Therefore, I settle on the formulation, a good song affects the emotion of the listener in a way that achieves the listener’s goals. At the same time, I wouldn’t say that any song that has an emotional effect on the listener is good, because there are songs that annoy people, such as Octandre by Varese, and they call them bad songs. For people call songs good that make them sad, happy, angry, frightened, etc. It’s not the case that the only songs that are good are those that make people happy, or any single emotion. How would we determine what qualities make an object a house? We examine many objects that people call houses, determine what qualities those objects have in common, resolve contradictions, and produce an account with an eye towards keeping as much of common opinion as possible.Īfter examining the many songs that appear good to me, I found two commonalities:įirst, the song affects the emotions of the listener in a way that achieves his goals. What makes a song good? Before answering this question, I believe we first must answer the question: how shall we determine the qualities that make a song good? I approach this as I would any concept. But then music seems to be just a tool and then I am left unsatisfied with such an approach. But what would such a telos be for music? The best I can think of is that the telos is to unfold an experience of the beauty and/or the sublime. For instance, a chair that has no sitting surface is a bad chair. To think that music has a purpose and that any music that fails to reach that goal is "bad" and any music that succeeds is "good" (and that there are varying degrees of goodness and badness depending on how close or far it is from that goal). I am tempted to think of good and bad music teleologically. But beyond that, I am stumped as to how to explain why it's good. The di Lasso piece provides a challenge, it is interesting, and it musically satisfies. The final cadence is wonderfully satisfying. But the piece isn't just a jumble of rule-breaking tricks- it makes sense. Yet, even in ignoring these rules, the piece presents a delightful challenge to the listener and can still sound beautiful to a less experienced music-lover. This piece, unlike the last, seems to ignore a lot of rules- like, for instance, general tonality (his works were pre-tonal, but I speak of the "rules" of our modern, tonal ears). In order to give a good piece the respect that it deserves, I chose a rather short piece, the Prologue from the Prophetiae Sibyllarum, by Orlando di Lasso, to play in class. The good yielded a much larger crop, so I have posted many songs for your aural pleasure, which you may listen to should you feel so inclined. As Berlioz so aptly termed it, this piece is "insipid" and "innocently stupid". Overall, the piece is technically "correct", but lacks grace, elegance, and subtle points of interest. The exclamation at 40 seconds makes sense musically, but seems forced. For example, the thumping, plodding descending bass line at around 11 seconds is reminiscent of a portly older man trying to make his way down the stairs- neither elegant nor subtle. There is nothing surprising and unexpected to catch the listener and draw them in.Īnd there is also something vaguely comical about it. As Levitin points out, there is a sweet spot between too simple and too difficult. Nothing breaks any "rules", the form is predictable. While trying to put together my thoughts, I listened to the song on loop and wanted to pull my hair out. ![]() A casual listen-through might even spare the song some dignity. Nothing sticks out as horribly offensive: no poorly-handled dissonances, no random fragments of melody, and no awkward rhythms. On the surface, there isn't much to point to as to what makes the piece bad. As it turns out, I have either seriously over-estimated the amount of awful music or I have had to repress the horrible "pieces" I have heard.īut this piece- "Ade! Ich Muss Nun Gehen", by Friedrich Nietzsche- sprang to mind. ![]() I originally thought "oh good! choosing a bad piece will be so simple! there is so much bad music out there!", but the task of actually sitting down and finding one was rather difficult. ![]() Although I don't have any new answers, I have added a few more "good" pieces for you all to enjoy. perhaps there is an objective "good" for music. Perhaps we are simply stating preferences. Our discussion on profundity seemed to me to be very similar to our discussion on good and bad music. I am also still inclined to think about it teleologically. Edit: After a semester of thinking about music, I am still unsure as to what constitutes "good" or "bad" music.
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