the "relative worth" of it.

... What is relative worth, again?

What the rest of the world thinks about it.

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

Actually, short answer: no.
If the piece sounds good to you, all it means is that the piece sounds good to YOU. It says absolutely nothing about any relative worth of the piece.

If I enjoy and appreciate something, it IS good... There's many things I considers GREAT and WONDERFUL musics that would not be judged "good" by many other listeners.

So what!

It's still GOOOOOD!!

The relative "worth" of a piece means nothing to me when deciding if it's any good or not.

Well. I think my music does not yet have the same relative worth as for example, Daphnis et Chloe especially the first few pieces I wrote. In relation to the very first piece I wrote, it took me about 5 hours to write, I didn't require any music training or studying to write it; essentially I was just winging it. If somebody had come up to me and told me that it was to be played at the Proms, I would be disappointed. You just have to ask yourself what was necassary in order to create the Daphnis et Chloe suites. Is it fair that Ravel's music should be played at a grand concert in favour of my own? I believe it is!
If not having a standard is important for becoming an artist, I don't know what to say. You need something to aspire to other than your own aesthetics or you run the risk of failing to achieve that potential.

Originally Posted by Justin Tokke

What the rest of the world thinks about it.

I'm not sure he means that.

But in any case, I'm with rob. If it sounds good to me, it's good. That's about it, pretty simple. "Good" can only be applied to personal taste in this case so why bother specifying? It's OBVIOUS that I'm not saying it's "objectively good" since that is impossible. Nobody in their right mind would try to claim that unless they are willing to be judged by their own parameters back and get messed up in the process.

If you're saying X or Y piece of music is "good" and you mean it in an objective way, you have to give objective facts that put it above other pieces, objectively. So anyone who dares do such idiotic thing ends up with a circular argument since you can handwave any notion of objectivity since music has no functional design or doesn't abide by any real aesthetic, etc etc.

"Why is this good?" "Because I say it is." "Why do you say it is?" "Because it's good." "Why is it good?" "Because I say it is." "Why do you find it good?" "Because it's good." ad nauseum.

There are pieces I enjoy that I do not consider to be great or masterful pieces of music. I like the look of my trousers but I do not consider them to be a great work of art.

If I can do something that merely looks good, do you think it is comparable to something that looks good and requires tremendous amounts of effort, training etc. Do you think looking sexy is artistic? Of course, it is very impressive but it's not really as artistic as somebody who can draw sexy people.

Photography is an art form, and yet all you really do is... take pictures. Shit, no effort there compared to the amazing levels of quasi photo-realistic painting in the western world, lol.

Since when is effort important? The end product is all that matters.

Originally Posted by SSC

Since when is effort important? The end product is all that matters.

So when somebody writes a computer program that can write better music than a human, and all the effort required is typing in a few formulae should we accept it? I for one would not listen to music written by a computer.

Oh and surely there is more to photography than pointing and clicking?

But yes effort is not the be all and end all. It takes me more effort to draw a one dimensional character than it does for an artist to paint an entire landscape. But my drawing would not be hard to achieve on the grand-scale of things and there would be millions of people if not billions able to draw as well as I.

Well, no. Flatus is not a symphony - unless the term symphony (used unironically) has expanded a LOT greater than I'm aware.
I would even argue that 4'33" wouldn't be a symphony, in a sense of a 5-mvt work with differing tempi.

There are objective standards - a baroque chorale cannot be composed atonally - but a chorale of itself might be. This is where SSC's right - eventually, its the composer's intent matters. However, if that intent is lost on the audience, then the piece is less successful in that respect - it does not evoke, in a general sense, the intent causing it.

If evocation is not the intent of the composer, then it cannot be used as a criterion. On the other hand, other criteria must be used: was the song perceived to have a "buildup" at a certain point; did the feel perceptibly change; was what the composer was attempting successful in objective eyes?

There's this local New Orleans artist, George Rodrigue who paints mostly three things: trees, cajun people, and a blue dog. He styles his people in a very specific way, all the time. This, to him, evokes a certain mindset of the cajun people. Ignoring the fact that I think his work is largely boring, repetitive, and bleak.I can see what he sees as bringing this out, therefore it is a successful piece.