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Worst form of music?

Musical complexity, inclusion of certain parts of music, talent on a particular instrument, vocal range, vocal tone, production values, lyrics, subject matter, origin, age, popularity or lack thereof, message, etc, etc, are all highly subjective and do not necessarily determine if one form of music is better or worse than another. You simply cannot argue that something has to have a certain attribute for it to be good or not. It's simply your personal taste.

This is about what grates on your ears. Just because something grates on your ears doesn't mean there is or is not any talent behind it.


However, the stuff I hate IS produced by talentless hacks. :D

Peruvian Pan Flute... its all done by one dude on a synth. Badly.
"World" music... trite bullshit cobbled together from a variety of "ethnic" sources to form one big pile of feces.
New Age music... same one dude who does all the PPF crap on a synth. Again, badly.

Jimmy Buffett. Well, he just needs to be shoved into the middle of the ocean.
 
aminalmutha said:
Musical complexity, inclusion of certain parts of music, talent on a particular instrument, vocal range, vocal tone, production values, lyrics, subject matter, origin, age, popularity or lack thereof, message, etc, etc, are all highly subjective and do not necessarily determine if one form of music is better or worse than another. You simply cannot argue that something has to have a certain attribute for it to be good or not. It's simply your personal taste.

.
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Well, consider the thread title. I didn't insist on melody, harmony, verses, chords but I mentioned them, then was wrestled to the point of asking whether they all must be present. But I might be orthodox and draw the line at melody.:rofl:rofl:rofl

I will state categorically, that music with melody is simply my personal taste. Any music without melody is the WORST MUSIC EVAH!!!!

Since we are riffin' on world music, I will mention two things I detest, though they don't make the genre the worst: bongoes/congas in Irish music (Afro-Celt Project, or whatever that band is called) and saxophones in Brazilian music. Of the former, that group is considered a groundbreaker, but its kind of annoying to implant an African drumbeat on Celtic-y music. Of the later, people loved that Stan Getz exposed Amurica to Bossa Nova, but I hate the saxophone in Bossa Nova. Plenty like it, tho. And Astrid Gilberto was out-of-tune on the whole damn record, too. I'll take Nara Leão any day. May she RIP.
 
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Bay Arean said:
Pretty much.
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If those are your requirements, you can't credibly say you "like all kinds of music."

If you have to have verse and chorus, you rule out a lot of stuff; canons go out the window, a huge chunk of the blues, a high percentage of late 20th century pop music, basically all Gregorian Chant (yeah, I don't listen to that either) and plenty of examples from most periods of western music.

If you have to have melody, Balinese drumming isn't music. Neither is Cage's 4:33, though a lot of folks would agree with you.

If harmony is required, again, Gregorian Chant is off the table, any drumming music, and many forms of aboriginal music.

The point is, there are probably things in the list above that you do appreciate but that don't have all of the elements you listed. There are also probably things in the above list that you don't care for any more than you do rap, yet they are widely recognized as music.

The question of what is or isn't legitimate music seems to be eternal. In the broadest sense, it's an auditory art. Its elements include pitch, amplitude, tempo, meter, timbre, form, etc. It must have some of these elements, but not necessarily all.

What any given listener will find interesting or enjoyable is an entirely different matter, usually defined by some boundaries around the elements. A listener will connect with given music or not based on experience, associations and things like that, which add up to what we call "taste." Assmo didn't seem to care for the example I posted in Abby's jazz thread, nor did I particularly care for his. Two guys who have some musical knowledge and evidently very different tastes.
 
This is why i watch Later...With Jools Holland. He gets all kinds of music on there, some of it is great, some I don't like, but at least I'm getting a little exposure to various genre.
 
tzrider said:
If those are your requirements, you can't credibly say you "like all kinds of music."

If you have to have verse and chorus, you rule out a lot of stuff; canons go out the window, a huge chunk of the blues, a high percentage of late 20th century pop music, basically all Gregorian Chant (yeah, I don't listen to that either) and plenty of examples from most periods of western music.

If you have to have melody, Balinese drumming isn't music. Neither is Cage's 4:33, though a lot of folks would agree with you.

