Why do you like the music you like, Sup Forums? what is quality in music?

why do you like the music you like, Sup Forums? what is quality in music?

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I would say music has three qualities: Groove, interest, and beauty. Groove is the good feeling of rhythm. Hip hop beats fall almost wholly into the groovy category. Beauty is the good feeling of melody and song. O Fortuna is an example of wholly beautiful music. Interest is the feeling of surprise in the other categories. This is really what jazz is about. Deathgrips is an example of almost wholly interesting music.

All music that is good to listen to is good because of these three qualities. Discuss. Is there good music (I know, subjective) that isn't explained as being good with any of these qualities?

Thanks for contributing man.
I think groove and beauty are such pliable terms that it's not hard to use them to frame music in some way. However they are somewhat useful new tools to advance the idea of quality and I wouldn't mind sticking with them.

You're saying something like high quality music rates highly on things like groove, beauty, and interest, whereas low quality music does not. So even ambient music, which has no groove, can be of high quality because of its beauty and interest. But then what is it about ambient music that is beautiful, and what in it is it that generates interest? We've surpassed that vague descriptor of quality into two or three others that seem to leave open even more questions.

Plus there are doubts as to the purity of your ternary split. What traits are specifically beauty that are not interest? Is melody, for example, which you give to beauty, not the only vector for the transmission of groove in music that lacks a beat or drums for example? Or is that music doomed to be of unachieved quality because it lacks groove? Do you allow for any overlap between those three constituents of quality?

The most important thing to me in music is strong, rhythmatic bass. There isnt alot of music I enjoy that doesnt have bass. This is also explains my questionable tastes for disco.

Second, I gravitate to dense textures in music, usually through rich jazzy instrumental interplay.

Thirdmost, I like my music melodic. While i like relatively simple melodies, melody alone isnt usually enough for me, it needs to be combined with everything else ive mentioned and a good touch of harmony in the accompaniment.

Penultimately, and contrary to the above, i like atonal, minor chord progressions. Obviously in the more dissonant music i happen to enjoy

Lastly, im a huge fan of drumming done right. Im no anti 4/4 elitist but I do think proper syncopation can make any time signature groovy!

I can see you liking a lot of modern jazz

Also forgot to mention
Electric keyboards, especially moogs are my favorite fucking instrument ever. When I talk about harmonies, I usually mean these bad boys.

Nailed it. I love a disproportionate amount of jazz rock/fusion

Emotional appeal. I know that's plebby and not as detailed as the rest of what everyone's saying but for me the emotion of a piece of music is more important than anything related to technical skill, which is also why so much of the music I listen to is lyrics based. I'm mainly a folk/country/singer-songwriter kind of guy.

Mind you, I'll admit that technical ability is impressive and I don't rate a piece of music poorly if it's technically well-put together yet lacking emotion. At the end of the day however, if I had to choose between Blaze Foley:

youtube.com/watch?v=uM3YROq_cLY

Or Frank Zappa in all his glory as something I'd want to listen to, it'd be Foley any day.

Not him, but with this basic trivium of Groove, Beauty, and Interest, they would be better defined as Rhythm, Melody, and Novelty.

Rhythm and Melody (as roughly defined in the first post) are likely both musical qualities that work on a sort of logic, a pattern. Both are pleasing because, even if the listener is hearing the music for the first time, the application of Rhythm and Melody allows them to "figure out" the music in their head. Music is melodious, because it sounds like it goes the way it should, the notes follow this progression that for whatever reason appears naturally correct. I suppose "Beauty" is actually a fairly accurate term for this, as whatever beauty actually is to a person, the ultimate basis for beauty is "it looks the way I think it should". So, by extension, beautiful music is that that "sounds the way you think it should", in the sense that melody follows this aforementioned pattern (in a way that is separate from the manner rhythm forms its own pattern).

As for the last, Novelty is a quality even outside of music that can be both exciting and off-putting. It's essentially a new experience, a break from the norm, which sort of violates the two other principles, but in a manner that introduces new patterns, or even an appreciation for seemingly patternless music. I would argue this is both the reason for noise being characteristically difficult to like, and for why noise garners fans in the first place. It's entirely different from what it typically understood as "music", so listening to it AS music presents noise as a new, novel experience.

Don't know if this actually addressed any of your questions though.

It bumps in the whip

I mean there's a whole lot of stuff I like, but one term I tend to use, as well as a lot of people, is the idea of "texture". It honestly encompasses a lot of things, including tone, timbre, and recording quality, but as a whole it's this idea of a "unique sound" I've never heard before. It's a huge part of why I love psychedelia, why I can get into noise, and why I end up with a fetish for lo-fi recording - all the imperfections, from the way it was recorded (like with a tape recorder) or how it was recorded (like the acoustics of someone's bedroom), allow a lot of music I like that would normally sound fairly similar to sound really unique.

Thanks so much. What you're saying adds a lot of sensible dimension to the questions being asked. And I kind of agree with your distinctions but would add something like Color, and Texture, since it's hard to describe Ambient music for example in terms of Rhythm or Melody.

Now as for the issue of quality, how do you get from descriptions of a music's rhythm, melody, and novelty, to an assessment of it's quality? At the end of the day you'd have to say something like, this music has "beautiful" melody or it has "great" rhythm, which just kind of restates the issue of quality.

you're not black and you're not a critic.

the beauty of self-expression and where it takes me is what i like about music. whether it's aggression, comfort, or other abstract emotions i can always go to music

There is no real quality, or advantage to music. It is merely resonating our ear drums; its tones solving basic mathematical problems within our brains. The lyrics being relatable, or pathetic. The only gain of music is in its creation.

t. even an idiot

The empiricist speaks! Which means you would probably love the work of categorizing music. So how would you go about creating those categories? What is it that characterizes different types of music, if they're all of the same quality?

