Music?

[Raging_Pacifist]

I live in an underground government research facility so I have only heard about it, but what is music?

[Moff Chumley]

:confused:

Music is a collection of sounds and words that is pleasing to the human ear.

And if you live in an underground research base, why do they let you on GitP and not any other music related website? Or GitP at all? Hoho, I'm so clever. :cool:

Edit: Wait, I thought that you were an Eggplant Farmer/disgruntled post officer.

[Raging_Pacifist]

:confused:

Music is a collection of sounds and words that is pleasing to the human ear.

And if you live in an underground research base, why do they let you on GitP and not any other music related website? Or GitP at all? Hoho, I'm so clever. :cool:

Edit: Wait, I thought that you were an Eggplant Farmer/disgruntled post officer.
It's a webcomic/ eggplant farming/ post officing research facility. I've already said to much.

[bluewind95]

Wait. If music has to be sound that's pleasing to the human ear... then... doesn't that mean that something may be music to one person but the same thing won't be music to another? Because I know a lot of sounds a good deal of people call "music" which make me want to attack and destroy the speakers because they're just that unpleasing to me. :smalltongue:

[averagejoe]

Wait. If music has to be sound that's pleasing to the human ear... then... doesn't that mean that something may be music to one person but the same thing won't be music to another? Because I know a lot of sounds a good deal of people call "music" which make me want to attack and destroy the speakers because they're just that unpleasing to me. :smalltongue:

That's why people keep me around. I just point to things and say, "That's music," so that everyone can know objectively what music is. :smalltongue:

I agree, though, that music doesn't necessarily pleasing. I mean, presumably, it has to be pleasing to at least one human ear, but I don't think that's a useful definition. I would characterize music as a collection of sounds intentionally created with an aesthetic purpose.

[The Extinguisher]

A collection of sounds arranged in an interesting manner.
Although, that excludes single notes and those really catchy a few seconds of silence things. I think. It might not. Interesting is a vauge word.

Also, for the sake of rabid fandom: Music is Music as Devices are Kisses is Everything.

[Kneenibble]

"The incipient ideality of matter, which appears no longer as spatial but as temporal ideality, is sound: the sensuous set down as negated with its abstract visibility changed into audibility, since sound releases the ideal, as it were, from its entanglement in matter." (Hegel: Philosophy of Fine Art)

Music is the second-closest artform to transcendence of semiotic difference in sensuously configurative representation of the Ideal.

[/academic vaguery]

Averagejoe, you credit authorial intent too much, for not all authors bear the authority their title should merit.

Music is what gets the booty shakin' or the heart breakin'.

[Sewer_Bandito]

Life is music.

[Moff Chumley]

"The incipient ideality of matter, which appears no longer as spatial but as temporal ideality, is sound: the sensuous set down as negated with its abstract visibility changed into audibility, since sound releases the ideal, as it were, from its entanglement in matter." (Hegel: Philosophy of Fine Art)

Music is the second-closest artform to transcendence of semiotic difference in sensuously configurative representation of the Ideal.

[/academic vaguery]

Averagejoe, you credit authorial intent too much, for not all authors bear the authority their title should merit.

Music is what gets the booty shakin' or the heart breakin'.

Or the air guitar'n. :biggrin:

[Semidi]

Music is a collection of sounds constructed into a single entity.

I think I can express it better. I'll get back to you.

[Jorkens]

I would characterize music as a collection of sounds intentionally created with an aesthetic purpose.
I heard a similar definition the other day which I rather liked - 'sound appreciated aesthetically'. It appeals to the relativist in me that what is music in one context is just an irritating racket in another...

Possibly I'd modify it to "sound appreciated aesthetically as an abstract" to distingish music from, say, a radio play or a telling of a story. Although that may be a tautology and 'aesthetically' on its own would mean the same thing, I'm not sure.

[SurlySeraph]

Music is a collection of notes (sounds at specific frequences which the human ear can recognize and considers pleasing) arranged in patterns which evoke emotional responses (usually pleasure) in many people who hear them. Not all pieces of music evoke the same response (or any response) in all people. Some people may respond to music to which they did not previously respond, or respond more positively than they previously responded, after habituating themselves to similar pieces of music.

[Narmoth]

and when you have defined music, try to define colors, or even better, taste.
Music, as all art is undefinable.
Period.


