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Double Bass Are all musical styles of equal value?

#41
To me ... yes

Pop, rap is like heating McDonalds/PFK etc
Jazz is like eating some very well cooked food from your grand ma that only her can make the food taste like that.
Classical is like eating freashly harvested vegetables.

It is obvious it will be better for your health to eat some jazz or classical music than it is to eat Pop/rap/rock etc. But I know some people who doesn't like vegetables because they didn't grew up eating them ... or they always eat the restaurant ... of course it will taste good it is made to taste good but it doesn't have a lot of nutriment ...

likethe difference between a chocolate bar and an apple ... both may taste good ... to some one will taste better than the other but it is obvious the apple is better for your health.
 
#42
In my opinion (and music is the only subject for which my opinion is not humble lol). The "value" of music has very little to do with how difficult it is to play, or how many obscure scales you can cram into an 8 minute long song, and it has even less to do with how many singles were sold or how a particular piece has lined some record execs pockets with undeserved cash.

What makes music valuable to me is its ability to make you feel something. You can listen to a song written 200 years ago and still feel a piece of the sorrow or joy that inspired the composer to write it. You can hear a chord progression that will make you smile and not even really understand why. You can hear a song sung in another language, and be moved by its beauty, find yourself nodding your head and tapping your foot without even realizing it. There are very few things in this world have that effect on people.

Of course how we perceive the value of music is very personal and is unique for each person. For instance I've gotten chills from a well placed four chord interlude in a rock song, and i've listened to hours of jazz players noodling around and while their skill is no doubt impressive it doesn't quicken my pulse in the slightest. Does that make jazz any less valuable than rock? Certainly not.

Hell, there are people in the academic world that eschew ALL forms of art. Whether presented with music, film, sculptures or paintings they are held with equal disdain. They feel that it is foolish to waste time and brain power on such distractions, and I for one feel sorry for them.
 
#43
Robdrone said:
What makes music valuable to me is its ability to make you feel something.
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This ^.

What is art about if it's not about emotion? An artist typically makes a statement in order to communicate and connect with an audience who the artist typically hopes will have some kind of emotional reaction. I doubt there are many (if any) artists who do what they do in the hopes of eliciting complete indifference.

There are so many different elements of music and so many different styles that can reflect so many different emotions which are experienced in so many different ways by so many different people... it seems silly (no offense) to try to universally quantify any of it.
 
#44
Robdrone said:
In my opinion (and music is the only subject for which my opinion is not humble lol). The "value" of music has very little to do with how difficult it is to play, or how many obscure scales you can cram into an 8 minute long song, and it has even less to do with how many singles were sold or how a particular piece has lined some record execs pockets with undeserved cash.

What makes music valuable to me is its ability to make you feel something. You can listen to a song written 200 years ago and still feel a piece of the sorrow or joy that inspired the composer to write it. You can hear a chord progression that will make you smile and not even really understand why. You can hear a song sung in another language, and be moved by its beauty, find yourself nodding your head and tapping your foot without even realizing it. There are very few things in this world have that effect on people.

Of course how we perceive the value of music is very personal and is unique for each person. For instance I've gotten chills from a well placed four chord interlude in a rock song, and i've listened to hours of jazz players noodling around and while their skill is no doubt impressive it doesn't quicken my pulse in the slightest. Does that make jazz any less valuable than rock? Certainly not.

Hell, there are people in the academic world that eschew ALL forms of art. Whether presented with music, film, sculptures or paintings they are held with equal disdain. They feel that it is foolish to waste time and brain power on such distractions, and I for one feel sorry for them.
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Agreed on all counts.
 
#46
Lee Moses said:
If all musical styles are equal, why do people go to the symphony or opera for "culture," when they could just as easily obtain it at a honky tonk? QUOTE]

The number of people who actually attend operas or symphony orchesta performances are dwarfed by the number of people who go to honky tonks, or to rock concerts, or listen to pop, rap or hip-hop music. Few, if any, opera houses or symphony orchestras could keep their doors open without taxpayer assistance.
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#47
bass12 said:
So what do you think of Tin Pan Alley standards? You know that was pop, right?
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Most jazz standart were pop music during their time ... it just tell how much we went from quality over disposable. Now we consume music like we consume water bottle ... we drink it and throw it away without a second thought, so we make music that require talent, dedictation, knowledge ?
 
#48
Marginal Tom said:
Lee Moses said:
If all musical styles are equal, why do people go to the symphony or opera for "culture," when they could just as easily obtain it at a honky tonk? QUOTE]

The number of people who actually attend operas or symphony orchesta performances are dwarfed by the number of people who go to honky tonks, or to rock concerts, or listen to pop, rap or hip-hop music. Few, if any, opera houses or symphony orchestras could keep their doors open without taxpayer assistance.
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Maybe in the USA where this music isn't ingraned in your culture, which isn't the case in europe
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#50
bass12 said:
The point is that gold wouldn't be nearly as valuable if it wasn't as rare as it is. The value we place on it is not based so much on intrinsic value (if you want to look at its chemical stability that way) as it is on rarity. Quibbling over with.
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Gold is valuable because girls like shiny rocks. A long time ago a man picked up a shiny rock. A girl saw it and he gave it to her. It, uh, had an effect on her that proved enjoyable to the man. Men realized the result was reproducible (pun intended). Game on.

Following that to the OP, music that produces the same effect on chicks has more value.
 
#51
nutdog said:
Gold is valuable because girls like shiny rocks. A long time ago a man picked up a shiny rock. A girl saw it and he gave it to her. It, uh, had an effect on her that proved enjoyable to the man. Men realized the result was reproducible (pun intended). Game on.

Following that to the OP, music that produces the same effect on chicks has more value.
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:p
 
#52
Clef_de_fa said:
Most jazz standart were pop music during their time ... it just tell how much we went from quality over disposable. Now we consume music like we consume water bottle ... we drink it and throw it away without a second thought, so we make music that require talent, dedictation, knowledge ?
Click to expand...

You're being revisionist and romanticizing the past.

I think you need to go back and look at how many songs were thrown away and forgotten during the time when all those old standards were written. I'm sure tunes were thrown away quite often since plays and musicals were more popular then.

For instance, take this list of Cole Porter tunes and tell us the percentage of his works made it into the jazz standard songbook.
[This invalid link has been removed]

What became the jazz standards were the cream of the crop and remembered because certain heroes liked them enough to breathe new life into them - canonizing them. Just because a song was written during that era of pop doesn't mean that it was timeless. I think the same goes with classical.

Plus ca change...

There's other evidence of tastes and trends. Bach didn't get recognition as a composer until nearly 50 years after his death.
 
#56
Is more notes better than less notes? Is the key of E flat better than the key of C? Is a diminished fifth more valuable than a root? Is 160 BPM more valuable than 60 BPM? Is a note more valuable than a rest?

These are all just different things... Genres of music are just different things... I personally don't like NuMetal! I could try to say that is worthless, but in reality, it is just a different thing that I don't relate to.

Being able to use/understand the complexity and depth may make you more knowledgeable, and may translate to more options when playing other styles.... but it may not be applicable at all...
 
#58
tcl said:
So, you're right. I'm asking if there is an OBJECTIVE view versus a SUBJECTIVE view. The subjective view is easily answered that if I like bluegrass more than classical, then bluegrass wins. I AM asking about a more objective view.
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Judgments of value are judgments of opinion. (That is, unless you are referring to markets and a shared system of currency, etc.) They are apart from objectivity. The question is meaningless on its face. I've been around TB for quite a while and, frankly, this is one of the most absurd questions I've encountered. That it produced three pages (so far) is unfortunate.
 

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