Unlike rc I love to pick apart arguments. I get myself into a lot of trouble this way, but I do it anyways. But since this thread has gone safely out of the realm just of music, it's safe to say that Elfenboy's argument is about subjective vs objective, so I hope I don't lose the big messag in my following deconstruction.
I do believe almost everything is subjective ... well perception and observation is
The physicist Max Born claimed that perception is so subjective that the observation of a researcher will always be subjective and this subjective will always influence the outcome of the observation. Hence the post-positivist arguments about ampliative logic and against empiricism or rationality as proven on themselves
It seems like physicists in particular have been doing a lot these days to convince us that we don't really know anything in particular, and what seems sure to us, if it isn't so sure to our neighbor, it can't be true. At least, though you are consistent, and for this I give you credit:
I do believe almost everything is subjective...
We can thus safely dismiss your beliefs as only your particular world outlook, and no matter how many physicists try and tell us we can't perceive things and learn from them, we don't have to believe them, because that is a subjective view.
Because there will always be more ways that I myself will provide
A writer doesn't write a book thinking that it must be the best or better than the previous one, he just provides many different means
It probably depends on the writer. It seems to me one knows the best way to do something, when one has an integral view of the whole, rather than acting on the whims of the moment. I heard a performance of Goldberg Variations like that that seemed to last forever. But if you watch the Gould DVD, there is a clip at the beginning or in special features where he is in the control booth, deciding which takes to use and which to omit. For the canon in sixths, he provides a clear and direct reason for taking one over the other, even though they are both note-perfect. Simply, it was better for his vision of the piece as a whole - even though he was able to change, and provide many different ways.
If you aren't convinced that you have found the best way, then it is arbitrary: one night could be this, another that, and if you don't care, why should anybody else?
Different interpretation can cohexist easily without being in competition
I don't disagree, but why shouldn't a person believe they are doing full justice to great music. This is what Maria Callas said, that the performance has to be so complete, as to be the only performance. If she didn't believe that, people would go to her concerts and think, "She's no Joan Sutherland."
They simply changed and now they see an affinity with that music where they couldn't find it before. It's not even an improvements, it's a neutral gathering of new concepts and mindsets.
Yes but with what part of the music? The melody? The harmony? The timbre? The counterpoint? The structure? The character? You can't say that these are things that can't be learned about, and people just perceive them automatically, and can do nothing to improve that skill, and thus learn to appreciate music that is not so easy to appreciate immediately. It is not simply an arbitrary emotional response when someone listens to music, even the brains are acting - hopefully.
We're just not honest with our words. When we think "I can do better" we're projecting that "better" in relation to our mindset. We're actually saying "I can do it more similar to myself"
That presupposes that there are no objective definitions to any piece of music, and that observatoin of that music is totally subjective and arbitrary. But there frankly are objective definitions, and we are not forever trapped in this cage of our "mindset," which seems to be something that can never be altered, enlarged, or educated. Who can live like this, without possibility of improvement?
Even when we think the performer did it wrong "technically" or chose a wrong speed and so on we're still reasoning about relative concept, "another way" would be better for us ... not absolutely better
Who was that fellow that made the hilaroius recording of Chopin Etudes and sold it on amazon.com? There was a lot of poking fun at his CD on this forum, because he played the etudes at a phenomenally slow pace. Here Elfenboy is right: it's "another way," unfortunately, his way is to ignore reality, and just do it on a whim! And how can we say, well, that's not good for me, but it is for him, and still claim to love the music? It's absurd, and it would be an insult to Chopin's legacy.
No I don't agree with this. I think music must be experience like the greek theater was experienced: suspending disbilied, judgement, analytic observation and so on and just experiencing it as in trance. Even the the cinema lovers experience a movie in that movie, the analysis, if they want to do it, just comes later ... when you're not absorbing "the whole" anymore and are focusing on the details and on the "construction" of the movie. I'm sure it's impossible to really experiencing music if you can't just get the whole and forget about its structure for the moment you listen to it. I've spoken with other people that told me that once they tried to shut their left-brain emisphere of their brain they experienced music for the first time and it was almost too much to bear.
