>>and the thread
>>explodes with bickering by people who like it but just can't
>>accept that not everyone has the same tastes, and rather
>than
>>actually discuss the music and say what they like about it,
>>set up their soap box and call other people wrong.
>
>I've been thinking a lot about this predictability lately, as
>you put it. My internet access is patchy right now but will
>come back for deeper dive, but suffice to say that the
>stalemate is real, for both those who like artist/album/song X
>and those that dislike X... and while I don't think it's a
>*new* issue and has deeper roots in how we relate to art and
>each other more generally, I do think there are some
>peculiarities with our current cultural moment that exacerbate
>our worst/shallowest tendencies when we try to talk about
>music (and art more generally).
>
>There are no easy solutions but there are a few key
>acknowledgments that can help:
>
>1) Recognize that my viewpoint does not automatically preclude
>the possibility of other viewpoints. This does not change just
>because something really, really, really moves me to love or
>hate. I can love something, and someone else can hate it, and
>neither perspective is inherently a reflection of the quality
>of the listener and their taste.
>
>2) Recognize that although discussion re: music varies in
>purpose and quality, my goal should not be persuasive or
>competitive in nature but rather a sharing of experience and
>viewpoints. I benefit from learning why you like X and vice
>versa. I benefit, too, from hearing how you approach music
>more generally, whether that involves technical musical
>detail, emotional resonance, or personal stories. The goal, if
>we can reduce discussion to one goal, should be an
>augmentation of appreciation and understanding. Argumentation,
>when held in the right spirit, can help achieve that goal --
>but it can also quickly narrow and shrink the possibilities of
>a conversation to their shallowest point.
>
>3) There is no right way to approach music -- but there is a
>technical language involving music that, as with any domain of
>skill and knowledge, can help us build a particular type of
>understanding of music as music (so far as that may be a
>possibility). We should not be fooled into thinking that music
>theory or related ways of analyzing music are objective; they
>are not. They do, however, provide a means for talking about
>music using a shared language close to the subject itself - a
>language, in other words, that is not objective but not wholly
>subjective, either, and thus has a type of usefulness that the
>absolutely subjective may not. (I am speaking here of
>objectivity and subjectivity in relative terms - neither is
>ever purely one or the other.)
>
>4) Following #3, the more we can talk about music with an eye
>toward the music, the better foundation we build for
>conversations that are actually productive - for we at least
>share a set of terms that we can use to understand each other
>and the music itself. But because "music itself" is a
>non-existent thing - because the artist, culture, context is
>inseparable from the music - our understanding of what it
>means to talk about music as music must necessarily be
>capacious. If we negotiate these contradictions with
>generosity and imagination, what it means to talk about music
>as music will likely be something entirely different from what
>we expect or assume it should be... and it will be all the
>more enriching as a result.
>----
>Have to go - but I have at least one more mini-sermon on
>humility to include here --- so will return!
>
>
>-thebigfunk
>
>~ i could still snort you under the table ~