Objective Standards - Why they are "subjective"

Filed in Music Philosophy on September 02, 2009



If you are like me, you have seen some of these reality talent shows on TV.  One of the most annoying things about those shows is the attitudes of many of the (usually) young performers.

Here is a typical conversation after a singer warbles through a song, missing half of the notes by at least a quarter tone:

Judge: You were horrible

Contestantant: But hey, I had fun out there

Judge: I am glad you had fun because this is your last night in the competition.

Contestant: Well I think I did pretty well.

Judge: How can you say that? You missed most of the notes?

Contestant: Well, that is just your opinion.

I don't know if this attitude is new or not, but as I get older, I certainly am seeing it more and more both in music and in my business.  People have been conditioned to believe that everyone's opinion is basically equal.   In other words, the informed opinion of someone more knowledgeable than me is of no more value than my opinion.

How we have gotten to this place is interesting.  It is a result of a series of philosophical systems that have influenced American culture.  In some ways, it is what America is all about.  And it is not all bad.  I would rather have our culture than one where only the elite and powerful are allowed to think and have opinions.

But it is also often a ridiculous perspective.  In the case of music, if someone misses notes, stating that they made mistakes is more than just stating an opinion.  There are objective standards involved.

We all know this even if we don't admit it.  That is why those reality talent shows exist in the first place.  Millions of people watch them to make judgments on their music.  Most know little about music but are yet quick to point out perceived wrong notes and other problems.  In many cases, they are even right. 

It is inconsistent to claim that you have the right to judge performances and yet deny that there are standards that the performance should be held to.

But we need to be honest about something else.  Many of the so-called objective standards that are preached by various music experts are not objective at all.  One way we know that is true is because music experts themselves do not agree on those "objective standards."

My professional background is math and computer science.  In math, you learn to prove things.  You can for example, mathematically prove that 1 is not equal to 0.  Because of my background, I am very slow to accept as objective standards the opinions of music experts that they cannot prove. 

The reality is that music is not like math.  Very little can be proven and thus, objective standards are much harder to come by.  If writing a piece of music is like a test, there is no answer key.  No time period, style or musical form is the one standard by which all music should be judged.

I had an online conversation a year or so ago on music.  I was stating that new music was superior in some ways to older music.  One person challenged me and asked me to come up with one newer song that was superior to something like Handel's Messiah.

At that point, something important hit me.  I realized that we were on very different pages because of one reason; we have different "objective" standards.  I value different things in music than he does. While I value the rich harmonic development that has taken place since Handel, he values the polyphony of the Baroque period.   While I think a piece can be great even if it is short and simple in form, he believes that masterpieces are longer with more structure.

So are all objective standards really subjective?  Many are, but not all.  We have to work hard and stay open minded and humble if we want to have any chance of knowing the difference.

In the next article, I am going to discuss this a bit more.

 



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Lenny
9/2/2009 10:56:15 PM

Greg, very interesting discussion. I have questions but will wait until future articles to see if you answer them.

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