Similar, yet different
-
Music and software have many similarities. They both unfold over time, require abstract notation to be written, use the concept of theme-and-variation, and more. However, on the drive home from work today, I discovered their main difference. As I was flipping through the radio stations trying to find a decent piece or tune to listen to, I just kept hearing more and more junk. The music of today, the Top 40s, the oeuvre du jour is mostly just homogenous over-produced crap (I can feel my name being added to hitlists as I write this :suss: ). Look back a few decades or a few hundred years and you'll find music created by inspired genius. Look at the songs produced yesterday and you'll find mediocre talent doctored through music editing software (which was created by inspired genius, no doubt). Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't think that has anything to do with it, to be quite frank. Thankfully, the world of software is just the opposite. The new programming languages and platforms just keep getting better and better. In software the old stuff is garbage, the new stuff is good. Of course these generalizations are not entirely true of either music or software, but they do seem prevalent in both. To put it succinctly, I'd rather listen to Bach while crafting XAML than listen to Mariah Carey while cranking out some VB3.
Josh Smith wrote: than listen to Mariah Carey while cranking out some VB3. :laugh: ostly the good stuff survived the ages. At Bachs times, there was a lot of homogenous over-produced crap as well.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen -
Music and software have many similarities. They both unfold over time, require abstract notation to be written, use the concept of theme-and-variation, and more. However, on the drive home from work today, I discovered their main difference. As I was flipping through the radio stations trying to find a decent piece or tune to listen to, I just kept hearing more and more junk. The music of today, the Top 40s, the oeuvre du jour is mostly just homogenous over-produced crap (I can feel my name being added to hitlists as I write this :suss: ). Look back a few decades or a few hundred years and you'll find music created by inspired genius. Look at the songs produced yesterday and you'll find mediocre talent doctored through music editing software (which was created by inspired genius, no doubt). Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't think that has anything to do with it, to be quite frank. Thankfully, the world of software is just the opposite. The new programming languages and platforms just keep getting better and better. In software the old stuff is garbage, the new stuff is good. Of course these generalizations are not entirely true of either music or software, but they do seem prevalent in both. To put it succinctly, I'd rather listen to Bach while crafting XAML than listen to Mariah Carey while cranking out some VB3.
Maybe it is more a question of peaking. If you look at the timeline of music it is thousands of years old. Software is still a pin-prick in comparison. Maybe software is on its upward slope with a peak in the distant future and then a slide down into mass produced commercial crap. Of course music is more subjective than software. I may prefer Mariah Carey to Bach (for the record I don't) and that is my choice. With software, while there is still some subjectivity to it, you can argue that X is better than Y based on objective matters. regards, Paul Watson South Africa Colib and WebTwoZero. K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
-
Maybe it is more a question of peaking. If you look at the timeline of music it is thousands of years old. Software is still a pin-prick in comparison. Maybe software is on its upward slope with a peak in the distant future and then a slide down into mass produced commercial crap. Of course music is more subjective than software. I may prefer Mariah Carey to Bach (for the record I don't) and that is my choice. With software, while there is still some subjectivity to it, you can argue that X is better than Y based on objective matters. regards, Paul Watson South Africa Colib and WebTwoZero. K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
One could argue that the quality of music can be viewed and argued objectively. Hegelian philosophy fortified the idea that art is a manifestation of the human spirit and experience and, as such, can be analyzed and discussed logically in those terms [see Hegel's "Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics"]. I happen to agree! :-D I also recognize that there is a matter of individual taste involved, but that does not plunge the analysis and critque of music into a mere wishywashy pool of opinions.
-
Music and software have many similarities. They both unfold over time, require abstract notation to be written, use the concept of theme-and-variation, and more. However, on the drive home from work today, I discovered their main difference. As I was flipping through the radio stations trying to find a decent piece or tune to listen to, I just kept hearing more and more junk. The music of today, the Top 40s, the oeuvre du jour is mostly just homogenous over-produced crap (I can feel my name being added to hitlists as I write this :suss: ). Look back a few decades or a few hundred years and you'll find music created by inspired genius. Look at the songs produced yesterday and you'll find mediocre talent doctored through music editing software (which was created by inspired genius, no doubt). Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't think that has anything to do with it, to be quite frank. Thankfully, the world of software is just the opposite. The new programming languages and platforms just keep getting better and better. In software the old stuff is garbage, the new stuff is good. Of course these generalizations are not entirely true of either music or software, but they do seem prevalent in both. To put it succinctly, I'd rather listen to Bach while crafting XAML than listen to Mariah Carey while cranking out some VB3.
