Which music do you dislike the most?

[symbolipoint]

It's music. Simply because it can be written as music. One does not have to invent an extra notation. For me, it's a bit like the empty set or zero. We need both to do mathematics and I regard them as among the most important findings of mankind. So why not have a music play without sound?

I was trying to make a post here, and tried to visit the first post on this topic but the page refuses to load.

Okay; now the page is loaded. This started as a survey "Which music do you dislike the most?"
I actually gave a vote on this survey, but I misread the title and therefore voted incorrectly.

Now for what I wanted to say in this post:
fresh_42,
Music is only music when it is heard, sung, or played. When in written form, it is just a transcription.

 

[fresh_42]

fresh_42,
Music is only music when it is heard, sung, or played. When in written form, it is just a transcription.

Well, yes, one needs at least one performer who will interpret the transcription.

 

[symbolipoint]

Well, yes, one needs at least one performer who will interpret the transcription.

Good point. Understood! Music is created and learned, first. Later, someone may transcribe it; and someone, maybe hopefully someone else, who is literate with that kind of notation, can play it and those who hear may enjoy the actual MUSIC.

Some very great, great, musical artists were and are illiterate; but you see, the music came first. Some transcriptions came later.

 

[BWV]

4’33” does have sound, just not from the performer:

They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.
— John Cage speaking about the premiere of 4′33″[9]

Cage was inspired by Zen Buddhism and the idea of listening to sound for its own sake

 

[BWV]

"The Most Unwanted Song" is a novelty song created by artists Komar and Melamid and composer Dave Soldier in 1997. The song was designed to incorporate lyrical and musical elements that were annoying to most people. These elements included bagpipes, cowboy music, an opera singerrapping, and a children's choir that urged listeners to go shopping at Walmart.[1]
...
According to Soldier's poll, the survey of approximately 500 Dia visitors revealed that the themes, instruments and other aspects that people least wanted to hear included cowboy music, bagpipes, accordions, opera, rap music, children's voices, tubas, drum machines and advertising jingles. They then incorporated all of these elements into a 22-minute-long song, titled "The Most Unwanted Song".[5]

 

[symbolipoint]

--The Most Unwanted Song--
So far the rapping opera singer is the worst part.
The rapping screaming children also annoying.
I stopped listening at about 10:00.

 

[bhobba]

Maybe this is the issue. I consider the questions "is this valuable?" and "is this art?" separate (but both ultimately objective), and I personally think each of them are separate from the subjective "do I like it?"

I do not consider music, and art in general, objective in any way. Take that music that was just silence. For STEM people (such as us) it would be obvious to the vast majority such isn't music - and being in that group I agree. But the question remains why do some people consider it music? That can be answered scientifically and such can be quite illuminating on the human condition. I mentioned Punk Rock. I thought the Sex Pistols not only far too raucous, loud and fast to be music as how I think of music - as relaxing and maybe a bit thought provoking. But the real kicker with them is they were so obnoxious. Exactly why did they think music should be obnoxious? Its obvious they were alienated and very counter culture but the particular direction they took to express it was really worthy of investigation. Other founders of the genre were also raucous etc but expressed their views much better - and directly eg the Saints - Stranded. No need to be obnoxious - it's how they felt cutoff, alienated etc just as the title said. They at least early on were not even aware what they were doing - they developed it all in their members garages and it grew from there. Why the different reactions? I know the Saints grew up in a very typical Australian suburb here in Brisbane - Oxley - close to where I grew up. Was that the difference? And why a backwater like Brisbane - I won't go into it but there were some nasty polarizing political things going on at the time in Queensland - it was later revealed the government was basically corrupt - that could be part of it. I grew up in it and tended to side, as it turned out falsely, with the orthodoxy - some sensed something was amiss - it certainly was a very stifling environment looking back on my youth. Punk possibly was how some in that group reacted. All these are legitimate questions and why any art has value. But liking it or not, fitting into our world view etc are very personal things and while we can also investigate why that is, its not something IMHO that can be generalized.

And most definitely, for that very reason, no music should be banned - it illuminates the human condition. You may not like it, it can be confronting and challenging, but it is part of understanding who we are and how we fit in the wider society around us. Some people in this thread mentioned some utter stupidity like a stick in some urine as art. Its utter rubbish in my view and I would even question the sanity of its creator. But the question remains - why? Was it just publicity, a challenge to prevailing norms - you can undoubtedly think of others - that's the real issue. Its answer is important in understanding us as a society. Just like why do people totally distrust nuclear energy to the point of rejecting it without even having a chat to an expert such as we have here. They simply reject it. Why? These are important questions some of which are on topic here - some not.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

