Music: Let's Debate "Survivability and the Test of Time"

Good point! Brahms also destroyed many scores that he deemed unworthy.

"There is no evidence to contradict that culture decides whether music survives, so it must only be CULTURE that creates survival in music."

When did I say this?

When have you NOT said this (yes, I'm summarizing your position with a single statement to illustrate that your entire position is built on a logical fallacy). Illustrate how the above statement is not, in any way, representative of your argument.

Quote me, as this is not my argument... nevermind that your best option to any of what I'm saying is some mysterious and magical "objective judgment" which sets pieces apart by inherent "merit." I guess you're beginning to realize that you have to distort what I'm saying to apply the fallacy to what I'm saying... or even flat out making scraggy up.

Funny, I could quote ten paragraphs that say it, or I could paraphrase it in one sentence. I chose the latter. You worry about the former if you're being misunderstood. I'm not going to bother trying to decipher any further than I already have... your position is arguably flawed on its foundations.

Pwn'd.

The bit in bold kills your argument, as what you're defining here MUST be OBJECTIVE for your argument to be true at all, if it's subjective in any way (and decided by other factors) it loses all traction in favor of what I've been saying all along.

"Nah, quality in the sense that some music has greater depth in compositional technique, greater levels of cohesion and 'concinnity', and greater attention to details in the general manipulation of sound"

So, you're denying that such objectivity cannot be achieved in examining two different works for their musical/compositional components? You're saying that no analysis would render an objective result between the two if the specific components were defined and measurable within two works from the same time period? The whole point of analysis is to objectively approach subjective material. In the grand scheme of things universally, everything is subjective to human understanding, so you can stop your "State something OBJECTIVE or your argument is DEAD!!" bullshit.

Oh and for the LAST TIME, negative proof involves "X is true because there is no proof that X is false." I'm not asserting that the other factors are relevant JUST BECAUSE there's no evidence for the actual music playing much of a role. THAT would be a fallacy. The piece being as important as you make it out to be in your "theory" would render cultural context irrelevant, much like a scientific theory based on merit is not a democracy, there is no room for opinions when things are defined like that. In other words, if you get to decide which arbitrary and objective factors decide if a piece survives, it OVERRIDES anything else by default, just like it does when scientific theories are tested and proven to work, etc etc.

You're ridiculous. "Music is not relevant to this discussion" AND "cultural evolution and pure dumb luck are the reasons for a piece of music's survival" are a NEGATIVE PROOF. You are arguing that "X is true because there is no [relevant] proof that X is false." Creating your own rules for this discussion doesn't make you anymore correct either.

So far, your system explains nothing since a fluke can ruin it entirely, and since you can't predict the occurrence of flukes or random chance elements in your theory (you don't even account for them!) it's entirely void by default since it's completely unreliable for understanding why X composer's music survived over Y. All I need to throw you off is doubt the consistency of the results when we factor in chance and random elements. Instead of a clear picture of what actually happened, we get a "maybe" and we're back where we started, with no answers or real reasons.

What's funny is that the culture argument you cling to in this discussion isn't even RELEVANT. Because music spans across multiple, MULTIPLE cultures, the idea that culture determines the survival of music is rather a moot point, as it applies globally whether a piece survives or not (it tells us NOTHING, and it therefore offers NOTHING to the discussion). If I were asking, "HOW does music survive?" it might have something important to give us in how music actually passed from one culture in history to another. Why certain works of music are still performed, studied, and admired today from hundreds of years ago is another question, the question that this thread was created to discuss.

So, please stay on point.

Mozart and... well just Mozart, managed to reach perfection. Perfection in music, I believe, is like perfection in math: "2 + 2 = 4". We all know that "2 + 2 = 4" is mathematically perfectly true, even tho is not perfect on every sense; is not perfect visually, is not perfect musically, but is mathematically perfect... it's just true. And Mozart is just that, true. I think music can be perfect, not almost perfect but perfect when the composer makes us focus on the perfect part of his piece, like when we focus on the mathematical meaning of "2 + 2 = 4". If we focus on the visual aspect of the equation then we wont find perfection, but the perfection is there, and I mean real perfection, not almost perfection but absolute perfection, if we focus on the meaning of the equation. The same with Mozart. He reaches perfection, he really, literally does. And he knows how to make us pay attention to the perfection of his music, that in so many other senses will be for sure imperfect.

