Are "prog" fans generally more open minded people?

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Another thing that just occurred to me. What if you had Rush play a song written by some pop/whatever band. Would it be a great song because it's played by great musicians, or terrible because it was written by not great ones? (Again, just taking for granted that technicality=great musicianship, which isn't true, but whatev at this point)

[npiazza91]

Again, it sounds like you're basing the entire thing around technicality, which as has been said (SO MANY TIMES) doesn't really mean anything. That would mean that the most insanely technical composition ever would be the "best" music ever made, even if literally nobody can stand listening to it. You seem to be saying that music is good if it's composed by technically skilled musicians, and bad if it's not, and frankly the entire premise seems fallacious to me.

But if you can compare 2 guitarists with one another and one can obviously play better and more technical, he would be the better player.  So yes it would be the best, which you're right it means nothing if liking and disliking (different from good/bad) comes down to an opinion.  Again, you can like anything you want.

If nobody can stand listening to it, that doesn't mean it's bad, like I said people's opinions have nothing to do with whether it's good or not.  Every single person in the world can hate a song, but it may not actually be a bad song.  People say all the time "I can't stand this band, but I respect them".  What does that mean?  You don't like them, but you respect them?  Why do you respect them?  Because you know they're good?

Also, you CAN compare playing ability.  I can't stand Slash, but he is a great guitarist.  That's a reasonable thing to say, because he is a great guitarist, whether I like him or not.  Replace my best friend (who can't play guitar very well) with him in my band, my band suddenly becomes better.

[npiazza91]

Another thing that just occurred to me. What if you had Rush play a song written by some pop/whatever band. Would it be a great song because it's played by great musicians, or terrible because it was written by not great ones? (Again, just taking for granted that technicality=great musicianship, which isn't true, but whatev at this point)

Good question.  It would be a terrible song that is played very well, odds are making it into a slightly better song, but you can only make a terrible song so good.  It would be like covering a turd in ice cream.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Damn it, I'm not saying you can't compare playing ability! I'm not saying that a guitarist's technical ability can't be determined! What I'm saying is that the music that guitarist creates ISN'T OBJECTIVELY GOOD JUST BECAUSE THE GUITARIST WHO WROTE IT IS. The quality of music is subjective and entirely dependent on opinion, the technicality of the musician in question isn't.

What if an extremely talented musician plays a very simple song? Is it good because he's talented? But he's not using any of his technical ability, so does that make it bad?

[npiazza91]

Damn it, I'm not saying you can't compare playing ability! I'm not saying that a guitarist's technical ability can't be determined! What I'm saying is that the music that guitarist creates ISN'T OBJECTIVELY GOOD JUST BECAUSE THE GUITARIST WHO WROTE IT IS. The quality of music is subjective and entirely dependent on opinion, the technicality of the musician in question isn't.

What if an extremely talented musician plays a very simple song? Is it good because he's talented? But he's not using any of his technical ability, so does that make it bad?

That honestly depends.  If it's a cover of a simple song, that would depend on if the simple song was even good in the first place.  A great musician knows how to make a simple song a good one.  Subtlety is key.  Dream Theater for example knows how to make a great simple song, with a lot of emotion and meanings.  Now, these emotions may not resonate with you and that's fine, but the emotions are in the song itself, whether they affect you or not.  For example, I never felt really any emotion for "Scenes From a Memory".  I like the album a lot (my number 5) but it never hit me emotionally.  But I know the emotion is there in the song itself, it just doesn't do anything for me.  But just because I can't feel the emotion doesn't mean I disregard it completely.  Some songs have little to no emotion or expression in them.  A good musician also knows how to PUT emotion into a song that has none, just by the way he/she plays.  Lyrics play a huge part too.  Do the lyrics have a meaning, or are they shallow, juvenile and immature?  It's not JUST about technicality.

[chaossystem]

This thread makes my head hurt. 

It's making ME want to take an entire bottle of aspirin!!!

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Here we go again. How do you know what emotion is present? By what metric can you measure it?

[npiazza91]

Lyrics, playing style, and the way the song is constructed as a whole.  The message that the song is conveying is usually obvious.  If it hits you, that's great, if not, oh well.  But there is emotion there, even if it doesn't hit you personally. So now we have:

Playing Ability
Technicality
Emotion

These are all qualities of a great band, whether these qualities are important to me or not.  Think of Dream Theater's "The Best of Times".  Perfect example of a song with passages of technicality and emotion, while still being a bit on the simple side.  It combines positive elements of good individual instrument playing.  It's all there.  It's not a perfect song obviously, but way better than anything Nickelback has written.  To say that "The Best of Times" has no emotion is ridiculous.  It may not resonate with you personally, but it's in the song.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

You're not offering any evidence for determining the emotion in a song. You're just saying it's there, and that people are wrong if they think otherwise. Anyway I think I'm done here, this is hurting my head. Carry on, folks.

