Which Ulver era do you like the best?
- Thread starter Sadguru
- Start date
Tubbs
Bi-weekly top album:
If I'm correct, Mumble's point is the following: "enjoying music > not enjoying music". For exemple, you are not enjoying Ulver while other does. The experience of not enjoying the listening experience of the said band is obviously dull, flavourless and fade when compared to the actual experience of deeply enjoying it. It's an irrevocable fact that any "sane" person will recognize.
p.s. passion immortal > any of your self-absorbed posts.
Wires & Waves
New Metal Member
- Feb 4, 2006
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non-sequitur. your argument doesn't support the idea that "enjoying music > not enjoying music", only that "enjoying ulver > not enjoying ulver" in a vacuum where no other music exists, which, thank god, is not an accurate reflection of reality, thereby rendering your argument invalid. the experience of not enjoying certain music is a necessary counterpoint to the experience of enjoying other music (i.e. discrimination is necessary if we are to have any measure of quality), so it's ridiculous to assert one experience as superior to the other.
affinityband
Member
Kenneth R.
Cináed
With all the respect, I think you're lost in analytical gymnastic. Moreover, your whole discourse is contradictary:
Anyway, enough for me. I'm out.
Wires & Waves
New Metal Member
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ignoring the fact that i was trolling anyway i don't see how that's contradictory at all. the idea that someone's enjoyment is dependent on ignorance doesn't reflect on the relative value of the experience of said enjoyment vis-à-vis the experience of unenjoyment. or: believing it's ridiculous to make judgements about the value of "enjoying music" relative to to value of "not enjoying music" doesn't preclude me from making judgements of quality about particular music. if anything it encourages it unlike mumblefood's retarded philosophy.
i'm not sure if you simply misunderstood what exactly i was referring to in my last post or what.
i'm not sure if you simply misunderstood what exactly i was referring to in my last post or what.
Kenneth R.
Cináed
and another thing. wtf would this tool be doing on a METAL forum when he/she/it hates metal? t-r-o-l-l. a pretentious one too.
Wires & Waves
New Metal Member
- Feb 4, 2006
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i don't hate metal and seeing as i've already admitted to trolling twice in this thread you're hardly providing us with some startling revelation there
Justin S.
Member
I disagree with Wires and Waves on Ulver being not listen-worthy. They have created interesting work.
However, he/she is absolutely correct in terms of thought. Its always nice to see an intelligent poster call bullshit, even if its guaranteed no effect.
However, he/she is absolutely correct in terms of thought. Its always nice to see an intelligent poster call bullshit, even if its guaranteed no effect.
Kenneth R.
Cináed
Tubbs
Bi-weekly top album:
It'll be okay. The ignore function is one of the best features in these cases! 
EDIT: Not that I already didn't know you mentioned it btw.
EDIT: Not that I already didn't know you mentioned it btw.
Justin S.
Member
I didn't say that W&W was "wise" or particularly perceptive (I am not very familiar with his posts), but he is undeniably more intelligent than most around here (meaning: his thoughts are actually coherent).
His "trolling" or "jackass" approach has little bearing on this.
Manbient
Queer Old Man
I've tried to explain what I mean a bunch of times and somehow I just get called a retard by trolls for it, so I’m sure this is a waste of time, but I’d like to see what Justin thinks of it anyway as he seems much less trollish than most of his "breed".
I think it's simple to understand that in single isolated cases, enjoying an experience is more desirable than not enjoying an experience. In this case, it means enjoying listening to latter day Ulver, or not. It would be to create a giant technical loophole to say that it is more desirable to NOT enjoy something (the very notion implies you WOULD be enjoying it). Every singular experience we have with music is an isolated case, based song by song, unless you make a habit of listening to more than one piece at a time. The isolated experience may be influenced by the events surrounding it, but in and of itself, there is a piece of music playing, and you are interpreting the current piece. Given such, your choices on any given piece of music are varying degrees of enjoyment. Enjoying, or not enjoying. I certainly do believe this is a choice.
