Music: What is it?

[OneThrow]

This is your brain on Music – by Daniel J. Levitin, is a brilliant book that every musician should read. In the blurb it says, “Levitin argues that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language.” The book offers up many topics that would be worthy of consideration in a forum such as this and I thought the heading of the first chapter would be a good start. “What is Music?”

“Music is an art form in which the medium is sound. …..The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike), "(art) of the Muses". - - - Wikipedia.

Okay so far.

John cage said, “There is no noise, only sound.” Presumably meaning any sound can be music.

Jean-Jacques Nattiez said, “the border between music and noise is always culturally defined…” Then went on to define music as, “…sound through time..”
(All of the above I got from Wikipedia.)

Is music really “only sound,” or “sound through time”? I mean it has to be possible to do better than that.

Levitin – “To many “music” can only mean the great masters ….. To others, “music” is Busta Ryhmes, Dr Dre, and Moby…”
“… to the legions of “traditional jazz” afficionados – anything made before 1940 or after 1960 isn’t really music at all….”
“…I had friends…who used to come over to my house to listen to the Monkeys because their parents forbade them to listen to anything but classical music…”
“When Bob Dylan played an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, people walked out…”
“The Catholic Church banned music that contained polyphony….. The church also banned the musical interval of an augmented fourth…”
These are all instances when music has been defined in a different way.
Varese said, “Music is organised sound.”

Levitin again -
“The basic elements of any sound are loudness, pitch, contour, duration (or rhtyhm), tempo, timbre, spacial location and reverberation." So that's sound.
Levitin - "Our brains organize these fundamental perceptual attributes into higher level concepts … and these include meter, harmony and melody.” And that's music?

I think that has taken the definition a bit further, but it seems to leave a lot out.

My definition of music would have to include some form of intent on that part of the composer, and I would have to have a composer. It would have to try to convey something i.e. there has to be a reason for its existence. There has to be a human element. That’s as far as I’ve got. I’m not sure that’s a workable definition of music. So I ask.

Music: What is it?

[Dannthr]

I define art as deliberate communicative expression. I do this to separate art from craft, which can be artful, but is deliberately functional rather than communicatively expressive.

If you're not expressing something, it's not art.

For example:

A heart surgeon exercises craft to suture a heart valve.
A serial killer exercises communicatvie expression when he cuts his victims heart into the shape of a butterfly.

A salesman exercises craft through command of voice and persuasion to sell something.
A singer exercises communicative expression through command of voice to intimate an idea.

Music is best defined, in my opinion, as the aural categorization of art.

[nickysnd]

OneThrow did it again. :D

First off, if to define is to limit, there can be no definition of music, just as well as there can be no definition of: Universe, love, soul, perfection, and a few other things of real importance. That's to clarify that I won't define anything in regard to music.

A short answer to your question: What is music? Simply put, music is: resonance.

Now, here we go:

Physicists and philosophers have observed that "things" do have an inexplicable capacity and tendency to resonate to each other. More than that, the sages have understood that there is order in the Universe, also that that order relies on one single basic principle, which may be called: resonance. Resonance is: active order. The intrinsic and dynamic order of the Universe. Pythagoras' harmony of the spheres.

Now, what does all that have to do with music? Answer: everything. It does have to do everything with music. Music is the dynamic interplay of various resonating tendencies, also further interplaying among the tensions resulted from previous interplays. Which do result in some further relative tensions that "dance" with each other and tend to resonate to each other. And so on. Ad infinitum. It's what makes music infinite, like Universe is. Sometimes, people just bump into that basic resonance (Mozart is one of those rare cases). However, most of the times, the resonance is not self-evident for our imperfect minds, so it has to be looked for, found, and revealed. That quest is called: harmonizing. Harmony is: finding out and pointing to what makes things fit together.

Music is the human representation of the unifying force in the Universe (which is: the principle of resonance.) Music is resonance that has become hear-able to human mind. Music is an attempt to identify the abstraction called resonance, to grasp it intellectually, and then to represent it by using the air as a medium for co-ordinating the vibrations of various bodies (called instruments). Individuals who busy themselves with trying to do that are called: composers.

Music is a human attempt to participate to the beautiful order of things. It is the best activity a human can attend to. Music makes human mind to resonate to the beautiful order of things. While doing this, music lifts an individual's state of mind, and, sometimes, makes it of the equal grandeur and splendor of the Universe, because it makes human mind resonate with the Universe. Music is: trying to understand and represent the Universe, and that by using the Universe's most basic force: the resonance. Resonance IS the Force. Use it, Luke! :)

Of course, there is also a "dark side," by which I mean the use of music for inferior human activities, which are not worth mentioning here, if at all.

[OneThrow]

First of all. I hope all postings are of the standard of the last two.

Second, music is important. It is of the deepest importance, otherwise why do some people deny other poeple's idea of music.

And lastly I agree that music is of the highest order. That a musical response is the brain making, of what it hears, something more than mere sound. It is a response of the higher functioning of the brain, an intellectual response.

[Counterpoint]

This is your brain on Music – by Daniel J. Levitin, is a brilliant book that every musician should read. In the blurb it says, “Levitin argues that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language.” The book offers up many topics that would be worthy of consideration in a forum such as this and I thought the heading of the first chapter would be a good start. “What is Music?”

Levitin's observation about music being fundamental to our species is a neat one. As far as I know every civilization has developed it in some way or another, and most commonly with a sense of spiritualism about it.

I would tend to agree with Dannthr about music being a form of communication and expression. Where I think music gets very interesting is when you start looking at the communication process itself.

The composer has something to say, and uses music to express that idea. The listener interprets the music and derives meaning from it. The part of this that is really curious is that sometimes the original message is completely lost, and sometimes several listeners might derive very different meanings from the music.

Nickysnd brought up some interesting thoughts about resonance... which is something I mostly agree with. Resonance between the composer, the music itself, and the listener certainly exists, but it seems like there also exists dissonance that will make one person embrace a musical work while another might recoil from it.

John Cage's opinion about music being any kind of noise does seem a little bit... absurd. But then again there seem to be some composers and listeners out there who thrive on random "indeterminate" music. Jazz could be described as a form of indeterminate music
since the composer will write nothing down about what a soloist is supposed to improvise, and every performance of that music will be different and possibly more or less engaging to listeners depending on the skill of the soloist.

I guess for me music is just about listening and embracing the ones that resonate the most on a personal level.

Of course, there is also a "dark side," by which I mean the use of music for inferior human activities, which are not worth mentioning here, if at all.

Now this last statement practically begs for further discussion... or am I just biting on a baited hook here? :D

- Matt

[nickysnd]

Now this last statement practically begs for further discussion... or am I just biting on a baited hook here? :D
No, you are only making it up. I don't care what you're biting on, but your presumption is plain wrong. That statement doesn't "practically beg" for anything and it is no "baited hook." It is just a matter of fact: it really is no worth to discuss here the use of music for inferior human activities. There are lots of individuals that confuse love with sexual desire and music with what they hear coming from their iPod. Here, just follow the OP's suggestion and stick with the superior nature of music while disregarding the inferior uses of it.

[Dannthr]

There can be no genuine exploration of music when so much subjectivity and judgement has been applied to its forum for meaning and the medium by which it is transmitted.

nickysnd explains music in the terms of a religious zealot.

I'm not sure where to begin when nickysnd slings phrases like 'inferior human activities' around, but I am more than willing, in spite of him, to embrace a discussion on the inferiority of humanity and how that relates to the meaning of music.

Perhaps I can speak of the resonance between two unromantically but sexually attracted people.

For anyone who rejects the potential for exploring the resonant beauty of a sexual relationship, which is so powerful in its own right that linguistically, we have evolved a way to communicate the distinction between love and sexuality, is only narrowing their own potential to offer an enlightening and edifying conversation.

How are we to explore HOW passion is expressed in music if nickysnd is to demand we filter our discussion to his subjective definition of inferiority and superiority.

Because it is and I wonder if nickysnd can even feel it. Perhaps he is jealous that other people feel the unbridled sexual passion in music and he can not.

Or maybe he is one of those old ladies who indignantly get ruffled up by the mere mention of hard, driving, penetrative music.

Or maybe he's jealous that he doesn't have an iPod.

In any case, if nickysnd is going to filter this discussion, I am going to directly defy that filtration for no other reason than I believe people who so zealously embrace religion should be defied--even if that religion is some new-age-crystal-resonating-sounds-of-the-universe-amalgam of intellectual snobbery.

[Spinning poo machine]

No offense nickysnd, but I can't agree with all that New Age terminology you slapped in to music. And sorry again, but I'm going to have to agree with Counterpoint and Dannthr about that last statement.

I'm not even going to attempt to try to define music because music is so diverse that any two persons will give you completely different (perhaps contradictory) definitions. For me, rap is just annoying beats repeated over and over again while a singer doesn't sing, while country is the EXACT same guitar tone repeated over and over again with a hick (no offense) accent from the singer. In spite of this, I have definitely heard cool rap and country songs... So in other words, I give up in trying to define music.

[nikolas]

Intention towards creating... sound(s) is music for me.

differently put:

Any organised system of sounds is music. But not only. Any philosophical unorganised sustem, or controlled unorganised (aleatoric) also is music. The lack of sounds, between an organised system of sounds, is also music... (rests, even bigger ones! :D)

Art, more general, differs from craft, or skill, with the addition of aesthetics! (not accidently, so(. An architect CAN be an artist, but not always. Sure they care about aesthetics, but not enough, as regards to skill, or practicallity, to alow them to be "pure" artists!

[OneThrow]

I'm not sure I understand what "the dark side" of music is. But music means many different things to different people and that's what makes trying to define it so fascinating, because everyone can be right and wrong in equal measure. But in pursuing an argument or discussion on what music is to each individual it may be possible to find a common thread that comes across as music. It may sneak through the opinions bearly noticed, or it may be glaringly obvious.

Music is something that people care passionately about, beacuse it means something, that's why I don't like the definition of music as merely "sound".

EDIT

I suppose the other thing is I didn't realise music could have a "dark side". Humans can, but can music. Humans can use music for dark things but does that help to answer the question - What is music?

[Dannthr]

Nikolas, you know I love you, but I respectfully disagree that art is differentiated from craft via aesthetics because I believe that the core of art is expression.

