I'm intrigued by the wide range of opinions evident on the board and wonder if indeed there is any way of coming up with an answer to this question that will satisfy most commentators? If not, what does that say for the future of [discussion of] musical quality - is it [are they] of any importance in the twenty-first century?

Oh-oh, sort of question that comes up in conversation with my music friend in the pub, often after the fourth pint. He reckons I talk better about music after the fourth pint 

My music friend is into prog-rock, the progressive rock music derived from the likes of Pink Floyd and King Crimson, often with 'classical' arrangements, so he has an interest in 'classical' music but can't make the effort to listen/study it properly but learns what he can from me and I give/lend the odd CD.

It took a while, and a few pints,  but he now has a fundamental understanding why the old composers wrote the music that they did, in that most of them were employed by aristocrats who expected/demanded music for entertainment, for dancing etc. Those employers had their ideas about what was 'good' music, applied restrictions on the music played, so anything that didn't conform to their expectations was not acceptable, hence music developed at a very slow pace two hundred years ago, and that's why Beethoven didn't invent jazz - that's the level the conversation gets to by the sixth pint  I believe we've had the same conversations several times as after the sixth pint you forget what you've said 

My friend enjoys music, and for him it doesn't have to have a melody, a lot of prog-rock is not melodious, so I should be asking HIM what he thinks good music is. He hasn't offered me any feedback on the Beethoven CDs but did like Richard Strauss and Philip Glass.

John W

OK.....

A good piece of music is one that provides a type of experience that is not otherwise available in one's life, but at the same time is not so utterly remote from life so as to be meaningless.

Owzat? *ducks*

The qualifier that you omit is equally important. I might add an extra proviso, by which this experience is apparent outside of very restricted times and places (so it has some degree of lasting value, and can communicate something to more than simply a small elite in a particular place). Obviously music does this through sound.

What would be your definition?

Is that really any different to saying 'a good piece of music is one that someone hears and believes to be good, according to their own criteria'? In which case anything could be good just because one person believes it to be - if that were all, wouldn't simply that which is most popular lay the strongest claim to 'goodness'?


It is at least questionable whether that notion of autonomy was ever that central until the nineteenth-century, or whether it has ever been so central outside of the Austro-German tradition. Elements of such an aesthetic can be found in many places earlier, of course, but then it was more of a tangential concern.


Certainly, but both the premise of the thread (and the other responses so far offered) are to do with 'pieces'. To look beyond that condition is for another thread.

No, not vastly different. I wouldn't be too unhappy with the latter definition actually, as a starting point at least. I did try to frame mine in a way that acknowledged the frequently interpersonal nature of the criteria, which I think is important. It's not a claim to universality, but it is a claim that the criteria are often shared, and bonded over (which can be both a good, bad and an indifferent thing).

No, that wouldn't follow. What would follow is that anything thought to be good by any one person would count as good (even if only for that person), but I really don't see at all how it would be valid to extrapolate from there to the conclusion you suggest.

I was aware of that, but I don't see it as invalid to examine the premise of the thread.


Which leads to our next philosophical question: Can a nit-picker also be a good listener?

I suppose it depends how hard they're concentrating on the nits.

Looking forward to the inevitable arrival of Sydney Grew on the scene! I think he and Ian already seem to have quite a lot they can agree on.


Actually I don't know if there is unless you assert that one person's opinion is better than another. On what basis would you assert it? (As an objective fact that is, rather than an amassment of subjectivities.)

Who said anything about asserting that one person's opinion is better than another? The issue is whether a piece can be 'good' independently of how many people like it. I would assert that, but in a social sense. Do you think there's any intrinsic reason why the music you are involved with should receive public money, considering it is a small minority interest, not valued by the majority of the population anywhere? And if there is, does that not of necessity rest on a conception of what's 'good' that may be at cross purpose with amassed subjective preferences? Or would it be better to put money into that which generates most bums on seats instead? - maybe Karl Jenkins, Michael Nyman and a handful of others, mostly with a cross-over aspect, would fulfil that criteria, but even then considerably less so than other popular music, whose audience is much more widely distributed amongst a diversity of social groups (and does so without public money).