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Does Music Improve with Time?

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Does Music Improve with Time?

X is10 cellist
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Posted 09/19/09 - 10:16 PM:	#31
I'll assume you're talking about classical music. No. Here's why: 1) Music as a whole isn't something that's trying to get closer and closer to a common goal of perfection. Every individual piece has already reached it's own unique definition of "perfection". 2) If your idea of "improving" means becoming more dissonant, then yes, but only from a certain time period (Early classical period to 20th century composers) . After serial music, where you couldn't push tonality any further, people started writing more consanant music again. 3) I think emotional expressiveness is what makes great music great. Every composer of every period had their own tools for self expression. We can get chills down our spine from both Bach and Stravinsky, althought they both have different ways of expressing themselves. 4) Music is just a reflection of it's composer's concious and subconcious, and the human brain hasn't evolved to become "better" at music. If it had, we'd get bored by Bach's four part fugues because of how "simple" they were compared to modern music. 5) There are people who HATE classical music. In their case, they'd say "thank god for metal" or "thank god for rap" or "thank god for punk," etc. In their mind, every genre sucked until their favorite genre "saved humanity". Then, they may say their favorite genre went mainstream "died" after it's peak, so they only listen to that genre from it's golden age. They may only listen to artists in a ten year interval! What does that say about this argument? Mike

Z. Thustra
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Posted 09/28/09 - 03:01 PM:	#32
i havent read through this thread, so in response to the original question: not necessarily. even limited to only classical music, there are clear cycles that music goes in and whole movements that are pretty much worthless. modern "art" music is sometimes nothing more than electrical equipment making noise. i was a music major and had to sit through an hour of one of my professors twisting knobs on a guitar amp in one "concert." on the other hand i think many aspects of music are better now.
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Schlitz
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Posted 09/28/09 - 07:37 PM:	#33
Once, an artist friend of mine and I were talking about my trip to the art museum. I told him that I only saw the modern wing, and that the floor that showcased the 1900's-1950's was much better than the floor that featured art from the '60s and '70s. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yeah, time filters out the shit."

Drsmoo
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Posted 10/09/09 - 01:00 AM:	#34
To answer this question, we must first answer the question of what is "good" music and what is "bad" music. In my opinion, that question is impossible to answer definitively, and subsequently, so is the question the topic creator asks.

litkey
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Posted 10/10/09 - 02:24 AM:	#35
NO. I turned on the telly today, and there are many blackmen, dancing with white women, and the lyrics aren't at all inspiring: (example): "I want to get your clothes of..." or "I want to describe you but dont want to disrespect you..." It is UTTER MINCE. It sounds racist what I have written, but I don't think dancing, and naked women (almost always white?), and rapping, and selling sex sex sex - is music. It's not music, it is selling souls to devils. -and the devils are probably white.
That's what tyrants get! - John Wilkes Booth “This is an impressive crowd: the Have's and Have-more's. Some people call you the elites. I call you my base.” -Bush Something cannot come from nothing.