Here's my line of thinking:

If a window cleaner cleans windows with the intention of expressing some idea, whether well implemented or not, it is art. Even though aesthetically speaking, a window cleaner who cleans winddows because that is his job, who has no intention of expressing an idea through the cleaning of windows, it is no different.

Why do I think this?

Because I don't believe that aesthetics, purely speaking, are the medium of expression.

That is why I trace it back to the intention to communicate some kind of expression.



BTW, Nikolas, you should get your greek butt on AIM sometimes, you know I host a little composer chat from time to time.

[nickysnd]

There can be no genuine exploration of music when so much subjectivity and judgement has been applied to its forum for meaning and the medium by which it is transmitted.

nickysnd explains music in the terms of a religious zealot.

I'm not sure where to begin when nickysnd slings phrases like 'inferior human activities' around, but I am more than willing, in spite of him, to embrace a discussion on the inferiority of humanity and how that relates to the meaning of music.

Perhaps I can speak of the resonance between two unromantically but sexually attracted people.

For anyone who rejects the potential for exploring the resonant beauty of a sexual relationship, which is so powerful in its own right that linguistically, we have evolved a way to communicate the distinction between love and sexuality, is only narrowing their own potential to offer an enlightening and edifying conversation.

How are we to explore HOW passion is expressed in music if nickysnd is to demand we filter our discussion to his subjective definition of inferiority and superiority.

Because it is and I wonder if nickysnd can even feel it. Perhaps he is jealous that other people feel the unbridled sexual passion in music and he can not.

Or maybe he is one of those old ladies who indignantly get ruffled up by the mere mention of hard, driving, penetrative music.

Or maybe he's jealous that he doesn't have an iPod.

In any case, if nickysnd is going to filter this discussion, I am going to directly defy that filtration for no other reason than I believe people who so zealously embrace religion should be defied--even if that religion is some new-age-crystal-resonating-sounds-of-the-universe-amalgam of intellectual snobbery.
Your negative perception of "nickysnd" is your own problem and doesn't interest anybody else. If you have a personal issue with "nickysnd," use the PM service, that would more civilized than attacking "nickysnd" publicly. If you have issues with some points mentioned in this thread, then address those points, letting aside your perception of the person behind them, also without attempting to put that person down. The rule to follow is simple: just address the points, while leaving the person alone. Personal attacks are bad manners.

It is easy and inferior to make personal comments of the sort you just made. You have shown disrespect for both my views on music and for me as a person. I can accept one but not the other. One is mere misinterpretation, but the other is utterly insulting.

[Counterpoint]

it really is no worth to discuss here the use of music for inferior human activities.

I disagree. The mention of that "dark side of music" suggests that some people believe that music has a good half and a bad half. How can we discuss the overall picture if we cut half of it out?

Here, just follow the OP's suggestion and stick with the superior nature of music while disregarding the inferior uses of it.

OneThrow asked the question "What is music?", which does not suggest anything specific about "inferior uses", so I do not see how this could possibly be off-topic.

Here's my line of thinking:

If a window cleaner cleans windows with the intention of expressing some idea, whether well implemented or not, it is art. Even though aesthetically speaking, a window cleaner who cleans winddows because that is his job, who has no intention of expressing an idea through the cleaning of windows, it is no different.

Dan, I think this makes a lot of sense. I'd elaborate on it by pointing out that art can also depend on the observer. Sometimes the communication is two-way, but other times it can be one-sided.

The two-way communication is the most obvious one. The artist creates and the observer witnesses (though it's not always the same message that is sent and received).

Looking at a one-sided art, you could argue that some artists create but nobody is able to appreciate the art (sometimes even the artists themselves). So the intent for expression is there, the work has been done, but the communication is lost. (or maybe this is "failed art"?)

The other type of one-sided art is where something unintentionally becomes art, because some observer witnesses it as such. Consider for example a water pump in a field. It was built for practical reasons (survival, agriculture, etc..) but over time it stops being used, maybe gets rusty and weathered. So along comes an observer, who is immediately smitten with the scene and feels some sense of communication and meaning from it. They look at this rusty water pump and they feel possibly some sadness, solitude, negligence, etc...

How about something that occurs naturally, like a sunset? Some people see that as art. What about waves crashing on a beach or raindrops hitting a metal surface? Some people hear music in those things while others just hear random noises.

Is it possible that the observer is becoming the artist in these cases, by interpreting meaning from somewhere that none was intended?

I suspect that what John Cage meant is that music can depend just as much on the listener as it does on the composer.

- Matt

[Counterpoint]

It is easy and inferior to make personal comments of the sort you just made. You have shown disrespect for both my views on music and for me as a person. I can accept one but not the other. One is mere misinterpretation, but the other is utterly insulting.

I think he was just disagreeing with your first post and he made some interesting points. Why don't you PM him if you're so insulted by what he said, rather than sensationalizing it in this thread?

- Matt

[nickysnd]

I think he was just disagreeing with your first post
No, you have just made that up (again). Those remarks were clearly pointed towards "nickysnd," "he," and "him." Also, those remarks were of a clearly insulting type. That is what you called: "just disagreeing with a post." Would you like to see everybody disagreeing in that manner with "posts?" Like:
"Counterpoint speaks in terms of total relativity.

I'm not sure where to begin when Counterpoint slings phrases like 'John Cage meant' around, but I am more than willing, in spite of him, to embrace a discussion on the John Cage's 'meanings' and how they relate to music.

Because I wonder if Counterpoint can even understand it. Perhaps he is jealous that John Cage can mean something and he can not.

Or maybe he is one of those old ladies who indignantly get ruffled up by the mere mention of inferior and superior.

Or maybe he's jealous that he doesn't have a water pump.

In any case, if Counterpoint is going to filter this discussion according to his total relativity mind games, I am going to directly defy that filtration for no other reason than I believe people who so mindlessly embrace total relativity should be defied--even if that total relativity is some pseudo-academic-pomo-amalgam of intellectual snobbery."
So, to sum up -- "Counterpoint slings," "he is," "he cannot," "in spite of him," "his," etc. Now, how can you call that: "just disagreeing with a post"?!?

[nikolas]

Nikolas, you know I love you, but I respectfully disagree that art is differentiated from craft via aesthetics because I believe that the core of art is expression.I love you too man!

Here's my line of thinking:

If a window cleaner cleans windows with the intention of expressing some idea, whether well implemented or not, it is art. Even though aesthetically speaking, a window cleaner who cleans winddows because that is his job, who has no intention of expressing an idea through the cleaning of windows, it is no different.
Fair enough, BUT!

Right now, you are expressing an idea! Are you creating art? Not really... The window cleaner, if he only bothers for the message, he could be sending... a public letter, or posting on an internet forum! He choses to express him self "artistically", which deals with... aesthetics (good, ugly, nasty, awful, whatever).

Why do I think this?

Because I don't believe that aesthetics, purely speaking, are the medium of expression.

That is why I trace it back to the intention to communicate some kind of expression.
On a personal level, I find that art for the shake of art, or art (from the artist) without the need to communitcate is... useles. Very raugh, and I don't follow it, and I know it sounds rather... snobish by definition, but can't help it really! I try to communicate with everything I do! I don't do music, just because I have it inside, or because "I know" how to do it, or because people pay me to do it! It's a bit more than that...

BTW, Nikolas, you should get your greek butt on AIM sometimes, you know I host a little composer chat from time to time.Actually I DIDN'T know that! Promise to be here, the minute I settle in Greece! Will PM you for further details! ;)

[JCL]

http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/showthread.php?t=11429&highlight=What+is+music%3F

Didn't we just cover this topic a short time ago?

[OneThrow]

Thanks JCL. Damn I spent a few days wracking my brains for a good discussion thread and you'd already done it first. Damn. I'll check it out. I should have checked more thoroughly.

Okay, as I said in the opening post, I got this idea from the book, This is your brain on Music. It is possible the subject may be able to looked at from a different angle. If I have wasted everybody's time I apologise. Actually a nice discussion has been going, but I'll read the other thread.

Thanks JCL once again.

[freakmod]

Music: What is it? Well, well. Music is ...*head explodes*!!

[OneThrow]

Read the "Music" thread. Seems I walked into an elephant. Its my own fault, I had intended to PM a couple of people to ask if a “What is music?” thread would be worthwhile. Should have done it, me thinks.

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1 Mubác,!everqboey iãluuéng1ôheiz grándmi has a(idua og(whpô meûic0as,!that's what makes taking about it worthwhile.

2 Can I define it? Not a chance. Not a definitive definition. But its more fun for a bunch of musicians doing it, than a bunch of scientists.

3 What did I learn from the "Music" thread? Well, people use music for all sorts of things, people get all sorts of things out if it. We know it when we hear it. It seems to be a medium for some form of indefinable communication. I got the sense that words are just as inadequate for expressing ideas as music is, except they are more precise except when talking about music.

4 What could this thread have added?

I will leave the final word to Daniel J. Levitin.

"Moreover, those who study music - even musicologists and scientists- disagree about what is meant by some of these terms. We employ the term timbre, for example, to refer to the overall sound or tonal color of an instrument.... But an inability to agree on a definition has caused the scientific community to take the unusual step of throwing up its hands and defining timbre by what it is not. (The official definition of the Acoustical Society of America is that timbre is everything about a sound that is not loudness or pitch. So much for scientific precision!"

If scientists have difficulty with timbre what chance do we have with music? I thought give it to the experts and let's see.

Sorry to have bothered you all. Have a good one.;)

[nickysnd]

1 Music, everybody including their grandma has an idea of what music is, that's what makes taking about it worthwhile.
I take that as: if everybody and their grandma do have anything to say about <something>, that makes that particular <something> worth talking about. In other words: talks are reasons for talks. Which is convoluted like a snake eating its own tail.

2 Can I define it? Not a chance. Not a definitive definition. But its more fun for a bunch of musicians doing it, than a bunch of scientists.
In my first post I have suggested that going into the defining direction is doomed to failure. One can't possibly define anything. One can give an account of it instead, and that's about all one can do. People give different accounts, of course, because people are different. And then, they can discuss the points raised. That is true for those who are interested in the points. Those who are interested in attacking the individuals behind the points, they do that instead.

