First of all, Beethoven’s “Für Elise” isn’t a song, it’s a bagatelle; let’s get the genre right. (The previous sentence also demonstrates the proper use of the word “genre”, by the way.)
The rest of your comment is just a reaffirmation of your confusion of mass culture and culture tout court. I (might) agree that mass-culture’s greatness-producing capacities have plateaued, but I don’t look to mass culture as a source of artistic greatness, so I don’t really care.
If you studied music in sufficient depth, you’d see the possibilities for yourself, and your intuition would switch from “music is almost exhausted” to “mass culture is really poor at generating musical value”.
You’re failing to engage the question of the nature of songs and music as a metaphysical level. I agree that mass culture and dissemination of works is part of the discussion, but it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to engage with that nature of “what is a song?”. (See a number of the longer comment chains by other posters who provided thoughts on this topic if you’re not sure what is under examination besides mass culture and dissemination.)
but it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to engage with that nature of “what is a song?”
The comment you’re replying to did exactly that, actually. Since you seem to have missed that part, here’s a hint: a song is a piece of music that’s supposed to be sung by someone, i.e. it has lyrics, and a vocal part. Beethoven’s Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano (generally known as Für Elise) has neither: hence it’s an instrumental piece, not a “song”. (It’s not even drawing overt inspiration from the song genre as a whole; but if it was, it might be somewhat sensible to call it a song by analogy/extension, as we do with Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words).
My understanding (which may be defective, because I’m pretty firmly embedded in the art-music context and am not well up on the activities of Popular Beat Combos) is that in some recent musical traditions the term “song” has a different meaning, something like “any piece of music suitable for putting on a single track of a CD”. It is unfortunate that this meaning is so different from the other one, and I think the other one is better because it makes a useful distinction (and we could easily use something like “track” for the broader definition), but I think stephen_s is using a different definition of “song” more than he’s ignorant of what “song” means.
[EDITED to add:] For the avoidance of doubt, I do agree that stephen_s’s use of the word “song” suggests that he is probably not familiar enough with the world of classical music[1] for his pronouncement of its senescence to be taken very seriously.
[1] By which I take it he means, or would if informed a bit more, something like “Western art music”. Or maybe not; maybe he really does mean it in the stricter sense, meaning something like “that variety of music running roughly from C P E Bach to Beethoven”, in which case it should not be surprising if production of such music is slower than it was in Beethoven’s day.
To be more clear, putting pieces of music under different labels (bagatelle, folk song, house track, etc) doesn’t have a bearing on this discussion of what is the metaphysical nature of a piece of music. I understand that I was using the word “song” colloquially for a piece of music. I was not attempting to initiate a debate on the dictionary definition of a song or its characteristics in relation to other types of music. Again, I would refer you to the metaphysical discussion that many of the other posters contributed to.
I understand that music categorization and music theory are a separate and important topic of which you may have an expertise in, but that is a different discussion.
I understand that I was using the word “song” colloquially for a piece of music. I was not attempting to initiate a debate on the dictionary definition of a song or its characteristics in relation to other types of music.
The vocabulary you use conveys information about your background, experience, perspective, and conceptual framework—in short, your epistemic state. Someone who un-self-consciously uses the word “song” in the way that you have is unlikely to be familiar enough with music to have good intuitions about its ultimate philosophical nature. My suggestion to you, therefore, is that before attempting to philosophize about the size of musical space and the proportion of it that is occupied by the mass-cultural products that seem to constitute the entirety of your experience, you acquaint yourself further with the higher realms of human possibility in this domain, if not others as well.
I don’t mean this as a slapdown—I genuinely think your beliefs would change if you had more knowledge.
This all being said, the question of the ultimate information-theoretic limits of interestingness in the universe is (plausibly) an important one, and (this being Less Wrong) I recommend the Fun Theory Sequence as a starting point.
I understand your point. My experience is in the genre of rock music (which is songs) and not in classical music, so my explorations into the metaphysical nature of music is based on extensive experience with songs (and not in other pieces of music). However, I believe at the metaphysical level that this idea applies to, there is not a substantial difference in examining the nature of songs and other pieces of music. That may make the perspective I’m coming from clearer to you, or we may have to agree to disagree.
I have not read the Fun Theory Sequence article, but you’re right that is connected to this topic. I appreciate the link. Thanks for your comments!
Aieee! (The tradition of rock music is what you meant.)
However, I believe at the metaphysical level that this idea applies to, there is not a substantial difference in examining the nature of songs and other pieces of music.
Whether or not there is a substantial difference in the metaphysical nature of songs versus other kinds of musical works, there is certainly a substantial difference in the conclusions about musical possibility that one can draw if one’s appreciative apparatus is exclusively (or near-exclusively) derived from mass culture, versus the case where one has a more refined artistic sensibility and greater powers of appreciation.
I understand what you are saying, but I am still curious if you agree that there is a limit of distinctness in music? It seems difficult to argue that there is unlimited distinctness in music, and I don’t think you are, but that you are instead arguing that it requires a certain level of the artistic sensibility to gauge the limits of musical possibility.
If so, who do you think / what type of person would have the requisite artistic sensibility to make such a judgment with some accuracy (but still imperfect)?
If you have the requisite artistic sensibility (I’m not saying you asserted that but I’m curious if you do think that), what is your position on where our current collective body of musical works is in relationship to an objective limit in the distinctiveness of new music?
If you do not think you have the requisite artistic sensibility, are you saying that from your perspective and my perspective that we can make no predictions on whether humanity reaches a certain limit of distinctiveness in music this decade vs in 10,000 years? What I mean is, is your position that there is no way for someone without the necessary artistic sensibility to estimate any limit in the distinctness of music?
