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Is music quantifiable ?

Is there an objective way of determining whether a piece of music sounds beautiful or ought to sound beautiful ?

I was in another forum whether people were discussing great music and songwriters etc. I asked if we could 'measure' music, and many, if not all, responded that it was purely subjective. If we're going to assign value to a particular music or songwriter, but at the end of the day all that we can agree is that it's a matter of subjective preference, then the value that we purport to assign is, itself, of little value. After all, a 5-year old kid can disagree with a music professor whether a particular piece of music is good or beautiful, and if indeed music cannot be measured or quantified, there is little the music professor can do to prove that his opinion is 'more correct'.

No, no, and you can't prove an opinion more correct.

Heck, I can't even prove this cat beside me really exists.

It's neither the subjective or objective view that matters it's an informed one.

You're talking about many different things: "beautiful", "great", "value", "good".

Surely, these are all different. Something can be beautiful but have no value. Something can be good but not great. Something can be great but not beautiful.

Ultimately, I agree that the "beauty", "greatness", "value", and "good" of music is subjective, but not necessarily in the way that most people mean it. In order to judge the "beauty" of something, mankind has to decide what is "beautiful" and what is not. In order to judge the "greatness", the "value", or the "goodness" of music, those concepts must first be defined. Once they're defined, the judgement can be objective.

Define what is "beautiful" - does it mean "I like it, so it's beautiful"? Does it mean, "it's soft and soothing, so it's beautiful"? Does it mean, "it's all consonance and no dissonance, so therefore it's beautiful"? Does it mean, "it's full of dissonances that are so very exquisite and exotic, so therefore it's beautiful?" Does it mean, "it causes a lot of emotions in me, including some very unpleasant and fearful emotions - and THAT'S beautiful"? Does it mean, "it expresses some really create ideas that I like and had never thought about before - and that's beautiful"?

Once you define it, it's easy to quantify. If it's a matter of being "soft and soothing", then obviously a fast and loud piece is not beautiful. If it's a matter of excluding dissonance, then obviously a piece which is full of dissonance cannot be beautiful. If it's a matter of creating "spicy" dissonances (as I often hear people describe dissonances that they like), then obviously a piece which lacks these "spicy" dissonances cannot be beautiful. So what's subjective about it is how you define the characteristics of "beauty" - but one's you've done that, it's definitely possible.

Onto "value" - the word "value" implies some sort of function. In a country where dollars buy us the food we eat to survive, dollars are very valuable. In a country where shekels buy us the food we eat to survive, dollars have no value, unless you're trying to start a fire. So what is the "value" of music? Is it valuable because it pushes stylistic boundaries in new directions? If so, then composers who aren't innovative stylistically cannot write valuable music. Perhaps it's something else: "valuable" music is music that you can dance to. Shmaltzy romantic pieces that switch from tempo to tempo have no value whatsoever in a dance club; hiphop is tremendously valuable.

Similarly, we must define what we mean by "great" and "good". Philosophers have been trying to do this for a long, long time, and they've come up with all kinds of kooky and plausible answers.

But just because it's complicated, doesn't mean it isn't possible. Once we define our framework, then judgment can be unquestionably objective.

What cat?

I'm enlightened by your message. Thank you.

Doesn't this dilemma show exactly why music is the greatest form of arts?

<<Is music quantifiable ?

Is there an objective way of determining whether a piece of music sounds beautiful or ought to sound beautiful ?>>

Yes music is quantifiable, you can measure how long it lasts.... well that's a start. I guess that at one end of a spectrum we have white or pink noise and at another "music"...

My thought is that all music is composed of patterns, either rhythmic, tonal or both. It should be possible to identify, categorise and classify these patterns. If my camera can identify multiple known faces in a crowd, I don't see why pattern recognition software shouldn't do something similar with music.

Now as to whether it's beautiful or not? ;-)

Why cut open the nightingale's throat in order to see where the sound comes from?

Yes, very good way of putting it.