3 What did I learn from the "Music" thread? Well, people use music for all sorts of things, people get all sorts of things out if it. We know it when we hear it. It seems to be a medium for some form of indefinable communication. I got the sense that words are just as inadequate for expressing ideas as music is, except they are more precise except when talking about music.
Definitions are lame, at best, and misleading, at worst. Semantics attempt to establish common ground for intelligible discussions. But, oddly enough, by making appeal to definitions and semantics, that's a sure way to confuse oneself, everybody else, and their grandma. Nothing clearly defined can be said about anything, about anything of importance in any case. The definition of time, for example, says it's about duration. When you look at the definition of duration, it says it's something about time. Edifying, isn't it?:rolleyes: There are SO many definitions of music which contradict each other. The problem is: trying to define is limiting, and is fragmentating. When applying fragmentation and limitation to a continuum that has no limits (in this case, music), do you expect good results?

I will leave the final word to Daniel J. Levitin.

"Moreover, those who study music - even musicologists and scientists- disagree about what is meant by some of these terms. We employ the term timbre, for example, to refer to the overall sound or tonal color of an instrument.... But an inability to agree on a definition has caused the scientific community to take the unusual step of throwing up its hands and defining timbre by what it is not. (The official definition of the Acoustical Society of America is that timbre is everything about a sound that is not loudness or pitch. So much for scientific precision!"
That illustrates what I was just saying about definitions. And this one was not a lame definition but a misleading one: if timbre is "everything about a sound that is not loudness or pitch," then timbre is: duration. (and duration is time; and time is duration; which is timbre; which is duration; which is time; which is... ... ... semantics:D)

If scientists have difficulty with timbre what chance do we have with music? I thought give it to the experts and let's see.
There are no experts. There only are people who understand <something> correctly, and then they give an account of it, and there are people who understand that <something> incorrectly, and they also give an account of it. And then their grandmas pop in and give an account of it. Fortunately, their grandmas' cats can't talk.

As for musicologists -- from what I've seen, musicologists are experts in everything else but music: in sports, fashion trends, diet food, cars, etc.

[OneThrow]

I take that as: if everybody and their grandma does have anything to say about <something>, that makes that particular <something> worth talking about. In other words: talks are the reason for talks. Which is convoluted like a snake eating its own tail.


This is a talking shop after all. It’s the subject matter that makes it interesting. I can only connect with things that I identify and then give my take on it. And sometimes talking round a subject reveals just a little bit more about it.

Music is an interesting subject. Certainly a lot more interesting than other subjects I can think of that get talked about.

As for experts. Well I tend to consider musicians more expert on matters of music than scientists, or to put it another way if I went to an expert about music I would go to a musician rather than a scientist. Or to put it another way. The musicians here (compliment intended) would have opinions worth listening to. Or to put it another way, the people here are the only people likely to contribute to this thread so let’s hear what you have to say. Experts sounds more complimentary.

As for defining music. Does it matter whether it is defined or not, it’s the journey that interests me. I might not be able to get a working definition, but then I’m a sucker for lost causes. Einstein spent a lifetime looking for a unified theory of everything and never found it. Perhaps it was sitting in front of him all the time. It was music!:D Actually it’s probably music that divides us. But then again, it’s like the answer to the ultimate question in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 42, except what is the ultimate question? (Rewind substitution about to take place.) Music the answer to the ultimate question, but What is it?:rolleyes:

Ignore that last bit, just a flight of fancy.

EDIT

"If music be the food of love, play on." Who said that?:)

[nickysnd]

I know what you mean. Also, you know that I'm not against discussions. Discussions are about coming up with points, seeing other points, and then refining one's own. Which you just did. Many well refined (and NOT well defined:p) points in your last post. :cool:

EDIT

EDIT
"If music be the food of love, play on." Who said that?:)
Yes, that's the best thing that can be said about music: "play on."

Brilliant! Good ol' Will said it all, and in the best way.

[OneThrow]

Indeed.:)

Shakespeare. Now there's someone who had a way with words.:D

[OneThrow]

Maybe it is appropriate to hear what others have to say about music.

Hans Christian Anderson – “Where words fail, music speakes.”

Louis-Hector berlioz – “Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – “Music is the universal language of mankind.”

Confucius –“Music produces the kind of pleasure that human nature cannot do without.”

Johann Sebastian Bach – “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

Frederick Delius – “Music is an outburst of the soul.”

Friedrich Neitzsche – “Life without music would be an error.”

Aaron Copland –“To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”

Sergei Rachmaninov – “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”

[DanielLevitin]

In defining what is music, I think we want to be careful not to inadvertently exclude something that many others would consider to be music. If we posit that a composer has to be involved, and have had the intent to compose, that could exclude sounds we otherwise want, intuitively, to admit.

For example, many, including Mozart, consider birdsong to be music, but birds are not "composing" with "intent." Or consider another scenario. A bunch of people get together to jam, improvise, there is no attempt to compose anything, they're just having fun, and they intend for their work to be lost after the last note is sounded. Unbeknownst to them, someone has surreptitiously recorded the session and then releases it as a CD. That could be music (indeed, Paul Simons' "Graceland" began as jam sessions that he wrote lyrics and a melody on top of).

DL

[MrAlex]

With so many people having so many different ideas about what music is, and isn't, and whatever, isn't it perhaps more accurate to state generally that music is whatever we want it to be?

[JCL]

Thanks JCL. Damn I spent a few days wracking my brains for a good discussion thread and you'd already done it first. Damn. I'll check it out. I should have checked more thoroughly.

Not at all, OneThrow; Thank you for re-visiting this topic. It's a subject that can be discussed ad infinitum, but never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. As you can see, your post has triggered even more comment and opinion than the first one, I think. A rollicking good thread from everyone. Thanks.

[OneThrow]

With so many people having so many different ideas about what music is, and isn't, and whatever, isn't it perhaps more accurate to state generally that music is whatever we want it to be?

I think the problem with discussion about music is that, each definition tries to be all encompassing and then wants to exclude everyone else's idea.:D Often it also includes the idea of what music is not. Trying to pin a label on music reveals as much about the person constructing the label as about the label itself.

I mean I love the idea that - music ain't music unless it has a beat. Now in many ways I grew up with that scenario. Popular music in whatever shape or form almost invariably has drums thumping out the beat, or at least it did for me. As soon as someone played a piece of Mozart it emptied the room or it was soon turned off. And that's real life. But of course Mozart does have a beat.

Yeah music is a slippery customer, it means different things to different people for sure.


Not at all, OneThrow; Thank you for re-visiting this topic. It's a subject that can be discussed ad infinitum, but never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. As you can see, your post has triggered even more comment and opinion than the first one, I think. A rollicking good thread from everyone. Thanks.

Thanks for the endorsement JCL. As a subject it’s got me fascinated.

[nickysnd]

I will leave the final word to Daniel J. Levitin.
"Moreover, those who study music - even musicologists and scientists- disagree about what is meant by some of these terms. We employ the term timbre, for example, to refer to the overall sound or tonal color of an instrument.... But an inability to agree on a definition has caused the scientific community to take the unusual step of throwing up its hands and defining timbre by what it is not. (The official definition of the Acoustical Society of America is that timbre is everything about a sound that is not loudness or pitch. So much for scientific precision!"
That has to be a mistake. I refuse to believe that members of the Acoustical Society of America could come up with such a thing. So, if we observe a sound while ignoring any info on loudness and pitch, then what remains to be observed is called timbre. That is nonsense! Observing the timbre is all about analyzing closely pitch and loudness, as opposed to dismissing them.

Let us consider an oboe sound, say a F4 played in mf for three seconds. Question: if we dismiss any info regarding pitch and loudness, what then remains to be known about that sound? The correct answer is: its duration, i.e. three seconds. In order to observe its timbre we must pay attention precisely to pitch and loudness. If we are to understand what timbre is, we should look at pitch and loudness, only we should look at them a bit deeper. First, what we know about timbre? Timbre is that quality of a sound which makes the sound's source recognizable. For scientific minds, timbre is graphically represented by a loudness map of the harmonic spectrum. What's a harmonic spectrum? To stick with our case, along with our oboe's F4 in mf, we also (subconsciously) hear some other (higher) pitches at various (softer) loudness. The proportion among the loudness-values of those pitches (called harmonic pitches), that proportion is precisely what gives the oboe its timbre. So, timbre is all about pitches and loudness. If we ignore the info on pitches and loudness, we will never know anything about timbre. One most fundamental thing about sound is this: what is commonly called "one sound" is actually a combination of many simultaneous sounds (i.e. the harmonic pitches, also called partials, which are graphically represented as a harmonic spectrum map, or a sonogram).

"One sound" is very much like a chord. What those experts said (if they really said it) is the equivalent of this: "a chord has nothing to do with notes." Which would be nonsense, because a chord has everything to do with notes. A chord is what we hear when at least three different notes are played at the same time, and the quality of a chord depends on the distances between those notes. Same about timbre, it's made out of several harmonic pitches, only that the quality of a timbre depends on the loudness-values of its harmonic pitches. But Daniel J. Levitin must have got it wrong. An official definition of the Acoustical Society of America cannot sound like this: "timbre is everything about a sound that is not loudness or pitch." Actually, the timbre of a sound is given by the loudness-values of the harmonic pitches that that sound is built of.

EDIT:
Here's the definition of anything: Something is everything but what it ain't.
:D

[OneThrow]

You're right Nicky, that has to be an error. I've checked it and the quote is from page 19 of This is Your Brain on Music exactly as I transcribed. So to be fair I would have to ask what is the real definition of timbre by the Acoustical Society of America. The words I quoted were Levitin's words not the words of the Acoustical Society of America.
My reason for the quotation was an ironical take on leaving the final word to someone who cannot have the final word on a subject where no one can have the final word.:D I was if you like being mischievous. What I should have said, being honest, is that no one can have the final word. But what I can say now is scientists are open to question, authors are open to question, publishers are open to question, heck everyone is open to question and it still doesn't get us any closer to answering the most important question. Music: What is it?

[OneThrow]

This may be of interest.

The American National Standards Institute (1973) defines ... timbre as "..that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which a listener can judge that two sounds, similarly presented and having the same loudness and pitch, are different". Timbre therefore is defined in a purely negative manner as "everything that is not loudness, pitch, or spatial perception".

