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Is noise music?

music to me is all around us, yes. If you meditate outside and absorb the sounds around you for some time, you will notice patterns and recognizable rhythms; of course it's not music in the traditional sense. For example, the sounds of a rainforest or waves crashing against a shore are just as musical and rhythmic as any band or orchestra to me. i often sit in quiet places in the botanic gardens here in sydney or the domain and listen to the noise of the city, trying to connect to everyone and everything around me - to my ears, yes, it is music.

peace
 
If I can paraphrase my understanding of your argument protovack - "Some things that are called music I like, and some things that are called music I don't like, or even understand. Some of these latter things I choose to call not-music." Am I close? *clicks pen furiously*
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Right, so why define anything?
 
music is a psychological phenomenon (the brain interprets sounds in an odd way, it produces a change in the mind, and its called music)

so then, when defining music, we could define any sounds that produce that specific change in mindset that occurs as music

so if listening to street sounds gives you a similar feeling as listening to rap or pop or w/e, how could it not be music?
 
^^^
Right, but I'm saying that it does *not* and thus it is not music.

I'd like to find someone who experiences street sounds and rock music similarly. I don't think I will though.

Once again I ask, why do we define so many things so easily.....yet when it comes to music there must be no definition whatsoever (beyond subjective experiences).
 
protovack said:
Right, so why define anything?
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Because if we didn't define anything, we wouldn't have any common ground to base a language on, and thus would be unable to communicate. Such definitions are a necessary evil for the exchange of information to take place.
 
Go listen to noizecore. Government alpha. So yes, noise can be music and vice versa :) I'm pretty sure it's hard to define music because music is an art and arts aren't supposed to have limitations.
 
>>Because if we didn't define anything, we wouldn't have any common ground to base a language on. . .>>

beware of sarcasm. :)

>>yet when it comes to music there must be no definition whatsoever (beyond subjective experiences).>>

There is clearly something special that music elicits in us. . .something for which we lack suitable verbal tools to describe. I think this is why the concept of "music" is so contested.

ebola
 
noise is music. if you live near loyola listen to kxlu 88.9. if you are lucky youll hear a saw and people walking with static in the background. also a car horn and eggs cooking. best thing ever to listen to whilst tripping. punk rock is also noise and i love it. listen to black flag. awsome noise.
 
There is clearly something that seperates prototypical music, and this "noize". Music uses patterns in order to communicate ideas or emotions with the listener. Noize also does this, but the idea it is communicating is one about music, while not being "musical" itself. As with dada, it deliberately breaks the rules in order to make a statement about the rules themselves. I find a lot of it to be pretentious crap, but I'm not going to look down on those who enjoy it. It just seems to me like the people who make this noize couldn't get a grasp on music and so they invented a sort of metamusic which loses almost all of its magical, powerful, emotional qualities in favor of a dry, emotionally devoid statement about music. On an intellectual level, I can understand the ideas being communicated, so in that sense it is sort of musical. But it reaches me on a purely intellectual level. Much more powerful is the real music that can cut right through to your soul without you even being aware of how or why.
 
Great Topic!!

Here's my twist on this.. Has anyone on here heard of a composer named John Cage, or his work entitled 4'33" (four minutes, thirty-three seconds)? This work is arguably his MOST famous work. Sorry to ruin it for you if you haven't yet "heard" it, It is a solo piano work in which the pianist comes out, opens the piano, plays and does nothing for 4 minutes 33 seconds, then leaves and that is the piece. This piece in well known in the classical world though I do not know whether it is because of its originality or because of the idea it suggests. To me it means, even silence is music, the world we live in and every sound it makes can be music if you listen to it in that way. Every time it is performed, it will be different. One time, it could be the low frequency, gentle hum of an AC machine breifly interrupted by the sound of the freight elevator. Or it could be the sounds of people near to you breathing coupled with distant footsteps. Technically, I believe music is defined as some sound that is organized in some way, that the sounds are somehow related. I've studied music for nearly 14 years and still, this question is open. I don't think it is one that can ever be definitively answered.