I love Mozart - one of my three influences, even.. but, I wouldn't go so far to say that he is the only composer to reach perfection. Certainly a large amount of his works were perfections of there respective time period. Beethoven, also, reached perfection in a number of compositions - as did Puccini and Wagner in their time periods.

Mozart and... well just Mozart, managed to reach perfection. Perfection in music, I believe, is like perfection in math: "2 + 2 = 4". We all know that "2 + 2 = 4" is mathematically perfectly true, even tho is not perfect on every sense; is not perfect visually, is not perfect musically, but is mathematically perfect... it's just true. And Mozart is just that, true. I think music can be perfect, not almost perfect but perfect when the composer makes us focus on the perfect part of his piece, like when we focus on the mathematical meaning of "2 + 2 = 4". If we focus on the visual aspect of the equation then we wont find perfection, but the perfection is there, and I mean real perfection, not almost perfection but absolute perfection, if we focus on the meaning of the equation. The same with Mozart. He reaches perfection, he really, literally does. And he knows how to make us pay attention to the perfection of his music, that in so many other senses will be for sure imperfect.

See, this would be the absolute inverse of SSC's position (and just as fallible - this post is considerably suspect, btw, but while I'm here...) if Mozart was the only one to reach "perfection" in his music, or if "perfection" contributes to survival in music, then Mozart's music would be all that survived over hundreds of years. "Perfection" doesn't really explain anything in terms of music either. That's why we have analysis :)

I love Mozart - one of my three influences, even.. but, I wouldn't go so far to say that he is the only composer to reach perfection. Certainly a large amount of his works were perfections of there respective time period. Beethoven, also, reached perfection in a number of compositions - as did Puccini and Wagner in their time periods.

Yea I was using Mozart as a sample. Bach does so and Beethoven too and so do I on the last piece I posted (I'm serious) but it last 1 minute and it's not deep or rich enough. Well I'm just obsessed with perfection other than any other thing (like expression and that kind of stuff) that's why I lately make 1 minute pieces rather than rich and full of expression ones; I'm obsessed with making sense over everything else I guess that's because our age is so full of meaningless. I hate meaningless. I love Mozart.

You know, a good composer to study would be Webern. I know he is atonal, BUT, he was very laborious over his music - always seeking perfection in it and it shows, imho.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the concept of inherent quality, as you would call it.

Henri Dutilleux (1916 - ) destroyed much of his own early works because he deemed them not worthy. What do you make of this? Would you say he's not qualified to ascertain the inherent quality of his own music?

It is difficult to put value judgment on music without resorting to external factors (audience), because then there would be no criteria with which to evaluate the music.

BUT in my opinion there is a universal criterion that can be applied, that is music at the very least should exhibit intelligence, which is a testament to the composer who created it. Beyond that, perhaps the amount of intelligence (e.g. skills, scale) conveyed by the music could be a reflection of its quality.

Voyager Golden Record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good point! Brahms also destroyed many scores that he deemed unworthy.

Oh jesus, that's not proof of anything! It just means people have tastes on scraggy. Inherent value means that there's objectively stuff in the music which can be appreciated REGARDLESS of TASTE, here and on MARS. That's the goddamn issue, if it were just a matter of tastes, then, well, tastes are influenced by all I've said and my point stands.

I'm working on the assertion that tastes are easily to influence. That tastes guide a lot of scraggy (what survives, what doesn't, what is popular, etc) and that tastes therefore, since they're such a big part, are actually more important than the music itself (as you can find people who like just about anything.)

