# The music that is better than itself **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 30, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607 "2013-10-30T00:20:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/21 "2013-11-09T17:42:58Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > Well, I just took it when I’m half drunk and hours late for bed, and I got 83%. The one I got wrong was only one of two that I felt was even close. The rest were obvious within the first few seconds of hearing them both. I was familiar with only the first and last works. Imagine that you were not a musician but had a serious profession, for example a pilot. And crash every sixth landing… Besides you could get this result by random guessing. The probability to answer correctly all 6 questions is 1/2^6=1/64. And the probability to get 5 question right is 6/2 \* (1/64) = 3/64. So the probability to get 5 or more questions right is 4/64=1/16~6%. So we cannot exclude with 5% confidence level that you guessed at random. And for some reason the people who get much lower scores are silent… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/22 "2013-11-09T22:35:53Z")
Another example of this was the recent Banksy art sale booth in NYC. The graffiti artist Banksy, whose works usually sell for six figures, set up a booth in a flea market and offered some of his works for sixty dollars. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/23 "2013-11-10T00:28:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Another example of this was the recent Banksy art sale booth in NYC. The graffiti artist Banksy, whose works usually sell for six figures, set up a booth in a flea market and offered some of his works for sixty dollars. Interesting. I found the story Tourists buy $31K Banksy art for just $60 each > **[Tourists buy $31K Banksy art for just $60 each](https://nypost.com/2013/10/14/tourists-buy-31k-banksy-art-for-just-60-each/)** > > Now this was priceless. British graffiti artist Banksy, whose socially conscious works have commanded six figures at auction, made his biggest statement yet over the weekend — offering his signed o… However I think that the title is incorrect. It should have been “Banksy was selling $60 worth paintings for tens of thousands.” ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/24 "2013-11-10T01:02:16Z")
> [@Don\_Simus](#): > > Interesting. I found the story > > Tourists buy $31K Banksy art for just $60 each > [Tourists buy $31K Banksy art for just $60 each](http://nypost.com/2013/10/14/tourists-buy-31k-banksy-art-for-just-60-each/) > > However I think that the title is incorrect. It should have been “Banksy was selling $60 worth paintings for tens of thousands.” We covered that in another thread and IMO, that wasn’t very fair. If I came up to you and told you I had real, original Jackson Pollack’s would you believe me? Here, he did a series of paintings on 8.5x11 loose leaf paper, they’re worth $500,000, you can have them for twenty bucks. Does that sound legit or does it sound like I’m selling bad Coach purse ripoffs? Also, until that tourist sells the painting for $31k, it’s only worth $60. Remember, something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. My parents have a really, really nice pool table in their basement, full competition sized, matched Italian slate, came from a pool hall. Both times that we’ve had it recovered the people doing it have said it’s worth about $12,000. He can’t even get someone to give him $3,000 for it. So, no, it’s not worth $12,000. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/25 "2013-11-10T15:29:36Z")
> [@Don\_Simus](#): > > And for some reason the people who get much lower scores are silent… And for some reason, you ignored the other part of my post. Thank you, I was aware that my score was not some Herculean feat that couldn’t be accomplished by chance, and don’t find discussing that interesting. I do think it’s interesting you seem to think either the subway experiment, or the one where they were testing people with recordings say anything but the two items I listed. They say diddly about our ability to discern art, for a multitude of reasons. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/26 "2013-11-10T16:00:05Z")
Similarly people think wine tastes better if it is poured out of an expensive looking bottle. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/27 "2013-11-10T20:37:05Z")
A kinda-similar urban legend: [history - Did Charlie Chaplin lose a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest? - Skeptics Stack Exchange](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9423/did-charlie-chaplin-lose-a-charlie-chaplin-look-alike-contest) ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/28 "2013-11-11T03:57:30Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Similarly people think wine tastes better if it is poured out of an expensive looking bottle. And there have been several blind wine tests were famous and expensive wines lost too unknown and cheap. The most famous is, probably, The Judgement of Paris. There was another one by Federic Brochet, and a recent much publicized in America experiment by Goldstein. So we are dealing here with a very general phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/29 "2013-11-11T18:16:31Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > A kinda-similar urban legend: [history - Did Charlie Chaplin lose a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest? - Skeptics Stack Exchange](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9423/did-charlie-chaplin-lose-a-charlie-chaplin-look-alike-contest) What do you want to say by this? The link says that the legend is false. However the rest of the stories discussed in this thread are true. There are more stories like that. For example, this one which tells how Ivy League and Oxbridge folk could not tell Charles Dickens from the worst writer in history > **[Charles Dickens... or the world's worst writer? Blind reading test found 48%...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297869/Charles-Dickens-worlds-worst-writer-Blind-reading-test-48-tell-difference-literature-great-ridiculed-novelist.html)** > > A new study has found that people really are none the wiser about whether they're reading a Charles Dickens masterpiece or one of the works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, billed as 'the worst writer in history'. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/30 "2014-01-16T17:46:08Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > It was also done in [1930s Chicago](http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp), as Weingarten noted after pulling the stunt with Bell. Did anyone see Milton Fairman’s article? Weingarten gives only month of publication, not the date. And I need the date for inter-library document delivery request. I had sent an email with the same question to Weingarten, but did not get any reply. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/31 "2014-01-16T19:10:18Z")
