I Love Music Because...

Jake Armerding at The Curator lists some "I love music because..." statements. Here's a sample...

I love music because it can’t be conquered.  No one will ever get to the end of music, solve it or master it, although it can be dumbed down.

I love music because no one should make it because they feel required to.  I don’t mean musicians don’t have a responsibility to make it; rather, I mean anyone who isn’t making it because they love to, probably shouldn’t be.  Music is there to be made, or not, just as you please.  It is the opposite of bills, jogging, taxes, health insurance and laundry.

I love music because it’s such an easy way to get happy.

Music is good for you.  What some people do to music can be bad for you, but music itself is good and does not require moderation.  It is good for weekdays, the weekend, holidays, Sundays, cloudy days, sunny days, fast days, slow days, work or play, alone or with friends, home or traveling, relaxed or serious, weddings and funerals and Tuesdays, year-round.  And it is especially good for boredom.

I love music because it is free and unregulated, and anyone can make it.

Go read the whole thing and check out Jake Armerding and his music.

Curator | Excellence in the Arts

Curator Magazine has this excerpt from Franklin Einspruch on excellence in the arts & middlebrow taste...

So I have worked out a pragmatic answer: Excellence is art’s reproductive drive. Excellent traits in art trigger the feelings, emotions, and attentions of the viewer. Thus aroused, an artist sets out to reproduce those traits in a new arrangement of materials. Thus the cycle begins anew. It’s not subjective or objective because it’s dynamic……

We don’t use the term “middle art,” and in my opinion there is no middle art. There doesn’t have to be, with so much overlap between high and low. There is, however, middlebrow taste. Middlebrow taste is a kind of chickening out of taste, in which you settle for familiarity instead of demanding excellence……

Go high, go low, but demand it. Whatever you do, don’t chicken out.

Read the rest: High and Low: What is Excellence in the Arts?