What is Good Music? - Part 2

“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”
― John Cage

     No one is born with musical preferences, it all develops gradually in a rich mix of life experiences. As we grow up, we hear music of our culture in society. We hear sororities, chord progressions, timbre, forms, balances of consonances and dissonances, styles and aesthetics, etc. As we are repeatedly exposed to similar music we develop a familiarity with it that is both comfortable and enjoyable. We develop a preference; certain sounds in music become normal and easy while those heard much rarer strange and challenging. Society communicates us its musical values and dislikes, beginning our first definitions of what is good music and not good music.

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.”
― John Cage

     With enough exposure outside are immediate preference over time we change and the definition of good music, even music itself, broadens. Beethoven’s late period is a common example; much of the music from his later life was found to be too dissonant and uncomfortable. Now, it’s performed, no one flinches an eyelash, and it’s highly praised by many. With great fortune, our personal curiosities and interests, societal and individual, lead us to discover music and define how we feel about it. 

 “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
― John Cage

     Our immediacy to define music as bad is what fascinates me. It’s a product of our cultural values, experiences, growth, and I think an unfortunate, instinctive-like closed mindedness, a “fight or flight” mechanism set in the brain to try and prevent us from interacting with something perceived as dangerous. It isn’t that some music is bad, it’s that we haven’t developed a way to internally come to terms with the music.  
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But if you ask John Cage, there will always be good music!