It is from:

Pitch and Timbre: Definition, Meaning and Use A.J.M. Houtsma

I think this sheds light on the quotation I used earlier. Timbre seems to be one of the more difficult musical qualities to define with any confidence.

[nickysnd]

If we think of music as "art expressed through sounds," in the same way as we may think of sculpture as "art expressed through material solid forms," then timbre must be as important for music as stone (wood, etc.) is important for sculpture. But the timbre's importance is not intrinsic to music, but only externally constructed. And its importance has come a long way. Let's just remember that Bach indicated that his Art of Fugue may be played on whatever instruments, single instruments or ensembles, voices, etc. — doesn't matter. That clearly shows that Bach did see the music as independent from physical sounds. Which is not a mere opinion, and it is not only correct, but it is simply the truth about music in its purest form a human being can attend to. The space where music lives is not some external place where air molecules (or people) can dance. That space is: a special kind of mind — a composer's mind. Music, by its essence, is spiritual. Its relation with the physical world (air molecules) is only secondary.

Of course, people are lazy and prefer to sit back and passively listen to their own excited eardrums (or to merely hear them), as opposed to actively attend the music through studying the composers' scores. Also, a composer needs to make a living, so he must comply with various inferior uses of music. Simply put, people want to hear the music through their ears, otherwise they won't open their wallets. And here is something that shows both the place of music and its use — a dialog between Schikaneder and Mozart (from "Amadeus" of course):
— What have you got for me? Is it finished?
— What?
— What? The vaudeville, what'd you think?
— Yes.
— Can I see it?
— No.
— Why not?
— Because there's nothing to see. (He giggles triumphantly. Schikaneder stares at him.)
— Look, I asked you if we could start rehearsal next week and you said yes.
— Well, we can.
— So let me see it. Where is it?
(Mozart, with a bright, rather demented smile presents his head to Schikaneder.)
— Here. It's all right here, in my noodle. The rest is just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling. Bibbling and scribbling. Would you like a drink?
[...]
(Schikaneder suddenly takes Mozart by the arms, and speaks to him with intense appeal.)
— Listen, Wolfi. Write it. Please. Just write it down. On paper. It's no good to anyone in your head.
Two things to consider: Where the music is — in the composer's mind. What use is for the music inside his mind — his own use.

Of course, music can "be" in some other places, in some other forms, for some other uses. I just wanted to point that music — in its true form and nature, in its purest state and highest expression available to humans — exists in one single place: inside the composer's mind. The next best thing to that is to study the composer's score and to try to attend that music in the way he was attending it. Everything else is just going down the ladder to more and more inferior uses of music.

Excepting a certain class of composers, nobody knows what music really is. Music is a sort of an abstract sculpture (poetry, drama, philosophy) inside a composer's mind. For others, music may well "be" the drums accompaniment of a cannibalistic ritual. And everything in between. Music "may be" whatever one makes out of it. MrAlex, hats off! you really nailed it —
With so many people having so many different ideas about what music is, and isn't, and whatever, isn't it perhaps more accurate to state generally that music is whatever we want it to be?
Which of course doesn't mean that giving various accounts on music is not useful. Discussions are useful.

[OneThrow]

Simply put, people want to hear the music through their ears, otherwise they won't open their wallets.

I am going to play devil's advocate here and say, -or they won't believe the music exists. Which brings me to my question. If there were no sound how would music manifest itself?

How would the composer communicate his music to others without sound?

I can see where you are coming from, but I am wondering if sound is more than a necessary evil. I am wondering if sound is the key to unlock the door.

I see it as sound of a higher level that makes music possible. It is musical sounds that excite me. Even when reading a musical score it is the sounds in my head that make it real.

The sound of music may well be a lower form of musical manifestation. And your point about music in a composer's mind makes sense, I've heard it expressed before, but I think musical sound is vital for music to exist at all. Without it we would have the idea of music without the proof.

Like I said, devil's advocate, remember.

[nickysnd]

I am going to play devil's advocate ...
You rather sound like the advocate of common sense.

I never implied sound to be an "evil," not even a necessary evil. Sound is only a movement of molecules, it is only physical, it's trite mechanics. My point was that music is spiritual in essence and sound is just secondary to it. Michelangelo had a similar approach to sculpture: he was looking for a while at the big shapeless stone in front of him, while he was finishing the sculpture inside his head. The sculpture was already done, there, in his noodle, before he even touched the chisel. He then only had to remove the unnecessary part of the stone to reveal the material representation of the statue from his mind. Same with music expressed through sounds: the acoustic part of it is only a representation of the vision existing in the composer's mind. The real music is his vision. Everything else is just degrading it to various inferior levels. To try to understand the composer's vision is the most accurate way to attend to music. It's like looking at Michelangelo's David and try to see not a naked male body made of stone, but Michelangelo's vision of that statue. To see the idea. To get it. Same with music. To hear beyond the sounds, and to see beyond the graphic score. It doesn't even matter how far or close one gets to the composer's intentions and vision. It's all about this type of attitude that opens one's mind to the real music.

But you are right of course, as Schikaneder was: music has to be put down (no pun intended) on paper and/or played, no doubt about it. But that's only the map, not the territory. The territory, the real music, has to be re-imagined, according to the map, while trying to "see" it through the "eyes" of the composer. Again, the reward is not in the result, but in the effort.

[Dannthr]

Right now, you are expressing an idea! Are you creating art? Not really...

On the contrary, my friend. My degree is in Creative Writing, and as such I have already utilized my artistic training in this thread.

As you may have noticed, I recently replied with a post essentially delineating my thoughts on the separation of art and craft. Meanwhile, I exercised my expertise to enrage a single poster who I felt clung too desperately, too feverishly, to his religiosity for his own invented new-age morality on music and resonance. Which he did without at least bringing in some kind of larger or more abstract perspective, all while attempting to define some wacky dichotomous truth about what is good and or bad music.

As if that was part of the original question.

Digression aside, my point, in whole here, is that art is employed more frequently than people expect.

Its failure is more than likely found in its effectiveness rather than some aesthetic judgement.

That is why I leave aesthetics out of the definition.

So we can avoid a nickysnd-like judgement.

[nikolas]

I would imagine that anything we write is a result of some artistic merit, at least! So from that point of view, you are right. Since we care about what we say, and how we say it, it automatically becomes... art. Is this what you're saying?

If so, I would agree, but certainly in a small extend... There are other things in life which are much more geared to be relied on aesthetics. And I have to draw a line, when a text is art (like a poem maybe), and when it is not (a goverment directive for example...)

Do notice that I don't define aesthetics, nor good or bad, superior or inferior. Such judgements are not for me! ;)

[Marko]

Lots of events and acts can be musical without being music. Birds may be musical, but I don't think they make music. I can practice a scale on a piano and I may be musical, but I don't make music in this case.

I tend to think that John Cage's 5:33 of Silence is a work of art, but it's not music. It may be musical given the art world and conceptual background in which it is typically received.

Jerrold Levinson defines music as sounds that are man-made or arranged for the purpose of enriching experience via active engagement (e.g., through performing, listening, dancing) where sounds are primarily attended to for their sonic qualities.


Levinson is a contemporary American philosopher.

Marko

[nikolas]

You must have a different edition than mine, of John's Cage work! Mine lasts 4'33"...

(lame I know... :P)

[nickysnd]

where sounds are primarily attended to for their sonic qualities.
As opposed to...? What other qualities do sounds have, besides their sonic qualities?

[Marko]

Thanks for the correction

Well, I suppose the piece seems interminably long and uneventful, and I end up thinking it is longer than 4'33". I really wasn't sure if it was 4, 5 or 6.

I've seen it 'performed' twice. (I wonder if there are any brilliant or amazing 'performances' of it!)

There are a lot of references to it on youtube.

Marko

[nickysnd]

Thanks for the correction
It was not a correction but a question in regard to this:
Jerrold Levinson defines music as sounds that are man-made or arranged for the purpose of enriching experience via active engagement (e.g., through performing, listening, dancing) where sounds are primarily attended to for their sonic qualities.
So, music is: purposeful man-made sounds that are primarily attended to for... for what? For their sonic qualities? Then what are those sonic qualities, precisely? And which other qualities do sounds have, besides their sonic qualities?

[Enrique]

I don't subscribe to Cages mindsturbatory dabblings.. his "silent" work is anything but, and whatever his true intentions were, could only be guessed especially after quotes like, "My work became an exploration of non-intention." -- Cage, "An Autobiographical Statement" in Kostelanetz, 1993

So his intention was to have no intentions? How can one have no intentions if there is already that underlying intention to have no intentions??!?

anyhoo... the music will always "speak" louder than any words or theory or our own desires to categorize and explain it, it just is.

In the words of Angelica Pickles from the old Rugrats cartoon (lol!), "If you have to ask, you'll never know."

what is music to me? something beautiful, something free? i feel like it's similar to trying to explain ones feelings.. our own words will always fall short of what it truly is.. but it's fun to try i guess.

.02 :D

[nickysnd]

My degree is in Creative Writing, and as such I have already utilized my artistic training in this thread. ... I exercised my expertise to enrage a single poster ...
No, Mr Artistically Trained Creative Expert, the "rage" you are talking about is inexistent — you have only invented it, while missing the disgust, which was real. So no reason for self-praise, what you have utilized in posts #7 (and, now, #36) was only your capacity to misunderstand and to insult.

[DallasComposer]

OneThrow ... are you Philip?

;)

http://whatismusic.info/

http://whatismusic.info/articles/TheQuestionWhatIsMusic.html

http://www.1729.com/music/whatismusic.html

[OneThrow]

Thanks DallasComposer. No I am not Philip. I have never been Philip and I am never likely to be Philip. And further more who is this Philip character anyway?:D (Pretend indignation.) Interesting idea though.

Actually he says Music is a mystery. I don't believe music is a mystery, I know what music is, you know what music is, we all know what music is, its just that when it comes to explaining it, its rather difficult to put into words.

And as has been shown when approached from a scientific perspective, some really strange theories come to the fore (timbre for example).

Thanks for pointing out the articles, I much prefer the explanations being given here.;) They seem a lot more fun.

[Marko]

nickysnd,

Sorry about the confusion. I was responding to Nikolas who pointed out the error I made in the title of Cage's notorious piece.