If we’re going to revive this zombie, let’s _revive_ the goddamned _zombie_. You know what _I_ want to see? _I_ want someone to make a website with bits and pieces of various sermons and holy texts and philosophical tracts, and see if people really _can_ tell the difference between their Holy And Exalted To The Highest Heavens One True Faith and the Filthy And Abhorrent Crime Against Nature Heresy practiced by those scum down the block. Sure, Southern Baptist and Theravada Buddhism will be a walk, but High-Church Anglican and Roman Catholic? The Koran used by the Twelvers and the Koran used by the Salafists? If I pick and choose right, I can probably get a Bible-Believing Baptist to agree to the teachings of a Wahhabi cleric. Or, worse, a hippy-dippy Unitarian-Universalist. Or is that insane? Is that precisely the wrong attitude to take? Is that a stupidly reductionist conception which misses the point entirely? Does the relevant concept adhere, not to the specific words and props, but to a larger social and political context where it becomes normative, performative, and, sometimes, _intersectional_? Nah, couldn’t be. That’s all egghead hippie crap, like dolphins and rainbows. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/32 "2014-01-16T22:12:04Z")
I think there are two general ways to interpret this: one is that the idea of a classic or a masterpiece is BS, and the other is that people’s enjoyment of an experience is based on context and their expectations. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/33 "2014-01-17T22:20:50Z")
That’s exactly what I thought until I saw you say it. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2014, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/34 "2014-01-19T22:25:25Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > You know what _I_ want to see? _I_ want someone to make a website with bits and pieces of various sermons and holy texts and philosophical tracts, and see if people really _can_ tell the difference between their Holy And Exalted To The Highest Heavens One True Faith and the Filthy And Abhorrent Crime Against Nature Heresy practiced by those scum down the block. Sure, Southern Baptist and Theravada Buddhism will be a walk, but High-Church Anglican and Roman Catholic? The Koran used by the Twelvers and the Koran used by the Salafists? If I pick and choose right, I can probably get a Bible-Believing Baptist to agree to the teachings of a Wahhabi cleric. Or, worse, a hippy-dippy Unitarian-Universalist. > > Or is that insane? Is that precisely the wrong attitude to take? Is that a stupidly reductionist conception which misses the point entirely? Does the relevant concept adhere, not to the specific words and props, but to a larger social and political context where it becomes normative, performative, and, sometimes, _intersectional_? > > Nah, couldn’t be. That’s all egghead hippie crap, like dolphins and rainbows. Somebody already did this trick using sacred Hindu and Christian texts and someone else could not tell the difference. It was in early 20th or late 19th century as far as I recall. Do you think such test would be interesting today? The so-called intellectuals do not believe in any religion anyway. They believe in Darwin and apestract art. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/35 "2014-02-08T01:12:05Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > It was also done in [1930s Chicago](http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp), as Weingarten noted after pulling the stunt with Bell. Probably the only place where one can find Chicago Evening Post (the newspaper which made the experiment and afterward published the article) is Chicago Public Library [http://www.chipublib.org/branch/details/library/harold-washington/p/Gisnewspapers/](http://www.chipublib.org/branch/details/library/harold-washington/p/Gisnewspapers/) Does anyone visit it? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/36 "2014-05-01T17:51:28Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > It was also done in [1930s Chicago](http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp), as Weingarten noted after pulling the stunt with Bell. It turned out that the Chicago gangsters stole the idea from a Boston man [http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/6129221/A-man-who-did-not-get-a-Pulitzer-Prize.html](http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/6129221/A-man-who-did-not-get-a-Pulitzer-Prize.html) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/37 "2014-05-02T21:07:59Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think there are two general ways to interpret this: one is that the idea of a classic or a masterpiece is BS, and the other is that people’s enjoyment of an experience is based on context and their expectations. The philosophical question is one of \*epistemological arrogance \*or _expansion_. We tend to think we know more than we do. People who invest time can become better at discerning differences and mapping what they perceive to quality criteria. But we all tend to think we can do it in FAR more categories than we actually can. And we all tend to think that our quality criteria are more broadly accepted than they really are. There are a couple of areas where I am very comfortable with my ability to discern quality. And there are hundreds of areas where I am comfortable acting like I am 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Simus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@Don\_Simus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Simus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/38 "2014-05-03T16:47:41Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > The philosophical question is one of \*epistemological arrogance \*or _expansion_. We tend to think we know more than we do. People who invest time can become better at discerning differences and mapping what they perceive to quality criteria. But we all tend to think we can do it in FAR more categories than we actually can. And we all tend to think that our quality criteria are more broadly accepted than they really are. > > There are a couple of areas where I am very comfortable with my ability to discern quality. And there are hundreds of areas where I am comfortable acting like I am 😉 And what about those folks who award Pulitzer Prizes? Why the original articles by Fairman and Hacket did not get one and the article by Weingarten published 77 years later did? Did the Pulitzer committee show \*epistemological arrogance \*or _expansion_? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/39 "2014-05-03T17:11:32Z")
> [@Don\_Simus](#): > > And what about those folks who award Pulitzer Prizes? Why the original articles by Fairman and Hacket did not get one and the article by Weingarten published 77 years later did? Did the Pulitzer committee show \*epistemological arrogance \*or _expansion_? What would you like to hear? I can’t speak to all the variables that might put a different slant on that set of events. I would come at your OP a different way: let’s say the fundamental assertion is correct. What is supposed to happen differently because of it? Humans are unreliable and make mistakes and impose patterns and narratives where none exist. What’s going to change? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607/40 "2014-05-03T18:07:57Z")
[Joyce Hatto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Hatto)was a plagiarist fraudster who released [other people’s performances](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/opinion/26dutton.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)under her own name. I heard about one particular critic who gave someone’s original performance a negative review, then years later gave a rave review to the exact same recording released under Hatto’s name. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-music-that-is-better-than-itself/672607.md?page=3)