is music relative or objective

[Value]

Well, what does the music you are hearing make you feel? It is that simple.

J-dilla's tune 'So Far To Go' is a musical masterpiece, check it out if you want to hear good Hip Hop. Also Kendrik Lamar's album 'To Pimp a Butterfly' comes to mind.

What might be true is that the lowest level of Classical Music is better than the lowest level of hip hop.
"Classical" sounding Music requires a set of decent ears to be written, as it takes an understanding of harmony and melody to create it. Hip Hop can be made more or less by just drag/dropping sampled beats into a computer. 
 

Furthermore Hip Hop has a steady beat. This can limit the variety of chords and melodies that fit in a Hip Hop context vs a Classical context - which in turn can limit certain subtle emotions to be expressed. The more subjective tempo and absence of drums in classical music open up for subtle emotions and harmonies to be expressed by the performer in the moment. In Hip Hop these harmonies and subtleties would easier be overridden by the rhythm section and/or feel forced to bring in.

But to me, 'So Far to Go' makes me feel just as much, if not more than all the classical pieces I have heard. 

Edited May 21, 2024 by Value

[UnbornTao]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What music do crocodiles like?

Dubstep, of course.

[Leo Gura]

 

[Danioover9000]

@Leo Gura

15 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Stop saying nonsense.

   I'm not saying nonsense when you made that art video long time ago you said animals don't have artistry and humans are more creative and artistic, or am I wrong? Then when someone showed you an elephant painting you joked about how much abuse went to that baby elephant for it to paint a tree, like any being has to go through some abusive training to be able to make art. Sorry but animals are capable of ART similar humans, but in their animal way, for example the elephant painting a tree, or a bird in mating season constructing a hut and twigs and leaves, or a fish able to use a rock as a makeshift tool to crack open a shell. If those animals had hands and had minds more similar to ours they'd be able to demonstrate more of their arts to us, but due to their limited forms they can't, but that doesn't mean creativity is absent in them!

[zazen]

Music is objectively subjective and subjectively objective. Music and art blend science and soul. The objective part is the science, the subjective part is the soul - both interplay.

@Danioover9000  Maybe the middle way that synthesises animals and art is that nature and animals are art, but humans do art or are capable of artistry because their is conscious agency behind it. We humans observe the laws of nature and animals and see the artistry in them that consciousness has manifested, that those animals didn't manifest themselves except in minimal degree. Whereas humans co-create art with consciousness. 

[zurew]

@Majed Whats your case for why classical music is objectively better than hip-hop?

Also its unclear how you use "better" in this context.

[Danioover9000]

@zazen

2 hours ago, zazen said:

Music is objectively subjective and subjectively objective. Music and art blend science and soul. The objective part is the science, the subjective part is the soul - both interplay.

@Danioover9000  Maybe the middle way that synthesises animals and art is that nature and animals are art, but humans do art or are capable of artistry because their is conscious agency behind it. We humans observe the laws of nature and animals and see the artistry in them that consciousness has manifested, that those animals didn't manifest themselves except in minimal degree. Whereas humans co-create art with consciousness. 

   I agree with that humans with their higher consciousness, and social being genetics, are both capable and co-create art together at various degree, and animals do a bit less of that. My past argument with Leo was he had this absolute belief animals are not capable of art, and humans do, when I say animals are capable of art, just not like humans do. I mean we literally have seen an elephant painting a tree in a video...and yes maybe there was some training and maybe abuse, but the elephant demonstrated it's visual capacity and control of it's trunk to even paint a tree here:

 

 

[integral]

Chatgpt

 

To model subjective music goodness based on the strength of emotional responses, we can follow a structured approach that incorporates both psychological and computational methods. Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating such a model:

### Step 1: Define Emotional Metrics
Identify and define the emotional metrics that will be used to evaluate music. These can include:
- **Valence**: The positivity or negativity of the emotion.
- **Arousal**: The intensity of the emotion (from calm to excited).
- **Dominance**: The degree of control or power felt (from submissive to empowered).