Yes, you are getting old ;) Disregarding the point that "good" is subjective, it seems that the stuff that is deemed good by consensus survives the longest. The truly bad stuff (90% by Sturgeon's Law, and I contend that Sturgeon's standards were too low) dies a quick death. So here, from our vantage point years, decades, or centuries later, what we see of the period is only the cream; hence, we are exposed to only the best of the past, while being subjected to the 90% bad/10% good mix of the present, and thus tend to believe music was better back then. But for each Mozart, there were many court composers whose music was bad enough to not outlive them -- think of them as Britney Spears with powdered wigs. For every "Stairway to Heaven", there were ten "Billy, Don't Be a Hero"s. For every Green Day, there is an equal and opposite Good Charlotte. Vincent
-
Yes, you are getting old ;) Disregarding the point that "good" is subjective, it seems that the stuff that is deemed good by consensus survives the longest. The truly bad stuff (90% by Sturgeon's Law, and I contend that Sturgeon's standards were too low) dies a quick death. So here, from our vantage point years, decades, or centuries later, what we see of the period is only the cream; hence, we are exposed to only the best of the past, while being subjected to the 90% bad/10% good mix of the present, and thus tend to believe music was better back then. But for each Mozart, there were many court composers whose music was bad enough to not outlive them -- think of them as Britney Spears with powdered wigs. For every "Stairway to Heaven", there were ten "Billy, Don't Be a Hero"s. For every Green Day, there is an equal and opposite Good Charlotte. Vincent
Vincent, I agree with your point that our view of the past (and the products of it) is filtered by the test of time. I do not see that as proving my original point wrong, though. I am not aware of any profoundly brilliant and groundbreaking music being produced these days. I do know that in the past such things happened. While pondering your lucid argument, I realized an important piece of the puzzle. The "lives" of music and software (to speak figuratively) are very different. Music evolves while software progresses. The distinction between these two concepts is subtle, but important in this context. Evolution is not necessarily directed or aiming to acheive some form of perfection. Evolution is the process of adapting to changing circumstances in the best way possible. Art evolves. It is a reaction to the social climate, the passions, the hardships in life. On the other hand, software progresses. The life of software is, largely, directed toward processing information and providing services to people, businesses, etc. Software is intricately linked to money. Software has a very different place in this world than art (despite the fact that software can be art!!). Of course there is overlap between the two realms, but I definitely see the two entities as existing in separate spaces. This distinction ties into and supports my original argument, yet forces me to modify it somewhat. I can no longer say that the future of music is eternally dismal and bound for endless pandering, but that it is in a slump. Concurrently the life of software (that constant ascent into betterment) is inevitably looking better and better. Could the artistic slump I'm describing be attributed to this society's fleeting interest in the arts? By the same token, is that a reasonable explanation for why the life of software improves faster than you can say XAML? :) Or perhaps I'm just superimposing a self-critique onto the "outside world"... Josh
-
Yes, you are getting old ;) Disregarding the point that "good" is subjective, it seems that the stuff that is deemed good by consensus survives the longest. The truly bad stuff (90% by Sturgeon's Law, and I contend that Sturgeon's standards were too low) dies a quick death. So here, from our vantage point years, decades, or centuries later, what we see of the period is only the cream; hence, we are exposed to only the best of the past, while being subjected to the 90% bad/10% good mix of the present, and thus tend to believe music was better back then. But for each Mozart, there were many court composers whose music was bad enough to not outlive them -- think of them as Britney Spears with powdered wigs. For every "Stairway to Heaven", there were ten "Billy, Don't Be a Hero"s. For every Green Day, there is an equal and opposite Good Charlotte. Vincent
vincent.reynolds wrote: think of them as Britney Spears with powdered wigs. LOL! :laugh:
-
Music and software have many similarities. They both unfold over time, require abstract notation to be written, use the concept of theme-and-variation, and more. However, on the drive home from work today, I discovered their main difference. As I was flipping through the radio stations trying to find a decent piece or tune to listen to, I just kept hearing more and more junk. The music of today, the Top 40s, the oeuvre du jour is mostly just homogenous over-produced crap (I can feel my name being added to hitlists as I write this :suss: ). Look back a few decades or a few hundred years and you'll find music created by inspired genius. Look at the songs produced yesterday and you'll find mediocre talent doctored through music editing software (which was created by inspired genius, no doubt). Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't think that has anything to do with it, to be quite frank. Thankfully, the world of software is just the opposite. The new programming languages and platforms just keep getting better and better. In software the old stuff is garbage, the new stuff is good. Of course these generalizations are not entirely true of either music or software, but they do seem prevalent in both. To put it succinctly, I'd rather listen to Bach while crafting XAML than listen to Mariah Carey while cranking out some VB3.
<megaphone_voice> Welcome to middle age! </megaphone_voice>
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Yes, you are getting old ;) Disregarding the point that "good" is subjective, it seems that the stuff that is deemed good by consensus survives the longest. The truly bad stuff (90% by Sturgeon's Law, and I contend that Sturgeon's standards were too low) dies a quick death. So here, from our vantage point years, decades, or centuries later, what we see of the period is only the cream; hence, we are exposed to only the best of the past, while being subjected to the 90% bad/10% good mix of the present, and thus tend to believe music was better back then. But for each Mozart, there were many court composers whose music was bad enough to not outlive them -- think of them as Britney Spears with powdered wigs. For every "Stairway to Heaven", there were ten "Billy, Don't Be a Hero"s. For every Green Day, there is an equal and opposite Good Charlotte. Vincent
You do realize that the Internet version of Sturgeon's Law is "99.997% of everything on the web is crap"?
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Vincent, I agree with your point that our view of the past (and the products of it) is filtered by the test of time. I do not see that as proving my original point wrong, though. I am not aware of any profoundly brilliant and groundbreaking music being produced these days. I do know that in the past such things happened. While pondering your lucid argument, I realized an important piece of the puzzle. The "lives" of music and software (to speak figuratively) are very different. Music evolves while software progresses. The distinction between these two concepts is subtle, but important in this context. Evolution is not necessarily directed or aiming to acheive some form of perfection. Evolution is the process of adapting to changing circumstances in the best way possible. Art evolves. It is a reaction to the social climate, the passions, the hardships in life. On the other hand, software progresses. The life of software is, largely, directed toward processing information and providing services to people, businesses, etc. Software is intricately linked to money. Software has a very different place in this world than art (despite the fact that software can be art!!). Of course there is overlap between the two realms, but I definitely see the two entities as existing in separate spaces. This distinction ties into and supports my original argument, yet forces me to modify it somewhat. I can no longer say that the future of music is eternally dismal and bound for endless pandering, but that it is in a slump. Concurrently the life of software (that constant ascent into betterment) is inevitably looking better and better. Could the artistic slump I'm describing be attributed to this society's fleeting interest in the arts? By the same token, is that a reasonable explanation for why the life of software improves faster than you can say XAML? :) Or perhaps I'm just superimposing a self-critique onto the "outside world"... Josh
I'm not sure that it doesn't take distance to recognize a work as profoundly brilliant and groundbreaking. Shakespeare's audience at the time probably left the theatre with not the faintest clue that 400 years later people all over the world would be performing the play they just saw. Ditto for all the classics, Bach to Zappa. And you can't even apply the "pandering" standard to determine great music; Mozart wrote operas in "vulgar" languages, purely to appeal to the masses. Shakespeare's plays are pretty much all aimed at the popular audiences at the time -- full of sex, murder, and all those other fine things upon which pop culture is constructed. The level of craftsmanship in their work is one of the things that has allowed them to live on, but it seems like there's more at work. I think the present (and future) of music just seem dismal because we're constantly being bombarded by the 90% that is crap. I hope that's it, anyway. Interesting point, BTW, regarding evolution vs. progression. I think the definition of evolution that you give -- the process of adapting to changing circumstances in the best way possible -- is actually an aspect of extreme programming, so I'm not sure that's how I would differentiate the two. I do like the word "directed", though. Most art is not directed, most programming is, but the sets are not discrete. I've been a part of some directed art projects, and some (even intentionally) undirected programming projects.
-
You do realize that the Internet version of Sturgeon's Law is "99.997% of everything on the web is crap"?
Software Zen:
delete this;I think Sturgeon's law should be refined to reflect current observational data. The 99.997% figure does seem about right...