Music is everywhere. One can’t go an hour without hearing music at the mall, from an alarm clock radio, or even when someone’s cell phone inadvertently rings in class. Music has completely permeated our culture in every respect, with intentions to soothe, to market, and—although it’s rarer—to create art.
It therefore comes as no surprise that we talk about music constantly. Whether it’s a stale insult tossed at Rebecca Black, album reviews in the Tribune, or religious devotion to the Beatles, we not only talk about music but we assert judgments about it all the time. Not only do pretentious connoisseurs like myself judge the quality of music, but, as philosopher and sociologist Simon Frith notes in his phenomenal book Performing Rites, “‘good’ and ‘bad’ are the most frequent terms in everyday cultural conversation.”
How do people approach these conversations? Many claims are made about music but rarely do we step back and think about these judgments. Can one pass judgment? Are our conclusions completely subjective? If so, how can there be any coherent conversation about music at all?
There are qualities in music that many use as criteria for differentiating the “good” from the “bad,” such as originality (“Lady Gaga is just a rerun of Madonna”), creativity (see: Vivaldi or Nickelback), and sincerity (have you ever read the lyrics of any Black Eyed Peas song?). But none of these are without exceptions: Bach rearranged Vivaldi’s violin concertos for organs and harpsichord, yet those works are considered timeless; The Lonely Island’s hit singles contain everything but sincerity. So where can we make our judgments? We use argumentation to defend our musical tastes, but do they really have meaning?
It seems clear that proving an objective aesthetic is fruitless. Music is emotional. Creating categorical norms for such emotional experiences not only seem useless but counterproductive in understanding what music means. Furthermore, we owe much, if not all, of our musical taste to our environment. I have a strong dislike for country music, but I probably owe that more to my hipster, middle-class upbringing in Seattle than any objective judgment. It seems at this point we should throw up our hands and admit defeat. Music is whatever I want it to be! No one can tell me otherwise.
But, this sort of musical nihilism makes me wary as well. Let’s take an analogy: Imagine I walk into a production of Romeo and Juliet in the very middle. After watching one scene in the second act, I walk out shouting, “This is a piece of junk! Do you even hear what they’re saying?!” I certainly didn’t get a very good experience and no one would say I was in the position to make a judgment at all. I lacked a certain fundamental experience and understanding. Now carry this analogy over to music. After listening to one stanza of “Hey Jude,” I turn it off and say it’s horrible. Again, would anyone say I was in the position to judge that song? I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would legitimize that judgment: did I know the rest of the lyrics? Did I discover how the music develops?
It’s through these intuitions that we can discern what’s fundamentally important in making judgments about music. Appreciation of the whole and its parts is crucial. Though I may find the jarring atonality of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire unpleasant, only when I take into the account the poetry of the lyrics, the system of composition, and the development of the instrumental parts can my subjective take be somewhat validated. Listening to 30 seconds won’t cut it.
I am by no means condoning an objective aesthetic. Far from it. Rather, I’m arguing that subjective judgment is not simply a sensory experience, but should be a personal take on the work as a whole. Art is indeed in the eye (ear?) of the beholder. We should all be more reserved in our assertions and our language, giving ourselves room for error even in our own narrow experiences.