### Step 2: Collect Emotional Response Data
Gather data on how different pieces of music affect listeners emotionally. This can be done through:
- **Surveys and Questionnaires**: Asking listeners to rate their emotional responses to various music samples.
- **Physiological Measurements**: Using sensors to measure heart rate, skin conductance, or facial expressions while listening to music.
- **Self-Report Apps**: Mobile applications where users can log their emotional reactions to music in real-time.

### Step 3: Analyze Emotional Response Patterns
Use statistical and machine learning techniques to analyze the collected data and identify patterns in emotional responses. Common methods include:
- **Principal Component Analysis (PCA)**: To reduce dimensionality and identify key emotional components.
- **Cluster Analysis**: To group music pieces based on similar emotional response patterns.

### Step 4: Develop the Model
Create a computational model that predicts the emotional response to a piece of music. This can involve:
- **Feature Extraction**: Extract features from music such as tempo, key, rhythm, melody, and harmony.
- **Regression Analysis**: To predict emotional responses based on extracted features.
- **Neural Networks**: For more complex modeling of the relationship between music features and emotional responses.

### Step 5: Rank Music Based on Emotional Impact
Using the model, rank music pieces based on the strength of the predicted emotional response. Higher rankings should be given to music that elicits stronger emotions according to the defined metrics.

### Implementation Example in Python
Here’s a basic example using Python with hypothetical data and features:

```python
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.cluster import KMeans
from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression

# Step 1: Load and preprocess data
# Assuming we have a dataset with music features and emotional response ratings
data = pd.read_csv('music_emotions.csv')

# Standardize the features
scaler = StandardScaler()
features = scaler.fit_transform(data.drop(columns=['emotion_valence', 'emotion_arousal', 'emotion_dominance']))

# Step 2: Principal Component Analysis
pca = PCA(n_components=2)
principal_components = pca.fit_transform(features)

# Step 3: Cluster Analysis (optional for grouping)
kmeans = KMeans(n_clusters=3)
clusters = kmeans.fit_predict(principal_components)
data['cluster'] = clusters

# Step 4: Regression Model for Emotional Prediction
X = features
y_valence = data['emotion_valence']
y_arousal = data['emotion_arousal']
y_dominance = data['emotion_dominance']

regressor_valence = LinearRegression()
regressor_valence.fit(X, y_valence)

regressor_arousal = LinearRegression()
regressor_arousal.fit(X, y_arousal)

regressor_dominance = LinearRegression()
regressor_dominance.fit(X, y_dominance)

# Predict emotional responses for new music
new_music_features = scaler.transform(new_music_data)  # new_music_data is a DataFrame of new music features
predicted_valence = regressor_valence.predict(new_music_features)
predicted_arousal = regressor_arousal.predict(new_music_features)
predicted_dominance = regressor_dominance.predict(new_music_features)

# Combine predictions into a single score (example: weighted sum)
emotion_scores = predicted_valence * 0.4 + predicted_arousal * 0.4 + predicted_dominance * 0.2

# Step 5: Rank music based on emotion scores
music_rankings = np.argsort(emotion_scores)[::-1]  # Higher scores ranked first
```

### Conclusion
This model provides a structured approach to ranking music based on the strength of emotional responses it elicits. By using emotional metrics, data collection, and computational modeling, we can create a system that evaluates music's subjective goodness based on how powerfully it moves its listeners.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, integral said:

To model subjective music goodness

Lol

[Reciprocality]

Objective and subjective are conceptual opposites, but this does not entail that they are dichotomous or that something, a musical piece or any other artwork, can not be both.

 

We can identify thousands of conditions that maximise the likelihood that most people will enjoy a melody.

If you begin your question of the existence of objective beauty or pleasure by expecting universality (that everyone agrees) then that can become a definition of the term that cuts you off from its etymology and makes your awareness of your convergence with others rather granular.

Consider the "mere exposure effect" whereby people come to enjoy things merely out of habit or familiarity, is this an effect that testifies for objectivity or subjectivity? I would say both, depending on whether you mean beauty in general or beauty in particular. 

If you insist on a universality variation of the concept of objectivity (see b below) then consider how If you generalise the criterion sufficiently all beauty will become objective, but if you particularise the criterion sufficiently not all beauty will become subjective, only some, this even applies beyond humanity and could even become intuitive if you consider how in principle chaos outnumbers order and evolution selects for the latter.

