What's good?

[Richard Pinnell]

this one is pretty easy, Dan connects very deeply to both musician's aesthetics and enjoys hearing them in juxtaposition. Dan likes saxophones about a thousand times more than I do. Dan is a trained musician who is much more impressed by technique than I am. I'll leave it at that,

Right! So personal taste then!?

[jon abbey]

I'm not trying to be a pain, but I really have no idea what you are talking about here then. What is more than personal but less than universal??

OK:

if everyone in the world had unique beliefs, non-overlapping at all, that is "personal".

if everyone in the world had identical beliefs, entirely overlapping, that is "universal".

so obviously there's quite a bit of room in between those two extreme positions. if 5 people agree, that's no longer personal. if everyone in the world except 5 people agree, that's no longer universal.

so, keeping that in mind, here again is my original statement:

"I do think that there's some concept of "good" and "bad" art that goes beyond the personal, though, otherwise running Erstwhile would be kind of pointless."

[Richard Pinnell]

OK, that makes sense again thank you but we just seem to be going round in circles.

Regarding this;

if 5 people agree, that's no longer personal. if everyone in the world except 5 people agree, that's no longer universal.

Well of course, but the five people all still made personal decisions about the music in the first place. A sixth person may not agree. Dan's question was precisely what makes five people agree but the sixth person disagree? The answer, simply, is because we all have individual tastes, that are formed through experiences, biases, interests, prejudices, susceptibility to other people's opinions etc... Some music appeals to a wider set of tastes than others that's all.

[Richard Pinnell]

My point is that a piece of music is not necessarily any more "good" than another simply because five people like it and one doesn't. In the eyes of the majority then yes that piece of music is seen as "good" but one thing we should have all learnt following a tiny area of music like this is that majorities are rarely right.

[William Hutson]

would it be useful to narrow this down? all the specific records we've mentioned have involved musicians that we don't all necessarily agree on. if we can all agree that we, for the most part, like axel dörner, how do we, as a group, judge his solo records? is there some consensus to say that the cdr jon posted earlier this week is better than 'sind'? with 'trumpet' in the middle somewhere? or some other example.

i mean: if we can look at some album which is, universally praised (at least on this board) like, say 'duos for doris' can we discuss why we all consider that album better than others? is this even possible? in the case of albums we all like, do we all like them for the same reasons?

if we talk about our differences in opinion, we're just going to get into mini fights over the cds we've fought about a million times before-- like 'map' and 'absinth.' nobody is changing anybody's mind on those.

[Dan Warburton]

would it be useful to narrow this down? all the specific records we've mentioned have involved musicians that we don't all necessarily agree on. if we can all agree that we, for the most part, like axel dörner, how do we, as a group, judge his solo records? is there some consensus to say that the cdr jon posted earlier this week is better than 'sind'? with 'trumpet' in the middle somewhere?

I haven't unzipped that file yet - let me get back to you on that one. I happen to find Dörner more impressive with other people - the duo with Drumm, especially, the trio with Butcher & Charles, the old Meniscus Claque with Lonberg Holm and Zerang. I find many solo trumpet albums - not just Dörner's - impressive without being moving. If I had to choose one I'd probably take Matt Davis's Mute Correspondence. But anyway..

if we can look at some album which is, universally praised (at least on this board) like, say 'duos for doris' can we discuss why we all consider that album better than others?

I think you've picked a special case there, and I doubt we're going to get much "objectivity" in any discussion of Doris.You say below we've discussed Map a million times before, but we haven't really gone into much detail on it (a few PMs circulated between myself and other contributors to that IHR thread, but there's been relatively little open analysis). So here goes: I suppose what I'm especially sensitive too is timing, the placing of a sound just where it should go (consider this another aspect of rhythm.. mention rhythm and most folk think boom boom boom but there's more to it than that). Guionnet is a fine example - very often I don't really find the actual sounds he makes all that exciting (we know that sax vocabulary now), or attractive (he can make the organ sound pretty damn ugly) - but he puts them just where they should go. (This is especially evident in his duo work: with Olivier Benoit, Seijio Murayama and especially Edward Perraud.) What excites me about Map is that he's performing with a musician who, thanks to the instrument he's using, often can't / won't react in the same way or at the same speed. There's a sense of tension throughout the album that I find exhilarating, much more so than consensual outings where everyone's on the same wavelength (thinking of the Swiss and the Irish here). Now, it seems to me that, whether or not you like the sounds themselves, you are able to tell on listening if the musician's sense of timing is any good. Fagaschinski and Renkel's timing on the new Esquilo Rebecca is impeccable; Prévost and Wright on Gamut, on the other hand, aren't doing it for me (yet - only two listens, and it needs more). Anyway, let me attack those Axel solos and get back to you later.

