What is "good" music?

OR NOT! SCREW IT!

I'm gonna make everything a law.

What makes the PERFECT SANDWICH. There's a set of rules that make a sandwich good. Anything derailing from that makes it bad. OR WAIT. THE LAW OF THE PERFECT PAINTING. Paintings are now a law. And so are BOXES! What makes a perfect box? And a perfect dog? And a perfect HUMAN.


What makes us human? Is it the arms? The soul? The brains? The trait towards others?



Oooooh crap... I think I'm finally snapping...

This whole entire thread is retarded.
It's like they failed the entire concept of "Fact vs Opinion"
If you're trying to make a difference between something "Good as in preference" and "Good because it's true" then you need to go back to grade school and reteach yourself what is fact and what is opinion. Anything that is an opinion is a taste. Anything you say is good or bad because simply the way it's preformed is also an opinion. There is no such thing as "Good music" or "bad music"

Alex answered this much better than I would have been able to.

That's for sound. But I'm talking about what would happen if you were deaf. If you didn't have the knowledge of what is the music everyone hears. How would you react?

EDIT: I'll answer myself before I fall asleep.

Well, you couldn't react. You'd have a totally different way of understanding music. And well, it doesn't fit the "universally" music thing Sarah claims.

I don't really think any music is inherently bad {except maybe Friday [joking (sort of)]}, it just appeals to different people. I probably dislike a lot of music that others would love, and vice versa. There's no absolute thing that constitutes bad music.

AND NOW WHAT! I CAN STILL POST CRAP! BECAUSE THIS IS THE FUNHOUSE LALALALAALALALALSKsdficifssnvcn cb



shit I need sleep.

AND NOW WHAT! I CAN STILL POST CRAP! BECAUSE THIS IS THE FUNHOUSE LALALALAALALALALSKsdficifssnvcn cb



shit I need sleep.

HI FIVE DUDE, WELL SAID.

There is no such thing as "Good music" or "bad music"

TRUTH

This thread is way too for funhaus

Completely missing the point of what I'm saying. You're talking about preference. If you want to know whether cow blood is good or bad you'd have to look at how a body reacts to it. If it contains any nutrients and won't make you ill then it could easily be considered good, in spite of it seeming gross, which is preference.

Just as with music, if someone is off key or pitchy (yo dawg!) then they are a bad singer. If someone puts together a bunch of unpleasant sounds then it is bad music. It may still be music by definition, but it's not good music. Someone could still easily enjoy a pitchy voice or a bunch of banging symbols but that doesn't make it good.

I just misunderstood what you meant by tolerance. There are plenty of examples I can think of regarding music in other parts of the world that most of us would find horrible because of what we think of as good. There are people in those parts that find it perfectly fine. Language plays a pretty nice role in that, considering some languages are tonal and hard to really sing in the sense we think of singing. Does that mean everyone in that area of the world has horrible taste in music? The music they listen to is bad? But they enjoy it, it's sounds that are enjoyable to them but not enjoyable to you. Does this mean they've gained a tolorance from that music you consider bad?

Think of tribal music. Tribes that attach a deep meaning to the songs, and even if it's a bunch of clattering of random wood-made primative instruments with "ALALALALALAA LBA BLA BLA ALALAL GOO GOO HA GAMA LALALALA" to you, they genuinely enjoy it and dance to it. Everyone in this tribe has bad taste. They don't follow the absolute law of what makes a sound good and what makes it bad, right?

But what makes their music different? Why do they like their music? It's a part of their culture, and it's different from what your culture perceives as good music. To them, the music may have spirit to it, it may have some symbolic meaning. You can't see it in this way even if they explain it to you. For you, it's sitll just clattering.

It'd mean that you would have to adapt to liking their music, just as they would have to adapt to liking yours.

Tell me if I'm still off. I do believe we're talking about the same thing here.

This whole entire thread is retarded.
It's like they failed the entire concept of "Fact vs Opinion"
If you're trying to make a difference between something "Good as in preference" and "Good because it's true" then you need to go back to grade school and reteach yourself what is fact and what is opinion. Anything that is an opinion is a taste. Anything you say is good or bad because simply the way it's preformed is also an opinion. There is no such thing as "Good music" or "bad music"

I think what's being argued here is more in the sense of something being inherently perceived as bad (to go to an extreme, a sound so piercingly loud it ruptures the ear drums) that we pretty much pick up on as humans.