The distinction between a. criterion and b. distribution is prescient here, which type of objectivity are you looking for when you are faced with the challenge of differing taste? The first is deductive the latter is inductive. Is Mona Lisa a pretty painting via analysis of its characteristics under abstract conditions of beauty or is it a pretty painting if most people think so? If we want to be completely philosophically sound here do we not have to induce which criterion to go for and deduce the significance of the distribution of opinions?

Edited May 22, 2024 by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

There is also this bizarre situation where since history is an interconnected mess most the concept we have which relates to beauty is a product of what people once found beautiful, in so far as we then use such a concept as a criterion to determine beauty we already involve the distribution of human opinions in our analysis.

Examples: African, European, glamour, gothic, baroque, medieval

 

If on the other hand we essentialise or simplify our criterion so that it no longer has any roots in semantics and history we should in principle be able to discover some of that which should be objectively beautiful, the funny problem is that we may not actually find any beauty in it.

Examples: harmony, angular, natural, youth, symmetric, golden ratio

[OBEler]

7 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@zazen

   I agree with that humans with their higher consciousness, and social being genetics, are both capable and co-create art together at various degree, and animals do a bit less of that. My past argument with Leo was he had this absolute belief animals are not capable of art, and humans do, when I say animals are capable of art, just not like humans do. I mean we literally have seen an elephant painting a tree in a video...and yes maybe there was some training and maybe abuse, but the elephant demonstrated it's visual capacity and control of it's trunk to even paint a tree here:

 

 

You answered yourself there is no art seen here. It's of course hard training and animal abuse. Visual capacy and control of it's trunk has nothing to do with art. It just remembered how to move it.

Am I an artist if I draw lines on a numbers picture?

This elephant is forced to draw this shit for tourists just to get a reward. Don't forget that.

Edited May 22, 2024 by OBEler

[Danioover9000]

@OBEler

9 minutes ago, OBEler said:

You answered yourself there is no art seen here. It's of course hard training and animal abuse. Visual capacy and control of it's trunk has nothing to do with art. It just remembered how to move it.

Am I an artist if I draw lines on a numbers picture?

This elephant is forced to draw this shit for tourists just to get a reward. Don't forget that.

   How am I answering this myself that there's no art seen here? Why are you making it like my answer is it's only animal abuse and hard training when I said the animal is capable of ART by it's behaviors, like the bird constructing a hut and nest for it's mate, or the octopus using shells and mimicking it's surroundings, or the fish using a shell, or the elephant using a paint brush to paint a tree? Even a Chimpanzee uses branches and stones is part of ART. Visual capacity, trunk control(limb control in other animals/humans/aliens) and internalizations and mental representations and sense making apparatuses in our minds, consciousness, and external factors have EVERYTHING to do with ART!

   YES! You are an artist if you draw lines on a number picture, draw using pencils or pens or charcoal on a canvas or other surface mediums. At least when you demonstrate the externalities of ART like marking onto parts of an environment. And when you have consciousness of a human, animal, alien or any sentient life YOU ARE AN ARTIST!

   Spare me the moral outrage of an elephant being forced to draw this shit for tourists to get rewards. I get and understand that I won't forget that, and I will NEVER FORGET the sacrifices of other artists and the Mangakas that draw beautifully forcing themselves in minimum wages just top draw amazing artwork that FEELS AUTHENTIC! Of course ART will have some sacrifices and sufferings to making ART! I suffer making my own ART having to deal with my health and mental problems trying to draw my own ART! Do you think the birds and the bees and the Elephant and the octopus wants to deal with all that ART to survive and maintain their lives in this world?!

   Everything based on developmental factors, ART has internal and external factors, is systemic and based on the Spiral Dynamics stages of development, moral and cognitive development, psychology, society, cultural programing, information ecology, one's ideological beliefs indoctrinated. 

[Leo Gura]

@Danioover9000 It would be wise of you to deeply contemplate What is art? from scratch.

As of now, you don't have a good understanding of it.

Chimpanzees are NOT doing art, regardless of how they are trained to hold a brush.

