Objectivity/Subjectivity: two sides of the same coin?

[DennisS]

Hi all
I have noticed just how often the two views "objectivity" and "subjectivity" appear in threads on this forum. Quite often,  I get the feeling it is held that the two views are somehow quite separate, that they exist independantly from each other. To my mind, they are but two sides of the same coin. Listening to any given piece of music, the immediate response is whether you like the piece or not. In many cases, the response is positive, whereas for others the response may be quite different. This then, is the subjective view and as individuals, we each have the right to either like or dislike a piece, irrespective of what we are told. And if we are listening merely for enjoyment, I feel a purely subjective view is totally justified. There are those though, who suggest that being "subjective" is not enough, that in order to recognise, indeed truly appreciate great music, we must be "objective", i.e. that somehow a totally different skill is being called upon!

In my opinion, listening to music is both subjective AND objective and every listener does in fact exercise objectivity. Obviously the immediate reponse is either"I like it" or "I don't like it" (sometimes though "I'm not sure" can equally apply). But consider for example, when the response say is negative. If you were asked to say why you didn't like it and had to give reasons, you would most probably come up with "poor melodies, weak playing, strange tempos, badly recorded et al". But would you not also compare the piece with other works from the same composer or indeed, on a larger scale, compare the work in question with music from other composers? In other words, you either consciously or, more frequently, subconsciously, break down your unfavourable response to what you have listened to. Perhaps, as a non-musicologist like myself, you don't critically analyse the music technically in purely musical terms but nevertheless, we all have the ability to contrast and compare pieces of music! This is why I feel that no-one is either solely objective or solely subjective, hence the title of this thread.

Finally, if I were to express the above idea in different terms but still stick to the same premice, I could easily substitute "emotional response" for subjectivity and "intellectual response" for objectivity.

Is this too simplistic a view?

Cheers
Dennis

[chill319]

Hi Dennis. A very thoughtful post! You're definitely on to something. I don't have any great insight into your subject, but I'm happy to share a few tentative responses.

I'm a little bit wary of equating subjective with emotional and objective with intellectual. The reason lies in the fact that virtually every music in the world has a syntax and in that sense is a language. One subjective experience of a language is to have no or limited experience with it. If I need to communicate in that language, as an immigrant would, I work at it. Otherwise I tend to ignore the language. There are great masses of fabulous literature I will never read or, more to the point, will read without getting the flavor that a native speaker would.

The 'flavor' equivalent in music is not hearing nuances (decoding patterns) that are precisely where the composer invested the emotional burden of their own subjective experience (for example a certain two-chord progression that Ravel repeats again and again over the course of his 1897 violin sonata; or perhaps even the single "heart-attack" chord in Mahler's 10th).  That's one kind of subjectivity -- not emotional but rather a processing issue.

But what if you *are* a skilled native speaker?  Then there's the very real possibility that you might, for example, prefer Faure to Tchaikovsky. In other words, you might "get" the emotional/subjective patterns in a composer's work but disdain them as purple patches.  Here I suggest it's not emotions but rather aesthetics (i.e., skills and/or habits of intellectual comparison and judgment) that are at work.

At the same time you might "get" the way a performer like Gould plays Mozart but find the results ineffective precisely because they are UNnuanced. I suggest that all such performance issues are no different from any other kind of theater. Enormously complex real-time messaging is going on and we try to find congruences with our own gut-level experience.  Bearing in mind that Pragmatics shows that about 90% of spoken language is nonverbal, I think that somewhere in the deep background I listen to music partly as a series of modulated cries, sighs,  and attitudinal gestures. I agree with you, Dennis, that this response is both subjective and emotional and that it operates in parallel with intellectual/aesthetic processing. Yet the effect of the communication is not decided by the listener alone. I A Richards was also on to something here. 

I'll finish my 4 cents worth with the suggestion that in works of sufficient complexity, at a slower processing level than with real-time performance, congruence is still a factor.  I get more out of Vaughan Williams's 9th now and less out of Mendelssohn's 4th now than I did when I was in my 20s.

