Dear Reader: Before you read this paper, please consider the following requests. First, and most importantly, listen to at least 1 minute of Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. It is available on YouTube for free. Consider that this bizarre, atonal, virtually unlistenable album is regarded as one of the most influential rock albums of all time, and was ranked No. 60 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums. Finally, considering Captain Beefheart’s unlikely place in the rock pantheon, ask yourself whether music must be “good” in order to have value.
Upon listening to Trout Mask Replica, most people would be unlikely to describe this music as “good.” Absent any context, even the name of the band, “Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band” is somewhat uncomfortable, and by that standard, the music does not disappoint. The album is generally chaotic and seemingly random, at times resembling something that was written simply as a joke. At the same time, it has also been rated as one of the most influential albums of all time -- not only by Rolling Stone, but also by Chris Smith in his book 100 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, the band’s leader, has also been cited by many other performers and creative thinkers as being a monumental source of inspiration. While it may be considered a masterpiece by some, whether Trout Mask Replica contains some of the paramount pillars of objectively good music is a much more difficult question to answer. To resolve the question, a comprehensive understanding of how to qualify good and bad music must be reached before factors such as cultural in relation to music or personal preference can be considered. Of course, every person on this Earth has different taste in music and may decide that a certain musical genre or specific artist produces bad music. People might categorize bad music as music that is perhaps too complicated or, conversely, too boring. Some may find a certain piece completely without emotion, while another may view the same piece as technically and emotionally perfect. Most would agree that a piece composed without any attempt at structure would most certainly be considered bad. This, however, is not necessarily the case. Structure-free music could also be called random. If a string of randomly chosen notes were assorted on a staff, the music would assuredly sound unlistenable. But, if these notes were assigned chords and rhythms, then a piece that has many musical qualities would be composed. Dmitri Tymoczko did exactly that in order to explore what good music is. A professor at Princeton with a Ph.D in music composition, Tymoczko expanded upon the idea by applying what he calls “macroharmonic consistency.” This concept refers to repeated pitches and scales. Applying macroharmonic consistency to randomly chosen notes ensures that everything fits together well and nothing is noticeably out of place. After all that, Tymoczko says he “find[s] it remarkable how musical the final result sounds. Using just a few simple constraints, we've turned randomness into something recognizably musical” (Tymoczko). What can be called good music could be created as a product of randomness. Regardless of …show more content…
By contrast, most of the songs on Trout Mask Replica are atonal (lacking coherent melody) and highly polyrhythmic (containing conflicting rhythms). After hearing only the first 30 seconds of the first song on the album, finding a steady beat or consistent melody is nearly impossible. This is utterly opposite to popular music, which begs the question, why has the album achieved such high regard? As Rickard asserted, repetition and patterns are paramount factors in creating musical beauty, and Trout Mask Replica is far from good if it is graded on those scales. Why, then is Beefheart-esc music a success among some people, while simultaneously a failure among the majority of the public?
A life-science writer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anne Trafton reported on two researchers who asked a similar question. Music is made by assembling patterns of tonal consonance and dissonance which build tension and provide relief. While dissonant chords (common in Trout Mask Replica) are still used in music, they are often much less pleasant than consonant chords, which are consequently more
Upon listening to Trout Mask Replica, most people would be unlikely to describe this music as “good.” Absent any context, even the name of the band, “Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band” is somewhat uncomfortable, and by that standard, the music does not disappoint. The album is generally chaotic and seemingly random, at times resembling something that was written simply as a joke. At the same time, it has also been rated as one of the most influential albums of all time -- not only by Rolling Stone, but also by Chris Smith in his book 100 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, the band’s leader, has also been cited by many other performers and creative thinkers as being a monumental source of inspiration. While it may be considered a masterpiece by some, whether Trout Mask Replica contains some of the paramount pillars of objectively good music is a much more difficult question to answer. To resolve the question, a comprehensive understanding of how to qualify good and bad music must be reached before factors such as cultural in relation to music or personal preference can be considered. Of course, every person on this Earth has different taste in music and may decide that a certain musical genre or specific artist produces bad music. People might categorize bad music as music that is perhaps too complicated or, conversely, too boring. Some may find a certain piece completely without emotion, while another may view the same piece as technically and emotionally perfect. Most would agree that a piece composed without any attempt at structure would most certainly be considered bad. This, however, is not necessarily the case. Structure-free music could also be called random. If a string of randomly chosen notes were assorted on a staff, the music would assuredly sound unlistenable. But, if these notes were assigned chords and rhythms, then a piece that has many musical qualities would be composed. Dmitri Tymoczko did exactly that in order to explore what good music is. A professor at Princeton with a Ph.D in music composition, Tymoczko expanded upon the idea by applying what he calls “macroharmonic consistency.” This concept refers to repeated pitches and scales. Applying macroharmonic consistency to randomly chosen notes ensures that everything fits together well and nothing is noticeably out of place. After all that, Tymoczko says he “find[s] it remarkable how musical the final result sounds. Using just a few simple constraints, we've turned randomness into something recognizably musical” (Tymoczko). What can be called good music could be created as a product of randomness. Regardless of …show more content…
By contrast, most of the songs on Trout Mask Replica are atonal (lacking coherent melody) and highly polyrhythmic (containing conflicting rhythms). After hearing only the first 30 seconds of the first song on the album, finding a steady beat or consistent melody is nearly impossible. This is utterly opposite to popular music, which begs the question, why has the album achieved such high regard? As Rickard asserted, repetition and patterns are paramount factors in creating musical beauty, and Trout Mask Replica is far from good if it is graded on those scales. Why, then is Beefheart-esc music a success among some people, while simultaneously a failure among the majority of the public?
A life-science writer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anne Trafton reported on two researchers who asked a similar question. Music is made by assembling patterns of tonal consonance and dissonance which build tension and provide relief. While dissonant chords (common in Trout Mask Replica) are still used in music, they are often much less pleasant than consonant chords, which are consequently more