In any case, I'm pretty much done with this. Oh, and that Mozart is "perfection" is also hilariously idiotic, but I shouldn't even need to mention this by this point. Is what you get with people who know jack scraggy of sociology start trying to "debate" it. :/

What's funny is that the culture argument you cling to in this discussion isn't even RELEVANT. Because music spans across multiple, MULTIPLE cultures, the idea that culture determines the survival of music is rather a moot point, as it applies globally whether a piece survives or not (it tells us NOTHING, and it therefore offers NOTHING to the discussion). If I were asking, "HOW does music survive?" it might have something important to give us in how music actually passed from one culture in history to another. Why certain works of music are still performed, studied, and admired today from hundreds of years ago is another question, the question that this thread was created to discuss.

?

Silly wabbit, finding how music survives is precisely what leads us (though not only) into finding the factors that explain why people hold subjective opinions of value related to X or Y pieces. But I guess you can't understand that, and never will apparently.

Man, I'd love to see you "debate" this in the academic arena. It'd be beautiful!

Let's not confuse how the social structures of society work with what good music is.... mmmk?

Well the point is that one decides what people perceive as the other, or?

Ahaha, yeah.. one does make people perceive the other... however... I think the other is just... stupid to debate in the first place.

I know! ;_;

Yea I was using Mozart as a sample. Bach does so and Beethoven too and so do I on the last piece I posted (I'm serious) but it last 1 minute and it's not deep or rich enough. Well I'm just obsessed with perfection other than any other thing (like expression and that kind of stuff) that's why I lately make 1 minute pieces rather than rich and full of expression ones; I'm obsessed with making sense over everything else I guess that's because our age is so full of meaningless. I hate meaningless. I love Mozart.

Well, the thing is, I don't really see Mozart's music as perfect, or perceive any kind of perfection in it. If I were to give an example of my idea of musical perfection, it would be Ravel's F Major String Quartet. However, the fact that there's any debate about this at all means that musical "perfection" is also subjective. Essentially, it's not possible to prove that Mozart's music, or any other music, is perfect.

Essentially, it's not possible to prove that Mozart's music, or any other music, is perfect.

Just like it's not possible to prove that Mozart's music or any other music is "good," "better," etc. Proving value judgments objectively puts us directly in the realm of scientific theory and test where taste or belief is irrelevant.

Indeed, better theories in the scientific world discard older and/or worse theories by virtue of being better at doing what they're meant to do. It doesn't matter if people liked the old theory, a scientist only looks at the evidence and that is enough. It overrides their personal preference in favor of the objective unbiased view.

Since clearly this isn't the case with music (or we'd have indeed a goal of "perfect music" that we could all agree on, which would displace music that was less "perfect" objectively,) we can't use the same logic to figure out why one stands more prominently than another. Instead, to get at what the actual objective truth is behind the cultural relevance of certain pieces is, you have to look at what is actually objective.

Since the pieces of art themselves are subjective in appreciation altogether, they're not of much use. However, studies of human psychology and how cultures work are provable theories, which have evidence to support them as objective truth (at least until a better theory comes along.) You can explain with these pretty much everything to do with music appreciation, since what we're dealing with is the way people's tastes/lives/social and political context is manipulated.

The only way to argue against it would be to go to the genetics route and find an aesthetic bias that is really actually responsible for certain musical characteristics persevering over others. But, given the sheer diversity of music that has existed and continues to exist, I find this to be extremely difficult to do. Compare with the sense of taste, in which the biases (such as affinity for sugars, etc) are easily recognizable across every single tradition and culture by virtue of this predisposition not being a matter of "taste" subjectively but of simple biology.

Of course, that there are some people who may not like sweets doesn't prove anything, and exceptions are expected of any such theory. It's what you account for when you consider random variables or flukes. The exceptions are, however, a very small statistic minority.

I know it's a pretty hard notion to accept and realize that the vast majority of people have no real "choice" in what they've been brought up to like or find subjectively valuable, but it's exactly what you would expect from such a flexible and adaptable species. Either their senses built those biases for them, or the very culture and world they've been brought up in did it.