[Marcus]

 I have been a collector of classical music for many years.
I believe that music is closely related to visual, as well as aural influences. The major & minor scales depict moods & I relate to that . Symphonic poems and character pieces attempt to depict a scene or situation in musical terms.
The pure symphonic music, concertos, sonatas & chamber music convey a mood picture, and the succeeding movements build  the complete picture. With Mahler for instance, I was drawn to his music in my youth by the orchestral colour, (and Mahler is a supreme orchestrator), I still play his music frequently and marvel at his orchestration. Who is not moved by the Adagietto from Symphony 5 , or the sublime last movement of symphony 3 ? When listening to this music, I absorb the mood & feel the music, sometimes music suggests colours, sometimes pictures & scenes. It is for this reason that I am a confirmed Romantic/late romantic music lover, but having said that, I am always happy to hear something different, but tonal music is the music which  I  can relate to.
Some of the modern works of today are hard work, and often need to be heard many times before it can be appreciated, if at all, and some  atonal, serial music is a foreign language to me. But do you have to be thoroughly trained in the rudiments of music & orchestration to enjoy a piece of music ?
When I was younger, I played Haydn,Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Beethoven & Mahler to death.
Today, my tastes have widened slightly, and of those composers, only Schumann,Brahms, Beethoven & Mahler are played with any frequency, but although I remain stalled in the 19th early  20th century, I do listen to & enjoy some modern works.
Finally each of us percieve music differently, and I am thankful for  that. What I may consider is a masterpiece may be considered as a lightweight composition by others, and it is that situation which keeps the music industry flourishing. Objectivity & subjectivity for me, are equal & necessary components.
Marcus.

[Alan Howe]

Philosophically, I suppose that objectivity relates to the truth of something, in our case here a piece of music, as it is in itself, whereas subjectivity relates to an individual's personal appropriation of that piece of music. It is the varying appropriations of a piece of music that constitute the debate on this forum, but, as I have said before, I am not particularly interested in mere unsupported opinions, but ones which are supported by reference to objective matters such as melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.

All reviews of music in magazines, on the web, etc, assume an objective set of standards against which the music, performance, recording, etc. are judged. What I wish to see challenged is the assumption/prejudice that the objective compositional canon by which all other music is judged is set in concrete.

[chill319]

If I may say so, very well put, Alan. And much the sort of reason this forum is so valuable.

I have endured far too many ethnomusicological papers where the speaker literally could not or would not distinguish between intentional and unintentional musical behaviors, for example finding the most interesting musical phenomenon in a very limited musical culture to be a child's mistakes while learning a local instrument. And having no sense of irony when making this claim. Please! Yet any durable aesthetic of music has to have at a minimum a basis for making this distinction.

In my view this is not the place to pursue at length questions that ultimately would make the Principia Mathematica look like child's play. Nevertheless, as thoughtful adults trying  to encourage more timely modifications of the Canon, I'm glad to see us articulate from time to time, as Dennis has, meta-issues that seem to come down to this: the more music we listen to with an open mind, the more expert AND inclusive we become in determining how we should define our musical heritage. It has nothing to do with lowering standards and everything to do with letting the music itself, as you say, be the ultimate arbiter, rather than "lazy ears," meaning socially  conditioned behavioral prejudices.

[Alan Howe]

Well put, Kit. Thank you!

