Defining Good Music

http://www.indianmusiclessons.com/docs/DefineMusic.pdf (essay written by a professor of music)

Can We Define Good Music?
Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
In India we see the music lovers and connoisseurs frequently discussing music performances. When we hear some appreciative comments, those are mostly focussed on renowned musicians' performances or towards the musicians' music those are following some established style of some celebrity. Although, I do not mean to say that the celebrities are spared from severe criticisms. The topic "What is good music?" seems to be more subjective than objective, still the factors those make music good and a search for the definitions of good music may be an interesting study.
A music performance accepted as good by a group of listeners may be rejected as 'not so good' or even 'bad' by another group clearly shows its subjective nature. But, there are performances those are generally accepted as good by most of the listeners present in a concert hall. What makes some music widely acceptable? With this comes another question. A music performance that is performed in Bhopal if performed in Calcutta, would it receive similar response from the general audience? Are some elements common in any accepted good music? Are the same elements of music are accepted to be good by any general band of listeners of any place? Good or bad is always subject to some references. The general references are the place, time and
the person or the subject. This again takes to two different basic references; one is the performer and second the listener. A music performance can be good to the performer and also good to the listener, a music performance may be 'not so good' to a performer but very well accepted by the listeners, and other possible combinations of good and not so good between the performer and the listeners.
I had mail exchanges on this with Dr. Bernard Bel1 he pointed out two basic references. He wrote:
"Perhaps you would get two definitions (on Good music), one by musicians and one by
listeners. For a musician, good music is probably associated with dedication (no cheap work) and sincerity (no pretense). The musician ought to feel "in tune" with his/her creation in the same way loving parents relates with their children: a child is the parent's product but she is also an autonomous human being. In the same way, artists should consider their creation as something autonomous whose relation with the public does not affect them. In my view, therefore, "good music" is associated with a musician being modest about it. I think that the great music masters in India nurtured this idea that they do not "compose" music, rather it is channeled through their medium. For a listener, things are more simple. Good music is what makes them feel in harmony with whatever they call their deep being. A feeling of peace, indeed, most of the times, but occasionally a strong urge to change their lives and to change the world."