If harmony is required, again, Gregorian Chant is off the table, any drumming music, and many forms of aboriginal music.

The point is, there are probably things in the list above that you do appreciate but that don't have all of the elements you listed. There are also probably things in the above list that you don't care for any more than you do rap, yet they are widely recognized as music.

The question of what is or isn't legitimate music seems to be eternal. In the broadest sense, it's an auditory art. Its elements include pitch, amplitude, tempo, meter, timbre, form, etc. It must have some of these elements, but not necessarily all.

What any given listener will find interesting or enjoyable is an entirely different matter, usually defined by some boundaries around the elements. A listener will connect with given music or not based on experience, associations and things like that, which add up to what we call "taste." Assmo didn't seem to care for the example I posted in Abby's jazz thread, nor did I particularly care for his. Two guys who have some musical knowledge and evidently very different tastes.
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For gawds sakes, would you actually read what I wrote? I never said they were MY requirements.

:laughing

I was talking about the blues possessing them as opposed to rap when being evaluated by the "gentry" at their point of introduction.. I never said ALL music had to have ALL those things. But thanks for litany. You are arguing with an imaginary foe. I was challenged as to whether music had to have all four. Like I said, wrestled into a spot.

I then got it down to melody, and I would argue that since those Balinese drums are actually tuned to pitches, there is a tacit melodic interplay. That's what I love about the tabla in Indian music too....I love terra cotta pot drumming in Spanish and Indian music too...

And I never used the word legitimate. BTW, I love Gregorian chant; I think people tune out because it's in Latin and can't see the correlation to later music. I really do love a lot of music, but have a hard time wanting to listen to rap for anything except pumping gas and eating Cheetos. It's like junk food for the junk-strewn, doped-up American body. And that's what's most authentic about it. Sort of like the hyphy thing. With the right combination of drugs, a person could get crazy enough to do down to the freeway and spin donuts, and hey, everybody needs a soundtrack.

As for music that grates, Chinese opera is up there, but I still respect it and its craft an awful lot.
 
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Oh, I forgot to add that Mexican polka shit. So awful.
 
Nitewaif said:
Oh, I forgot to add that Mexican polka shit. So awful.
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When Maximilian invaded Mexico, he brought the horns and the reeds, and it stuck. Most people don't know that Baile Folklorico was invented by a French choreographer to capture Mexican dancing.

It's okay to me, just a bit much after a while, or if you are unwillingly forced to hear it, like your neighbor having a quincenera or something....
 
Bay Arean said:
I was talking about the blues possessing them as opposed to rap when being evaluated by the "gentry" at their point of introduction.. I never said ALL music had to have ALL those things. But thanks for litany. You are arguing with an imaginary foe. I was challenged as to whether music had to have all four. Like I said, wrestled into a spot.
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OK, you've clarified a lot. I was the one who asked you if music had to have all of those elements but I didn't wrestle you into a spot; you could have said "no." :laughing

But back to the blues, not even it has all the elements all the time. Sometimes the form is nothing but verse, verse, verse, verse...
 
tzrider said:
OK, you've clarified a lot. I was the one who asked you if music had to have all of those elements but I didn't wrestle you into a spot; you could have said "no." :laughing

But back to the blues, not even it has all the elements all the time. Sometimes the form is nothing but verse, verse, verse, verse...
Click to expand...

Yeh, but they're awesome.:laughing (circlin back to subjective)
 
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Bay Arean said:
When Maximilian invaded Mexico, he brought the horns and the reeds, and it stuck. Most people don't know that Baile Folklorico was invented by a French choreographer to capture Mexican dancing.
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I hope he got the guillotine. Ugh.
 
Reli said:
As I'm typing this, I'm sitting near a church that has been BLASTING this "christian pop rock" or whatever it's called. You know, the type of music they play during their "alternative" services to try and appeal to a younger audience (even though it's still mostly middle-aged).

The vocals seem like a cross between Creed and Hootie & the Blowfish, but the guitar and keyboard has no rhythm or aggression whatsoever......I can't even make out any individual chords, they seem to blend into each other in one continuous, annoying tone.

Is this what's called elevator music, or muzak?
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Jazz, obviously?
 
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