[Marcus]

Hello Alan,
I understand where you are coming from Alan, and as many of the contributors to this forum are professional musicians,musicologists,& composers, your comment is very relevant. But I hope there is a place for those like myself, the lay persons & amateur music lovers, (the majority of the public) to express our opinions, which in many cases are not as technical in language. There must be many like me on this forum, who attempt to convey an appreciation of a particular work, in simple language, and speaking for myself, I try to create comment which will at least encourage someone to consider the particular work in question, or provide superior commentary.
I have thousands of Cds, tapes & LPs, so have heard alot of music. I consider myself fairly well read regarding composers & their music, but I have never heard of Lionel Sainsbury or Gunter Raphael, for instance. I learn something new every day, which is why I enjoy the contributions on this forum. When Sainsbury's name was mentioned, I expressed surprise, (another namefor the little black book), and on the brief comments provided on this forum have convinced me to buy the Cd. (even if the Haydn wood concerto was not featured)
Mention is made of the Gunter Raphael symphonies release on CPO. Another name unkown to me, so I consulted my books,and together with the brief comment provided on this forum, I am convinced it is music I wish to hear.
As a lover of romantic/late romantic idiom,any works which are tonal, and previously unrecorded are always on my radar. I do not require detailed technical descriptions  of works to be convinced to buy. I always read critical comments provided on sites such as Webmaster, but often, even if the critic writes an unfavourable report, I prefer to decide for myself. The website who sell these discs all provide a brief synopsis, which is all I require to make a decision.
How many on this forum have purchased CDs in stores, after reading the brief synopsis on the back cover ? How many , like me, will buy the previuosly unheard Raphael symphonies on spec, because of comments made here & on the JPC website, because the potential to unearth the illusive masterpiece may be there ?
I respect the comments by the profesionals on this forum, I appreciate the information provided, but I hope that some of the comment which the amateurs, such as myself provide, is of value to some. Otherwise I may as well revert to observer, as I was for 3 months before joining in.
Marcus.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I do not consider, Marcus, you need be bashful about being a 'lay' musical amateur and as lacking the ability to offer discourse about music unimpregnated by an impressive array of technical terms. I am exactly in the same position, as are, I guess, several other contributers to this friendly (and indispensable!) forum. Yes, it would be nice to be able to offer erudite contributions studded with words like 'appoggiatura', get their meanings exactly right, persuade other people to think 'Ha, this chap knows of what he speaks' - and, perhaps even more fruitfully, enhance one's pleasure in hearing music by being able to read treatises on the Beethoven quartets without, several times in each paragraph, having to lay hold of a dictionary of music.

I am sure my life would be richer if I could do these things. And I would then be more confident in talking about music without risk of committing a howler or being declared a proper mountebank. However I console myself with the thought that a musical training and ready familiarity with 'technical' terminology aren't actually necessary. And I stick out my neck and offer the suggestion that a thorough musical background can sometimes be a hindrance. Dangerous waters these! What I think matters above all else is whether or not one has the capacity to respond to music. From your description of yourself as someone who has devoted years to the careful collection of thousands of recordings, and who, again like me, is positively itching to hear the Lionel Sainsbury concerto or the Gunther Raphael symphonies, I am assured you certainly possess that impulse for music. For why else would you willingly devote a small fortune to filling up the attic with several thousand circular pieces of plastic or metallic discs, or have severe palpitations that the forthcoming concert or recital might have already sold out?

Maybe the only relevance of this contribution to the 'objective/subjective' thread is my sense that a great deal of fog has drifted our way. I simply have no idea of what it is to achieve an objective apprehension of, say, a Beethoven quartet, as opposed to succumb to a merely subjective one. On Sunday afternoon I was lucky enough to grab a front row seat in a recital of piano trios given by a young and talented group (the Trio Dei Mezzo) in a converted barn, now an inspiring arts centre, close to home and set in the gently undulating hills of Suffolk. However familiar I am with the Brahms Op 8 Trio, and how many times I have heard it, as soon as the music commenced the rest of my life with all its petty preoccupations dropped away as being of utterly no moment, my whole being gave itself over to this supremely glorious music, and nothing mattered anymore save this wondrous arrangement of sounds and their internal development. I woke this morning with joy, the music still with me. Was my hearing of the piece subjective or objective? I do not know what to do with such a question. All I do know is that if I believed in the deity I would go down on my knees and thank him for having blessed me with the ability to obtain such rapture from (objectively) the scrapings of stringed instruments and the thumpings upon taut piano wires. Since there is no deity I suppose the only alternative is to express astonishment that my genes or shape of my ear and neuro-physiological apparatus can permit such experiences.

