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From: jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Good and Bad Music
Message-ID: <5456@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Jun-85 18:30:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekecs.5456
Posted: Sun Jun 16 18:30:21 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Jun-85 04:35:50 EDT
References: <4452@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Distribution: net.music
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 20

Seems to me that Seth Jackson is saying nothing more profound than, "If
you don't have any criteria for judgement, you can't say a piece of
music is good or bad". 

Once you do have such criteria, judgements may easily be made. Even Mr.
Jackson allowed that some pieces of music were better for "entertainment",
and others were better for a deeper enjoyment. An analogy involving 
similar judgements was made with "Laverne and Shirley" and "Macbeth".
The judgements are subjective, but if a fair number of knowledgeable people
agree on them over time, they are not unreasonable.

I rarely classify music as "good" and "bad". I say "interesting" and "boring".
A piece of music can be boring for two reasons - I understand what's 
going on in it immediately (to the point of almost being able to predict it)
or I can't grasp it at all and I'm not in the mood to try. It's pretty
easy to distinguish these two cases. To me, music of the first kind is
about as "bad" as it gets. I would be hard pressed to call this an
objective judgement, though.

					Jeff Winslow