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From: maverick@oak.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: What makes a piece of electro acoustic music a masterpiece?
Message-ID: <21656@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 1 Feb 90 19:34:18 GMT
References: <20400@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Feb1.074731.19127@intacc.uucp>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: maverick@oak.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick)
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In article <20400@watdragon.waterloo.edu>,
dmnhieu@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Duy-Minh NHIEU) writes:
> Now a days you can hear lots of electro-acoustic music outthere.  (I don't
> mean the ones that was written traditionally but have a new arrangement that
> you play on a synthesizer, I mean those that are composed newly)  What makes
> it a masterpiece or a piece of junk?  What is the criteria?  (I think music
> is an art, it is hard to give rules that judge what is a good piece of music,
> but nevertherless, you can say something about it.

I would say that it is impossible to talk about what makes *any* piece
of music good.  Of course, we do talk this way;  we remark on qualities,
whether timbre, structure, melody, whatever;  but I think what we really
mean is, "I liked it, and I was enjoying listening to the timbre,
structure, melody, etc."  Two people who feel a piece similarly enough
can exchange comments of this nature, and each can make the other aware
of ways to enjoy a given piece, but neither is really "saying what makes
it a masterpiece."  I see no way to get rid of the mystery, except to
discard it and talk about the tone-rows, or the message of the lyrics,
or any such substitute for the actual music.  If discussion of music
weren't inherently circular, we wouldn't make music.