With regard to your question about sonic qualitites, note that when we listen to someone speak we don't listen to the sounds the person emits for their sonic qualities. We listen to the sounds for the meanings and concepts that we associate or attach to the sounds. So listening to a lecture would be listening to something other than the sonic qualities of the sounds being made. Levinson may be saying that these 'attendings' to the sound are not for their sonic quality, but for something else they serve to express.

He may be making a point about music living on the surface (my metaphor, sorry). Music may be completely pre-predicative and wholly unlike language in this respect. The concepts (if there are any) that operate in our experience of music are nothing like the concepts we ordinarily employ when we are talking, reading, or writing. The assertion that music is a language is a wrong headed notion on this line of thought.

Notice he does not list singing lyrics in his example. Lyrics may be sounds that we attend to not simply for their sonic quality, but for the concept or idea to which they refer .On the other hand, pure vocalise may be sound that we attend to simply and exclusively for its sonic quality.

Music lives at the surface! We focus on the sounds in themselves.

Marko

[nickysnd]

Music lives at the surface! We focus on the sounds in themselves.
That is an interesting idea. On the surface... Sounds do end in themselves... There's nothing beyond the pleasure to attend to the sounds... -- There is something true to this. Floating on the surface is kinda cozy. The only problem I see is that this theory doesn't account for the difference we make between (say) frogs' croaking and symphonies.

A don't think that, when listening to music, people only focus on the sounds in themselves. Beyond the pleasure to hear those good-sounding instruments, there is something more. Something that is not mere pleasure. Something meaningful. Something that eludes us. Or it doesn't elude us but only eludes the part of our mind that wants to express that <something more> into words. Among many other things, music is a slap in the face of those who hold on to the belief that everything can be translated into words.

I think sounds are, like the symbols in a score, only a sonic representation of music (similar to the graphic representation of music, i.e. the scores). Sounds and scores, they're both just sonic, respectively graphic maps. A map is only the representation of a territory, not the territory itself. The sounds, they are not the music. The sounds, they do only hint towards music, they only suggest it, indirectly.

No, music doesn't live at the surface. Music lives far beyond surface. Music lives somewhere else, it lies somewhere deeper and higher at the same time. Music lives in some other place, in some other dimension. The surface of sounds is just a map -- just a wavering, vibrating, fluttering mirror. Music is the real territory, which we can almost "see" through the surface of that mirror of sounds. Music is the truth. Sounds are only the reflections of it, they're the illusion. It's a funny paradox: the abstraction called music is real and true, yet elusive when one tries to catch it, while the mechanical movements of physical molecules are observable and measurable, and yet they are the misleading illusion.

Mistaking the music for the sound of it is probably the biggest and the most spread out confusion in history.

[OneThrow]

I suspect there is also a musical quality in some poetry. Poetry that has rhythm and metre and the sense of poetry often comes from the sound of the words. Whereas the logic of words means something else. Poetry may in some senses be a halfway house to music.

And music is of course never mere sounds. We listen to musical sounds for the music therein. It takes more than just sounds to produce music.

[DallasComposer]

(I know this may sound a bit ‘August Rush’ but I swear it’s true)

It occurred to me …

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, settling my chattering mind and finding that sweet spot of stillness, my mind became aware. I heard the clock on my wall ticking a steady 60 bpm then I listened more, a bird in one of my backyard trees started doing a few ‘caw’s’ in a playful rhythm to the ticking clock. I started to feel delight. Then a dog (pit bulls on the run in the hood) shouted out a few barks again, in a rhythm that worked with the clock and the bird. Various ambient sounds (pads?) faded in as my mind became more aware of them, air con blowing (it’s hot in Texas), crickets etc.

Then I realized ... music is what I choose to listen to, which is wide open.

[MPDmike]

In talking about music I think we sometimes forget that we are basically animals. We did not develop ears to listen to music but rather to survive in a hostile world. Out there in the forest, we can disregard the wind rustling the leaves as being non-threatening, but the crack of a twig underfoot could appear to indicate danger.

I believe the way our brains are wired is to make sense of the sounds around us, so that we are aware of what is happening in our surroundings and to enable us to communicate with other humans. Music only came into the equation in the last part of our evolution.

It is the messages in music that we latch onto, and they mean something through associations with our memories and our ability to decode the organised sound. Music without organisation has no message and has no interest.

[OneThrow]

In defining what is music, I think we want to be careful not to inadvertently exclude something that many others would consider to be music. If we posit that a composer has to be involved, and have had the intent to compose, that could exclude sounds we otherwise want, intuitively, to admit.

For example, many, including Mozart, consider birdsong to be music, but birds are not "composing" with "intent." Or consider another scenario. A bunch of people get together to jam, improvise, there is no attempt to compose anything, they're just having fun, and they intend for their work to be lost after the last note is sounded. Unbeknownst to them, someone has surreptitiously recorded the session and then releases it as a CD. That could be music (indeed, Paul Simons' "Graceland" began as jam sessions that he wrote lyrics and a melody on top of).

DL

I quote this with the greatest respect. It points up something very important. Music does not have to be composed for it to be music. The sounds of nature are often an inspiration for music and indeed can be musical. Who am I to argue with Mozart when he considers birdsong to be music. And neither can I dismiss improvisations captured without the knowledge of the performers who clearly intend the music not to be heard again.

When I was thinking that music should be composed with intent I was thinking that music communicates. That the workings of a muscial mind is evidenced in the music, in the case of Mozart, a great musical mind. But to say music should be defined as only being this would be wrong.

[nickysnd]

In defining what is music, I think we want to be careful not to inadvertently exclude something that many others would consider to be music.
I quote this with the greatest respect.
We should all have the deepest respect not only for everybody's opinions on music, but also for everybody's grandmas' opinions on music, also for their grandmas' cats' opinions on music. (fortunately, the mice have been eaten, along with their opinions on music, so the chain of Political Correctness ends here.)

In DanielLevitin's oh so considerate opinion, everything anyone says it's music, then that's music -- because we want to be be careful not to inadvertently exclude anyone's opinion. Exclusions are bad. Inclusions are good. So we should rather include everything. The sound of a cat's happy stomach after the ingestion of a mouse, that's music -- for we should NOT exclude the cat's opinion.

Suddenly, I have a strong feeling that the eaten mouse's opinion on music might have been more meaningful than DanielLevitin's opinion on music, than everybody's opinions on music, including their grandmas' opinions on music AND their grandmas' cats' opinions on music, all combined. Tragically, the mouse's opinion on music has been lost. Forever. It's a sad, a very sad, sad world.

[OneThrow]

Thank's nicky.

[nickysnd]

Not to be misunderstood, "everyone" includes myself (exclusions are bad, remember?;)): my opinion on music is of equal value of truth as grandma's cat's opinion on music. That is, in DanielLevitin's type of rationale, which only accounts for Political Correctness, and not for music.

[OneThrow]

Thanks nicky for the clarification. I treat everyone's opinion with equal misunderstanding. And of course the greatest respect.;) But then you already know that.

[DallasComposer]

In defining what is music, I think we want to be careful not to inadvertently exclude something that many others would consider to be music. If we posit that a composer has to be involved, and have had the intent to compose, that could exclude sounds we otherwise want, intuitively, to admit.

For example, many, including Mozart, consider birdsong to be music, but birds are not "composing" with "intent." Or consider another scenario. A bunch of people get together to jam, improvise, there is no attempt to compose anything, they're just having fun, and they intend for their work to be lost after the last note is sounded. Unbeknownst to them, someone has surreptitiously recorded the session and then releases it as a CD. That could be music (indeed, Paul Simons' "Graceland" began as jam sessions that he wrote lyrics and a melody on top of).

DL

Dan .. is this you?
http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Levitin

[OneThrow]

This may be of interest.

http://www.open2.net/historyandthearts/arts/music251204.html

I hate those "earworms". But I've never had a 12 tone earworm. I wonder why? And that Mission Impossible theme sticks with me for all sorts of other reasons. :cool::p;)

[nickysnd]

This may be of interest.

http://www.open2.net/historyandthearts/arts/music251204.html

I hate those "earworms". But I've never had a 12 tone earworm. I wonder why? And that Mission Impossible theme sticks with me for all sorts of other reasons. :cool::p;)
"Earworms" is a horrendous term for easy to remember tunes. If one is possessed by some tunes, or by suicidal thoughts, or by any other things inside his own mind, then the "worm" is him and him alone.

One interesting thing in that article, not about WHAT music is but more about HOW music is:

"Earworms". He has identified three characteristics they all have in common: there’s usually an element of repetition - like in the theme from the film "Mission: Impossible", simplicity is a second characteristic - that's why children's tunes are more likely to stick with you than more complex material, and incongruity - when the tune offers you something unexpected, like the rhythm of the song "America" from West Side Story.

It is not his "earworms" that have those three characteristics, but each and every piece of music. He said: repetition, simplicity, and variation. What he calls "simplicity" is something that largely depends on personal opinions (one's simplicity is another one's complexity) -- so let's forget about "simplicity." What remains is: repetition and variation. Same and different. He said his "earworms" are based on these. Wrong. ALL music, without qualification, is based on them. Those two are the most basic principles of music. His point is that mixing H and O results in an obsessive beverage. Wrong, again. Mixing those things does result in a beverage, period. It is called water. :)

But if by "simplicity" he means things like Beethoven's 5th beginning, or like the "jaws" major second, then that still doesn't account for obsession, but only for how easy is to remember those "simple" things. Example: "To be or not to be" is easy to remember, isn't it? But is it simple? Is it obsessive? I think is neither, it's just easy to remember. I don't know and I don't care what accounts for obsession, that's a discussion for psychologists, nothing to do with music.

One thing might be true though: the lack of musical training may result in inability to control one's own mind in regard to music. Like an incapacity to hit the Stop button. Or the Play button. Not to mention the Record button.;)

[nickysnd]

correction: I meant the "jaws" minor second of course

[OneThrow]

"Earworm" is a horrible term. In popular tunes I think a valid substitute would be the "hook". Now the "hook" is deliberately composed to be memorable. And I don't think there is any rule to it other than "you know you've got one when you get one", maybe someone else can give a sure fire way to compose a hook. It has to be something "catchy":D.

