Re: Today's Music Critics
Ramblus 4, Rantus 1, Revisionus 1
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
If anyone happened to read my blog entitled Today's Music Critics, I have received sufficient commentary to feel a need to make a public revision. I did not mean to insinuate that anyone who was not a skilled musician was an unappreciative idiot if they stated they enjoyed or did not enjoy a particular kind of music simply because they did not possess any musical skills with which to make such a judgement.
I had mentioned a Group A - people who make judgement statements about certain music with no actual musical knowledge, and a Group B - people who have the knowledge and whose statements about the quality of various musical works usually fall on, no pun intended, deaf ears.
A couple of people mentioned a Group C - people who really enjoy certain music, have no idea why, they just do, and they are happy with that. The distinction between Group C and Group A is one of making judgement statements on quality, so I will pick up, reorganize, and re ramble the point I was trying to get across. I shall probably continue to do this until I get it "right" because it is an important subject to me.
Discliamer: I am at no time intending to irritate or insult anyone, and I highly encourage anyone to call me on the carpet if I do so. That is how I learn about my own mistakes, and thank you to the two gentlemen who had the courage to do so. With that said, here we go...
Yes, and I agree...there is definitely a group C in terms of musical humility, but that wasn't what I was trying to discuss, and I take the blame for stereotyping group A's as one and the same with the people that forceably state their opinions without a leg to stand on. Since they are largely the ones that have no frickin clue about music whatsoever and yet are coincidentally the ones screaming the loudest about how this, that, or the other thing sux, the comment was directed at them giving the impression that I felt all people that were not in Group B were like that. So, to better generalize,
Revised:
Group A: Music Listeners
Group B: Music Listeners AND are Craftsmen
A further metaphor to explain what I mean. Let's say you do not speak a word of Japanese (I won't assume this). If someone comes up jabbering Japanese at you, you will say something like "I'm sorry I do not speak whatever it is you are speaking" (If you don't speak Japanese, you might not even recognize it as such). You will not likely say "Dude, whatever language you're speaking, your speaking of it totally sux because I can't understand a word you're saying." You also will not say "Man, you really speak whatever you speak very well. I don't know what the heck you're saying, but nevertheless, I am going to judge you are saying it extremely well."
Point is, you don't speak Japanese and cannot comment one way or the other. Every day, some people who do not speak music pretend they do and make judgements. They do not put it in terms of "I don't know what it is, because I do not understand music, but I like the way this makes me feel." They, in other words, confuse a judgement of their personal feelings about particular music, with the quality of the music itself.
Now why would anyone care about this distinction? Because there are some people who DO speak music, and believe it or not, there are some things you can say with it that you cannot say with anything else that I know of. Some practiced musicians are bloody clever at it, and many of them have spent their entire lifetimes learning how to turn a musical phrase "just so". It is my personal belief, that if people were to make the distinction between their feelings about music, and music itself, they could be opened to some very interesting experiences, but instead...we have, as one example, Nsync.
Having Nsync themselves isn't so much a problem, except for the fact that there is only so much money to pay musicians, and for those 5 guys making a lot of money because they have the right "look", 5 craftsmen are working at McDonald's during the day who can play their proverbial butts off. Those 5 McDonald's workers MIGHT have put out some stuff that everyone agreed was AWESOME...but we'll never know. Because they'll quit and do other jobs. THAT, in my mind, is sad.
Do I think this will change? I doubt it. Music is too intertwined with too large a variety of things to ever be easily extracted completely for an objective inspection.
But awareness is a beautiful thing to me, and I'm not afraid to drop the pebble. If the ripples make it to one person, well...that's one more musician that won't have to work at McDonald's to pay his light bill; one more that may not quit before recording something for us all that has some fine musical quality. I can live with those odds.
Ockhams Razor
Passing the Peas, like we used to say since 1962
I had mentioned a Group A - people who make judgement statements about certain music with no actual musical knowledge, and a Group B - people who have the knowledge and whose statements about the quality of various musical works usually fall on, no pun intended, deaf ears.
A couple of people mentioned a Group C - people who really enjoy certain music, have no idea why, they just do, and they are happy with that. The distinction between Group C and Group A is one of making judgement statements on quality, so I will pick up, reorganize, and re ramble the point I was trying to get across. I shall probably continue to do this until I get it "right" because it is an important subject to me.
Discliamer: I am at no time intending to irritate or insult anyone, and I highly encourage anyone to call me on the carpet if I do so. That is how I learn about my own mistakes, and thank you to the two gentlemen who had the courage to do so. With that said, here we go...
Today's Music Critics
A Revision
Yes, and I agree...there is definitely a group C in terms of musical humility, but that wasn't what I was trying to discuss, and I take the blame for stereotyping group A's as one and the same with the people that forceably state their opinions without a leg to stand on. Since they are largely the ones that have no frickin clue about music whatsoever and yet are coincidentally the ones screaming the loudest about how this, that, or the other thing sux, the comment was directed at them giving the impression that I felt all people that were not in Group B were like that. So, to better generalize,
Revised:
Group A: Music Listeners
Group B: Music Listeners AND are Craftsmen
A further metaphor to explain what I mean. Let's say you do not speak a word of Japanese (I won't assume this). If someone comes up jabbering Japanese at you, you will say something like "I'm sorry I do not speak whatever it is you are speaking" (If you don't speak Japanese, you might not even recognize it as such). You will not likely say "Dude, whatever language you're speaking, your speaking of it totally sux because I can't understand a word you're saying." You also will not say "Man, you really speak whatever you speak very well. I don't know what the heck you're saying, but nevertheless, I am going to judge you are saying it extremely well."
Point is, you don't speak Japanese and cannot comment one way or the other. Every day, some people who do not speak music pretend they do and make judgements. They do not put it in terms of "I don't know what it is, because I do not understand music, but I like the way this makes me feel." They, in other words, confuse a judgement of their personal feelings about particular music, with the quality of the music itself.
Now why would anyone care about this distinction? Because there are some people who DO speak music, and believe it or not, there are some things you can say with it that you cannot say with anything else that I know of. Some practiced musicians are bloody clever at it, and many of them have spent their entire lifetimes learning how to turn a musical phrase "just so". It is my personal belief, that if people were to make the distinction between their feelings about music, and music itself, they could be opened to some very interesting experiences, but instead...we have, as one example, Nsync.
Having Nsync themselves isn't so much a problem, except for the fact that there is only so much money to pay musicians, and for those 5 guys making a lot of money because they have the right "look", 5 craftsmen are working at McDonald's during the day who can play their proverbial butts off. Those 5 McDonald's workers MIGHT have put out some stuff that everyone agreed was AWESOME...but we'll never know. Because they'll quit and do other jobs. THAT, in my mind, is sad.
Do I think this will change? I doubt it. Music is too intertwined with too large a variety of things to ever be easily extracted completely for an objective inspection.
But awareness is a beautiful thing to me, and I'm not afraid to drop the pebble. If the ripples make it to one person, well...that's one more musician that won't have to work at McDonald's to pay his light bill; one more that may not quit before recording something for us all that has some fine musical quality. I can live with those odds.
Ockhams Razor
Passing the Peas, like we used to say since 1962