And that - if readers of this epistle can bear with me - gives rise to what I think is a far less time-wasting, but hugely perplexing, question. Namely just what is this 'capacity to respond to music'? How should we understand it? Is it something wholly determined, as is one's height or hair colour? Whatever it is, can it be taught or developed (as opposed to learning to read a score, or progressing from Three Blind Mice to a [very rudimentary] rendition of a movement of a Haydn sonata - presumably things that can be taught given lots of discipline and practice)? Why do some people, including Marcus and hopefully myself, have it in abundance, whilst others, irrespective of intelligence, seem to lack it entirely? I know such questions are hardly original, but they are deeply perplexing. And reading potential answers to them suggests to me that we have not much progressed in the treatment of them than 18th century aestheticians who kidded themselves by postulating some kind of curious 'inner sense' and thereby evaded any real confrontation with the actual question.

Ah, mere words, and the last 20 minutes would have been more fruitful had I devoted them to a piece of music, or at least the washing up. But I return to the suggestion that maybe a trained musical background and immersion in musicology can be a hindrance and can (oooh heresy, I hear others proclaim) actually get in the way of listening to music. An illustration may suffice. In teenage years I threw myself energetically into twanging electric guitars, bashing drums and making both musical mayhem and a hell of a racket. Progress at school became a trifling issue in comparison to working up our dubious catalogue of yells and ditties so that we could, one night in Birmingham, fulfil our desperate ambition to stand on stage as a support band to an emerging group from up the M6 in Liverpool known as the Beatles. An ambition achieved, although sadly from the next morning onwards the world turned out to be exactly the same as on any other morning. Then, at the age of 17, I had the quite unaccountable experience of hearing some piano music of Chopin and being overwhelmed by its utter beauty. Heaven knows what happened inside my head, but to the utter bewilderment of parents I marched home and promptly dumped a heap of treasured Elvis LPs in the dustbin. Within a fortnight I began to relish the Op 29 Suite for 9 instruments of Schoenberg. The rich stock of LPs in the local public library gave me a sight akin to that of Gerontius when he catches sight of his Almighty. I recall being apprehended by my Headmaster for skiving off games and being seen instead issuing forth from the public library [a] failing to wear a school cap, (b) clutching a cigarette, whilst [c] clutching in my other hand a cardboard carrying case containing Schoenberg. On account of [a] and I was chastised as a tiresome minor miscreant, but [c] led me to being viewed as a subversive and dangerous influence within the school, and that, along with a healthy interest in girls, led to an actual expulsion a few months later. Fortunately I had by that time gained entry to York University then setting up what became a marvellously exciting music department under Wilfred Mellors who, lovely man that he was, displayed equal hospitality to non-music students as to his own students. Music, and all sorts of music, was all about me and into it I plunged. Britten, Pears, Janet Baker, Brendel, Hans Keller and countless others were not only frequent visitors but happily chatted informally to students. The Amadeus was the resident quartet, and I happily got beaten at chess many times by Siegmund Nissel in the common room (he was a formidable player!) and spent a term with my ear pressed to the wall in my room in college listening to Martin Lovett endlessly practising when he was allocated the room next door. 44 years later here I am, like you Marcus, wondering whether the structure of the house can really stand the weight of musical material within it and hugely hoping that Gunther Raphael will become yet another treasured composer.