In the dictionary it's defined as:
"Music is an art form that involves organised sounds and silence. It is expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music (http://www.google.no/url?sa=X&start=6&oi=define&q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music+(software)&usg=AFQjCNEsCWHEXjq6X5LV7qmXA1toVdBJPg)"
Unfortunately, it says nothing about the quality of music, and the definition might be to loose. For instance, "involves organized sounds and silence" is a bit to difuse I think.

Not a bad definition really. It takes into account that melody consists not only of sound, but also of it's absense. It also mentions rhythm (try to play Paranoid as a reaggae song :smallwink: ) and the sound quality and phrazing (most Britney songs are actually made up of heavy rock riffs)


Wait. If music has to be sound that's pleasing to the human ear... then... doesn't that mean that something may be music to one person but the same thing won't be music to another? Because I know a lot of sounds a good deal of people call "music" which make me want to attack and destroy the speakers because they're just that unpleasing to me. :smalltongue:

Yes, like techno, or trance.
And how somebody dares to call stuff programmed on (and potentially by) a computer for mucis I can't understand.

[Raging_Pacifist]

This is great guys, I'll get it to the higher-ups right away.

[WalkingTarget]

Just because I think it's applicable to this discussion (not because I have any real opinion on the matter), I'm going to bring up 4'33" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4:33) by John Cage which he considered to be his most important work.

Short version: it's a four minutes and thirty-three second piece in three movements that consists entirely of the instruction for silence (yes, you can get sheet music for it). Technically, the "music" is supposed to be the ambient sounds in the room in which it is performed.

Discuss.

[Doc Leech]

And how somebody dares to call stuff programmed on (and potentially by) a computer for mucis I can't understand.

well i'd call it 'created' before calling it 'programmed', but the fact that it's on a digital medium does not go counter to most of the definitions of music provided in this thread.

bleeps and bloops still need to have the right timing and patterns and all that good stuff. there is skill involved, and while it may not be the same skill needed to play a flute, a skill it remains. don't doubt that many of these electronic music makers have a music degree or a similiar heavy musical background. you may have to sift through piles of garbage to find em, but they are there, they are skilled, and they are artists.

AKA don't be hatin' yo! :P

[ClericPreston]

Slayer is music. Seriously, look them up, you'll thank me later.

[Darth Mario]

Music is sound organized in time. This covers every single genre and composer, including certain John Cage pieces.

Edit:

Just because I think it's applicable to this discussion (not because I have any real opinion on the matter), I'm going to bring up 4'33" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4:33) by John Cage which he considered to be his most important work.

Short version: it's a four minutes and thirty-three second piece in three movements that consists entirely of the instruction for silence (yes, you can get sheet music for it). Technically, the "music" is supposed to be the ambient sounds in the room in which it is performed.

Discuss.
I posted before I noticed this. Common piece to bring up in these debates. According to the definition I use, the "sound" would be the ambient noise, the "organization" would be the time constraint.

[The Extinguisher]

Okay, keeping in mind 4'33" and other songs to that liking, I will refine my previous definition.

Sounds and silences arranged in an interesting manner.

[Moff Chumley]

I don't think 4'33" should be concidered music, becuase by that definition, any sound or lack of sound could be considered music, at which point music no longer has any kind of signifigance. Also, I sense a market: Selling the sheet music for 1'01", 1'02".... "Express your individuality by getting the lenght of silence that suits you!"

[WalkingTarget]

Ah, but if you take any piece of music and delete one note from the score, is it still music? When does that process break down and it ceases to be music? The 2nd movement of Bach's 3rd Brandenburg Concerto is only 2 chords to begin with. How many notes are "required"? This is the sort of argument that's been going around since Mr. Cage published the "song" and is probably why he felt it was significant.

Devil's advocate here, music theory isn't my area of expertise. I'm just full of useless information/trivia.

I'll go for that 0'01" score, then I can demand royalties from everyone else for sampling my "music".

[kamikasei]

and when you have defined music, try to define colors, or even better, taste.
Music, as all art is undefinable.
Period.

Colours and taste are rather a lot more definable than music. Colours are a property of the light incident on the eye and how it's interpreted by the brain. Taste is a matter of chemical receptors. Both become problematic only in the limitations of the brain and how it can be tripped up by unusual inputs; questions like is this a colour or not? or is this "taste"? basically don't occur.