I think you proved again my hypothesis that you are advocating an exclusion of the intellect in music: "must be experienced... as in a trance," "suspending... analytic observation," "when you're not... focusing on the details," "shut their left-brain hemisphere," etc. In this, again, you are being consistent, but the consequences of shutting down your judgmental faculties are suspension of observation and critical thinking. In this mindset, there is no "reason" why something is not good or even wrong, it just "isn't." In other words, there is no way to improve. So why try?
A piece can be great because it is technically perfect and it's just stunning to think how the composer was able to write that. Or it can be great because it emotions, because it vibrates with me. I don't think they can be mixed. A movie can be boring, horrible, meaningless (for me) and still being a masterpiece of technique. If I have to analyze the technique and find the beauty in it ... that is going to be remain separate from my experiencing the movie, from my leaving the heart, forgetting I'm in a sofa and living the story first hand. It remains boring, horrible and meaningless
Well since we are sharing personal experiences, I wlil say that the exact joy for me in reading Henry James comes from the feeling of accomplishment when I can parse his overly complex, highly structured sentences, to get at the meaning of it. It takes all my faculties, but I read "The Ambassadors" three times because it proved to be so enjoyable.
But then again, if everything is subjective, our own experiences with what functions and what doesn't to provide happiness in art don't go towards proving anything.
I don't think there's any black and white issue left (except that if we don't eat we die)
In fact the more our "knowledge" increases the more old-black and white issues are exposed for their relative matters they are and have always been. Ever read anything by Shrodinger? Or just pubmed ... to see that there's no universal agreement left in this world. Everyone has a different opinion because we're individuals that live in accordance to circumstances as such arbitrarity will always be wrong as will always exist under the delusion to consider "fixed" and "universal" something that is "circumstantial" and always flowing. All studies that has been done to try to show that certain things in the humans world can be "fixed" has always failed showing that the results changed according to how the circumstance changed.
I agree with you when you say, "arbitrarity will alway be wrong," though I doubt we think of it in the same way.
It's probably true that everybody has a differnt opinion. But don't confuse "opinion" with "standard." If you go to play Winter Wind etude in a competition, and you mess up on every page, and don't pass the first round, that frankly was not a "differenc of opinion," to name just one glaringly obvious example.
I haven't read Shrodinger but I am more interested in Elfenboy's writings than his. I think it's perceptive when you say, the only black and white issue is if we don't eat we die. Because how do you know that? In finding the one objective thing you can subscribe to, you found the basic principle behind all principles, which is, we can live or die. You didn't go so far to say it is our choice, but I am sure you know that it is. You don't have to eat, even if you have food. If we have a choice to live or die, then we have to have a way to know how to make choices - will this kill us, or help us survive. If it is one or the other, than it is not subjective anymore. But since these choices get more complicated than just "eating," - for instance, how are you going to get food - you need money - how are you going to get money, are you going to be a hitman or is that just bad for you but good for someone else? - etc., it would seem that at the root of everything there is an objective truth, and that choices have to have a standard. We're spoiled in music because if you wish to play the second movement of Beethoven Emperor concerto like a wild scherzo you are able, but your only standard is arbitrary whim. If you want a feast of lobster and filet mignon, nothing you can do will wish it in front of you. The difference is we accept arbitrary whim in music but nthing will come of it in real life - but they remain the same thing!
If you feel that it is right to change the character of the piece by changing dynamic markings for instance, you actually don't go far enough. Character is also composed of notes, and why shouldn't you be able to change the notes to support your notion? If the melody goes to an A, but you think it is more effective to go to the C, I mean, why not? Why not be totally consistent? If it is sixteenths, but you think it should be thirty-seconds to better communicate that urgent drive you hear, why shouldn't you do it? maybe you think that we should. Nobody is going to stop you certainly, but that doesn't make it right.
Food for Thoughts!
Walter Ramsey
Topic: problem with modern pianists