Anecdotes aside, the point to be made is that there I was at the age of 17, without a trace of any musical training (I had scoffed at an earlier offer of music lessons as a thoroughly cissy business), innocently unaware of the difference between a bass and a clef, and yet relishing all I heard in Schoenberg's music. (I have fortunately progressed beyond Schoenberg.) But all the way through my life so-called 'difficult' music has proved no difficulty at all for me (and Alan Howe take note!) Hugh Wood provides almost as much pleasure as Raff. The past few years have seen me joyfully anticipating the steady emergence of the 'Naxos' quartets of Maxwell Davies with as much sheer delight as when I first worked through all the Haydn quartets (well, to be truthful, not quite, for no quartets can be quite as good as those of Haydn). I also readily recognise (no names!) some music as simply awful, dismal, best swept under the carpet music. So I shall be rude to anyone who charges me with lack of discrimation.

Profuse apologies to others: I did not intend to be so long-winded, but having started, out flowed the words. And thus a general question to others: here you have someone with a deep love of music and with, like Marcus and others, no musical training whatsoever. I also squirm and wince at ugly non-musical sounds. Hopefully we have in abundance a natural capacity to listen to music and to properly and fully respond to it, as opposed to merely hearing it along with all the other noises that impinge upon the ear. So what on earth is this capacity? How should we think it? As for me, I am perpetually astonished that humanity seems to be built such that it is not at all the case that for a good number of people there is no recognition or awareness that there is simply no alternative but to be utterly halted in one's tracks and to stand spellbound and marvel in a simple phrase in, say, a Schubert song. How could that be?

Peter

[mbhaub]

Some very insightful thoughts above. Not much to quibble about. There are aspects of the objective influencing the subjective, and vice versa to be sure. One of my annoyances in a college music history class was the author of the book so easily dismissing composers who I (and millions of others) enjoy: Mahler and Tchaikovsky. As I got older, and presumably but not necessarily more mature, I could understand the omission of those composers on a technical (objective) level, but I still don't like it.

Another thing for me that led to appreciation of some music wasn't age, education, or maturity. It was actually playing the music. I first bought the Brahms 4th around  1970 and listened to it -- bored to death. I went and heard the Philadelphia Orchestra with Ormandy play it -- and I was bored to death. Then about 10 years ago I got a gig playing the contrabassoon part in the Brahms. Sitting through the rehearsals, listening carefully  to what was going on around me and suddenly the lights came on -- what an extraordinary work the 4th it. It's stunning how one human mind could composer something so brilliant. The same thing happened with the Elgar 3rd. Despite the recordings, I just didn't buy it. Then, playing contra in an orchestra and that's all it took. Wonderful score. The same thing has happened many times with many other works that at one time I was dismissive of, and then playing it really changes your perspective and appreciation. The objective point of view (playing) completely overtaking the subjective. It doesn't always work, though.

[Alan Howe]

There is actually no such thing as pure subjectivity. Statements about a piece of music make reference to objective matters such as melody, harmony, rhythm, orchestration, form, etc. And more impressionistic references to beauty, excitement, dullness, brilliance, originality etc. are often related to these more objective criteria.

I have nothing at all against the sharing of impressions. Long may this continue! But what really interests me is the exploration of the reasons for the impressions one has.

So, "X is beautiful" is very boring.
But "X is beautiful because...." is very interesting!!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Precisely, Alan. That is what criticism is.

[DennisS]

Hi Alan

I agree precisely with your latest comments, which made me smile! As one German teacher to another (albeit retired ) German teacher, I am constantly telling my pupils, when doing coursework, to always substantiate opinions with reasons i.e. "ich mag ..... "(I like....) or "ich finde ..... gut" (I think that ...... is good"), "WEIL...." (BECAUSE......),  hence the reason for my smile reading your post.

cheers
Dennis

[Alan Howe]

Ah, German coursework, Dennis. Don't get me started....!

[Marcus]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Peter.(& others) I didn't intend my post as a whinge, but just speaking my mind.
I have never been bashful or unassertive during my life. I played Rugby League football when I was younger, and soon had that belted out of me!  But I am realistic, and do not wish to clog this forum with trivialities.
Meanwhile I remain objective & subjective to the best of my ability & still enjoy a good red !
Marcus.