Though it's possible to overcome those biases, they have the upper hand from a genetics perspective. We have evolved to listen and respect culture (probably a positive trait that allowed us to survive, etc) so clearly if your culture says "BACH IS GOOD" you WILL be predisposed to this, regardless of Bach's music as it has nothing to do with it. The bias arrives not from the object but from the method it travels.

Likewise that's why children can be "taught" to be biased, we love to listen and believe other people (specially our parents/elders/figures we consider of authority) which has provided also good results and survived as a trait till this day. However, all this means is that you can be taught that Bach is better than Mozart and you will seriously believe it with all your heart, just as people believe a great deal of things which are subject to taste alone and yet would defend them to death.

It has nothing to do with Bach or Mozart at all, but with you being told they are simply better. When that belief comes under attack, when the bias is questioned, there's obviously a dissonance as the bias CANNOT be supported objectively by default. That's why it's very easy to argue against objective value arguments on music, you have to prove that you're not biased and to do that you have to be objective about your assertions, they must be based one evidence and evidence alone should prove that X music is better (like a scientific theory) than Y music.

^_^

I know it's a pretty hard notion to accept and realize that the vast majority of people have no real "choice" in what they've been brought up to like or find subjectively valuable, but it's exactly what you would expect from such a flexible and adaptable species. Either their senses built those biases for them, or the very culture and world they've been brought up in did it.

And you're accusing me of trying to make a scientific argument about music when you're applying an argument that really doesn't even apply to the majority of people today. But I'm sure you're vehemently opposed to going out on the street and actually testing your theories of music on the public in general. Besides, what would you come up with BUT your own findings that, "Yes, culture decides." It's a "no scraggy" argument that works entirely in the negative as well. It doesn't change anything...

Though it's possible to overcome those biases, they have the upper hand from a genetics perspective. We have evolved to listen and respect culture (probably a positive trait that allowed us to survive, etc) so clearly if your culture says "BACH IS GOOD" you WILL be predisposed to this, regardless of Bach's music as it has nothing to do with it. The bias arrives not from the object but from the method it travels.

I was never pre-disposed to Bach's music (I admit, I never heard or recognized Bach or paid attention to classical music before I learned more about it in college). I never heard Berg either. I like both. Does that mean I had to have a predisposition to like either? The difference is that you're making a very subjective claim yourself that this pre-disposition exists (and more narrowly, I'd agree with you only to a point), but assigning that as the valuation factor for why people listen to music is just as subjective. PROVE IT!

Likewise that's why children can be "taught" to be biased, we love to listen and believe other people (specially our parents/elders/figures we consider of authority) which has provided also good results and survived as a trait till this day. However, all this means is that you can be taught that Bach is better than Mozart and you will seriously believe it with all your heart, just as people believe a great deal of things which are subject to taste alone and yet would defend them to death.

It has nothing to do with Bach or Mozart at all, but with you being told they are simply better. When that belief comes under attack, when the bias is questioned, there's obviously a dissonance as the bias CANNOT be supported objectively by default. That's why it's very easy to argue against objective value arguments on music, you have to prove that you're not biased and to do that you have to be objective about your assertions, they must be based one evidence and evidence alone should prove that X music is better (like a scientific theory) than Y music.

Yeah, because it really is this wild conspiracy at the hands of the culturally elite to pre-condition their children to love Bach and Mozart. You're so full of scraggy it's coming out your fingers as you type. Seriously.

Yeah, because it really is this wild conspiracy at the hands of the culturally elite to pre-condition their children to love Bach and Mozart. You're so full of scraggy it's coming out your fingers as you type. Seriously.

This coming from someone who wanted to "keep it civil" just a couple of pages ago, eh?

And you're accusing me of trying to make a scientific argument about music when you're applying an argument that really doesn't even apply to the majority of people today. But I'm sure you're vehemently opposed to going out on the street and actually testing your theories of music on the public in general. Besides, what would you come up with BUT your own findings that, "Yes, culture decides." It's a "no scraggy" argument that works entirely in the negative as well. It doesn't change anything...