To understand how this could possibly be a choice would mean an understanding of the fundamentals which constitute "taste" in music. Obviously this isn't something that can be done easily, if at all, but there are certain key categories of characteristics which take differing levels of importance in any given piece of music. I haven't been able to fully pinpoint or explain them properly, but these would be things roughly referred to as "catchiness", instrumentation, performance difficulty, "mood", "complexity", etc.
By redirecting the "weight" of importance for the listener of the categories, one could conceivably align more appropriately and change the quality of the listening experience. Obviously "taste" in music is not static, but I also believe it is elastic in ways that don't require time to change, but rather can change on a level as low as song-to-song, or even intra-song. It would be impossible for a seasoned listener to equally weight ALL of the categories which they find the most entertaining, because doing so would rob all enjoyment from nearly every experience. In all music, there is too much missing from the majority of categories. There are very rare instances of any given piece of music containing ALL of the favored categories at full strength. If the listener does not adjust the weighting to give importance to the strengths of the piece instead of looking for strength in all the categories they have become familiar with and enjoy, the shortcomings will always outweigh the surpluses.
The reason for this is that some of the categories have countering sub-categories. "mood" for example is something which contains polar opposites which rarely, if at all, can coexist. Can a piece be simultaneously angry and happy? If so, does the combination actually take away from the strength of each one individually? Could a piece be both the saddest, AND the funniest song you've ever heard? Or would the intrusion of the "funny" somehow degrade the experience of "sadness"? I'm inclined to say yes, it does. If you are to equally weight the categories, there will always be an argument along the lines of "That song is so uplifting!" "Yeah but it doesn't stir intense sadness in me", and hence the music is failing in some category.
Furthermore, the weighting of the categories is influenced by OTHER factors, such as frame of mind, environment, familiarity with the music, etc. These factors I think are our main ways of manipulating the different categories to provide an ideal weighting, as we do have some level of control over them. This is actually all related to the how and why I started doing that obscenely boring, uninteresting piece of shit known as Passion Immortal, which served the main purpose of choosing music which has weighting suited best to a "home alone, late at night, in the dark, feeling fragile" sort of environment, with equipment capable of creating a convincingly immersive sound environment. But this isn't about that horrible abomination; this is much broader so I’ll digress.
One of the skills a listener acquires as time progresses is the ability to recognize more and more different categories of music. If this is not paired with the ability to appropriately weight the categories, an increasing level of disappointment will develop. Our tendency is, as we discover these "new" categories, to weight them more heavily. If these categories did not exist in previously enjoyed music, we "outgrow" this music. The problem here lies in the fact that one must also develop the skill of "pliable weighting". Doing so provides a much greater chance of not "outgrowing" old favorites, but instead keeping intact the "old" weighting system for the given pieces to yield the same experience (although admittedly diminishing over time most often, which is related to the "familiarity" factor).
I believe that to be the most valuable skill of the listener. It has the greatest potential to yield maximum enjoyment of a range of pieces of music without resorting to "looking for" or weighting heavily categories which are not the goal or not important to the given piece. This is, in my opinion, a failure on the part of the listener, NOT the piece. One thing that should be clear though is that I don't believe every piece has the same "maximum enjoyment" level, which can be reached if the weighting is correct. There must be a multiplying factor (a "degree of difficulty" in reference to certain sports) which changes the "maximum". I do believe however that this factor is much, much less important than attaining an appropriate weighting. A piece with a high multiplying factor with a poor weighting would be much less enjoyable than one with the lowest multiplying factor in which the weighting is ideal.
The real difficulty for this model is the identification of the categories, how they can be changed (via numerous controllable factors), and how the categories match up with each piece of music, or "moment" in the music. In fact, I think it's too complex a system to completely decipher and any objective understanding of them can only partially be applied to what is considered a subjective concept we call "taste". Regardless, I still believe it is very egocentric to assume that our ability to enjoy, or our inability to enjoy is because of our "proper" understanding of the music and those in contrast obviously have some "learning" to do to get to where we are. Unfortunately, very few people seem to acknowledge that.