Even things that most cultures perceive as something horrible, like death or rape, is seen entirely different through other cultures. That's were things draw the line. Of course, this is talking a bit more on a wide scale as we're thinking globally. But if you shrink that down, you'll see it's important to understand this before thinking of certain music as horrible "by musical law" built into humans.

Someone I'm talking to about this just said this and I think it sums up what I'm thinking at the moment.

you can't separate the concept of music from the existence of humans, it's meaningless to do so
therefore, until another intelligent species interested in listening to music or composing music is in existence
sounds that are pleasing to human ears and sounds that are not pleasing to human ears are going to be the defining factors in good or bad music
end of discussion
you can get into complex music theory and try to dredge up specific examples of pleasant chords and unpleasant chords but that shouldn't be necessary
me: Yeah that's what I was thinking
hell the existence of music theory should be enough to prove it

edit: @spidey: Lots of tribes out there still manage to make real GOOD music naturally. They learn good beats on drums and learn to control their pitch and tone while singing. I think that alone says a lot.

Pffff, starting to get hard to think here, at 4:30 AM, doing some other work stuff.

To begin with, Nobody has answered yet WHAT makes music good. If it's THAT evident, someone should point out exactly what does it.

As for me, I'll keep believing that music is just a form of folklore made by a particular group of people or other, and that it's in no way an universal truth, because it is something created by humans, and if you say something created by humans is an universal truth, well, you think too high of us.

Things are what they are, the concepts of "good" and "bad" included. Once you employ the word "good", you are presenting an opinion.
I'm not saying good music doesn't exist. It does, and is what it is: any particular song you like. It just so happens that any "good" thing isn't universally good.

Now if you attach to music a parameter that can be expressed in measurable quantities (say, tempo -faster songs are better-) , it then is comparable via those parameters. But even then, excelling in one aspect doesn't guarantee overall superiority.

If you'll take a look back, I always referred to sound, not music, when separating it from humans and living creatures, I JUST LOVE A seemingly GOOD ARGUMENT.

HEY. THIS IS A FUNHOUSE THREAD. THIS NEEDS MORE PONIES, DOESN'T IT.

HERE. A CTHULHU PONY.

I'm confused here. Went from a thread about posting what music you liked to music theory discussion I can barely keep up with.

Gaah.

Well just because its in funhaus doesn't mean its a funhaus thread, content dictates that. You can't forget a serious argument just because your in a comedy club.

Well just because its in funhaus doesn't mean its a funhaus thread, content dictates that. You can't forget a serious argument just because your in a comedy club.

I don't give a crap anymore! I have diplomatic immunity! Plus my brain no longer works! I'm so gonna regret this tomorrow! Lalalala!

Not saying you should stop, just amazed at the quick change in thread content. I mainly wanted to know what you guys liked to listen to, but this gives me something to read.

I don't give a crap anymore! I have diplomatic immunity! Plus my brain no longer works! I'm so gonna regret this tomorrow! Lalalala!

idk if diplomatic immunity applies here...

idk if diplomatic immunity applies here...

Funhaus rules? Where!? Because as long as I keep this here, nobody can touch me!

Move it to somewhere else, and I'm screwed. But until then... HA!

edit: @spidey: Lots of tribes out there still manage to make real GOOD music naturally. They learn good beats on drums and learn to control their pitch and tone while singing. I think that alone says a lot.

I think you're leaning more to the tribal music that we as westerners find enjoyable because of their instruments and such, rather than the tribal music we ignore because it's a bunch of bird calls and clattering of instruments in a wild fashion. I'll look for a video of the kind I'm talking about later.

False, there have always been laws on music and always will be. If we all died and life suddenly sprang to life again they would find the same basic musical notes pleasant then as they do now. Sound is a law.

FYI, one this is music that falls into music theory standards, but that doesn't make music ABSOLUTELY GOOD just because it complies with everything.

Here, this is something theoretically perfect, so by your definitions, good:

[video=youtube;AWLUfNCXVQg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWLUfNCXVQg[/video]

[video=youtube;llbP0G-l72A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llbP0G-l72A[/video]

Okay, perfect music.

IS IT GOOD