I'm glad you agree with me, considering you just said it's a "no scraggy" argument.

I was never pre-disposed to Bach's music (I admit, I never heard or recognized Bach or paid attention to classical music before I learned more about it in college).

Yeah, because it's really totally not because Bach is super-well viewed in college (and in the academic world, which is "bullshit" according to you) and most hold amazing opinions of him. Yep, totally NOT because of that.

You got sold Bach, you bought it and liked it. There's nothing wrong with this really but you should at least grow up and admit it.

I honestly can't be bothered to read this thread.

But if the participants can't tone down the rhetoric, it will be closed.

And a word of advice: try to keep the "WAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLS OOOOF TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT... EXT... XT... ext...ext...xt....xt...t...t..." to a minimum.

That way people actually READ your entire post.

Honestly I don't think anyone would disagree to close the thread at this point in the narrative. Why not just close it and be done with it?

^Agreed

Yeah, because it really is this wild conspiracy at the hands of the culturally elite to pre-condition their children to love Bach and Mozart. You're so full of scraggy it's coming out your fingers as you type. Seriously.

The mistake you're making here is that you're assuming there's intent behind it. Our culture happens to mostly create and listen to traditionally tonal music (as most pop music is), and that's what most people listen to. You may like Bach and Berg, but chances are your liking Berg came harder than liking Bach. If not, you're an anomaly.

(I liked Schoenberg from the first time I heard it, but that's because I was getting tired of the classical music all my teachers used to play while we took tests in elementary school.)

The mistake you're making here is that you're assuming there's intent behind it. Our culture happens to mostly create and listen to traditionally tonal music (as most pop music is), and that's what most people listen to. You may like Bach and Berg, but chances are your liking Berg came harder than liking Bach. If not, you're an anomaly.

(I liked Schoenberg from the first time I heard it, but that's because I was getting tired of the classical music all my teachers used to play while we took tests in elementary school.)

Then I'm an anomaly then. Really, talk to people who don't have degrees in music and ask them what they like about the music. Most of them will probably respond with some kind of emotive argument or maybe even visual/story discussions about what music means to them. This isn't conditioning. This is how people interpret foreign sound. I could no more walk up to one of them and ask them to draw a comparison to two works than you could get them to admit or otherwise understand any such "conditioning." I'll type more later. I have things to do.

Conditionning makes people react to minor music as "sad".

Conditioning makes people react to major music as "happy".

There's absolutely nothing naturally inborne in that.

Thing is, music is most likely just auditory cheesecake, so I'm discarding the genetic argument right away since you'd have to offer a better explanation for the diversity of music worldwide being somehow linked to a genetic-based aesthetic bias that favors certain things over others in SOUND, not just music. Since it seems that this genetic bias favors EVERYTHING (as the diversity shows,) we can safely remove this bias from the argument since it does absolutely nothing.

The only way to argue against it would be to go to the genetics route and find an aesthetic bias that is really actually responsible for certain musical characteristics persevering over others. But, given the sheer diversity of music that has existed and continues to exist, I find this to be extremely difficult to do.

Ok, So first I want to say that I do not reject the influences of culture and society on the public opinion. I feel that that influence has been well establish by the academia and that you have done a reasonable job of demonstrating this.

However, I take strong issue with your hasty dismissal of the influence that genetics has on the public's, as well the individuals, preference for music. I do not believe that your arguments have disproved the influence of genetics and, in consideration of that, I find your derision of others somewhat irritating.

Now, quickly I question your comment about auditory cheesecake. What is meant by cheesecake and, if music is only "most likely" such, how can you reject the genetic argument right away?

Now, more importantly, I address your main argument.

In claiming that the diversity of music worldwide proves the insignificance of genetic influence you make a serious error: just as you demand, and rightly so, that others quantify their terms, you fail to quantify the meaning of diversity. Exactly how diverse is world music and in what sense is it diverse? How do you define diversity? Are there any similarities at all, or do the music of completely isolated cultures have absolutely nothing in common?

