That's entirely true. I have listened to a lot of people's music who consider themselves composers, who are actually working and classically trained, and their approach to loops is sometimes the worst in the world. Horrid.
Loops? Well, since most anybody can do it, I think it will be VERY difficult to stand out among the competition.
On the other hand, some people who work with loops do amazing musical things which make me laugh with glee at the originality of approach.he has never progressed beyond using only loops
Since art is as diverse as people, I would apply the same criteria for judging. Maybe no one has said it better than Oscar Wilde...it is absurd to judge people as good or bad. They're either charming or tedious. Likewise with art. You get something out of it, or you don't. The mistake people make is that believing so still doesn't exclude the possibility that there are criteria within any discipline which you can use to determine whether a given product of the discipline is likely to be considered a contributing force to the larger world of its practice.Everyone to their own style that they're comfortable with I say.
I look to wine as a great example of how people perceive art. Someone who has developed a taste for wine knows that Chateau Lafite is going to be a more rewarding drinking experience than some $8 Malbec from Argentina. Or a bottle of Cadet Mouton that you get for $15. Yet, there are some times when you want a salad on a hot summer day, and a $10 Vino Verde would be hard to beat as the ideal choice.
So, you can judge quality as an absolute in some ways, but only up to the point that your attention and priorities are opened at any moment to it.
The people that I would personally consider "art snobs" are often very educated. But they have limited their vision to an artificial level of achievement, some perceived pedestal worthy effort, below which validity cannot be assigned. But most people I have known of truly broad artistic vision are able to look past that artificiality of "perception of achievement," and to ask the hardest questions of art that doesn't seem to them, at first glance, to qualify for serious consideration. Mapplethorpe comes to mind. People got this idea about Mapplethorpe. Oddly enough, most of the people who will rail on about Mapplethorpe are actually so confused that they're really THINKING Serrano, and blasting Mapplethorpe. Such was the furor of agitprop unleashed by politicians of the day, who were simply using it to support their own dogma regarding funding or defunding of arts programs.
That's a simplistic example. But say someone just LOATHES Christina Aguilera. They think nothing could be more horrid than this skanky little tart. No matter what you do, you can't get them to simply listen to her sing. Then, they're riding with somebody in a car one day, and Herbie Hancock's new album is playing, and they're hearing this chick just sing the living daylights out of "A Song for You," and they want to know who it is, and lo and behold. Christina. But they've been tricked into listening without prejudice.
Or watching Celine Dion babble nonsense for thirty some-odd minutes on Larry King, until he realizes she is deconstructing before his very eyes, and he asks her...is there a song you could sing to let us know how you feel? And she looks like she's been slapped, stops in her tracks, responds with more nonsense--but then stops, and starts singing. No band, no acrobatics, and suddenly there it is. That thing that got all swept aside and fluffed out of recognition...that this girl can sing like very few people who have ever lived.
It is a delight to have one's expectations exceeded. It is a miracle to have them exploded.
Consider a piece of freeway art. Is there not some artistic value to a sensibility which says, I must express a clear, digestible point which can be absorbed while someone is driving by at 70 mph talking on a cell phone? If taken seriously by an artist, is there any less complexity of decisionmaking which arrives at that art?
Or perhaps you reject that, and say, "I declare myself an artist, and whatever I deign to produce is art." And you can make a case for it, certainly.
But people want to judge. It's inherent. We want to stack up our taste or appreciation against that of others on some level. Somewhere in the middle, there is a sensible set of artistic values that bind themselves together as common practices, leading to highest expression. Right?
Or do you reject that and point to the tomato-pitching at Stravinsky's Rite of Spring premiere as an example of common practices being shattered by an advance on the old ruleset which destroys it. Like discovering the world ain't flat.
So what, ultimately, is a person to do?
I guess people have to answer that for themselves. I try (and mostly fail, but still try) to open myself to the possibility of being amazed. I can say that a certain piece of art does not amaze me, and I don't have to judge it. Someone else is free to be amazed by it. The happiest people I know are people who are open to being pleased. When I'm playing a gig, I certainly want people who are there to be open to embracing my performance, and joining their thoughts with me. I want to feel as if I can be a conduit for that combined energy, and to reward the confidence. For me, that is the essence of live performance--the partnership that exists between the performer and the listener. Certainly the partnership exists with the listener of a recorded work as well, it is just one step removed from that realtime experience (which is the reason a lot of musical artists don't make the jump well from live to studio and vice versa...).
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Originally Posted by Bruce A. Richardson
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