"The Most Unwanted Song" is a novelty song created by artists Komar and Melamid and composer Dave Soldier in 1997. The song was designed to incorporate lyrical and musical elements that were annoying to most people. These elements included bagpipes, cowboy music, an opera singerrapping, and a children's choir that urged listeners to go shopping at Walmart.[1]
...
According to Soldier's poll, the survey of approximately 500 Dia visitors revealed that the themes, instruments and other aspects that people least wanted to hear included cowboy music, bagpipes, accordions, opera, rap music, children's voices, tubas, drum machines and advertising jingles. They then incorporated all of these elements into a 22-minute-long song, titled "The Most Unwanted Song".[5]

Brilliant! I was expecting not to like this. But less than one minute into this one I was laughing hysterically. I listened to the whole song. One of my favorite parts is the megaphone lady. During the final bit I laughed hysterically again. Now that's entertainment.

Actually this is one example of hip-hop that is entertaining. The only others I can think of are "Double Dutch Bus" and some songs from the TV program "Hip Hop Harry." The latter featured kids' voices, which of course made it even better. If only they had an accordion player on that show.

For those who do like accordion, here is something for you. The girls are not children, but they are still fairly young. What's more, they are on roller skates, and they sing in German. It's all very "corny" as they say in America. The lyrics are very entertaining. It's about how everyone all over the world loves the young ladies from Bavaria. To me, this is great music.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

4’33” does have sound, just not from the performer:

They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.
— John Cage speaking about the premiere of 4′33″[9]

Cage was inspired by Zen Buddhism and the idea of listening to sound for its own sake

Speaking of Buddhism ... this video is not Zen, with which I am unfamiliar, but Pure Land. I am not Buddhist, but sometimes I listen to this sort of music. They are chanting repetitively to the Amitabha Buddha.

 

[HAYAO]

I appreciate all forms of music.

I first started out classical, then got into rap, soon after that pop-rock, and then death metal, and later into late 80's heavy metal, and then these days...well...everything.

 

[stevendaryl]

It's music. Simply because it can be written as music. One does not have to invent an extra notation. For me, it's a bit like the empty set or zero. We need both to do mathematics and I regard them as among the most important findings of mankind. So why not have a music play without sound?

It's the French Horn part from Beethoven's 5th. It's rarely performed on piano, though.

 

[rokytnji]

Finding out that Capt Beefheart is a musical genius. While most folks could not stand his art because of pre-programmed taste buds in their brain.

I kinda equate this thread to flavors of icecream, versions of linux, type of motorcycle, bicycle, or car. Druthers.

Me? I can listen to Taureg Nomad desert muscians. Rock and Roll. Rap. Country. Bluegrass. Big Band. Classical. Opera. You name it. I play it in my motorcycle shop to make the work go easier and faster. It does something to my body to calm tension and get into a flow. My inner emotions that day will determine the play list. I keep a 200 watt per channel Linux streaming computer with a ton of .pls and .mtu files on hand that hook up to worldwide streaming radio stations. Here is a example

http://www.radionovak.com/

But then. I don't over think these things.
You can guess, I guess, my vote goes on the last choice under " Heavy Metal "

 

[NTL2009]

4’33” does have sound, just not from the performer:

They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.
— John Cage speaking about the premiere of 4′33″[9]

Cage was inspired by Zen Buddhism and the idea of listening to sound for its own sake

Good to see a bit more background on 4' 33''. Now I'm not going to defend it, anyone who feels it is stupid/silly or a scam is entitled to their view, but since this is a scientific group, it might be interesting to realize that the 'composition' was inspired by science (years before Thomas Dolby!).

From wiki ( https://goo.gl/Xzaizv ) bold mine... :

In 1951, Cage visited the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. An anechoic chamber is a room designed in such a way that the walls, ceiling and floor absorb all sounds made in the room, rather than reflecting them as echoes. Such a chamber is also externally sound-proofed. Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but he wrote later, "I heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation."[14] Cage had gone to a place where he expected total silence, and yet heard sound. "Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music."[15] The realization as he saw it of the impossibility of silence led to the composition of 4′33″.

The 'point' was to hear the environment around us, and force us to be quiet to listen and concentrate and ambient sounds. I'm not convinced that I should call that 'art', but it gives me tiny, teen-sy, smidgen of respect for it, where I had none before reading that a few years back.

I don't like most modern art, even to the point of reviling it, because it seems like they are trying to scam me, and that's insulting. We went through a temporary modern art exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago (a wonderful place) a few years back, and one of the pieces of 'art' was some cardboard boxes stacked, liked you'd find in my attic. Give me a break. Another was a small room with several videos looping, one was a clown on a toilet, ripping pages out of a book, and laughing like a mad man. I don't even want to know.