If you feel that you have considered this point adequately, and that even in light of it your argument holds, I will be happy to continue this debate by presenting scientific examples.

I just want to clarify that I do not reject the influences of society and culture and I do not make any claims as to the degree of influence that it, or genetics or, any other force exerts on the perceived quality of music. I simply wish to urge what I see as the necessary consideration of all variables.

Ok, So first I want to say that I do not reject the influences of culture and society on the public opinion. I feel that that influence has been well establish by the academia and that you have done a reasonable job of demonstrating this.

However, I take strong issue with your hasty dismissal of the influence that genetics has on the public's, as well the individuals, preference for music. I do not believe that your arguments have disproved the influence of genetics and, in consideration of that, I find your derision of others somewhat irritating.

Now, quickly I question your comment about auditory cheesecake. What is meant by cheesecake and, if music is only "most likely" such, how can you reject the genetic argument right away?

Now, more importantly, I address your main argument.

In claiming that the diversity of music worldwide proves the insignificance of genetic influence you make a serious error: just as you demand, and rightly so, that others quantify their terms, you fail to quantify the meaning of diversity. Exactly how diverse is world music and in what sense is it diverse? How do you define diversity? Are there any similarities at all, or do the music of completely isolated cultures have absolutely nothing in common?

If you feel that you have considered this point adequately, and that even in light of it your argument holds, I will be happy to continue this debate by presenting scientific examples.

I just want to clarify that I do not reject the influences of society and culture and I do not make any claims as to the degree of influence that it, or genetics or, any other force exerts on the perceived quality of music. I simply wish to urge what I see as the necessary consideration of all variables.

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/evolutionary-musicology-15946.html

Genetic discussions go here.

I think I've already said this before. Unless you have better arguments than what JG and I've presented there in favor of auditory cheesecake (as well as what others have said, as I DID post sources,) I'll dismiss it fine. :>

The concept of diversity proving my argument only needs a single piece to work, say, Cage's 4'33. It's an "anomaly," sure. But it's an entirely expected anomaly from a sociological context, bla bla, like I've been saying. Such anomalies are, indeed, almost the entire body of 20th century music if we look at them in terms of statistics (how many of those exist, vs how many "traditional" pieces exist) and that's just the western world. It would imply that people who wrote these pieces have genetic mutations of some sort that make them prone to liking/enjoying this music, which is really nonsense since they also wrote and enjoyed the old stuff just as well and it'd be a scallop to prove this objectively (in genetics, no less!) by very definition of what you're trying to prove.

An actual anomaly if there was a sound bias built in by genetics would be more akin to groups of people suddenly liking poop sandwiches, because their genetics mutated to allow for it not being absolutely repulsive (overcoming that rather deep bias isn't simple, though you can force yourself to eat a poop sandwich, your senses are going to be kicking and screaming all the way and for good reason.) Do we have any analogues to this example in music or sound at all?

No. In fact we hear every day of our lives an infinity of different sounds, what kind of bias can develop when there's just so much going on constantly? You have to also explain why such a bias may have survived if it exists at all (first we have to prove that such bias exists which is pretty much a dead end as far as I know. You're welcome to try though!)

So, yeah. I'll dismiss it unless you can come up with actual evidence against this, which isn't at all just my opinion (see JG's comments in the thread) and of course check the sources I posted and do some research.

:>

PS: On a related note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley is an example this applied to seeing, or an argument for such a thing. This is what it would look like if we found biases in music.

Oh jesus, that's not proof of anything! It just means people have tastes on scraggy. Inherent value means that there's objectively stuff in the music which can be appreciated REGARDLESS of TASTE, here and on MARS. That's the goddamn issue, if it were just a matter of tastes, then, well, tastes are influenced by all I've said and my point stands.

I'm working on the assertion that tastes are easily to influence. That tastes guide a lot of scraggy (what survives, what doesn't, what is popular, etc) and that tastes therefore, since they're such a big part, are actually more important than the music itself (as you can find people who like just about anything.)