We do not easily find any reference of "good music" in any of our well-known treatises.2 We see the mention of "guna-dosa of Gayaka and Vadaka", i.e. the qualities and shortfalls of a vocalist or instrumentalist but rarely any discussion3 on good music. The "guna-dosa" (good qualities and shortfalls) is mainly concentrated on the physical movements of the musicians during performances. What we listen today, the basic values for good music are to be in tune, in laya
and in raga with good tayyari and taseer. Tayyari literally means preparation to do something. For music the general understanding for tayyari is the ability to perform fast passages with clarity, tunefulness and command. Tayyari is usually associated with tana-s but can be associated with any musical executions like meend, murki, gamaka, etc. Taseer refers to expected musical effect created out of musical executions. Taseer literally means to be effective/effect/quality. So a desired effect produced from one or a series of musical action/s may be called taseer. Supposing a vocalist land on the Shadaj with effective intonation, timing etc.
resulting to a musically effective phrasing, this will be called taseer. Sometimes we hear people saying that a particular musical piece creating "lav"4 (meaning flame). "Lav"5 indicates towards a compelling musical effect when a piece gradually reaching compositional climax. With the passage the audience's inner self gets ignited. The quality of a particular music rendering has some subjective references. For music there are two basic references; one is the performer and second the listener. As I told earlier also, a music performance can be good to the performer and also good to the listener, a music performance may be 'not so good' to a performer but very well accepted by the listeners, and other possible
combinations of good and not so good between the performer and the listeners. Here is a scope of long discussion. I believe there is a specific role of the listeners also in the complete frame of music making. It is not only the musician who makes music but the listeners also play an important role.
One point of consideration may be the general speed of receptivity of music by the audience. There is a speed of understanding of musical depictions. If the flow of music becomes too much within a short span of time the height of musical content can not appropriately register on the audience. I have seen the well known sitar player Budhaditya Mukherjee failing to impress the audience to the expected level when he himself was quite satisfied with his performance (as I could find out after
later discussions with him). It happens because quite often his speed of progress and going towards deeper (and more complicated) executions are without giving appropriate time to the audience to get prepared for taking it or the speed of progress to the subsequent stages is too fast for the audience. So, the effect on the audience is a clumsy type of feeling although they accept that the technical
executions were of very good level because the executions were tuneful, crisp and clear. The same thing we can find with our veteran sarod player Buddhadev Dasgupta. Buddhadev Dasgupta is my senior gurubhai 6 and is a musician with brilliant musical ideas. But the flow of musical ideas stream out at such a speed and as there is no appropriate respite for the audience, the listeners at times fail to enjoy the music to its appropriate height. The same thing may be the root cause behind many less
successful performances of able musicians. The thing to understand is, the listeners also play a kind of interactive role as the music proceeds. The general audiences reach the optimum response level under a specific speed belt of musical progression. When this speed of music progression matches the listeners requirements then the music registers optimum effect. Here I would like to put it clearly
that I am not talking of the speed of music execution, I am referring to the speed of music progression where music may progress from one phase to another with due highlighting of each phase. The raga may get incarnated and make its presence felt at every phase. The audience must get the opportunity to play their part with the performer and this interactive process helps the music to hit its peak. In the process the musician must give space for the listener to "fill in" in a
creative/imaginative process.
Dr. Bel puts down audience's role in effective music making process nicely. He writes:
A necessary condition for experiencing rasa (aesthetic pleasure as a "gustative process") is a sufficient degree of imprecision, an incompleteness of the codification triggering the imagination (kalpana) of each auditor, thereby yielding a "second creation" (bhavana) within the field of the "unspoken.”
Again back to the main point; why is the rose beautiful? It is beautiful because it is beautiful. To define the good and the beautiful through a medium other than the medium of expression itself is difficult. One point is how the receiver takes on a particular piece of art. Assessment of good or bad is done out of one's contextual understanding of the particular creative form. One can, of course, try to underline the general values of a particular art form. For Indian Music the values
are the archaic qualities fused with the artiste's liberty for expressions and creations. In raga music the subtle mixture of the musicians' individuality in their performances and the retaining of the traditional values of the performed raga are some of the important qualities. The sense of being boundless under confinement of the raga prescription is possibly the keyword. The musician takes the flight within the defined territories of a chosen raga and expands the provided
space to generate an effect of boundlessness.
I have been wandering for a long time to find out the answer that why a music piece gets easy entry to the mass audiences' hearts and the others can not. It is not easy to define why the first stroke of Ustd. Vilayet Khan, at times, compels the audience (initiated ones) to say "aah" or for example, how Ustd. Zakir Hussein gets such an easy entry with his tabla to the audiences' heart. Why does this happen? The possible explanation is that the music hits the mass' inner being immediately. The audience gets impressed in two ways. They get moved when the music matches their imagination and they get dazzled when the music taking some unexpected shape
that is even much more beautiful than what the listeners had expected. When this happens then the pleasure of creation of the performer spread around successfully and reaches the listeners' inner being and this is apparently one of the points that makes good music. At this point the music starts articulating like a language.7 This is like an orator giving a speech on a topic with full command. An orator's speech brings in many articulations naturally. If the language is converted to some meaningless articulations still one can hear the basic effects of the intended
ideas that the orator possibly wanted to express. [A closer simile is, reciting a poem with full poetic feelings.] Music has more pronounced tonal and pitch shades and this is capable of expressing ideas those are difficult or near impossible to transmit even through vocal language expressions. Music is capable to transmit subtle feelings of human and nature's different moods.
When this happens then the music becomes acceptable to the listeners and they start enjoying the performance with complete unison with their inner self.
As a performer my feeling is, when I totally get united with the flow of musical images and the instrumental execution the music gets much louder expressions and the audiences start enjoying the musical flow. Here the raga gets its life and start behaving like an incarnated character.
Every executed ang and the delineation relate itself to the post and pre-stated contexts. Each meend, each tana, krintan, zamzama, murki and all the ornamentation forms are played down with meaning and with reference to the context.
Here are some qualities of good music:
Ø The sound of the instrument/voice should be pleasing and warmly acceptable.
Ø Each musical phrase must carry some aesthetic meaning and not just the execution of some musical habits.
Ø Musical phrases must be executed with aesthetic timing, with required density of sound, crispness and clarity matching to the music creation needs.
Ø The speed of music progression may match with the receptivity demand of the audiences. The listeners may comfortably play a silent interactive role as the performance goes on.
Ø There are some puritans those like the old type of instrument sounds and very faithful
adherence to the archetype music. These days such music connoisseurs are getting reduced in number. Most of the present music lovers look for high speed tan-s, meends, gamaka-s etc. Some look for interesting laya patterns, different speed variations, interesting starting and ending points, etc. But, it is good that the archaic values of music may be present with its full glory and substance.
Ø Only in appropriate mental state effective music making and receiving is possible. So, the musician before and during the performance must be appropriately receptive to his musical ideas so that the ideas may get the right medium for full musical expressions. The same is true for the listeners who should be rightly receptive to receive the subtle and brilliant musical effects.
Ø When the inner being of the performer vibrates harmoniously with the music, this indicates that good music taking shape and consequently this music naturally vibrates harmoniously with the inner beings of the receptive listeners.