[chaossystem]

I think we're ALL going to end up with terrible headaches because of this thread...!...

[Fluffy Lothario]

  It's not a perfect song obviously, but way better than anything Nickelback has written.

There was a point in time that I quite enjoyed listening to How You Remind Me,  and would still consider it a pretty decent pop/rock song. I’m not sure if I ever felt like listening to The Best of Times, even when initially digesting Black Clouds.

You claim to have different criteria for deciding if you like/dislike a song, or if a song is good/bad/better/worse than others (this one clearly revolving more or less entirely around technicality and musicianship). If you need to believe that to justify liking some music that isn’t oh so amazingly written, that’s your business. But as much as you treat your evaluation of a song’s intrinsic quality based on those traits as you tapping into something objective, it is still nothing more than your own personal way of evaluating the question.

Other people are going to approach “what makes a song good or bad?” in a completely different way. There are people to whom technicality in playing means nothing, who are completely indifferent to it, that it’s actually totally different things that matter; or to whom it is a matter of diminishing returns, ie a song should be well played and composed to a certain extent to be good, but there is a point after which technicality does nothing to help a song, and may even hinder it, and the point at which any two people judge that threshold to have been passed could be completely different; or to whom it is important, up to a point, but can’t stand on its own, and can become irrelevant if other things aren’t up to scratch. They might be extremely important factors to you, but that doesn’t make technicality and musicianship objectively divining rods for good music.

You can wax poetic about how great the playing in The Best of Times is in passages and the skill of the guys in DT and so on, but I have never remotely wanted to listen to it. The lyrics are atrocious, and it feels forced and formulaic, like a DT song by numbers, albeit not such a heavy one. How You Remind Me, regardless of its inferior musicianship and simpler ambitions, succeeds in what it tries to achieve; it’s a catchy, listenable rock song that feels genuine. In other words, it’s a far better piece of music. To me.

[BlobVanDam]

This thread makes my head hurt. 

It's probably cancer. I'm pretty sure that some of these posts are giving me brain cancer.

[Anguyen92]

Just because you have amazing individual musicians, that doesn't necessarily mean they are able to write good music together. Think of it like mixing chocolate sauce, pizza, bacon, whipped cream and cookies, all great on their own, but that doesn't mean they would go well together.

I think if we can make a dessert pizza, with chocolate sauce as the sauce, bite-sized cookies as toppings, with small bacon bits, and topped it with whipped cream, it can work.

Anywho, people have different ideas of good songs or bad songs.  I mean people in the Foo Fighters forum do not like Foo Fighters' Wheels a lot.  They hate the vibe, they felt that it's not the best representation of what the band's got to offer.  For me, I love the song a lot.  I love the tone of the song, I love the lyrics, etc.  It reminds me of what I'm currently going through in life, atm.  Is it technically proficient and shows the best in the bands' abilities to make a song?  Maybe, not really.  However, I found that song to be one of the most important song that I'm ever going to listen to in my life. 

Being technically proficient, while it's always a great ability to have, does not always mean that the band is going to create a song that can captivate someone as much as a simple pop song or something.

[?]

This thread makes my head hurt. 

[Jaffa]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the only way to measure something objectively is by establishing objective criteria.  And we can do that with music.  The problem is, that criteria is always going to be arbitrary. 

Thought experiment: on a scale of one to ten, which is better, one or ten?  We have a lot of objective facts to work with in answering this question, but the question itself is meaningless until we define what exactly makes a number ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  If low numbers are good and high numbers are bad, one is better than ten.  If high numbers are good and low numbers are bad, ten is better than one.  If prime numbers are good and composite numbers are bad, one is better than ten.  If even numbers are good and odd numbers are bad, then ten is better than one.  In short, the quality of the numbers depends not only on the objective mathematical facts, but on the criteria you use for determining quality. 

So it goes with music.  You have chosen to use ability to play difficult passages as a criteria for determining the skill of a guitarist.  Based on that criteria, John Petrucci is a better guitarist than Kurt Cobain was – but only because you chose to focus on that criteria, and only within the frame of that criteria.  You could just as easily have chosen to measure guitar players based on other objective facts – number of albums sold, for instance – and the results would be much different. 

It all depends on the criteria you use.