There's the usual quote "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and then there's the witty rejoiner "Only ugly people say that".

Perhaps there is a big difference in a piece of music being 'well-composed' or well-constructed' or 'a fine example of the baroque style' and the idea that a piece of music is 'beautiful'. How many pieces of music are beautiful, but fail to meet any of the above requirements? Classical music snobs tend to call these works 'guilty pleasures'.

I think, despite what we claim, that many people DO equate the idea of beauty in music with it's worth analytically. A shame.

music, (as all the other arts) is only meaningful, beautiful, or ...ful, when it touches the heart of the player/listener, in that respect it defies all analysis, like trying to point out the significance of the Tristanchord for our everyday life in the 21st century lol.

It seems that most people disagree with me on this (maybe not necessarily on this particular forum) but I do believe that music can be judged objectively.

I believe that music is more valuable if it is more complex while still retaining structure and form. And that does not mean just more notes and instruments.

That does not make more simple music (achy breaky heart) meaningless.

A joplin rag is a better piece of music than many of the rags written at the time because he generally put more thought and time into developing the intricate patterns and notes in his rags.

You might like other simpler rages over a joplin rag but that doesn't mean that quality of the music is better.

Even though I like dj jean's the launch as it is a catchy tune, it is bottom of the barrel techno when compared to daft punk's discovery album.

I don't like metal rock (a subjective opinion because I don't like how it sounds) but I am sure someone who knows something about that type of music could come up with an informed opinion and tell you which bands have higher quality music.

One answer would be: what's music? It seems to me the jury is out on that, and so how can it be quantifiable if we don't even know what it is?



Probably not, although I think some people working in the field of music and cognition are chipping away at it.



That idea doesn't work because the "measurement" isn't a scientific one, but a socially determined one (along with some probable human hard-wired stuff). And placing value on a specific piece of classical music isn't necessarily "purely subjective", because a great deal of acquired knowledge and experience comes into play, just as with any other work of art. It's a cultural expression, and gets evaluated culturally. For people who don't have the background, that sort of evaluation may appear to be "purely subjective", but it isn't. At the very least, it is a sort of trained and cultivated subjectivity mixed with factual knowledge, rather than some kind of raw response that anyone might have.

All of us on this forum love music and value music. You cannot measure love, or value (in the non-monetary sense). Indeed, anything than can be measured is of little value. The most valuable things of life are immeasurable.

to your subject question, and as someone who has studied the work of g.i. gurdjieff for many, many years, i do believe that there is both subjective and objective music, elaborated on as follows:

The young (composer) Thomas de Hartmann, in search of a spiritual teacher, came to Gurdjieff in 1916 and soon became his disciple. Since Gurdjieff was in no sense a trained composer, de Hartmann also became the ideal instrument for the expression of Gurdjieff’s musical thoughts. He began by harmonizing, developing, and fully realizing Gurdjieff’s music for the sacred dances, or Movements, which were an integral part of Gurdjieff’s teaching. Some years later, de Hartmann collaborated in a similar way on Gurdjieff’s musical works that were independent of the Movements. Amazingly, these latter pieces, very considerable in number, were almost all composed between 1925 and 1927 at the Prieuré in Fountainebleau. In 1927 this musical work came to an end and Gurdjieff never composed again.

Gurdjieff’s views on the subject of music, and indeed on art in general, stem from his differentiation between what he terms subjective and objective art. Most of the music we know, he says, is subjective. Only objective music is based on an exact knowledge of the mathematical laws that govern vibration of sounds and the relationship of tones.

In either case, the particular configuration of sounds will evoke a response in the human psyche in which the relation of the tones and their sonic qualities will be translated into some form of inner experience. This phenomenon appears to be based on a precise mathematical relationship between the properties of sound and some aspect of our receptive apparatus.

