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The Audible Intentions of Music

I had several beers with two good friends recently while I was in New York and the conversation, as it so often does, turned to music. I was talking about a composer who will go unnamed whose music I really can’t stand to listen to which got us talking about what makes music good and bad. Is it the craft of the composer? Is it the ideas that you don’t like? The execution?

I think it’s all of these things but while we were talking about it I suddenly and half drunkenly blurted out “the thing about music is that intention is audible.” I said this because I’ve been thinking a lot about how to answer the question “what kind of music do you listen to?”

The answer for me is all kinds of music. The kind of music that I like I always say is music that is well considered, well crafted and well executed, all of the three things above, but… the most important part for me is the intention of the person writing the music: that they have a genuine desire to communicate something of value to the listener.

I really do believe that this intention is audible in the music itself. If the idea is facile or the composer is caught up in his or her own self importance then most of the time the music will not be good. The pieces that last are those that have a genuine and lasting communicative value.

So, craft and execution are all very important of course but so is the intention and that is something that can’t be taught. You just have to live it man.

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