First of all, Beethoven’s “Für Elise” isn’t a song, it’s a bagatelle; let’s get the genre right. (The previous sentence also demonstrates the proper use of the word “genre”, by the way.)
The rest of your comment is just a reaffirmation of your confusion of mass culture and culture tout court. I (might) agree that mass-culture’s greatness-producing capacities have plateaued, but I don’t look to mass culture as a source of artistic greatness, so I don’t really care.
If you studied music in sufficient depth, you’d see the possibilities for yourself, and your intuition would switch from “music is almost exhausted” to “mass culture is really poor at generating musical value”.
You’re failing to engage the question of the nature of songs and music as a metaphysical level. I agree that mass culture and dissemination of works is part of the discussion, but it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to engage with that nature of “what is a song?”. (See a number of the longer comment chains by other posters who provided thoughts on this topic if you’re not sure what is under examination besides mass culture and dissemination.)
The comment you’re replying to did exactly that, actually. Since you seem to have missed that part, here’s a hint: a song is a piece of music that’s supposed to be sung by someone, i.e. it has lyrics, and a vocal part. Beethoven’s Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano (generally known as Für Elise) has neither: hence it’s an instrumental piece, not a “song”. (It’s not even drawing overt inspiration from the song genre as a whole; but if it was, it might be somewhat sensible to call it a song by analogy/extension, as we do with Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words).
My understanding (which may be defective, because I’m pretty firmly embedded in the art-music context and am not well up on the activities of Popular Beat Combos) is that in some recent musical traditions the term “song” has a different meaning, something like “any piece of music suitable for putting on a single track of a CD”. It is unfortunate that this meaning is so different from the other one, and I think the other one is better because it makes a useful distinction (and we could easily use something like “track” for the broader definition), but I think stephen_s is using a different definition of “song” more than he’s ignorant of what “song” means.
[EDITED to add:] For the avoidance of doubt, I do agree that stephen_s’s use of the word “song” suggests that he is probably not familiar enough with the world of classical music[1] for his pronouncement of its senescence to be taken very seriously.
[1] By which I take it he means, or would if informed a bit more, something like “Western art music”. Or maybe not; maybe he really does mean it in the stricter sense, meaning something like “that variety of music running roughly from C P E Bach to Beethoven”, in which case it should not be surprising if production of such music is slower than it was in Beethoven’s day.
To be more clear, putting pieces of music under different labels (bagatelle, folk song, house track, etc) doesn’t have a bearing on this discussion of what is the metaphysical nature of a piece of music. I understand that I was using the word “song” colloquially for a piece of music. I was not attempting to initiate a debate on the dictionary definition of a song or its characteristics in relation to other types of music. Again, I would refer you to the metaphysical discussion that many of the other posters contributed to.
I understand that music categorization and music theory are a separate and important topic of which you may have an expertise in, but that is a different discussion.
The vocabulary you use conveys information about your background, experience, perspective, and conceptual framework—in short, your epistemic state. Someone who un-self-consciously uses the word “song” in the way that you have is unlikely to be familiar enough with music to have good intuitions about its ultimate philosophical nature. My suggestion to you, therefore, is that before attempting to philosophize about the size of musical space and the proportion of it that is occupied by the mass-cultural products that seem to constitute the entirety of your experience, you acquaint yourself further with the higher realms of human possibility in this domain, if not others as well.
I don’t mean this as a slapdown—I genuinely think your beliefs would change if you had more knowledge.
This all being said, the question of the ultimate information-theoretic limits of interestingness in the universe is (plausibly) an important one, and (this being Less Wrong) I recommend the Fun Theory Sequence as a starting point.
I understand your point. My experience is in the genre of rock music (which is songs) and not in classical music, so my explorations into the metaphysical nature of music is based on extensive experience with songs (and not in other pieces of music). However, I believe at the metaphysical level that this idea applies to, there is not a substantial difference in examining the nature of songs and other pieces of music. That may make the perspective I’m coming from clearer to you, or we may have to agree to disagree.
I have not read the Fun Theory Sequence article, but you’re right that is connected to this topic. I appreciate the link. Thanks for your comments!
Aieee! (The tradition of rock music is what you meant.)
Whether or not there is a substantial difference in the metaphysical nature of songs versus other kinds of musical works, there is certainly a substantial difference in the conclusions about musical possibility that one can draw if one’s appreciative apparatus is exclusively (or near-exclusively) derived from mass culture, versus the case where one has a more refined artistic sensibility and greater powers of appreciation.
I understand what you are saying, but I am still curious if you agree that there is a limit of distinctness in music? It seems difficult to argue that there is unlimited distinctness in music, and I don’t think you are, but that you are instead arguing that it requires a certain level of the artistic sensibility to gauge the limits of musical possibility.
If so, who do you think / what type of person would have the requisite artistic sensibility to make such a judgment with some accuracy (but still imperfect)?
If you have the requisite artistic sensibility (I’m not saying you asserted that but I’m curious if you do think that), what is your position on where our current collective body of musical works is in relationship to an objective limit in the distinctiveness of new music?
If you do not think you have the requisite artistic sensibility, are you saying that from your perspective and my perspective that we can make no predictions on whether humanity reaches a certain limit of distinctiveness in music this decade vs in 10,000 years? What I mean is, is your position that there is no way for someone without the necessary artistic sensibility to estimate any limit in the distinctness of music?
Thanks
IE “what is a piece of music?” from a metaphysical perspective.