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Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Mar. 15 2006, 15:59 My favourite listening at the moment is the music from the computer game 'Uru'. Musically speaking, I can't begin to explain why - but in terms of its effect on my imagination, I can. The music instantly transports me to the locations in the game and recreates some of the atmosphere of those places. Now, although it flows along very smoothly and nicely, and although some very haunting melodies and arrangements are encountered, a lot of what is heard consists not so much of 'notes' as sounds, transforming and merging with each other, growing, decaying, and so on. There's not much of it that could you whistle, for instance. On the other hand it's far, far more organised than, say, a recording of natural phenomena, like waves or wind or water trickling. So where does a mere collection of sounds stop being a collection of sounds, and become music? And why? Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: Mar. 15 2006, 16:15 I'm going to give a rather radical opinion here. Music becomes "music" when the artist says so. Take a musician who records the sounds of cars on a busy avenue. If he says it's "music", then it is. Nobody can prove that the sounds aren't "organised"; they can be organised as an artistic statement of chaos, confusion, tiredness. Music can be whatever you want, and every day I think about it, I'm less and less convinced about that "definition of music". It's like trying to "define" a painting, or a sculpture. Music is simply art executed with the help of mechanical waves - sounds, to be more precise. What sounds? That doesn't enter the definition, in my opinion. That kind of attitude comes both from the artist and from the listener. If one wants to listen to birds chirping or leaves rustling and call it "music", why can't he? Just as much, if someone just doesn't want to accept NEU! as music, heck, leave him to it. We all know what we like. This all is to try to say that, well, I don't think there is an actual limit between sounds and music. The "moment" when sounds become music is when someone says so - and presents good arguments for it. There's another aspect to it, you know... "music" isn't necessarily something you enjoy. There's an example, on the album "Young Team" by Mogwai. The whole album is filled with radical, sometimes abrupt dynamic shifts. And the song "With Portfolio" begins as a solo piano piece, and then turns into an onslaught of awful, excruciatingly loud noise panning from speaker to speaker. It's painful to hear all that noise, but I consider it music. It's part of the landscape. I like it without enjoying it. Taking the opposite view, I can't see why someone who enjoys a game soundtrack like what you've described (I haven't heard it) and, for one reason or two, can't call it music. I think it's all valid. -------------- Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds. Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 643 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Mar. 15 2006, 16:19 Looks like Fernie got in before me. I was going to say the same thing: A lot can be discussed about it, but I'd say it amounts to whether the artist calls it music or not. John Cage famously 'wrote' or rather devised the work 4'33" where the performers are asked not to play for that duration, but instead the indeterminate sound of the audience is what becomes the piece of music. You could reduce it even further and form music out of a single sound. Another American composer, La Monte Young was regarded as the founder of minimalist music (he inspired his contemporary, Terry Riley, whose music in turn reportedly inspired Mike's TB ). Young was into creating single drones that barely change over long periods of time. Though this was partly due to being caught up in the hippy counterculture movement of the US at the time, it went to change perception of music. I guess the most wacky, zany and defying type of 20th century art music were the 'word pieces' of Young and later Stockhausen. These grew out of the idea that music didn't have to be rigidly defined through standard musical notation. Young instructed the performer to offer a piano a bale of hay and a bucket of water, where one of Stockhausen's pieces from Aus dem sieben tagen merely said 'Make a sound in the rhythm of the universe' Back to top

The Bell(end) Group: Members Posts: 1051 Joined: July 2005 Posted: Mar. 15 2006, 16:44 Sounds become music when they fit a tune, or beat. For instance, Pink Floyd's recording of the crowd at Anfield is not music, in my opinion, but Mike's use of that 'fake' firework, which is in harmony with the guitar, is music. Amon Tobin used revving motobikes and farts as the bass in his Supermodified piece, Golfer VS Boxer. Having 10 minutes of multi-layered frying pans would not be music, in my opinion, it could, however, be atmospheric. -------------- When the night's on fi-ya, do you need love's arms to hold yew? :D Back to top

stevenmd779 Group: Members Posts: 248 Joined: Aug. 2005 Posted: Mar. 15 2006, 18:01 If what comes out of the speakers is better than silence, then it can be considered music. -------------- "A people who would sacrifice liberty for security will lose both, and deserve neither." Ben Franklin Boogs is fo' da chode man. Back to top

The Bell(end) Group: Members Posts: 1051 Joined: July 2005 Posted: Mar. 15 2006, 18:33 Quote (stevenmd779 @ Mar. 15 2006, 23:01) If what comes out of the speakers is better than silence, then it can be considered music. Wait a sec, is that my quote!? I think it's mine (originally) but the likelihood is that someone said it before (although, not to my knowledge). -------------- When the night's on fi-ya, do you need love's arms to hold yew? :D Back to top

stevenmd779 Group: Members Posts: 248 Joined: Aug. 2005 Posted: Mar. 15 2006, 20:30 Yep, I seen you had that in your signature. Also music is sound that has some harmony, melody, rhythm, or at least one of those things. -------------- "A people who would sacrifice liberty for security will lose both, and deserve neither." Ben Franklin Boogs is fo' da chode man. Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 05:27 Thanks for all these comments. I agree with Sir M, and Jammer etc, that basically it's related to the artist's intention. If he says it's music, then it is. Not so radical as we might think, though, Sir M - it was a Dadaist principle 80-odd years ago that 'everything the artist spits is art' - and this is really that principle applied to music, I think. Certainly I respond to the Uru soundtrack as music: it feels like music even though it's sometimes virtually tuneless. But maybe the key point in what you're saying here is that it isn't the listener who decides. He may express his view about whether it's good or bad music - but he can't argue with the composer about whether it really is music, because the composer has the last word on that subject. Incidentally, I like that comment about music being something that's better than silence! Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 09:44 Quote (Alan D @ Mar. 16 2006, 05:27) But maybe the key point in what you're saying here is that it isn't the listener who decides. He may express his view about whether it's good or bad music - but he can't argue with the composer about whether it really is music, because the composer has the last word on that subject. Maybe, yes, but I wouldn't be so radical in that aspect. If Lou Reed released an album with 60 minutes of white noise and called it "Metal Machine Music II", I suppose we could formally call it music. But we can't argue with someone who just doesn't accept it as music - it's his ears, his brains, we can't change that. Like I said, when it comes to enjoying sound as music is pretty much entirely up to the listener. I don't think we can dispute that. But when a piece is defined as "music", we can at least discuss it. -------------- Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds. Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com Back to top