It is difficult to speak of the response to what could be considered objective art. It would appear to transcend the ordinary associative process which we have all experienced. In most of the music we know, at least within the common experience of a given culture, certain progressions and qualities of tones as well as their combination and spacing in time will evoke in the listener particular sensations and emotions that are shared in common with others. This phenomenon is as undeniable as it is seemingly inexplicable. It must result from a sympathetic resonance activated within the listener which can, moreover, also trigger associations with past experience, even when the connection between the sound and the memory is obscure or unknown. In most art, this power of vibration is used with only partial knowledge of the process and its consequences. Limited by his subjective consciousness, what the artist transmits can produce no more than an equally subjective response.

It is therefore Gurdjieff’s contention that the results of this subjective expression are accidental, and even produce opposite effects in different people. “There can be no unconscious creative art,” he asserts.

Conversely, objective music is based on a precise and complete knowledge of the mathematics determining the laws of vibration, and will therefore produce a specific and predictable result in the listener. Gurdjieff gives as an example a nonreligious person coming to a monastery. Hearing the music that is sung and played there, the person feels the desire to pray. In this instance, the capacity to bring someone into a higher interior state is given as one of the properties of objective art. The effect, depending on the person, differs only in degree.

What is paramount, then, in objective music is the exactness of its intention and the mastery of means to realize that intention. All the arts, according to Gurdjieff, were in ancient time related to the laws of mathematics and served as repositories of higher knowledge about man and the cosmos, encoded in various forms and thus preserved from later distortion. Even if the inner meaning were for periods of time forgotten, the “text” remained intact, the essence within waiting to be rediscovered.

This view of art is reflected in the cosmological side of Gurdjieff’s teaching, and especially in his use of the musical scale as a model of the universe, mirroring the two great laws which govern all cosmic processes. The form of music is seen as a microcosm, expressing on the scale of sound perceivable by the human ear the same dynamics that comprise all cosmic movement.

Thus the law of three with its positive, negative, and reconciling forces is echoed in the triadic structures of music, in which combinations of three tones constantly give birth to new combinations, with certain tones in common. Moreover, the law of seven, manifesting in a chain of octaves stretching like a cosmic ladder down from the ultimate source of Creation through increasingly dense orders of being, presents the specific form of the major scale in music, with its succession of tones and semitones. The semitones form the “intervals” that block or deflect the progression of any process and which require new sources of energy in order to be bridged, allowing evolutionary movement to continue. The subtle vibrancy of the “energy field” that exists between mi and fa and between si and do is palpable to any sensitive musician.

Thus it seems clear that in Gurdjieff’s view the mere enjoyment of pleasant musical sounds, however serious and exalted, does not even remotely approach the ultimate function of music as a science as well as an art, as a kind of diagram of higher knowledge, and as a possible food for human growth and evolution. It was principally in the East that Gurdjieff discovered art fulfilling this original and sacred purpose, the embodiment of truth. Ancient Eastern art could be read like a script. It was not for liking or disliking, he said, but for understanding.

by Laurence Rosenthal

Curiously you have no performances of de Hartmann's or Gurdjieff’s music at your youtube site. Have you recorded any?

i have a couple volumes of the schott editions, and i've worked on some, but haven't 'gotten serious' about recording yet. you may have egged me on, KK.

ps -- part of the problem of recording is, being in the proper inner state to properly convey this 'objective music'. for example, when i play alain kremski recordings for friends they never fail to move, but the keith jarrett recordings quite miss the mark.

I don't see how. The same dilemma exists in visual arts and literature, too.

I'm also intrigued that you see this dilemma as an indication of greatness.

Self evident: To understand. From which flows knowledge and ability to manipulate it.

You can always look away if squeemish, personally, I love the smell of choloroform in the morning...

"I was in doubt as to the beauty of the nightingale's song - now that I have destroyed it, I have full knowledge of it and am no longer in doubt. Isn't the innards of the nightingale beautiful? Look at how the intestines connect to the doohicky, and the heart pumps blood to the throat-whatzit. Now I can make the nightingale sing any song I want BWAHAHAAHAHAHAH!" Kind of like Bataille and his theory of words?