As I said before: Tonal, Atonal; Pathetic, Apathetic. You categorize music for introspection or entertainment

you're not going to get anywhere if neither of you acknowledge that "quality" is an entirely subjective value

Because on this confusing planet we call earth it is often times the only thing that makes sense to me

things that are either really repetitive or have no/few repetition.

Lol then the more time you spend on Sup Forums the crazier you'll go.

But we're all crazy so its kew

i'm surprised at how much i agree with you. except i wouldn't say beauty i would just say melodic construction

only what i've been conditioned to enjoy

Do you like Amon Tobin?

nice

Amon Tobin definitely has that atmospheric jazz texture but his music isn't particularly bass driven. Except for the drum and bass shit lol

makes me so happy to hear

Sure, I just had to think about Amon Tobin when I wrote your(?) text, so I was inclined to ask.

Are you into Trance music? Psychedelic trance? Darkpsy, Forest psy?
It's heavily bass driven music, almost only 4/4.
Little example:
youtube.com/watch?v=sspp8YfUceM

Well i like to listen to many different genres. It all depends on the quality of the sound. It can be mainstream shit but sometimes it can make me fill happy or sad. The vocals can differ and also the sound. Showman ship is a part but it doesnt really matter to me. All in all I listen to the music i listen to because it can make me feel different emotions.

*read
damn, I'm tired.

bump

>Groove, interest, and beauty

>the sheer reddit in this one post
>everyone else agreeing with it
we've truly been overrun

>actual discussion is now reddit

>a 10 year old's understanding of music now qualifies as legitimate discussion on this board

>Groove, interest, and beauty
You mean rhythm, melody, and experimentation or execution because the way you're saying it sounds flamboyant and nondescriptive

Look Mom I over-intellectualized art again!

Personality life experience opness to new things
also think rhythm and melody complexity is mostly innate

i like the music i like because it can put me in different mindsets that i'd never experience otherwise - especially the more entrancing releases in my catalogue. there are a few artists in my catalogue that are simply fun to listen to, and nothing more, but right now i'm at a stage where i crave something extremely different, yet nothing can quite satisfy my craving completely. i should probably take a break soon.

No... im not a big fan of modern music production. Seemed a bit minor to mention but i love fuzzy 70s era sound production the most.

I honestly think that music of the biggest quality involves invoking many feeling in one piece.

Like some anons have said before, rhythm is essential for me, but unless the timbre of the percussion is unique or timing changes, it would feel very bland, not much quality to it. That's where melody and all of its derivations come in. The texture ties everything together and depending of how well it serves to make the sound have more depth in what is trying to tell the listener, the more quality the track will have.

I've got to elaborate. Groove, beauty, and interest are explicitly musical feelings. I mean to say, interest isn't predicated on newness. Things like texture or structure fall under interest, because they don't cause the feeling of groove or beauty (so much), but they do cause a feeling of musical satisfaction. Familiarization does not destroy the interest of a piece. Svetozar Strachina (I fucked that bad) is very interesting music. A lot of the musicality of prog comes from its interest (think Inmate's Lullaby - Gentle Giant).

And groove doesn't just mean "rhythm". It is when music makes you bob your head. Rhythm is an important part of melody and beauty, groove is invocation of dance. Just about anything with drums has groove of some kind.

Beauty is the evocation of emotion. Powerful melodies are usually where beauty comes from, such as many Beatles songs like Norwegian Wood and Blackbird which are rich in beauty. But the content of lyrics and their relationship to the other musical elements is another source of beauty. Welcome My Son and Stopped Loving Her Today are extremely beautiful songs and good examples of music that if divorced from their lyrics would suffer tremendous losses in beauty.

>thinking and talking about things for fun
>somehow bad

We're not saying these are truths of music or that these are things you must known about to create and enjoy music. We're just talking about it for fun, intellectualize it. It's a pretty popular pastime for humans, you should try it sometime.

>unless the timbre of the percussion is unique or timing changes, it would feel very bland

You like interesting music. Would you say a piece like Hide and Seek is bland? No percussion, very simple rhythms, a single time signature and tempo, and only one timbre. But an extremely rich and interesting timbre used in a very precisely structured and beautiful song.

I'm sorry I'm autistic.

Emotions. If you music isn't filled with genuine emotion, it's not music.

>inb4 technical brilliance

Remember that rhythm and melody aren't necessarily associated with groove and beauty respectively. They describe very specific things about music, where as groove and beauty and interest describe the three areas where you would say a piece satisfied you musically.

Ambient music, I feel, is pretty well described by these vectors. I would say they are primarily interesting, sometimes beautiful, never groovy songs. I think it's difficult to get much beauty out of ambient given how strangely/slowly it moves. Remember also that beauty isn't the only vector along which something can be musically satisfying. It being called beauty might garner jealousy otherwise. Because I'd say ambient is purely interesting. And that's a very valid way of being good music. It's all about alien pacing and rich, changing textures and dynamics.

I'm not saying good music is good because it has a good balance of these vectors, I'm saying these are the ways that music is good. I think of these as the categories of the effects of music. Deathgrips is good because it is interesting. Stevie Wonder is good because his music is beautiful and groovy. The Sound of Music is good because it is beautiful.

This is pretty good, not cringe at all.

The question that you are actually asking is why do we like anything? The answer is that the sensory/cognitive experience of listening to the music stimulates us in a pleasant way based on what our concept of pleasant is.