As a response to the prior post about music conveying emotion, music ITSELF does not convey the emotion imo. Many people are brought up to believe that minor means sad and major means happy but when you think of this, humans have attached our emotions to it. The music itself knows no emotion. Now, it may seem that music conveys certain types of emotions but those are the things that we have grown up to know. Much of this is because of the the lyrics. There are not many popular bands or groups that do not use lyrics. imo, thats because people can connect with the song more when the lyrics write the feelings into it, its more clearly relatable than music alone.

Also, when you said "music uses pattern in order to communicate ideas or emotions with the listener", I don't think that is true either. The pattern thing, kinda, the goal of music, not so much. As in art, often the viewer (or in music's case, the listener) was not the goal of the creation of the piece. Many artists create art for art's sake, for themselves or just for more beauty in the world (the definition of beauty, though, is a whole nother ball of wax). The truest art comes from that place imo, not from serving an audience.

I hope I haven't offended you. I'm always interesed in having a good intellectual conversation about music :)
 
protovack said:
Ack, I didn't start this thread just to get pounded with post-modernism. I was looking for people to say, "Well, OK, but here is what *I* think music is or should be." Maybe I didn't make that clear 8)
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ebola! and the more drug-fucked amateur philosophers of this forum were going to arrive sooner or later 8) 8)

Music is too broad a word to give a satisfactory answer. It does not (well, certainly not in common usage) really involve much by way of objective criteria that can be used to assess whether particular sound does fall within the definition. As such, it is open to abuse, misuse and constant dilution, to the effect that the word becomes largely meaningless and useless as a tool for conveying information, as this thread indicates.
 
from dictionairy.com
==============
mu·sic Audio pronunciation of "music" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (myzk)
n.

1. The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.
2. Vocal or instrumental sounds possessing a degree of melody, harmony, or rhythm.
3.
1. A musical composition.
2. The written or printed score for such a composition.
3. Such scores considered as a group: We keep our music in a stack near the piano.
4. A musical accompaniment.
5. A particular category or kind of music.
6. An aesthetically pleasing or harmonious sound or combination of sounds: the music of the wind in the pines.
==================

so yes, noise can be music, if analysed as the composition of it's components... noise is just harder to comprehend that marketed music.

ebola... good to see how strongly you're taken to that avatar :P

[EDIT] See also : Zorn, John
 
Dada was an anti-art movement in Berlin during WWII.
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uh, you mean (began in) zuerich during WWI. no (organised) dadaism in berlin during the nazi period afaik.
 
withafierceness said:
Here's my twist on this.. Has anyone on here heard of a composer named John Cage, or his work entitled 4'33" (four minutes, thirty-three seconds)? This work is arguably his MOST famous work. Sorry to ruin it for you if you haven't yet "heard" it, It is a solo piano work in which the pianist comes out, opens the piano, plays and does nothing for 4 minutes 33 seconds, then leaves and that is the piece. This piece in well known in the classical world though I do not know whether it is because of its originality or because of the idea it suggests. To me it means, even silence is music, the world we live in and every sound it makes can be music if you listen to it in that way.
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4'33" is a perfect example of this metamusic I was talking about. It doesn't convey any emotions on its own, but you can glean an abstract "meaning" from it.

Technically, I believe music is defined as some sound that is organized in some way, that the sounds are somehow related. I've studied music for nearly 14 years and still, this question is open. I don't think it is one that can ever be definitively answered.
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I think it will eventually be answered. The seret to why music is so pervasive in human culture, and how it evokes such powerful emotions is locked away in the patterns of the mind.
As a response to the prior post about music conveying emotion, music ITSELF does not convey the emotion imo. Many people are brought up to believe that minor means sad and major means happy but when you think of this, humans have attached our emotions to it. The music itself knows no emotion. Now, it may seem that music conveys certain types of emotions but those are the things that we have grown up to know. Much of this is because of the the lyrics. There are not many popular bands or groups that do not use lyrics. imo, thats because people can connect with the song more when the lyrics write the feelings into it, its more clearly relatable than music alone.
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Ok, I'll give it to you that there's probably a lot of social conditioning going on, but this doesn't negate the fact that music DOES convey emotion. You wouldn't argue that it doesn;t, would you? It may not be the music itself that contains the emotion, but its still the medium that the musician uses to communicate. Just like the word "cat" has no intrinsic meaning, but you can understand what I mean when I say it.
Also, when you said "music uses pattern in order to communicate ideas or emotions with the listener", I don't think that is true either. The pattern thing, kinda, the goal of music, not so much. As in art, often the viewer (or in music's case, the listener) was not the goal of the creation of the piece. Many artists create art for art's sake, for themselves or just for more beauty in the world (the definition of beauty, though, is a whole nother ball of wax). The truest art comes from that place imo, not from serving an audience.