But another, was hard to call 'art' but it made a connection and made me smile and feel good, but still had me kind of shrugging my shoulders at the same time, like 'huh?'. It was a collection of old post cards and photos with handwritten notes on the back, turned so you only saw one side. So you'd see this note on the back of a snapshot "Me and Sis laughing it up with Uncle Billy at the Lake", or something. Hard to explain why these were entertaining, but it just sort of was like holding up a mirror to every day experiences and memories, and with some of it missing, you had to fill in with your imagination. You just wanted to see what Sis and Uncle Billy were up to! OK, I (just me personally) am not going to call it art, but I thought it was clever, and entertaining. I don't care where we draw (no pun intended) the line.

 

[NTL2009]

...
Music is only music when it is heard, sung, or played. When in written form, it is just a transcription.

So many viewpoints in this thread, but I think I can even disagree with that statement (mostly for the 'fun' of it)!

I'm not a very capable musician, I don't have a very developed ear, but for some fairly simple written music, I can read the transcription and experience the music in my head. It is music. But it can't be 'heard', there are no sound waves produced. I'm not singing it or playing it. I'm only experiencing it.

If you want to say I 'hear' it in my head, OK. But that doesn't fit a physical model of 'hearing' - that requires sound waves and ear/nerves/brain to perceive it.

 

[NTL2009]

Another thought on all the 'art' stuff. When I see Picasso's cubism, I just shake my head. What's the point? Some lady's(?) head, with eyes, and nose out of place? So supposedly we are viewing from different angles at the same time? So, it just looks stupid to me.

But I love some his works from the Blue Period, and especially "The Old Guitarist" which is at the aforementioned Art Institute in Chicago. And it makes me wonder - is it me? Should I see something in his later cubism period? And I am moved by his abstractions in "Guernica". Though it looks like a jumbled mess, since it depicts a bombing, that makes a level of sense to me.

I know lots of people can't appreciate some jazz or classical, but I know enough to know there is something of value there (even the stuff I don't care for). So I wonder, am I missing something in modern art? I kind of don't think so. I just can't take it seriously. I can understand that someone might not 'get' John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme", but for me there is a clear distinction between the level of 'art' in " 4' 33" " and "A Love Supreme".

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Finding out that Capt Beefheart is a musical genius. While most folks could not stand his art because of pre-programmed taste buds in their brain.

I kinda equate this thread to flavors of icecream, versions of linux, type of motorcycle, bicycle, or car. Druthers.

Me? I can listen to Taureg Nomad desert muscians. Rock and Roll. Rap. Country. Bluegrass. Big Band. Classical. Opera. You name it. I play it in my motorcycle shop to make the work go easier and faster. It does something to my body to calm tension and get into a flow. My inner emotions that day will determine the play list. I keep a 200 watt per channel Linux streaming computer with a ton of .pls and .mtu files on hand that hook up to worldwide streaming radio stations. Here is a example

http://www.radionovak.com/

But then. I don't over think these things.
You can guess, I guess, my vote goes on the last choice under " Heavy Metal "

May I ask why you do not like Heavy Metal? You like so many other types of music. Is there a particular Heavy Metal band in particular that you do not like? Just curious, not arguing at all! :)

 

[Asymptotic]

Finding out that Capt Beefheart is a musical genius. While most folks could not stand his art because of pre-programmed taste buds in their brain.

When I was fifteen two of us walked from band practice into town proper, and bought the only Beefheart album on the House of Wax's shelves - "Trout Mask Replica". We were a cover band playing The Beatles, Doobie Brothers, Chicago, Lynyrd Skynyrd and other staples of that time, and after I'd gone home and put it on the turntable my first thought was, "Fourteen-ninety-five blown to hell!", and then shoved it into the record cabinet.

Fast-forward to a fall day spent between writing an English 101 composition and unjamming keys in our cranky old Royal typewriter, hard up for something new to listen to in the background, and giving Trout Mask another chance. For the first few passes through the record changer it remained caca cacophonous, but after several more my feet had fallen into tapping, and head bopping.

It just took me a while to find the groove.

 

[DennisN]

Zero votes so far for classical, romantic and rock and roll, so here's music for you all :

Electric Light Orchestra - Roll Over Beethoven (Live 1976)


Chuck Berry - Roll Over Beethoven
(which actually is one of the first rock and roll songs ever done)

 

[symbolipoint]

That starts at 8 beats per measure with a definite long rhythm but later it all changes. I stopped analyzing after one minute. (Refering to the captain beefhart)

 

[Ucha]

Appreciate the last option, I think all music has something of value

 

[pinball1970]

Even hip-hop can be fantastic if you know who to listen to

In the words of Freddie Mercury from Bohemian rhapsody, "No no no no no no no."

