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It isn’t all about personal taste
by Silvia Francesca Maglione
As with many arts, judging music is a highly subjective task. The more a person is involved with music, the more his/her judgements will be concerned with the piece’s actual quality. However, this quality is related to the value we bestow to the music. Our musical preferences are shaped by judgements that, even if unspoken, convey a major value to some music and attenuates the relevance of others. According to this art’s great qualities from which we benefit, we value music for what it is able to do for us. Personal experience and awareness shapes almost completely the manner in which we value a piece of music. All these conditions and personal choices define our musical tastes and the subsequent value we attribute to diverse music pieces.
However, appreciating music is more than a matter of personal opinion. The judgments we make are related to the music’s quality, which are by consequence related to its value. The more we value and appreciate a piece, the more we are inclined in deeming our opinion as objectively true. Therefore “musical taste” is not the only factor contributing to a musical piece’s value. There are harmony and sometimes counterpoint laws which, if followed, contribute widely to music’s “beauty”. Although we enjoy this art individually, it is a collectively shared consensus. It is a universal language meaning that, despite it does not assert factual aspects of the real world, it communicates directly to us in a highly meaningful way. Particularly after the Romantic period, music has abstractly gained a transcendental power in communicating directly to the individuals’ emotional sphere.
It is common to dismiss a personal opinion as a “personal taste” instead of supporting the opinion cogently. Music is not all about personal taste, and even if perpetrating one’s judgement entails a constant explanation of thoughts, unfolding them will be more effective than justifying a musical preference as an individual taste.
The views and opinions in this blog post are those of its author.
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User comments:
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Nice Article, I enjoyed it.
Hey, come on MSN more often, it seems like you sign off when I come one...
Once again, keep up the good work with your writing. |
Posted by ManOfYourDreams on October 9th, 2006 @ 2:45 am GMT |
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