[valadil]

I don't think 4'33" should be concidered music, becuase by that definition, any sound or lack of sound could be considered music, at which point music no longer has any kind of signifigance. Also, I sense a market: Selling the sheet music for 1'01", 1'02".... "Express your individuality by getting the lenght of silence that suits you!"

Technically speaking, black isn't a color but a lack of color. Would a sheet of paper painted black not be art? How about if it was purple instead?

[Narmoth]

Colours and taste are rather a lot more definable than music. Colours are a property of the light incident on the eye and how it's interpreted by the brain. Taste is a matter of chemical receptors. Both become problematic only in the limitations of the brain and how it can be tripped up by unusual inputs; questions like is this a colour or not? or is this "taste"? basically don't occur.

So, a melon flawored ise cream tastes mellon? No, it doesn't.
No, it tastes sweet. It smells melon.
I was anyway thinking more of taste like in "tastes good" / "tastes bad", which is again a matter of oppinion

Well, I have 2 different kinds of the color blue. Defined by diferent word (in Russian) that has completely different assosiations, and is an unique color just like purple is. But you see both as "blue".
Again, a matter of upbringing.
To see that a 2 dimensional picture represents a horse is also learned, not innate

[Semidi]

Colours and taste are rather a lot more definable than music. Colours are a property of the light incident on the eye and how it's interpreted by the brain. Taste is a matter of chemical receptors. Both become problematic only in the limitations of the brain and how it can be tripped up by unusual inputs; questions like is this a colour or not? or is this "taste"? basically don't occur.

Color/taste and music are not analogous. Color makes up, let's say a painting, and sound makes up music. Sound, like color, is easily definable. Sound is just vibrations in the air (I think). The question isn't "is this a sound" or "is this a color" but when sound and color become Art. (sorry if I misunderstood what you were trying to say)


I don't think 4'33" should be concidered music, becuase by that definition, any sound or lack of sound could be considered music, at which point music no longer has any kind of signifigance. Also, I sense a market: Selling the sheet music for 1'01", 1'02".... "Express your individuality by getting the lenght of silence that suits you!"

Your points don't fit the point you're trying to make. You came to an absurd conclusion, yes, but it doesn't contradict the statement, "4'33" is music." Rather, you just pointed out that you could market similar pieces of music.


Technically speaking, black isn't a color but a lack of color. Would a sheet of paper painted black not be art? How about if it was purple instead?

Black is a lack of pigment (or a combination of many pigments). If you're painting, someone doesn't say, "hey, you know what would be great? An absence of color here." No, they say black. This is to say, that we can see black, therefore it is not irrelevant. For instance, before the invention of color in film, films were not solely white with some absence of color. A more intriguing question would be questioning if a blank canvas could be considered a work of art.

I like the philosophy of aesthetics.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Music is pretentious sound.

[kamikasei]

Color/taste and music are not analogous. Color makes up, let's say a painting, and sound makes up music. Sound, like color, is easily definable. Sound is just vibrations in the air (I think). The question isn't "is this a sound" or "is this a color" but when sound and color become Art. (sorry if I misunderstood what you were trying to say)

You seem to have misunderstood what I was replying to, which did state that defining music, colours, and taste is about equally difficult, not that defining music and visual art is equally difficult. (Of course, apparently "taste" here was not meant to refer to the sense.)

Also, since I was saying that music is a much more nebulous thing than colours, what were you looking to contradict?


So, a melon flawored ise cream tastes mellon? No, it doesn't.
No, it tastes sweet. It smells melon.
I was anyway thinking more of taste like in "tastes good" / "tastes bad", which is again a matter of oppinion

Well, I have 2 different kinds of the color blue. Defined by diferent word (in Russian) that has completely different assosiations, and is an unique color just like purple is. But you see both as "blue".
Again, a matter of upbringing.
To see that a 2 dimensional picture represents a horse is also learned, not innate

Well, now you're just getting in to "how do we recognize two different sensations as representing the same class of thing", and "how do the labels we assign things influence how we think of them", which are fascinating and very different questions to "what is <form-of-art>?". You aren't suggesting that the sensation of melon on your tongue doesn't constitute a taste, or that your different way of dividing up the visible spectrum makes cyan not a colour. Arguing about the taste of melons or shades of blue is more analagous to asking "is this piece of music an example of reggae or ska?" or "was that brief snatch of music Imagine or Don't Look Back in Anger?"

