Comments on: Music Criticism

By: Jason Rivera

Jason Rivera — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 07:51:01 +0000

Interesting discussion it made my drive back from LA to the East Bay quicker. I’m surprised to hear that one of my reformed brothers actually know who Florence and the Machine are. As an old school Presbyterian conservative reformed guy who’s even a literal 6 day-er, I actually am involved with the music so much that I DJ and spin Indie pop and dance, old school new wave, post punk and Goth at secular clubs. I love the music and am intimate with the music and scene I’m not some media guy writing from a distance trying to figure the music out. I party with the bands and its fans while remembering who I belong to (Eph 4:1) mind you. Since I am a radical two kingdom guy and not some theonomic radical cultural transformer it has given me a unique opportunity to be place right into the middle of one of the most hot beds a lost generation of kids well kids in the since that they are from their mid 20s to mid 40s. I’m in a subculture of post punk, indie pop-dance-rock, and Goth people who follow the music and fashion. Do they hate the Lord well yeah its San Francisco but they are sinfully ignorant but I love them as people and for the Lord’s sake. I’ve only taken 6 people to church in 4 plus years of hanging with them none of them got saved. Have I ever answered their objections to the Cross of Christ and Christianity? Yeah, I used the latest technology afforded to me by presuppositional apologetics and nuked their objections intellectually but without being combative. Yet I’ve maintained good relationships with many people from this culture while being a Reformed Christian. I guess it’s the R2K-er thing that had put me into this position and the fact I really do care for them and visit them in the hospital or pick them up when they need a ride or take them out to dinner you know friend stuff. Check out my MySpace page or facebook page look at my music and then my hero’s and see that I am in a unique position though I am not at all enigmatic.

By: ReformedForum.org podcast on Music Criticism

ReformedForum.org podcast on Music Criticism — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:06:30 +0000

[…] podcast on Music Criticism Music Criticism – ReformedForum.org Commending this podcast episode to you, folks. ReformedForum recently chatted with music writer […]

By: Nate Shannon

Nate Shannon — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:36:31 +0000

Indeed something on aesthetics! Patrick, I’m happy to report that we’re planning an episode to address issues in modern art. Not sure how deep we’ll get philosophically, but we will very likely touch on the kind of postmodern thinking/aesthetics which Barthes et al represent. Such topics are not only philosophically and hermeneutically very interesting, challenging, useful, etc., they are also hugely culturally relevant.
I certainly share your enthusiasm for the subject matter.

Thanks

By: Tim H.

Tim H. — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:09:13 +0000

I’m still waiting to hear from Ken Myers.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:24:35 +0000

In reply to Jared.

Jared, an episode on aesthetics would be interesting (as I think you mentioned there is a real lack of appreciation and consideration of aesthetics in Reformed circles), unfortunately I can’t think of any Reformed philosopher who has done any work in aesthetics that you could interview. Wolterstorff, if you want to really stretch the meaning of “Reformed,” would be one, but he would be hard to get on the show.

Or, perhaps you could review an essay, like you did for Hume on Miracles. Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste,â€ or Roland Barthes’s “The Death of the Author” come to mind. The past few shows on â€œappliedâ€ aesthetics, you might call them, have been great, though.

[On a related note, I, too, took a philosophy course on aesthetics, with Kendall Walton at Michigan, (a pretty famous…aesthetician) but I really botched it. As the only grad student in the class, I wanted to talk about the ontology of aesthetic properties, not debates about the necessary and sufficient conditions of art. Then I ended up completely misinterpreting Hume in a presentation paper. In my case, I should have stayed out of the conversation while I was ahead.]

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:21:06 +0000

In reply to Patrick.

Patrick,

Great thoughts. You’re right, we have referenced aesthetics proper. I took an Aesthetics philosophy class and basically came with this: There must be some things that are objective in art, but pinning down which aspects qualify is next to impossible. I really like the parallels between art interpretation and exegetical hermeneutics, especially between art as expression and authorial intent. So I’m sorry to say that I haven’t formed any brilliant conclusions, but at the risk of sounding pomo, I’ve always enjoyed the conversation.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 02:44:39 +0000

Joel, from what I’ve read it wouldn’t help you much anyway, at least it wouldn’t be useful to employ the technical terms or distinctions philosophers like to use in your own writing. In fact, aesthetics may even detract from the value of music (or whatever), like if you took up some philosophy of art that limited what you would consider actual or real art (e.g. art is that which instantiates “significant form” re: Clive Bell, or think of Plato’s skepticism of poetry in book X of the Republic).
Do the other hosts (Jared, Jonathan) have any thoughts on how aesthetics might play into actual criticism and evaluation? I’ve heard one or both of you reference aesthetics in other podcast episodes as a weak area in Christian philosophy (if I recall).

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:27:18 +0000

Patrick,
To be honest, I don’t read a whole lot re: the philosophy of art or aesthetics, at least not in a while, though it would probably be good for me to do so just so I can better articulate why I think music criticism is valid. Assessing the value of art is a many-layered onion. Mostly, I guess I’ve made peace with the conclusion that there is good art and there is bad art (and a wide spectrum in between). Disagreements arise, of course, but that ongoing conversation about whether an album is good or bad is part of the fun.

One addendum, too: I’d rather think of myself as a “music writer” than a “music critic,” in that I’m more interested in exposing people to music that I think is particularly worthwhile than telling people about albums I don’t like (though the latter is unavoidable to a certain extent). And I really enjoy writing full-fledged feature stories that are more about the story or plot than a critique of the music.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:18:20 +0000

Joel, how does the study of aesthetics influence your music criticism? Or maybe you don’t read any of the literature in the philosophy of art or aesthetics (and you may be better off for it, in roughly the ways that a food critic might be better off for not reading about the physiology of digestion), so how Might it influence music criticism?