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aaronjer said: superjer said:
I think your example of mathematicians is funny because I could probably trick the average person into thinking I'm a math expert without really knowing any math, but I couldn't do the same with music writing.
Well.. the slightly above average person would probably ask to see the mathematics degree that you don't have.
I have a CS degree, which might be enough for a lot of them.
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2011 Mar 4 at 05:48 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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superjer said: aaronjer said: That what I was already saying!  I know.
But since then we also started talking about skill, creativity, and the difficulty or rareness of playing versus composing music.
I sort of thought your original long post was a direct argument to me. I... uh... sort of made some assumptions there. Also, you weren't talking about the difficulty or rareness of playing or composing music. Your 'we' is misleading. A 'you guys' would be more applicable. You looked like you were about to start talking about that, but then you veered off and started talking about the popularity/quality thing again.
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2011 Mar 4 at 05:51 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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superjer said: aaronjer said: Only the opinions of the intended audience matter. If they don't like it, then it's a bad song.
What if an unintended audience really likes it?
(Warning! Not serious post!)
Well, then it's by Rick Astley and it's called "Never Gonna Give You Up."
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2011 Mar 4 at 05:53 UTC
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I guess I just did that because the whole argument keeps coming back to what the popularity of music means.
Unexpectedly I ended up having a lot to say about that.
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2011 Mar 4 at 05:54 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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superjer said:
I have a CS degree, which might be enough for a lot of them.
Touché
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2011 Mar 4 at 05:56 UTC
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The other problem is that we all (probably) think there is something meaningful about the fact that a song is different from random noise, in that it has the ability (or at least is more likely) to evoke something in someone even if it never does.
It seems intuitive that a quality song can exist even if no one ever hears it.
I have no idea how to explain what that is, though.
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2011 Mar 4 at 05:57 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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I kind of thought the 'yelling at Outcast for thinking composition is easy and anyone can do it' thing had very little to do with the popularity discussion.
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2011 Mar 4 at 05:59 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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superjer said: The other problem is that we all (probably) think there is something meaningful about the fact that a song is different from random noise, in that it has the ability (or at least is more likely) to evoke something in someone even if it never does.
It seems intuitive that a quality song can exist even if no one ever hears it.
I have no idea how to explain what that is, though.
That's also pretty much what I was saying. Difficult to determine due to abstract opinionyness. The italics part is what I meant when I said you just say 'fuck it'.
I just say, well, this exists but is virtually unmeasurable, so let's not use it... since we can't.
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:00 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 06:02 UTC
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aaronjer said: superjer said: The other problem is that we all (probably) think there is something meaningful about the fact that a song is different from random noise, in that it has the ability (or at least is more likely) to evoke something in someone even if it never does.
It seems intuitive that a quality song can exist even if no one ever hears it.
I have no idea how to explain what that is, though.
That's also pretty much what I was saying. Difficult to determine due to abstract opinionyness. The italics part is what I meant when I said you just say 'fuck it'.
OK.
But I just want to be clear that that's not my only point on the matter. Since quality can refer to popularity (or potential popularity), craftsmanship, or something else. And it's a different argument depending on which you pick.
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:04 UTC
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aaronjer said: I just say, well, this exists but is virtually unmeasurable, so let's not use it... since we can't.
Maybe maybe not. I suspect a combination of popularity, or success among target demographic, creativity and/or skill in some way add up to or approximate this "unmeasurable" thing.
It certainly works in the edge cases:
Random noise: 0 skill, 0 popularity, 0 "magic"
Great song*: 1+ skill, 1+ popularity, 1+ "magic"
*by any reasonable standard
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:11 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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Can we get a statement from you now about the rarity of composers versus musicians argument?
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:12 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 06:14 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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superjer said:
Maybe maybe not. I suspect a combination of popularity, or success among target demographic, creativity and/or skill in some way add up to or approximate this "unmeasurable" thing.
It certainly works in the edge cases:
Random noise: 0 skill, 0 popularity, 0 "magic"
Great song*: 1+ skill, 1+ popularity, 1+ "magic"
*by any reasonable standard
I'm not in love with magic having a quantitative value attached to it, but I like the general idea. If you're right about the statistical probability of Lemmy fudging the numbers I think this is the least flawed method of determining how good music is.
I still don't think it's a very effective method, however, just... less flawed. I think the only case in which you can truly determine that a song is good or bad is if it is somehow wide-spread and generally reviled. Then you can be sure it is definitely a bad song.
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:16 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 06:19 UTC
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aaronjer said: Can we get a statement from you now about the rarity of composers versus musicians?
Composers are more rare to find but the reasons for that are unclear.
For example!
(A) Anyone who tries to learn to play an instrument will quickly enter a positive feedback cycle whereby the more they practice, the better they sound.
(B) Someone just taking up composing will sound like crap even if they write good stuff unless they have someone to perform and produce at high quality. That's a lot harder to come by than sheet music in (A).
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:19 UTC
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aaronjer said: I'm not in love with magic having a quantitative value attached to it [...]
That's why I did 0 and 1+.
0: none
1+: some, lots, a little?
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:21 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 06:21 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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superjer said: (B) Someone just taking up composing will sound like crap even if they write good stuff unless they have someone to perform and produce at high quality. That's a lot harder to come by than sheet music in (A).
I don't think that's necessarily true. As long as you are subjecting the correct audience to your compositions it could take little effort to play the song. This is what I was talking about when I said it's easy to find a musician to play your music. When I say 'musician' I am not leaving out computers. Even if you had to resort to midi (please don't start talking about what midi really means, you KNOW what kind of midi I mean) there are people that inexplicably prefer it. Theoretically your music should sound good to the weird midi people if it's well-written.