[William Hutson]

don't bother with the dörner solos if you don't think that it will produce any interesting conversation. i was just trying to come up with some example where there is a consensus on multiple albums by the same person/group as to which ones are better than others. perhaps those dörner discs weren't quite right. i just feel like when the majority of people here like a particular album, we don't end up talking about it much.

[Dan Warburton]

I'm listening to the Dörners as I write - and wondering why they weren't released at the time. Very fine..! But I'd have to go back to the ABS and Absinth releases before putting my foot in my mouth again. Time, gentlemen, please!

[Wombatz]

Just thinkin', it might be easier to try and define the parameters of this question within a music that's safely dead and where positioning oneself doesn't have so many implications. I grew up in a household of amateur trad jazz musicians. One of the great philosophical questions there was: what is swing? Whatever it is, almost nobody ever disagreed significantly when talking about actual musicians on that subscene. It never was: he swings, no he doesn't; instead: he doesn't, yeah but I like the way he kicks ass. There are different schools of thought, of course: Lester vs. Hawk. Now if you accept Hawk's baroque rhetoric at all, you won't find one bad solo from him between 1934 and 1949. If you accept that Lester's sometimes treading water while riffing before exploding on the bridge, there's not much disagreement about solos where something happens and where maybe not so much but yeah the rhythm. Then again there's much more disagreement about Lester's late recordings, do I want to hear potential genius stripped bare, sometimes reduced to pure motorics, does it hold emotional content. But I, as a 14-year old German, could perfectly communicate with some 70ish black man in London at that pizza joint where Al Casey played, and we'd understand each other. Ok, the music's dead, the canon lives. But still it's like a soft science, while there is no proof or absolute value system, all the little yeses and nos are perfectly explainable.

I don't think it is really down to personal taste. That taste will have been formed by whatever need was generated by a lack of whatever that music before has provoked. Also, history wants to be written, sounds want to be part of a larger narrative, which is what Rowe's notes on EL 007 are about for me. Somebody on the other thread said: it's absurd folks are reading the notes before having heard the music. But no, I dig the mindframe independent of the music (which I'm sure I'll love, judging from the samples).

Most people have a pretty acute understanding of things they love and hate in music, something that's also been expressed in most of the posts above. Just how much their decision to love and hate will have been a personal one or a sign of the times, that's two generations down to decide.

[Dan Warburton]

Just thinkin', it might be easier to try and define the parameters of this question within a music that's safely dead

Where's the fun in that?

what is swing? Whatever it is, almost nobody ever disagreed significantly when talking about actual musicians on that subscene. It never was: he swings, no he doesn't; instead: he doesn't, yeah but I like the way he kicks ass. There are different schools of thought, of course: Lester vs. Hawk. Now if you accept Hawk's baroque rhetoric at all, you won't find one bad solo from him between 1934 and 1949. If you accept that Lester's sometimes treading water while riffing before exploding on the bridge, there's not much disagreement about solos where something happens and where maybe not so much but yeah the rhythm. Then again there's much more disagreement about Lester's late recordings, do I want to hear potential genius stripped bare, sometimes reduced to pure motorics, does it hold emotional content. But I, as a 14-year old German, could perfectly communicate with some 70ish black man in London at that pizza joint where Al Casey played, and we'd understand each other.

Sure, because as I wrote above, there are clear structural conventions and a there is a defined vocabulary in the music you're referring to.

Ok, the music's dead, the canon lives.

No, Lester Young's dead, but his music lives every time I play one of his records. On the subject, would you say Hawkins' post 1949 recordings are not as good as his pre-1949 recordings? What's the cut off point? Why 1949?

Most people have a pretty acute understanding of things they love and hate in music, something that's also been expressed in most of the posts above. Just how much their decision to love and hate will have been a personal one or a sign of the times, that's two generations down to decide.

I think again it's our responsibility as "informed" listeners to try and establish some generalised system of evaluation. Imagine someone invited you to lecture at a music faculty on jazz and improvised music. Who would you include from the past ten years, and why?