Anyway, "earworm" sounds like a term invented by someone who wanted to be known for inventing a term or a worm or an "earworm" even. Perhaps he should be forever known as the "terminator". :D.Oops. Sorry about that it must be silly season.

Now there's nothing wrong with tunes that go round and round your head. I often have a movement from a symphony or sonata, or even a pop song in my mind. I wouldn't call any of those an "earworm".

[OneThrow]

Okay, it’s taken me a couple of days to mull over some issues. Does music have to have a composer and does it have to be intended to music before it can be regarded as music?

Taken together it means we are considering music from the listener’s point of view. So, does everything the listener regards as music, turn out to be music? I think we are getting into a grey area. Potentially in that scenario every sound can be music, but would it be worthwhile including every sound as music? If you did, what would be the point of having the category called music at all? Does that mean we should categorise music for what it does, i.e. the effect it has? I can dance to a washing machine, does that mean when I want to listen to music I turn the washing machine on? Does that warrant classifying washing machine sounds as music? If washing machine sounds are music then that means we are accepting it because of its rhythmic qualities and I wonder whether there is an argument for saying that there is such a thing as “pre-music”. Sounds that have musical elements but don’t quite make it into the real thing.

Again, should a definition of music really be along the lines that it is the sum of its parts? If it has harmony, melody, rhythm, timbre it is music. I think there is an argument for saying that we sometimes hear things that sound like music, but we are being tricked, like an aural illusion, as opposed to an optical illusion. The washing machine sounds like music, but it’s just a washing machine making a washing machine noise. If a composer samples that sound and does something with it, then maybe it becomes part of a musical composition, then that may become music. But then it may not, because subjectively to the listener, the way it is used does not sound like music.

So should music be classified for its subjective nature, should the listener have the final word on what is music? I will leave that question open, for now at least.

Freeform improvisation not intended to be heard by anyone else and lost forever, but secretly recorded. If there is no intent to communicate with anyone other than the musicians playing the music, does that mean it is not music?
No, that in all probability is music. Without hearing it, I would not be able to judge. But I wouldn’t eliminate it. Why? For one it was intended to be music at the moment it was played and two it was communicated with the people taking part, even if there was only one performer present it would still be music. Communicating with oneself through music is what many people do most of the time, its called practice. Does a freeform improvisation have a composer? Well even if performed with a group it does, it has as many composers as is playing. It may be lax in rules and/or form, but the composers collectively make the music, so it just has several composers, otherwise I’ve just eliminated jazz.

[pietro7050@verizon.net]

A woman works in a field long before recorded history. She hums a tune. The tune she hums is pleasing to her co-workers, she is asked to hum it again time to time. It evokes emotion and thought, and for a moment the work is forgotten, there is transcendence. Emotions turn to thought, and back again as time passes. Perhaps the thought turns to some action, or inspires an idea that improves lives, but even if that wasn't the case there was color to an otherwise grey existence.

That is were I believe music began, and what it is.

[soleros]

The best way to explain music, the only way, in fact, is to play it / listen to it / hear it.

I'm sure I'm a little out of context here since I haven't had the time to read the entire seven-page thread, but it seems to be a great deal of, forgive me, scrambling and masturbating in search of words for something for which words cannot be analogous, and the reason so many words have been cast about here is that simple fact. You will try forever to verbalize what you could simply play—remember the thing itself, here. Don't tell: Show. Written music is about as far as one can stray from the experience of hearing it and still convey a facsimile, and even that depends on the reader conjuring that facsimile accurately. The best way to do it accurately is to hear played what the composer intended. Again: Hearing. Not seeing.

Music is the listener's response to sound. Sound is necessary for music (unless we want to expand our definition, but that seems to be outside the scope of the general context of this conversation). Composers are people who have become skilled, through one avenue or another, in producing the perturbations that they or those others for whom they create find pleasing. That unmistakable pleasure response is enough of a definition that something "is" music. Attend to your own response and you will know. There is nothing objective about it, although a great many people have spent and will continue to spend a lot of time trying to stake out sanctified turf upon which to have such arguments.

If someone doesn't respond the way you do, that doesn't make the perturbation you have offered not music. The answer to this question can only ever be: For whom, when?

This is frustrating when one believes there must be a universal truth, but the frustration is entirely between the explainer and himself. Sound doesn't care. When we like what we hear, that is music. And we might learn a great deal about others' response to certain sounds by using language to discuss those responses (it is *all* a cycle of perturbation and response, including what's inside the head of the composer; something arises and the first response is to play with and develop it further), but it is all the game of explaining. None of the words in this thread tell me what music is, and they don't have to and they can't.

And it's pointless to ask, "So, does this mean that if we don't like what we hear it isn't music?" No, see above. For whom, when? The experience of pleasure is only the most obvious and, of course, the most significant response, because it is the response that inspires us to continue the experience and to create new ones, and to share them. Everyone resonates in her own way to what she hears. To each his own.

As an occasion for battle and intellectual vertigo, however, it's a wonderful question, because it cannot be definitively answered. Listening is all there is. We all know what music is, or we wouldn't be here playing with this question. We're already in that shared context.

Maybe it's just me, but if someone asks me what something is and I have the choice of offering them the experience or an explanation, I always opt for the experience. It saves me from becoming speechless through knowing I cannot provide a substitute for the thing itself. Does it grab your attention, and are you moved? That is enough, and the broad range of responses individual humans have is what gives us the broad range of sounds created intentionally by humans that we call music. It is a lifelong exploration for each of us.

[nickysnd]

So, as MrAlex has put it, "music is whatever we want it to be." The only two requirements would be: 1) to sound, and 2) someone to call it music. If someone calls a sound: music -- then that's music. In DanielLevitin's way of thinking: it's all about avoiding exclusions. I believe that everything has been included. So, I guess the question has been answered.

[OneThrow]

Unless you think differently, of course.;)

[nickysnd]

Unless you think differently, of course.;)
The mainstream (read layperson's) way of thinking is that music depends on sounds. Now, what is called "sounds" is: mechanical movements of air molecules, physical vibrations. Depending on how they are perceived, those vibrations may sometimes be called sounds, sometimes they may be called noise. And here is where the story ends. (some go further and call sounds: music. But that's just a confusion, and an abuse, ultimately.)

Now, here is a completely different story: There is music. Music may make use of sounds, but it is beyond them. To music, sounds are only sonic signs useful for making itself (i.e. the music) apparent to the human ears. Music is an abstraction. Sound is: useful vibrations. Noise is: useless vibrations. Sound and noise are relative notions, for they depend on what someone thinks of vibrations. Music is not sounds-that-we-like. Music is an absolute notion, because it doesn't depend on what one may think of it after lunch. Music is just there. Some may perceive it as it is, as music, some others may perceive that as sounds, and some others may perceive that as noise. But it doesn't matter how it is perceived. Music remains music, regardless. Without qualifications. In absolutes. Undefinable. Confusing music with the sound of it is only that: a confusion. A widespread incorrect opinion, nothing more. Also, it's so very easy to call any sound: music. But that's just an abuse.

[OneThrow]

The mainstream (read layperson's) way of thinking is that music depends on sounds.

I think of music and the sound of music as being inseparable.


Now, here is a completely different story: There is music. Music may make use of sounds, but it is beyond them. To music, sounds are only sonic signs useful for making itself (i.e. the music) apparent to the human ears. Music is an abstraction. Sound is: useful vibrations. Noise is: useless vibrations. Sound and noise are relative notions, for they depend on what someone thinks of vibrations. Music is not sounds-that-we-like. Music is an absolute notion, because it doesn't depend on what one may think of it after lunch. Music is just there.

I agree there is something more to music than mere sound. I do not think musical sounds alone make music. I do not think music can exist without sounds. I think musical sounds trigger parts of the mind that words do not. And I think we are wired for music. I think music, is what ordered musical sounds creates. And music is a means of communication without words. A picture for example says in an instant what may take many pages of words and moving pictures say even more. Yet words can express a person’s thoughts that are not easily potrayed in pictures. Music communicates thoughts and ideas that are either difficult or not possible with words or pictures.


Music is just there. Some may perceive it as it is, as music, some others may perceive that as sounds, and some others may perceive that as noise. But it doesn't matter how it is perceived. Music remains music, regardless. Without qualifications. In absolutes. Undefinable.

In many ways defining music is like pinning a tail on a shadow. You know something is there, you can see evidence of its existence and yet when you pin it down you’ve missed it completely.

[pettinhouse.com]

I don't know if it has already written here but Claude Debussy said:

“Music is the space between the notes”

Andrea

[nickysnd]

I don't know if it has already written here but Claude Debussy said:

“Music is the space between the notes”

Andrea
And space is the time between inches. And time is the space between seconds. And seconds are the times between spaces. And inches are the spaces between times. And truth is false, and falsity is truthfulness. Also, life is a complete impossibility, and free will is a mistake. And a cat is a mouse solution to competition.

Monsieur Debussy got it wrong here. He perhaps didn't mean the space between the notes on paper, that would be plain stupid. So he probably meant the "space" between notes as sounds, which is nonsense -- the spacial dimension of sounds has little to do with music. So, what "space" did he refer to? Besides the completely clueless "space" metaphor, I'm surprised that the composer of such a fluid music can define music by referring to notes. The notes in music have the function of the letters in poetry. You can't define poetry as "the space between the letters." Or maybe "notes" is yet another clueless metaphor?

I think, when it comes to define music, the only clueless thing is the music itself.

[nickysnd]

I don't know if it has already written here but Claude Debussy said: “Music is the space between the notes”
Correction. What Debussy actually said is: "Music is the silence between the notes." Which is a completely different thing and makes a lot of sense. Music is not about sounds, which is precisely my main point here. Monsieur Debussy's point is: Music is silence. When you get beyond sounds and find the silence lying there, then you got it: that is the Music. Beethoven was not deaf. Deaf are the people who think that what they hear is the music. That's deafness in more than one sense. What they hear is only sound, not music. Music lies in silence. It lies in the silence among its symbols (notes, sounds). Not only lies there, but music IS that silence. Monsieur Debussy got it right.