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:26 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 06:26 UTC
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It might sound OK but production quality makes a huge difference. Don't undervalue it.
There's a reason why all popular music is impeccably produced, even with debatable levels of quality in other categories.
Just because someone's good at composing doesn't mean they can make it sound good on a computer. Music making software is more about dodging bugs and tricking the software into doing what you want than actually writing anything. It's unnecessarily difficult.
Also I don't think it's easy at all to get a reasonably good musician to play your music. It's almost impossible to get people to listen to something, nevermind learn it and play it.
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:39 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 06:42 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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superjer said:
Just because someone's good at composing doesn't mean they can make it sound good on a computer. Music making software is more about dodging bugs and tricking the software into doing what you want than actually writing anything. It's unnecessarily difficult.
aaronjer said: Theoretically 
superjer said:
Also I don't think it's so easy to get a reasonably good musician to play your music. It's almost impossible to get people to listen to something, nevermind learn it and play it.
I don't think it would be very hard to get them to play it if you just paid them... but really, I'm not totally convinced everyone has had the same experiences with terrible audio software that you have. I think computers are a pretty viable option. There's a fair amount of reasonably well composed music that's never touched a real instrument made by random douche bags on the internet.
...there's also an ungodly enormous, steaming mass of terribly composed garbage out there. I don't think either of us really knows if it's awful because of the software or because of the composers, but my money is on the composer.
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2011 Mar 4 at 06:46 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 06:50 UTC
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molkman
Owner of George Washington's Prototype Mittens
2005 May 2 • 2066
404 ₧
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The problem probably is more to get the musician to play your song the way you have it in mind (and way harder, to sing it like you have it in mind) than actually finding one.
When a band claims to not want to make popular songs, are those songs better? Better quality because only few people like them? I think the best way to determine the quality of a song is the popularity. But then again, there is absolutely no need to determine the general, objective quality of a song, because wheter someone likes a song is not determined by objective qualities, but by "feelings" or parameters even the someone himself can't explain. That way, a song can't be good to everyone at the same time, just because some test says it's awesome.
The reason why lovesongs are the most popular type of songs probably is because almost anyone can relate to the topic. Subconsciously.
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2011 Mar 4 at 11:10 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 11:12 UTC
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Outcast
My points value is a hilarious example of numerical humor.
2009 Dec 13 • 567
80,085 ₧
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aaronjer said: I'm sure their songs are just great. It has to actually be a good song that people want to listen to more than once... or even once.
An example would be a musician on Youtube will have 2,000,000 views for a cover song and like 10,000 for an original song. It's not always those exact numbers, but their covers are WAAAAY more popular than their original music. Cause writing music is really hard, and they suck at it.
There is an endless supply of people on the internet doing masterful covers of various music. The vast majority of those people can't write music for shit, and many don't even try. On the other hand, EVERY amazing composer is ALSO an amazing musician or singer. That means there are far less good composers than good musicians... it doesn't take a lot of thought to make the connection that JUST MAYBE composition is more difficult.  So now views make a "good" song ... how narrow minded,really.
SRAW said: Dream Theater.
trolling?nah..
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2011 Mar 4 at 16:50 UTC
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molkman
Owner of George Washington's Prototype Mittens
2005 May 2 • 2066
404 ₧
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Outcast said: So now views make a "good" song ... how narrow minded,really.
Not necessarily, but apparently people like their coversongs better- So the common opinion among their fans would be that the original songs aren't that good.
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2011 Mar 4 at 17:52 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 17:53 UTC
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Outcast
My points value is a hilarious example of numerical humor.
2009 Dec 13 • 567
80,085 ₧
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molkman said: Outcast said: So now views make a "good" song ... how narrow minded,really.
Not necessarily, but apparently people like their coversongs better- So the common opinion among their fans would be that the original songs aren't that good.
This could happen in some cases (in a way) but what does this have to do with what i've said above?
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2011 Mar 4 at 18:46 UTC
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aaronjer
*****'n Admin
2005 Mar 21 • 5106
1,227 ₧
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aaronjer said: An example
So you're saying views have no connection to how good the music is?
I think we all know I never said the only factor determining if the song is good or not is views on youtube. I really meant it when I said the words 'an example', I didn't put that there on accident. There's an entire page of discourse between SJ and I about this very topic, which you clearly didn't read.
But it's good to see you're starting to divert the topic and trying to twist my words instead of making an actual argument.
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2011 Mar 4 at 19:32 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 19:35 UTC
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Outcast
My points value is a hilarious example of numerical humor.
2009 Dec 13 • 567
80,085 ₧
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I'm not trying to twist your words or whatever.What i said was simple,actually other people tried to twist my words..anyway that's ok,i've talked with many arrogant people who talk about something they don't know (not talking about anyone here just saying).
And by the way stop saying "good music" and "bad music" (i hope everyone can understand this at least),some music can be bad to someone that sounds good to someone else.
-But peanutt butter sucks
-Nah you just don't like it 
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2011 Mar 4 at 20:42 UTC
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If anyone's going to twist AaronJer's words around here it's going to be me.
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2011 Mar 4 at 20:42 UTC
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superjer said: If anyone's going to twist AaronJer's words around here it's going to be me.
That's different, because with your admin powa you can actually twist them in a not so metaphorical sense.
...and that's the bottom line because Mate de Vita said so.
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2011 Mar 4 at 22:47 UTC
— Ed. 2011 Mar 4 at 22:47 UTC
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