As to "tastes good / tastes bad" - yeah, sure, you're never going to agree an objective standard for subjective judgments, rather obviously. But the question of whether something is or is not music is separate from whether it's good music. I don't doubt that there are critics who will readily assert that 4'33'' is music but also think it's utter crap.

[valadil]

Black is a lack of pigment (or a combination of many pigments). If you're painting, someone doesn't say, "hey, you know what would be great? An absence of color here." No, they say black. This is to say, that we can see black, therefore it is not irrelevant. For instance, before the invention of color in film, films were not solely white with some absence of color. A more intriguing question would be questioning if a blank canvas could be considered a work of art.

I like the philosophy of aesthetics.

It's a lack of hue rather than a lack of pigment. Too many pigments will result in a black paint as pigments are subtractive. But I still get your point. Black is treated as a color regardless of what the dictionary says. Sorry for being nitpicky, but I endured a college class on color in art and science.

Sound, color, and taste are all sensory. A beam of light strikes your eye. Depending on its frequency, red/green or blue/yellow cones will fire and tell your brain you're seeing that color. This is analogous to vibrations in the air going into your ear drums and various foods triggering taste receptors. These aren't really debatable. What is debatable is when sound becomes music, color becomes art, and taste becomes delicious.

I'd argue that music/art/delicious is a set of sound/color/flavor that is designed to produce an emotional response in humans. Okay, maybe emotional response isn't quite right for the food side of things, but you know what I mean. It's that common emotional response that makes color into art and sound into music.

[Moff Chumley]

Your points don't fit the point you're trying to make. You came to an absurd conclusion, yes, but it doesn't contradict the statement, "4'33" is music." Rather, you just pointed out that you could market similar pieces of music.

The sheet music thing was a joke. Also, since when has anything having to do with money made sense? :confused:

If by conclusion you mean the statement about sound not having significance, I worded that poorly: if any sound has artistic significance, then everything is art. This, to me, doesn't really ring true, because I find a significant difference between any piece of music and any other noise. 4'33" is an acceptation, because it is in no way resembles a piece of music. There are no sounds in the thing, and since music doesn't happen without any form of sound, 4'33" isn't music. Of course, thats just in my opinion, I suppose you could debate it either way.

Also, Closet_Skeleton wins. He just wins.

[Jorkens]

If by conclusion you mean the statement about sound not having significance, I worded that poorly: if any sound has artistic significance, then everything is art. This, to me, doesn't really ring true, because I find a significant difference between any piece of music and any other noise.

Thinking about it, another possible (very broad) definition would be that music is anything (maybe any sound) presented as music. This sounds circular, but it isn't quite since it requires someone to say "listen to this, this is music." Thus I could drill some concrete slabs with a pneumatic drill in a concert hall and it would be music, whereas if I did it in a gallery it'd be performance art.

As has been said, whether or not it'd be good music or art is a whole other question.

[Amotis]

Just wanna clarify, because this comes up a lot in these discussions (it was mentioned by walkingtarget but it didn't seem to catch on), that 4'33" is not the absence of sound but found sounds, chance sounds, etc. Otherwise known as aleatoric music. Ironic that painting came up along the mention of 4'33" though, because it is quite related to that as well (directly influenced, I think).

[Jorkens]

If by conclusion you mean the statement about sound not having significance, I worded that poorly: if any sound has artistic significance, then everything is art. This, to me, doesn't really ring true, because I find a significant difference between any piece of music and any other noise.

Thinking about it, another possible (very broad) definition would be that music is anything (maybe any sound) presented as music. This sounds circular, but it isn't quite since it requires someone to say "listen to this, this is music." Thus I could drill some concrete slabs with a pneumatic drill in a concert hall and it would be music, whereas if I did it in a gallery it'd be performance art. If I did it behind a row of cones on the A1 it'd be roadworks.

As has been said, whether or not it'd be good music or art is a whole other question.

[Moff Chumley]

Ooh, I've never seen a half-ninja'd double post!

In any case, yes, John Cage had a good friend who was making all-white paintings (or something along those lines), which inspired Cage, in addition to the thought that there is never complete silence.

[Jorkens]

Ooh, I've never seen a half-ninja'd double post!
Yes, it takes years of training at Slow Internet Monastry to pull that one off...

[Moff Chumley]

Yes, it takes years of training at Slow Internet Monastry to pull that one off...

Kinda like the Time Monks?