I personally agree whole-heartedly with what Jamie Aebersold said.
But I realised that this whole classification of genres to define whether a piece of music is good or not is just getting out of the point.
Seriously, it's not about "what genre" you listen to, it's about "what standard" of music you're listening to. If you're listening to mandopop and the band is amazingly tight and the singer is actually good and the tune is fantastic, that's what I would define as good music. Fine it might not be my taste but hey, at least it's listenable and worth a listen and learn from.
How about a popfunk band like Level 42? Impeccable groove, amazing bass playing, good tight band. That's good music. It's not about genre, it's about being good REGARDLESS of the genre.
Being discriminating means seeing the difference between Dream Theatre and the band next door TRYING to sound like Dream Theatre but essentially just turning the amps out really loud and playing garbage. That's an extreme circumstance. But that's what I believe he meant about discernment.
Music is all about listening first. I come from classical background while listening to hokkien pop, mandopop, 90's english pop, current pop, jazz, fusion, rock, metal, grunge, you name it I've done my best to sift through it to find the best music there is over there. Genre doesn't count when it comes to "good music". What counts is that it brings out what it was meant to. That's what art is. Communication, and as long as it brings out its message across, it's brilliant.
It's like comparing Nirvana and Miles Davis. Miles Davis when he started out with swing, he went for that swing sound, and he created a new melody over the piece So What in 1959 (have to check the date) and that was LEGENDARY. Because it was a modal piece and he basically just took it and made a monumental improvisation which was what improvisation was about: creating a new melody. Nirvana had all the badass attitude in the world and they literally didn't give a piece of flying f*** what the rest of the world thought. What did they do? They brought it out in their music. Heck, they're not great technicians, they're not people who actually spent many years learning how to play their instruments, but they succeeded in bringing their message across: "I just don't care." That's punk rock for you and THAT'S good music.
As for pianomankris, I admire how much musical knowledge you have but I believe there's a lot of things that I would disagree with you because this would be a matter of opinion, and I certainly do not really think that your attitude and stand about "how many accomplishments I have" is exactly going to help you in your situation. As a jazz bassist, already the moment I talk about jazz people would often immediately label me as snob. I used to be like that because I played classical and jazz and thought that it was above all else. But I've learnt otherwise. Everything has its worth and value and even if you have wonderful theoretical knowledge and are composing, and more importantly, composing pretty well I might add, a stand like yours would not receive as much recognition as it should.
Having bragging rights doesn't mean you should brag, or that bragging would be the way you should behave. I respect your opinions and would understand in many ways where you're coming from about the idea of music and all, but we come in from different viewpoints and I would have to disagree with you.
Pf... You have a few good ideas going there. It's not just beginner as you say. It's just simply an ever-growing thing. You're never gonna stick to one thing for the rest of your life and expect yourself to improve. And more importantly, music is an ever-growing process, there's no such thing as "I'm WAS a student in music". Even the greatest masters are constantly learning new things and developing new things or they'd be rendered obsolete.
That's to help with your ideas about music and all. =)
