What is more important in music?

Pretty self-explanatory question, but I was curious what you would say, if forced, what your higher values are in music creation. I realise it's like one of those "would you rather" questions, and probably most of you would say some mixture of both, but - gun to your head - which would you choose?

I would combine it like this:

Experimentation together with emotional expression 

95 dB SPL sounds new to me everytime with the volume at 100 on my listening device. :) The headphones have last longer at that spec than ever! And boy did i learn that the hard way!  Golly gosh welp cd... dir n dirn wha dorm room full o knockers

  On 8/31/2023 at 10:34 AM, Alien Sugar said:

95 dB SPL sounds new to me everytime with the volume at 100 on my listening device. :) The headphones have last longer at that spec than ever! And boy did i learn that the hard way!  Golly gosh welp cd... dir n dirn wha dorm room full o knockers

Thats way too loud are you fucking nuts 

  On 8/31/2023 at 10:31 AM, cern said:

I would combine it like this:

Experimentation together with emotional expression 

I cheatingly rationalised in my head that intuition etc. would happen automatically if you focus outwardly anyway, without your knowing - you can't help your inner world coming through in everything you create, whereas like Zizek says, if you look deeply inside yourself, you find shit.. but obviously I'd say that the two values are intrinsically linked - you can't test or get excited about your experiment without observing how it reflects emotionally, and you can't express your inner life without innovating, since if you only use vocabulary that already exists, you don't get emotion, you get someone else's description of your emotion.

  On 8/31/2023 at 10:34 AM, Alien Sugar said:

dorm room full o knockers

Here's a great example - trying to be innovative, but the true emotion comes through unintentionally

for me its like adding features to a song. emotion, intuition, honesty, expression comes first. but this can still be a pretty boring track so to spice things up I look for a certain trippy / psychedelic vibe. if there is innovation, ambition, radicalism, experimentation it needs to be implemented in a way that the other features are still very much intact. if this is the case I will mostly like the track a lot 

  On 8/31/2023 at 11:33 AM, xox said:

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Actually a good parallel - the first guy is inward focussed, on his feelings, wind in his hair etc., Conan is outward focussed - murder and rape. So I guess Conan would vote for innovation and ambition. Because murder and rape is innovative in this analogy.. um..

i would say the most important thing is humor

I am very much of the mindset that "if it sounds good, that's all that matters".

I think that imbedded in that statement is the idea that we have an emotional reaction to music and that is the most important part, the end goal. Innovation serves that goal, not the other way around.

You don't have to keep repeating yourself. In music!

@ 95.00 dB SPL 100th VOL 

TH tomorrow's harvest 

ache H.H.

the most important thing about music is to shut up

Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage... 

  On 9/1/2023 at 4:52 AM, drillkicker said:

i would say the most important thing is humor

And yet default ambiguous watmm snark is deeply unfunny.. but if you mean that sincerely, I do think it's a massive component for me - I think it's hard to express emotions directly without including all the contradictions, and I think humour does that really well, although I think what Zizek says about people only being able to express emotions at a distance, either with irony or self-deprecation or whatever these days is probably true - some older music sounds way too earnest these days, to the point that it feels kitsch

  On 9/1/2023 at 9:26 AM, cichlisuite said:

the most important thing about music is to shut up

And yet you didn't.. but taking your comment in better faith than I think it was intended, there's probably something to that - but maybe you're not gonna enjoy some aspects of a *music forum* very much

  On 9/1/2023 at 9:48 AM, chim said:

Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage... 

If I had to choose, I'd choose love and horses.

Separately

The most important thing about music is that you recognise that it is a bread-and-circus distraction concocted by the bourgeoisie to steer the workers away from developing class consciousness. Thus you should not pay any attention to any music, ever

There should be a 3rd option for neither.  If there's no melody, what's the actual point ? ............Unless of course, you happen to be John Cage ....and don't need anything at all

  On 9/5/2023 at 12:28 AM, Fade Rhombus said:

There should be a 3rd option for neither.  If there's no melody, what's the actual point ? ............Unless of course, you happen to be John Cage ....and don't need anything at all

1.  

     Quote

    

   1. 1. What is more important to you in music? You can only pick one.

      • Outward looking: innovation, ambition, radicalism, experimentation
      • Inward looking: emotion, intuition, honesty, expression

    

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   this seems completely arbitrary. who says what happens looking outward or inward?  ^^^ this shit makes no sense to me.  where did you even get this shit from? 

    

  On 9/5/2023 at 12:28 AM, Fade Rhombus said:

If there's no melody, what's the actual point ?

You might be in the wrong place here

  On 9/5/2023 at 12:28 AM, Fade Rhombus said:

There should be a 3rd option for neither.  If there's no melody, what's the actual point ? ............Unless of course, you happen to be John Cage ....and don't need anything at all

I never said anything about no melody

 

  On 9/5/2023 at 12:58 AM, ignatius said:

this seems completely arbitrary. who says what happens looking outward or inward? ^^^ this shit makes no sense to me. where did you even get this shit from?

I'm giving two general ways of approaching things - the game is you pick one, as best you can, given the imperfectness of the question, then if you think there's something wrong with the categories, just comment and say why - I got this idea from another thread and it got me wondering what people's values here are, as to what they care about more in music - by outward looking, I mean trying to do something different and new, and by inward looking, I mean trying to express your emotions through music, both as the primary driver either for your own music creation, or music made by others - *obviously* the two are interconnected, but it's a question like "if you had to take a staple to the asshole or the dick, which would you choose" not a choice anyone wants to make, but (for me anyway) interesting to think about.

The music one is interesting I mean, I don't have a stapling fetish

Someone to hear it.

  On 9/5/2023 at 1:17 AM, hoggy said:

I never said anything about no melody

 

 

I'm giving two general ways of approaching things - the game is you pick one, as best you can, given the imperfectness of the question, then if you think there's something wrong with the categories, just comment and say why - I got this idea from another thread and it got me wondering what people's values here are, as to what they care about more in music - by outward looking, I mean trying to do something different and new, and by inward looking, I mean trying to express your emotions through music, both as the primary driver either for your own music creation, or music made by others - *obviously* the two are interconnected, but it's a question like "if you had to take a staple to the asshole or the dick, which would you choose" not a choice anyone wants to make, but (for me anyway) interesting to think about.

The music one is interesting I mean, I don't have a stapling fetish

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Yeah. Idk. Still doesn’t make sense.  None of those things are mutually exclusive. Also, sometimes a person might staple their dick directly to their asshole. 
also, very male centric. But it’s all subjective. Some people do have staple fetishes and I’m not here to judge someone’s fetish. 
“primary driver” is to create… for reasons. I hate the “if you had to choose” questions. It’s like those people on the autechre subreddit asking people to choose an autechre record.  No one has to choose. It’s a made up universe we don’t exist in. 

A lot of the most artistically conservative music is "experimental."

  On 9/5/2023 at 3:42 AM, ignatius said:

very male centric.

What is more important

a) burritos

b) disgusting with salsa

c) batcock