 

[pinball1970]

Is RAP the same as hip hop? Not sure, they are guys with no musical ability talking over some beat thing/ sample- ZERO to do with creative original music

A popular drum sample is when the Levee breaks (john Bonham Led Zep) its not surprising really, he used a 26 inch Ludwig bass drum and experimented with different sounds on his snare and got that sound purportedly by setting his drums up on a spiral stair case. He had power, energy, creativity, technique, knowledge and above all bags of TALENT.

 

[DennisN]

No music should be banned. Even hip-hop can be fantastic if you know who to listen to. Anything mainstream is total garbage. But there are plenty of rappers that are really poets.

Currently Hip-hop has 13 votes, Anything Lip-Synched has 9 votes and Atonal 8 votes.
I am not a big fan of hip-hop, and I seldom listen to it, but I think there are some very good hip-hop songs, e.g. from the early 80s, so I feel very prompted to post a couple of good ones. And I know some very annoying atonal/contemporary pieces, so I will try to find some of those too...

 

[DennisN]

Some hip-hop I like:

Grandmaster Flash: The Message
- early influential hip-hop from 1982


Beastie Boys - Sabotage (Live on David Letterman, 1994)
(edit: though they are more a crossover between rap and rock)
- darn, this is so intense and "in your face", one chord only and I remember being blown away by it when it was released, I've always loved that song...


Eminem - Lose Yourself
- I think this is a very suggestive track

 

[symbolipoint]

Is RAP the same as hip hop? Not sure, they are guys with no musical ability talking over some beat thing/ sample- ZERO to do with creative original music

A popular drum sample is when the Levee breaks (john Bonham Led Zep) its not surprising really, he used a 26 inch Ludwig bass drum and experimented with different sounds on his snare and got that sound purportedly by setting his drums up on a spiral stair case. He had power, energy, creativity, technique, knowledge and above all bags of TALENT.

Currently Hip-hop has 13 votes, Anything Lip-Synched has 9 votes and Atonal 8 votes.
I am not a big fan of hip-hop, and I seldom listen to it, but I think there are some very good hip-hop songs, e.g. from the early 80s, so I feel very prompted to post a couple of good ones. And I know some very annoying atonal/contemporary pieces, so I will try to find some of those too...

One should distinguish between art which the artists intend to be music and performance art which the artists do not intended to be music.

You can try to decide for yourself: Is "Random Drug Testing", by Cub Koda, music or not? If not, then does it really need to be?

 

[DennisN]

You can try to decide for yourself: Is "Random Drug Testing", by Cub Koda, music or not?

I'd say a definitive yes, that's music.

 

[symbolipoint]

I'd say a definitive yes, that's music.

I can understand that. I said maybe it might not be "music", since the melody and use of chording for harmony was so minimal; but the piece does have some. The piece was done mostly in the style of a field holler and used no constructed instruments of any kind; but just relies mostly on poetry and rhythm (and percussion of clapping).

 

[DennisN]

"The Most Unwanted Song" is a novelty song created by artists Komar and Melamid and composer Dave Soldier in 1997.

Darn it, that is SO funny, thanks for posting! I'm going to use that song to terrorize my friends.

 

[pinball1970]

Some hip-hop I like:Eminem - Lose Yourself
- I think this is a very suggestive track

Eminem is very talented, a poet, social commentator, gets to heart of the matter. Brilliant. Also what he does rhythmically with words and phrases to fit the timings is amazing. Words that should not rhyme do, the ends of one word with the beginning of another to form a unique phonetic is also very creative to make these unusual rhymes all fit together.

Its genius.

Having said that I still think RAP is garbage, I hate it.

...besides Eminem.

 

[pinball1970]

Darn it, that is SO funny, thanks for posting! I'm going to use that song to terrorize my friends.

“Whats a matter you (HEY)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFacWGBJ_cs was a track that made me run out of the room in despair.

Also “my ding aling” Chuck Berry and the whining, “There’s no one quite like Grandma” & “Grandma we love you” By the same awful school choir.
Its particularly annoying that “Blah …Grandma” kept John Lennon at number in December 1980.
Having said that the Bonzo dog Do da band’s, “Im the urban spaceman baby,” is brilliant, (Monty Python’s Neil Innes) as is “they’re coming to take me away” (ha ha)I think the worst music around at the moment (besides RAP) is that awful synth thing they keep overlaying on the vocal in pop songs, what the hell is that!?
Boring uncreative formulaic predictable production and tune PLUS this stupid synthy robotic vocal every other phrase.Stevie Wonder did this in the 1970s with his keyboard somehow sampling his voice and using that timbre to go through the keys- very clever BUT also very gimmicky gadgetry so I think he used it once.
In concert in 2008 he used it for PART of one song, once because he is Stevie Wonder a legend and he can do what he wants, he did it first.

Now it’s being used in everything, I HATE it.