That is why music is subjective.  There are objective facts, but everyone has to decide for themselves whether or not those objective facts actually matter, and that decision is always going to be subjective.  There is no cosmic universal law about which criteria dictates quality.  We just make it up as we go along. 

[Aythesryche]

No. Prog fans are like any other grouping of fans. It's a melting pot of closed minded, open minded and everything in between people. Just because music is complex, long, etc doesn't necessarily mean it attracts open minded people. I'm also not one to make generalized blanket statements. I came from a background of Classical music, and I've observed many classical music aficionados are very closed minded, and I've also took notice of some that are open minded to other types of music. Eventually, I grew to appreciate prog rock from my parents, pop and indie from friends, etc. I now listen to dozens of different types of music and I've noticed the same consistency in pretty much them all in regard to the fans of each genre.

P.S. Nice response, Jaffa.

[ariich]

Again, it sounds like you're basing the entire thing around technicality, which as has been said (SO MANY TIMES) doesn't really mean anything. That would mean that the most insanely technical composition ever would be the "best" music ever made, even if literally nobody can stand listening to it. You seem to be saying that music is good if it's composed by technically skilled musicians, and bad if it's not, and frankly the entire premise seems fallacious to me.

But if you can compare 2 guitarists with one another and one can obviously play better and more technical, he would be the better player.  So yes it would be the best, which you're right it means nothing if liking and disliking (different from good/bad) comes down to an opinion.  Again, you can like anything you want.

He would be better purely at playing ability/skill. Which has nothing to do with artistic quality. That's something you don't seem to understand.

The quality of art purely comes down to how it affects the reader/listener/viewer/whatever.

[ariich]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the only way to measure something objectively is by establishing objective criteria.  And we can do that with music.  The problem is, that criteria is always going to be arbitrary. 

Thought experiment: on a scale of one to ten, which is better, one or ten?  We have a lot of objective facts to work with in answering this question, but the question itself is meaningless until we define what exactly makes a number ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  If low numbers are good and high numbers are bad, one is better than ten.  If high numbers are good and low numbers are bad, ten is better than one.  If prime numbers are good and composite numbers are bad, one is better than ten.  If even numbers are good and odd numbers are bad, then ten is better than one.  In short, the quality of the numbers depends not only on the objective mathematical facts, but on the criteria you use for determining quality. 

So it goes with music.  You have chosen to use ability to play difficult passages as a criteria for determining the skill of a guitarist.  Based on that criteria, John Petrucci is a better guitarist than Kurt Cobain was – but only because you chose to focus on that criteria, and only within the frame of that criteria.  You could just as easily have chosen to measure guitar players based on other objective facts – number of albums sold, for instance – and the results would be much different. 

It all depends on the criteria you use.

That is why music is subjective.  There are objective facts, but everyone has to decide for themselves whether or not those objective facts actually matter, and that decision is always going to be subjective.  There is no cosmic universal law about which criteria dictates quality.  We just make it up as we go along. 

Great post, Jaff.

[Skeever]

I would say prog fans are not open minded at all. No offense to you guys, but I see very few prog fans actively listen to music other than prog. Whether this is simply based on preference or the mindset that prog is actually "better" than some average pop song, I can't tell. I personally am beginning more and more to despise the mindset of "this music is better, and I am better for listening to it", from fans of ALL genres. The word "genre" in itself is really starting to bug me, as it puts artists into groups that they can no longer get out of. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Hmm... Take the "classical" genre, which is by far the most diverse genre of music we have today. In reality, we could divide up classical music into a huge amount of subgenres. The light, "poppier" classical music (string quartets, early symphonies in major, etc), the "heavy" classical music (full orchestra works, especially of the 19th and early 20th centuries), the "proggy" classical music (symphonic poems), musicals (opera), and extreme (atonal works of the 20th century) etc etc etc. But it's all called "classical". Fans of one genre might say "I hate all rap, it's just some guy talking into a microphone over a beat", and then never expose themselves to any of it, because they believe that all rap is of a lesser artistic value than what they are listening to, and some might even believe that in existence there is not a single rap song that could be "better" than whatever they are listening to. This is close-mindedness, they have literally closed their mind to all rap and refuse to listen to it. I feel as though this problem doesn't exist as much with "classical" music, as within the "genre", fans listen to all different types of instrumentation, tempo, style, and country of origin without a second thought (though some might close their mind from atonality, and I don't completely blame them).

tl;dr, No. I don't think prog fans are open-minded, if only because genres are stupid (and they are).