[pietro7050@verizon.net]

Correction. What Debussy actually said is: "Music is the silence between the notes." Which is a completely different thing and makes a lot of sense. Music is not about sounds, which is precisely my main point here. Monsieur Debussy's point is: Music is silence. When you get beyond sounds and find the silence lying there, then you got it: that is the Music. Beethoven was not deaf. Deaf are the people who think that what they hear is the music. That's deafness in more than one sense. What they hear is only sound, not music. Music lies in silence. It lies in the silence among its symbols (notes, sounds). Not only lies there, but music IS that silence. Monsieur Debussy got it right.

Sorry I must disagree.
What happens between the notes is not silence, its the turning of thought and emotion produced by the music that came before. Debussy was correct, but I am afraid your interpretation did not fair as well. Close, but you missed what lurks in the silence.

[nickysnd]

Sorry I must disagree.
What happens between the notes is not silence ... Debussy was correct
That doesn't work, you have to be consistent: if what happens between the notes is not silence, then Debussy was not correct. You have the right to disagree, which comes with the obligation to be consistent with your own disagreement. FWIW, Debussy was right and you are wrong. But you have the right to have incorrect opinions. All opinions are incorrect. The only correct thing is the truth. Debussy have said the truth: What happens between the notes is silence, and that silence is music.

but I am afraid your interpretation did not fair as well. Close, but you missed what lurks in the silence.
My interpretation?? I did not interpret Debussy's point. "Music is the silence between the notes." There is nothing to interpret here, it's crystal clear: music is silence. Sounds are not silent, therefore they cannot be music. Music lies in the absence of sounds, in silence. Now, what "lurks" in that silence (i.e. what "lurks" in music), that would be a completely different topic. Before discussing that other topic, first you'll have to accept that music is silence. And it really is. Plain as daylight, and I didn't miss it. Missing the music means to confuse it with something else, like: the notes, the sounds, the organization of sounds, one's own reactions to what one hears, etc. When you get past those common misconceptions and understand that music is silence, then you can't miss it.

What happens between the notes is not silence, its the turning of thought and emotion produced by the music that came before.
That is your point that stands in disagreement with Debussy's point. Thing is, Debussy's point is correct and your point is incorrect. The difference is that he got it right: Music is silence. A special kind of silence, but silence nevertheless. Absence of sound. What you hear with your ears and neural tissue is not music but just sound. And the sounds are only the map. Music is the territory (and a silent one). People often mistake maps for territories, that's a very common confusion. Avoidable though. When you realize that music is silence, then you have learned an absolute truth.

[pietro7050@verizon.net]

Music is silence. A special kind of silence, but silence nevertheless. Absence of sound. What you hear with your ears and neural tissue is not music but just sound. And the sounds are only the map. Music is the territory (and a silent one). People often mistake maps for territories, that's a very common confusion. Avoidable though. When you realize that music is silence, then you have learned an absolute truth.

Do you really think a great mind like Debussy's would be so literal as to the actual physicality of sound? No. You are on the right track when you speak of a map. A map to ones emotions and thought lies in the silence only because of that which preceded it, music. Ergo the silence is a slave to and minion of music. Music gives silence its purpose in this realm. Silence is nothing without music and music is only noise without silence.

[nickysnd]

Do you really think a great mind like Debussy's would be so literal as to the actual physicality of sound? No.
No? I'd say: Yes, a great mind like Debussy's has realized that the physicality of sound has nothing to do with music (music is silence, sounds are not silent, therefore sounds can't be music). Furthermore, a great mind like Debussy's has realized that music lies beyond even more abstract things, like notes, namely: "between" them. That great mind didn't mention or suggested things like "emotions" and "thoughts" in relation to music. That great mind realized that music is beyond all those things. That great mind was great enough to realize that the most proper term to define music is: silence. (Another great mind, Wittgenstein, said: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." Maybe here lies something true about music as well. Maybe music is a way to pass over, not in notes or sounds but in silence, what we cannot speak about.)

Now, Debussy didn't say: silence, without qualification. He said: silence between the notes. "Between the notes" is a qualification that can be discussed, in order to understand the nature of that silence. So, what lies between the notes and was called by Debussy: music as a form of silence? (and here I bow out, making room for opinions.)

[OneThrow]

Right. Now when someone says music is silence, I become completely lost. When someone says music takes place in silence, then I think it makes more sense, because music takes place in my head whether there is any sound or not. But I still hear sounds, its just that nobody else does.

I have no idea what Debussy means when he says, "Music is the silence between the notes." Just as I don't know what Lennon/McCartney mean by, "The movement you need is on your shoulder."

One is a great lyric for a song and the other is a great definition for music. You might say Debussy's words add an awesome contribution to this discussion, with due respect to Debussy of course.

[Counterpoint]

I have no idea what Debussy means when he says, "Music is the silence between the notes."

That doesn't make much sense to me either. It seems like only half of the picture to say that music is the silence between the notes. I'd elaborate on it by saying that music is the combination of the notes and the silence between them.

You brought up an interesting point about music not needing to be heard to exist, just by imagining it in your own mind. Could that the mind's way of filling the silence though?

It's interesting that we choose not to leave the music in our minds but to bring it out as an audible sound. Even though we can "hear" it in our minds, we still feel compelled to sing or pick up an instrument and play. Frequently this is much more satisfying than just hearing it in one's mind.

- Matt

[MPDmike]

I don't know if it has already written here but Claude Debussy said:

“Music is the space between the notes”

Andrea
A pretty meaningless statement, unless it refers to the space between the notes being related to rhythm, which is a musical matter.

There is another idea that comes up when trying to analysis what music is, and that is the Gestalt theory from psychology, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Music may have lots of individual components, but its impact on the listener is always more than these component parts.

[nickysnd]

I don't know if it has already written here but Claude Debussy said:

“Music is the space between the notes”

Andrea
A pretty meaningless statement
Right, but you missed the correction -- Debussy actually said: "Music is the silence between the notes."

[MPDmike]

Right, but you missed the correction -- Debussy actually said: "Music is the silence between the notes."
Sorry, for some reason I seem to have not seen the last page on this thread? Anyway it doesn't matter because "silence" is just as meaningless as "space" in this context.

All music is silent in the brain, unless some of us can hear our brain cells firing off electricity. I still think music is a Gestalt experience.

[nickysnd]

Sorry, for some reason I seem to have not seen the last page on this thread? Anyway it doesn't matter because "silence" is just as meaningless as "space" in this context.
Space was meaningless indeed, but silence is as meaningful as can be, in this context. Music is silence. But not just any silence -- music is the silence between the notes. When you get that, then you got it. But, of course, you can anytime dismiss anything you (don't) want with just two words: doesn't matter. ;)

All music is silent in the brain, unless some of us can hear our brain cells firing off electricity. I still think music is a Gestalt experience.
No, music is not silent, music is silence -- a special kind of silence. Also, I think Debussy didn't care about psychology, experience, brain, gestalt, and cells firing off electricity. That's why he didn't miss the target: "Music is the silence between the notes" -- bullseye! :cool:

[Javee]

hey nickysnd, just curious, since you seem to be the authority on everything that is music :P...

Je suppose que tu parle francais? Je veux dire qu'il dit que tu habite au Québec. Est-ce que tu sais le citations en français ? Personallement, je me rapelle l'expression avec le mot "space" en anglais. Cepedenant, quand je cherche le citation, je peux seulement le trouver en anglais. Parfois, le signification est perdue dans la traduction. Alors, il serait interéssant de savoir la phrase dans sa langue maternelle. Je sais pas.... juste une idée.

-Mitch

P.s. Ce commentaire de toi... Tu sais qu'il était juste une blague vrai ?

À Tantôt :D

[Counterpoint]

Some more of Debussy's thoughts:

“Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.”

[DallasComposer]

Good one Matt ...

Some more of Debussy's thoughts:
Originally Posted by Debussy
“Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.”


I like ...

"Extreme complication is contrary to art."

and

"Art is the most beautiful of all lies."

So .. don't make your lies too complicated I guess :p

[The Magic Hoof]

Music is an aural art form; it stirs up, and stimulates an emotion inside of us by means of vibration. We have many different kinds; we also have many different kinds of emotions, and each type of music is more prone to evoke a different kind of emotion.

Think of classical being a heart massage; metal being a brain massage; rap being a spirit massage. Every kind massages a different part of us, in a different way.

I once started getting into a conversation with a friend, and the question was, 'can music exist without emotion?'. That's a completely different story though ;)

[OneThrow]

Interesting quotes. Selective quotes always serve their own purpose, I think they are more useful placed in proper context.

Here’s another attributed to Debussy:

“Music should humbly seek to please; within these limits great beauty may perhaps be found. Extreme complication is contrary to art. Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part.”



It's interesting that we choose not to leave the music in our minds but to bring it out as an audible sound. Even though we can "hear" it in our minds, we still feel compelled to sing or pick up an instrument and play. Frequently this is much more satisfying than just hearing it in one's mind.
- Matt

If I bought a music CD and it was full of silence I would be pretty disappointed and likewise if I attended a concert where the musicians just sat and thought their music I would be asking for my money back.

[nickysnd]

hey nickysnd, just curious, since you seem to be the authority on everything that is music :P...

Je suppose que tu parle francais? Je veux dire qu'il dit que tu habite au Québec. Est-ce que tu sais le citations en français ? Personallement, je me rapelle l'expression avec le mot "space" en anglais. Cepedenant, quand je cherche le citation, je peux seulement le trouver en anglais. Parfois, le signification est perdue dans la traduction. Alors, il serait interéssant de savoir la phrase dans sa langue maternelle. Je sais pas.... juste une idée.

-Mitch

P.s. Ce commentaire de toi... Tu sais qu'il était juste une blague vrai ?
False. Which is a bilingual word. Besides, your cheap irony needs some ironing.

[nickysnd]

If I bought a music CD and it was full of silence I would be pretty disappointed and likewise if I attended a concert where the musicians just sat and thought their music I would be asking for my money back.
You misunderstood completely. Music is not just silence, without qualification. Music is the silence between the notes. Which is the opposite of the silence were referring to.

[OneThrow]

You will have to forgive my musings they originate from a somewhat lower level.

EDIT

nickysnd

I feel I should explain. I was actually answering Matt's point about hearing music in your head. Taking it to a rather silly conclusion, so maybe I should have used a smilie of some sort. I wasn't being one hundred per cent serious.

