A recurrent theme on the blog is the matter of “taste” in regard to the arts – especially in regard to music. It is well understood that “what you like” is determined by all sorts of factors and quite naturally varies from person to person – that song that “brings tears to your eyes” may well “bring tears” to someone else’s eyes for very different reasons!
Sometimes the differences are attributed to some sort of snobbery – however, in my experience it is rarely as simple as that. Remembering the fact that this blog is all about the fact that we each and everyone of us has huge gaps in our knowledge it should come as no surprise that we “understand” things to different degrees – and understanding is so much of “appreciation” when it comes to the arts.
I readily admit to looking at some “modern” paintings, or listening to some music, or some other “work of art” and thinking – “why” – just “why”!! What IS the point? I have absolutely no comprehension of what the creator had hoped to achieve by bringing that particular “piece” into the world. I do not “understand” and therefore I most certainly do not “appreciate” – it just “leaves me cold”.
If I react like that then it seems reasonable to assume that others will as well – although it is far from reasonable to assume that our “opinion” will agree on any particular “piece”. This does not make me right and the other person wrong – or vice versa – it is all related to our perception. I have a set of criteria by which I ‘judge’ whatever it is that I am listening to – and I mentally drop it into one (or more) boxes based on how that judgement comes out.
What I can never afford to do is assume that someone else will pass the same judgement – although it is surely possible to predict in many cases based on knowledge of what that someone else likes and dislikes. I’m currently listening to some jazz arrangements of Christmas/advent based songs. I can think of many people who would dismiss them as “cacophony” or worse. Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily place them in the “top ten” I appreciate many things about the arrangements – they are clever – they are different – and in many respects they are engaging.
There are other equally clever, different and engaging pieces of music that I would put straight into Room 101 – I really don’t want to hear them again – BUT – I also know that in one, five or ten years time I may well have changed my mind!! There are others that I admit as being pleasant, attractive, generally “good” that I just don’t “rate” – but I can see that others would think they are wonderful. It is a rare thing to find a piece of music/art that is universally liked. Even music that is acclaimed as “great” will not appeal to some people.
So – what’s the point of saying all this – well, I think that it is worth going back to the “snobbery” point (and the reverse snobbery as well) since I know of plenty of cases where someone’s “perception” of music was changed because they got “inside” it rather than simply rejecting it as something they didn’t like. There is no doubt that some music (and forgive me for focussing on music rather than other forms of art – it is simply due to my own greater knowledge – and appreciation of – music as against the others) is more “difficult” – whilst some is immediately accessible with others it is necessary to work at it.
I know that when I was younger I had no real appreciation of what was then called “modern” music – i.e. the mid 20th century. I still struggle with much of the atonal music that came after that – but now the “difficult” composers are much less so. I still have preferences fixed in what I guess could be covered by the “romantic” and “post- romantic” styles of the late 19th and early 20th century – but I have a greater appreciation of some of the more “abstract” music that came after.
Part of that is down to my first real encounter with Bartok – sorry second encounter – my first was studying the “Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta” for my music “Higher”!! Whilst I had “endured” that study and, necessarily, listened to the music many times I understood it on an intellectual level – I didn’t really “like” it. Playing Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra” however changed my understanding – partly because our conductor (John Carewe) explained the music – we heard about not just the notes, but about Bartok’s life and “why” the music was written. Having thus been given a way to get inside the music it became something that I understood – and therefore liked. The music hadn’t changed – but the way I listened to it most certainly had.
It is, of course, perfectly acceptable to appreciate music on a number of different levels – there is a huge amount of music that (for me) is simple to classify as “easy listening” – it does not invoke any particular emotion other than, perhaps, contentment. The type of music that comes into that bracket is, however, also hugely influenced by the much wider repertoire that an individual “appreciates”. There is a further collection of “wall music” – music that I listen to without it sinking in!! I guess I neither like nor dislike this music – it simply is there.
So – what do I dislike – well from what has gone before it is clear that there is a whole cache of music that I do not understand. Perhaps some of it I “could” get to understand, but I also suspect that there is a lot that I will never “get” and will remain on my “don’t want to listen” list. So it will be for others – and their lists will almost certainly not coincide completely – or even partially in many cases – with my own.
All of this gives the lie to any form of “objective” judgement on the “value” of an individual piece of art. The question “Is Beethoven’s fourth symphony better than Vaughan Williams’ sixth symphony” is therefore meaningless at any level other than an individual one. Does this give the lie to ANY “competition” which purports to judge one “work of art” against another – and here “work of art” is covering anything which does not have an intrinsic measurement scale. The only “reasonable” criteria for judging such a competition is “popularity” (however you may care to define that) where the question is of the form “Do more people like Beethoven’s fourth symphony than like Vaughan Williams’ sixth symphony?” – THAT is a valid judgement – the winner is certainly “more popular” – it is NOT, however, necessarily “better”.
In some competitions the “popularity” is biased – rather than an open vote by anyone who is interested (and even that introduces some bias – since those who are not interested should be polled – if only to find out which of the two they are less interested in!!!) instead a panel of “experts” are chosen to judge the “worth” based – of course – on the individual biases of the judges themselves. (think ice skating competitions – or diving competitions – for examples of this)
Actually those two add a further layer of complexity on the “judging” in that there are certain (so-called) objective criteria by which things are scored as well as “artistic merit”. Then – ‘competitions’ such as “Strictly Come Dancing” mix the “expert judge” with an open vote – although the open vote is likely coloured by all sorts of things that are nothing whatsoever to do with the “quality” of the dancing.
So – the next time your mate doesn’t share your enthusiasm for a particular piece of music – just remember that it is much more likely to be that way than the opposite!