Edited May 22, 2024 by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Danioover9000 It would be wise of you to deeply contemplate What is art? from scratch.

Video on art plz? Especially explain how modern art works 🤔

[zazen]

Regarding animals making art isn’t the key factor the existence of intent or the lack of it.

Animals create beautiful things like nests but it’s from instinct - not intentionally done by a conscious agent.

Animals are beautiful and seem it to us because they just are instinctually through evolutionary adaption whilst humans create beauty through intentional expression, they do beauty through art whilst animals just exist as it.

Animals can mimic art by being trained in pattern recognition , but humans create art through pattern innovation.

Edited May 22, 2024 by zazen

[Danioover9000]

@zazen

10 minutes ago, zazen said:

Regarding animals making art isn’t the key factor the existence of intent or the lack of it.

Animals create beautiful things like nests but it’s from instinct - not intentionally done by a conscious agent.

Animals are beautiful and seem it to us because they just are instinctually through evolutionary adaption whilst humans create beauty through intentional expression, they do beauty through art whilst animals just exist as it.

Animals can mimic art by being trained in pattern recognition , but humans create art through pattern innovation.

   Yes and no. Yes animals can mimic art by being trained in pattern recognition and most are driven by instincts. No in that I'm arguing that ART is far more bigger, hierarchical, and wider that it includes humans, animals, ghosts, anything with sentience has ART to some degree. The ART of a bird making a nest and bird songs, some birds even mimic sounds perfectly, is art at that form or level. Different level of ART when a human does S.T.E.M shit like airplane design or nuclear bombs and nuclear plants, even drawing and visualizing drawing. ART has degrees and a spectrum to it, just like consciousness has degrees. Human consciousness way different from ant's, or a spirit, or an alien, same with ART. I thought I was clear enough for most users reading my arguments? I'm saying art has levels, and not just saying humans only have ART and no animal cannot have art right? Spectrum right?

   I have realized this discourse was derailed hard into ART existential bs when it's specifically about music being objective or subjective? Sorry OP, seems my argument points here going above most people's heads so I'm outta this thread. All because some guys are jealous an elephant can paint a tree or birds sing better than they do right?

[Danioover9000]

1 minute ago, Danioover9000 said:

@zazen

   Yes and no. Yes animals can mimic art by being trained in pattern recognition and most are driven by instincts. No in that I'm arguing that ART is far more bigger, hierarchical, and wider that it includes humans, animals, ghosts, anything with sentience has ART to some degree. The ART of a bird making a nest and bird songs, some birds even mimic sounds perfectly, is art at that form or level. Different level of ART when a human does S.T.E.M shit like airplane design or nuclear bombs and nuclear plants, even drawing and visualizing drawing. ART has degrees and a spectrum to it, just like consciousness has degrees. Human consciousness way different from ant's, or a spirit, or an alien, same with ART. I thought I was clear enough for most users reading my arguments? I'm saying art has levels, and not just saying humans only have ART and no animal cannot have art right? Spectrum right?

   I have realized this discourse was derailed hard into ART existential bs when it's specifically about music being objective or subjective? Sorry OP, seems my argument points here going above most people's heads so I'm outta this thread. All because some guys are jealous an elephant can paint a tree or birds sing better than they do right?

@Majed

[zazen]

@Danioover9000 I get you. It depends on forum users definition of art not falling completely into the human domain.

Within the purely human domain art can be de-linked from beauty. Human art is more about expression and imagination which take a subject to create - and that art doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful but can be social commentary or a form of protest.

In Oshos book Creativity he says even a smile to a stranger passing by or sweeping the streets clean can both be seen as creative acts in the wider sense of the word - both create a better world.

Similarly nature is and can be art even if it lacks intent, in the sense that it provides the aesthetic value of beauty.

Human made art evokes an emotional response as does nature evoke an emotional response of some intrinsic beauty that exists. 

Beauty can be expressed through natural instinct or nurtured through human intention.

Edited May 23, 2024 by zazen

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Video on art plz? Especially explain how modern art works 🤔

Contemplate it for yourselves.

Less yapping, more contemplation.

Edited May 23, 2024 by Leo Gura