The Bell(end) Group: Members Posts: 1051 Joined: July 2005 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 09:46 'That's music to my ears' Hearing something nice is music to some people -------------- When the night's on fi-ya, do you need love's arms to hold yew? :D Back to top

amazarak Group: Members Posts: 284 Joined: Mar. 2005 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 11:00 In my opinion, vibrating air becomes music, when it transports some emotional load "put" into it by the author. [edit] Recieveing this load or not is another matter. The importance is in the act of creating. amazarak -------------- Just hold your heading true Got to get your finest out Back to top

The Bell(end) Group: Members Posts: 1051 Joined: July 2005 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 11:14 Is THIS music? http://s29.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=078XHUHHAV3FX1W493W3NLQN4W -------------- When the night's on fi-ya, do you need love's arms to hold yew? :D Back to top

ImAFoolAndImLaughing Group: Members Posts: 536 Joined: Feb. 2006 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 14:10 What a fascinating thread! Very insightful comments from those choosing to participate, too! For my own part, I've always considered the joy of purely instrumental music is that it's arbitrary - separated from the workaday world, and having no purpose other than to be, and to be listened to, and to be enjoyed - it won't lengthen your life, but it will help to make the days you have worth living - it won't solve your problems, but it will remind you that, when the world seems full of drudgery and suffering, and life seems to be nothing more than a mechanical struggle for survival, there is something else, created for it's own sake (and to make it's composer a bit of moolah, but i'll gloss over that bit...) which, although dismissed by the scientists and cloth-eared nincompoops<!> of the world as movements in air pressure and suchlike, can captivate with its simplicity and its complexity, delight the soul with a dance of notes and harmonies from present moment to present moment, and remind us that this moment is all we have, and that we might as well spend it submerged in something beautiful. So I guess, for me, that's when sound becomes music... Grrr! I've nattered on and on, and still not made much sense! sorry about that! Tony -------------- "I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach." Back to top

Ray Group: Members Posts: 857 Joined: Jan. 2000 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 14:36 Ok chaps - I award you all a degree in philisophy of sound.  So here is the next question. When does inprovisation become composition? 1,2,3 go...... -------------- Looking out over the harbour in Peel....... Back to top

arron11196 Group: Members Posts: 826 Joined: April 2005 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 14:59 Maybe when you start organising it in relation to other components, i.e. playing along freely could be improvisation, but sticking to a rigid time signature or fitting the notes... maybe that. I'm just guessing here. -------------- Arron J Eagling Everyone's interpretation is different, and everyone has a right to that opinion. There is no "right" one, I am adding this post to communicate my thoughts to share them with like-minded souls who will be able to comment in good nature. (insert the last 5 mins of Crises here) Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 16:54 Quote (ImAFoolAndImLaughing @ Mar. 16 2006, 19:10) dismissed by the scientists and cloth-eared nincompoops<!> of the world as movements in air pressure and suchlike Can't speak for the cloth-eared nincompoops (although since I'm not an Amarok fan, perhaps I can! ), but most of the scientists I know get great pleasure from music just like ordinary human beings, even if they do ramble on about pressure changes and molecules when they're on duty. Still, I know what you're getting at. The truth is that no scientists live their lives scientifically! Back to top

ImAFoolAndImLaughing Group: Members Posts: 536 Joined: Feb. 2006 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 17:05 Quote (Alan D @ Mar. 16 2006, 16:54) Can't speak for the cloth-eared nincompoops (although since I'm not an Amarok fan, perhaps I can!, but most of the scientists I know get great pleasure from music just like ordinary human beings, even if they do ramble on about pressure changes and molecules when they're on duty. Good point well made, Alan, and apologies to any Mike fans who pursue scientific careers!! I do tend to ramble on a bit, really, but I think I meant "scientists" metterforrikly, as in those who think that science can explain everything, to the point of declaring all human joys and experiences as purely mechanical, functional...er... functions, rather than those who just "do" science for a living... ^^more rambling^^ tch! Tony -------------- "I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach." Back to top

Alan D Group: Members Posts: 3670 Joined: Aug. 2004 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 17:18 Quote (ImAFoolAndImLaughing @ Mar. 16 2006, 22:05) those who think that science can explain everything, to the point of declaring all human joys and experiences as purely mechanical, functional...er... functions, rather than those who just "do" science for a living... Oh yes, I knew exactly what you meant , don't worry! In fact I wrote some posts about precisely that here. Back to top

ImAFoolAndImLaughing Group: Members Posts: 536 Joined: Feb. 2006 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 17:30 Quote Yet the most important questions that human beings ask (concerning things like love, friendship, awe, gratitude, loyalty, trust, and simply how best to live a life) are beyond its reach. Yes - I'd read that and found what you'd written very inspiring!  As someone who suffers from depression quite a lot, it gave me a big hopeful boost! Tony -------------- "I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach." Back to top

Jammer Group: Members Posts: 643 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Mar. 16 2006, 17:57 [Edit: post given a new thread of its own] Back to top

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