Pseudocles
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Posted 10/12/09 - 10:08 AM:	#36
I am a composer and I want to tell you about a conversation I've had more than once with other composers. We listen to chant and hear something that is absolutely serene and immaculate, and in our own compositions we often wish to capture something similar. Some sound that manages to float and move slowly, that is inward and reflective, and that is perfectly pure. The problem is, it can't be done. Chant has a quality to it that can only be embodied by chant. Of course there can be music with similarities, but it will never give the listener same impression as chant does. I could write slow moving monophonic vocal music and have it performed in a monastery, but then, in all actuality it would be chant. I use chant because it is very unlike much of the music that came after it, in that it was not composed in the same sense. The reality though is that with all processes aside chant is not unlike the music of any composer such as Stravinsky. Chant has a a shape and form to it that in essence is inescapably alike to the form of any other type of music. And if you listen closely to the melding of each monk's individual voice reflecting in the space, you will easily find a complexity that rivals the orchestration techniques of a Mahler symphony. There are two points to be made here: 1. Every bit of music ever heard has in itself a character that can only be embodied by itself. Saying that any music is bad and should not be heard is depriving the existence of a completely unique and individual sound. 2. What we perceive as complexity, which we then perceive as superiority, is more the complexity of what brings the music into being rather than the music itself. Even the sound of just one human voice is as complex as any other sound. In fact, most of what we think about music is based on things other than the music itself. We seem to care a lot about how and why music is written. People have a problem with highly commercial music because of its purpose, not because of how it sounds. People come up with terms like "bubblegum pop" because of what we associate the music with. The point is, the music is in itself completely and 100% subjective. People have been calling the same composers the greatest composers of all time because their opinions are also subjective. I guess, however, it would be ridiculous to try to be objective and just say all music is the same. Why would there be anything wrong with being subjective? Our whole lives are subjective. So for the original question of whether music gets better over time, my subjective answer is no. It does not. If you want to change my mind, here is what you need to do. Look through all the music ever written. Look through Machaut, Des Prez, Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Copland, and all who you may think are among the best. Look through all there music and try to find something that I will concede is more perfect than chant.
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Posted 11/10/09 - 03:10 PM:	#37
I agree, but something improves over time - right? I mean, scince Machaut's time we have found better ways of building up and releasing tension in chord progressions (yes better, as on a single scale of quality - please tell me if you disagree). And we have also acquired instruments that can play crescendo and diminuendo; we have developed opportune musical structures for varius situations - such as the concerto or fugue; helpful theories, like Wagners idea about leitmotifs; and we have even got little video screens that display the lyrics in opras. But does your argument mean that all of these evolutionary developments are unimportant - because the music has not become better? Let me clearify: I know that the invention of a new style is or new technique is pleasing in and of itself because it is new - trancendention is almost always interesting. But are these advancements arbitrary in their content and only important because of the fact that they are advancements, or did they really lead to something indespensable and inevitable? In other words: would it not have mattered whether we developed crescendo or triad-based harmony or perhaps a way of conveying specific meaning only through music (and not by the help of words), because the only important part was the development in itself? The fact that Stravinsky can use crescendo in another way then Bach could with his instruments, does not make Stravinsky's compositions better. Does this mean that the development of crescendo was not necessary, but only an arbitraryly agitated wave on the constantly changing ocean of musical evolution? Or is it really an inevitable part of this soundscape?
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Sashianova
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Posted 11/10/09 - 03:52 PM:	#38
The best melodies from any genre are timeless, and will resonate with anyone who enjoys music. There is something to be said for the purpose of a given music, for classical music cannot perform the same function as music intended for certain types of dancing. Salsa music is for salsa dancing. Club music with raunchy overt sexual overtones is for club dancing. Disco was better for disco dancing than rock. The thing I've noticed with every genre of music is they each tend to have a "golden age." The creativity and inspiration collectively peaks for a spell. It can be seen in jazz, rock, soul, disco, metal, grunge, rap...that doesn't mean that the creativity entirely dies outside the constraints of that "golden age," but there does appear to be a concentration of creative output at certain times for certain genres. Another phenomenon to note is that most of us tend to listen to music repeatedly and learn the song and like it more and more after the initial listen. So in that sense, our appreciating of music does "improve with time." It makes what the musician is able to do that much more impressive. The backlash is of course becoming tired of a song. It becomes "played out" and no longer delivers the same pleasure.

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Posted 11/11/09 - 11:38 AM:	#39
What society is accustomed to (musically/artistically and thus influentially) affects how we will further be benefited/detrimented by a certain piece, regardless of particular age, in so far as it is psychologically interpreted by a individual or assemblance/group of individuals. In a more intensified examination, the recognizability of a certain piece will often vary in that persons will perceive it as a classic itself, thus awarding it with benefits exclusive to older music. Hypothetically, the inaccessibility of Britney Britney compared to Schnittke makes Schnittke all the more appealing in a sacred sense.
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FloydMcHenry
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Posted 11/11/09 - 08:52 PM:	#40
I do not believe that music can improve over time, as the compositions themselves do not change. However time does stand as a measure of how good music is. If music is able to stand the test of time, and is appreciated by different people and cultures through time, this music is certainly significant. Bach's music may not enjoy the popularity it did during his own lifetime, but to many people it still stands as a collection of beutiful art. The music of great classic rock artists such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix etc. has only grown in popuplarity since it was first released. It is impossible to predict how these artists and thier music will be viewed in the overall course of human history, but it is clear that this music is more historically significant than that of say, disco music, which is all but gone now in the twenty first century. Time does not improve the greatness of music it measures it. Just as history is the ultimate judge of good and evil, so to does it seperate good music from lesser music. Furthermore, artists who are able to completly change the landscape of popular music will stand the test of time better than those who follow after them (think the stones, the beatles, and bob dillion also i'm sure many classical composers fall into a catagory like this but I dont know enough of thier history to judge that.) Edited by FloydMcHenry on 11/11/09 - 09:26 PM
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