[howsthatsound]

great thread.

i agree with richard completely. said what i feel probably more eloquently than i'm capable of.

to answer jon's question:

"I do think that there's some concept of "good" and "bad" art that goes beyond the personal, though, otherwise running Erstwhile would be kind of pointless."

the answer is pretty obvious i think... it's the same reason many musicians do what they do, with no hope of universiality; self expression, love of the medium, and to connect with those with whom their taste overlaps.

[rainey]

http://cgi.ebay.com/If-I-Am-a-Musical-T ... 3001r27043

This is a short book that's rather nice.

[mudd]

that url works copy-pasted but for some reason the message board doesn't seem to like it.

try this linkinstead.

m

[jon abbey]

the answer is pretty obvious i think... it's the same reason many musicians do what they do, with no hope of universiality; self expression, love of the medium, and to connect with those with whom their taste overlaps.

I've posted the same thing like five times now, and some people still don't seem to understand. this is exactly what I meant, this is not an answer to my statement (which was not a question anyway), this is my statement stated differently.

[skrobek]

I suppose what I'm especially sensitive too is timing, the placing of a sound just where it should go (consider this another aspect of rhythm.. mention rhythm and most folk think boom boom boom but there's more to it than that). Guionnet is a fine example - very often I don't really find the actual sounds he makes all that exciting (we know that sax vocabulary now), or attractive (he can make the organ sound pretty damn ugly) - but he puts them just where they should go.

Lots of talk about timing recently, and how it is the criterium to judge whether something his ultimately good (cf Unami's Maligitat in IHP thread), which could be an answer to the question really.

"What's 'good' is the expression of interiority identified with the world, the providential concert of beings" (Diogenes Laërtius, 412 - 323 BC)

[howsthatsound]

jon, i'll try this once more.
there is no concept of "good" and "bad" art that goes beyond the personal. however, that doesn't make erstwhile (or any aesthetic endevor) pointless, because of what i stated above.

i can't fathom why this is so hard to accept. it is proven for us every day in thousands of ways. maybe it has to do with our identities at times being defined by what we do/don't like, and the ways we think that we are somehow superior to others. both of which are truly pointless practices.

[jon abbey]

there is no concept of "good" and "bad" art that goes beyond the personal. however, that doesn't make erstwhile (or any aesthetic endevor) pointless, because of what i stated above.

your first sentence here and "what you stated above" are contradictory from my perspective, as I've explained again and again. as soon as there's overlap, it goes beyond the personal.

[Gerardo A]

"What's 'good' is the expression of interiority identified with the world, the providential concert of beings" (Diogenes Laërtius, 412 - 323 BC)

Fuckin' amazing quote, thanks.

EDIT: Although I'm in doubt about if it was actually written by Diogenes, or written by someone else and then being quoted by Diogenes. Maybe Plato?

[joe grimm]

I don't usually post here, but this is an interesting topic for me. I do think there's more to be said than "it's all subjective; the question can't be answered."

here are two ways that I personally know something is good:

1. a piece is good when it causes me to reevaluate the conventions of its medium... in some small way, it changes the rules of the context in which it operates.

2. I can tell a piece of music is good when i get the urge to steal its ideas.

[jkudler]

All you seem to be saying above is that there can be a common consensus that a piece of music can be considered good or bad.

no, that's not what I'm saying at all, that would be the "universal" that I mentioned as one extreme. what I'm saying, for the third time, is that it's more than personal, but less than universal.

anyway, to get away from this silly semantic discussion, I'll introduce another factor into the discussion. I think that quite a few people are biased towards or against musicians from different geographic areas. quite often this is in the form of an overt bias towards musicians living near them, which makes sense since those are the artists they get to see perform most often, and who they sometimes are in more personal contact with, so it's easier to connect with their work. I know for myself, I tend to connect much more deeply with the strongest music from Tokyo, Vienna and Berlin as opposed to say, music from England (not counting a couple of gents living abroad) and Switzerland. other people have different biases, and I think this is the root of some fundamental disagreements.

i agree people tend to be "easier" on locals or friends, since that friendship disposes you a certain way, and you also tend to see things in a certain context, but i think what you are describing is actually a musical distinction, informed by geography. certain trends emerge in certain localities because of various factors, and you like certain trends more than others, but i doubt you are really "biased" in that you'd be any less disposed to like someone you'd never heard before just because you saw their email ended in .ch. you just aren't really curious to see where muller/kahn are going, because you haven't liked their past work. or am i wrong?

-jesse