john turner
You don't want to do that. Trust me.
it helps people understand your opinions by helping folks understand your own musical tastes. they are, after all, interrelated.
Personally i think it just opens the door to this type of thinking: "you dont play jazz so your comments carry no weight"
Implying recordings are required to "back up" a persons opinion is well umm silly.
if those opinions are attempting to be "objective" (i.e. saying something is too much or too little for the music) then no, i don't think that's silly at all. the recordings illustrate the basis for the opinion.
see the sting example below.
except you started the namedropping by namedropping stanley. stanley's commentary regarding compositional matters can be understood because his own compositional abilities are well known, and form a basis of "where he's coming from". you implied that stanley's criticism would carry weight. -that's- why, because his own compositional experience backs up his point of view.
if he were to criticise, say, the arrangement of a megadeth song, then i would understand that perhaps his criticism comes from the fact that his own compositional predilictions do not lie in the heavy metal genre, and so his perspective is going to come from a different place than a heavy metal player's would.
if a known composer were to criticise some composition, this composer's own work would stand as the basis for the criticism in the eyes of those who wish to understand the criticism. this is as it should be, since the only value in criticism of any kind comes when it is fully understood.
i read an interview with sting one time where he accused john pattitucci of "overplaying" or something along those lines. now, understanding where sting comes from musically, i can understand that comment, but i can also see limitations of his own musical knowledge coming into play. jp's playing might very well be overplaying on a sting album, but not in the environment where jp usually finds himself playing.
Another way to say what i said earlier about offensive opinions - Some opinions are going to offend people even if it is not the intent. Some individuals are going to be offended no matter how hard you try to carefully explain why you dislike X thing. Some things are better left unsaid but sometimes you get asked the questions so you say it anyway.
see, the point here, with any criticism, is to seperate the comments made out of envy from the comments made out of true insight. this should be the goal of a good critic.
now, the criticism itself, if done properly, should do this automatically.
incomplete, or improperly phrased criticism doesn't do this automatically, but that doesn't invalidate it - it still may be very valid critical statement, just lacking in background or perspective that will help the reader understand it. that's where the supplied recordings come in to play.
you shouldn't - this is a good conversation, imo, on the nature of criticism.
a lot of times folks get offended if criticism doesn't go their way. on the other hand, there's also a lot of folks that think that just because they say something it should be considered valid on some level. neither of these viewpoints is appropriate, and as both musicians and critics (As all of us are) we should be as enlightened as we can be about developing our understanding of criticism, both giving and receiving.