One thing I can be sure of however is that using this "model" and trying to figure some of it out myself has broadened my own appreciation of music and provided me with more ways to enjoy music, for different reasons. I suggest that perhaps the most useful interpretation of music is the one which provides maximum enjoyment out of it. I don't deny however it may be necessary to assume a position which scrutinizes the music under certain categories in order to learn and re-evaluate one’s own understanding of the categories and hone listening skills for future experiences. This does not have to be a permanent state though! It may not be the biggest sin in the world to "hate" certain music, and refuse to attempt any alternate interpretation to enjoy it as others do, but I certainly do think it very wrong to ridicule others and try to sway them to also "hate". As I’ve said repeatedly, and just spend the whole post explaining, enjoying music>not enjoying music.
To me it's simple: If I put on something from Perdition City for someone like polarity, what is the advantage of not enjoying it for the duration? How can that be better than enjoying it? I'm open to ideas, but the only one I can think of is the one mentioned earlier in the previous paragraph. Certainly that doesn't justify long-term hatred and trying to convince others they should feel that way also.
I think it's simple to understand that in single isolated cases, enjoying an experience is more desirable than not enjoying an experience. In this case, it means enjoying listening to latter day Ulver, or not. It would be to create a giant technical loophole to say that it is more desirable to NOT enjoy something (the very notion implies you WOULD be enjoying it). Every singular experience we have with music is an isolated case, based song by song, unless you make a habit of listening to more than one piece at a time. The isolated experience may be influenced by the events surrounding it, but in and of itself, there is a piece of music playing, and you are interpreting the current piece. Given such, your choices on any given piece of music are varying degrees of enjoyment. Enjoying, or not enjoying. I certainly do believe this is a choice.
To understand how this could possibly be a choice would mean an understanding of the fundamentals which constitute "taste" in music. Obviously this isn't something that can be done easily, if at all, but there are certain key categories of characteristics which take differing levels of importance in any given piece of music. I haven't been able to fully pinpoint or explain them properly, but these would be things roughly referred to as "catchiness", instrumentation, performance difficulty, "mood", "complexity", etc.
By redirecting the "weight" of importance for the listener of the categories, one could conceivably align more appropriately and change the quality of the listening experience. Obviously "taste" in music is not static, but I also believe it is elastic in ways that don't require time to change, but rather can change on a level as low as song-to-song, or even intra-song. It would be impossible for a seasoned listener to equally weight ALL of the categories which they find the most entertaining, because doing so would rob all enjoyment from nearly every experience. In all music, there is too much missing from the majority of categories. There are very rare instances of any given piece of music containing ALL of the favored categories at full strength. If the listener does not adjust the weighting to give importance to the strengths of the piece instead of looking for strength in all the categories they have become familiar with and enjoy, the shortcomings will always outweigh the surpluses.
The reason for this is that some of the categories have countering sub-categories. "mood" for example is something which contains polar opposites which rarely, if at all, can coexist. Can a piece be simultaneously angry and happy? If so, does the combination actually take away from the strength of each one individually? Could a piece be both the saddest, AND the funniest song you've ever heard? Or would the intrusion of the "funny" somehow degrade the experience of "sadness"? I'm inclined to say yes, it does. If you are to equally weight the categories, there will always be an argument along the lines of "That song is so uplifting!" "Yeah but it doesn't stir intense sadness in me", and hence the music is failing in some category.
Furthermore, the weighting of the categories is influenced by OTHER factors, such as frame of mind, environment, familiarity with the music, etc. These factors I think are our main ways of manipulating the different categories to provide an ideal weighting, as we do have some level of control over them. This is actually all related to the how and why I started doing that obscenely boring, uninteresting piece of shit known as Passion Immortal, which served the main purpose of choosing music which has weighting suited best to a "home alone, late at night, in the dark, feeling fragile" sort of environment, with equipment capable of creating a convincingly immersive sound environment. But this isn't about that horrible abomination; this is much broader so I’ll digress.
One of the skills a listener acquires as time progresses is the ability to recognize more and more different categories of music. If this is not paired with the ability to appropriately weight the categories, an increasing level of disappointment will develop. Our tendency is, as we discover these "new" categories, to weight them more heavily. If these categories did not exist in previously enjoyed music, we "outgrow" this music. The problem here lies in the fact that one must also develop the skill of "pliable weighting". Doing so provides a much greater chance of not "outgrowing" old favorites, but instead keeping intact the "old" weighting system for the given pieces to yield the same experience (although admittedly diminishing over time most often, which is related to the "familiarity" factor).