In any case, I'm pretty much done with this. Oh, and that Mozart is "perfection" is also hilariously idiotic, but I shouldn't even need to mention this by this point. Is what you get with people who know jack scraggy of sociology start trying to "debate" it. :/

?

Silly wabbit, finding how music survives is precisely what leads us (though not only) into finding the factors that explain why people hold subjective opinions of value related to X or Y pieces. But I guess you can't understand that, and never will apparently.

Man, I'd love to see you "debate" this in the academic arena. It'd be beautiful!

Actually SSC, I don't follow you.

I cited the Dutilleux not as proof but as counterexample to 'there is no such thing as inherent quality'.

Here we have a composer destroying his own creations because he thought they were not of sufficient quality. In the most direct way, the music did not survive because of its quality.

If you don't accept this as a counterexample, is it because

1. You don't think he was capable of evaluating the quality of his own music, or

2. He is capable of that, but the quality criteria he used was not inherent quality?

If your position is no. 2, then would you agree to this statement:

By definition, a composer cannot evaluate the inherent quality of his own music

?

I would agree to that.

This thread won't just die...

The concept of diversity proving my argument only needs a single piece to work, say, Cage's 4'33. It's an "anomaly," sure. But it's an entirely expected anomaly from a sociological context, bla bla, like I've been saying. Such anomalies are, indeed, almost the entire body of 20th century music if we look at them in terms of statistics (how many of those exist, vs how many "traditional" pieces exist) and that's just the western world. It would imply that people who wrote these pieces have genetic mutations of some sort that make them prone to liking/enjoying this music, which is really nonsense since they also wrote and enjoyed the old stuff just as well and it'd be a scallop to prove this objectively (in genetics, no less!) by very definition of what you're trying to prove.

I think a few here are on different definitions of what music composition is. SSC, for bringing up Cage and the other composers of his ilk - you are saying that music composition has little to do with the sole organization of sounds achieved by musical instrument but instead that music composition is the act of organizing every sound available to the human ear. Cage's intent, though never wholly realized, was to make people reconsider what music is.

Everyone else here, that has posted substantially (myself excluded), seems to be arguing from the first definition of what music composition is (i.e organization of sounds achieved by musical instruments.)

Just something I've noticed...

Also, as for conditioning - QC hit it on the head quite nicely.

By definition, a composer cannot evaluate the inherent quality of his own music

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... Yeah, that's pretty much the case.

Inherent, if it's to mean anything, would require this quality to be OBJECTIVE. It means not only the composer has to recognize this, but EVERYONE ELSE. It becomes a scientific issue of quantification, then, of what this "quality" is.

Imagine this: I think (for the sake of example) that Bach's music is inherently scraggy, so I destroy all of it. This is exactly like your example, I made a value judgment on the what I think is the inherent quality of the music.

But really, wasn't it just my taste? Who says I was "right" to do it, but at the same time, can anyone really argue that I was "wrong" to do it? Was I wrong because I wasn't the composer? Then again, if that's the case, what makes the composer so special that he can do that? The only argument against the destruction here would be that I would deprive other people from enjoying it, but if nobody else but me knew about it, that wouldn't even matter.

And, I'm not going to argue what music is, because for the sake of this particular argument it's just another aspect of culture at large, like any other art. It's an artform, it's subjective and that's good enough for the argument. There's no need to start trying to define what music is because it can be anything, much like how you can define art as being anything (these are social/cultural constructs and products, after all.)

Oh, at that:

Here we have a composer destroying his own creations because he thought they were not of sufficient quality. In the most direct way, the music did not survive because of its quality.

How about this: A hypothetical composer's wife cheats on him, get so angry that he burns his entire house (and all his music) as consequence.

In the most direct way, the music did not survive because of the wife!

... Does this prove anything? Nope.

Does it imply that wives of composers cheating on them is a lead cause of pieces not surviving? Or is it just one from the thousands of subjective and random elements that can influence in this thing. What if a lightning hit and his house got burned? Is lightning then to be taken as a real factor in the destruction or survivability of music?

Pshaw.