musicianiship--when is it bad or good ?

11-03-06: Mrtennis
if an artist deliberately takes liberties, including wrong notes, tempos,
plays sharp or flat, some professional musicians might consider such a
performance an example of poor musicianship. yet, the performing artist
may disagree.

Perhaps with jazz or experimental music. Both encourage exploration, but one must know the rules, and be able to play expertly within the rules before the rules can be broken, IMO.

i believe that all instances of judgements of
quality are purely subjective and therefore opinion.

Regarding musicianship, there is a set of baseline qualities that define
musicianship and every musician is trained in these qualities from the time they first pick up, or sit down with their instrument. If judgments of quality are being made by trained musicians, then their opinions are based on accepted guidelines, and are therefore less subjective than if the judgments are being made by laymen. In that case, all bets are off, and it's the Wild West.

Judgments of artistry allow for more open interpretation and subjectivity.

Mr T, A challenge for you, time to put your money where your mouth is.

Pretend that you have just attended a performance of Mahler's 9th symphony. You also have a score. You have heard this symphony many times by many conductors.
You are a very knowlegable musicoligist who has a complete understanding of this music. You are a reviewer (which you are) so you have a good command of the English language.

Now with all of that I defy you to write a review which will be meaningful to the average concert goer who cannot read a score and can only understand the nature of the performance as it might compare to another conductors performance (probably the typical audience for reviewer commentary). Your review, in order to remain totally objective, a goal you see as admirable, must be devoid of any subjective adjectives.

Oh, in addition, in order to keep your reader awake thru your review you must keep it interesting as well.

Bet you can't do it!

11/03/06: MrTennis
in the interests of communication it might be advised to describe a performance, sound etc., and let the reader decide whether it is "bad" or "good".

wouldn't that be kind of like describing a color? What does blue look like? And after reading your description of "blue"...would I still like it?

Mrtennis,
just give us dumbs a few examples of ur xperience above described s'il vous plait (x-cuse my friench)...

if i am attending an orchestra concert. i would describe factually what i heard. the tempos were too fast or too slow. certain performers were not in tune. their instruments sounded sharp or flat. the musicians did not sound like an ensemble. some musicians were ahead or behind the beat. they played to loud or too soft. they ignored the composer's markings and thier performance did not coincide with the wishes of the composer.

the above would be a hypothetical description of could have been observed at a symphony orchestra concert.

if you will note, i did not indicate a value to the performance. i tried to factually describe what i heard.