Arts generally don't require the level of technical skill they used to. Ariana Grande couldn't hold a candle to Leontyne Price. Similar in painting and sculpture.
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Replying to @jasoncrawford @andy_matuschak
Why would Grande be the right comparison? Why not compare Price with the leading opera singers of today, many of whom are astonishing technically and otherwise?
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Replying to @Sean_Newhouse @andy_matuschak
Good point. Andy phrased it as “the bar” and I thought of where society's bar is, rather than who is actually best in the world
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Replying to @jasoncrawford @andy_matuschak
Some senior figures in the professional music world actually do claim that today's opera singers don't measure up to past greats, but I have always been skeptical of such claims, for some of the same reasons that I'm instinctively skeptical of nostalgia for past economic eras.
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There's no doubt that vocal training has changed over time, and that today's opera singers may be qualitatively different in various ways, on average - but I would contend that the overall bar of achievement, considered holistically, has not slipped.
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John Manoochehri Retweeted Jason Crawford
This is A Very Bad Take. In almost every measurable way classical arts have higher technical standards - just as
@andy_matuschak is pointing out. Similar reasons better/more training/diet/living, better tools. In the arts, the Q is: is it /better/?https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1234727355358146565?s=20 …John Manoochehri added,
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Replying to @jmanooch @Sean_Newhouse and
Forgotten: the vernacular arts - people just singing and dancing and composing - w/o church or court backing, were the 'pop' music of pre-modern age. Records are predictably so very lacking. But: professionalism has come to arts now at all levels - the quality is amazing.
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Replying to @jmanooch @Sean_Newhouse and
John Manoochehri Retweeted Pulp Librarian
Singing and cooking shows, while decried by folks who 'know about the arts' - actually demonstrate in real time the vast upskilling of the general public doing the arts. Grande et al are usually way above public levels. Cf aslo Vesta vs Masterchef:https://twitter.com/PulpLibrarian/status/1059883957192400897?s=20 …
John Manoochehri added,
Pulp Librarian @PulpLibrarianIt was a taste sensation, a food revolution, changing how Britain cooked as well as what we ate. It was the staple diet of a generation, whose name alone can conjure up the flavours of the faraway east. This is the story of the Vesta Beef Curry... pic.twitter.com/zokq8HQWmhShow this thread1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @jmanooch @Sean_Newhouse and
A case of professionalisation: Alfred Cortot, a pianist whose training was in the era of Franz Liszt, bu whose performance lasted well into recording era. People who hear his recordings are often shocked to hear how many wrong notes:https://theamericanscholar.org/in-praise-of-flubs/#.Xl6UpC2ZPRY …
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Replying to @jmanooch @Sean_Newhouse and
So in each case, public's bar is +/- now professional bar for competence, even professionalism and virtuosity. Autotune wouldn't be needed if that wasn't so! But: is this what the arts shld be? Cortot's alibii for wrong notes was ... he was a better musician than technicians!
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I really love the optimism of these examples! 
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