I agree with this. I used to be one of those people who listens almost exclusively to prog. These days, I'm a fan of all music. The way I was (and a lot of prog fans are) is like this: a lot of times, people who love prog believe they've "discovered" the ultimate music, and believe that things just don't get much better from prog. Sure, most prog fans do dabble in other genres (they have token "pop" or "metal" or even "rap" releases they like), but they do not explore music much outside prog. It gets really interesting when I've seen prog listeners mention a band like Porcupine Tree as one of their "more mainstream / pop" bands. I've seen a lot of comments like, "Oh, I don't just like prog, I like poppier bands too like Blackfield, Flying Colors, etc.", and it just makes me realize how insular and narrow-minded the whole genre has become. Granted, not all prog fans are like this, but as someone who listens to a lot of music and has been on the prog-fanboy side of the fence, I do prog is nowhere near about being open-minded or exploring these days.

[Zantera]

I think the nature of Progressive Rock/Metal as a genre lends itself well to fans starting those debates. I will echo what Ariich said earlier, and I do think every genre has this type of fan, the fan who claims that their genre is the best one, and that all other genres are below it. But I think the nature of Progressive Rock/Metal, the fact that main aspects of the music comes down to complex playing and long songs, as well as very technically skilled musicians who can play difficult parts, this makes it easier for that type of fan to claim it's a higher form of music, because now they have some factors that could help them prove their point. Of course it's all subjective in the end, but I think the nature of Prog, and even some other genres like Avant-Garde Metal just lends themselves perfectly to creating those kind of discussions.

[King Postwhore]

I'm not even going to read this thread.

[TAC]

I'm not even going to read this thread.

[425]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the only way to measure something objectively is by establishing objective criteria.  And we can do that with music.  The problem is, that criteria is always going to be arbitrary. 

...

That is why music is subjective.  There are objective facts, but everyone has to decide for themselves whether or not those objective facts actually matter, and that decision is always going to be subjective.  There is no cosmic universal law about which criteria dictates quality.  We just make it up as we go along.

Your post is the one that I've come closest to agreeing with on this topic. Personally, I am of the opinion that it is possible to establish objectively which criteria dictate quality, but that to determine which those are, we'd have to understand exactly how the mind processes and experiences music, which we do not understand too well at all right now—which means that we ought to treat quality in music as subjective.

[Implode]

Is John Cage's piece considered music by you guys? Good? Bad?

[Lucien]

Is John Cage's piece considered music by you guys? Good? Bad?

4'33'' isn't the only piece of music he's ever written 

But yes, I call it music. I myself wouldn't call it "good" music (stop using those words! ), but there is a purpose to the piece.

[rumborak]

I find 4'33'' is just so overplayed. Especially when you're trying to get away from it all, you drive into the woods for a nice walk, and you hear that stupid tune.

[Lucien]

I find 4'33'' is just so overplayed. Especially when you're trying to get away from it all, you drive into the woods for a nice walk, and you hear that stupid tune.

 

[ariich]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the only way to measure something objectively is by establishing objective criteria.  And we can do that with music.  The problem is, that criteria is always going to be arbitrary. 

...

That is why music is subjective.  There are objective facts, but everyone has to decide for themselves whether or not those objective facts actually matter, and that decision is always going to be subjective.  There is no cosmic universal law about which criteria dictates quality.  We just make it up as we go along.

Your post is the one that I've come closest to agreeing with on this topic. Personally, I am of the opinion that it is possible to establish objectively which criteria dictate quality, but that to determine which those are, we'd have to understand exactly how the mind processes and experiences music, which we do not understand too well at all right now—which means that we ought to treat quality in music as subjective.

Interesting point. To which I would add that each mind will process and experience music (and indeed any art form) differently. So to develop objective criteria such as those you suggest, you'd have to look at common occurences, probabilities etc., and then you end up going down the route of popular = good. Which, to be honest, is in reality the only objective measure of quality, just not one I think is very important or relevant.

I find 4'33'' is just so overplayed. Especially when you're trying to get away from it all, you drive into the woods for a nice walk, and you hear that stupid tune.

[Skeever]

I'm not even going to read this thread.

[npiazza91]

Again, it sounds like you're basing the entire thing around technicality, which as has been said (SO MANY TIMES) doesn't really mean anything. That would mean that the most insanely technical composition ever would be the "best" music ever made, even if literally nobody can stand listening to it. You seem to be saying that music is good if it's composed by technically skilled musicians, and bad if it's not, and frankly the entire premise seems fallacious to me.

But if you can compare 2 guitarists with one another and one can obviously play better and more technical, he would be the better player.  So yes it would be the best, which you're right it means nothing if liking and disliking (different from good/bad) comes down to an opinion.  Again, you can like anything you want.