I believe that to be the most valuable skill of the listener. It has the greatest potential to yield maximum enjoyment of a range of pieces of music without resorting to "looking for" or weighting heavily categories which are not the goal or not important to the given piece. This is, in my opinion, a failure on the part of the listener, NOT the piece. One thing that should be clear though is that I don't believe every piece has the same "maximum enjoyment" level, which can be reached if the weighting is correct. There must be a multiplying factor (a "degree of difficulty" in reference to certain sports) which changes the "maximum". I do believe however that this factor is much, much less important than attaining an appropriate weighting. A piece with a high multiplying factor with a poor weighting would be much less enjoyable than one with the lowest multiplying factor in which the weighting is ideal.
The real difficulty for this model is the identification of the categories, how they can be changed (via numerous controllable factors), and how the categories match up with each piece of music, or "moment" in the music. In fact, I think it's too complex a system to completely decipher and any objective understanding of them can only partially be applied to what is considered a subjective concept we call "taste". Regardless, I still believe it is very egocentric to assume that our ability to enjoy, or our inability to enjoy is because of our "proper" understanding of the music and those in contrast obviously have some "learning" to do to get to where we are. Unfortunately, very few people seem to acknowledge that.
One thing I can be sure of however is that using this "model" and trying to figure some of it out myself has broadened my own appreciation of music and provided me with more ways to enjoy music, for different reasons. I suggest that perhaps the most useful interpretation of music is the one which provides maximum enjoyment out of it. I don't deny however it may be necessary to assume a position which scrutinizes the music under certain categories in order to learn and re-evaluate one’s own understanding of the categories and hone listening skills for future experiences. This does not have to be a permanent state though! It may not be the biggest sin in the world to "hate" certain music, and refuse to attempt any alternate interpretation to enjoy it as others do, but I certainly do think it very wrong to ridicule others and try to sway them to also "hate". As I’ve said repeatedly, and just spend the whole post explaining, enjoying music>not enjoying music.
To me it's simple: If I put on something from Perdition City for someone like polarity, what is the advantage of not enjoying it for the duration? How can that be better than enjoying it? I'm open to ideas, but the only one I can think of is the one mentioned earlier in the previous paragraph. Certainly that doesn't justify long-term hatred and trying to convince others they should feel that way also.
Justin S.
Member
What ridiculous, insecure people- how many times must we go over this nonsense about consulting "dictionaries and thesaurusi"? Treating a dictionary or thesaurus in a technical/equipmental fashion will only be detrimental to one's diction and syntax.
I suppose it would be too much (actually, impossible) for many of you to confess to being "anti-intellectual" due to misunderstandings about what "intellectual" means, how this reaction reveals basic insecurity and predictable compensation, and the fact that many of you are fundamentally uneducated and thoughtless. Hence, these are fruitless words typed out of a dull frustration fully aware of the simple logic to follow (the irony of "communication").
I suppose it would be too much (actually, impossible) for many of you to confess to being "anti-intellectual" due to misunderstandings about what "intellectual" means, how this reaction reveals basic insecurity and predictable compensation, and the fact that many of you are fundamentally uneducated and thoughtless. Hence, these are fruitless words typed out of a dull frustration fully aware of the simple logic to follow (the irony of "communication").
Kenneth R.
Cináed
Or you could be excessively longwinded in your discourse instead of plainly and effectively stating your positions, likely due to some twisted need to feel superior to others. (Despite that such action in no way actually renders you superior nor does it indicate a status of that sort.)
In other words, get over it. And stop defending the biggest dumbass to post on this forum since metal_wrath, Oinkness, and shark22 had an orgy producing an offspring known as Planetary Eulogy, or any of SRP's idiotic alter egos.
PS: If you're going to use verbose language to articulate yourself, at least do so with something worth reading.
In other words, get over it. And stop defending the biggest dumbass to post on this forum since metal_wrath, Oinkness, and shark22 had an orgy producing an offspring known as Planetary Eulogy, or any of SRP's idiotic alter egos.
PS: If you're going to use verbose language to articulate yourself, at least do so with something worth reading.
