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A few years ago, one of the things I found myself arguing about with my musician friends was whether such a thing as an 'objective' music existed. I was against such a fascistic idea and my high-minded friends were unwilling to relinquish their delusions of meaning.

So it was with some surprise that I found myself in the very same argument, with my less-musically-inclined-crit-theory-loving boyfriend, on a very different side. Somehow, over the course of some curried soft shell crab and evangelizing the doctrine of the B Wilson Church, I had painted myself into this position by insisting that some music was better made than others.

By 'better made', I meant from a perspective that took into account primarily craftsmanship. Of course, I had huge ploblem explaining myself, reverting to such profundity as 'LIKE A COAT THAT LASTS A HUNDRED YEARS'. True story brah.

However, even though we put the torn and tattered debate away in our (rather large) corner of ridiculous things to fight about while inebriated, the idea still ate at me a little so I stayed up til 2 am downloading books on the philosophy of music.

Embarrassingly enough, the chapter on music in the Oxford Philosophy Of Arts (not exactly the most obscure text and definitely a lot easier to read than 'The Ontology of Music') managed to elucidate the idea with about a billion times more clarity and present a pretty unconvincing but presently satisfactory solution to the problem.

This was the idea of the pleasure/interest value aspects of music.

One of the ways in which music can be said to be 'valuable' is that it gives us pleasure. This pleasure can be derived in a multitude of ways. One of these ways is the simple joy we get from organizing chaos. When a bunch of notes that obviously make sense is repeated over and over again, it packages the world in an easily understandable, bite-size, tasty cake. Add to that the other ways of deriving pleasure, like the evocation of emotion and the fact that you've added to your ever-growing names-to-drop list, and well, you have the pleasure-value of music.

However, a piece of music that takes you a year of feverish nights to understand can be said to be more 'interesting' than it is pleasurable. It's music that you make the effort to listen to. In the book, the author uses the example of Beethoven and Elgar. Er.. I haven't heard any Elgar but he says that he finds the simple melodies of Elgar more 'beautiful' and 'pleasurable' yet he considers Beethoven to be 'superior' because there's an intellectual depth to his music. And it is this intellectual depth that he terms 'interesting'.

Actually the more I think about it, the less satisfactory the solution becomes. In the aforementioned argument with my significant other, the example I used was Brian Wilson and Panda Bear, with Mr Wilson occupying Beethoven's spot and vice versa. However, even from the pleasure perspective alone, I prefer Brian Wilson.

While the pleasure/interest ideas serve as a better way to explain what 'well-made' music is (music with high 'interest' value) than 'A COAT THAT LASTS A HUNDRED YEARS', the ideas themselves are full of problems.

Firstly, the ontology of music itself. LOLOLOL no we're not going to go into that. Firstly, the idea that 'interest' is separate from 'pleasure'. To put the terms in a different way, 'pleasure' is the value that is derived from experiencing music in a subjective manner while 'interest' is the value derived from experiencing music in an 'objective' manner.

Oh shit, we're back at the original original argument now. How does one experience music 'objectively'? How does one 'experience' 'objectively'? Am I 'using' too 'many' 'quotation' 'marks'? No but seriously, this whole thing is going to turn into one of those murky subjectivity debates if we're not careful. Have I been careful? Oh noes.

I think the main problem is the use of value-judgment words like 'superior', 'better' and 'well-made'. Maybe if we change the terms to 'intellect' and 'emotion'.

But what friggin part of the intellect does music really stimulate? Music exists in its own separate bubble of music. Sure, there are new and exciting combinations of notes and sounds but, when we are talking about 'absolute' music (as opposed to 'programme' music which is music made for specific purposes... with words and stuff - like operas and so forth), these new and exciting combinations are only new and exciting in terms of music and nothing else.

Also, the emotional gamut of music doesn't seem to be very large. Sure, a major scale makes us happier than a minor one but that comes with a ton of social conditioning. And have you heard Ancient Greek music? That stuff makes me quake in fear, seriously. I'd also like to hear a song that could make you feel embarrassed or... obligated. BTW I'm still talking about absolute music here, so stuff like Flo Rida doesn't count as 'embarrassing'.

Also, how do we separate 'emotional pleasure' from 'intellectual pleasure'. Is pleasure an emotion? Isn't it?

So... I'm kind of at a loss now. What the hell is pleasure? How do we experience music, really?

Maybe we'll discover in the next 'Investigations Into Music'! In which I try to figure out the proper differences between 'absolute' and 'programme' music. Maybe.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this, BRIAN WILSON'S MUSIC IS VERY WELL-MADE. So there. Also an opera joke. Wagner's music is better than it sounds while Puccini's sounds better than it is. What the hell does that mean? I prefer Puccini to Wagner, at any rate. What the hell does that mean? WHAT THE HELL DOES ANYTHING MEAN?