He would be better purely at playing ability/skill. Which has nothing to do with artistic quality. That's something you don't seem to understand.

The quality of art purely comes down to how it affects the reader/listener/viewer/whatever.

I agree, but I'm not talking about how it affects the listener: that is purely opinion.  I'm saying the music itself as it stands on its own, without anyone there to form an opinion on it.  It's like comparing 2 different cars.  Take a Dodge Viper or a Corvette...I know a lot of people who like Vipers better and I know a lot of people who like Corvettes better.  It's entirely opinionated when it comes to what people prefer.  But the viper is the better car.  Someone may not be looking for a better car and just want what they prefer, for a number of reasons, but going by which car is better, with no opinions involved would be the Viper.

I was wrong before about emotion.  You guys are right...you can't judge emotion on its own, since emotion means something different to everyone  But there are some things you can judge on its own without opinions involved.  These are playing ability, technicality, how well scales and notes are used with one another and how musically advanced the song is.

[Lucien]

I'm saying the music itself as it stands on its own, without anyone there to form an opinion on it.  It's like comparing 2 different cars.  Take a Dodge Viper or a Corvette...I know a lot of people who like Vipers better and I know a lot of people who like Corvettes better.  It's entirely opinionated when it comes to what people prefer.  But the viper is the better car.  Someone may not be looking for a better car and just want what they prefer, for a number of reasons, but going by which car is better, with no opinions involved would be the Viper.

This analogy is wrong because there are objective facts as to why a car might be better than another; it is a physical, tangible thing that can be measured. Music, again, cannot be measured objectively except for the things, like virtuosity, that don't really matter.

I was wrong before about emotion.  You guys are right...you can't judge emotion on its own, since emotion means something different to everyone  But there are some things you can judge on its own without opinions involved.  These are playing ability, technicality, how well scales and notes are used with one another and how musically advanced the song is.

This cannot be measured. How "well" scales and notes are used together is personal opinion.

[npiazza91]

I respect your outlook on it.  Can you give me a reason why virtuosity doesn't matter?  Talent=better than no talent, at anything.  Yes, it doesn't matter to certain people, but I'm not talking about people here.  I'm talking about music as it stands on its own.  A talented guitarist who clearly knows a lot about music like Satriani is leagues better than Brittany Spears.   "Talented" and "better"can be switched around, they both mean the same thing.

Also, nobody answered my previous question: Why do you hear people say "I hate so and so band, but I respect them"?  What does that mean?  Have you ever heard someone say "I hate Lil' Wayne, but I respect him"?  You only hear that for actual talented musicians, because they are the best at what they do and these people that are saying "I don't like so and so but I respect them" know that even if you don't like them, they deserve respect, because while their music might not fit your tastes, they're extremely good at what they do.  Why are bands like Rush and Iron Maiden much more respected than Lil' Wayne and Nikki Minaj, yet they both have a lot of fans?  What does "respect" mean when it comes to music?  If music was all entirely opinionated, why not just say "I don't like them" and leave it at that?  Why does everyone feel the need to add the respect part?  Hm...maybe there's another part of them that knows they're good, despite not liking them personally? 

[Jaffa]

Counter question: if respect is an indicator of objective quality, why doesn't everyone agree about which artists deserve respect and which ones don't?

[orcus116]

Technicality and musicality are two completely different animals. You could be as technically brilliant as you want but not know how to harness it to actually make good music. That's why in music the objectively talented musician doesn't always make objectively better music, since better in terms of songs is more of a result of songwriting and cohesiveness than skill.

I didn't always used to think that way but once the wow factor of crazy fast guitar runs and pure skill wore off I began to discover a lot more well crafted music by musicians not as talented skill-wise but knew how to writes songs worth a damn.

[npiazza91]

Believe it or not, not everyone is a master in music.  Myself included.  I already said before that it's hard to tell which bands are better than others sometimes...I just don't know enough about music.  Anyone that has an inkling of how music theory works would say that they at least respect Iron Maiden and Rush (for example).  But the uneducated in music just doesn't know enough, but in general, many, many more people in this world have respect for the bands that are talented vs the ones that aren't.  The ones that say (for example) "I hate Linkin Park, but I respect them because they're talented" is a very small minority and a statement like this is ignorant, because it's just not true.  I mean, yeah they're talented, but nowhere near Iron Maiden.

Why is "The Who" considered one of the greatest bands of all time, but not "My Chemical Romance"?  Because the former has the talent.

You can use any criteria you want for deciding on if you personally like the band or not, because opinions, but someone more talented is better than someone less talented.

You still didn't answer my question regarding respect.