I hope I haven't offended you. I'm always interesed in having a good intellectual conversation about music :)
Click to expand...

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If no one is around to perceive the art, is it still art? It would be pointless to discuss the motives of every musician that ever wrote something, but I have a sneaky suspicion that most of them either consciously or unconsciously wanted other people to hear it. Music is primarily a form of expression, a way to communicate one's feelings to another person. Music without a listener is incomplete imo.
 
Very subjective topic, but I would have to say if it weren't, then bands like Mr. Bungle would never have existed.

Mike Patton rocks.
 
>>but when you think of this, humans have attached our emotions to it.>>

Hmmm...regarding the emotion issue,
Considering music without humans (listeners or performers) is an abstraction.
"Attachment" just seems to be the wrong way to think about the relationship between emotion and music.

>>ebola! and the more drug-fucked amateur philosophers of this forum were going to arrive sooner or later >>

Welcome to the board! :)

>>As such, [the term "music] is open to abuse, misuse and constant dilution, to the effect that the word becomes largely meaningless and useless as a tool for conveying information, as this thread indicates.>>

Ummm...oddly enough, most often when I suggest that someone put on some music, I do not end up utterly shocked at what next transpires. :)

ebola
 
Life is music.

Some of it just happens to be organized.


btw, total serialism is music that can be written through pure chance occurences, yet is highly organized and "musical".
 
OK, so far in this thread there have been a lot of people coming out and saying that music is basically any sound that somebody listens to. The consensus appears to be that there is nothing about "music" that is unique other than that someone has at one time called it, "music."

Sorry but I just find that kind of explanation totally boring. If there are sooo many varied definitions of music out there (that I'm just not aware of), then why doesn't somebody post one of them here?

So far, I am the only person that has offered an exploration of the concept we call "music." And I say that not to be arrogant, but to re-establish the original goal of the thread (to define or describe music). For me, it centers on the idea of a "groove." If you think about it, a "groove" is a very strange concept. It must involve multiple musicians acting together to create something that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. I'm not sure exactly how this occurs; I only realize that I have been a part of a groove many times, and I know that it feels good to fit into a groove and also to listen to other musicians participating in a groove.

Nothing that anybody has said so far even comes close to explaining this.

That is my definition of music. In fact, nearly 100% of the music I listen to has this element to it. For me to like it, it has to groove. There must be that "magical" interaction between musicians that rings with genuine cooperation, and honest communication with the listener.

We have all kinds of abstract words to describe this feeling:

it rocks
it is bad-ass!
it grooves
it's hot
it makes you cry
it is awesome

What I'm trying to do is approach the situation from a larger perspective. Sure music is a subjective thing, but we all use equally abstract words to describe "good music."

My more "debate-able" idea, is that certain forms of electronic sound commonly called "music" in the popular culture are less able (or unable) to achieve what I believe to be a necessary component of music: groove.

So as I said before, can we quit with all the subjective talk? I'm not trying to write a dictionary entry with this thread. I totally acknowledge that appreciation of music is subjective. However, I also recognize that there seems to be a common ground among people who like "good music."

What is that common ground? Why are there these emotions that we love so much...and seem to derive from music? And why are those emotions so often common to all people?

I suppose my perspective can be summed up in this way: I do not believe that 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence is anything other than some silence. I judge music by paying attention directly to the musician(s). Therefore, music seems to be a very human activity to me, and electronic music lacks this human element. It sounds like 0's and 1's.
 
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Any sound made by a human with the purpose of expression should be considered music.

That's about as consice as i can put it. But when i'm awake again i'll read all previous spewing of words, maybe i'll have to review my definition by then.

For the ant-fuckers : i'm aware that 'any sound' allso includes farts and speech - which are great tools of expression.
 
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