I don't quite get your point about "silence" and music, although I do understand where you are coming from. And I don't dismiss it, neither should I. It adds a dimension that would otherwise be lacking in this discussion.

I do think it is dangerous to rely on selective quotes from Debussy because he has said a lot of things about music. I don't know the definitive version of the quote in question as I have found both versions attributed to Debussy. But that doesn't change your point.

It would be a shame for an exploration of "What is music?" to get bogged down in the precise meaning and wording of a quote from Debussy. After all there are many quotes from Beethoven, Mozart, Lennon and many others equally of interest. We could end up in absurd situation of saying my quote is better than your quote.:p

So, sorry if I misunderstood. I didn't misunderstand completely, but I was being a little mischievous. As always I read your writings with greatest respect.

[nickysnd]

So, sorry if I misunderstood. I didn't misunderstand completely, but I was being a little mischievous. As always I read your writings with greatest respect.
I misunderstood too by missing your mild sarcasm when you were talking about silent CDs. But I didn't miss it in regard to my "writings.";)

[Javee]

False. Which is a bilingual word. Besides, your cheap irony needs some ironing.

False? So he used false in the place of silence/space ? Or are you referring to something else?
If you have the entire quote, can you please post it. I have been itching to see the actual quote for atleast 2 years now. Took a history course of french music, and that quote was the only one that seemed to be printed exclusively in english, the rest were/are easily accessible in his mother tongue.

Cheap irony? There is no irony in my post. Also, if you read my last comment, i said i was just joking around. It's all in good fun to me. Sorry if i hurt your feelings or anything.

Best Wishes,
-Mitch

[nickysnd]

Since "music as a form of silence" is an unusable concept that ends in itself, since the territory can't be described, maybe it will be useful to describe the map: the "music as sound." For simplification, I'd suggest to use music when referring to the sound of music.

Now, instead of "what is music?" maybe an easier question would be "how is music?" The music (as sound) needs to have certain qualities, because not every sound is music. What are the qualities that sounds must have in order to be music?

First, the sounds need to be man-made of course. But not every man-made sound is music. Then what are the qualities that man-made sounds must have in order to be music? The most basic quality that I can think of is: those sounds should present themselves in such a way as if they are trying to communicate something. That is the most basic condition, without which man-made sounds cannot be music. First, there must be something to communicate (and the composer's intention to communicate it, of course). Second, the composer must master a way of presenting those sounds so that they are likely to deliver the "message" effectively. In other words: content, and form.

I wouldn't enter in the translator's (player) and receiver's (audience) domains. I'd rather stay in the area that is under the control of the music creator. Music originates in the composer's mind, and there is quite a lot to be said about the process of building the music. So, music requires 1) a "message" and 2) an effective presentation of it. Content and form. Now, what are the "messages?" And what does it mean "effectiveness" when it comes to communicating "messages" by the means of sounds?

But first, does anyone disagrees that music needs both an intentional content and an intelligible form?

[OneThrow]

But first, does anyone disagrees that music needs both an intentional content and an intelligible form?


... music would have to include some form of intent on the part of the composer, and I would have to have a composer. It would have to try to convey something i.e. there has to be a reason for its existence. There has to be a human element.

Man made music is much more interesting than any other sort. Am I saying that ""music" made by machine of from a natural source is not music? Well, it would need one heck of a definition for its inclusion. Why? Well, its like musical wallpaper. If this "other music" is considered like an extention of man's intellect, than it can go in. But if it is just an illusion designed to fool people into thinking it is music then it can't. If you consider music from a composer's point of view then, it can't go in. And there are many selfish composer reasons I could give, but won't bore you with. Just to clarify, human made music is the only music I am interested in.

As you can see, getting into the can of worms suddenly makes the discussion more contentious.

I do think there are good reasons for considering this subject from the point of view of the composer and for the moment at least putting aside the point of view of the listener. Now that's incredibly dangerous, because in the end without a listener there would be no point in music and indeed without the listener there would be no music. Just as without a performer there would be no music. But there could be music without a composer. So which came first the composer or the music?

That's all for now, but I may come back.;)

I'm back.

Music has to have content, but it doesn't have to have a message. I won't define message, but music from a composer's point of view has to express something, but it doesn't have to be tangible. I don't exclude message, I just say its not compulsory.

[Dave Bourke]

"Music is the shorthand of emotion" – Tolstoy.

Kind regards.

[nickysnd]

"Music is the shorthand of emotion" – Tolstoy.
That's a gross oversimplification.

Besides, for most people, emotion is an excuse for not trying to understand the music. A haiku may sound nice to the ears of someone who doesn't speak Japanese and doesn't understand that culture. But there is a lot more to a haiku than that superficial impression.

[Dave Bourke]

Take it up with Mr. Tolstoy.

Kind regards.

[pietro7050@verizon.net]

Simplicity is Divine!

[nikolas]

Take it up with Mr. Tolstoy.
http://www.smileyhut.com/happy/clap3.gifhttp://www.smileyhut.com/happy/clap2.gifhttp://www.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/happy/happy0005.gif
I've wanted to use such smileys for a loooooooooong time (since Tchoyy was around actually! :D) and now I found some use!

[nickysnd]

Take it up with Mr. Tolstoy.
"Music is the shorthand of emotion" is a really gross oversimplification, regardless who said that: Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, or the prince Siddhartha himself.

It doesn't work at all, not even as a metaphor. Just think a little bit: what is a shorthand? -- a reduced representation of something more complex. Music is of intellectual, spiritual, even abstract nature. Emotion is an animalic, instinctive, bodily reaction to a stimulus. How can something spiritual (superior) be the shorthand of something biological (inferior)? How can music be a reduced representation (=shorthand) of emotion? That is like saying that poetry is the shorthand of sex.

The other way around would make a little bit of sense though: "Emotion is the shorthand of music." Meaning: an emotion could have the function of a shorthand, could be an inferior representation of music. More correctly said: an emotion could be a substitute for understanding the music.

[OneThrow]

I imagine Tolstoy would have more of an affinity with words than music and would possibly see the whole range of emotions expressed in words as only being suggested in music.

That suggests emotion is the only reason for music, which it is not. Emotion does have an outlet in music as it does in words. If you put emotion at the centre of human experience, then music can only reach a small part of it. It can only suggest a small part.

But in that sense words are also a shorthand for emotions. Emotions cannot fully be expressed in words either. The words, "I love you," are totally inadequate for the feeling they describe.

Do emotions drive human actions and thought or does pure logic or is it a combination of both?

If music wasn't able to reach into the emotional palette of man, it would be grey and colourless.
Music, words and emotion each have there own domain, they cross in part but one is not a shorthand for another.

How about this:

Words are a shorthand for my thoughts, and I'm not very good at shorthand. :p
But then of course that is only my opinion.

[persentio]

First, the sounds need to be man-made of course. But not every man-made sound is music. Then what are the qualities that man-made sounds must have in order to be music? The most basic quality that I can think of is: those sounds should present themselves in such a way as if they are trying to communicate something. That is the most basic condition, without which man-made sounds cannot be music. First, there must be something to communicate (and the composer's intention to communicate it, of course). Second, the composer must master a way of presenting those sounds so that they are likely to deliver the "message" effectively. In other words: content, and form
As a listener and composer myself of certain new age and neo-classical genres this is exactly what the music is based on. A message(s) or even depiction of a story; and an appropriate delivery of it (them). Couldn't agree more. However this may not be so true or might not even apply with other genres of music. Im not entirely sure.

[peter5992]

I was at Starbucks today (as usual), and on the side of my grande cappuchino there was this quote by Oliver Sacks:

“Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears – it is remedy, tonic, orange juice for the ear. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more – it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury, but a necessity.”

Oliver Sacks is a renowed physician, professor of clinical neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University and best selling author of many books about psychology / psychiatry. I have one of his books -- Musicophilia / Tales of Music and the Brain -- absolutely fascinating, and warmly recommended.

[OneThrow]

Sounds like an interesting book Peter. I might check it out. I have read somewhere that music may be one of those happy events in evolution for which there was no necessity, if you like a biproduct. Without doubt music reaches further into the human brain than mere notes.

[Vincent Bergbahn]

Space was meaningless indeed, but silence is as meaningful as can be, in this context. Music is silence. But not just any silence -- music is the silence between the notes. When you get that, then you got it. But, of course, you can anytime dismiss anything you (don't) want with just two words: doesn't matter. ;)




No, music is not silent, music is silence -- a special kind of silence. Also, I think Debussy didn't care about psychology, experience, brain, gestalt, and cells firing off electricity. That's why he didn't miss the target: "Music is the silence between the notes" -- bullseye! :cool:


Art is merely Expression, though it's not a very high bar to say that.....-JMR

No This just isn't precise enough. Silence is not music. Rests are music. You are confusing the nonexistence of sound with the interval between intentional sounds. You count what exists. The intentional notes of music are counted and the measurement between the notes, but the measurement it self is not anything, it's not music it's a measurement.

John cage and his silent song is notationally and technically music. That is if you define music by what can be notated. Otherwise it's merely a measurement. Measurements alone do not qualify as music.


1. The definition of what is music must also make meaningful distinctions between itself and noise, SFX, sounds and silence. If your definition obscures of eliminates the distinction between these other concepts, then you reasoning is in error.

2. Music must originate form an intentional source to be classified as music.


If your definition violates either axioms 1 or 2. You can not classify it as music.

[composeralex]

I send an e-mail "Music Quotation of the Week," and for the past 21 weeks, we've been exploring this very issue ("What is music?"). Come check it out, and join if you're interested!

It's a Yahoo! group, called "musicquotations." You can subscribe there or on my web site (below). Also, on Yahoo!, you can read all of my previous e-mails.

Also, I highly recommend everyone read Victor Wooten's relatively new book, The Music Lesson. It is superb, and it will probably open your mind to new musical possibilities.

[OneThrow]

This is a subject that just won't go away. I don't want to open it up again, because quite frankly, for the moment at least I think we've covered all the bases. It's been a while since I last posted here and I have given the subject some thought. And it seems to me the answer to the question comes out differently depending on where you are standing.

For example, puting my composer's hat on I think of one set of things as music, but when I put my listener's hat on I think of other things.

I think Nickysnd put it best in the Style thread. "Whatever floats your boat." :D I like that, then I can do away with hats. They make you go bald anyway.