I'm a little late to the party, and with a gig today, I don't have time to read all the posts, so if I'm just repeating, please forgive me.

What is good music?

That can be looked at two ways.

1) Good music is what you like to listen to, whether it's rap or opera or anything else

2) Good music is complex music that follows the rules set by the theory that originates the music.

To me the best music is symphonic, but not all. Mozart bores me, although I recognize his genius and that he pushed music forward according to the MAYA principle (Most Advanced Yet Accessible). My tastes start in the Romantic era with Beethovan's 3rd and I especially like the Eastern Europeans like Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Suk, Shostakovitch, etc. and it goes to the contemporary. But it has to appeal to my personal tastes. I like dark and brooding more than light and happy.

I consider it the best because I like it and it is very complex according to the rules of western music theory.

But I like Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, and a lot of the swing people, as well as more modern jazz from Thelonius Monk to Stan Getz to Scott Hamilton and others.

I also like rock in genre of Zeppelin, Queen, Deep Purple, Vanilla Fudge, King Crimson, and so on.

But my tastes aren't limited to the complex either, I love Muddy Waters, Bobby Bland, much top 40 especially from 1955 to the beginning of the Rap/EDM era. But still there is good music being written, played and recorded.

What about Salsa, Brazilian, Cabo Verde, Reggae, Klezmer, and so on?

Just because I don't embrace much Rap/EDM doesn't mean it's bad. When I was young, I listened to a lot of music that bores me now. But because I grew up with it, to hear it every once in a while is like visiting an old friend.

My father loved big band jazz and when I started gigging rock, the old guys used to say that good music is dying. Now the old guys of the rock era are saying the same thing.

And as a musician who studied classical in school and also played in the jazz band (they called it stage band because jazz still wasn't an accepted term in school) I understood the big band stuff and liked my father's music. I could play his records and follow with mine. Different kinds of good music.

My generation started with 3 chord rock, and the jazz guys were right, but went into much more involved music like that from the Moody Blues, later Beatles, Jethro Tull, later Beach Boys, and so on. Every bit as complex as the Big Band music was, but with a different expression.

The complexity of music ebbs and flows.

So is good music dying? It might be in an ebb right now, but I'm certain it isn't dying.

If I'm being redundant and not well composed, please excuse, I have an early gig today and am running out of time.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks