Well first, "authenticity" is a nonsensical concept with respect to the arts. The attribution of "authenticity" is subjective and doesn't consistently correlate with any objective facts at all. Surely some people who use "authenticity" as a metric for whether any particular music is worthwhile or not are basing their attribution on some reaction they're having to the music--some way they're interpreting the music, some way it makes them feel, but it's not at all clear just what that reaction is.

From an ontological perspective, music being an eternal existent and therefore not contained within the confines of space and time is rather intriguing. — TimeLine

That just seems like nonsense to me, too. Why would it be an "eternal existent"? And there isn't anything outside of space or time.

has often been compelled to artists like Jeff Buckley or Joni Mitchell, mostly because of thehonesty in the lyrics — TimeLine

How in the world would you know that their lyrics are honest? How do you know that they're not completely different personally than what their lyrics would suggest (and what they've suggested in interviews as well)? How do you know that they're not essentially writing lyrics from the perspective of a "character"? You don't. You might not even know this if you were to work with them. People can present different public and private "faces."

At any rate, I'm a musician/composer/arranger, I've been doing that professionally for decades, and I've worked with a bunch of different people, some of them famous--some very famous, and some of them people who regularly get the "authentic"/"honest" accolade, but where those people aren't at all as their lyrics would suggest, where sometimes that's clear, because sometimes their lyrics relayed stories/personal facts that I know weren't autobiographical.

The arts don't work that way in general anyway. The gist of the arts isn't that we're journalists or writing confessionals or anything like that. That's not to say that no one is ever doing that, but you can never assume that anyone is doing that, because the whole idea of the arts involves expressing/communicating abstractly, indirectly, via metaphors, symbolism, allegories and so on. We're often creating fictions, characters, etc.

What's probably going on instead is that the lyrics of artists like Buckley and Mitchell are resonating with you, you can relate to them; they're "honest" for you so to speak. But it's important to realize that that can differ from listener to listener. And it doesn't actually tell you anything about Buckley or Mitchell.

Anyway, re creating your own music, whether we're simply talking about you interpreting (as we call it) something that someone else wrote, or we're talking about you writing your own stuff, if you just recently started playing, there's surely a lot that you need to work on in terms of craftsmanship. There's a lot to playing music that we don't notate, because we can't notate it. I'm referring to fine-grained nuances of timing, phrasing, dynamics, timbre and so on. It takes a long time to get a good feel for those things and to master them. It takes even longer to get a good feel for those things and to master them in relation to playing with other musicians. That's probably part of what you're reacting to with respect to your own playing not quite connecting with you yet, but you don't know just what's going wrong, because it takes mastery of these aspects of playing to be able to diagnose the problem well.

You have to just keep at it. Practice playing regularly, and if you want to write, you need to practice writing regularly, too. You're going to write tons of stuff that you think is awful when you look at it years down the road. There's no way around that really. You just need to get started and to keep doing it, and realize that if you keep at it, you'll gradually make progress, where that only becomes evident in retrospect.

Well first, "authenticity" is a nonsensical concept with respect to the arts. The attribution of "authenticity" is subjective and doesn't consistently correlate with any objective facts at all. Surely some people who use "authenticity" as a metric for whether any particular music is worthwhile or not are basing their attribution on some reaction they're having to the music--some way they're interpreting the music, some way it makes them feel, but it's not at all clear just what that reaction is. — Terrapin Station

Say you’re in a movie theater watching a movie: you can be authentically enjoying it or not. If you are, you get lost within the story while it unfolds. If you’re not, you have an itch to check the time; you keep on being critical of the overall color choices made by the people who made it; etc. Same with music, imo.

My own novice experience with music creation is that you, the musician, can either be hypnotized (so to speak) by that which you’ve brought about or you can focus on technicalities concerning this or that. When you, the musician, become hypnotized by your own produced sounds, the music is authentic—and you, the musician, become at once both creator and audience entranced by that which is created. Repeatedly plucking one string in the right timing and intensity can be sufficient; and of course it can also be as complex as hell; it doesn’t much matter. It speaks a truth to you and, therefore, to all others that are like you in a certain set of particulars. Thus the same music will now likewise entrance that portion of an audience who shares the same eye for beauty/the aesthetic. You can sense this same thing occurring in performers on stage: these too can be authentic or not in what they play/sing—either becoming entranced by that which they produce (authentic) or going through a routine for public recognition (unauthentic, like the prototypical wedding singer).

As with different people enjoying different movies, so too with different people enjoying different music. But we all know what it’s like to be stuck in a move theater watching a movie we’re not captivated by—then to politely nod our head when our friends sing its many praises … to be unauthentic in what we like. The notion of authenticity as regards the arts then holds significance to all of us. That stated, I can appreciate many musicians that I sense to be perfectly authentic, as just expressed, whose works don’t resonate with me. But I can’t think of a single musician I like that is unauthentic in what they produce; for the most part, these do not gain public recognition to begin with.

So I’m saying that, while the notion of authenticity may be multilayered and hard to pinpoint, authenticity is by no means nonsensical, nor unimportant.

An aspiring musician who seeks to be authentic many not be as technically savvy in the short-term by comparison to one who pursues technical knowhow, but their technique will grow around an authentic aesthetic—and it is the latter which we most appreciate and enjoy listening to.

Ps. Though not my argument, maybe it’s the authenticity to music that is the very thing which could be argued eternal, outside of space and time, unwavering regardless of the musical phenomena it is clothed in.

One problem with your idea of an authenticity "sense" as you describe it is that in practice, the audience's attributions of authenticity or a lack of it don't at all correlate with what was actually going on with the musicians (or other artists). I know that from the creation side, since it's what I do for a living, I've worked with a ton of different people in a lot of different sorts of situations, and I've of course heard a lot of comments from audiences in relation to stuff that I've worked on/gigs I've done.

Another problem is that your "hypnotized by" and "paying attention to technical details" dichotomy is false. Although people can just go through the motions at times--and plenty of times you get the "authentic" accolade in those situations--it's rarely ever all one or the other re your dichotomy. That's just not what's going on with people who do this stuff for a living (that it's all one or the other). The same thing goes for the old "art/commerce" dichtomy. That stuff is mythology that consumers believe. It's a part of a popular cultural narrative. But it's really bs with respect to what's actually occurring on the creation side.

So the supposed "sense" isn't a sense at all. It's at best, as you describe it, merely a way of saying that you were highly emotionally engaged by something, that something really resonated with you, versus not feeling that way at all and wishing that you were doing anything else instead.

music being an eternal existent and therefore not contained within the confines of space and time is rather intriguing — TimeLine

this is non-sense. As Terrapin Station said, there isn't anything outside of time and space.

what exactly is authentic music — TimeLine

There are "authentic performances" of music -- period instruments played by musicians informed of the period practices, performed under similar conditions, and so forth. There are "authentic performances" of medieval music on down to bluegrass and early rock and roll. That's one thing. The music itself being "authentic" is something else.

Was the music of the 1910 Fruitgum Company band authentic? They weren't exactly cutting edge 60s music -- not unpleasant, kind of saccharine. How about Eric Satie's Gymnopédies? I like it - kind of like high-end Muzak. Authentic? Beats me. For that matter, what about Muzak itself?

If a contemporary composer were to compose fugues as closely to the manner of J. S. Bach as he could, would that be "authentic" or contrived?

I like listening to a few pieces of the early Dylan. "Like"? No, a song like "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is indispensable. But aside from the few, not much. A Nobel prize? Well, that's just sun-starved crazy Norsk for you.

Otherwise, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? practice, practice, practice.

An aspiring musician who seeks to be authentic many not be as technically savvy in the short-term by comparison to one who pursues technical knowhow, but their technique will grow around an authentic aesthetic—and it is the latter which we most appreciate and enjoy listening to. — javra

I think you are making an "inauthentic" distinction here.

People, whether they be aspiring musicians or scrap iron dealers, are somewhere on the continuum of "authenticity" and we can toss that definition ("authentic person") around till the cows come home (about 12 hours, at the most). But what would an authentic scrap iron dealer be?

One might be "an authentic beggar", "an authentic anarchist", "authentic ruling class" and so on, as long as we know what, exactly a beggar, anarchist, or ruling class is. What, exactly, is a musician? I listen to a lot of music, I think about music, but I don't perform music, and I don't compose it. Am I a musician? Are teenage garage band members musicians--no matter how bad the band is? What about performers who view playing music as a job, and which they might happily give up for something else?

"Authentic" is a word like "absolute" or "true". Absolute music, true music, authentic music. It's a rather vague intensifier. It doesn't tell us much.

Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye dealt a great deal with the concept of fakeness. Fakeness, then, is the antonym to authenticity.

I don’t have a nifty philosophical proof that some people are more fake than others in that which they purport to be. Beggars or ruling class included—and artists could be placed in there somewhere.

Lacking this logical proof, I yet experience that some get the fakeness issue as was, for example, addressed in the Catcher in the Rye, together with that of its opposite notion, authenticity—the two of which form a cline of potential being. A mathematical binomial of all or nothing, to me at least, is a misrepresentation of reality; there would be different contexts and differing degrees between the absolutes of fakeness and authenticity.

I acknowledge that I belong to the set of humans to which Salinger’s aforementioned novel made some sense in its treatment of fakeness/authenticity. It’s not something I believe myself capable of rationally convincing others of, however.

But, for argument’s sake, the fable of the emperor’s new clothes would to me and many others make no sense were it to be devoid of the concepts of fakeness and authenticity of being. Do you then find the fable nonsensical, or, if not, how do you make sense of it as story?

---------

Edit: BTW, all this isn’t to say that fakeness and authenticity cannot be used as labels and that, as labels, they can’t be misused by spin-mongers for some sort of political gain (including politics with a small “p” as is stated in anthropology). The same applies to many other labels, however. For example, dropping the “evil” term on a community of people—say, for example, liberals, or Buddhists, or some such—can and will be done by some. This does not then miraculously so make it true—nor does it then result in the properties of good and bad/evil being devoid of actual referents.

To the extent that the fakeness/authenticity dichotomy is understood to address something real about human character, the same applies to these as labels. This, though, is a different issue than that of some people being more fake than others in terms of what is. And hey, if its of any consolation, I dully acknowledge my own lack of authenticity in many a way ... though I aspire to not be fake in the way I live.

And hey, if its of any consolation, I dully acknowledge my own lack of authenticity in many a way ... though I aspire to not be fake in the way I live. — javra

"Duly" I hope, and not dully.

I agree; whatever the adjectives "authentic" and "fake" mean, they "mean" on a continuum from totally authentic to totally fake.

The thing is, sometimes we "fake" things to look "real". I was at a funeral recently--open casket. The body of the deceased did not look exactly dead. It looked like a carefully decorated dead body. We don't really want to look at a body that has been dead for several days. The casket appeared to be richly upholstered and made, but of course it wasn't. It was "fake" upholstery--not what it looked like. We don't really want to look at an authentic plywood box with some cheap, sloppily stapled polyester lining, or worse, a casket made out of oriented strand board (also known as flakeboard, sterling board and aspenite in British English--I assume you are British, based on your use of "whilst"). Sometimes "fake" is more authentic than "real", paradoxically or ironically.

Existentialists are hot on authenticity, as are others, and it can be hard to nail down what they mean, too. True to yourself? To thine own self be true? Know thyself? The unexamined life isn't worth living? all that. All good, but it is still difficulty to achieve authenticity because faking it at times is ever so much more convenient.

Just to insert some sex into this otherwise overly elevated discussion: Here's a scene from When Harry met Sally. Great scene about authenticity.

Do some reading on Pythagoreans and the exploration of the relationship between ratio and harmony.

X-) ... with a little bit of LOL.

It's an issue of taste: I for one in high school always wanted (not realistically mind you) an international naked for a day day. That way we all get to discover that everybody else is imperfect as well and get over all the "posing" by realizing that we're all posers of one type or another. Not being realistically intent on this, though, I acknowledge I didn't think through this global nakedness day all too well. Still like the motif to Catcher in the Rye, though.

Don't have much else to add. Oh, yes, its "duly" and not "dully". And, though I hear its a nice place, haven't been to the British isles yet.

Yes, there is something very special about the arts and while philosophy can be an art, for the most part philosophy is repetitive just as music can be. It is when you feel the music you are creating is coming from a different place, outside of yourself, that it takes on a totally different feeling and meaning. It happens in all forms of the arts. It comes naturally and spontaneously with relaxed practice. For some it comes quicker than others, but that is of no mind. We practice to discover ourselves in our journey. There is no end.

Wishing you a very happy journey. It is wonderful to experience.

haven't been to the British isles yet — javra

So where do you live that "whilst" is standard usage?

Well first, "authenticity" is a nonsensical concept with respect to the arts. The attribution of "authenticity" is subjective and doesn't consistently correlate with any objective facts at all. Surely some people who use "authenticity" as a metric for whether any particular music is worthwhile or not are basing their attribution on some reaction they're having to the music--some way they're interpreting the music, some way it makes them feel, but it's not at all clear just what that reaction is. — Terrapin Station

Whilst I appreciate your obdurate tone, the conveyance of aesthetic value and the meaning of the referent “authentic” though clearly ambiguous nevertheless illustrates the term to be context-driven. My question outlined two particular areas with the first related to performance, and unlike a painting where you actually have the original piece that one can claim to be authentic, music being notated and the instruments used all differ along with the musician’ interpretation or choices that the governance of the performance challenge our understanding of what expressive authenticity may actually be. In addition, authenticity encourages an interest in the original performances and historic conventions that enable a moral significance to sustaining the composition, tonality and musical structure as intended by the author at the time of its development.

The second and perhaps the phenomenological aesthetic of my enquiry does not deserve what appears to be your dismissal of the validity of subjectivity vis-à-vis authenticity, on the contrary sensuous experience and intuition – what is clearly your indifference to empirical states of reality – is engrossed with the question of what the conditions are that enable music to provide conscious meaning. If we think of popular music, for instance, is it a socio-political mechanism that exposes the habitual and thus requires a type of musical reductionism to ascertain the authenticity or the intentionality behind it? Richard Wagner and the use of his compositions to kindle fascism, for instance. If it is not clear what that reaction is, the intention of philosophy is to clarify hence the Platonic quote at the end of my post.

That just seems like nonsense to me, too. Why would it be an "eternal existent"? And there isn't anything outside of space or time. — Terrapin Station

Vat? You mean that QM theories are nonsense? Ok, alright, fine, I'll concede that this ain't cosmology but both you and Bitter are wrong as you have misunderstood the reference to "eternal" for which, if you think of Harmony vis-a-vis Platonic forms, you may understand why it transcends beyond the material world.

Do some reading on Pythagoreans and the exploration of the relationship between ratio and harmony. — Wayfarer

The Greater Perfect System and the diatonic scale is interesting, but the metaphysics is lacklustre at best. The existence of natural mathematical laws as exemplified by the musical science that governs harmonic relationships that become the navigational tool to higher planes of existence or creation is probably a place I would avoid in preference for the phenomena of music' moral position in consciousness.

What's probably going on instead is that the lyrics of artists like Buckley and Mitchell are resonating with you, you can relate to them; they're "honest" for you so to speak. But it's important to realize that that can differ from listener to listener. And it doesn't actually tell you anything about Buckley or Mitchell. — Terrapin Station

I just want to add, if you think about Dream Brother by Buckley, it actually is honest, he is talking to his friend who intended to run away from his wife for a younger woman, something he himself experienced from his father and why it is one of my favourite songs. I don't have a family so it does not personally resonate with me. But I do agree, something like Gotye' Hearts A Mess does resonate personally, in fact, when I first heard it years ago I imagined myself singing the song in a bar to an audience of me (as in, everyone in the bar was me) because I was a mess. I really appreciate your post, it is insightful and I will certainly be practicing regularly, but I just picked out areas I would like to discuss further with you.

The existence of natural mathematical laws as exemplified by the musical science that governs harmonic relationships that become the navigational tool to higher planes of existence or creation is probably a place I would avoid — TimeLine

I won't look out for you there, then. X-)

Nah, ill be hangin’ in the desert of the real. 8-)

Music is another language. One needs a certain mastery of the mechanics of a language; having which one forgets it while using it in the urgency of communication. Or then again one can master the language but find one has nothing to say to anyone.

Join a band, dude, having a communication on one's own is really hard.

Well music certainly has eternal properties, if you buy Schopenhauer's Kantian point that the in-itself of the world is revealed through man. This means that subjectivity is something that cannot be understood objectively, but only by being it - and hence this objective aspect of the world can only be revealed subjectively. This revelation breaks the barrier between noumenon and phenomenon, and thus makes the latter accessible, though not as object-for-a-subject. Music, by creating subjective movement in the soul, makes one aware of the noumenon as it is moving - for no one can be aware of something which is static. For a fish to be aware of the water in which he moves and has his being, someone has to produce a ripple in it - music performs this function for the soul. It's similar to what they do in physics, for example to discover the Higgs Boson, they need to produce sufficient energy to disturb the Higgs Field, and thus determine that it actually exists.

The only point of contention I guess, is whether there really is a noumenon and a phenomenon - or whether both subjectivity and objectivity are equally real aspects. For example an Aristotelian/Spinozist who is a realist would claim that the subjectivity noted only by being it is no different than the motion of the planets - both are equally real, one isn't just phenomenon and the other noumenon.

Whilst I appreciate your obdurate tone, the conveyance of aesthetic value and the meaning of the referent “authentic” though clearly ambiguous nevertheless illustrates the term to be context-driven. My question outlined two particular areas with the first related to performance, and unlike a painting where you actually have the original piece that one can claim to be authentic, music being notated and the instruments used all differ along with the musician’ interpretation or choices that the governance of the performance challenge our understanding of what expressive authenticity may actually be. In addition, authenticity encourages an interest in the original performances and historic conventions that enable a moral significance to sustaining the composition, tonality and musical structure as intended by the author at the time of its development.

The second and perhaps the phenomenological aesthetic of my enquiry does not deserve what appears to be your dismissal of the validity of subjectivity vis-à-vis authenticity, on the contrary sensuous experience and intuition – what is clearly your indifference to empirical states of reality – is engrossed with the question of what the conditions are that enable music to provide conscious meaning. If we think of popular music, for instance, is it a socio-political mechanism that exposes the habitual and thus requires a type of musical reductionism to ascertain the authenticity or the intentionality behind it? Richard Wagner and the use of his compositions to kindle fascism, for instance. If it is not clear what that reaction is, the intention of philosophy is to clarify hence the Platonic quote at the end of my post. — TimeLine

Jesus Christ what a load of balderdash.

Jesus Christ what a load of balderdash. — Terrapin Station

:-} I actually found TimeLine's post quite decent. Authenticity is a way of creating music creatively - to be interested in authentic music is to be interested in music which means something - on a deeper level it means to be interested in the creative activity of the soul which gave birth to the crystallised (and hence dead, not alive) music. Indeed this creative activity that is searched for through authenticity is primal - a feature of Being itself. Alas, all this is probably too "continental" for your narrow analytic sensibilities... ;)

I actually found TimeLine's post quite decent. Authenticity is a way of creating music creatively - to be interested in authentic music is to be interested in music which means something — Agustino

But individuals create meaning, and different individuals can do that in response to different things.

So would you only be saying that you're referring to music that prompts you to assign more meaning to it personally?

Re the rest, there's no such thing as souls, what in the world is "dead" versus "alive" music, and I'm not sure what you're referring to with a capital "B" "Being."

Jesus Christ what a load of balderdash. — Terrapin Station

What has Jesus got to do with your cognitive limitations?

Re the rest, there's no such thing as souls, what in the world is "dead" versus "alive" music — Terrapin Station

We call music authentic when it crystallises (ie objectifies) the creative activity of the soul - its creative struggle. All music is dead by this definition. Some music though is also empty of content; "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" - such is the music that is created by many modern artists, where their main aim is to sell.

If you stop being pedantic you'll realise that there is such a thing as soul. How did Aristotle define the soul? The activity of the body - the life of the body - the form of the body.

But individuals create meaning, and different individuals can do that in response to different things. — Terrapin Station

Individuals create meaning in response to reality. The creation of meaning is what the Universe itself does through people. And yes, there is no doubt that meaning is subjective - it's about how you - Terrapin Station - relates to reality. It's your own response to reality.

and I'm not sure what you're referring to with a capital "B" "Being." — Terrapin Station

To distinguish that I'm talking about Being - the ground/activity of Being - not any particular being.

So would you only be saying that you're referring to music that prompts you to assign more meaning to it personally? — Terrapin Station

No. I'm talking about music which is meaningful. Not all music is meaningful. Not all music is a creative expression of the individual. And it has nothing to do with me assigning meaning personally - I see the meaning of others in it. And this is so with all art - when I read The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, it's not me putting meaning in there. It's the author! I experience the meaning that the author has placed in there - I experience the protagonist's anguish when he sees his own girlfriend raped for example - and for a moment, he and I become one. His infinite brokenness becomes my infinite brokenness - I have creatively assimilated his meaning at that point.

Music is another language. One needs a certain mastery of the mechanics of a language; having which one forgets it while using it in the urgency of communication. Or then again one can master the language but find one has nothing to say to anyone.
. — unenlightened

Philosophy is also a language, so would that make it the highest music?

Philosophy is also a language, so would that make it the highest music? — TimeLine

Philosophy is the highest universal language - but universality is, paradoxically, not Reality - for what would Reality be without the particular? And the particular is exactly what the universal must exclude to be universal. And so there is a price paid to achieve universality - it's a butchering of Reality. Philosophy can achieve division - but never unity. The philosophy that comes closest to achieving unity is that which moves and moves and moves - only to, at the point when it is just about to achieve completeness, it denies itself and sees itself as nonsense - one must throw down the ladder after he has climbed as Wittgenstein put it :) - unity is realised not through philosophy - but through doing philosophy - through the philosophical activity itself, which reaches its own quietus.

Alright, gosh, this is the question and TP, I would much prefer an argument than a whole General Melchett "If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face" to see you through, n'kay.

Question: Setting aside your indifference to empirical states of reality, what are the conditions that enable music to provide meaning vis-a-vis consciousness.

Does that simplify it for you?

Philosophy is also a language, so would that make it the highest music? — TimeLine

I don't find that languages come in a heap with one at the top. They're more like a rack of spanners - choose the right one for the job.

languages come in a heap with one at the top — unenlightened

What would the bottom most one be sitting on? :-O

Philosophy is the highest universal language - but universality is, paradoxically, not Reality - for what would Reality be without the particular? And the particular is exactly what the universal must exclude to be universal. And so there is a price paid to achieve universality - it's a butchering of Reality. Philosophy can achieve division - but never unity. The philosophy that comes closest to achieving unity is that which moves and moves and moves - only to, at the point when it is just about to achieve completeness, it denies itself and sees itself as nonsense - one must throw down the ladder after he has climbed as Wittgenstein put it :) - unity is realised not through philosophy - but through doing philosophy - through the philosophical activity itself, which reaches its own quietus. — Agustino

This aspect of the eternal properties was precisely my initial enquiry, however I disagree that it is merely butchering reality, on the contrary the divisions that we create is the way in which we increase language; as unenlightened said though completely irrelevant to the question, join a band to improve. We would not be who we are without society and the constructs we create to develop and increase knowledge, without which we would be nothing. Is music a part of or can in enable or strengthen this language?

however I disagree that it is merely butchering reality — TimeLine

Philosophical activity though is different from philosophy. I said philosophy butchers reality - I outlined a different possibility for philosophical activity.

Is music a part of or can in enable or strengthen this language? — TimeLine

Music deals with different aspects then philosophy and in different manners. Music functions by touching one's heart and soul. Philosophy cannot deal with what music deals, except abstractly - universally - but never in concreto.